Monday, September 24, 2012
Grades for EXP1
Hey guys,
If you want your grade and feedback for EXP1, send me an email (at stephen.b.davey@gmail.com) saying who you are, and I'll email you back with how you did.
Experiment 2: Week 3
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Upload images of 3 sketches of your chosen house, showing how their structural systems might fail over time without maintenance. (Most horizontal wooden surfaces should be caved in, concrete should be cracked and full of holes and what's known as "concrete cancer", roofs should be missing tiles / panels, glass should be mostly broken, steel should be rusted, aluminium should be slightly rusted, wood should be mostly rotten, etc)
- Name 2 natural disasters your house has been through (for some suggestions: earthquake, cyclone, hail storm, tsunami, hurricane, fire, blizzard, flood, lightning strike, volcanic eruption) and what damage your natural disasters would cause to it (eg, fires would leave most of the house's timber scorched black or completely burnt, floods would leave water marks and cause rot, an earthquake would cause major structural damage, etc). To give you some creative freedom, I won't restrict you to realistic natural disasters. You could equally do something like a zombie apocalypse, alien attack, meteor strike, robots taking over the world a la Terminator style, or other crazy but creatively freeing thing. Feel free to take inspiration from videogames and movies for this. As always, the aim for the end result is something that creates a really cool, immersive environment.
- Upload 3 reference images that show the kind of decay you want to model in your building (eg, from www.thehiat.org, or another source you think has good examples of buildings in decay)
- Discuss your ideas for decay with another student (or me) and post comments and suggestions given to you to your blog. Things to consider: What parts of the building will break? What will grow / spread across the building's remaining surfaces (moss, mould, cracks, stains)? What would be cool to make the process of decay interactive (refer to the end of this post for ideas)? What evidence of the building being lived in will you carefully reveal to the viewer? Will you leave evidence of what disaster caused the building to be abandoned (eg, newspaper about nuclear war, used up fire extinguisher left on the ground, sandbags piled up to try stop flood water getting in, etc)?
- Post images of your progress in developing the house in its state of decay.
Some examples of things that'd be good to add for interactivity:
- Things falling apart as you walk through the building (eg, a floor falling away when you step on it)
- Textures showing how materials age over time (your Crysis environment doesn't have to be realistic - so this option could be used towards a kind of timelapse showing your house decaying rapidly over 100 years, for example)
- Sounds of the building creaking and groaning that play as you walk through (eg, wooden floor boards, doors / shutters flapping loosely in the wind, papers being blown around by wind)
- Animating things moving around loosely in the wind (shutters, doors, ceiling fans) - Animals that now inhabit the building's remains (rats, crows, etc)
Don't forget that plants would very likely grow into and through the building in only a few years. After 100 years, you'd be lucky if there weren't one or many trees growing up through the building. Grass should be everywhere on the bottom floor, particularly near cracks and joins in surfaces.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Upload images of 3 sketches of your chosen house, showing how their structural systems might fail over time without maintenance. (Most horizontal wooden surfaces should be caved in, concrete should be cracked and full of holes and what's known as "concrete cancer", roofs should be missing tiles / panels, glass should be mostly broken, steel should be rusted, aluminium should be slightly rusted, wood should be mostly rotten, etc)
- Name 2 natural disasters your house has been through (for some suggestions: earthquake, cyclone, hail storm, tsunami, hurricane, fire, blizzard, flood, lightning strike, volcanic eruption) and what damage your natural disasters would cause to it (eg, fires would leave most of the house's timber scorched black or completely burnt, floods would leave water marks and cause rot, an earthquake would cause major structural damage, etc). To give you some creative freedom, I won't restrict you to realistic natural disasters. You could equally do something like a zombie apocalypse, alien attack, meteor strike, robots taking over the world a la Terminator style, or other crazy but creatively freeing thing. Feel free to take inspiration from videogames and movies for this. As always, the aim for the end result is something that creates a really cool, immersive environment.
- Upload 3 reference images that show the kind of decay you want to model in your building (eg, from www.thehiat.org, or another source you think has good examples of buildings in decay)
- Discuss your ideas for decay with another student (or me) and post comments and suggestions given to you to your blog. Things to consider: What parts of the building will break? What will grow / spread across the building's remaining surfaces (moss, mould, cracks, stains)? What would be cool to make the process of decay interactive (refer to the end of this post for ideas)? What evidence of the building being lived in will you carefully reveal to the viewer? Will you leave evidence of what disaster caused the building to be abandoned (eg, newspaper about nuclear war, used up fire extinguisher left on the ground, sandbags piled up to try stop flood water getting in, etc)?
