importing into Ue4 & Summary

Once all my maps were created I had only one step left and that was to import into UE4 luckly this Is a process im used to there was only one key difference in this export and that was that I first needed to make a material in maya with all my maps first and so to do this I tarted with a blinn shade

r because this shader contains reflection which is needed for my specular and gloss maps to function once this was done I simply followed the steps that are always done when exporting to UDK (see Unit 9 Blog for details) with just one change, when the box comes up for the export I had to select embedded media to be on so that the material I had created would export with the mesh into UE4 once this was complete I then opened up the default driving project and Imported my mesh with the material into the map and then placed it into the landscape.

Summary

With this completed I had finished the Unit 69, looking back on what I produced I think that I followed the process well and came up with a good finished result, one target I had set myself at the beginning of this unit was too work on my Uving and UV layouts and I think I met this target well because without this one key section the whole asset wouldn't of came out the way it did. The one thing I would change when doing this again would be to create more details in the modelling side and then maybe do a wider array of colours on my colour id ma so that I can change the materials on even the most intricate of details but overall im very happy with how this unit turned out and im looking forward to doing more in the future with new skills iv learnt.

Texturing with Ddo

To begin my Ddo process I first opened the plug-in up has gave me a box to start adding in items for it to make the material from soi added in my mesh which was exported Obj which is required for Ddo to see it. I then added my normal map and colour id map and then selected y preset load out for the material to be created with for my mesh I selected the rusted metal one and then hit bake, this automatically created a material for me in which I edited using the colour id map by selecting different sections of my mesh and applying different textures this gave the overall fell of the water tower I was going for and then once was done I selected the option to produce the normal diffuse, specular and gloss maps from Ddo.

baking and preparing for Ddo

Next I started my baking process with my high and poly models finished this was process had done before and knew well so it was a quick process except for the waiting time, to see this process look at the earlier post to see the process, for this entry it will just be looking at my results

As you can see from my normal map it came out really well due to my topology and Uving, the only thing that was added by me in the bake was the bolts which I hand added in Photoshop to shorten my production time, I made the decision not to use No because my bake came out well and I didnt need anything more from my normal although I am aware of the Ndo creation process.

So I had the mesh and normal map the only thing I needed now was the Colour Id map and then it was ready for Ddo to get the colour id map started by couriering different section of my ma on the high poly mesh and once this was done I then re baked but this time using the same settings I selected diffuse map instead of normal and baked it out this gave me all the things required to make a diffuse, specular and gloss map in Ddo. 

Topology and Uving

When It came to creating better topology on my asset I copied it in Maya and then used the conventions for baking that had already learned to add control lines and extra edges using a mix of the multi cut tool and the edge loop tool I did this so that I when I do the bake it will come out much cleaner and will require less editing once it was done.

Once the high poly was completed I added panels in places and some bolts but I wanted a lot of bolts on the normal map but I took them off and decide that I would add them onto my normal map using Photoshop because it would be a lot easier and would save a lot more tie which is very important due to the constraints.

UV'ing Process

To start this process I started by selecting areas of my model and using the projection tools to start getting some UV's the main one used was cylindrical mapping projection due t the general shape of my model being a water tower and after this would be planar projections for the flat areas that the UV's must be viewed from the top or bottom, I then used the tools provided within Maya's texture editor to flip, scale and place my UVs within my 0 to 1 texture space, making sure the UV's were facing the right way and sized adequately in accordance with the level of detail required.

I think I have done a goo job on my UV's and seeing as it was one of my goals to try and get better at UV'ing I think I have succeeded in that goal, of course there is room for improvement but im happy to have got it to this level given the time constraints.

Baking process

When embarking on the baking process there is a lot of caveats and ways to go about baking, in today’s lesson we went through these processes one by one so that we could fully understand the process and help to increase our professional work flow for future projects.

Normal Concept

The first thing we learnt about normal maps is that they are made up of the colours RGB and this is what give them their distinctive look, this directly translates to the directions of X,Y and Z in Maya which are coloured red, green and blue.

First when beginning the modelling process I had to look to try and discern what details can be done with modelling and what can be done with normal maps, the most basic rule is that you can only bake details onto geometry that’s there in the first place and that the normal map will not provide the model with extra geometry, this means that you can bake details into surfaces like screws and panels etc. but not create brand new geometry like an indent with a pipe going through for example.

Detail Scale

The next process we looked at was detail scale and this is geometry that is too small to see at distance even though its realistic it will be hard to see in the game world this means that details must be exaggerated so that they are visible and the fine details are shown otherwise the work gone into modelling certain pieces of detail in geometry will be worthless.

Projection

Projection is the process of making your normal’s show because if details are on a 90⁰ angle then the normal map will not show it as bumped, this is because the normal projects its bake on orthographic properties so if the geometry is on a tangent with the direction of the bake then the vertices on top will hide the lower one giving the illusion there is no bump so to fix this or avoid it you must make sure that your extrusions are not on 90⁰ angles.

Kit Bash

One of the quickest ways to get details on to a piece of geometry is to create a kit bash which is a collection of geometry that can be easily placed on the basic model and then baked over to give high detail and increase the speed of the modelling the process.

Grids

When it comes to the creation of grids for normal maps one of the easiest process for creation is to make one section of the pattern to then duplicate and weld on and keep doing this until you fill a row of length in which you happy with, once this is done you can then duplicate the rows and weld them in to column’s so that you can eventually make grids or chain link fences etc. this process is defiantly on I will be using in the future because when it came to doing geometry like that I usually spent a lot of time hand making each section with this the time will be sliced and will be more accurate.

Normal Bakes

When beginning the normal baking process you should already have a Low poly model and a high Poly model that conform to the rules and caveats of the baking process, Once you have this you’re ready to bake you first need to move you low poly model to the centre of the world, we do this so that Maya has an easier time of trying to bake the details down, then you select the low poly model and you freeze transformations and delete all the history on the object because all we want is the object with a material on it for exporting to the game engine of our choice in this case it is UE4. Once this is done you move your high poly in the same fashion to exactly the same spot and then select your low poly again and go to transfer maps in the rendering drop down menu this will open channel box that looks like this

Within this box you must make your low poly the target mesh and the high poly the source mesh so you get the detail on the high poly to you low poly, there is a lot of option in the box but all we want for this is the normal map option and you can change the options at the bottom all depending on the bake result you want once these are chosen you can then select bake and close and wit for it to do its job on completion you will have a normal map result on your low poly mesh.

Introduction

In this Unit we will continue the process started in Unit 9 with the creation of a 3d game asset from start to finish this section will involve returning to the model created and learning the bake processes and applying them to our asset aswell as texturing it correctly and importing it into UE4.

This is my low poly model from my last unit which I will be using as the low poly for this Unit.