This week was it, the last week for getting everything ready to hand in. I went through my project, in a similar way to my video sequence, setting up shots which I thought best showed off my level. I managed to compile 10 shots in total (using the high-resolution screenshot feature) which I was pleased with. I feel they convey the visual storytelling that I aimed to address, and do a particularly good job at showcasing the parts of my level I put the most attention into. Afte

Now that all of my modelling, texturing and lighting has finally been set up, it was time to move on to my presentation... The first thing that would, on the fly, allow me to control the "look" of the level was adding a post process volume. This is quite self-explanatory, as it's a volume with a bunch of post processing features that you can manipulate, which will only take effect when the camera is within said volume. Whilst some people may want their effects to be different

As I have mentioned in some previous weeks, I have used emission in quite a few of my assets, and I wanted to take a moment to explain how I achieved this effect. As you can see on my weapon chest, the diablo symbol and skulls are emitting a reddish glow. This is a feature that you can enable in Substance Painter, under the texture set settings. Just create a new layer, add a black mask and paint layer (whilst setting the "emissive colour" to your choosing) and you can paint

I have found that my torches are extremely demanding on my VRAM, so I thought that would be the best place to start in terms of optimising my scene. Currently, whilst the fire looked decent (a bit too exposed and "big") it was way too GPU intensive, so I had to find a way to make it more manageable. That's when I was scrolling through Youtube, and came across a video about the evolution of videogame effects, where there was a brief look at fire. Early early games simply used

I've had some fun this week looking into how I can use more material attributes to enhance and create assets. The first of which, which is something that I've been meaning to look into for a while, opacity masks. Nearer the start of this project, I found an Abe Leal video which taught me how to use opacity masks to help make geometry look more complex than it is. I came back to this, though earlier this week, applied this to an area of my level which may fly under the radar f

Since I have gotten some of my larger props ready, I thought it was time to focus on adding some more props, and a finding ways to remove repetition. I felt as if, despite my scene having quite a few props, it still felt empty. For example, the area on the right still had basic blockout meshes instead of the original desk/ table I wanted there. So, it only made sense to being with that. Following my typical workflow, I found a nice table and chair design from one of the pro

After having done work on the boss room this week, it only made sense to make my hero asset now. The main reason for the boss room was to centre itself round my hero asset, which I decided should be a statue of a knight (in quite a dynamic pose). I originally had this idea all the way back when the assignment brief was issued, it was something that jumped out at me, so I had to bring it to life as one of the focuses of this project. I began by researching statue designs from

I managed to once again achieve quite a lot this week, as I delved into the mechanics of Unreal's Chaos Cloth system. Again, I was trying to focus on bringing my scene to life, so who doesn't want more moving components? As I mentioned in a previous week, I wanted to expand on the open-book model. I exported this book as its own separate object, and laid it down flat in my scene. I was thinking what could move about this book, and of course it had to be a page. So I created a

As I mentioned last week, I wanted to add movement to my scene, as when people play through (and during the cinematic presentation) having moving objects and particle simulations will make my scene a lot more convincing. However, I had no idea how to begin, so I contacted my lecturer from semester 1, Jeremy West. He, very kindly, also gave me some resources from 2nd year, on how to create some floating particles and falling leaves to add into my scene. He also said that, in r

Now that I have my modular kit fully set up, I thought I'd dedicate this week to creating some props that I could use to populate and "dress" my scene. Upon checking a few weeks ago what generally goes into levels in Diablo, I made a list of a few objects I wanted to model and texture. I planned on making: A barrel A bookshelf A "casket" Also, when looking into trim sheets, I discovered a concept called "texel density". Texel density is defined as the amount of texture pixels

Considering I am more than up to date with this project at the moment, I thought I'd use my time during reading week to start experimenting and exploring trim sheets, as they fascinate me on how optmisied studios can make game levels. As the murals and teaching resources haven't been released for week 5, I decided to look to the internet. Recently, I've had videos from a Youtuber by the name of Abe Leal 3D. He made a 3-part series on how to model, organise, texture, setup, sc

Whilst last week I discussed how I was focusing on my different segments connecting seamlessly together geometrically, it's a whole other topic when you begin to think about materials and textures. So naturally this week was all about how my tiling textures can help continue this idea of "seamlessness". I began by reading through and watching some of the substance designer murals on the Learning Space. As of last week, I had no ideas what substance designer was as a software

For my 2nd week, I focused on using the references I found to make a basic block-out of how my level will play out. I wanted to create a "boss room" type level that starts and ends large. I found that a lot of my references were one of 2 things. Either a small corridor leading to something bigger, or a large room that clearly serves a purpose for the functionality of the level (like a boss fight). Remembering the assignment brief, I knew I needed to comprise my scene of mod

Like any project, I had to begin with gathering reference. As someone who has never played any of the Diablo games, I spent quite a while on the Artstation "Art Blasts", in particular the Environment and Concept/ UI pages (Daniel Wade, July 2023) for Diablo IV. These both contained a tremendous amount of screenshots, test renders and concept art that have given me a comfortable idea of the general style of the series, and the sorts of workflows that I will implement for my le