Damaged Pillar: Doric Column Map Renders

Albedo Map
Using two photographs of sandstone

Normal Map
Obtained from Xnormal after hours of work

Ambient Occlusion Map
Made using an AO map from Xnormal and Quixel merged together

Xnormal AO

Quixel AO

Specular map
Converted from Normal Map in Quixel

Height Map
Absolutely no, this did not work

Displacement Map
Also no, this was an absolute failure

Damaged Pillar: Doric Column Normal Mapping

1. Too low resolution

2. Not dense enough

3. What

4. This is better

















5. Why are you doing this to me

6. Finally

7. This is wrong, damn you Quixel

8. Strange glitches on square face

Object space map, just to see if I could.

Damaged Pillar: Doric Column

After struggling for a while to model my first pillar design, I moved onto something a little more achievable. I began to design the low poly mesh as a Doric Column.

After placing all of the largest shapes in the correct areas, extruding and combining the bottom and top half; I was ready to export the mesh from Maya as an OBJ file and import it to Zbrush.

Whilst in Zbrush I attacked my column with all of the wear and tear I wanted to see on the final render.

I realized I had missed a step in decimating my mesh, as the damaged sections were far too high in tri count in comparison to the rest of my mesh.

I decimated my mesh in Zbrush then reimported it. From left to right are the; Decimated, Low Poly, Damage and High Poly meshes. The damage now had to be bridged onto the low poly.

Bridging 1

Bridging 2

This process is not exactly difficult, but it is one of the most time consuming tasks I have ever encountered. It can become quite dull after a while, though the finished result is worth the effort.

UV mapping

Baking

Something went horribly wrong with my bake and the normals were crushed, stretched and distorted. I spent a long time attempting to fix this as can be seen below.

My first UV map, which did work, but it wasn't densely packed enough to make use of the 2048x2048 resolution.

I encountered issues with this map and I am still unsure why. The low poly and cage were both the exact same topology and the high poly was in the exact same position.

I decided it would be easiest to map the whole model again as opposed to puzzling over it for hours on end.

Here can be seen my final UV map, which worked perfectly. I am extremely happy to have this finished.

GS: 2000 word report/essay

Write about what a game does and/or means to its players

What does the game do for who

What do the games narrative and mechanics mean to the player

Metagames, what do games say about games

How does the gamd respect diversity

Look at your bibliography, are the authors respectable

Think about art theory, philosophy, literary theory, this shows how in depth you have thought about what you're writing

Allow time for editing - leave for a day and come back

There's a 10% margin either way

Get down the descriptions first then edit later

14th Apr Video Game Studies: Reflecting (on) games

- magic circle
   - a games stuck in development for 40 years
   - you are in essence a play tester, editing and  improving the game as you play

- far cry primal
   - critics disapproved, claiming the game to be nothing more than inflated dlc

- meta games
- Stanley parable and Undertale
   - Stanley parable breaks fourth wall to comment on players decisions

- the beginners guide
   - dialogue on mental health
   -

14th Mar Time Machine

Task 4 Time Machine

- Maya file > layers > low poly & cage
- Zbrush > high poly render
- Texture maps > normal map

Wiki unreal materials

- Time  management > stress management

- Time Machine can be anything (justified)

- TRIaNGLES NOT QUaDS 10k

- Textures 2k

- Albedo = base colour

- Metallic map

- Roughness map

- Normal map (Maya harden edge UV island) - Maya Mel script

- AO map

* Emissive map

**UE4 screenshots (deactivate visuals of lights and volumes = ' G '**

How to fix UE4 scale issues -- Windows > setting preferences > settings > scale/measure > cm

Lack of Cultural Diversity in Final Fantasy Games

Lack of Cultural Diversity in Final Fantasy Games

Being quite the fan of several Final Fantasy games, having played VIII, IX, X, X-2, XII and XIII it has come to my attention that in the soon to be released installment of the franchise the cast of protagonists is somewhat less diverse than what fans are used to. The protagonists are all seemingly Caucasian males. I'm not saying that there's an issue with this, it's merely a design choice (perhaps the climate of said protagonists home has caused fairer skin to be more prominent). surely SquareEnix wouldn't go out of their way to alienate non Caucasian players? It's strange that after previous casts featuring one or more characters of non European descent to change this almost iconic feature.