- Post images of your progress in developing the house in its state of decay.
Some examples of things that'd be good to add for interactivity:
- Things falling apart as you walk through the building (eg, a floor falling away when you step on it)
- Textures showing how materials age over time (your Crysis environment doesn't have to be realistic - so this option could be used towards a kind of timelapse showing your house decaying rapidly over 100 years, for example)
- Sounds of the building creaking and groaning that play as you walk through (eg, wooden floor boards, doors / shutters flapping loosely in the wind, papers being blown around by wind)
- Animating things moving around loosely in the wind (shutters, doors, ceiling fans) - Animals that now inhabit the building's remains (rats, crows, etc)
Don't forget that plants would very likely grow into and through the building in only a few years. After 100 years, you'd be lucky if there weren't one or many trees growing up through the building. Grass should be everywhere on the bottom floor, particularly near cracks and joins in surfaces.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Experiment 2: Week 2
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Choose three materials to use on your imported 3DSMax model (eg, concrete, marble, tiles, sandstone, bricks, etc)
- Screenshots of your three materials in Crysis with only diffuse texture maps
- Images of your diffuse, bump, and spec (aka specular) texture maps on your blog
- Screenshots of your three materials updated in Crysis so they have bump and specular texture maps
- A clear statement of which house you're proceeding with for EXP2
- Screenshots showing your progress from having your chosen house modelled as a pristine, newly made object in Crysis to a decayed, corroded, broken form.
- Research about your three chosen materials, and (briefly) answer the following questions on each:
What is the process of making the material: _______________________
How long will the material last: _______________________
What makes the material corrode: _______________________
What are the material's structural pros and cons: _______________________
What is the material typically used for: _______________________
What are the material's environmental impacts: _______________________
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
As for this week's requirements:
- Choose three materials to use on your imported 3DSMax model (eg, concrete, marble, tiles, sandstone, bricks, etc)
- Screenshots of your three materials in Crysis with only diffuse texture maps
- Images of your diffuse, bump, and spec (aka specular) texture maps on your blog
- Screenshots of your three materials updated in Crysis so they have bump and specular texture maps
- A clear statement of which house you're proceeding with for EXP2
- Screenshots showing your progress from having your chosen house modelled as a pristine, newly made object in Crysis to a decayed, corroded, broken form.
- Research about your three chosen materials, and (briefly) answer the following questions on each:
What is the process of making the material: _______________________
How long will the material last: _______________________
What makes the material corrode: _______________________
What are the material's structural pros and cons: _______________________
What is the material typically used for: _______________________
What are the material's environmental impacts: _______________________
Monday, September 10, 2012
Experiment 2: Week 1
First off, some notes for experiment 2
The building you model should NOT be pristine. Think of what can happen to an area over a few hundred years. There are two kinds of things that would happen - slow long-term damage (corrosion, erosion, creep, fatigue, plant root penetration, termite damage, mould, rot) and quick short-term damage (storms, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, gas explosions, blizzards, perhaps even a meteorite).
The difference between these two is that long-term damage doesn't usually change the shape of an object - it just discolours it, or wraps it in a new surface (mould, vines, rust, and other growths). Short-term damage on the other hand makes a huge change to the shape of even very sturdy objects, like building cores, making them crumble, start tilting, or even crash to the ground.
As for the weekly tasks...
Once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the 3 buildings outlined in the lecture and install them to your Crysis installation as directed in the weekly tasks (screenshot the buildings in Crysis to show you've done this)
- A few screenshots of some 3DSMax models imported into Crysis (if there were any issues with the import, make a note of them below the relevant screenshot)
- 30 words posted about each of the 3 houses to show you've thought about how they might decay over 100 years. I don't need to know who the houses were made by, or who owned them. Just say how structural elements would decay, and what parts you think would break the most.
The building you model should NOT be pristine. Think of what can happen to an area over a few hundred years. There are two kinds of things that would happen - slow long-term damage (corrosion, erosion, creep, fatigue, plant root penetration, termite damage, mould, rot) and quick short-term damage (storms, hail, tsunamis, earthquakes, fires, gas explosions, blizzards, perhaps even a meteorite).
The difference between these two is that long-term damage doesn't usually change the shape of an object - it just discolours it, or wraps it in a new surface (mould, vines, rust, and other growths). Short-term damage on the other hand makes a huge change to the shape of even very sturdy objects, like building cores, making them crumble, start tilting, or even crash to the ground.
