Modular Window Wall

Window and Pillars:

The project began with these windowed walls and supporting pillars. This was my first foray into Substance Painter. I had up till this point never baked a high poly object onto a low poly object. In Blender, the quick and dirty way to up the poly counts is to use the subdivision surface modifier, but as it smooths out the model it can cause the edges of shapes to collapse in on themselves. I wouldn't figure out swapping to the "simple" subdivide algorithm until a few assets later. For these assets, I found that adding an extra edge that lined up exactly with the real edge would push the subdivision down to match once again. This solution would cause the subdivisions to no longer be uniform, so there is uneven density on the baked normals. Substance Painter is the coolest software ever! Since I don't have an artist background, I dreaded the texturing phase of my models, but with Substance it is incredibly easy to make something that looks good using their default libraries alone.

Tables and Floor:

These tables are split into four modular segments: C, I1, I2, and L. I wanted to maintain the rubber baseboard and have them wrap around the tables. There are caves in the sides of the I1, I2, and L tables for the eventual drawers that would go inside them, with I2 having a cave that reaches the floor to allow for a space to put a rolling stool. These types of tables you find in labs are usually made of some boring white plastic, this meant that texturing was easy, but the result is visually uninteresting. I added the blue countertop to increase the visual interest, and in the process of making the shape of this countertop I was able to learn about edge sharpening, giving the lip of the shelf a rounded shading while keeping the rest of the table as flat shading. The floor was interesting to make as I was able to use the high-to-low baking to have the tiles be baked in and not actually modeled, reducing the actual poly counts. The one problem with this floor design is that the grunge in the recesses doesn't appear between the tiled floor sections, since the procedural material used to produce it wasn't able to recognize the flat edge as a continuation of the pattern.

Drawers and Doors:

In order to preserve the modularity of the tables and make the whole system easier to work with, the drawers were actually made with their origin point being offset away from the geometry. The origin links up exactly with the space in the tables if both are given the same position. Since I left each individual shelf as its own object, they can be manipulated independently to give them these varied states of open and closed. This was also the time I made the door wall asset. It was at this time that I really noticed the stretching on the high-to-low poly density as they applied to the normals, so discovering the simple algorithm for subdivision happened at around this time.

Test Tubes and Lighting:

In order to emulate the dark environment that the game these assets will be used in, I did a pass on the lighting within this showcase. What I would not realize at the time of this screenshot being taken is that I had left the directional light that is in the scene by default. I decided to experiment with Unity's lighting settings, using the linear lighting mode instead of gamma and baking the lighting. Not much to say on the test tubes. When these assets get brought into the game there will be other pieces of clutter to place on top and within the drawers.

Tube and Scientist

The small green specimen container is based on a larger green containment unit that is present in our game. These tubes are where the experiments are grown, and I wanted to show such a creature being grown in this vessel. The scientist was the biggest undertaking of the whole project. Designing a static model is one thing, but needing to make something that would be able to deform and move requires different techniques to have the result still look natural. One issue I've had with character modeling in the past is when clothing goes below the waist and down to the knee it can cause the mesh in this zone to deform horribly as the legs cross apart. To combat this, I learned to add additional geometry to the hip and back. The face is also complicated to model. I was lucky in that the design called for our character to wear a gas mask type object on his face, so I only needed to model the eyes and ears. Shoulders, elbows and knees employ a special type of loop in order to improve the deformation in those joints. When texturing the clothes, I utilized the stencil brush to create buttons on the coat and shirt.