Postmortem

For my senior project I decided to model a boiler. There were multiple reasons for this decision. The main reason was that I wanted to model one thing. Throughout my years at school I had a tendency to be too ambitious, making things like a city and a train station. These projects require me to model and texture one model every day. Needless to say this became too stressful, and the projects were never completely finished.

I wanted this project to be different. I wanted a task that I could not only finish, but have time to polish it up at the end. Once I decided on this I knew the model I was going to make needed to be big. Prior to this class I had decided on my Capstone project. For that class I was going to make a boiler room. This room had a good amount of assets in it, but nothing too grand. This is when I realized that I should sort of “combine” the two classes. I could make the room in Capstone, and model a grand boiler in Senior Project.

Once the model was decided on I had to do a bit of research. I came across a variety of boilers. Many of them were simple household boilers. This was not the type I wanted. I stumbled across one big boiler during my search. I noticed that it was made by Cleaver Brooks. I decided to do some research on what kind of other boilers they made. What I found was exactly what I was looking for. Cleaver Brooks made big industrial boilers. I decided to pick a couple of them that I liked and combine them for a unique one.

Looking at the boiler I was about to make I wanted to come up with a plan. My plan was to try and go through the whole process of a model. I decided to first model the low poly version. I put a 3000 poly limit on this version. After that model was done, I needed to bring it into Zbrush and model a high poly one. From there I was going to bake out normal maps and begin to texture. After the diffuse was done I wanted to take it into Crazy Bump and create the specular and ambient occlusion maps.

So everything was set to go. I had my plan, I had my schedule, and I had time. Like my plan stated I started with the modeling process. Working in 3D Studio Max went by without too much trouble. In fact, I came in under my poly limit. Halfway through I didn’t think that was going to be possible. The final count was around 2700 polys. It was now time to bring the model into Zbrush. I didn’t like that. Zbrush has more of a sculpting feel to it. It feels awkward when you’re not modeling a character or plant. This is where all my problems began. I decided to model the high poly version in Max. However, before I committed to it I wanted to practice the normal map process. This took up a lot of my time. I played around with the normal map process for way too long. My original schedule was to be in Zbrush for about 3 weeks. This translated easily to my new schedule with Max. The problem was I spent about 2 and a half weeks learning how to do normals, and what I could achieve with them.

Now I had a big time problem. It was about midterm and I was around two weeks behind. I had to work a lot harder in order to complete it on time. So that’s what I started doing. I began modeling the high poly versions and baking out the normal maps. It was then I realized my second problem of the project, the UVW map. The way the UVW map was unwrapped wasn’t bad for just a diffuse map. The problem was that most of the places where I wanted normal mapping to add in the details were too small. So I had to go back and redo the unwrap. This put me about a week behind again.

So there I was, over 2 weeks behind with 2 weeks left. Things seemed bad. However, the boiler must go on. I began the diffuse map somewhere along the way. I really was just focusing on base colors and a general layout. Then I really got into it. I was texturing like a madman to try and finish in time. Unfortunately they say bad things come in threes. Enter my third problem. My boiler wasn’t matching the style I was going for. I was focusing too much on the Unreal scene that I was creating. This was evident in the boiler I was texturing. So after a long time of staring at the boiler and images of Resistance 2, I decided to start over on the texture.

I found out as I was texturing that it’s difficult to texture in two different styles at the same time. My Capstone project was more like Unreal, and my Senior Project was more like Resistance. However, after many late nights, and little sleep I got the diffuse texture done. Luckily the Crazy Bump process was quicker than I thought it would be. I got finished just in time. I also printed and mounted like I wanted to do (even though the mount was ruined due to lack of sleep).

So how did the project turn out overall? I’m surprisingly happy with it. I’m not usually happy with projects at the end. I believed this project was going to go the same route, especially because I was behind on a good portion of it. In the end I think it turned out the way I wanted it to. There were some bad points. I would have really like to have worked with Zbrush more. I think I need to look into a way to work with it easier. However, there were also good points. I do believe that I matched the style I was going for. That was a big plus for me. I also got it into the Unreal engine. All together I’m happy with the model and I’m looking forward to polishing it up a bit to get it ready for the all important portfolio.

