3D Reflection 20 - Making a statue for the L shaped tomb room

I made one of the final props for my rooms, which was a statue of Osiris. I wanted Osiris to be the main god that my pharaoh was dedicated to: God of the Underworld and resurrection. I started by gathering reference images of statues of Osiris in Pureref, and opened Zbrush and began blocking out eh basic shape. The shape, although humanoid, features proportions typical of Ancient Egyptian art from the 18th dynasty, such as angular hands, a compacted face and a narrow silhouette.

I found the face difficult to model as it needed to resemble a carved piece of rock, and so it did not need seperate eyeballs. However, making the proportions similar to the source material was the hardest issue as the sizing and shapes were unusual.

I modelled the beard by masking and extruding out a section of the chin to create a subtool.

Once the main shapes were in place, I went over them with the clay modelling tool and trim dynamic to crete the finer details, such as the crook and flail, the engraved lines on the crown and the plaits of the beard. I also made  some jewellery details using my reference and a subtractive brush in Zbrush. most of the detail now will go into the texturing to create the effect of cracked stone and paint.

Digital Reflection 22 - Starting the Game Style Guide Project

To begin the new project, I started by filling out the project premise sheet for the character and the game concept. I decided to base it off of my group project in 3D so that I could use elements of both in my work to make my concepts stronger. It would also help to support my 3D project, even though they will both be marked seperately. The concept is of an 18th dynasty ancient egyptian messenger who is delivering a late message to the pharaoh whilst the city is being attacked by foreign enemies. The game style is a linear action adventure style game with dungeon crawler elements, and the player plays as the messenger. You can choose to avoid or confront enemies but battle skills are limited as they are not a soldier. The final NPC you meet is the pharaoh, who I will be designing as my character. 

3D Reflection 19 - Using Unreal to make the Main room, L room and Corridor

I reimported all of my edited assets into my unreal file, but most items had changed so much that I decided to restart the level. This time it was much faster as I knew the plan of the level and everything clicked a lot more smoothly.

I dressed the L room with tombs and urns, reusing my vase assets and resizing them. I also placed in loose bricks and canopic chests.

I then worked on the corridor room, using existing assets in different ways, such as the ceiling trim with a slim set of ceiling lattices, and rows of decorative tables along the walls. I also made sure to add the loose bricks and rotate the columns so that they were at different angles.

For extra detail I placed the loose bricks around the entire area to show damage.

I also fixed the collisions on the doors temporarily by creating simple box collisions.

This was the layout from the top. The next stage will be to review my progress with my tutors and teammates, and to unwrap and lightmap the models. Hopefully I will be able to reimport unwrapped models without the Unreal level getting ruined.

3D Reflection 18 - Resizing and Rebuilding some assets

I wanted to remake some of my assets and adjust the sizes of others as I was not satisfied with them. Some of them had slightly incorrect measurements and pivots, and so they did not click correctly in Unreal using the grid snap tool, which is crucial for my wall and floor modular kits. Therefore I meticulously went through  every single asset that I had constructed, and edited them accordingly. I used the coordinates at the bottom and the transform toolbox, as well as the assets that were already accurate as a reference. 

Remaking and resizing my assets.

I deleted the tops and bottoms of assets that would not be visible in the level.

I constantly checked to see if my assets snapped together whist editing them. I was a lot more succesful this time.

Some assets, like the curved ceiling pieces for the L room needed to be completely reconstructed as they were the wrong size and did not click together.

I also started work on some of my assets for the L room, the tombs. I made a pristine tomb and a broken one, creating a seperate lid that could be placed around at different angles, or the tomb could be left lidless.

I created an Ancient Egyptian style canopic chest, which would be found in the tombs of both royal and regular people. 

I made a large brick that could be placed underneath the broken pillars to show damage in a battle and lack of maintenance in the poorer parts of the palace on the outskirts. These could also be used as a sticking out object as well as debris.

Another asset I needed to make was the tree. I started by producing a spline similar to the example tree I used, but I made it slightly straighter as is common with Egyptian palms. I then used the extrude tool to create the trunk, and tapered it towards the top, before extruding a loop outwards to create the bulbous shape near the leaves at the top of the palm. Top complete the model I will need to make alphas of the leaves. I will do this for two other plants also.

3D Reflection 17 - Revisiting my planner

I went back onto my version of the dungeon planner sheet and began writing down my assets. I realised how many I had actually made and planned to make, and thought abouut how time contraints might put me under pressure and limit my quality of work. Therfore I went over some assets that I could get rid of, such as one of the cushions, the round ceiling trim that I said I was going to get rid of in my last post, and the empty trough, as I already had objects that were damaged and knocked over and would show how run down the area was. I also wanted to get rid of the prsitine column as it would be too neat for the supposedly more run-down area that I was trying to create.

My new asset management list

I went back into my unreal file and edited the courtyard extended ceiling, by replacing the plain walls with the panelled walls, as I wanted to save the plain walls for the chapel and texture them with defaced paintings of the pharaoh. I also deleted the cushion and trough assets and replaced them with the other cushions and the full trough, which I liked much better.

Replacing the walls and exchanging the pristine columns for the chipped and damaged ones.

Replacing the cushions and troughs

Getting rid of the curved ceiling trims

These small changes will allow me to maintain a healthy workflow and a realistic goal for my outcome, as too many assets will result in rushed texturing.

3D Reflection 16 - Making the layout for the L shaped crypt/chapel room

I started making the L shaped chapel and crypt room. I wanted to have spaces for statues of an Egyptian god that would be praised, such as Anubis, the god of funerals, or Ptah, the creation god who also symbolises wisdom and craftsmen. Within this room I wanted there to be space for defaced paintings of the pharaoh, that have been damaged in a conflict.

Placing a wall leading from the right hand door of the courtyard.

Modelling a hollowed out wall, ready for statues or objects to be placed

Placing the hollowed wall with coumns 

I made some rounded ceiling pieces, as were common in Egyptian chapels and prayer rooms. I created some trims also, but I don't really like them as they don't appear on my reference images, so I might leave the ceilings as a wide expanse and cover it in paintings.

Rounded ceiling pieces

Adding the door trims to dress the top of the walls

Perspective of the player

The rough shape of the L-shaped room and the courtyard, as viewd from the top

This is as far as I got in a seesion when making thr L room, I will continue by placing a shrine and some tomb stones at the end of the room.