started the unreal bit

still got a few more bits to import and ive noticed theres a few bits that i didnt sort smoothing groups out on but things are working nicely in udk.

everythings normal.........

......well almost.

I've spent today making specular and normal maps for the 3 texture maps i will be using for the modular pieces, i have completed all 3 specular maps but the normals are taking slightly longer than my usual work flow because i am painting in details by hand and not relying solely on the nvidia filter/crazy bump. i plan on having all 3 normal maps completed by the weekend then i can start to think about the hero building for this scene.

you'll notice across the images below that some areas dont have a normal map as i said above i only completed 1 so far but atleast it will help you to see what the normals are doing. its most notable on the roof tiles and the bars on the windows which aren't modelled in but the normal does a good job of faking it.

bringing it together

So heres the test building in 3ds just need to work on the specular and normal maps for the 3 textures used then i can get the pieces into unreal and start "legoing" the background buildings together.

lesson learnt

modular building is awesome and well worth taking the time to plan it out 1st, getting your texture on the grid so that in max its on the grid which means in unreal (or any engine) it'll be on the grid works so well but as i found out today make sure you do your maths and make your textures the right size when taking then into max.

i made my textures at 4096 so that i could have them extra crisp for max renders but i also made all my modular pieces from that 4096 texture sheet so in case you haven't cottoned on yet my models are HUGE, in the picture below the little green box next to the door is 96 units high (an unreal character) scales a bit off huh.

modular building blocks

right so the 1st set of modular building blocks are complete i have another sheet like this to make that has the likes of doors and more variants of the wall pieces that i will get done tomorrow then i can start building the actual houses and work out the roofs which will be a bit harder as theres going to be some weird angles to work out but hey i'll figure it out pretty quickly.


heres how i got to this point

1./ i spent a day working out what pieces i would need, things footings, lower wall section, dividers, upper wall sections, roof wall sections.

2./ i then drew on a piece of paper and plotted a basic idea of where each piece would live on the texture sheet, which i followed when creating the image below. (the black area on the image will eventually house something i just dont know what yet) when creating the texture i set my grid in photoshop to 32 pixels so that everything in 3ds will align on a 32 unit grid and again will align in udk.


3./ once the texture was finished i applied it to a plane in 3ds and started to cut the plane up into each individual piece.

4./ i made each individual piece 32 units wide (which i know is way too thick for a wall in a game engine but once i have everything how i want it i will start to resize for udk) to make thepiece 32 units i just extruded the piece and capped the hole in the back.

5./ i then started to cut in details and extruded then out (or in depending on what needed to be done) i then had to uvw map the extrusions to clear up the stretching from the new polys i had created.


6./ i now have to reset the pivot points so that every pieces pivot was on the bottom left rear vertex and then center the piece to the world origin in max so that each piece will snap together snuggly. (i havent done this bit yet the next image i just aligned everything by eye but i dont want to do that for the actual scene)


and thats the final modular facade, it works quite nicely and given there are no normal or specular maps in the scene at the moment the details i cut in are doing the job quite nicely so i will only have to create normals for the smaller details such as the bricks and bars on the windows.