Texturing The Crate

I tried recreating different metal types when texturing the container, first a metal that doesn’t rust, maybe aluminium. I made shore I added ware here on all edges, this was mostly done using the roughness and metallness maps.  

After looking at this I decided to have more visible metal, with rust. This would replicate worn stainless steel.

I really liked the finish of the above crate, but the feedback I got was to replicate the wear of current day containers. Currently crates are made of steel, when steal rusts through paint normally no metal is actually visible, any steel open to the air will be rust.

This crate has a much more dramatic appearance. The level of rust also indicates a harsher environment and also a grater passing of time. These are things we want the texturing of our assets to communicate.

The colour green here is not permanent I also created a mask that hides all the parts of the container that are not painted. This way the colour of the crate can be changed in engine.

 This is the plywood floor texture. Here I also projection mapped the gap between the boards and then ruffed up the edge of this in Photoshop. Also I have projection mapped a slight warp in every board, they are not flat so the light should catch them slightly differently.

This process involved a lot of projection mapping, probably around a hundred layers and dozens of hightmaps. 

Buddhist Shrine

I was given the task of creating one of the points of interest that you would come across on your decent through the level.  I decided that it would be nice to have a Buddhist shrine.  We were placing this world in Nepal, so this would be fitting. Tribal communities which are what the people living here have become are also always highly religious.

I modelled, a low poly Buddhist head statue in 3DS-Max , used Z brush to create a high poly and backed these together to create a normal map. I created a rust reference palette with 5 or so different rust textures on it, to poly paint the bust in Z-Brush using spot light. This was extremely successful.

For this area I also created using the same method as the previous hanging sheets a carpet and a sheet that would hang from the ceiling.  The carpet proved to be extremely awkward, In order to get the rumpled surface I was aiming for.  I finally created the carpet by repeatedly moving physical blocks of geometry into the carpet, and also dragging the carpet across a plane and into various placements of geometry.

As you can see here I have also textured the carpets, the textures I used use patterns that are native to Nepal. Post this image I added A lot more grime and ware to these carpets. 

Modular Container

After looking at peoples paint overs and concepts, and playing through the world block out we had distinguished all the different parts that we would need for the container. These parts would also have to be easily swapped out and changed in engine as the level evolved

The roof door flap had hinges and a locking mechanism added post this screen shot. Also a new version of the side door down was added that didn't have the wires. 

Hanging Sheets

Here I got to experiment with the cloth modifier again. At all points during this project I was trying to make everything to the highest standard. This meant that whilst modelling these sheets, I was trying to give them the most natural hang possible. After a brief period I realised that this would mean animating the points that the cloth is hanging from, so that they moved closer together whilst the cloth modifier was running. This gave the cloth a natural achievable hang.

Low Poly

High Poly

These were then backed together creating a normal map.

The Container

I wanted to make a slightly futuristic yet relatable crate. To do this I kept to the corrugated surface of today’s containers as this is a visual queue that will make them instantly recognisable. Also corrugated metal is a very industrial form. To make them futuristic I used basic geometric patterns, to make complex sci-Fi style shapes. By using a geometric grid I was also able to make the design symmetrical on more than one axis. This meant that I only had to unwrap a quarter of the container, the rest is overlaid. Doing this has doubled our potential texture density for the container.

I then modelled this container, its actually super low poly and only came in at around 3000 tries. The example container which we could have used that was supplied by our uni was over 6000 tries.

I then did a projection map pass on the container this added lots of additional detail. Upon finishing this entire project one of the pieces of feedback I got was that with today’s advances, and how engines deal with geometry, I could have easily modelled all of these details with physical geometry, and this would not have really affected how our level ran.

The Container City Project

Team of 5

Initial Block outs

We jumped straight into train tracks, as this straight away gave us containers to work with that sat in a linier game like fashion. Also this gives an obvious reason for the crates being where they are. Some of our early ideas simply involved cool environments with crates frown into them for no particular reason.

These are extremely basic block outs, they are simply to find an interesting path for the player to follow.

Both these initial ideas of mine I placed under ground, this was to get rid of the need for large environments and or vistas. Also it should be easier to guide the player down certain path without feeling like your obtruding their own freedom.

Mood Boards

Other People’s Ideas

Here are some other ideas that we came up with as a group. The first few days were literally spent discussing these ideas.

When the idea that the containers could be attached from above came about we instantly dived on it. It reminded us of the door storage facility from Monster Inc. We instantly wanted to recreated that kind of bizzy, massive environment.

This is when the Giant Tube, container intersection idea was spawned.

Kierans Level block out

We created a level block out, and tried to make an interesting path for the player to follow. The path is interactive, the player has to get the lift working and then move back through the level to ride it further down into the city. We tried to make the level design feel open world, although there is a set path, we tried to do this by having brief areas of interest off the main path, and by having a small open area.

Culture Mood Board and prop ideas

I really wanted to place this world, somewhere new and different for our team, also somewhere more traditional, maybe tribal to contrast with this huge industrial environment. The questions about what happened to this world in order to have to build this complex give the world intrigue and history. The complex has also fallen into disrepair and people have moved off the surface and into these tunnels to live. This implies that some great disaster has occurred in order for these dark life less and dangerous tunnels to be a viable home.