As for the weekly tasks...
Once you've made your posts for this week's task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the 3 buildings outlined in the lecture and install them to your Crysis installation as directed in the weekly tasks (screenshot the buildings in Crysis to show you've done this)
- A few screenshots of some 3DSMax models imported into Crysis (if there were any issues with the import, make a note of them below the relevant screenshot)
- 30 words posted about each of the 3 houses to show you've thought about how they might decay over 100 years. I don't need to know who the houses were made by, or who owned them. Just say how structural elements would decay, and what parts you think would break the most.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Week 6
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 6 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week. This coming week is the week your video trailers should be ready. So email me with any design-related concerns you have - the aim is to make a beautiful, intriguing cinematic trailer that grabs the user's attention. Use music, sound effects, and so forth to make the video more than just a simple Fraps recording. Move the camera smoothly, think about how your view is framed at all times, and make it interesting - this usually means building suspense or anticipation, then reaching a crescendo near the end of the video.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Images of 2 marking schedules filled out for your work so far by 2 other students, and uploaded to your blog. (The marking schedule can be found here in PDF format.)
2) Flowgraphs incorporated into your island as an integral and important part of the experience. You should use flowgraphs to mould how the user experiences your island, changing things as they move through it so the experience is more interactive than just moving through a landscape of objects that never move, light that never changes, weather that never varies, etc. Use the flowgraphs to reveal your letter and number combination in interesting, interactive ways! Triggers are your friend.
3) User interface cleaned as per course blog post, found here.
4) Refine your island, making it a realistic, fleshed-out environment with little details that make it look and feel professional.
5) Upload your trailer to Youtube. Important: the length of the trailer is limited to 120 seconds!
6) Upload your zipped FreeSDK folder (the whole installation + your level) and provide a link from your blog.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Images of 2 marking schedules filled out for your work so far by 2 other students, and uploaded to your blog. (The marking schedule can be found here in PDF format.)
2) Flowgraphs incorporated into your island as an integral and important part of the experience. You should use flowgraphs to mould how the user experiences your island, changing things as they move through it so the experience is more interactive than just moving through a landscape of objects that never move, light that never changes, weather that never varies, etc. Use the flowgraphs to reveal your letter and number combination in interesting, interactive ways! Triggers are your friend.
3) User interface cleaned as per course blog post, found here.
4) Refine your island, making it a realistic, fleshed-out environment with little details that make it look and feel professional.
5) Upload your trailer to Youtube. Important: the length of the trailer is limited to 120 seconds!
6) Upload your zipped FreeSDK folder (the whole installation + your level) and provide a link from your blog.
General Advice for Level Composition
Hi guys, here's come tips on how to make a good level in Crysis. I've noticed many of you have several problems you can easily fix and improve on. Following is a list of problems I've seen, and suggested ways to fix / improve them.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) placed are all the same angle and size, which can easily look very repetitive and cheap.
When placing vegetation, there are settings to randomly vary its size and rotation. This stops it looking repetitive.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) are being placed where they shouldn't.
You can control the angle the ground needs to be, and the elevation (height above 0.0 metres) the ground needs to have for given vegetation to be placed on it. You can use this to, for example, stop trees being placed on sheer cliff faces, or rocks getting placed along what should be a clear, flat beach.
Problem: The island has large areas without any features (trees, lakes, rocks, shrubs, etc).
Make a huge vegetation brush and just paint like mad across ugly empty areas on your terrain, making sure to vary the size and rotation of the trees. The only people who should have empty areas are people who decided to make a desert, or people with large surfaces of water (eg, for an archipelago or a huge lake). Fixing this takes a few seconds, so there's no excuse for not doing it.
Problem: I have a large area I want to be empty (eg, a desert or huge beach), but the terrain texture looks repetitive and ugly.
You need to add things that break this repetition. The main way is by adding features that aren't repetitive. Some options are:
- Apply many decals all over the place to add features.
- Paint small shrubs as vegetation (making sure to randomly vary size and rotation).
- Tricky but effective option: Make a terrain texture that has larger tile size than the repetitive one, and give it low opacity (eg, something like 0.05). Paint it over the other repetitive texture so they blend together.
Problem: I want to use Windows Movie Maker for my trailer.
Please don't. It doesn't give you much control over what your video looks like, and the default title screens and style options looked ok when Windows Movie Maker came out over 5 years ago, but now they're overused and cheesy.
