Vertex 2019

This is a huge event taking place in Olympia, London (most recent on: 8th March 2019), where many 2D & 3D artist met to listen to many interesting talks from the world’s best creatives. Many artists have revealed their methods of working, shared their inspirations and motivations and talked about newest software and hardware available for the creative people.

This is just a second instalment of the event, but the interest from the industry grows strong. The list of speakers was very long a diverse, so everyone could find something of interest.

Ron Ashtiani – founder and CEO of Atomhawk
Paul Cartwright and Stevie Cole – Rare
Shayleen Hulbert – freelance character artist
Keely colcleugh – founder and CEO of Kilograph
Jas Dhatt and Danny Sweeney – Creative Assembly
Jason Horley, Stephen Tappin, Pablo Dominguez Aguilar – Industrial Light & Magic
Anthony Greyson – manager at Saddington Baynes
Benoit Leveau and James Reid – Milk Visual Effects

These were just few of the variety of speakers available during the event, but it was definitely an interesting event.

During the main event, the CG Awards also took place, giving their rates withing nine categories. This time voting was open to the public, so there were very interesting winners:

The Best VFX Movie/Sequence – Avengers: Infinity War
The Best VFX TV Show/Sequence – Stranger Things Season 2
The Best Shortform – trailer for Beyond Good And Evil 2
The Best Game – Assassin’s Creed: Origins
The Best Community Artist – Ian Spriggs
The Best Hardware – Wacom Cintiq Pro
The Best Software – Allegrorithmic’s Substance Designer
The Best Innovation – Chaos Group Labs
<this one is missing and I couldn’t find it anywhere>

The event also host an interesting section of ‘Ask An Artist’ and ‘Portfolio Reviews’, where individuals could have came in and talk about their work and experience. This would be very useful for me in the future and create many new opportunities to met future employers.

After reading about this special event, I would like to attend the very next one they will be hosting. I hope it will also take place in London, as this would be a great opportunity to met new industry people from the country that I live in.

REFERENCE LIST:

3D Artist team, (2019), Vertex 2019 announces first speakers for its next event, 3D Artist [magazine]. Issue 129, p. 86-87

Redman R. (2019), How to go to Vertex 2019 for free, Creatiive Blog, [ONLINE]. Available at:
https://www.creativebloq.com/news/come-to-vertex-for-free (Accessed: 29 April 219)

Substance Designer latest updates!

I’m planning to use Substance Designer a lot in this project, so it’s an important software for me. This latest update changes and fixes many of the previous problems which makes me even more happy to use it.

The 2018.3.4 version is out since the fall 2018, and bring the manor updates and features. The most important one include a new PBR rendering node, which increase a photorealizm in a single map. This seem to be a huge improvement.

The improvements also include the gathered feedback from the users as the developers now let them access the Node List just by pressing TAB or SPACEBAR. This proves how important the feedback is for the company and how important it is to actually share our experience with them.

“As we continue to add new features and improvements to Substance Designer, we rely more and more on our community to help us identify the areas that are costing designers time, with their help, we’ve made some changes that will improve their overall workflow, and in the process, we also managed to prepare Substance Designer for the future.”
Deguy S. (2018)

The update itself is free for the subscribers, but the actual subscription is quite expensive. However, the student version is free, so I’m really happy to experiment with it and use it in this project. This should improve my texture quality and the overall look of my level. Although I haven’t used it before, I’ve learned the basics from my university colleagues.

REFERENCE LIST:

3D Artist team, (2018), Substance Designer fall update, 3D Artist [magazine]. Issue 128, p. 90

Allegorithmic team, (2018), SUBSTANCE DESIGNER – RELEASE NOTES ,
Allegorithmic, [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.allegorithmic.com/products/substance-designer/release-note (Accessed: 22 April 2019)

Starting to block out!

This stage is always exciting and brings lots of the level to live. It always starts to looks like a production has become and the work starts to get in shape.

I’ve started with blocking out a terrain. This took me a longest amount of time, as I wanted it to be almost finished for the final production. I’m not sure is that the right attitude, but I don’t want to redo it in the future.

I’ve created one general material to fill my blockout with, but I’ve decided to make another one just for the river to stand out more. Eventually I’ve used it for several assets to simulate the difference within materials (mostly glass). I think it was a really good choice, as it bring out the shapes of the blockout even more.

Although the blockout is really simple and have many unfinished geometry, the map starts to fill up nicely. The entire area is quite big, so I may think about making it slightly smaller in few areas, but in general, it looks like a natural size.

The starting point area (fallen tree, quad and fence) blockout

The blockout isn’t yet finished, but I will try my best to finish it on time. I would like to record a promotional video based on that, so I need some time in advance to do that.

