Part Five: Games Art Asset, Viper Mk II Variant (CGA Year Two)

I placed my ship into unity and applied all of the combined materials. I then animated the ship, jets and camera. The camera spins around the ship covering the whole model. I also added sounds to the scene, including the main opening soundtrack to Battlestar galactica.

I also added particle effects, a skybox, lights and a flare behind the directional light so it looks like the ship is flying past a star.

Here are some screenshots covering the one minute animation that displays my model.

The camera pulls away from the ship towards the end making it seem like its speeding off into the distance.

This scene is the conclusion to this project. I am happy with the way the ship, and the unity scene turned out. However I did make a few mistakes along the way. but I learned from these mistakes and I feel as if during the next project I do will be better.

Part Five: Games Art Asset, Viper Mk II Variant (CGA Year Two)

 I began laying out my UV's in preparation for X Normal. The fan blades were the first thing I baked onto my low poly, I created an ambient occlusion map and a normal map. Then pieced them together in Quixel. I also applied all of my materials using colour ID's in Quixel. This is the process I used for all the assets on my ship. Using 3DO I will paint decals and extra detail using paint layers, I will also use NDO to create extra detail on my normal maps.

Fan Blades in Quixel, textured using DDO.

I had to create a cage to bake the main body of the ship. I did this to stop details from the high poly being baked onto the opposite side of the mesh.

Here is the final texture on the main body. I used the paint tools in 3DO to add all of the details. I got the decals from a fan made site detailing the creation of Battlestar Galactica.

Here is the UV layout of the cockpit.

Here is the finished, textured version of the cockpit. I used colour IDs to separate the frame from the windows.

Next I baked the jet fins down onto a low poly mesh. However there was a problem with the bake that I couldn't fix using X Normal. So I had to take the maps into Photoshop and fix them manually.

Problem area.

Here you can see the part of the normal map causing the issue.

I fixed it by painting it out using a tablet. It was time consuming but definitely worth it.

I did this across the whole normal map. 

The ambient occlusion also needed to be fixed.

Fixed normal map, broken AO map.

I did the same thing with the AO that I did with the normal map and painted the problem areas.

Here you can see the end result. I then applied a material to the mesh in Quixel.

I carried on like this for the whole ship. However when I finished I realized there was a problem. I placed the ship into Unity with the materials and it became evident to me that I had too many materials for a single asset. I had 11 4k materials. While this created a great looking ship it was too much. So I began cutting the number of materials down by combining the meshes and materials together.

I combined the UV's and the materials down reducing the number of materials in Unity from 11 to 4.

Here is an example of one of the combined maps. I did this for the Albedo, AO, normal and specular. I have 3 other materials like this.

Part Four: Games Art Asset, Viper Mk II Variant (CGA Year Two)

Here is the low poly version of my ship. I took the high poly, deleted any unnecessary geometry and removed edge loops that weren't crucial to the overall shape. I also tweaked my typology and edge flow to ensure an even surface across all of my meshes.

Total tri count for the low poly: 36,191.

I now need to UV my ship and begin the texturing process.

Quixel: Texturing Objects (CGA Year Two)

In today's class I learnt how to create and edit materials in Quixel.

All models were given to me by Phil, our tutor.

I used 3DO to view the material on the object.

I then used Dynamask to further adjust the way the material looked.

After I learnt how to use Dynamask I began work on a model using colour ID's. Colour ID's allow me to have multiple materials on the same object.

Me using colour ID's to specify where I want to place materials.

Unfortunately Quixel can be unreliable and crashed multiple times whilst I was working.

However I finally managed to finish the project, leaving me with a nicely textured model.

Part Three: Games Art Asset, Viper Mk II Variant (CGA Year Two)

I chose which grey box I wanted to use (number 7) and started to build onto it. Adding details such as engines, guns, ect. I plan to create the high poly first then create the low poly from it.

I further defined the shape of the ship as I went along; changing my design as I please. I did however keep in mind my source of inspiration (Viper Mk II), I also tried to think of practical uses/ defenses for every part of the ship as I built it.

I kept adding detail such as fan blades inside the engine and fins on the jets. I used the F16 fighter jet as inspiration for the fins copying their design as closely as I could.

Eventually I decided to stop and build my low poly. I didn't want to add too much detail to the high poly or it could be difficult to bake down onto the low poly. And I wanted to maintain a simplistic design similar to that of the Viper Mk II.

Total tri count for the high poly: 161,419.

Part Two: Games Art Asset, Viper Mk II Variant (CGA Year Two)

 This is the initial grey box I created to aid Me in designing a a new Viper variant to fit into the Battlestar Galactica universe.

To create the grey box I used 4 images of the Viper in conjunction with each other, one from the top, the side, the back and the front. I then used these as My guide to ensure the shape and proportions were accurate.

Off of this greybox I built multiple different variants of the original Viper. However I was finding it difficult to create a design I was happy with using solely the Vipers body. I then began building away from the original design to create something similar in nature to the Viper, yet different enough to be able to call it My own. This helped Me to create this . . .

I really liked this design at first, however I feel as if its not futuristic enough to fit into the Battlestar universe. I decided to keep the body and change the wings, I then began to experiment with a more sleak wing design.

I took a single sleak wing design I created and began altering the shape of its wings. Experimenting with the shape really helped Me to get a grip on the type of space ship I want to create. I narrowed down My designs into ten I liked, then began sorting through them until I found two I thought were best. I chose to move forward with 7 and 8.

Now all I need to do is decide which of these two designs I like. Then I can begin modelling the ship in detail.

You can see here how much ive experimented so far with this design. Now I can narrow down and begin working on the final model.