Fantasy Environment - Taking a mulligan
Alright, I’m taking a mulligan!
The nice thing about a personal project is that I have the ability to call the shots with little consequence - unlike in a business. I’ve learnt a lot in the past 3 weeks, but I had this nagging feeling I was spinning my wheels. So I’ve had an opportunity to do a retrospective on what I’ve done so far, and I’ve realised that I’ve been going about this all wrong. I had started this project like I would a small project. But this is absolutely a large project. Like, duh! (I’m very frustrated that I didn’t see it sooner).
So, let’s try again:
Pipelines:
In a small project, I can do the pipeline like so:
Small Pipeline - Low poly, high poly, bake info, paint the textures, import into a render engine, show it off.
But in a larger pipeline (Like this project), I should be looking at the whole picture.
Instead of individual assets, do the modelling, texturing and interactions in bulk. This will keep the style consistent over time.
Note to self: Greyboxing and quality control is something that needs to happen throughout.
Time estimates:
The sections now have time estimates 7+10+2+10+4+12+12+1+15+2 = 75 days (15 weeks, 5 days/week)
So, what happened to the 6 weeks?!
Well, 2 things:
I forgot that learning slows down the process considerably at times. It takes time to find the resources and apply the knowledge.
I had hand-painted every Diffuse/Base Colour map for the original render. There were no high poly sculpts to bake. There was no baking at all. No normal map, no AO, just a flat diffuse map that faked the lighting.
This absolutely would change the timeline. At the start of this project, I thought that the speed I’ve gained over the years of low-poly modelling plus the time I would spend on high poly sculpts would even out. But I was wrong. It probably takes the same amount of time. The benefit being: it grants me a better looking product that will react to lighting.
Let’s see how this new timeline goes. I’m hoping that I’ve over estimated. But there are a lot of items to create.
Greyboxing:
I actually did start the greyboxing process before modelling. But I became frustrated that I couldn’t get the landscaping tools to do what I wanted in UE. I wanted to feel “productive”, so I went and created some props. This led me to abandon the pipeline I’d set up - **siren sounds** . I had planned to go back to the greyboxing but didn’t end up doing that. **siren sounds get louder**
Greyboxing example
A New Palette:
I find working with restrictions very helpful, but I think I was being too restricted by the palette I chose. I like using Lospec as my palette choice - it’s a great site but it’s designed for pixel art. Not texturing. I had to find a palette with more colours if I am to restrict myself to it’s colours. I’ve now chosen ‘Zenit241’ palette but expanded it with a neutral grey section.
With this new palette, I really can stick to it much closer than the previous one. And this could change down the track when I’m working with the textures more closely. But the change will be easier with the way that I work in Substance Painter. I prefer to work in a fill layer and then use a painted mask so I can quickly change the colour and other properties.
Zenit241 with extra greys
I’m also not going to be using the Unreal 4 shader option in Substance Painter. It doesn’t work they way I want. It’s a good time to adjust this too.