I’ve decided to do not put any of the plant assets that I’ve made so far. I still treat them only as optional objects and I’ll still have to rethink using them in the final work. As I mentioned before, I will be probably more happy to use the flowers, to bring some colours to the scene.

Map Creation

As I’ve already mention several times, I want my level to be based on the real-world location. During this late stage of project, I’ve created a top view of my environment.

I’ve used a Google Earth image to draw over it and create outlines for my map. I would like to say that this speed up the process, but I guess it rather slow it down as I had to be more accurate with my drawings. However, this was a vacuous process in general.

The final outlining of the square area of the place

I really like the outlines of the entire area, but as this square is huge, the final map will have to contain just a close up of this piece.

With the use of the main objectives and collectables, I’ve draw over my own version of this terrain, by adding items required in the gameplay. The most important ones included the outlines of the lab facility and shed, but I have also added other information to the top view. I have also decided to include the walkthough with several main points on the way and possible moving directions.

Although some of the objects are not yet in the asset list (that’s why I’ve left a space for the updates in the list), I was able to place most of my objects withing this smaller square area. This is still a huge level, but I’m now sure that I will be able to fill it with goods. I can’t wait to start working on it!

Unreal Engine 4.22 released!

These are an amazing news for the game developers as Unreal Engine has become a very important aspect of game creation. This is also an important aspect for me as an environment artist, because new features improves many aspects of world creation.

The new version of UE introduces new features of creating photorealistic real-time experience (real-time tracing and improved build times of up to 165%).

Epic Games have improved a multi-user editing called VURTUAL PRODUCTION, which let multiple developers to work inside the same UE project at the same time. This feature seem to be incredibly powerful and will allow designers to work more precisely and together on the multiple parts of the project. I can only speculate how would that improve the speed of production, but I guess this may also cause some problems. But we will see that in the future…

The most important feature added would be the Real-Time Ray Tracer. This update will allow artists to create more realistic reflections, soft area shadows, better indirect lighting and improved ambient occulusion.

There are also other improvements (sound, virtual reality wireless support, render time), which would be more important to other designers and not as much for the environment artists like me, so I don’t know much about it.

REFERENCE LIST:

Wilson J., (2019), Unreal Engine 4.22 released, Epic Games, [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/unreal-engine-4-22-released (Accessed: 25 April 2019)

Asset Lists!

Assets, assets, assets! The objects that will appear in the final level. Every production require a list of those items for the organisational purposes and easier track of progress. For the purpose of this project, I have created TWO different lists!

I’ve decided to divide my asset list into two slightly different ones: MAIN OBJECTIVES and GENERAL ASSETS. The reason behind that was that there is a specific amount of objects required in the gameplay to work. The rest of the assets will also be important, but at a different level. They will create a playable level, but won’t play any more role to the player. This would be more like a ‘background assets’ that are required in the overall production, but not as much as the objective ones.

Although the second list already have some entries, it will be updated during the production process, as most of the objects will be produced during that stage and will be a part of unplanned (yet) progress. The amount of variations of one object is still unknown, but it will be kept in a reasonable amount to limit the wasting time. The different versions will be produced slightly later in the production stage than the required items. This should minimalise the mistakes or high time consumption.

As far this looks like a minimum that needs to be made to be able to produce a level, but I know I’ll add more in time. That’s why I’ve planned two months for assets creation (alongside with other tasks). This would require a lot of work on the project, but I believe that I can cope with that.

Gantt Chart Creation

Today I have mostly focused on the planning my time. For this purpose I’ve made a Gantt Chart including the entire project time. I have decided it into the two main sections with similar tabs inside them: THE RAINFOREST AREA, THE LAB FACILITY. This would improve the visual aspects of the chart and will make it more clear.

I know that I am able to produce around 100 assets in a month, so I’ve give each of the environment that amount of time for asset creation. I’ll use it more or less, but that’s what I believe would be a perfect timing.

As lots of my level would require technical work (objectives and collectables the most!), I’ve also planned some time for this development in my chart. It takes place at the end of the production, as I believe that would be the best time for it. In the worst scenario, the level can work as a static, not playable level, but it won’t work if there would be no finished assets. This is just the way I would work for this project, as prioritising seems to play a huge role in this production.

I have also make a place for bugs and error fixing. I gave myself entire two weeks for that. This stage also would include finishing anything that has to be finish before progressing to the final stage – post production (which I only gave a last week to work on).

I hope this time management would work perfectly, as this so far seems to be a reasonable time allocation. This should gave me enough time for each of the tasks with a small bracket for finishing of. I’m really happy with it at the end.

It’s raining man!

Today I’ve focused on conducting another experiment. While playing a game (Horizon Zero Dawn), I’ve came across the rain. It would add some more realism to the level and make it slightly stand out from the normal, sunny environments. As my project takes place in a rainforest (RAINforest), this is a pretty obvious choice for the weather. The plants always need more water than normal ones, so this would be a perfect condition for them to grow as big as I want them to.

