Character Problems....

So we have found various problems trying to get our rigged character into UDK from Maya 2012. It seems that Maya 2012 has general great difficulties in managing to export an FBX holding a rigged character. The problem arises when the file is saved in Maya 2012 before exporting, at any stage of rig and the skinning process.

Taking the plain geometry data out as an OBJ and bringing it into a fresh file in Maya 2011, then rebinding the rig seems to fix the issue; the character now fully works in UDK without problems other than those to be expected of un-weighted geometry. This will all need to be done again as soon a possible to meet our end of February target to have the character fully done.

Further development of the level

This week we have been split between character work, asset modelling and texture creation. We have also spent time to begin to light the level roughly to get a feel for how the environment should look later on.

the foyer

The Bar

Dramatic lighting on the house

The Garden hedges

The Statue and fountain

Dining hall

Multiplayer Working

What should be our last milestone in terms of game mechanics, we have multiplayer working on a fully packaged, installed version of the game. This is between two players, myself and Will, set up on a LAN connection through our router.

There are some problems between the host commands and our own local commands, which result in only the host being able to do certain things such as run. (This video is from the perspective of the Host). While Will's character would jitter on his screen when told to run, and to me just look as though he is walking.

Character in Game

Maxwell Winters is now fully rigged, and working in game. We ran into some scaling problems at first but is now sorted.

The guard

Only hair is left to be modelled on this character

further progress on the level

This week has been largely based around asset production.

UDK Normal Map Research

When importing Normal Maps into UDK, and even between programs such as 3Ds Max, Softimage XSI, and even Mental Ray Render Engine, we found that they all act differently. To solve these problems, I needed to conduct some research to finally figure out what needs to be done to Normal Maps for each program, especially between Maya 2012 and UDK Sept 2011. This research will be submitted as a separate research document with the main body of work for the game demo at the end.

The two images above show what happens in UDK when a Normal Map is simply applied to a static mesh once the channels have been flipped in Photoshop to turn them the correct way around. The quality, as you can clearly see, has much to be desired, and also clearly shows the texture seam which appears seamless in Maya. This was in fact an old problem we had during the creation of the 'Sun City' game demo last year.

These images show the Normal Maps after they have been correctly imported into UDK, and we can now see that it is of a much higher quality, with no visible texture seam; just as it should be.

Ornament Statue

Another small asset created for the game is this small statue. Much like the garden statue, however this time I started from a base-mesh in Maya as I would normally with characters because this seemed to give better results and Normal Maps in the end instead of having to project the ZBrush topology to the new low-res mesh as before, resulting in quality loss.

The result was an Adaptive Normal Map, creating much more accurate seams and data overall. Hopefully this will appear sharper in game as a result.

Assets

We have started creating low poly assets for the garden
and testing them in the engine

The level so far...

We have been hard at work beginning to populate the world with our assets. We are concentrating on the main functionality of the level at the moment and as such have been working on the basis of the building and garden.

An overview of the level so far

The boat jetty

Outdoor staircases

The 'angel' fountain

The entrance hall

The concept we are working from was created by Artur back in the early stages of design.

Guest characters inside the house

The beginnings of the grand hall

We have also been working on many more meshes that will be added to the level once the basics are in.

Guard progression

I have begun to model our 'enemy' character, the guard. He is designed in the style of a well known French actor Vincent Cassel. Their uniforms are based on research into Monaco guards and French police uniforms.

Finished boat

The boat is now finished and uv unwrapped ready for texturing and implementation

Garden Statue

This is the water fountain statue in the garden. It needed to be low-poly, but should have much detail. However this made the topology of the object hard to pin-point until we knew exactly how it would look in the end. To work around this, the model started out as a sculpt in ZBrush using ZSpheres, which was then retopologised in Maya, its deformation projected onto the new tolopology back in ZBrush, then a Normal Map extracted. This was then successfully applied to the in-game topology in Maya, and rendered out using Mental Ray.

These are the results:

The model needs the wings to be re-built for design purposes, and possibly new normal maps applied to the vase later on if we have time.

Female Base Guest

The guests of the party in the Chateau level will be created from a few simple base meshes; as previously discussed. This is a first look at one base mesh.

This is the base mesh of a 'Standard Female' found in the party. The geometry of this model is there to be manipulated, whether it be into different builds of body weight, or simply just tolopologising in order to allow for correct deformation for each different item of clothing it may wear. 

This image shows the idea of how the base-mesh can be dressed in whatever outfit we want (taken from our extensive research library). Once the clothing has been added to the model, the polygons that will not be seen will then be deleted, and re-positioned accordingly to make sure the model is fully optimised for both sculpting in ZBrush, and then later for in-game use.

The next step here is to create several dress options that will then each be sculpted in ZBrush for their normal maps, and then made interchangeable for UDK. 

At this point in time, character creation is developing bit by bit to my end, while the other group members are currently prioritising what assets need to be created first, and placing rudimentary forms into the level. Soon you can also expect to see the first texture pass on the level, using textures gathered from various sources, many of which will probably be second hand, with the intention to replace them with primary resources nearer the end of our demo development.

Maxwell Winters - UV | Sculpting | Normal Map Progression

Maxwell Winters is almost complete in terms of the look of the model, minus texture maps. He now has been fully UV Unwrapped, sculpted in ZBrush, and had his Normal Maps applied in Maya for testing. Bare in mind that no clean-up has been carried out on the Normal Maps yet, so they still have a good few areas that have much to be desired; this is currently in progress.

Full Body Render

Portrait Render

Maxwells front reference

This is the front reference for main burglar character Maxwell Winters.

Maxwell Winters - Drawing to an End of Modelling | New Ideas

Maxwell Winters is almost complete in terms of modelling; currently being UV Unwrapped.
3Ds Max was used for hair modelling because its tools were more suited for what I wanted to do:

(3Ds Max View-Port Screen-Shot)

(Render Thus Far)

Maxwell Winters - Final Model Progression

The burglar player model is now complete. Minor revisions may occur on very specific areas at a later date, but for now he will be UV Unwrapped and the Textured which includes his Normal Map creation in ZBrush.

As this character develops, our time plan dictates that I will also be proceeding with the first texture pass of the map. These textures will be a mixture of primary resources, and online resources. However we do plan to make all textures our own for the final presentation in May.

Further progress on the boat

I aim to finish the boat asap so I got the main chunk of it done today

(The non-standard polys down the middle are actually where the two halves have not been sewn together yet)

meanwhile in the garden....

This the concept for the garden. I've done both the night time and day time versions for different scenarios.

Riverboat mother f...

The player begins the mission by arriving to the house by speedboat. This should be portrayed as a cutscene when the level starts.

I began modelling the boat based on research into 'Riviera cruisers'

Here is my progress so far: