Work in progress of Corridor

Here is my work in progress so far for this project. I have created the downstairs structure of the house and focused on the corridor for development. There is however more detailing and normal mapping to do on textures to make the house look more realistic. Lighting and shadow also needs to be adjusted so textures are easily visible. Further need to work on the window texture which I want to make transparent so that you can see through into the house.

Useful tutorials

Tutorials to help me with normal mapping using the nvidia filter map. 

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/spotlight-articles/43-tutorial-introduction-normal-mapping.html

Importing static mesh from 3ds Max to UDK.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXStaticMeshPipeline.html

FBX Import into UDK
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FBXMaterialPipeline.html

Applying textures and normal maps in UDK.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsDTE3_ZSAk

UDK Beginners guide
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb9zkYr9sf4

Books I got to help me learn the program. 

UDK Game Development book by Alan Thorn 

Unreal development kit Game Design Cookbook by Thomas Mooney 

3DS Max 2012 Bible by Kelly L.Murdock

Adding Textures

These textures have been created tileable in Adobe Photoshop and saved as targa files in order to be able to apply textures in 3DS MAX and then import them in UDK.

Here I applied textures onto the assets that I created in 3DS MAX, the laminate wooden flooring and the wall texture was added. 

Here I added texture to the exterior of the house, brick texture and the glossy door and gold metallic frames were created. 

The carpet texture for the staircase was further added and glossy shiny paint texture for the banister. 

This was the texture test of my 3D corridor exported into Unity. The material IDS when exported were not visible only on some objects. Therefore I had to reassign textures into Unity,  however it seemed to be changing other textures in the scene. So I then attempted this in UDK and had a similar problem. 

In UDK I exported my 3DS MAX file as a FBX and also a ASE to see which worked out better. The FBX file however uploaded all my objects separately some with texture others without. Here is a screenshot of how my textures looked like in UDK. All my textures were saved as a targa file which is compatible with UDK. 

Screenshot of stairs with texture in UDK.

These screenshots above show that my textures did not import correctly even though I saved them as a targa file. The reason was due to my texture files being too big and some were not in powers of 2 image size. Also when I imported it as a FBX file I forgot to click on embed media which would have imported my textures along with it.

Here is a screenshot of the FBX file imported into UDK with the embed media ticked. However some of the textures were still missing and were assigned in the wrong places. So I had to import the textures in individually and create new materials and re-asign them. 

Here is a screenshot of what I got to so far in UDK. This still needs a lot of work and is incomplete as I need to rebuild the lighting in the scene to make the textures look more realistic. Further I will have to re-import the mesh into the scene as some polygons need to be flipped and some of them need to be 2 sided materials. 

Development of 3D Work

 Firstly I started working in 3DS MAX, developing the corridor of the house and UVW mapping.

Then I began adding more detail. 

This is a test in unity of the corridor without textures to see if everything looked ok. 

Measurements of House

These are some measurements I took of my house in order to ensure my 3D assets were in correct proportion and realistic. 

Storyboard

Brainstorm of Ideas

Research on Existing Games for Inspiration

I have conducted research on games that play on the concept of hazards in the house in order to draw inspiration for my project. This game is called Blaze Aware and can be found on this link http://dev.uniondigital.co.uk/nodelete/dgfah/final1.html I like the use of interactivity in this game and the simplicity however as I am concentrating on 3D work and not 2D I will not be creating a full functional game as this will be too time consuming.

Here is a link to another game called Hazard House http://www.nationwideeducation.co.uk/safety-education/home-safety/students/12-14_hazard-house/int_main-game.php

My 3D Project

For my individual project I have chosen to create my house in 3D with interactive elements.  Interactive elements in the house will include switches (lights on and off), doors (open and close), curtains (drawing), alarm (ringing able to turn on and off) and TV (a video playing) etc. To make it more interesting and interactive I will add special effects to the house. These effects will be potential hazards that can occur in the home if one does not follow the simple rules of health and safety. Such as fire, smoke, water and electricity. The programs I intend to use are 3DS MAX and UDK. I have chosen UDK game engine because I am eager to learn a new program and improve my technical skills. However if UDK is causing problems and delays in my scheduling I will use Unity instead as I have more experience with this program.  

 

Here are some reference shots of my house for inspiration to help when modelling assets in 3DS MAX.

My plan and schedule for this project.