Final Environment

Bump Maps

The last thing I wanted to touch upon was the bump maps. 

In the beginning I was bump mapping everything because I always do, it adds so much to the texture but after a while I stopped doing it. 

Reason being was just the overall look, with the textures I've been using it looked a little stylized and I liked the effect. 

So I stopped bump mapping things. I think the only things that have them are the fish in the crates and veg etc. just to lift them off that plane but other than that I didn't use it for anything else because I loved the stylized look. ^^

Houses

I just wanted to show you the houses I've been modeling. 

When you put them together on a page like this you can clearly see how I've been re-using a lot of things to have as many good assets as I could because I really wanted to make my Lake Town as big as I could. 

Sometimes it was as simple as changing the roof or adding a window in a different place or a different entrance. That way I saved myself a lot of time.

Final Assets

Here are just screenshots of a few of my assets I made for this project.

I wanted everything to look very different. Because when you think about it wood ages differently and I wanted it to look like not everything was built at once. This bridge would seem a lot newer than the other etc etc.

I didn't need that many assets inside the houses etc because I wanted it to look like the people left and took everything they needed with them. There are just little bits and pieces left behind.

Sounds and music

I used a track from the Vikings called "You shall not enter Valhalla" which is just perfect.

When looking for the right soundtrack I was looking for something that would add more mystery to my town and when I came across it it was just perfect. It's not too complicated so it doesn't take the focus away. It's in the environment to send chills down your spine and that's exactly what it does!

Animating

So the animation was supposed to be a big part of my environment. 

But whenever I tried to import the animations from Maya they didn't seem to work. 

It was either the case of it completely didn't work it was just standing still in the scene as I was walking around. Or it disappeared off the screen.
I spent days trying to figure it out, I asked my friend for help and she was telling me to do exactly what I've done before so whenever that happened and didn't work out I felt like giving up. And I did, I used to just drop it and say that I will come back to it another day.
This was the death of me because whenever I came back to it it was the same story.
When I spoke to my tutor she said it's probably because of the update. Told me yet again that I should have worked on an older version because it's patched and this problem wouldn't occur there.
But it was too late, she fixed it with something as simple as parenting it to an empty game object...
I was looking for answers so deep that I didn't think of the simple ways out.
This caused me to not really have anything animated for the deadline except that one barrel.
But I will definitely come back to it and make sure everything is beautiful for my showreel.

Skybox

Damn these skyboxes.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to you is having to learn the new ways of a program you thought you knew. Even the simplest things become so, so... complicated.

The skybox for example. Before it was so so simple. And now when it came to it, it made me feel so stupid. I literally sat there doing everything I could think of and nothing was working out for me.

It being quite a new subject there wasnt that much about it out there. But I had a little dig around and in the end it was as simple as changing the setting in Window > Lighting. You just chose a skybox in there and everything is fixed. Te skybox I used was this one from the Unity store: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/24923

Depth of Field and Fog

Right from the beginning I wanted my Lake Town to look mysterious I thought of adding fog etc. But lately I also thought of adding the depth of field to the camera.

I started messing with it and I loved the outcome.

I think it helps you get the goosebumps when you can't clearly see what's out there. 

The blurry silhouettes make you want to go near it and see what it is, and the only way to see is to walk up close to it so it actually pushes the player to explore the environment, which is the aim of the game here.
It is such a simple thing to do and has a huge impact.
All you have to do is go into your character controller, add a component, -> camera, and your depth of field is in the image effects.

I have discovered this view and it helps so much. Sometimes when you're looking at the actual environment you can't see it clearly enough. For example mine is very dark so it was quite difficult and with this you can get it just right.

I spent a little while getting it to look perfect for my liking. I also added the fog which made it just the way I wanted.
I was trying to be careful so it's not overwhelming, the fog and the blur so it's not just killing the whole look rather than enhancing it.
With a little blur you can't tell that the houses and things are repeated and I could use things a lot more than before, help it look busier.

Re-using assets

As I was modeling assets etc I realized that a lot of the things I have already modeled before.

Things like furniture, candles, little bits and bobs that would come in so useful now. 

I tried looking through my computer for them but I must have put them on a memory stick or something thinking that if I'll need them I will know where to find them... Wish I was a little more organized before. It would save me a lot of time considering I tend to model everything in a similar style. 

To make up for that I was creating assets and tweaking textures or the assets themselves to have a little variety.

A little thing as changing hue of a texture makes a huge difference. So all my doors for example aren't the same. 

Texture issues

I modeled a bedside cabinet. When I imported it into Unity the first time everything was fine. 

I went back at one point and tweaked the front a little. But when I imported the changed version it was completely losing it.