I think I like it

Well I'm almost done. I don't want to post a picture. That may spoil the surprise for class. But all together I think I'm pretty happy with the results of the boiler. I didn't get into Zbrush like I wanted to. However, I think the solutions I came up with worked very well.

Still Hard at Work

The boiler is doing alright. I'm working on finishing up the texture and the normal maps. I'm trying to decide how well the texture is fitting with my boiler room. I think I like how it's turning out but I'm not sure.

Unreal

I started putting stuff in Unreal for my capstone project. This includes the boiler. It has the default texture on it right now. Take a look:

Sad Times

So I've come to a sad realization...

My unwrap is not good. Sad times.

I didn't really consider what was going to need a lot of normal mapping. I was just kind of unwrapping. Everything seemed fine. I'm used to unwrapping for just texture. I think that this unwrap would work for just texture. But all the little details in it for normal mapping are not coming out.

I'm thinking of laying out the UVs again. Sigh. This will take time. It will put me further behind.

Just an update.

Coming along

So stuff is happening. This stuff may be good things. I've successfully taken apart pieces of the boiler and made them higher poly. Then I took those pieces and combined the normal maps. I'm behind schedule though. It sucks. It took way to long to figure out this process. I really didn't expect that. However, I did learn a lot along the way. I guess in the end that's what really matters.

So....here's the start of my high poly boiler:

Realization

So I think I've come up with a good plan to tackle Zbrush. I'm going to break down the pieces individually. This will make sure that I can make the high poly model...well high poly. 3D Studio doesn't seem to like polys that much. So if I break it down in pieces then put it back together, hopefully everything will work out. GO TEAM!

UV DONE

STOP!!!!

Texture Time.

Unwrapping

I'm starting the unwrapping process. I'm very scared of what it may be like in the end. So far things are coming along pretty smoothly. I think my final texture size will be a 2048 x 2048 texture. Hopefully I can get this thing unwrapped by the end of the day.

1 Quick Update

Stage 7:

More Stages

Stage 5:



Stage 6:


It's coming along nicely I believe. I'm supposed to be done modeling by Thursday. I think I can do it. I need to work on the left side (or right depending on which way you're looking at it). Then a little touch to the back. Should be doable. And bonus! I might hit my original guess of only 3000 polys. One can only hope. This model is just over 1900 polys.

Stages

Here are some of the different stages of the boiler so far.

Stage 2:

Stage 3:


Stage 4:

This is where I am now. The current poly count is 1250. In my opinion I think I'm on track to finish the model on time within 4000 polys.

Still Going

The boiler is coming along nicely. Unfortunately I left the file at school. This means no picture for you today. The poly count is a bit lower than I thought right now. However, I think it may end up being higher in the end. I was going for 3000 polygons, but now I'm shooting for around 5000. Go Team!

Slow but Steady

I will win the race!!

A small part of the boiler.

I Lied

I'm not going to do A&W. Why? Because I realized that I hate A&W.

So instead I will be making one epic boiler. I've been looking around and I think that the one boiler I will be making is big enough. So here are some reference pictures to go by.

What To Do?

So. I think for my senior project I'm going to model A&W. My goal is just to do the outside of the building, what's on the parking lot.

NEW BLOG

This blog will now be for senior project class. SO SAYS TOM!!!!!!!

This is the end...

AwesomeTown Post Mortem

The Good
AwesomeTown was, for lack of a better word, awesome. At the beginning of the project Joe and I sat down to decide what we wanted to do. We knew that we wanted to make a city but we didn’t know what type. We spent a couple hours going through the various types of cities we could make. We decided to make a larger scale city with an industrial section. We made a list of assets that we wanted in the city and held a draft to see who would model what. After that we set up a schedule and milestones that we needed to meet. We had 23 days to each model 23 items. A lot of people called us crazy for trying something so big, but we felt we could handle it.
Communication throughout the project was also very good. The whole time Joe and I were on the same page. In some projects I’ve been in the other people were doing things that had nothing to do with what the outcome was going to be. This didn’t happen in this project. Every time one of us thought something the other one was on the same track.

