Final cinematic and conclusions

Here is a video of the final cinematic for my scene and a few screenshots:

Higher quality video can be found at the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5CRhnvMHmY&feature=youtu.be

Overall I feel the project went very well. I have learnt a lot of new techniques, experimented with a number of different approaches and created a piece of art that I am happy with. If I were to return to this project at a later date there would be a number of things I would work on. First, I would like to do a highly detailed sculpt of the lion fountain with life-like lions and a second tier. This would make the piece into a highly detailed beauty piece. I would also like to maybe work on more interior rooms as I feel this is my stronger area and where I enjoyed working most.

Better water

I wanted to go back and improve on my water jets and fountain as the materials and way I had done them were not how I would like. For pointers of where to start I went and looked at the Unreal 4 example map on effects. This gave me a good idea on how to use GPU particles for my fountain and water jets.

Old Jet

New Jet

This new jet has a lot more effects on it that make it appear more water like. I took the material for the water particles in the example map and edited it slightly for starters to make the water look how I wanted. I then began working on how the water fell out of he lions move. Initially it was just falling straight down which did not look realistic. I added a constant initial velocity of -50 to it to make it begin to curve outwards.

The next issue was the particle going through the floor on the level. To counteract this I added a collision module. This had the added effect that I could create a subtle water splash effect without the need for another em-miter. I set the collision to bounce and increased the friction. This created a little pool of bouncing particles at the base of the jet which acts like a water splash.

Feedback and improvements to include

One of the main pieces of feedback from the final presentation was to work on the flooring in both the bedroom and courtyard areas. I bgean with the bedroom. I thought about what a high status room may have on the floor and thought of parquet flooring as this is quite expensive. I used references such as seen below.

Hartswood Flooring. (2011). SOLID WALNUT AND WENGE FLOORING BLOCKS. Available: http://www.hartswoodflooring.co.uk/parquet-flooring/walnut-wenge.htm. Last accessed 10/12/2014.

The final result looked like this. I used a dark flooring to match the furniture and style of the room and added a gold trim to show the royal aspect:

After the bedroom I then moved onto the courtyard floor. I tried to add tiles like seen at the bottom of  the image below however I found the floor was then too busy and distracting so I changed it back to my original tiles and broke them up by adding a smaller tile in between each. This added some more variation, more colour and made the floor more interesting.

Guido Montanes Castillo. (2012). Court of the Lions. Available: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/court-of-the-lions-guido-montanes-castillo.html. Last accessed 10/12/2014.

Back to the Bedroom

After getting the courtyard to a stage where I was happy with it I returned to the bedroom. I had worked on this area much more for alpha stage so there was less to do here. I began by re-modelling a chandelier as I did not like the design of the original. I went with a design similar to that below:

Admin of site. (2013). Quoizel's La Parra Collection | Wayfair.Available: http://chandeliersten.com/la-parra-chandelier/. Last accessed 05/12/2014.

I created the mesh, added some basic materials then went about creating candle flames to add some more dynamics to the level. I used the following tutorial as a base for my knowledge. I knew the majority already but wanted to make sure I was getting the best effect I could using that method.

MetalGameStudios. (2014). Unreal Engine 4 Tutorial: Candle Fire Particle (english). Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEzg5g9ikds. Last accessed 6/12/2014.

Particles and dynamic effects

In order to make my scene appear more lifelike and interesting I wanted to add some dynamic effects. I started by looking into particle systems for my fountain. The first stage was to try and create a material for the particle. I added a material of a round water drop. This did not look very good when one particle was being emitted but the more particles there were there the more effective it looked.

To create the fountain style motion I began by messing with the initial velocity of the particle. I wanted it to be moving in an upward direction mainly and then falling back down in various directions. To achieve this I put a large velocity in the Z-axis and smaller ones in the X and Y. This meant the particles went upwards mainly and then out in all directions after a while.

To get the particles to fall back to the ground I added a constant acceleration module with a value of -250 in the Z-axis, this pulled the particles back down to the ground.

The next thing to solve was that the particles would come back down after being emitted from the fountain and then simply fall through the ground forever. To solve this I added a kill module in Cascade and set it to "floor". This meant that when the particle reached that low boundary it would be killed. This also meant that the particle system would continue to run as it never reached the maximum number of particles, whereas previously it would only run for a number of seconds.

