Building a World - Part III

Weekly Blog Entry Research & Project Updates (6)

This week I concluded modeling the Museum Space. It was not without set-back though… in this case, I had completed my work for the week… then accidentally overwrote it and was left with absolutely nothing to show for 4 hours of work. It was naturally… very distressing – thankfully, though the loss of my save file set me back 4 hours, it did not set me back 4 hours of modeling. A lot of that time was dedicated to thinking and trying pieces before eventually modeling the things that would be part of the completed models. So, in reality, it actually about an hour and a half worth of work I lost… still a lot, still distressing (spent money on a file recovery program that didn’t work – then I discovered a solution to the problem – link here – but realized it wouldn’t work because I had closed the file between the initial overwriting of my save and attempting Maya’s solution) but ultimately I was able to mostly recreate my work from before it was all lost due to human error.

The focus for this week was the Modern rooms, they are smaller than the tombs, more open, simpler, & sleeker in design to provide the illusion of the user being in a Museum like space. The initial work was set to look like my concept piece from a few weeks ago (see below).

The final design is a little different – and the only good thing to come from losing my work – and doesn’t feature a difference in elevation to the whole room, just the center (allowing for some variance in height without having to pile on additional work in the future of halls being at different elevations (this would mean I’d need to spend time making another variant[s] with steps to compensate for the elevation differences in the Foyer and Open Room 2 – that wouldn’t be difficult to do and is something I’m thinking about more broadly if I continue with the project next semester… but I’m glad my slightly revamped design doesn’t take that into consideration as that saves on work for this semester!)

Regardless, the work is complete, all assets for the space itself are complete and ready for texturing. I am set to move on to modeling the birds themselves starting this week! Pieces showcased here are modeled/UV unwrapped (as was the case with the hallways from last week). There is also some test lighting in some images and wireframes to get an idea of what is smoothed, and what isn’t. Everything has been UV unwrapped (though I don’t take a picture of every asset I’ve made for this post; I provide a general idea with the generic checkerboard texture applied to key pieces) and the things I intent to be smooth are.

General Overview of room from the outside

Below are a few images of the room from the inside - in general

Below is a version of the space with pillars - I'm not sure if I want them in the final version or not... I feel they potentially make the space feel smaller when the point is this is open... up for debate.

Now we get into specifics, below are the bars for one of the arches in the foyer - you can get a glimpse at Open Room 3 from here - as the bubble diagram at the bottom shows.

I was thinking of ways to move forward with this next semester should I choose too - one of those methods is by implying more space with my Hall Assets as you can see; that there are things to come, we just can't see them yet.

The walls in the 2 images below are for Open Room 2 - giving a different feeling compared to the Foyer (big space, the walls make it feel smaller, we can put things on the walls in the center).

Like the Mausoleum, to save time I will be using this same space for Foyer and Open Room 2. Arches that won't be used will be blocked as seen below.

Modern Space UV unwrapped.

Unwrapped with Maya tools (not the neatest and if I had more time I may just organize the pieces myself - but acceptable) - ready for Substance painter/ready for uniform texturing (the walls will be mostly one color, stone work likely).

Mausoleum Space UV'd

Below is the Hall entry piece discussed - smoothed with additional edge loops.

A hallway piece - ready for texturing.

A list of the assets completed for the space these past few weeks (located in a Maya Project folder).

Tentative Project Schedule

· Week 7 (This Week) – Week 8: Model Origami Style Birds

· Week 9 – Week 10: Texturing/Polish (Lighting/Any Additional Changes) Museum Space/Birds

· Week 11 – Week 14: Putting Everything Together – Place assets in game engine (Unity); appropriate scaling, duplicating, lighting work, sound work (acoustics in Museum Space and how the glass of the birds plays with that). I give myself 4 weeks – more time than any step earlier - but can easily be pushed to less time if I am behind in the previous steps outlined in the schedule above.