I thought maybe it couldn't find the texture maybe I forgot to set the project right but I went back to check all of it and everything was just how it should be. With the only difference being that this is what it looked like in Maya when I re-opened it.

I could not for the love of god figure out what it's doing. 

When I tried to attach the texture to it, obviously because it was combined it was changing all of the textures to the one with handles which is supposed to only go at the front of the cabinet... not cool.

In the end I had to export an uncombined asset and physically attach the right texture to the front of the cabinet. 

Getting stuck

I made all my brides and paths very uneven. 

Well not just that everything in that town is very uneven...

It proved to be quite a problem because when I was trying to walk through the environment I was getting stuck on every single step. 

I tried everything.

I fiddled with the character controller, read how the skin width can affect it. 

Low skin width can mean that the character controller will get stuck more often.

So I increase that number and it helped a lot. But it didn't get rid of the problem completely. 

You still have to jump over an odd piece every now and again but I can't afford to spend any more time on figuring out how to get rid of the problem completely... 

Texture Library

I probably said it during every project but...

When I started this course I began creating a texture library. 

I take a picture of everything that's got an interesting shape for example for a reference just in case I ever want to create something like this. I take lots and lots of up close pictures of textures. 

It doesn't take any effort, we all have amazing cameras in our phones nowadays so it's not like you have to carry a digital camera around everywhere you go. 

And during projects like this I bring it all in and just flick through to find what I need.

You can imagine how many different photos of wooden things I have taken over the years, so I could easily make a variety of different assets for my Lake Town. 

Combining Assets

While trying to figure out how to get rid of my shiny assets I came across another problem.

And I know it's something that I should never have done but I haven't been using Unity or Maya for the past few projects and I just forgot the routine I needed to follow.

To be more specific, I completely forgot to combine my assets. A lot of the bits and pieces I was making separately and in the end I exported it that way...

I realized a great way into building the environment so it took me a while to combine every single thing and export them again but in order to sort out other problems it had to be done. 

Also in a long run saved me a lot of time, because later on when I was moving things around and placing them exactly where they needed to be I could easily maneuver them around. 

I felt so stupid that I've done that but since then I didn't make the same mistake. I got into the routine again of combining pieces, freezing transformations, deleting the history and then exporting the asset.

Software Update

When I began importing my assets into Unity I had a mini heart attack because every single thing had a sheen on it!

I knew that everything I created was a lambert so I knew it's something to do in Unity. But I could not figure it out. Turns out it was as simple as changing the shader around to the Legacy > Diffuse in the inspector and everything worked fine.

But this is one of the worst things that could happen during a project like this. 

Because you make a plan and a schedule without thinking that you will need a few days to get used to the updated software. And then it's a matter of rushing things here and there to make up for it.

I got advised to download the older version if it's easier for me but I thought it's pointless.

I feel like I need to show that I can adapt and quickly figure out new software maybe without it affecting my schedule that much.

I think I haven't done too bad. I needed to read a lot of forums and ask my friend for some help at certain points but just like everywhere else, you don't need to be an expert at everything and sometimes you will need a little help and advice here and there. 

Even in a professional environment people are constantly having to learn new things and new ways.

Maya crashing

At one point through the process of modeling and putting the environment together Maya started crashing constantly. 

At first I thought that maybe after hours of working my computer had enough and cannot keep going so I obviously restarted it.

It didn't help.

I then thought that maybe running all the software at once wasn't doing it any good so I started working in one program at a time.

That didn't help either,.

I made new scenes, new projects etc. 

But that wasn't the problem either.

I was so close from just wiping the whole computer (which wouldn't be ideal considering the deadline was getting very close) 

But then I realized that maybe it's the memory issue... Turns out that for the purpose of this project I brought a ton of huge photographs and a lot of other things back onto the computer which meant that I pretty much used up nearly all of my memory... So there simply wasn't enough space for Maya to keep working.

It's the stupidest thing I could possibly do, but after I realized I deleted all the photos and useless junk and not only it worked fine, and Maya no longer crashed, but it ran a lot faster.

That's the problem if you've got so much space on your drive, you never tend to look at how filled it is till you're in that kind of situation and don't even consider that to be a problem.

I will try to keep an eye out for that from now on!

Lists and Lists and Lists and Lists

Before I started the process I made a to do list. 

Afterwards I started making a list of things to model.

And as I was working I was making a list of things already modeled. 

I found this very useful later in the process because during previous projects I could just sit there for hours and not think of anything else I needed to do. Or anything else to model to clutter the space. 

Another thing I've found is that after I've finished a project I would remember that I have done a thing or two that I completely forgot to include.

So Learning from my past mistakes I got into the habit of the lists. 

