Intestines level assembly

This week I will be finishing off my project work ready for the deadline, in order to be done in time, I will need to have all of my 3d assets modelled and textured by Wednesday, allowing me time to work with Unreal Engine to show off my assets with a camera flythrough and a walk through for some of my other level assemblies.

To start off the level base for the intestines, I used the flat plane primitive, which I scaled to the size I needed it to be. From here, I extruded out from the base to create multiple subdivisions on the sides of the level, which allows me to make the details on the sides. I also added more subdivisions on the horizontal axis using the insert edgeloop tool. Once I finished the base of the model, I marked out the level's path by moving the vertexes to create the shape of a path. With the path marked out, I was able to extrude the rest of the ground upwards allowing me to more easily differentiate between the path and the rest of the level base.

With the hard surface modelling of the level done, I will export it to zbrush so I can make the surface more natural and add in the more flesh like texture to the surface.

Like with the lungs level base, I used the clay tool in order to give the level base a more fleshlike appearance by holding the alt key and using the tool, I was able to remove areas from the sculpt giving it a more natural texture.

Using the blob tool aswell, I added texture to the spongy areas of the model like with the lungs level.

With my sculpting done on this level model, I will export the model back to maya in order to unwrap the UV ready for texturing in substance painter

Now that I have unwrapped the UV of my sculpt, the level is ready for texturing. Once I have textured the model, I will be able to assemble the full level and move onto the final one.

Using the same textures as I used for the different section in on the lungs level asset, I textured the level base, with the textures on this model complete, I will ask my group for feedback on the level so far.

Having checked with my group to make sure the level base is fine, I will now start the assembly of the model, adding all of the minor assets to the model.

I have now finished assembling the intestines level, some of the textures on the smaller assets broke when they were imported into the scene, so I most likely won't be taking this model into Unreal as this model is not the main focus of the project, but I will look into fixing the textures if I'm able to do so in time.

With the intestines level complete and assembled, I will now start modelling my third and final level, the mouth tutorial level. This model will consist of a single piece as all of the parts of the level can be made connected to the base.

To start off the mouth level, I created the general shape of the level by scaling a plane to the right size and moving the end rows of vertexes to mimic the shape of the tongue. I will now mark out the path and create some tooth-like structures around the front side of the level

As this level is based on the mouth, there won't be any details on the sides of the level as this would be too far from the general idea of the mouth. So now that I have made the teeth-like structures at the front of the level, I am able to export my model to zbrush in order to create the more natural surface.

Using the remove clay tool, I moulded the level base into a more mouthlike shape, on the top side of the level, I will now add a few mounds to mimic the idea of tastebuds.

With the sculpting finished, I will now texture my model and finally apply the textures in maya.

With all of my models now complete, I will start working on the final piece using the lungs level and adding everyone's enemy and tower assets to the scene, this will then be imported into Unreal Engine with which I can make a flythrough of the level design, showcasing the level with all of the parts present. I will also go through my project work in order to make sure everything is present.

Environment renders

Lungs level renders

Mouth level renders

Intestines level renders

Full assembly

With everyone's assets now complete, I will be inserting all of the enemies and towers into the lungs level base that I modelled, as this will be the main showcase level, showing all of our work off properly in one combined level. To start off, I will be downloading all of the enemy assets that my group has made, and inserting them into the level, along the path.

The first enemies added to the level assembly were the fibre enemies, modelled by Seb, as these enemies are harder for the towers to hit, I will have less of them present on the level, as they'd be a more challenging enemy to take down and would be dotted among the main forces of the easier to hit enemies.

As I added more of the microplastic enemies into the assembly, I was thinking about the amount of each one as the smaller weaker enemies such as the pellets would probably be greater in number, and more grouped up than the larger more difficult to defeat enemies such as the fragment clusters.

With most of the enemies now placed on the scene, I will ask for feedback from my group on the amount of different enemies I have place, the scale of the enemies and how they're placed.

