Blitz Rooftop Project

For this project we were set the task of designing a roof top level in the space of four weeks, using our concepting skills, 3DS max and the Unreal engine. Looking at the project brief I a bit uninspired because of the reference images and tight texture budget but after some investigation I found that the budget had been doubled which was a relief. It was still a slight adjustment as I hadn’t attempted a project with a realistic or tighter budget since January. So as you can imagine I was a like apprehensive. 
I was quiet aware of the fact that I and many others can spend a ridiculous amount of time faffing about with concepts and not actually getting down to the job. This was certainly the case for me in the Mortal Engines project last year. I was certain not to do this again so I quickly drew up a schedule. I had given myself one week to model and unwrap the scene, the second week was for texturing and readying the assets for export and then my last two weeks were for importing and spending time in the engine learning its functions and so on. I think as a plan it might have been a tad ambitious now and should have been slightly more flexible but it certainly gave me a push at first.
For my rooftop I chose to make something small and intimate, I was very aware that the larger the space the more stuff you have to fill it with. I wanted to use something from real life because as I mentioned before I didn’t want to spend ages concepting as I wanted to get a head start . I decided to base my idea very closely on a hotel I had been to over the summer called the Silken Diagonal Hotel in Barcelona. Which is a very high design business hotel with a rooftop bar and pool.

 The more I thought about the idea the more I liked it as it was rather simple but had lots of interesting features. I had plenty of reference and I had the first hand experience of actually going there. I thought this could benefit me when in engine as I would have a better sense of scale and positioning.
One of the things I really liked about this idea is its strong use of lighting I felt I could use this to make my level stand out, although I had never actually built lighting myself in engine but I felt that I had compensated this in my plan.

After discussing the idea with a tutor I found that my idea also had a very interesting skyline that I could incorporate into the scene. Although I had absolutely no idea on how to do this I was excited about the idea of it. I was told that many games companies often borrow landmarks and bring them closer to offer a more iconic looking level. I could very easily do this as there are many landmarks in Barcelona that I could bring closer to break up the view. Such as the la Sagrada Família which has a very iconic shape. I think it would look really good in my skyline lit up. I’m pretty positive I want to do my level at night if possible as I think it would be more striking.

I gathered lots of reference images of the overall look, the lighting, any special features and all the assets I wanted to produce; from this I created an assets list and started building.

 Although I started building on the first day I had lots of questions about what I could realistically do in engine and of course about all the things I had forgotten over the summer.  Within the first week I was almost on target with most of my original assets modelled and unwrapped. However in my ignorance I hadn’t actually made a white box and checked its spacing in UDK. Once I had done this I realised that my level looked a bit empty especially because of the glass railings I had used around the edge of the building. For a moment I considered blocking it all off and building garden walls around it but I really wanted to stick to the original feel of space with was modern and sleek, I felt that big walls would destroy that. So I set about making a solution. I decide I should break up the space a bit and went back to my original reference images. I remembered that on certain occasions the hotel hosted pool parties and set up a DJ and dance area. I also noticed a space above the bar area and thought I could have some stairs leading up to it and have maybe a small cinema screen and seats up there. I gathered reference and built the necessary assets.

