In the fifth week, I mainly studied the production process of Unreal’s automatic plant distribution. After trying to find that this approach is not suitable for my project. Automatic allocation can indeed quickly fill the scene with plants. But its disadvantage is that the relationship between the model and the model is also random. This means that we will lose some details. By comparison, I chose to draw the plants manually.In addition, I also placed some of the scene stones.
Before making automatic allocation, usually the material should be drawn first.
LandscapeLayerSample_This node should be noted that its naming should be consistent with the name of a certain layer in LayerBlend. Then the node will extract the mask information of the corresponding layer.
Grass_This section is an output node. The input port is the calculated Alpha. The calculation method of Alpha is similar to that in Houdini.
The above picture shows the Alpha calculation method that I used. The purpose of this calculation method is to allow plants to grow in different regions. The calculation method is not unique.
In addition, the terrain grass type as shown in the figure should be created in the Grass node.
inside of Grass_A
The figure above shows the internal parameters of the terrain grass type. The places marked in red are the key points to be adjusted.
As shown in the figure, this is the effect after the material is automatically assigned. If you want to delete the plants in a part of the area, modify the method to redraw the material instead of directly editing the plants through the plant editing public. This degree of freedom is not very high. So I plan to draw the plants manually.
In addition, I also changed the texture of the stone shader.
The material shader as shown in the figure can calculate the slope. So that the material on the top of the rock is replaced with a grass shader.
This week I completed the carving of the Cthulhu model, on wrapping and texturing.
Carving in Zbrush
During the sculpting process, I searched for a lot of references about the distribution of human muscles, which would make every muscle more reasonable.
On wrapping in RizomUV
Because the model has a lot of thorns, a simple task of On wrapping becomes complicated immediately.
Texturing in Substance Painter
The above is my rendering in Substance painter. Maybe in the future, I will make the texture of the biological skin. Because the last shot of our group video is the resurrected Cthulhu.The above is my rendering in Substance painter. Maybe in the future, I will make the texture of the biological skin. Because the last shot of our group video is the resurrected Cthulhu.
The focus of my research on this week’s personal project is export HDA from Houdini to Unreal. And restore the terrain generated by Houdini in Unreal. At the same time, I also studied how to calculate the slope to assign different materials in Unreal’s material system.
Generating terrain
Install plugin
The first thing to do is to install the Houdini plugin for Unreal. Incorrect installation will cause the Unreal system to crash. I have failed many times on this issue. So I will focus on recording.
First we have to find this plugin in the Houdini folder. Then Copy HoudiniEngine file.
Finally, open the Runtime file of EPIC and copy the HoudiniEngine file to this directory.
HDA
在导入Unreal之前我们要完成HDA的制作。
The picture represents the HDA file that needs to be exported. Among them, L1, L2 and L3 represent the spline curves used to generate the terrain. This introduction was mentioned in the production idea of the Blog last week.
Inside of L1
Inside of L2
Inside of L3
Inside of Create_Terrain
Inside of Import_L1
The rest of Import L2 and Import L3 are similar to this folder.
The picture shows the L1 parameters that need to be exposed in the Landscape folder. L2 and L3 are similar.
It is worth noting that: Object mapping needs to link to the File node, not the ObjectMerge node. So we need to output a model in bgeo format.
This is the output of the fish model in bgeo format.
Generate landscape in Unreal
When importing Unreal, we should pay attention to the display of terrain in Houdini, which will affect the display in Unreal.
After importing the terrain, we found that the terrain is not in the shape of a fish. This is because we did not import splines.
In the parameters of landscape HDA, we make the above changes. It should be noted that L1 corresponds to L1, L2 corresponds to 2, and L3 corresponds to L3, including bgeo model selection.
After the selection is over, we have to click Rebuild Asset.
This is the terrain I get.
The last step is to convert the HDA terrain to Unreal terrain, click Bake at the location shown in the figure above.
Landscape Material
First, I will introduce some key nodes and their usage:
As shown in the figure, the function of the Heightlerp node is to sort and output terrain elevation data.
The function of MatlayerBlend is to blend the two shaders, and we can freely control the superposition relationship of the two shaders through Alpha.
The above figure is the calculation formula of the slope in the terrain material.
This is the primary way of linking terrain materials. The link method can freely adjust the slope of the rock and the switch of the size of the rock, which will make the transition effect of the rock and the vegetation layer softer.
before
after
In the screenshot above, I also made a map of the distant view. Through the comparison, it can be found that before the modification, the distant rocks will be obvious, and this visual effect is not what we want. I hope that the farther the rock is from the camera, the smaller the UV map of the rock. For this, I changed the shader.
