Week 4

 Week 4 has been very productive, and it is safe to say I am closer to the end of this build than i am to the beginning. 

It started on Sunday evening, where I went to the uni labs after finishing at my actual job. While I was there, I finalised the build of the butterfly asset. In the course of two hours, I had used Sweep Mesh to create legs and antennae, and used an extruded cylinder as the body, which I made into a high poly for baking. 

The plan for the wings has changed -- instead of using a geometric mesh, I will learn how to implement alphas in Unreal Engine; something I have wanted to learn for almost a year but have been unable to find time or motivation to do so.  

Then in the days following I finished the builds of a stack of Polaroid pictures, a single polaroid picture, a film cartridge, and finally the base of my presented model -- which I designed to be a wood-panelled desk surface. 

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I then textured the cartridge using the same techniques that I used to texture the camera, leaving the very center smooth (using a black mask to mask out that single UV shell) and then using the Polaroid Logo Alpha that I made to add the branding.

 

The polaroid pictures were a small problem as I was unsure of what would constitute copyright infringement. I checked with my lecturer and then sent an email to DontNod Entertainment, the latter of which I am waiting for a reply on. So as such I will just continue as planned. My lecturer has warned me that if anything were to happen, I would simply be asked to remove the piece from my portfolio, which I am happy to do if asked. 

I chose to use Polaroids from the game, applying the images using a mask beneath a plain off-white fill layer that I coupled with a Normal Map that emulated a crumpled paper effect. 

Crumpled Paper Normal Map

Finally I added a base to the model, which I styled to look like a wooden desk, baking the individual planks into a flat Low Poly model. 

I textured it, purposefully adding a coffee stain around where I wanted the coffee cup to sit, and then exported the Albedo into Maya to use as a size reference for the base of the cup. 

Overall, I am pleased with the progress made this week, and next week plan on fully finishing the textures for all models (including the butterfly) and then start to import into engine (Marmoset at the very least).