Assignment Brief

Ig je game engines_y2_assignment brief from Luke Summers

Using a 3D Game Engine

This Task must include an understanding and playable 3D level to industry standards using the Unity 3D engine but should also be accompanied by an extensive 3D workflow that showcases the ability to adhere and develop to industry level standards.

You will need to produce a short desktop captured video to evidence your 3D game in play.

Below is the track I have featured within my 3D environment and the soundcloud account is  linked to it.




Below is a video of the exploration of my 3D environment created as seen in my workflow.




Below is my full workflow for the creation of my 3D environment

To start the creation and layout of my 3D environment I am creating in Unity, I added a terrain which I will use to begin sculpting the playable area of the environment. I will shape the terrain to appear as a mountainous area which will be filled with trees, various textures and multiple 3D models which I will acquire from the Unity store as well as some models I will make myself in Blender. The models I will be using are free to use and free to share, this will avoid any legal consequences, as everything I am using is totally open source and I can use for whatever purpose I see fit. This is perfect for me as I am creating a 3D environment without a budget.  

Below you can see the blank terrain that I will be using to sculpt my environment upon. On the right side of the screenshot you can see the terrain editor tools, I will be raising certain areas of the terrain to mimic the appearance of mountains to act as a boundary for the playability within my 3D environment.  

Below you can see the stages of the sculpting of the terrain. I have altered different areas mainly around the outline of the terrain, to give the look of a mountainous border. This border will act as a barrier to the player, restricting accessibility to any other zones and stopping the player from falling off the terrain into empty space where they would fall continuously.  

As you can see in the images above I manipulated the terrain raising tool to create large rocky areas on the terrain helping to create an overall mountous looking environmnet. My environment is steadily coming to life.  

Next I decided to paint the terrain. I did this by using textures already within the unity engine. I decided to use a rocky texture for the higher mountains, which I firstly added to the whole terrain as you can see below.  

I then painted the lower ground with the built in paint tool within unity, using the smallest sized brush as you can see is selected on the right side of the screen. I then painted over the lower ground and the lower parts of the mountains, in such a manner that they blend into one and other, creating a very nice effect as  you can see below.  

Next I imported a character controller package, I did this so I can set the point of which the player will spawn upon launch of the environment, so they can explore the vast terrain and the assets that it will contain.  

Below you can see the character controller being imported into the engine. 

I then placed the character controller where I saw fit, though I will most likely move this asset later on, most likely closer to more interesting assets, as to limit the amount of walking the player would have to do to reach some of the assets that will be more appealing to the eye.  

I then added a directional light source to the environment. I did this with such a specific lighting type, so it will dominate the scenery and light it up greatly, causing it to appear as if it is daytime, which make the assets within easier to see within the environment when the player is exploring. Below you can see the exact placement of the light source, though the exact position is not particularly relevant to its practicality, as it will emit the same amount of dominant and directional light, where it is placed within the environment.  

Below you can see how the light effects the environment when in play mode. It is very appealing and helps increase visibility of the terrain and it will help improve visibility of assets I will import at a later stage.  

Next I decided to add some trees to the environments terrain. I did this to add more appeal overall to the environment and to add a sense of life to it. Unity itself does have a built in brushes, that allows you to add trees of a large amount to a wide area at once, though I decided to use a different tree type then the one featured within the editor. I did this by downloading one of the many free packs available in the unity store, I downloaded this pack and import it with a varied amount of trees for my own personal use. The tree in particular that I decided to use for my environment, is an alder tree. I conducted some brief research into tree types and this was the type I most preferred, leading to my choice to solely use this tree type. The site that helped me to choose the specific tree is: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/native-trees/alder/ . 

Below you can see the tree pack located in the assets store and the start of its importation into my environment.  

Firstly I imported the alder trees one by one, just to see what they generally look like upon the terrain and within my envrion,net, I was happy with my results.  

Below you can see some of the initial placement.  

I decided to add a vast amount with the terrain tree brush tool later on, after I added a castle amongst the alder trees already placed. 

I decided to add a castle to the environment as I wanted to go with more of a medieval theme with my environ,net, mostly to due to the fact that this is a vast landscape of an environment and that reminds me of the medieval era, mostly inspired by game from the elder scrolls series and other medieval based games.  

I imported the castle assets from the unity store, it is completely free and free to use however I wish.  

Below you can see the three stages I took to import and place the castle within my environment. Firstly I located an appropriate castle asset within the store, which also came with other medieval assets such as weapons, secondly I imported the contents of the file and finally I laced the castle amongst the trees.  

Next I added some of the assets included in the same package into the confines of the castle as you can see below. 

I then repeated the castle to several other areas of the environment as you can see below, with some added trees, added individually.  

Next I decided to use the tree adding tool of which I mentioned earlier. I chose the alder tree I wanted to mass replicate and began painting over areas on the terrain in which I wanted the trees to sit upon. You can clearly see that this has a very nice impact on the environment, it makes it seem a lot more full and realistic, as well as adding appeal to the environment visually in whole.  

I repeated the same process around and throughout the whole of the environment and raised certain areas of the terrain that were, in my eyes, too low.  

As you can see below, as well as adding trees I raised a part of the terrain as it was ground level/ I altered this to avoid the player falling off this part of the terrain, as would be a major issue regarding playability if it wasn’t changed. Also below you can see various stages of mass tree placement.  

The adding of the trees really does benefit the overall look of the environment  and I am very happy with my current progress. 

The next step I decided to take, is to add extra assets to my environment. I decided to add some medieval buildings, structures and homes to the environment, giving it a more appealing look and even a sense of mystery regarding who the environment may inhabit, as when the player explores the environment, there will be no inhabitants.  