I'd suggest using Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, or Adobe AfterEffects for your videos. AfterEffects can have some really slick-looking effects you can add to your video to make its style suit the atmosphere and emotions you're trying to convey.
Problem: I put my picturesque sceneries really far from each other. What can I do to make the user travel faster between them?
You could try placing a vehicle. I'd recommend a 4 wheel drive or a speedboat, since helicopters are too free-roaming.
If this doesn't cover the ground fast enough, you can use a flowgraph Jules put together during this week's class, and attach it to an area or proximity trigger. The flowgraph is shown below. The instructions that go with the flowgraph are:
- you can start game mode at any location
- there are 2 triggers
- when you enter trigger.A, it will take you to a location you entered in the flowgraph (not the trigger.B)
- to add more triggers, just copy can paste the graph and change the locations.
The full size version of the image can be found here.
Problem: I don't know how to control where the user goes in the map.
This can be controlled in several artistic ways. There is a kind of formula you can apply to controlling where the player goes, and how they feel a sense of suspense build.
I could write 2000 words, or I could save you the headache and link you to some videos :) They're pretty interesting and get in to some good level design (and architectural design!) ideas that you, frankly, won't hear from many people teaching at the FBE.
Halfelife 2: Episode 2: Lost Coast Developer Commentary:
Portal 2 Developer Commentary:
There are some developer commentaries for Halflife 2: Episode One and Halflife 2: Episode Two, but I didn't have time during the lessons to find decent YouTube versions of them. If you're keen, you can look them up yourself :)
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) placed are all the same angle and size, which can easily look very repetitive and cheap.
When placing vegetation, there are settings to randomly vary its size and rotation. This stops it looking repetitive.
Problem: Vegetation (trees, shrubs, rocks, etc) are being placed where they shouldn't.
You can control the angle the ground needs to be, and the elevation (height above 0.0 metres) the ground needs to have for given vegetation to be placed on it. You can use this to, for example, stop trees being placed on sheer cliff faces, or rocks getting placed along what should be a clear, flat beach.
Problem: The island has large areas without any features (trees, lakes, rocks, shrubs, etc).
Make a huge vegetation brush and just paint like mad across ugly empty areas on your terrain, making sure to vary the size and rotation of the trees. The only people who should have empty areas are people who decided to make a desert, or people with large surfaces of water (eg, for an archipelago or a huge lake). Fixing this takes a few seconds, so there's no excuse for not doing it.
Problem: I have a large area I want to be empty (eg, a desert or huge beach), but the terrain texture looks repetitive and ugly.
You need to add things that break this repetition. The main way is by adding features that aren't repetitive. Some options are:
- Apply many decals all over the place to add features.
- Paint small shrubs as vegetation (making sure to randomly vary size and rotation).
- Tricky but effective option: Make a terrain texture that has larger tile size than the repetitive one, and give it low opacity (eg, something like 0.05). Paint it over the other repetitive texture so they blend together.
Problem: I want to use Windows Movie Maker for my trailer.
Please don't. It doesn't give you much control over what your video looks like, and the default title screens and style options looked ok when Windows Movie Maker came out over 5 years ago, but now they're overused and cheesy.
I'd suggest using Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere, or Adobe AfterEffects for your videos. AfterEffects can have some really slick-looking effects you can add to your video to make its style suit the atmosphere and emotions you're trying to convey.
Problem: I put my picturesque sceneries really far from each other. What can I do to make the user travel faster between them?
You could try placing a vehicle. I'd recommend a 4 wheel drive or a speedboat, since helicopters are too free-roaming.
If this doesn't cover the ground fast enough, you can use a flowgraph Jules put together during this week's class, and attach it to an area or proximity trigger. The flowgraph is shown below. The instructions that go with the flowgraph are:
- you can start game mode at any location
- there are 2 triggers
- when you enter trigger.A, it will take you to a location you entered in the flowgraph (not the trigger.B)
- to add more triggers, just copy can paste the graph and change the locations.
The full size version of the image can be found here.
Problem: I don't know how to control where the user goes in the map.
This can be controlled in several artistic ways. There is a kind of formula you can apply to controlling where the player goes, and how they feel a sense of suspense build.
I could write 2000 words, or I could save you the headache and link you to some videos :) They're pretty interesting and get in to some good level design (and architectural design!) ideas that you, frankly, won't hear from many people teaching at the FBE.
