Scale Adjustment

The Original Dimensions

I started off with a 34x24x10ft room (length, width, height) in the beginning but as the blockout went on I must have made a few changes without realising which lead to it being 34x25x13 in the end. I only noticed this went I went back into 3DS Max to begin making the walls, floor and ceiling.

Due to my plan to use modular assets throughout my environment I had to ensure that my environment was a certain set of dimensions so that these modular assets could lock into place correctly and snap together using the grid within UDK.

I set out to do some further tests with blockouts to find out the right scale for the environment as well as to find out a good balance for the best fit for my modular assets.

Further Blockouts

I sat down with my notepad and began drawing out some grids representing the floor tiles. Once I had a few combinations jotted down I tested them out by doing a quick model of the floor, walls and ceiling before throwing it over to UDK to have a walk around and get a feel for the size. I also imported the original blockout's desks and sofa to help get a better idea of the scale and eventually settled on 24x44x10.  

  

I know now that this wasn't the correct grid size and have recently changed it to 48x24x12 which has enabled me to use just the one modular wall at 12x12 - it is easy to see why having a square modular piece is beneficial to the original. However I'll go into detail on this in a future post.

The Initial Blockout

I spent a week on and off creating the initial blockout for my environment in 3DS Max using primitive shapes with some detail to really get an idea of what it was going to look like.

Once I had finished with the blockout I exported it into UDK which enabled me to have a walk about the level and ensure not only that everything was the right scale so far but also just to see the size of the room and whether or not any adjustments needed to be made.

 I was happy with how things were looking so far; the environment was looking cluttered like in the concept art giving the impression of someone who is constantly busy and overloaded with work. The only problems were with the dimensions of the room as a whole. I would have to create some more blockouts, of just the walls and floor this time to test out which size was going to work best.

Introduction

Welcome 

Hi, welcome to my final year project diary. This blog will essentially be a work diary for me to keep updated on the progress of my final year project.


The Project 
 

I have chosen to create a 3D environment for my project. I will be using a piece of concept art from Deus Ex: Human Revolution and will be, somewhat loosely, following this as a style guide and motivation. I do not want to shackle myself by declaring I will be making a perfect recreation of the piece in 3D form as I want the freedom to branch out as and when I wish to so that I can keep my interest fresh and create the scene as I see fit.

The environment itself will be created in the Unreal Development Kit and populated with models which I will create in 3DS Max and detailed in Mudbox if warranted, I am also interested in incorporating nDo2 into my workflow when possible as this increases the speed at which I can create the models. Once the model is complete it will be taken into Photoshop where I will create the necessary textures before being exported into UDK. I plan to make use of the engine's fantastic material editor and the engine's particle system, Cascade, as well as Kismet for any basic animations. 

I actually began my project a few months but unfortunately did not create a blog at the beginning so my first few entries will be a catch up on what I have done so far. Once these are done I plan to update the blog as much as possible, but at least once a week.