I gathered some more free assets from the unity store, specifically a package called Work Fantasy Medieval Buildings. I chose this package as it contains very appealing buildings of various sorts that will help add character to my environment.  

Below you can see the pack located in the store, importation and placement of individual assets in different areas of the environment.  

Thes assets help- to give a lot of character to the environment and even come with their own fire and smoke animations, which help to give the environment a sense of realism and inhabitation as you can see below. Though some settings are in need of alteration, as the animations should not be the color pink as you can see below, though it may add a fantastical aspect to the environment, even mystery and a magical aspect, so I may leave it like this.  

Next I decided to add some sound to my environment, I decided to choose a looped music track of a harp playing along with other instruments. I chose this specific track from the unity store, as it helps to convey a sense of mystery to the environment as the player explorers its confines. As well as adding an atmosphere and more of an upbeat feeling in general.  

I imported the track from the unity store and put it on a loop, so ti will continuously play throughout the players gameplay, no matter how long. I have also set it so it will reach all areas of the terrain and environment, rather than only being heard in certain areas.  

Below you can see the track in the store and its settings upon importation. You can actually listen to the track in store, rather than waiting to hear it upon download. Below this workflow you will find the track linked to the owners soundcloud account.  

On the right side in the screenshot above, you can see the alterations I have made in the settings to enable the looping of the track and to allow it to reach all corners of the environment. I have made a larger image of these alterations below. 

I am quite happy with my current progress regarding the creation and development of my environment, the last thing I would like to do is add a few random objects to the environment, to give a sense of mystery and peculiarity. This will further the sense of mystery and add a more interesting side to the environment, as I will be adding objects that are not particularly relevant to the medieval theme of my environment.  

I am going to add assets that I have myself created using Blender, particularly the more random models I have created that I will hide amongst bushes and among other areas. 

Below are the models I have created that I am including and their placement within my environment. 

Below is a replicated model of a body covered with a sheet that I created within Blender. To create the sheet asset I added a cloth modifier to a rectangular plane and set it to self collide and I set the body model to have a collision. After doing this I then navigated the timeline which plays the cloth animation, I waited until the cloth animation had collided with the body model and was sitting appropriately, before applying the cloth modifier to set the position of the sheet asset so its position is permanent before removing the body with the sheet still set in place and exporting it as an FBX for importation into Unity. I placed these replicated models in the confines of one of the castles, the closest to where the player will spawn upon launching the environment. I will placed all of my extra random models close to the player spawn, so they are more likely to spot them, as they will be positioned closer to the more interesting parts of the environment.  

  

Below is a a sofa model I have included in my environment, submerged within the trees. I created the below sofa model in Blender by placing several cube shapes on top of each other, before subdividing, scaling, bending and altering the position of various edges faces and vertices to create the impression of curved couch cushions slouched over and pressed up against each other. To create a sense of realism and variation in the sofa model, I used the sculpting tool to sculpt creases into various parts of the model creating the impression of the sofa having been used. The sculpting tool is very effective and helped me greatly in creating variation in my model.  

Below is a rather conspicuous creepy looking model that I have also submerged amongst the trees within my environment. I created this model using the same method as the body covered with a sheet model. I modeled the head and placed it on top of a sheet model I created, so that it represents a shady figure that helps to add a sense of mystery to the environment.  

Before importing all of the above models into Unity, within the Blender engine I had to add a decimate modifier to each model. This particular tool within the Blender engine, allows me to decrease the overall amount of vertices, polygons and triangulations required to export the model in whole, allowing for a quicker import into the Unity engine and less memory and processor usage when the environment is launched.  

Now that I have added some elements of mystery and curiosity to my environment, I a nearly done with the whole process and I am very happy with my current progress.  

Next I am going to add a skybox to my environment. This is a very effective process using one of Unitys' built in packages, that allows the importation of a sky box into the character controller view, so when the environment is launched and the player spawns, the player will see a skybox at the appropriate position, allowing for a far more appealing overall look to the environment.  

First I imported the package from the assets tab in the Unity engine toolbar as you can see below. 

I then located the imported contents folder within the engines directory as you can see below at the bottom of the screen. 

Next I selected the first person controllers main camera asset, before changing the settings to allow the skybox ro be visible upon launch as you can see below. 

I then selected my chosen skybox file as you can see below on the right side of the screen, this will allow the visibility of a bright and sunny skybox that will be visually pleasing when rendered upon launch of the environment.  

Below you can see that upon launch the skybox is now visible, it even has its own sun which gives a sense of realism, as the dominant directional light source I added at an earlier stage, now appears to be coming from that sun. Below are two screenshots of the sky and the sun amongst the sky.  

Now that I have added my sky asset I am nearing the end of this project, the last thing I am going to add is a hand and arm model holding two weapons, to give another interesting aspect to the environment. I am going to do this by modeling a set of arms in Blender, before duplicating them and altering them so the left arm is positioned lower than the right arm to add variation. I then smoothed the models and exported them as an FBX before importing them into Unity.  

Once I imported them into Unity, I placed the arms and two swords on top and in front of the player controller camera, so they will be seen when the environment is launched by the player. I parented the models to the player controller camera so they would move along with the player when they move forward, left, right and backward, as well as when they look up and down.  

Below yyou can see the importation of the models, the placement and what they look upon launch of the environmnet in the last screenshot. 

I have now finalized my project and my final 3D environment. I am very happy with the 3D environment I have created and I will go on to use the skills I have developed in this program in the future, in many other projects that I will continue to pursue.   

Below the soundcloud link beneath this workflow, you will find a video of the 3D environment and player exploration.