Busy busy busy..

I've been super busy today! I made a couple of trim pieces that I'm going to use on the top deck of the ship, and the balcony area at the aft of the ship as well. I think the little balcony pieces might be a tad too dark though...

I've also been trying to get a good fog going in my ship scene. I included a concept art piece I found that I'm using as a reference. I'll get there!!!!!

Up to date

Finally we are up to date, and I will keep updating this blog with screenshots of where I am with my pirate ship scene. Today I learned how to import models from 3ds max into unreal, how to make a shader, and spent a few hours tweaking post processing effects and making fog shaders and emitters. Of course, this isn't the final screenshot, I will be sure to give this blog a beauty shot of what I've created. I'm so proud of it.

I made another set of accessories for the ship's deck.. the top gold banister and the curved banisters for the stairs. I also attempted at making one of the tiling textures I'll need for the rest of the deck, but I'm having trouble matching it to the models I've already put down, and I still haven't gotten the red to look exactly how I'd like it!!

coming together

A few days ago, I was up to this point. I redid the texture to the barrels! So now it fit more into the scene. I made a window that would match the cannon flap, I made the ceiling, an emissive map for the lanterns, cannon balls, and a detailed floor texture for the floor boards. I especially had fun with the last, as I could place the floorboards however I wanted and it didn't mess up the texture. I could not believe I could do this. Now that I know this, the possibilities are endless! I could use the rings from the cannon flaps and put them in different places!

the cannon deck

Behind the Pirate King's "rooms", I wanted a door that led onto the cannon decks. I wanted an open space where you could see all the cannons. This was way more fun than trying to build a space for the Pirate King to live in. I wanted to finish this cannon deck, badly. I started going through everything I would need...archways, columns, the floorboards, and I placed in my barrel to see how it would look and it looked terrible! I would definitely fix that...

I started working on the texture that would be on the outside of the ship. I knew I wanted it gritty and moldy and old. I know I'll have to continue working on it to get it where I want it. I also started trying to lay out the interior of the ship. I was having trouble creating the space the Pirate King lived in. I was thinking that he would live luxuriously in a gutted version of a treasure ship, but then I started thinking maybe a Pirate King would like the small spaces a ship holds. I tried out a few different layouts but I didn't like any of them

working on the ship...

Working on the boat has been the hardest thing I've had to do. I didn't know whether or not to start to scale, or work small and then blow it up to proportion. When I finally got the shape and size of the ship that I wanted, I went to work on the balconies and stairways.

finished the cannon!

When I saw what my finished cannon looked like, I was so happy! I couldn't wait to get everything into UDK to see what it looked like, but I knew I needed a scene to work with so I could set the mood and the lighting to how I wanted. I was extremely proud of the cannon flap I made for the side of the ship.

The scene!

When I saw my things in one little scene, I got so excited at how good it was looking! It gave me motivation to start a few other objects that weren't even on my list. At this point, I had decided that I was going to build the Pirate King's chamber, aboard an abandoned treasure ship that had crashed somewhere. The Pirate King would use this ship has his headquarters, so I started thinking about what types of objects the Pirate King would have in his chambers..

More texturing!

I was starting to have some real fun with texturing by the time February 26th came around. I was especially having a good time trying to get the spec maps looking good. The gold was a challenge, and I knew I'd have to work more on the barrel - no wood is that shiny! I had made enough assets that I thought to myself I could start a little scene to see how everything looked together...

Things get INTERESTING

I was at the point where I had finished over 10 highpoly projections and I was really looking forward to playing around with texturing. I started texturing my low poly models and some of them turned out better than I expected, others I knew I would have to start learning some photoshop skills to make look better...

I cranked out more highpoly projections and created their low polys. By the time I started making the dresser, I started getting worried about scale, but I thought to myself, if it looks right in the editor, then maybe I can just scale it down once I get it all finished and have it in a scene...

What is projecting?

I finally thought I was ready to do my first projection piece. I decided to start with the simplest object I had created: the barrel. This whole process was so time consuming I wondered how anyone actually got anything done. But it was extremely interesting and the more I did it, the faster I got. The better I got.