The Bad
People thought we were taking on more than we could handle. They were wrong. However, we found out we were taking on too much for Torque to handle. We were pretty much on schedule when we decided start putting things into the engine. We put roughly 6 DTS shapes in there (totaling approximately 2,000 polys) and Torque went crazy. The frame rate was horrible. This wouldn’t have normally bothered me, however, the final city had thousands of objects in it. This is what hurt us the most. We really wanted to run around the city and shoot Justin’s chainsaw’s at each other.

What I Learned
I learned a few things during this project. The first thing I learned is that Joe and I are stupid. We should not try and make an epic city in 23 days. I also learned that Torque likes texture files at 512 instead of 1024. Even though Torque can handle 1024 it doesn’t want to do it. I think we could’ve got more into Torque had we used 512 textures. Another thing I learned was that the advanced engine doesn’t like objects to be in a group when they are exported. The regular engine is a horrible place to put assets in. Finally max starts to slow down when you have thousands of objects that total over 119,000 polys.

What the Future Beholds
I’m hoping that we can put this city into an engine. If we can’t get it into Torque, I’m playing with the Unreal Editor right now. Hopefully we can get this thing into one of those. I also want to develop the city a bit more. Traffic lights, telephone wires, debris, and other tiny overlooked items will really bring out the city more. Hopefully I can get some really nice renders out of this city to bring to GDC with me.AwesomeTown Post Mortem

Not enough good things happening.

So this weekend was a big letdown. Joe and I decided to get together and put all of our objects into Torque. It was a good idea at the time. So after we got three buildings and six streets in there Torque runs at about 2 Frames Per Second. Sad times. We discovered, with the help of Jake, that the school computers have a graphics card thing that TGEA doesn't like. We need to switch it to OpenGL for it to run smooth. Well after some research it turns out TGEA 1.8 will let you decide if you want to run in OpenGL or Direct3D. Good news. The bad news is the school only has TGEA 1.7. Again, sad times. "It's ok" we said, "we'll use the normal engine." As it turns out the normal engine is not as easy to place assest in as the advanced is. It will take us a very long time to lay out the city perfectly. On top of that, Torque is lighting our building in a very messed up way. So the problems are building up into a great big problem sandwich that Joe and I don't really want to eat. So, after about a hour of switching back and forth between engines trying to decide which one sucks less, we decided that we will export all of our assets for the Torque engine. However we will not build the city in the engine. We will have the city laid out in 3D Studio Max so that everyone will have an idea of what AwesomeTown will look like. With any luck Torque 3D will come out tomorrow and we can just export as a collada file and be done with it. Not putting the city together in the engine makes us both sad pandas.

This is the biggest setback we've had through this whole project. Everything else has been going great. Joe and I have stuck closely to the schedule that we prepared. Sometimes we were ahead, sometimes behind. For the most part we were close. It's very dissapointing to come so far and not be able to make it the rest of the way. Hopefully we will be able to put all of the assets in the engine someday soon. Until then I must end this very long rant. Thank you for listening.



Mmmmmm corned beef.

Some type of park structure.

Like a boss

Small update. I made a bridge. So look at it.

Go Go Gadget City

We're coming along. If you read my partners blog you will see where he is. I'm about in the same place. Things are going well. We are both on schedule with our seven items for this week. Here are a few images of what I've accomplished so far.















I'm on a boat...

Awesome Town

So for a small post I decided to show you our city layout.



That's our city.

Two to Tango

I'm sticking with the art track and I've gained a teammate. Mr. Joe Serra. We've decided to make a city. This city will be pretty big. It will contain a city, a residential area, a park, a factory, and docks. We've listed all the items that will need to be made. Which are right here:

City 23 Items:
Under 2500 Polys
One Landmark Building. Center Node. Tom
2 Medium Buildings: Split
2 Smaller Buildings: Split
1 Church: Joe
3 Houses: Tom
Under 500 Polys
Streets: Tom
Streetlights: ­Joe
Traffic Lights: Joe
Fire Hydrants: Tom
Dumpsters: Joe
Trash Cans: Joe
Garbage bags: Tom
Sewers: Tom
Mail Boxes: Tom
Flag Pole: Joe
Street Signs: Joe
Telephone Poles/Wires: Split
Pipes/Gutters: Joe
Traffic Barrels: Joe
Barricade: Tom
City Trees: Tom
Bus Stops: Tom
Both do general trash/debris
Vehicles: If time…Split