I then wanted to add water falling out of some of the lions mouths. I initially tried to do this with particles but I was struggling to get the movement I wanted. My next approach was to build a simple cylinder mesh in the shape that I wanted the water to move in and add my water shader from earlier.

This gave the cylinders a water like look to them however the water was not moving correctly. To alter this I sped up the panners in the shader so it looked like the water was being propelled out the lions mouth. This made the effect look better. I am still not entirely happy with the effect but for times sake I must move on and return at a later date if possible.

After the fountain was looking okay I moved on to add some quick movement to my bushes, bed curtains and banners. I began with the bushes by adding the following nodes in the material:

This set up gave a slight ripple to the leaves which worked well. I did not want to have too much movement or it would look unnatural.

For my net curtains I used a sine node and a panner in the material editor, plugged into the world position offset. This gave a simple ripple movement which looks like a light breeze is affecting the fabric. I set the panner to the same kind of value as the bush movement to make sure the wind speed is consistent throughout the level.

Ivy and Banners

After adding some dynamic effects to my scene, I felt the courtyard was looking empty so I began to think of more of a back story to the area to help me with ideas for what props to add. I came up with the idea that the palace was being prepared for the royal return. The family has been away, perhaps on holiday or to visit family and is now returning. They would obviously expect the palace to be in top condition and clean. This explains the trimmed bushes and tidy bedroom. The outer courtyard stone will be worn down as it is not a newly erected palace however it will not be so old that the pillars are falling apart or cracks everywhere. With this story in mind I began to think of what would be arranged for the family's arrival and thought about having banners with the family crest on. I went and did some research to find out the name of the family who used to live at the Alhambra and discovered the name "Mohammed I ibn Nasr". This was a prominent family in the Masrid dynasty and the coat of arms for this was as follows:

Heralder. (2013). Coat of Arms of the Emirate of Granada (1013-1492). Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasrid_dynasty#mediaviewer/File:Coat_of_Arms_of_the_Emirate_of_Granada_(1013-1492).svg. Last accessed 28/11/2014.

The next task was to add this symbol to some banners and dress the courtyard area.

I chose the colours for the banners based on the family's colours and the bedroom colours I had chosen earlier in the project. I wanted to tie in the two rooms so they felt like part of the same building even though one was exterior and one was interior. It was a nice coincidence that the red colour of the family crest was near the same colour of the furniture I had used inside so it did not require much tweaking.

For extra detail I added some ivy running down off some of the roof section. I used an ivy generator to get a basic ivy mesh. 

I found this was very useful as it helped vastly with the time element. If I had created my own ivy leaf (sculpted in ZBrush, baked and then placed hundreds over some branches) it would have taken twice as long if not longer. It took a bit of time to understand the ivy generator and to get some pieces that I was happy with me but it was still quicker than any other attempts I had made. I added my own textures and materials to the leaves and branches then placed a number of clumps around the scene to add more colour variation to the scene.

Thomas Luft. (2008). An Ivy Generator. Available: http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy_generator/. Last accessed 30/11/2014.

Water Shader

To add some dynamic elements to my scene I worked on creating a simple water shader for the fountain. I used the following tutorial for the base shader then tweaked values and settings to my won design.

Pub Games. (2014). UE4 - Interior Water #1. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPmRV1Z9ikY. Last accessed 27/11/2014.

One of the first issues I faced was making sure that the water was moving in the right direction. Using the values from the tutorial made my water move incorrectly and stretched it. To counteract this I simply has to change the RGB values on the panner to correspond to the correct axis.

Incorrect panning

The next issue was making the water the colour I wanted it to be. The tutorial gives a completely see through, almost black water colour and I wanted a much nicer clear blue colour. To change this I added an albedo map in the base colour section instead of using an RGB value. By doing this I got a more natural colour but I also had to make sure that the texture map was using a panner as well so it blended into the motion of the water.

When playing around with the panners I realised that the water was moving too fast for the wind speed in the environment so I lowered the panner constant values to decrease this. I also noticed that the water was too transparent so I played with the depth fade value so that the water was not disappearing too soon for the player to even see it.

Final Shader:

UPDATE: I used rotators instead of panners for the final water shader as it gave a more realistic feel to the water movement.