Through calculation, we can change the texture map in the distance and adjust the UV of the texture.
Finally, by manually drawing the material, I got the terrain as shown in the picture.
The main work of the third week is the modification of the car model, the modification of the character model, Onwrapping and texturing. In this process, I consolidated the previous process of mari making character maps.
Car model fix
After a long work, I ushered in the last modification of the task. This modification is mainly for the top of the car.
Before
After
The successful completion of this task is inseparable from Luke’s patient guidance. From this car model making experience, I learned the details that should be paid attention to in model making.
Character
As for our team project, I received Yann’s role model this week. The character model has a high degree of reduction, and Yann’s production speed is very fast, which is great. However, the role model has a relatively large number of faces, which is not conducive to subsequent work. Therefore, Yann and I performed manual surface reduction on the model.
Before
After
In this way, we successfully reduced the number of faces from 160,000 to 83,000.
On wrapping
After the surface reduction is over, I On wrapping the model in RizomUV.
Texturing
In the early part of this stage, Yann was making it.
The picture above is the effect of Yann’s production, I am making changes on this basis.
The first thing I want to modify is the texture of the character’s face and hands. In addition to Substance painter, I also used Mari and Zbrush to make textures.
Colormap of head
XYZmap of head
Colormap of hand
Colormapp of leg
In this process, I mainly made the colormap and the XYZ texture of the head. The XYZ map will be used in Zbrush to generate real bumps.
As shown in the figure above, it is the skin texture generated by the XYZ map in Mari. I re-carved some facial scars, wrinkles and muscles on this basis. Finally output Normalmap and AO map to Substance Painter.
Finally, go back to Yann’s spp file to modify the texture.
Thanks for the active cooperation of my team. This production efficiency is very high.
The main content of this week’s work was carried out in Houdini. Before that, I tried to use WorldCreator and WorldMechine to generate game terrain. Through comparison, it is found that Houdini’s degree of freedom will be higher, and WorldCreator’s production will be faster and more convenient. Because of my special terrain, the requirements for the terrain are relatively high. So I chose to use Houdini to generate terrain.
Process
First, let’s take a look at the landscape concept map.
The overall appearance of this terrain looks like a fish. This is also an important reason why I chose to use Houdini to generate maps.
Before introducing the process, I will record some key landscape nodes.
Heightfield_This is the first step in creating the terrain. At the same time we can set the terrain size.
HeightfieldNoise_Creating terrain noise, where the second input port is the input mask. The red ones represent the scope of influence.
HeightfieldDrawmask_Manually select the mask range
HeightfieldPaint_Manually draw the mask range
HeightfieldDistort_Generate distortion, which can be used to make terrain details
HeightfieldLayer_Highly mixed
Heightfieldpattern_Pattern generation height
Heightfieldmaskbyobject_Project the object onto the plane, and then generate a mask
Heightfieldmaskblur_This node can blur the mask
HeightfieldProject_Projecting objects onto the terrain.
HeightfieldClearmask_Clean up the mask, if it is not cleaned, it will affect the production of the subsequent mask.
Heightfieldslump_Generate terrain erosion
Heightfielderode_Calculate the erosion results of the terrain and generate complex terrain.
HeightfieldCopylayer_Generate a new layer, which can be used to extract the mask
HeightfieldTerrace_Generate terraces
Heightfieldremap_This node can be used to remap the height, and it can also be used to change the contrast of the mask
HeightFieldScatter_Scatter points in the corresponding mask
HeightfieldClip_Redefine the altitude range of the terrain
After introducing the node, I can briefly explain my production ideas.
First, I used the spline curve to draw the shape of the fish and mapped it into a mask. After getting the mask, use the Heightfieldpattern node to extrude the terrain downward.
Then, using the same method to make deeper terrain.
Other details of the height is the same operation.
After getting the rough terrain of the landscape, I started to increase the details step by step. As shown in the picture, I first added some chaos to the terrain.
Then I mapped a fish-land model in the middle of the map, through the HeightfieldProject node.
In addition, I also added some noise, which makes the terrain change up and down.
After finishing all the detailed modulations, I used the HeightfieldErode node to calculate the complex terrain.
The last stage is to define the range of different materials such as rocks, grass, soil and so on through the mask. In this building, I used different colors to show these areas. The purpose of this process is to facilitate the automatic assignment of terrain materials and plants in Unreal.
The last production content this week is HDA editing. We can expose some of the parameters that need to be adjusted in the HDA menu.
That’s all the content of this week. By studying the production of this terrain, I have basically mastered the flow of Houdini terrain production.