Halfelife 2: Episode 2: Lost Coast Developer Commentary:
Portal 2 Developer Commentary:
There are some developer commentaries for Halflife 2: Episode One and Halflife 2: Episode Two, but I didn't have time during the lessons to find decent YouTube versions of them. If you're keen, you can look them up yourself :)
Monday, August 20, 2012
How to hide the HUD, console output, and player weapons in Sandbox
Hey guys, here's a video quickly showing how to hide the HUD (the energy, health, and ammo in-game overlays).
I've also asked Ben to make a post (which you should soon find at here) with an image that shows you a flowgraph you can use to remove weapons and hide the console output in-game. You need to create a basic entity and attach a flowgraph to it for it to work. Props to him for sharing that! Together, these two things will make your videos seem much more professional. Students with unnecessary HUD elements showing in their videos is a pet peeve of mine!
I've also asked Ben to make a post (which you should soon find at here) with an image that shows you a flowgraph you can use to remove weapons and hide the console output in-game. You need to create a basic entity and attach a flowgraph to it for it to work. Props to him for sharing that! Together, these two things will make your videos seem much more professional. Students with unnecessary HUD elements showing in their videos is a pet peeve of mine!
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Week 5
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 5 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week. Because so few students posted their links to my blog last week, this week I will only be giving feedback to students who have posted this week's links on this blog post.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Evidence you used decals (screenshots)
2) Evidence you used brushes (screenshots)
3) Evidence you used entities (screenshots)
4) Evidence you used vegetation (screenshots - and I'm meaning covering "blank" areas of your island with this stuff, so I can't go into your island and look on to a huge, empty area with a repeating texture)
5) Letter + number combination on 5 scales, designed such that the island is shaped to control and manipulate viewer's experience to conceal and reveal the letter + number on those 5 different scales (screenshots and text explanations below, explaining your strategy for concealing and revealing the 5 different scales of the letter + number combination... so for each scale, one screenshot + some text explaining how you conceal and reveal your letter + number at that scale)
6) EXP1 draft completed (During class, I'll be getting you guys to look at EXP1 marking schedule and fill it out based on your work so far. This should help you see what you need to work on in preparation for the submission in week 8.)
In addition to this, from my in-class demos, you guys should all now know how to paint terrain textures only on slopes of certain angles, and ground at certain heights. As I said during the tutorial, I want you to use this to vary your terrain textures in a natural way. For example, painting snow caps high up on mountains, making steep cliffs look rocky, or making flat beaches sandy.
Also, don't forget the same controls can be applied to brushes added as vegetation. So you can make trees only grow on ground that's not too steep, thus automatically leaving cliff faces and beaches bare of vegetation.
Keep in mind that through all this, your primary goal is to come up with something that looks awesome. With very little effort, the Sandbox Editor can make beautiful 3D environments. To improve the realism of models you bring in to your environment, try using displacement maps and normal maps. As part of the work towards this submission, you should make models yourself, and texture them yourself, since this is what you'll be doing in the field once you graduate. Feel free to use existing 3D models on the internet, but chances are they're either poorly modelled or poorly texture mapped (meaning they might not look realistic when imported into Crysis). The best option is to make your own.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Evidence you used decals (screenshots)
2) Evidence you used brushes (screenshots)
3) Evidence you used entities (screenshots)
4) Evidence you used vegetation (screenshots - and I'm meaning covering "blank" areas of your island with this stuff, so I can't go into your island and look on to a huge, empty area with a repeating texture)
5) Letter + number combination on 5 scales, designed such that the island is shaped to control and manipulate viewer's experience to conceal and reveal the letter + number on those 5 different scales (screenshots and text explanations below, explaining your strategy for concealing and revealing the 5 different scales of the letter + number combination... so for each scale, one screenshot + some text explaining how you conceal and reveal your letter + number at that scale)
6) EXP1 draft completed (During class, I'll be getting you guys to look at EXP1 marking schedule and fill it out based on your work so far. This should help you see what you need to work on in preparation for the submission in week 8.)
In addition to this, from my in-class demos, you guys should all now know how to paint terrain textures only on slopes of certain angles, and ground at certain heights. As I said during the tutorial, I want you to use this to vary your terrain textures in a natural way. For example, painting snow caps high up on mountains, making steep cliffs look rocky, or making flat beaches sandy.
Also, don't forget the same controls can be applied to brushes added as vegetation. So you can make trees only grow on ground that's not too steep, thus automatically leaving cliff faces and beaches bare of vegetation.