Sometimes it becomes a little too much because there are just pointless lists everywhere but this time I was noting it down in my sketchbook, all on separate pages so everything is in it's right place.

I am proud to say that I've become very organised.

Modeling

After all this time of thinking about it I was so excited to finally get to modeling my Lake Town.

I knew exactly what style I was going for I have carefully thought it through so at this point it wasn't difficult to just get into it.

I started with making the big things, the houses the bridges and the paths because I thought it'll be much easier to have that down to be able to walk around it and from the beginning being able to get the feel of it.
That way I could play around with the scale and make sure things work together.
I quickly learned that it's so difficult to get the hue of the wood right.
But after a little consideration I ditched the idea of everything being the same colour because that's just very unrealistic.
Different wood from different places would have a different colour and would age differently too!

Realizing that didn't actually make anything any easier, from then on I was making about five thousand colour variations for every single thing and couldn't make my mind up at the end to which one to use...

Presentation Feedback

Lately we had to do a presentation with all our research and tests and ideas. 

After presenting all you have seen here so far I got some very useful feedback.

My tutors pulled me down to the ground and made me see that what I was originally planning on doing may be a little too much for one person given the timescale.
They made me realize that I really need to get the detail right to help portrait my story.
I am planning on doing this through mainly showing the damages, altars, and sounds.
To save time I am going to re-use a lot of things as well as look into the unity store for some assets.
Because of this change of plan I altered my to do list and to model list.

Taking everything on board and having a clear plan I gave began this very long process.

Final Thoughts, Description

When planning this laketown I have a ton of notes all over my sketchbooks.
It's a lot of random words and sentences I want to describe my laketown.
Instead of creating like a document I thought I'll just post it here.

Squeaky and creepy. Creepy noises. Creepy Shadows.

Old fashioned. Abandoned.

Some doors will be open to explore the spaces. 

Some doors and bridges will be closed and broken to limit the player.

 Near the beach there could be a smoky swamp, fade into waters.

The player will see bubbles and debris floating about in the water and along the swamp to show the destruction and rushed leave. 

Burning out fireplaces, candles and oil lamps.

FOG.

Boats, some in the distance some still tied up to show neglect. 

Crooked houses. 

Built randomly, no restrictions in place. 

Wooden.

Only candle light and oil lamps. 

Semi realistic.

Make it scary.

Bridges, and raised areas so boats could maneuver freely between the buildings. 

 Must look like it was once alive, busy. 

Have a marketplace.

Have little things tell a story.

Altars. 

Blood stains. 

Bodyparts? laying around. Or at least shoes or some clothing that could fall off easily. 

Stains on houses etc left by the monster.

Maybe a lot of footsteps very visible going off into the island, to show a lot of people left at once through that route. Could have marks of being dragged visible in the distance as well.
Not very advanced.
Clothing style, very basic, warm, specific for the trade. Not for dressing up.
Architecture style, it will be very chaotic, no style at all really buildings created just for people's needs.
What time of year and day, it will affect the position of the sun. I will see what works best once I have everything in place.

Posters to communicate the danger? Information about when the sacrifices would be made.
Will be able to look into some houses through their windows and see some things.
Make it feel like the people were still there recently.
The houses on the outskirts of the Laketown will have barricaded windows to show that people feared something from the outside.
Have flowers and things left in front of some houses to show people were dying one by one.
Signs of being dragged away, fingernails on wood and blood marks... these kinds of things.
The player will be the the only survivor and maybe have flashbacks.
Maybe have narration to help tell and understand the story. Just like Tomb Raider you'd hear the players voice when he notices things around the environment.
Have a shaky camera at some points.
Paths will be different sizes and some will feel very claustrophobic between the buildings.
A fence, spikes and all that around the laketown, again to show that they tried to protect themselves from something on the outside.
Signs to show for people not to be outside and close the shutters when it gets dark, to show there was some danger out there.
Candles being very small, looking like theyve been burning for a while now.
Have weird things on window cells trinkets and candles and dreamcatchers to scare the monster away kinda thing.

I like the idea of rugs on the walls near the beds. Looks very. awful, but fits in i think :')

The aim of the game will be for the player to find out what happened, through the clues I leave around the environment. The player will need to explore the environment and that will push him to do so.
The end would be at the tip of a long pier with an altar at the end, used for making the sacrifices for the monster. Maybe I'd have an animation going off at the end killing the player too...

To do list!

My memory fails me sometimes :') 

So I can have awesome ideas and not remember it in two days so I thought this time I will have to write down everything I want to model etc. so I can model it and tick it off as I go along. 

This way I can also keep everything organised and not waste time modeling it twice if I forget that I've already done it. 

So I created two lists. One is of the buildings I need to do, and the other is with the little things I need to model to fill the houses up with.