Enis Mutlu's FMP Blog

There is now soundFX included within the level, these are royalty free soundfx that I have used and converted them from MP3 files to .WAV files to be able to import them into ue4. Once they were imported I created a looped sound cue and edited the sound level multiplier to the volume I desired. For the sounds of the fire and potions I had change the radius of how far the player could here them to correlate with the distance of the player from the assets (Furnace and potion vials). This was done by overriding the attenuation of the sound cue and adjusting the inner radius and fall off distance.

 The level has also been fully textured and I have added  post processes such as bloom, exposure and vintage to the level, these have been tweaked to the aesthetic I wanted for the level.

I wanted to create deeper a immersive experience within the level, so I wanted to create a story behind the assets I used. Using this philosophy  I used decals to add even more bread crumbing into the level by telling a story of how an experiment went wrong with potion spill decals with stained footprints fading while the character had moved from the table to clean himself up. I did this by firstly going into photoshop and creating a 1024x1024 texture of a potion spill (and footprints) and then imported it into ue4 and used the decal actor to create the fading footprints on the floor.

Animated fire material within the furnace with the chopped assets.

New Proposal - Since my last Update I have decided to change the storytelling within my environment,  Going from a place where the character has already settled into his room with all belongings available I wanted to create the scenario that the alchemist has recently moved in. So I have added some bread crumbing assets to my asset list such packing boxes and have took apart the cabinet doors to look like the character is still yet to be settled in.   

In game screenshots of the different cabinet section and new Packing box asset. 

Fire Material

I have now created a fire material which is working within Unreal engine and plan on adding a flickering light blueprint to it to it, to create an even more realistic feel towards the material. I will be using this material for my furnace asset.

Changes to project

As the deadline for Final major project comes closer I've had to make some cut backs on the project and need to make more time to complete the other deliverables for the project such as my dissertation, the first thing is that I have had had to put intractability on my wish-list for this project and have also needed to make the interior a fraction smaller. The next stages of the development are as follows, texturing the level and adding sound to the level in engine. I have also planned on creating particle FX and adding post processing for the stages of development.

Unreal Progress Shots

I have now started to implement the assets within engine with some blackout models included also, this has given me a crucial insight on what I need to change for the next stages of the project and here are the following things I plan on changing within the next build of the level; Reducing the height of the roof,  the secondary assets into engine and finally work creating more light sources.

3DSMax Renders

I am now at the stage of development where I have completed all models of the interior level. I now plan on moving through the various sections of the level, completing each section consecutively. Here are all the models within 3DSMax . As you can see from the renders of the level, I came to the conclusion that I would change around the sections. I also added a furnace and fireplace asset to the section which previously contained the cabinet asset. I have added support beams to around the level to create a sense of depth and support to the tall ceiling of room.

As all the models are complete for the interior level I plan on moving to unwrapping and importing the assets into Unreal Engine and start to implement some work in progress lighting to get an understanding of how the room flows and feels when playing in engine. 

Staircase Progress Shots

I have now completed the staircase and surrounding assets for this section. This was a very time consuming task for me to complete and was something I underestimated greatly, creating the different parts of the staircase took an abundance of time to align and get the correct proportions. The biggest reason why It took such a great amount of time for me to complete the staircase was because I wanted to use the model for the lower and upper half of the staircase railing this is because I wanted to have the same UVs for both parts which meant that I had to create the staircase in modular workflow. This made me make small adjustments until both were the same length and then I could start the unwrap and texturing process for this section.

The Victorians had some of the most interesting and extravagant interior designs however, for my interior I wanted to keep the roof/pillar subtle and not use a big chunk of my budget (tris and texture space) on these assets so I opted to create more subtle and basic geometry for the roof and pillars of the level. This was a straightforward task and I had little to no problems modelling.

