I made sci-fi corridor with cell shading which was to represent the lower corridor which lead to the room with the lift. My environmental was metal so that people would think sci fi. I used particle effects to make things look like they are floating with animation so both the object and the effect has been animated to give make it look like it is floating. The effects I have used shows what my theme is.
What did you do and how did you do it?
I made a futuristic environment with cell shading. To do this I made the environment using standard primitives and modelled the corridor by placing a box. I then shaped the corridor by turning the box to an editable mesh allowing for me to select particular vertex or edge to get the shape I wanted. I then detached the top of the box allowing for placing objects and connecting the corridor and the room doing this made things easier to model objects in the corridor and it made and texture objects than if I made tried to do all of that with the roof on. Then I modeled things to go inside the corridor like a few pipes and a bench so it will have some connection to Saltaire. In the room I started to really show that my environment was futuristic by using cylgizmos which allows me to use fire and fog effects in a particular place and not all over the environment. The cylgizmos also allowed me to add animation to the effects so I started make the gravity lift effects spin the effects for the picture frame spin, stretch and move up and down with the frame. I then started to think about textures so I found some I liked and I put it in to Photoshop and made it look like it was cell shaded. When I put it in to Max I used the material editor to add the toon shading around the area where the texture was placed. to do that I chose Ink and Paint from the material editor to make the cell shading go around the object.
Does your final design meet your original intentions?
I have had many ideas at first I wanted my environment to be more cliché with Ipod white walls and holograms on the walls and around the other room. However after a team meeting when we were discussing what we could do for our environments I decided to not use that idea and go for something more simple due to time constraints and skill with Max. I then looked for something that would make my environment stand out from the others by looking at other games I had i first looked at Borderlands and saw that the cell shading which I thought was a good choice and when I looked at many sci-fi games (Mass Effect, Unreal Tournament and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic) to see whether or not I wanted to make a futuristic environment. This is when I decided to make the environment cell shaded and I was set on the more space station type of sci-fi environments.
Self evaluation
How did you manage your time? How could you manage your time more effectively?
I managed my time by using every hour that I had with Max on Max (overall 3D Max hours 96) and I used the independent study hours in the study centre for finding textures, drawing concept art and editing the textures that I found(Overall Photoshop hours 24). When I planned the 3D environment I had so many ideas which were out of reach so I feel that planning what my environment was going to be like useful because I could get my ideas altogether and decide what I wanted to do by looking at what was possible with my skill level and the amount of time I had. However I do feel that the time I spent planning did cut into my 3D modeling time and I think that without the time I spent at lunch and all day Thursday I would not have been able to finish the environment and render it out properly.
What did you struggle with? E.g. Texturing, modelling, lighting, animation
I only struggled with the lighting as I wanted to change the colour of the light the omni's were showing however because the environment was cell shaded it did not seem to do much and I was not able to change the colour of the light so I could have a more atmospheric environment. I then tried volumetric lighting which makes the textures light an environment instead of using omni's or sky lights however to do this I had to change the render type which doubled the length of time for rendering because it had to render a line of small boxes twice for each frame for the animation so I had to leave it with basic omni’s.
What did you find easy?
I found the modelling of the environment easy as I know Max quite well and I have an understanding of where Standard primatives, Extended primatives and atmospheric effects along with other options that can allow you to place stairs, doors, wall and foliage can be found. I can model a basic shape into an environment or another object by changing objects into an editable mesh or poly or patch which allows me to select particular parts of the object to be able shape it how I want. Each editable option allows you to fo different things. An editable mesh allows you to select Vertex's, Edges, Faces, Polygons and the entire object and you can attach to objects together you can also detach a object allowing you to see inside. The editable poly can do all that and connect different opposite edges together allowing for more edges to be added so you can add more detail to the object or you can make it look more curved if you have to have a box slightly curved. The editable patch adds more edges to the object be having a line go down each polygon to show each face. Only the editable poly and editable mesh allow you to Extrude the object which will allow you to bring out the selected polygons which will add more polygons every time you drag it up instead of just dragging up the polygon. I can use particle effects to affect a single area by using Cylgizmos, Boxgizmos and Spheregizmo which can be found on the Helpers tab. Each of these gizmos can be animated using the same method for animating that you do for all objects. I also found animating the environment easy because I mainly had particle effects which span, shrunk and and moved up and all I had to do achieve that is modify the gizmo or object when I had Auto Key on and when I either rotated, moved and scaled an object. When I did run out of frames I added more by using the Time Configuration icon and then I only had to extend the length of frame meter.
How does your finished design compare to professional examples?
My environment looks like it could be made by a professional game designer as an employer called Simon who works at For Doors Lemon who makes engines for games. Some of the big names like EA use their engines. Simon came to the showcase said that it was better than what he has seen at Universities. The cell shading made people think of Borderlands and the youtube comments mentions that the cell shading looked professional. However for some objects in the environment the cell shading is too thick making it stand out from the rest of the environment when it does not have stand out as the object is just there to fill a empty space to make the environment not feel as empty but will not make it seem too full. Some of the textures on the environment do not fit the object and looks stretched. An example of this is on the door as I could not find a texture for the shape of my door and any other type of texture that could be used did not fit in with the environment. In the second room the texture is a little wonky probably because of the shape of the doorway and UVW map so on that part of the wall everything else is straight but but the shape of that wall ruined it.
Comparing all that was just said to Borderlands I think that it is ok as overall the textures are ok but a few issues with the textures that are in the environment it can't ruin the environment a little. Although some games have texture problems so of them aren't as noticeable however the texture could be overlooked. I find the thick cell shading on some of the objects distracting and could have been thinner. Compared to Borderlands some of the cell shading is ok but on Borderlands the cell shading is thin and is rarely thicker than 0.5 cm. The textures can be compared to the Unreal Tournament as some of the maps are set on space stations so the textures can be compared. I think that some of the textures used for my environment look better than the textures used for UT but I think this is because I made the textures cell shaded which seemed to make the textures look HD without it having to be rendered in HD.
Comments from Youtube
i'm completely blowen, i find the detail extronady and how it looks like its got the borderlands graphics.
What do other people think of your finished design?
From the comments on Youtube people like the cell shading as it reminded them of Borderlands which inspired me to use cell shading for my art style. People also thought that the animation was good. they mainly focused on the camera animation as most thought that it did look like a person was walk as he was confused about the environment he is in.for the other things that were animated they said that it was ok but some of the objects that were animated could have been a little smaller or not as wide. The comments also mentions that my environment has been textured well as there are very little issues concerning textures apart from the wall near the door and the texture on the picture frame looks like it has a different shade of gray on the frame compared to the rest of the object.
What could you improve upon?
I could
improve on some of the textures as some near the door was wonky and could have been fixed if I spent more time with UVW map I may have fixed it without messing up the rest of the wall. I also could have
spent more time on the cell shading for a few objects so they would be less noticeable allowing for the whole scene to be watched without the focus being the gravity lift and the power box. I also could have used multiple textures on the door so it would not look like it has lights at the bottom of the door which is something I did not like as it did not look like it connected with the floor I think that if I could have found a texture that looks like it could connect to the floor it would improve that bit of the environment.
If you were to do it again what would you do differently next time?
If I could
do this again I may have prepared more as I had too many ambitions which I
could not go on to make because of time and skill. I could have found more textures as the deadline came I resorted to using the same textures in different places using Photoshop and UVW map to pull a part that seemed to fit a place on the environment for example in the corridor the texture for the top corners are used for the border of the door and is also apart of the the wall.
What did you learn?
In this project I learned some basic teamwork skills and how we can create something decent when we all plan and talk about what we can do and how we can do it. I also expanded my understanding of 3D Max by learning how to make environments in 3D max look like it is in a comic using the material editor at first I could have used composite maps for every texture which may have provided a smoother look to the cell shading but would have taken to much time to do so I used Ink'n paint to speed the process of cell shading each texture in max up.
