Forgot to mention one thing

So I almost managed to model everything that i wanted to, but unfortunately I ran out of time so I was unable to model the forklift vehicle, the computer and finish the modular pipe. These things were kind of extra and weren't entirely necessary, however, they would have added more depth to the level and made it more interesting visually. I'm going to try and get them finished over winter break and then I will truly be finished. Here's my asset list as of Monday of finals week.

Promotional Material

I have finished my fly-through video of my level and now I'm just working on finalizing everything for the Project Realization DVD. Should be finished later today sometime and I want to try and present on Tuesday if possible.

Level finished - UDK Multiplayer Map - Altus Base

Other than a few minor tweaks that still need to be done, my level is finished! There's also the fact that I still have to make my promotional material and the final DVD this weekend, so for the most part I can't continue on the level until after the quarter. Here are some screenshots. All assets (models and  textures)  are all done by me.

Texture sizes and UDK Packages

Everything has been going smoothly besides one thing. UDK keeps reminding me every time I save that the  package is over 300mb and that I should split it up. I was wondering why it was even saying this at all, but then I realized that most of my textures that I imported were 2048x2048. I forgot to resize them before bringing them in and it is eating up most of the recommended 300mb limit per package. So, I'll be spending some time resizing the textures to 1024x1024 in photoshop and then creating new packages with both the models and the textures that go together and then using the replace option to quickly swap out what I need to in the level. It shouldn't take long but at this point I can't be wasting too much time.

Other stuff - BSP textures

Besides texturing my models, I have decided to also make some tileable textures that I can use on some of the BSPs in UDK. There probably isn't enough time to create more unique models to replace some of the BSPs so this seemed like a good idea. I have taken the same approach and made diffuse, specular, occlusion, normal and emissive maps for them at 1024x1024.

Final Lighting setup

I've gone back into UDK and finalized my lighting setup. Basically my main light source is the sun (or whatever star this fictional planet orbits around ) and that was created using a dominant directional light with a yellowish color applied to it to give a sunset like quality. The rest of my lights are a mix of spotlights and pointlights. They pretty much simulate the effects of the emissive maps on my models. I could have actually gone in and enabled use emissive as light source for my models, but it was hard to control the effects and sometimes it just didn't look as good. This does add to render times as I bring in my models and set dress the level, but I was just getting annoyed with the temporary construction lighting I had. This also helps me get a better sense of how the textures will be affected by the lights.

Working

(Oct. 26th)
Still modeling, UVing, and texturing as much as I can. Hopefully I'll have at least half of the models completely finished by week 8 but it feels more and more like I'm falling behind schedule. I've gone back and simplified some of my models and scaled back the amount of texturing that needs to be done on some. I'm trying not to cut too many corners yet.

Asset List

I forgot to post my asset list before, so here it is! There's actual a couple of models that are not on the list mainly because I don't know if I'll have time to make them.

Added some models to level

I recently added some of my untextured models to the blocked out level. I imported a ceiling component, a wall vent asset, and the support frame assets in the middle of the level. I plan on splitting the model for the ceiling since it was too big and isn't modular in this case. I'm still modeling and UV mapping tons of other models but things are starting to get tedious. Also, this is not my final lighting scheme in case anyone was wondering.

Level blocked out in UDK

At this point I have my refined level layout blocked out in UDK with BSPs. There aren't any of my static meshes in this shot. The ceiling is way too high though so I'll have to go back in and fix it.

                                         

Models

Here are some of the models in their early stages. I've been modeling and then immediately UV mapping for each one. I figured that 1 unit in Maya measurements equals 1 unit in UDK so that's how I've been sizing everything. I will still export the models from Maya and import them into UDK right after I finish UV mapping mainly to get an idea of what it will look like in the actual space and to see if I need to go back into Maya and correct anything. 

 

Textures for UDK Materials

I wanted to show some of the textures that I made for use in my level. I'm not going to post all of them because there are too many, but I'll post some of the main textures that will be featured. I tried to keep most of my textures dirtied up and most everything will be enhanced by a detail normal map in the final product. All texture sets here include a diffuse, normal and specular map. I'm going to also create detail normal maps and emissive maps later on for most of my models.

Stuff

Hey guys, basically everything after this post is stuff that I forgot to post ever since week 6. I had all this stuff written and thought out before hand, just never got around to posting on the blog.

Textures

Most of the textures I'll be using in my level are metal and concrete, basically industrial materials that are common for hard edged objects.  Here are a few that I found that are similar to what I am going to use.

Refined Level

I recently reworked parts of my level. The layout has changed a little bit but not enough to majorly delay anything. I felt that the old layout needed to be tweaked and now I'm a lot happier with the way it is. Now I'm just going to continued to model and texture all my assets and hopefully be done in the next week with most of that.

Final Pitch

For my final pitch, I have decided to stick with my original idea and so a completely sci-fi multiplayer level. I feel that this will be more beneficial for my portfolio at this point. So far I have an overhead layout and some concept sketches, and more to come. The bottom 4 images are from Killzone 2 and Mass Effect and are similar to the style that I would like to achieve in my level.