Keep in mind that through all this, your primary goal is to come up with something that looks awesome. With very little effort, the Sandbox Editor can make beautiful 3D environments. To improve the realism of models you bring in to your environment, try using displacement maps and normal maps. As part of the work towards this submission, you should make models yourself, and texture them yourself, since this is what you'll be doing in the field once you graduate. Feel free to use existing 3D models on the internet, but chances are they're either poorly modelled or poorly texture mapped (meaning they might not look realistic when imported into Crysis). The best option is to make your own.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Week 4
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 4 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
Since the fire alarm went off during the first tutorial, I didn't get to talk to everyone that was there. To make up for this, I'll be posting some feedback on your blogs if you're in the 2-4pm tut.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Choose an image from today's lecture and post it to your blog.
2) Before and After screenshots of your island with the new skybox (FYI, skybox materials are found under Materials\Sky... other materials won't work, since they're not cubemaps). Make sure the two screenshots are taken from roughly the same place so a clear difference can be seen.
3) Screenshot of your time of day settings before modifying them.
4) Screenshot of your time of day settings after modifying them.
5) Screenshot of your island with the new time of day settings (from the same place as the previous screenshots).
6) Do steps 1-5 two more times, with different reference images and different skyboxes and textures both times. Post all images to your blog.
7) Continue working on your sublime scene. Include an example of each of the following environment effects in your island scene: fog, rain / weather, waterfall. For many of you, a good idea would be trying to incorporate them into your picturesque views!
8) Using Fraps, make a 15 second video of the above environment effects and the sublime nature of your custom island. Upload the video to YouTube and embed it on your blog.
Since the fire alarm went off during the first tutorial, I didn't get to talk to everyone that was there. To make up for this, I'll be posting some feedback on your blogs if you're in the 2-4pm tut.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
1) Choose an image from today's lecture and post it to your blog.
2) Before and After screenshots of your island with the new skybox (FYI, skybox materials are found under Materials\Sky... other materials won't work, since they're not cubemaps). Make sure the two screenshots are taken from roughly the same place so a clear difference can be seen.
3) Screenshot of your time of day settings before modifying them.
4) Screenshot of your time of day settings after modifying them.
5) Screenshot of your island with the new time of day settings (from the same place as the previous screenshots).
6) Do steps 1-5 two more times, with different reference images and different skyboxes and textures both times. Post all images to your blog.
7) Continue working on your sublime scene. Include an example of each of the following environment effects in your island scene: fog, rain / weather, waterfall. For many of you, a good idea would be trying to incorporate them into your picturesque views!
8) Using Fraps, make a 15 second video of the above environment effects and the sublime nature of your custom island. Upload the video to YouTube and embed it on your blog.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Week 3
Hey guys, sorry this post's up a bit late, I forgot to put it up earlier in the week! Hopefully you've all remembered to finish the weekly in-class and individual tasks by checking the week 3 page on Ros' website. Once you've made your posts for the week 3 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
If you haven't finished the tasks from the previous weeks, please make sure you complete them so I can check you off for them in my spreadsheet :)
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the sample assets package and put them in the appropriate folders within your CryEngineFreeSDK package. (more info in the weekly task link)
- Find an image of work for these landscape painters / landscape architects / architects / gardens (ONE PER PAINTER / ARCHITECT / GARDEN).
Claude Lorrain
William Gilpin
Capability Brown
Humphrey Repton
JMW Turner, and
One of the following examples of Chinese gardens shown in today's lecture - Liu Garden; Suzhou, Lion Forest; Suzhou, Zhuozheng Garden; Suzhou, West Lake; Hangzhou.
- Choose 4 of these reference images and recreate similar scenes located at various 'stations' or 'spots' within your island.
- Bring in objects you think are appropriate for creating a Picturesque landscape within your island, and that are also appropriate for your custom island. - Make sure the landscape you design can be explained in terms of these picturesque techniques:
dividing the image into foreground, middle ground, background
vegetation; trees, shrubs etc.
navigation, pathways, [roads]
framing the view
ruins
follies
bridges, animals, water, pathways, vegetation
ha-has / manipulating, shaping the land.
- Use Fraps to take high resolution screenshots and post them to your blog side-by-side with your reference images. (at least one screenshot per reference image)
- Choose a 5th reference image to represent within your custom island. Continue detailing your island, using vegetation, decals, roads, water volumes, terrain layer painting to enrich your island.