By the second week my progress had began to slow down, although everything was now built and unwrapped,  I was getting confused and lost in what I was doing. I had forgotten a lot of basics that I had learnt last year in regards to texturing and organising my work professionally. Especially since sometimes the only time I had done certain things it was up to a year ago and I hadn’t done it very well then.  I was extremely frustrated with this but I only have myself to blame as I hadn’t really done any extra work over the summer and any that I had done was unrealistic in budget or didn’t have a budget at all! Which is pointless really. I got really embarrassed by the things I had forgotten I started to put off doing work; and this is where it all went downhill. I really struggled with simple things like working out my texture pages and fitting all the assets in the space. I was constantly trying to think of ways to improve the way in which I was working and trying to be more professional. But I spent too much time thinking and not enough doing. I began to feel like nothing would look the way I wanted to and got really stressed out and then I totally lost momentum. Meanwhile a lot of things outside of the course started catching up on me and all got a bit much. And I had found a whole week had gone by without me really doing a lot and that I hadn’t had a day off my “part time” job in quite a while.
It feels ever so pathetic admitting all of this because all in all this is a really nice and easy project which at the beginning I was really enjoying. Technically speaking I didn’t actually find most of it hard because I had done it all before most of my frustration came from the fact I couldn’t remember it or that I was constantly second guessing myself.  I had to have a sit down and think really hard about what I wanted to do and what I enjoyed. And the answer was the course is what I want to do and I really want to succeed in it. Everything else was as unimportant, in fact it was nowhere near as important, I didn’t need it at all. I decided that I needed to cut all of this drama out in order to focus on what’s important. It’s strange because I have always thought of myself as someone that needs to be busy; I work best when I’m busy. I suppose this is true because in the last week I managed to get everything else done well I missed a few things such as all those little details I was so obsessed with in the beginning such as the water feature and the smoking cigarette. But I can do these at a later date. I’m so frustrated at myself for letting everything get to me especially since I have proven to myself how quickly I can work. I’m really disappointed in myself and what I have achieved, I’m actually embarrassed. But if I can take one thing away from this its I will never ever let myself get into this situation again. This is my final year and I have to make it count. I’m cutting all the distractions from my life as I haven’t worked for two years at this to let it slip away now. I want to have a portfolio even if I don’t want to be a game artist anymore I still want to prove I can do it.
In the last week of the project I managed to pull some of it back. I was still arranging stuff in engine but I was beginning to feel pleased with it’s overall look. I found grid snap rather annoying so I found out how to turn that off. I then had a bit more freedom to move around.  Once all the assets were placed I thought I could quickly add some water to my pool. Adding the water volume and surface properties was relatively straight forward however the water in engine didn’t come with a texture, which wasn’t something I had even thought of. I couldn’t think of how to do it so I followed a tutorial online. It looked really complicated due to the amount of nodes and I think it must have been because after following and looking over again and again you could still see the default texture through my water texture. I eventually gave up because after hours of looking for different tutorials and try to tweak the texture it still wasn’t how I wanted it.

Once I asked for some help making the skybox was pretty straight foward although I had some difficulties later on with it in the actual engine. As it turns out there was a lot of default settings that were messing up the look of my scene such as fog. Now i had no idea that fog was in the scene automatically and it was making my night time scene look strange, when I eventually figured it out and moved it away it looked much better.  All I had to do then is figure out the lighting. As my scene was at night the majority of the lighting was artifical, luckily I had already placed my strip light meshes where I wanted the lights so it was just a case of putting the lights next to or in them. Once I had done this I still wasn't happy with the look so I decided to add an emissive map to try and give them a natural looking glow. Which I think worked.

After tweaking a few bits and bobs I was relatively happy with the outcome even if it wasn't what I had orginally wanted, it did still resemble it. All that was left to do was the flythrough. I found it pretty easy to set up the matinee and set the cameras key frame but unfortunately I couldn't get the fade in and out effect I had been shown, which annoyed me a bit. I added it to the matinee sequence but it just didn't seem to work when I played it through! I also had a lot of difficulty with rendering my flythrough. Although my flythrough worked perfectly in UDK once it had rendered out it the camera just fell to the floor in an empty scene and just flopped about like a dying fish. The first time it happened I couldn't help but laugh but after the 4th or 5th time rendering it I got increasing irritatted. So in the end I had to just screenshot my work to show it. Here are some shots from my scene, sorry about the visible lighting icons but because I totally forgot to do a second UV channel for my assets the lighting won't build properly, what an idioctic mistake.

After tweaking a few bits and bobs I was relatively happy with the outcome even if it wasn't what I had orginally wanted, it did still resemble it. All that was left to do was the flythrough. I found it pretty easy to set up the matinee and set the cameras key frame but unfortunately I couldn't get the fade in and out effect I had been shown, which annoyed me a bit. I added it to the matinee sequence but it just didn't seem to work when I played it through! I also had a lot of difficulty with rendering my flythrough. Although my flythrough worked perfectly in UDK once it had rendered out it the camera just fell to the floor in an empty scene and just flopped about like a dying fish. The first time it happened I couldn't help but laugh but after the 4th or 5th time rendering it I got increasing irritatted. So in the end I had to just screenshot my work to show it. Here are some shots from my scene, sorry about the visible lighting icons but because I totally forgot to do a second UV channel for my assets the lighting won't build properly, what an idioctic mistake.