Park 13 Items:
Under 1000 Polys
Statues: Joe
Fountain: Joe
Gazebo : Tom
Under 500 Polys
3 Trees: Tom
Bushes: Joe
Shrubs: Joe
Benches: Tom
Park Sign: Tom
Cobblestone: Tom
Bird Bath: Joe
Flowers General Plants: Joe
Bridge: Tom

Gate? Wall?: If Time


Factory 10 Items:
Under 2000 Polys
Giant Building: Joe
Freighter: Joe
Bridge: Tom
Under 500 Polys
Smoke Stacks: Joe
Office: Tom
Docks: Tom
Silo/Tanks: Joe
Coal Piles: Tom
General rubble: Split
Scraps: Joe

We've also laid out a schedule for us. This is shown here:

23 Days 23 Items
1 Item Done Everyday. Done Means Model, Texture, and Exported for TGA.
2-17 Tues: Start Splitting up the work/Laying out the city
2-18 Wed: Work on Items
2-19 Thur: Work on Items
2-20 Fri: Work on Items
2-21 Sat: Work on Items
2-22 Sun: Work on Items
2-23 Mon: Work on Items
2-24 Tues: Have 7 Items Done
2-25 Wed: Work on Items
2-26 Thur: Work on Items
2-27 Fri: Work on Items
2-28 Sat: Work on Items
3-1 Sun: Work on Items
3-2 Mon: Work on Items
3-3 Tues: Have 14 Items Done
3-4 Wed: Work on Items
3-5 Thur: Work on Items
3-6 Fri: Work on Items
3-7 Sat: Work on Items
3-8 Sun: Work on Items
3-9 Mon: Work on Items
3-10 Tues: Have 21 Items Done
3-11 Wed: Work on Items
3-12 Thur: CITY DONE AND PUT IN TGA!
3-13 Fri: Adding Detail.
3-14 Sat: Adding Detail.
3-15 Sun: Adding Detail.
3-16 Mon: Adding Detail.
3-17 Tues: Adding Detail.
3-18 Wed: Adding Detail.
3-19 Thur: DUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


all dates are subject to change. :)

Arty McArtArt

I just ate a grape and I...


I'm feeling the art track this time around. I want to do a city area. I'm not sure right now if I want to do a big city, or if I want more of a town feel to it. I'm leaning toward a downtown area with a neighborhood on the outside of it. I'm looking for reference images right now. Once I have a good feeling about what I want I'll post them here.

You shouldn't have done that...he's just a boy.

Telekinesis Post Mortem

The Good
The best thing that I can say about this project is that in the end, I got the basics of what I was going for. In the game you’re able to pick up and levitate an object. You can rotate this object around you, and walk with it. This was the main goal of my project. Having accomplished that, I feel that this project was a success.

The Bad
There were a lot of things in this project that went wrong. As I said before I had my basic expectations laid out for this project. However, like any project I do, I like to go above and beyond. I wanted to have good weight detection on all the objects. I also wanted to lay out a bunch of little puzzles that would demonstrate how you would use this power. The problem came about when I realized that telekinesis is very difficult to program. The start of my problems began with my good friend math. I knew that programming this would require some math. However, I didn’t take into account how much math would be involved. In high school I only got to geometry. The math that was needed for this project involved calculus.
After I learned the formula I needed to calculate rotation, I had difficulty putting it into the Torque engine. The formula needed me to acquire the angle at which my player was rotated. Getting this information from Torque was easy enough to do. It was the last variable that is given to you by the getTransform function. This variable in Torque is flawed though. The angle works the way it’s designed to from 0 to 240. However, after 240, the angles go back down to 0. This took me a long time to get right. After a lot of researching I finally found a fix for it.
When I put everything together it still didn’t worked like it was supposed to. The objects would teleport behind you and then rotate like normal. This was another block of code that took a long time to figure out. I started to think that it may be the formula that I have that wasn’t working. This is when I began to look up the formula again. As it turns out, there is at least six different ways to rotate something around a given point mathematically.
After everything was solved for the basics of telekinesis, I learned that the way I was going about moving the object made the collision not work. This made me a sad panda. Time became the deciding factor in whether to fix this or not. Unfortunately this wasn’t fixed in the final version.