Using this feedback, I have scaled the size of the fibre assets up in order to meet the requirements. I also moved the sponge assets high up to make them look more like they're floating.

Now that I have a completed rough plan for the layout of the final scene, I will start to assemble the final scene in Unreal Engine, using the maya version of the assembly as a reference for what I'm placing where, how big or small everything needs to be, and the density of the different enemy types.

Unreal Engine

The first thing I did in Unreal was start to prepare the environment assets, in order to do this, I editied the material properties of each asset, inserting the required texture files into the respective slots in order for the textures to show on the models

Using the same process to add the textures to the models throughout, I was able to quickly assemble the whole environment quickly, duplicating the assets where I needed them to be. Once I had the main level base, the small trees and the big trees imported into the scene, I was ready to start arranging the towers around the edges of the level.

The first tower I placed around the map was the spore tower, as these towers are quite bulky in build, I wanted to be quite sparing with the placement, as I didn't want them taking up too much room, but at the same time, I still wanted them to look like a threat to the microplastic enemies.

Once I finished placing the spore towers, I started placing down the fungal artillery towers. As these towers were rigged with a skeleton, I was able to pose them into a more dynamic position, making it look more like they were attacking, rather than them being stuck in one position. In order to pose them though, I had to create a single freeze frame animation version of the asset, which I was then able to duplicate around the map. Another thing I was thinking about was the placement of the tower, as this tower is a more standard tower, I will place this tower across the whole path, rather than only in select areas.

The final tower type for me to add to the level was the bone tower. I placed these towers at the end of the level, as this tower would be spawning white blood cells to attack the microplastics, this would mean the tower should be at the tail end of the level, as they would require time in order to spawn units.

With the towers all placed in, I will add all of the enemies, starting with the stronger, less common ones, working down to the more common horde based enemies. I started off with the Fibre enemy, as this would be one of the hardest enemies for the towers to hit, this means I have only placed a few of them throughout the level to make it a more realistic representation of how the game would play.

Next I added the sponge, film and fragment cluster enemies, all relatively uncommon aswell, as they all work in more complicated ways than the normal enemies.

Finally, I added in the fragment slasher and pellet enemies, these enemies serve as the weakest horde type enemies. This means I have placed them in abundance at the start of the level, but around halfway across the path, there are very few of them as they will mostly have been taken out by that point, leaving only some of the harder to beat enemies.

I have now completed the final scene composition. I will now set up a camera fly through for the scene, which I will then record and send to the rest of my group.

Now with the flythrough complete, this brings the development of our game to an end, I have enjoyed working on this project a lot, trying out new things like Unreal engine, even if some things didn't work, like our original plan to apply a cel shader at the end, but then finding that kind of shader isn't compatible with metallic texture formats. I will now move onto my final project evaluation.

Project evaluation

Over the course of the project, I have covered a variety of different areas, both in 2d and 3d. My initial plans were to be more 2d centred, but ended up trying something out of my comfort zone by modelling the level environments and assembling the final scenes in Unreal Engine. I am overall happy with how my initial designs for each of the levels went, and am happy with how the 3d modelled levels turned out aswell. If I could change anything, one of the main things I would spend more time on is the development for shaders for use in Unreal Engine, as I was initially meant to apply a Cel shader to the final scene, however, I kept on running into issues with the way the texturing responded to the shaders, either resulting in a black object or a flat shadowless scene. This is something that I had to pass onto the 3d lead in order for it to be completed properly

If I were to do the project again, I would probably spend more time on the other two levels I designed and modelled, as while I'm pretty happy with how they turned out, they did feel a bit more bare bones in comparion to the lungs level design. I would also spend more time on the texturing process of my models, as once imported into Unreal, I did find the level base looked very different to how it looked in substance painter and Maya, I think it could have done with being a few shades darker than it turned out.

Overall I am pretty happy with how my part of the project turned out, it was a good experience working in unfamiliar areas such as Unreal 5 and working on a much larger scale assembly.