This week’s Team project is divided into 3 parts. The first is the modification of the car model and On wrapping in RizomUV. Next, I will introduce the sculpture of the Cthulhu model. The last part is the modification of the role model.
Fixing and texturing car model
This model is a modified model after two feedbacks. I would like to thank my Tutor for patiently pointing out my problem. It also let me know the details that should be paid attention to in the modeling process.
The biggest difference between Texturing this time and the first one is that this time we want to ensure that the car is relatively clean. For this, I tried to import some textures from Bridger into Substance painter. The most difficult part is the production of car light textures. The car lights are not all bright and come in a variety of materials. For this, I used mask and imported normal to synthesize.
Here are some images rendered in Substance painter.
Cthulhu
References
Before making the statue of Cthulhu, I looked for a lot of references. The above picture is the two most classic references. Through observation, it was found that Cthulhu was all sitting on a rock. Cthulhu is winged and has an octopus head.
We discovered this downloadable model while preparing to make the Cthulhu statue. Although it fits this team project very well. But we all agree that the Cthulhu statue is an important element of the video, which also includes some close-up shots. So we need to make a Cthulhu statue of our own, instead of directly using the downloaded model.
After discussion, we decided to sculpt on the basis of the model instead of from a sphere. This approach saves a lot of time. Considering that Sean needs to modify the cathedral, this is a very complicated task, and the corresponding models are also lacking at this time. Therefore, I will be responsible for the carving of Cthulhu.
Sculpting in Zbrush
First, I modified the posture and body proportions of the model. A broken shape and a stone pose were added to the bottom of Cthulhu. After getting a very good appearance, I started to sculpt the details of the model, including modeling, different, different parts of the skin texture, parasitic sea shells on the skin, tentacles, etc.
My personal project mainly work in this week is texturing for plant in substance, and writing dynamic material shader in unreal.
Texturing in Substance painter
Writing material in Unreal
In this process, we need to control the underwater movement of plants through the SimpleGrassWind node. But only through this node to control plant movement, it will cause the roots of the plant to also move. This is not what we want.
For this we need a color gradient to affect the movement of plant roots. The value near the root is 0.
The above GIF is the effect display of plant movement.
In this team project, I will record the production of the car model for luke and my team project idea.
Car modeling
At the beginning of this semester I received a feedback from Luke on my car model. The feedback has 30 minutes. Haha I seem to see despair. After seeing the question raised by Tutor, I found a very serious problem. I didn’t find reference pictures of the car in the last semester. So all the details are my own creation. Obviously it is faster to remake this car model. The time limit is two weeks. Therefore, I spent most of my time on modeling car.
Fortunately, this week I have completed preliminary models of the car’s outer contour and part of the interior decoration.
Team Project_Idea
This semester I worked with Yann and Sean, and both Yann and I needed to study Unreal software. At the same time Sean is interested in model sculpting. So we formed a team. Our project was inspired by an eyeball I made after term2 study.
The production of the eyeball refers to the Youtube video tutorial, in which the zoom and depth of the pupil can be adjusted.
Through my eyes material shader, we immediately think of Cthulhu. I just want to make some doomsday-style game scenes. After a period of discussion, we decided to make a Cthulhu theme CG work. And apply the eyeball to the project.
Story background: The explorer discovered a long-abandoned village. The interior and buildings of the village have some elements of Cthulhu culture. There is a converted church in the village. The breath of death is everywhere. The gods once believed in were all shattered and replaced by a terrifying statue of Cthulhu monster and the corpses of believers in the church. The explorer walked behind the church, and strange noises came from the dense forest. When he pushed away the bushes, a huge eye came oncoming. Cthulhu is resurrected!
Team Project_Scene concept
After the discussion, we made some scene concepts. The above is the concept map of the scene I made in PS.
I will do a lot of research in advanced material system, particle system, terrain system, lighting system, and Blueprint in this project.
I will be mainly responsible for the construction of the Unreal scene.
Yann is mainly responsible for the character part, including character animation.
Sean is mainly responsible for the production of the Cthulhu model.
My individual project is to continue to make a Term2 game project. The purpose of this project is to study Unreal material system, particle system, lighting system, terrain system and Blueprint in game production. In this week’s individual project, my main work is plants. Model modeling and texturing for plants.
Modeling
In addition to my own 2D concept, I also referenced ZBZU’s plant model.
Then I modeled in Maya. The reason why I did not download and use other people’s resources is because this project will reflect all my skills, although it takes a lot of time.
Texturing
After doing simple On wrapping, I drew some textures of the model in Photoshop. These models all need mask map.
