13/12/17

Final Render

Todays session consisted of finalizing the environment level.  Making sure all assets were textured and ready to be exported into Unreal.  The below images are the textured assets in Maya before being exported into Unreal.

The next stage was to export into Unreal.  Initially selecting all the objects of the environment, and export all option.

Selecting a first person option for the project in Unreal, and importing the environment into the game engine and creating a project file, the final work for the environment could be finished off.   The final work included lighting, rendering and adding collision to the environment.


The first issue with initially importing the level into Unreal.  The environment had been imported all separately.  This caused problems with building the lighting as originally there was 138 objects.  Making the environment pitch black.  Although that was corrected by adding lighting points to the environment, the next problem was collision for the room.  This meant that every object imported need its own collision.  It was decided in order to be efficient, to go back into Maya and connect the items together.  The walls were designed modular thus all separate panels.  This second attempt would mean combing assets together in groups.  Thus reducing the number of items exported to Unreal.

The second attempt was more successful than the first.  The lighting, rendering and collision were easier and more successful and worked.  Objects imported were reduced down to 22 objects. However, the problem occurred when testing the environment in gameplay.  The character was starting on top of the environment rather than in the environment.  This was down to collision with the assets and the environment had been sent as one whole item rather separately.

On the third attempt, when exporting the items and environment out to Unreal from Maya, the option to export all or export selection, export selection was chosen.  Once in Unreal, checking the lighting was correct, rendering had worked and collision was correct.  Objects imported this time were down to 15.  There was another problem initially with the collision with the floor.  The character was falling through the floor every time from the start point.  The collision had to be changed in its options box for Unreal to recognise the collision as simple to complex.  This resolved the character falling through the floor.  Once this was corrected, everything worked as expected.  The character was able to move around, shoot.

The last things that need correcting were the likes of the corners of the room.  The wall corners had been imported from Maya and arrived in Unreal, however the issue occurred with the textures.  When moving around the room, it was possible for the character to look out the room and see blue sky.  This was corrected by finding the textures files for the wall corners and placing them into the wall corner file, so there were no spaces between the walls.

After these issues had been resolved, the ceiling was imported for the level, and two planes added for behind the window.  One had an image of space added to the plane, to give the impression of looking out into space from the laboratory window.  The other used a transparent material that had been used for the test tubes, to give the impression of glass for the window.

Further elements for assets were added in terms of texturing.  Only until after the environment had be packaged, was it realised that not all the textures had been applied to the assets.  Textures that had been missing, were roughness, metallic and so fourth to give the assets a more realistic feel and effect for the environment.  These extra texture files were added to the main asset file in Unreal and linking the blue prints points appropriately for Uv, Metallica, roughness, so the assets in the environment would show these qualities.

Once all the textures had been corrected, and it was made sure that the character could move around the scene with no problems and collision and lighting were in working order, the environment was packaged for submission.

Group Communication

The idea with the group was that the environments would be connected in Unreal to each other through corridors.  However, there was not enough time to develop corridors, and the other two members of the group were not up to the same level in terms of completing the other environments at the same time.  Thus not being able to upload the other two environments at the same time as the laboratory into Unreal and connecting them together.  One member did not turn up into class and another had not finished Uv editing and texturing assets.

Now the environment has now been packaged, this now concludes the module.