The Ugly
YOUR FACE!!111!!!ONE1!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

What I Learned
Calculus. Well not all of calculus. I did learn how to use sin and cos effectively. I also learned that sometimes I cannot go above and beyond, and I’m stuck with just the basics.

What the Future Beholds
I would really like to implement this into the engine. If I can recompile the engine to use telekinesis automatically, I believe that it would fix my collision problems. It would also be good practice for recompiling the engine to do what I want it to. That way I will no longer have to fight so hard with Torque. If I do have the time to put it in the engine, and it works well, I’d like to upload it as a resource to the Garage Games website. I haven’t seen anything like this up there, and I feel like it would be good exposure for me.

I'm Done

It's not everything that I expected. However, I got telekinesis to work. GOOOOOOOO ME!

Math...We meet again.

“Tobias was a never-nude, which is exactly what it sounds like.”


I have an idea on how to get my floating object to rotate around my guy. This idea should also solve the collision problem that i'm having. Unfortunately this solution looks something like this:




*













This means I must deal with sin and cos and math and stuff that makes my brain hurt. Another downside is that I've only gotten as far as high school geometry. That was 6 years ago. Sigh. On the plus side if it works it will in fact kick ass.







* 3D glasses not available in all areas.

Turn Around Bright Eyes.

Since most people are posting pictures I'll do the same.

So I've had some success lately. So far I've gotten torque to recognize what object I'm looking at. It turns out that it has to be either an interior or a shape. Statics shapes are a no no. I've also managed to make a building teleport by clicking on it. Now I need to figure out a way to attach the object to the mouse. Should be fun.









I also need to figure out how to get out of this powder keg I'm living in. Without giving off sparks.

Mechanic Designer

There, that's me. Kevin Arnold, 1968, the summer before junior high school. And I don't mind saying I was a pretty fair little athlete.


1. What is your mechanic that you intend to create? Diagrams and charts if necessary to explain this idea.

The mechanic that I would like to create would be telekinesis. Telekinesis is the movement of objects by scientifically inexplicable means, as by the exercise of an occult power. The game would focus on solving puzzles using your telekinetic powers. When the player starts they will only be able to pick up small items. As the player progresses their telekinetic power will too. They will soon be able to pick up bigger things. The more you use the power the more weight your telekinetic powers can handle.



2. What’s the theory behind why it is fun?

Who wouldn’t want telekinetic powers?
I think looking at puzzles in a different way will be what makes this game fun. An example of a puzzle the player might have to solve would be opening a door. In order to open this door the player must find objects that weigh enough to keep the button down. Another puzzle may be finding a way to get to an unreachable area. In order to accomplish this, the player must move objects over to the area to help boost them up.

3. What research have you done in to this mechanic? (If you were to make a game, what is your competition? What might you have to research in the real world?)

I’ll have to research basic physics properties to see if I can apply it. I’ll also have to assign weight properties to every item. This means I’ll have to look into how heavy various things are. A game that is similar to this would be Second Sight. That would be my competition. They not only have telekinetic powers, but they also have various mental powers. This would be considered if I were to make this into a full game. For now, however, I would like to focus on a small puzzle solving game.

4. What technology will you be using to prototype your mechanic?

I would like to use the Torque Game Engine and TorqueScript.

Trouble Ahead?

Captain's Log: Star Date 3.14159.

Torque 3D and telekinesis is what I've set out to do. However, it seems after only a week I've hit a little snag. I cannot seem to figure out how to tell what the mouse is pointing at in torque. This is essential to figuring out which object the player wants to pick up. I've been looking in the Torque book and I found some code that may be useful. This function is passing a variable into it that seems very important. After scanning through the project, however, I cannot locate where this function is being called. Hmmm.

More research is needed. Full speed ahead.

First Day of Class

Dear Journal,

I think Patty Mayonnaise is the greatest person in the world.



I think I might take on the role of Game Mechanic Designer. If we decide on using Torque 3D I was thinking of trying to tackle telekinesis. I believe that it would be a bit of a task to incorporate that in Torque Script.