Some of the models need to make black and white transition textures which are used to make animations in Unreal. The main principle is that black represents 0, which means that the object is not moving. White represents 1, which means the object can move. Use 0 and 1 to control the movement of the model.
E.g:
This post picture corresponds to the big picture above, which is the texture of scallops. Corresponding to the UV position in the production.
Next, I will clarify the specific application in Unreal of this post.
First import the color and mask map into Unreal, as shown in the figure. Then we need to control the movement of the object through the gradual image. After testing, it was found that the movement of the model did not achieve the expected effect.
This is the gradient picture I got through calculation. Unlike making it in PS, the gradient can more accurately control the movement of the model. The exact value can reach 0.0001.
As shown in the figure, I got two poses of the model through calculation. The function of the Lerp node is to control the superposition relationship of the A and B channels by controlling the Alpha channel. When Alpha is 0, the output result is A. When Alpha is 1, the output result is B. Therefore, we can make a scallop animation by adjusting the value between Dynamic parameter 0 and 1.
The reason for using the Dynamic parameter node is that I want to use the particle system to animate multiple scallops. The Dynamic parameter is the material node used in the particle system.
Then, make the animation effect of the scallop in the particle system.
Hi everyone, I am SHIMIN CONG. In this presentation, I will share my research direction in FMP and thesis. It will be divided into seven parts. The first is an overview of my thoughts and some references. Then I will clarify why I made this game and choose this thesis topic, as well as the relationship between FMP and thesis. Finally, I will talk about the research areas, what resources need to be used and my aim.
My FMP is a demo of a horror puzzle game with a play time of 5-10 minutes. Players will listen to a memory of the character in a short game time. The focus of game design is to bring players into an immersive experience. This includes the stylized model, lighting, and scene layout , Besides，a simple gameplay mechanism and a reasonable UI layout are also important. In general: Unlike the Term2 and Term3 game project which mainly focus on game technical issues, this game project will be more complete.
As for my thesis, it is a research on the immersive experience of the game. Mainly through flow experience and unconscious design to analyze how immersive games developed with art as the focus apply these two design theories.
There are eight characteristic elements of the central flow experience, including: 1 clear goal, 2 timely feedback, 3 challenge and ability balance, 4 sense of control, 5 elimination of distracting thoughts, 6 concentration of current tasks, 7 disappearance of self-awareness, 8 sense of time distort. In addition, Chen Xinghan proposed to integrate this theory into game production . Therefore, I will analyze the practical application of the flow experience of “flower” and “Journey”.
Unconscious design refers to the designer’s conscious design to let the player have unconscious operation. This article will describe how the game UI design enhances immersion in the unconscious way.
My project references are these four games. All of them have excellent scene art. In contrast, in the FMP, I researched more about the technology and the way of telling stories in Edith Finch. In addition, I will continue to study Chen Xinghan’s game works flower and journey, including the lighting of the game scene, game interaction and VFX.
Why choose create these. The first is interest and the need to find work. Secondly, in addition to the innovation in gameplay, many players have also begun to pay more and more attention to the visual effects of the game. And with the release of Unreal5, the quality of game art will also be greatly improved. Therefore, it is necessary to learn how to improve the ability of scene art. In addition, such a project can also provide a strong practical basis for my thesis.
Speaking of this, I will compare the similarities and differences between FMP and thesis. First of all, both of them are exploring the immersion of the game. The difference is the main work content of FMP is story and scene art. In addition, it will also study the structural framework logic and blueprint of the game.
Thesis will focus more on analyzing unconscious design and how Flow experience enhances the immersion of the game. Although this FMP can provide practical proof for thesis.
Therefore, the areas I will explore include Game level design, story arc, Interaction design, Unreal Blueprint, VFX system, Material system, Lighting system, terrain system and Engine logic.
There are many tools that will be used. Among them, MAYA is mainly used for modeling, rigging and animating. RizomUV for Unwrapping. Mari, mixer, substance designer and substance painter are used to make textures. Zbrush is for sculpt the model. Houdini is used to generate terrain. And Unreal4 is the main production tool for this project.
The last part is the goal of the project, firstly, I need to ensure that the task can be completed within the given time. It is necessary to have a good sense of immersion. Cognitive immersion and operational immersion. More specifically:
This game can provide more perceptual experience, and can cause strong emotional ups and downs in players. Using narrative design to make players more immersed.
The use of scene-based expressions gives players a sense of cognition. Players interact not only with monotonous information, but in a more atmospheric environment to complete the interaction.
Finally, Improve the skills required by game technical artists.