Courtyard colour scheme

After spending some more time on my courtyard area I began to realise it was all very similar colours and I wanted to introduce some colour. I had recently played a section of Dragon Age Inquisition that was in a slightly Moorish style.

Ian Miles Cheong. (2014). Dragon Age 3: Inquisition Screenshots Surface With New Details. Available: http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/23326/article/dragon-age-3-inquisition-screenshots-surface-with-new-details/. Last accessed 30/11/2014.

Looking at this area I drew inspiration to add some blues to the area so I began to experiment with different combinations.

Original

Added in blue

With blue and gold

I wanted to make the courtyard feel more like a royal palace so with inspiration from the Dragon Age scene added in some gold elements. I feel this works well at framing the edges and makes the scene a lot more visually interesting. I may tone the gold down so its not quite so shiny and to make it look weathered but I am happy with the colour scheme thus far.

UPDATE: 02/12/2014: I have added a roughnesss element to the gold so it still looks like metal but is not so blinding when the sunlight reflects off it. It still shines when the camera/player runs alongside it but it blends in nicer now and does not distract the eye from the rest of the scene.

Courtyard Work

The main area I wanted to focus on now was the courtyard as I had spent most time working on the interior bedroom area. I began by changing the flooring to a tiled surface instead of the gravel texture that was previously applied.

Before

After

This makes the area feel more like a patio and gives the floor more definition and interest. After the floor I then added a lip to the archways so the pattern did not stop so abruptly, added a walkway around the patio area under the archways to break up the are some more.

Lip and walkway (base textures)

The next steps after alpha

After alpha feedback there was a lot of things to work on so I created a list do I could then replan my time.

1) Cut off living room area - this will allow me more time to polish the bedroom and courtyard areas rather than spreading myself thin and making each area average.
2) Set the scene - create variation, add small assets to tell a story, make the scene look lived in
3) Work on the fountain - really push this as my beauty piece, resculpt the lions, add another tier maybe and texture well.
4) Work on the courtyard - create a tiled floor, make the plant pots look like they are part of the floor, add a lip to the archways so that the texture does not end abruptly
5) Create some trim texture to add variation and make the rooms look more interesting

Things to look into:
- Vertex animation on curtains
- Water shader
- God ray creation

Alpha Stage cinematic

This is a video of my cinematic in its current state. For alpha I made sure all content and models were imported and all models had at least base textures on.

The next stage:
After alpha these are the things I need to work on for the final result

1) Resculpt lions and rebake higher resolution normal and AO maps
2) Add more variation to plant life
3) Finalize all textures
4) Improve lighting - try and get light shafts through the windows and maybe some dust motes
5) Make own water shader to add to the water channels and water pool.

Lighting Problems

I now have all models in Unreal 4 and all with at least a base colour applied. This means the scene is starting to represent how it will look in the final result. The next stage is to add some lighting.

At this stage I started encountering errors. There are large seams down each modular piece of the walls and light seems to be coming through as if the models are not there at all. This was the first major area to fix. I started by changing settings in the indirect lighting, sky light and light mass settings. All of these reduced the seam but did not get rid of it. I looked to see if there was a lightmap issue that was causing the error. I made sure each UV was snapped to a pixel and that there was enough padding around the edge. This did not fix the issue either. In the end it was decided to combine all my modular pieces together into one wall for each room. This fixed the seams.

(left: uncombined walls, seam, right: combined walls, no seam)

Another issue I had was the directional light bleeding through the corners, top and bottom of my walls. I needed to keep this light in to simulate the sunlight outside. I tried searching for a solution online and may people had experienced this problem with no real answer or solution. In order to combat this I added a small BSP volume behind each wall, this stopped the light bleeding through fixed the issue for now. For final presentation I will try and find a more feasible solution but as the camera for the flythrough will not go near any windows so will not show this BSP it seems suitable for now. In future I will add thickness to the walls in Maya and simply not UV map or texture the back faces.

Materials

On the run up to alpha I started to look at making materials look more lifelike using normals, roughness and metallic maps. I mainly focused on the large assets to begin with such as the walls and floors.

The above image is showing the difference between the original bedroom floor (left) and when I created a normal map and tweaked the roughness value (right). You can see the normal map adds in all the little ridges in the tiles and makes them feel more worn and less polished.

