Evaluation

For this unit i was given the task of making some low poly assists that could feature in my UDK level i made. My level idea was to have a zombie survival game set in Brixton Plymouth. Brixton is a little village in the country side, i thought that this would be a good place to set a zombie invasion because the weapons would more farmer tools that machine guns. I took this factor in mind when making the assets in 3DS Max. The first model I sculpted was an axe with a chrome head I thought the chrome was a good idea because the people of Brixton look after their property and would probably have most of their possessions in mint condition. I feel that i executed this model quite well considering it was the first time i had ever modeld an axe before. All of my models i made were as low poly as possible. the model I am most proud of in this project was the revolver because it came just how i imagined it. Out of  all the models i made (axe, pitch fork, hunters rifle, revolver and shot gun) I think I am most disappointed with the pitch fork because i feel that it doesn't look as good as it could for example the prongs look to ridged and don't flow with the rest of the model. Overall I am happy with the out of my assets and how they look textured, if I had more time i would defiantly spend more time on texturing but  for the time i managed to make them in I am happy with the result.

3DS Max Game Assets for Level

For this project I was given the task to make a few game assets that could be put into a UDK level i made. All the models i have made are completely relevant to the setting of my game witch was a zombie survival game set out in the  country side village of Plymouth Brixton. From the beginning the only assets i was thinking of was weapons like shot guns and farmer tools. 

One of the first models I wanted to make was a simple axe because I had never made one before and wanted to be creative. I started by making a box for the axe head and started to extrude one sides of the box, then I used the scale tool to scale up and shrink down the part necessary to create a basic axe shape. Once i had the shape sorted out I then selected all of the outside edges for the side that would become the blade and pulled them together with the scale tool to create the sharp blade look. To make the handle of the axe i took a basic cylinder and stretched it until it was the length i wanted, after this i then used the scale tool on one axis to squash the shape of the cylinder to make it go from equally round an oval shape. The next step was to add a bend to the handle because most axes dont have straight handle, to achieve this i converted the cylinder to an editable poly, went to the modifiers list and selected bend. Then i just played around with the angle of bend on the axis i wanted until i looked right.

http://invinciblellama.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/nature_fields_clouds_roll_over_fields_011822_.jpg

When it came to texturing the axe I created the wood texture first for the handle, to do this i opened Photoshop and selected a dark brown and a lighter brown to create contrast in the wood. To give the appearance of a wood texture I then selected render,filter and then fibres. This is a really quick and effective way to make a simple wood texture,then i saved the image as a jpeg. To apply this texture I opened up the material editor selected defuse colour and then bitmap,chose my saved texture i made in Photoshop and applied the texture to my selected handle. To make the texture for the axe head I found a picture of a field with a bright blue sky for contrast. Once i had this image i then select the axe head opened up the material editor selected the defuse colour and made it black, the next step is to go to maps select reflect,bit map and then I chose the image of the field and applied the texture. To give the axe head a really good looking chrome shine i then played around with the specular levels, glossiness and the soften. To finish the model i then added a sky light to add to the reflection of the textures on the model.

For this model i started making the handle out of a cylinder and stretched it out until it was the length i wanted and converted it into an editable poly then at one end started extruding one side of a face into an arc shape to make one side of a handle grip then after that i selected to all of what i just extrude and mirrored it to create the other half of the grip. For the fork its self I selected the the end face of the handle and extruded it out a little bit, once this was done i then extruded the side of the face that i just made and mirrored it to make the area where the prongs would go. To make the prongs started out with a square based pyramid and squashed the sides to make them thin with the scale tool. Once i had the pyramid in the shape i wanted i then converted it to an editable poly and selected bend from the modifiers list, then bended it into shape. To make multiple prongs i selected the pyramid held shift and dragged out the model and made three copies, i then selected them all and lined them up on the handle.

When I was making the textured for the fork I selected the shaft of the handle and applied the same texture as the axes handle because it came out alright last time. For the grip of the handle I wanted to make a worn plastic look, to do this i opened Photoshop selected a dark green and a mid tone green, then selected filter, render and clouds to make a plastic texture and saved it as a jpeg. For the fork head used the same method but with a dark grey and a light grey. After i applied the textures i added an omni light for a bit of shine on the models.

Before i started making my hunting rifle i went on the internet and got a reference image to model off because I had no idea where to start on this model. Once I had saved the reference image i then applied it to a plane in 3DS Max and started to model on top of it, I started with a cylinder for the scope, I converted it to an editable poly then selected the outer lines and connected then to make more segments on the cylinder. once the segments were in place I then used the scale tool to bring the lines closer together to give the shape of the scope. To make the body and stock of the rifle I used a cylinder again and kept extruding the end face out into a reasonable shape and capped the end of the model to make it one solid mesh. When i was sculpting this model I made all the all the meshes transparent so that i could see the reference image, I did by pressing alt and X. The next part to make was the trigger, Im used to doing spline models this technique help with this part. First I selected the line tool and roughly went around the trigger for the basic shape, the next step is to convert the shape into a editable spline select all the polys and convert them into breizer corners so that the angle of the lines can be moved in to the right position. When this part is finishes I then converted the spline into a editable mesh to make it a surface.

When i was texturing the rifle i made a dark wood texture i photoshop using the filter render fibre technique. Then for all the metal parts of the gun i selected all parts I wanted to texture then in the material editor I changed to colour to black and played around with the specular levels until I got a glossy black metal look. And again i added an omni light to light up the scene. 

This is my favourite I made in this unit because after using the previous for the rifle I managed to sculpt this model quite quick. Again I used a reference image to sculpt this model. Now that I had a quick work flow i knew that this model would mainly consist of cylinders and boxes. The first part of the revolver i made was the bullet chamber,I did this by making a cylinder and pro boolean out parts of the chamber with six bullets i had made on a previous task to make the chamber shape. All of the body of the gun was spline modelled then converted to an editable poly so that the mesh had depth in stead of being a 2D model. The grip of the gun was made with one cylinder shaped using the reference image and scaled to the right size.

For the body of the gun I used a simple dark grey to light grey gradient in Photoshop. When i applied the texture to the gun there was no shine what so ever, even though I want a matte finish on the gun it still needs to show that light can bounce off it. In the material editor i changed the shade basic parameters from blinn to metal to get a metal finish.

The last low poly model I made for this unit was a double barrel shotgun. This was also made by using the same technique as the rifle and the revolver. By using a reference image on a plane and modelling on top of it and to see what and were i should model i selected the meshes and pressed alt and X. I started out with a cylinder for the body of the gun and kept pulling vertices along until it made the shape of the body and stock of the gun. The barrels are basic cylinders stretched out until the right length. The trigger were made the same way as the revolver and the rifle by spline modelling then converting it into an editable poly to make it a 3D shape.

When I was texturing the gun i wanted the barrels to have a faded grey colour so I opened Photoshop and selected two dark greys and used the filter render difference clouds technique to make a patchy faded metal texture. At the beginning of the barrels I gave the gun a brass texture selecting the parts I wanted and changing the ambient colour to a light orange in the material editor and changed the shader basic parameters from blinn to metal.