Final Product

This is the final product that I was able to produce. I'm pretty happy with what I was able to produce.
I'm very happy with the design of the lake with the lights shining bright blue and the animated plane waves that I borrowed from the Unreal free scene from the Unreal Market called Styleized Rendering. I put some lamp posts inside the lake because it made it look like nature took over the town and the gate behind the lake enhances this idea too.
   There are sound effects in the scene that can be heard while walking trough the scene. I put water sounds and frogs croaking sound around the lake. There are bird sounds around the scene too that can be heard while approaching an area with a lot of trees around.

I have also used some shaders from the Steyleized Rendering scene, that I deconstruct it in order to help me improve mine.

However I'm not entirely happy with the design part of the city. I wanted to make it more gothic with saturated dark cold color and have them be more detailed and not go with the Steampunk theme. I wanted to make the city very detailed and make it a proper town but the time would've not been enough to do so.

The clock tower has particles on them. The steam particle and the smoke particle that came with the starter content in Unreal. I also added around that area to be triggered the sound of steam and a clock ticking from the tower.

All the ambient sound effects in the scene have been downloaded from this site:
https://www.freesound.org/browse/tags/sound-effects/

There is also a background music playing all over the scene called Tample of the Manes that was borrowed from Royalty Free Music.
The link to their site is here:
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/collections.php
This is the link to the song itself on the site:
http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100053

The clock tower ticking, releasing smoke and steam indicates that someone is living in there, as opposed to the other buildings which are abandoned. I chose to make this decision at the last minute, for I decided to place a character in the story line that would live inside that building. Making such a decision would give more dynamic in play ability in the scene, as the player has two choices to make. Either go to the lake to see the spirit or go to the tower and see who's living in there. In the tower there's a creature of the forest that got intrigued with the technology of man and decided to live there and study it.




I decided to use Unreal to show off my assets in the scene, as it makes it much more enjoyable to walk around the environment as a player. Therefore there is no play-ability in it. My project is focused on the design aspect of a game and art direction. The environment I built is built on a story and is heavily focused on delivering the atmosphere of the world.

16.Rest of the town

For the rest of the buildings, I decided to make 2 more, one that is very tall and rectangular and the other that is smaller and cubic shape.


















This is one of the buildings I modeled  wade out of multiple objects. The textures are less colorful, which is what I wanted because it comes contrasts with the forest. I made two buildings from one model, for I wanted this building to look like an apartment complex.

This is the third type of building I was able to produce and it's designed to be a cozier home for more rich people, or like a home of an inventor.

These are some designs I made for the lamp posts. I wasn't sure what I wanted them to look like, so I decided to research online types of them and sketched until I found something I was satisfied with. In the end I liked the designs that are circled( l10, l8, l9, l10, L11,L12).


These are some of the images I've found online that I liked and inspired me in my design. I came up with the idea of having the lamp posts be crocked and bent and I think it will look really good with the building design I have so far. From the designs I've found online i liked the spiral symbol implemented in them and just the general idea of them being very tall and thin.


This is how the lamp posts ended up looking and I'm pretty happy with them. I think with the colors picked and the look of the will blend really nicely with the design I have in mind for the town part.


I also made a crooked looking fence that was produced from finding some research material online.

15.Plants

I started making my ground plants from the designs I made and made color variation textures testure as well as different types of shape of mushrooms for variation. 

For the mushrooms I added glowing vines and dots on them and for the spiral plants i gave the truck a leaf like feel and the round fruits glowing vibrant color. Normal maps were also made for them.

I have also found a way to make my textures look nicer, by rendering an ambient occlusion map directly onto the color texture. This was done in Maya, as there is a rendering plugin called TURTLE that generates the maps.


Map with Ambient on the color    Map without color,just the texture

14.Sun Design and Progress

 













I started importing my other assets in Unreal and building the scene here I managed to give transparency to the lake plane and put in some spot lights to make the lake glow. I put some lights in front of the rock, as it makes it look like its the origin of the lights and the focus point in the lake.
I made the sky purple and orange, two colors that complement each other well and are also colors seen in sunsets.