This image shows the same effect on the wall tiles. Before (left) they did not have a roughness map or any normals. I created roughness map with a small wave texture on the tiled area. This added the reflective effect to the tiles and the wave stopped them from looking too smooth.

Lion Fountain

I originally planned to do my lion fountain key piece first, however I needed to spend time researching how best to approach it. I now feel I have a good idea where to start so began with a base model in Maya which I will then take into ZBrush to sculpt in the details and bake a normal map from.

First stage was to create the low poly lion. I used reference images on planes to get the basic shape as accurate as possible. I then took this low poly mesh into ZBrush and began to sculpt the details on. I began by trying to make the edges look like stone using the flattern brush and used the dam standard and clay-buildup brushes on the face and feet. I then used a hair like alpha on the mane.

After adding all the facial details to the lion, I exported the high poly, dropped down the lowest subdivision and exported this as my low poly. This way I could make sure that all the geometry lined up correctly and hopefully would prevent baking issues,

The next stage was to bake the maps. I originally tried to bake the maps using XNormals but found strange artifacts appeared on the back legs. Unsure what was causing the issue I tried using Mayas transfer maps option. This worked well and all the detail was transferred to the low poly mesh. I created a normal and AO map which I then took into Unreal 4 along with the base fountain mesh.

I noticed the AO map was causing ugly seams on the edges of the model and that the normals could be crisper so the next stage will be to improve the textures and maps for this model. With alpha fast approaching and my own personal deadline of having everything modelled and in by week 6 I decided to move on from this area and focus on getting the map ready for alpha. I will return when all models are imported and apply better textures.

UVing and starting to put interior assets in Unreal

After modelling most of the interior assets, I began to put them into Unreal. This meant I could play around with the layout of each room. I wanted to make sure each room did not feel empty yet was not overcrowded. I also wanted to tell a story with the assets I included. I wanted to make the rooms feel inhabited and furnished in a Moorish style as if the palace was being used again. With more time I would have loved too add a lot of small assets on the dressing tables and on surfaces but for now I have just allowed time for base assets to describe the role of each room.

Archways in Unreal 4

I decided to get my archways finished and in Unreal fairly switfly in order to get the main patio area of the scene looking more life like. I focused on getting the normals on the patterned arch working. I decided to go with a simple pattern for the normals and just use the diffuse map for the highly detailed centre pieces. I feel this will make the scene read better and make the normals look less noisy like the original tests.

I added a very simple base colour and AO map to the sections in order to check the normals worked correctly. At first, when imported into Unreal, the normals were reversed to what was being viewed in Maya. In order to solve this problem I went back to the normal map in Photoshop and reversed the green channel in the map. This fixed the issue when the normals were plugged into the Unreal 4 shader,

Another key decision I made with these pillars and archways was to have them as seperate pieces. The pillars are seperate as then I can use them elsewhere as assets inside the rooms and it gives me more flexibility for changing any specific instances if I feel the scene needs more variation in the future.

Interior Assets

Due to being at home for a few days and unable to access ZBrush to complete the sculpting on my highpoly arches, I decided to at least get some work done. I began to focus on getting some of the interior assets done so it would make it quicker to place everyhting inside Unreal4.

When beginning to think about my interior assets I started to create a moodboard. Many of the images I found were of 19th century Moorish furniture but the style is still accurate as it was copied from the original 13th century style.
I discovered that the shapes of the furniture were quite simple and that the work would come in the fine detailing on the textures.

Beginning to Model

The first area I focused on modelling was the archways in the main patio area. This took me longer than expected as I encountered a number of problems.
I began by making a high poly version of each then took these into ZBrush to add all the extra details I could not recreate in Maya.

I encountered a problem early on. When I imported into ZBrush to add my alpha detail, the mesh was not subdividing correctly so the alpha was not displaying correctly. After some experimentation I found that adding the tris and quads in Maya before hand fixed these issues.

The next issue I came across was how to make the pattern the right size and repetition. I initially experimented with simply dragging the alpha over the area of the mesh but this made it hard to tile more and resize. I then experimented with the projection master.This allowed me to reposition, tile and generally have more control over where my alpha got placed. I also found that the alpha I had originally created had too much noise in it so the detail was not crisp enough. I then decided to use a more simple design.

