Sunday 3 March 2013

FMP 09 Progress

The ship has come along leaps and bounds this week and i've never been so in too a project this far in. I made up for the time i lost a few weeks back and i've worked on improving the silhouette and realism of the ship, rather than moving away from something i was enjoying and progressing so quickly on.
This was the stage i was up to at around Wednesday  i'd put a lot of the base textures on my assets to get a feel of scale for the tillable and whether the colour pallet was working and if there were any noticeable problems. I had to re-unwrap the hull as there was some texture stretching from some additions i had added through this week. 

I also made use of some basic decals to break up the tillable textures and add more texture variation and colour. I used a leaking decal as well as two wood variation textures. I also down sized all of my original textures as i was still using the TIFF files in many cases instead of the downsized DDS files. This literally didn't affect the texture resolution at all which i was really surprised at, i think this was because they were being reduced in engine anyway.

This was the ship as of about an hour ago. Just looking at difference you can see i have broken up the hull with steps, ive added in the cannon hole flaps which breaks up the silhouette even more and brings it away from looking repetitive. I've worked on the rigging and the mast a lot this week. I've broken up the colours with some red on the central mast. I reckon i might add some sculpted details, such as lantern holders and rope ties around the masts. The rigging was unwrapped properly this week and i've managed to use my rope textures for both the new smaller rope and the older thicker ropes by using colour grading in the diffuse in Cry. I'm aiming to break up the ship and bring it to life even more by adding the rope tied areas and maybe have some broken parts. 

It was this week that i considered the option that this ship was in for minor repairs and i might have areas with fresh paint decals and paint buckets on the rigging supports. I still need to model and bake down the rigging pully's to give them more definition as they are currently using another textured area of the rigging unwrap. The front of my model got some TLC this week and ive added some support joists and a more interesting silhouette and appearance to the front sections. I'm aiming to have some more fine details in these areas as well but that will progress when i get to a further stage.

I'm still not completely happy with the railings around the ship and i think i'll have to go back to these at some point and try to break up the repetitiveness of them. Maybe use some rope rigging on some areas or have some more intricate pieces at ends and bends.

One area that i focused on this week was the interior, being at least a month in to this project means that i should at least have a block out and i'd had enough of making myself put it off. I white boxed it in max and tried to get the right shape and size of rooms and assets. I'm aiming on having the captains quarters and the first and second's mate area playable. I had to go back between max and cry a few times to scale chair and tables down to give them the right look but other than this i didn't run into a lot of problems. The inside of the ship was changed to incorporate flat sides to allow furniture to fit easily and i added portholes to the rooms to add a bit more light and break up the walls. 

I'm glad a white boxed it as it gives me a clear understanding of what is needed in the rooms and how long i should spend on it. I want the interior to be a main focal point of the ship so it needs to look the best i can manage. I produce a grey scale paint over to give a sense of what i wanted to achieve in doors and it also give me a very quick and easy way to concept.

The exterior is back, broke up the flat pieces with planks and i think i've blocked out the final size and layout for the overhang part of the harbour. I want to have a few boxes and barrels waiting to be delivered or loaded. I might see how feasible it would be to have a crane lifting a cannon onto the ship but i have to consider the time constraints for the project.

I added the interlacing of the rigging and my oh my it was expensive, i used 5 sided ropes and it came to 53k of roped rigging. Didn't have any visible negative effect on the frame rate for my level so its staying, and it seems like the only way i would be able to make it look good.
Other notes would be, need more cool colours, i toned down the blackness of the shadows which helped a little and also made areas more visible. I might have the cool colours coming from the sure. The whole beacon in a dim world thing going on.

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