As the environment is cartoon looking I decided to create an interesting looking sun, I always liked the idea of having smiley suns in animations. The design is inspired by a sun design found in a Japanese animation called Soul Eater. The design of the sun is kind of scary, but it works well with the show. I chose to make the sun look a little bit scary because I really liked the design. However, making a design first does not mean it can't have a purpose in the story. Before designing anything it has to have a purpose in the story, but new ideas can change the story and make it more interesting.
I came up with the idea that the sun can be a living entity and it has been possessed by an evil spirit and somehow the protagonist will have to find a way to get the sun back to normal, as madness start to take over nature and all the good spirits and creatures turn evil.

In the engine, I made the sun into a plane and attached a glowing shader on it that I borrowed from a free scene in the Unreal Market calle Styleized Rendering. I also took the controls from the original scene, that had the rays of its sun spinning and added to my sun. However, in order to make just the rays spin I added them onto a different plane and gave it the animation.

13.Ground

For the grass texture I made two different texture and I decided to go for the more simple one, for works with the other objects that I have. The models I have are more detailed and I think that a simple texture complements the detailed models. I decided to go with the cool grass color at the bottom, for it goes well with the green and blue pallet the trees have. I also generated normal maps for the textures to give them depth.


I made tiles for the city and decided that the ones on the right were too simple and wouldn't blend with the forest ground, so I decided to darken the colors and add more splatters and green as to give the impression that the grass is growing over the tiles. I also aded normal maps to increase the detail on the ground and make it look 3D.



This is how the ground looks in Unreal Engine I made a Landscape that I can sculpt and manipulate and raise the ground. This is used to make mountains and hills. I used painting and blended the two textures together to make it look like the two worlds take over each other. I decided to use Unreal Engine and Import all the assets I made in Maya. I feel like Unreal is a good way to make your assets looks good and just have the player walk trough your environment.

12. Clock Tower

When making the clock tower I wasn't sure what shape I wanted it to be so I made a few base meshes of different kinds to get an idea. In the end I chose the 3rd one in terms of form because I knew that I wanted a cartoon like building and I felt that having a building with a narrow base gave it more character. While the first one is interesting in terms of architecture, it still feels that it belongs in reality, while 3rd form is not. In reality a narrow base would not work, for a building needs a big base in order to sustain itself.




I modeled the gothic clocktower that I came up with and I really like, however, I decided not to keep it because in the end the theme would be steampunk and the tower I had in mind would be very big and it did not adjust to the size and style of the trees.
 

This is what the tower ended up looking like based on some sketches that I did. I made the tower be bent because I thought it will make more interesting. The boiler and pipes connected to the building gives off the steampunk idea and it works really well. I also added multiple clocks, as in steampunk time is also a very used symbol. The windows are very gothic like and work well with the design. I also chose to make the clocks look low poly and angular, for I feel it make the style more appealing.

11.Rock

Following an art image I found, I decided to make an enchanted rock glowing with runes that would signify the presence of the spirit laying trapped in the rock. I decided that I would put this rock into the lake and have it be the source of glow. 

The character's purpose in this environment scene is to find the spirit in the lake and ask for it's help to save his mother. The game for which the environment is built is supposed to be player choice based, and so I came up with the idea of having the spirit be trapped in a rock and one of the player's tasks is to free the spirit from the rock prison. 

This is the design I came up with, and I decided that the rock will have runes on it, as to identify what is keeping the water spirit trapped inside the rock. The choice of having the lake be simply static and not have a cascade or a source of where it originates works well with this idea, as the rock seems to be the source of where it comes from and it also shows the prison the spirit is trapped in. This choice of design could mean that the spirit was trapped there using magic by humans in order to keep it caged, as it could mean that the spirit is bad and would most likely trick the player into making a bad choice and a major affect on the story line.

The textures were again painted by hand and I also generated a normal map to give depth and detail to the object.
I also modeled some ground rocks with vines covering them based on the designs on my sketchbook.