Week Twenty Five: Projection Painting?

Did I finally learn to Projection map? Did I manage to polypaint in z Brush? Well this post will answer your question. Or maybe you didn’t care in the first place. That’s cool with me. Have a tree that looks like its screaming. 

I finished the modelling the hollowed out foliage assets on Monday and the next following two days was devoted to unwrapping them appropriately, using the cylindrical unwrap. The most important events of this week was the projection mapping in 3DS Max and the polypainting in Z Brush.

Thursday was when I first learnt to Projection Map. Projection mapping is one of the alternatives to creating a height map to create a normal, the other known technique to me involves, creating a higher poly model and baking it down to a lower poly one. In projection mapping, you create a model of the object or pattern that you want to put on your normal map. The positive to this is that you get a clean normal map, but it can be quite time consuming, but lucky you don’t have to be that clean with the geometry and can turbo smooth it.

In the Projection mapping I was taught, I ended up using 3 layers of planes. The bottom plane, The Projection_Ref plane is the template unwrap of the model I'm creating a normal map for. This is used to plan out the layout of the map. The projected plane is the plane which will create the normal map, I was recommended that everything your mapping should be attached just to keep the file clean. The projection_plane is the plane in which the normal map will be created on.

Current look of the projection plane.

The produced normal map. You do have to do some slight edits in photoshop to make sure it's perfect for the template.

The normal map in use in engine (Unreal 4) on the model.

Friday was filled with learning to poly paint in Z Brush. This was surprisingly simple, and was taught some really good tips involving this process. I was taught to put all reference images on a photoshop file and save as a jpg, before placing it in the textures and painting with these pictures straight onto the model with spotlight. I’ve already seen a marked change in my textures with them already looking better. I also taught myself how to use the layers in zbrush to allow me to paint on multiple layers of the same object, so the texture below isn't affected. 

A combination of screenshots, top left side the active spotlighting, where you change numerous variables of this program. The bottom right in paint mode in the spotlighting, where you paint straight onto the model.

Week Four: An Extension of Last Week

    I’m going to continue on with the same topic as last week’s blog post about the issues that went wrong extending into a post mortem to help me grow into a better team member.
    I personally found this group project to extremely difficult in comparison to the first one and I believe it all comes down to the issue that three out of the four members of the group lived together. This at first could be considered a bonus. Working together with flat mates means more time together to improve upon your work, but I found this to be untrue in the case of me. I considered myself to be an introvert due to my difficulty in being around people for long periods of time and liking to being left alone. Unlike with the first project, I could go home and relax away from work. This was something I couldn’t do with the second project. I would return home and my team members would be there meaning I had virtually no time away from them to have a break. We basically brought the work back with us, and we would only talk about that when we were back.
    I also had an issue with one of the team members, who I felt complained about every decision that was made such as the implementation of asset swap to mirror industry as to get into good practices. This team member would also tell me I was wrong frequently, such as in the layout of the files which we were taught to do last year. I’m usually fine dealing with people like this but without a break this person became overbearing. As I’ve often dealt with people in the past like this, I was able to get away from them by going home, I was unable to with this certain member and it just became too much. Working with this same person in the future I’d probably go out after lesson for a while to get away.
     For myself, I need to be more organised and produce a design document throughout the project so I don’t leave it until the end of the project. This caused a lot of stress for me at the end, having to write the group design document and the personal document. The recording throughout the project will allows me to articulate my thoughs on the project and allows me to think about how to push the designs and models further daily. Stepping back and being able to look at everything produced each day allowed me to write about how to tackle the project the next time I come to it.

Week Three: I'm Running Out of Names For This

    Third week down, close to finishing my second group project. I’ve learnt a lot from this group project in comparison to the first one, there is a lack of communication, and this is an incredibly important element in which we struggle in. Unlike my team members which have turned to complain about one another (including me) on their blogs, I feel that I need to dissect why these issues have occurred in the first place. If we do not stop to think about these issues then this circle of backstabbing is going to continue.
    The biggest elephant in the room is the lack of communication, on Friday one quote sums up this whole issue, ‘I assumed you knew’. I first started the group project by producing a ‘idiots checklist’ on what to check at each stage of producing assets to allow for the next person in the chain to move straight onto the next stage. This was ignored by at least half the members of the group. When we did communicate we often didn’t do it in such away that everyone could understand, or issues were just not communicated in general. Often elements was described in a way that was ambiguous which does not work in a team situation, and sometimes terminology was used which everyone did not understand confusing some group members. Work became rushed and finished to a poor standard when we would inform members of the group we were waiting on their assets. I was told by the next member of the chain that they were waiting on my assets, yet I took my time to finish as I did not want the next person to have to fix it up as in the end it would extend the time spent on the model. When we did speak about issues, it became a shouting match, I’m guilty of this. I do feel though that this would often happen after a ridiculous statement or answer was replied with, one moment of this would be a dislike of a room due to the colour of it, and not the aesthetics of the architecture. Yes a colour could affect this, but the overall form should shine through.

The colour’s not the best, but the focus on lighting is superior to the Clockwork Orange scene we did first, as well as the architecture which has a heavy focus on symmetry which makes it more interesting.

    Another issue was organisation, although we tried to be, we kept falling short. Much like with the check list eventually being completely ignored, our organisation was on and off. Sometimes we would all show up, other times people wouldn’t even show up. I’m guilting of not telling people that I wouldnt be able to show up at the last moment as I live with a couple of flat members so I assumed, yet again this key word appears, that they knew I wouldn’t be able to make it.

    Doing another project like this, I'll be focusing more on group organisation and group communication as this is currently my weakest element.