- Upload a short clip demonstrating the results of today's tasks, navigating through your custom island to the places you set your scene. Upload to Youtube and link it to your blog. You can also embed the video in your blog if you wish, but be mindful of how wide the video is so it fits properly on the page.
In case anyone's unsure, this week's task requirements can be found here.
If you haven't finished the tasks from the previous weeks, please make sure you complete them so I can check you off for them in my spreadsheet :)
For a checklist of what to have up on your blogs:
- Download the sample assets package and put them in the appropriate folders within your CryEngineFreeSDK package. (more info in the weekly task link)
- Find an image of work for these landscape painters / landscape architects / architects / gardens (ONE PER PAINTER / ARCHITECT / GARDEN).
Claude Lorrain
William Gilpin
Capability Brown
Humphrey Repton
JMW Turner, and
One of the following examples of Chinese gardens shown in today's lecture - Liu Garden; Suzhou, Lion Forest; Suzhou, Zhuozheng Garden; Suzhou, West Lake; Hangzhou.
- Choose 4 of these reference images and recreate similar scenes located at various 'stations' or 'spots' within your island.
- Bring in objects you think are appropriate for creating a Picturesque landscape within your island, and that are also appropriate for your custom island. - Make sure the landscape you design can be explained in terms of these picturesque techniques:
dividing the image into foreground, middle ground, background
vegetation; trees, shrubs etc.
navigation, pathways, [roads]
framing the view
ruins
follies
bridges, animals, water, pathways, vegetation
ha-has / manipulating, shaping the land.
- Use Fraps to take high resolution screenshots and post them to your blog side-by-side with your reference images. (at least one screenshot per reference image)
- Choose a 5th reference image to represent within your custom island. Continue detailing your island, using vegetation, decals, roads, water volumes, terrain layer painting to enrich your island.
- Upload a short clip demonstrating the results of today's tasks, navigating through your custom island to the places you set your scene. Upload to Youtube and link it to your blog. You can also embed the video in your blog if you wish, but be mindful of how wide the video is so it fits properly on the page.
Monday, July 30, 2012
How to make a tessellating texture
Here's a quick rundown on how to make a tessellating texture in Photoshop. This can be used for things that have a large, repeating texture, such as terrains and certain parts of buildings.
1) Grab texture from somewhere. (eg, cgtextures.com)
2) Resize to be a square.
3) Offset by roughly half the width and half the height.
4) New layer.
5) Use clone tool with a soft brush to remove seams.
6) Offset back to original position to check there are no new seams made from using the clone tool. (If there are, use the clone tool again to remove those seams, then offset again to check for seams again. Repeat until there are no more seams.)
7) Ctrl+E to flatten.
1) Grab texture from somewhere. (eg, cgtextures.com)
2) Resize to be a square.
3) Offset by roughly half the width and half the height.
4) New layer.
5) Use clone tool with a soft brush to remove seams.
6) Offset back to original position to check there are no new seams made from using the clone tool. (If there are, use the clone tool again to remove those seams, then offset again to check for seams again. Repeat until there are no more seams.)
7) Ctrl+E to flatten.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Week 2
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 2 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, your week one task requirements can be found here.
For a quick reference, these are the things you have to have proof of on your blog:
- Find 5 reference images of different landscapes. Post them to your blog Include an image of your country of origin. In a short sentence, list characteristics of the vegetation, terrain, lighting for each one.
- A clear statement saying which image you've chosen as the basis for your work in GeoControl2.
- A clear statement of what your letter and number are (I can figure this out, but this just saves me the effort trawling through the class lists :P)
- Using Fraps, post 5 images from different vantage points within your custom island. Each image should illustrate a different sense of scale. Use objects as brushes to help the viewer identify the sense of scale in each image. Write a word under each image that best describes the feeling of that image. (To show a sense of scale, you need to use things that have a known size, and put them in the image... so people, cars, buildings, or trees would be good examples.)
- Three images of your 2d island, created based on a different one of your 5 reference images.
- Post your new terrain texture to your blog. Make sure the texture suits the kind of aesthetic your terrain's reference image has. So if you've chosen rolling grassy hills, it should be a grassy texture, or if you've chosen a sandy beach, it should be a sandy texture.
- Post an image showing your custom terrain texture applied to your island.
In case anyone's unsure, your week one task requirements can be found here.
For a quick reference, these are the things you have to have proof of on your blog:
- Find 5 reference images of different landscapes. Post them to your blog Include an image of your country of origin. In a short sentence, list characteristics of the vegetation, terrain, lighting for each one.