I’ve made this experiment in the exactly same Unreal Engine 4 file as before (inventory). Any of those experiments didn’t get in a way with another, so it was completely fine. This experiment was supposed to give me an idea of how to make a realistic rain effect for the rainforest environment. I’ve fallowed a YouTube tutorial by Dean Ashford (link in the reference list).

The actual particle effect was made from two simple emitters. Setting up each of them didn’t took long, and I managed to get the effect right.

Although the rain was working, I was slightly disappointed by the final effect. The realistic rain wasn’t as realistic as expected and the splashes on the floor were only limited to one specific height location. This is a huge disadvantage when it comes to the realistic terrain. However, the entire experiment didn’t take long. I may repeat the experiment in the future and try out different technique to be able to maintain different heights of the terrain.

This also have another huge downside: the rain was running INSIDE THE BUILDING. this would have to be fixed in order to work in my own level. I may try to place my rain in the areas where there is no buildings or figure a way out to block the rain inside the buildings by adding additional hidden geometry (however, this may not work at all).

REFERENCE LIST:

Dean Ashford, (2017), UE4 – Tutorial – Simple Rain Particles, Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qmb2FrFunME (Accessed: 23 April 2019).

Katana 3 light up the Game of Thrones

As many of my friends are watching the recent season of Game of Thrones, I would like to research the software that light up the VFX of the series. The newest season was using Katana 3 to light up the scenes more efficiently.

Rodeo is responsible for some of the biggest sequences seen in HBO’s series. They’ve always used Katana as their lighting tool, but more recently (the end of May 2018) they changed to the newest version of the software. It gives them many new possibilities and speed up the production process.

Some of the GoT’s scenes that give the producers a challenge include:

lighting up a city of Mereen (day and night circle)
ships being set aflame

With the use of Katana, the developers were able to get through those sequences without a problem. Katana is designed to save time while creating, editing and manipulating lighting and light filters.

The Katana 3.1 was now released and improved many aspects of it’s previous version. The viewport have it’s modernisation, faster rendering with 3DelightNSI, the performance of scene processing improved. This is a short list of what’s new for the artists that uses the software.

Such a nice and useful software can’t be available for free. The official website lets the users to try Katana for free for 30 days and doesn’t shows the full price of the product. However, the developers sells others for a high price, so I can only assume that this software is pricey as well.

This software could be implemented into my own workflow, although it’s more commonly used within the character artists or in VFX industry. There are many environment artists who uses this software as well, as it allow lit the scene with and without additional lighting sources. This could improve my final renders and trailers, so I may at some point download the trial version and experiment with the software.

REFERENCE LIST:

Foundry team, (2018), Katana features., Foundry., [ONLINE]. Available at:
https://www.foundry.com/products/katana/features# (Accessed: 22 April 2019)

3D Artist team, (2018), Lighting the Seven, 3D Artist [magazine]. Issue 122, p. 88

3D Map Generator – ATLAS, TERRAIN & GEO

While completing my own experiment with height map made from an Google Earth image, I came across a Photoshop plugins, that help to generate those maps. It seems to be a very useful tool, which helps a lot whit the process. I know that not many GAME environment artists use height maps for a base of heir levels, but these software may allow them to start doing so.

Although the different versions of this plugin are on the market for a while, the most recent version gain a huge interest recently. The company advertise their software as a game-changing products for creating professional and high-quality maps in no time, so the industry started to put some interest into that.

The example of ‘hot it works’ image from the official website

The plugins are suppose to generate a grayscale height maps and it looks like it’s doing a job pretty well. The images provided by the official website are really impressive. However, not many of them provided a close up of how the actual terrain looks like. This is an important factor for the game designers, less for other artists, so probably that’s the main reason behind it. Even if there is something wrong with the actual density of the close up geometry, I believe this could be easily edited inside the Unreal Engine 4.

A comment provided by the used of the plugin

The software seem to add seamless textures to the terrain as well. I’m not exactly sure how would that work for the game environment, but I hope it could be used in the game at the end.

Would this plugin change the entire process of creating the levels in games? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely worth trying out. However it’s not a free software and have its price (not that high), it may become a time saving tool for any artists.

REFERENCE LIST:

3D Map Generator, (2018), Available at: https://www.3d-map-generator.com/ (Accessed: 20 April 2019)

Envato Market, (2019), Reviews for 3D Map Generator – Atlas – From Heightmap to real 3D map, Available at: https://graphicriver.net/item/3d-map-generator-atlas-from-heightmap-to-real-3d-map/reviews/22277498?page=2 (Accessed: 20 April 2019)