Above: Drag rectangle and noisy alpha. Below: Projection master and simple alpha

My next stage will be to add all the details I want on the arches in ZBrush, create a low poly and bake the details down into a normal map that I can import into Unreal 4.

Blockout Stage and Planning

After deciding on where I wanted the project to go I began to create a simple blockout in Unreal 4. This would help get a good scale for the environment and make it easier to work out how a camera could move out the environment. I used the geometry brushes in Unreal 4 for the basic wall sections and created a few quick static meshes for other assets to represent the scene better. I will go back and improve these models later on and do high poly bakes.

After creating a blockout I made a quick mock-up of what a cinematic fly-through of the level may look like. I focused on key features such as the central fountain in the patio and other assets that told the story of what each room is.

Planning:
After creating the blockout I began to plan out the rest of my project. I created a simple asset list that included the minimum amount of assets I needed to produce. If I end up feeling the room are too empty or that I have time left over I will create more meshes and assets to bring the scene to life.

Main Patio Area:

·         Lion fountain – one complete lion, one slightly broken to make some variation

·         Modular sections of columns 

·         Spare column for corners and extras

·         Water channels

·         Foliage – bushes, trees?

·         Roofs

Living Room:

·         Sofas

·         Chairs

·         Cushions

·         Tables

·         Lamps

·         Central fountain/water pool

·         Shutters on windows

·         Chandelier

·         Plants

Bedroom:

·         Four-poster bed with drapes

·         Bedside table

·         Lamp

·         Ceiling light

·         Dressing table

·         Wardrobe

·         Chest of drawers

·         Shutters and drapes on windows

Other:

·         Sky out of windows

·         Terrain out of windows and over walls on patio

By calculating how long it will take me on average for each asset (and overestimating slightly on each) I then created a basic gantt chart. This shows that if I stick to the plan below I can be finished about a week before the deadline. I would like to stick to this plan as it means I will have a week to polish the level however I am aware that other modules, events and circumstances may get in the way.

I had originally created a few basic milestones for myself. I aimed to get all the assets modelled and UV'd by week 6 latest so I have time to base texture before the alpha milestone at week 8. After creating the gantt chart I realised that this may be unacheivable and a more realistic milestone would be week 7. I had also thought about having a milestone for week 10 of everything finished but this again was pushed back to week 11 on my gantt chart after looking at the hours required for each task. If I find that I get things done quicker than illustrated in this gantt chart I will return to my original milestones of week 6 and 10.

Alhambra From an Environment Project View

After finding a floor plan of the Alhambra and discovering that the palace was rather large, I decided to choose an area of the palace to work on instead of attempting the whole thing. I wanted to choose an area with both interior and exterior elements. I also wanted an area that would work well as a game level with multiple rooms, levels and variations in appearance. For this reason I decided to choose the area surrounding the Patio of the Lions.

After deciding on an area, the next stage to research what will be placed in each room asset wise, any key features and make a plan of action.

Patio of the Lions

•  12 lion fountain made from white marble
• 124 white marble columns
• Large semi-circular arches leading to the two halls on either side

Marten Kuilman, (2012), DOC69/8267 - Plan of the Court of Lions (Patio de los Leones) [ONLINE]. Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/quadralectics/8145825124/in/photostream/ [Accessed 27 September 14].

Hall of the Abencerrajes  

• Named after the knights who were beheaded there
•  Rust stain covering part of the marble fountain in the centre which is said to be a bloodstain from this event

 islamic-arts.org Team, (2011), Alhambra: Hall of the Abencerrajes [ONLINE]. Available at: http://islamic-arts.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/5837067000_052fe51c65_o.jpg [Accessed 27 September 14].

Hall of the Two Sisters

• Named after the twin marble flagstones in part of the floor
• Entered through stone archway with wooden doors
• Channel of water that leads to Patio of the Lions

The interiors of both of the side rooms are fairly empty of assets and most of the detailing is in the tiling and stonework. In order to have some creativity, and to make the rooms more interesting from a game level perspective, I will look at the various interiors of Moorish rooms and add in some furniture, cushions and various assets from these. All will be from the same time period and historically accurate just in a different location.