Duplicate Assets

Here are some of the other assets I have created which will be duplicated around the level, the assets such as books, chopped wood, coals, light-switch, wall-mounted lamp and vials will most like be duplicated to save time and use different textures to create a variation between the duplicated assets to create a more realistic and immersive experience for the player.

This is 'draft table' asset I plan on placing next to staircase, its main use will be for the character to draw up and write formulas for, in his next experiment.  

This is the secondary worktable I created to go next to main worktable of the level and It densely populated within  alchemist/experiment  related equipment which gives the narrative of the occupier of the room, being an individual who practises his craft and experiments with various mysterious potions. I also added a book which will have the recipe for potions written on it, to create more of a backstory for character who lives in this environment.

The mirror asset which I will be placing next to the cabinet is based on the Victorian deco and  As my most of the furniture of the room is based on the Victorian era I decided to look at some references for Victorian mirror and modelled this asset. I am pleased with how to model turned out and I am excited to move onto the texturing process.

Since my last update I have made some progress, I have now moved to texturing some of the assets I have modelled for the environment. Most of section ones furniture and core assets for player direction has been modelled however, not all have been textured and there is currently no functionality within engine which I intend to add in the later stages of production. I intend for the player to be able to interact with certain elements of the assets such as opening and closing drawers and cabinet windows. I now plan on Modelling all last secondary assets for the section one and hopefully will be able to show the fully fleshed out section by my next update within the blog.

These are renders of the 3DSmax file with a few of the core elements modelled with some intended lighting added (From the potion experiment). I have now modelled all of the props I intend to create for one of the points of interest within the interior which is the potions experiment of the alchemist wizard. This was inspired from a reference I had gathered within the research stage of my project. The following are the references I had gathered. I will also add some more props onto the worktop to create a narrative behind the alchemist wizard such as; vials, books, cauldrons etc.

Here are the assets I have finished texturing. All of these were textured within substance painter and all of them are 2048x2048 resolution.

Worktable Asset; this will be where the potion experiment will be taken place so I wanted to show signs of use by adding wear in certain places of the table to tell a story even though it might be with very minor details.

Door Asset; the door was originally meant to be white but once I put it into unreal it seemed too bright (white) and out of the place so changed the colour to a more suitable colour(Brown) to suite the aesthetic of the  interior environment more.

Stair Asset; will be within section one and not the full staircase I will be creating for section 3 of the interior environment.

Cabinet Asset; this will be filled with alchemy books and will also be interactive within engine.

These are some of the mood-boards I have collected as an influence and reference point for the Alchemist Wizards room

This is the new map layout I have now committed to create for this project. I plan on making a grey-level to get an understanding of how the environment will be navigated around by the player, this is going to help me by making sure I know where to put certain assets which I want to get the most 'attention'. You could call these 'hero' assets. The layout has been colour coordinated these are what they represent;  Red is for the hero assets and areas, blue is for secondary assets which are still important for the environments play-through and will still have a high level of detail, yellow is for the placement of door assets, green is for placement of rugs I plan to make for the interior, orange is for draping cloth a plan to have within the level and black is for the walls of the interior.

From the map layout I have created a grey-box level for the Alchemist Wizard room. I have only included the 'hero' assets block-out and some of the secondary assets. I have not included any bread-crumbing assets such as hanging herbs or detailed vials, the reasoning for this is because the grey-box is only to get an understanding of how the level will fill out with main assets and how it will flow. This grey box will be split into segments which I will add assets to and move to other areas of the room once each segment has been completed.

This is the top view of the grey-box and how it will be split up into the 3 segments. I will start in segment one then moving 2 and lastly completing segment 3.

This is cabinet asset I modelled for segment one of the room and I know plan on texturing it very soon. I will also add books, vials and hanging herbs into this asset. The cabinet has already been added into the grey-box level within 3DS Max.

This is the project Proposal I have been asked to create. This document contains the outline of the project and acts as the 'brief' for my final major project, its specifies what I want to do and create during the production period of the project.

Wizards Room - Blog Entry One