- A clear statement saying which image you've chosen as the basis for your work in GeoControl2.
- A clear statement of what your letter and number are (I can figure this out, but this just saves me the effort trawling through the class lists :P)
- Using Fraps, post 5 images from different vantage points within your custom island. Each image should illustrate a different sense of scale. Use objects as brushes to help the viewer identify the sense of scale in each image. Write a word under each image that best describes the feeling of that image. (To show a sense of scale, you need to use things that have a known size, and put them in the image... so people, cars, buildings, or trees would be good examples.)
- Three images of your 2d island, created based on a different one of your 5 reference images.
- Post your new terrain texture to your blog. Make sure the texture suits the kind of aesthetic your terrain's reference image has. So if you've chosen rolling grassy hills, it should be a grassy texture, or if you've chosen a sandy beach, it should be a sandy texture.
- Post an image showing your custom terrain texture applied to your island.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Week 1
Hey guys, once you've made your posts for the week 1 task, add a comment to this post with links to those blog posts. Just make one comment each that has several links, one link per post you've made for this week.
In case anyone's unsure, your week one task requirements can be found here.
Things you have to have proof of on your blog:
- A link to my blog from your blog. You can add this by clicking "Design" (on the top-right of your blog page), then "Layout" (on the left menu on the design page), then "Add a gadget", then in the window that pops up, scroll down and click "Blog List". This will take you to a page that lets you add a blog list to your page. You can use this to add my blog to your blog's page. You can do this some other way, but the requirement is that the link should be permanently on the side of your blog page, not just posted in a single blog post.
- The other blog post requirements listed under "Independent Study" in the above link. Make sure your posts are written well, so people finding them when searching for Sandbox editor help won't get confused or accidentally do the wrong thing.
In case anyone's unsure, your week one task requirements can be found here.
Things you have to have proof of on your blog:
- A link to my blog from your blog. You can add this by clicking "Design" (on the top-right of your blog page), then "Layout" (on the left menu on the design page), then "Add a gadget", then in the window that pops up, scroll down and click "Blog List". This will take you to a page that lets you add a blog list to your page. You can use this to add my blog to your blog's page. You can do this some other way, but the requirement is that the link should be permanently on the side of your blog page, not just posted in a single blog post.
- The other blog post requirements listed under "Independent Study" in the above link. Make sure your posts are written well, so people finding them when searching for Sandbox editor help won't get confused or accidentally do the wrong thing.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Welcome to Real-Time Interactive Environments!
Hey guys, just getting a few house-keeping things out of the way in this first post. Make sure you read it, it's important you do!
First off, I'll shortly be adding some links on the right to the student blogs for both classes I'm tutoring for. If you don't see your blog there, comment on this post to let me know, because if you're not on that list, you won't get marked!
I'll also be pretty strict with how I'm marking attendance and completion of the course's weekly tasks. For an explanation of how I'm doing to be doing things:
- Each week, you should upload proof you've completed that week's tasks to your blog. Your proof should usually be in the form of screenshots and images / videos with text explaining what you're showing and what you did. Once you've done made your blog post(s), you should post a comment on my blog with links to your blog posts for that week's task. To keep things organised, each week I'll make a new blog post with a new title (eg, "Week 1", "Week 2", etc), and you can add your blog post links as comments there. Your comments with your post links should be put on my blog no later than the day before class. If you don't do that, you won't get to talk to me for feedback in class the next day, to be fair to the students who did do the work on time.
- As per the course rules, if you are more than 15 minutes late to class, you will be marked absent. More than two absences without special consideration means you will fail the course.
- Class runs for 2 hours, so to be fair for a class of 16 people, that means each student should get 7.5 minutes to talk to me. This isn't much time, so make the most of it! More accurately, I'll check before class to see who put comments on my blog with their blog post links, and divide up 2 hours by however many students that is. So if 12 students get their blog post links to me on time, I'll be talking only to those 12 students the next day, which means 120/12 = 10 minutes each. If some of those students don't turn up to class on time, I'll divide the 120 minutes up by the number of students that did turn up - so if 10 of the 12 students turn up, it'd work out to be 120/10 = 12 minutes each. Long story short, make sure you give me your blog post links on time, make sure you make a post saying "I read your first post, Steve" so I know you read this whole post (yep, I'm sneaky), and make sure you turn up to class on time, and there should be no worries.
- If you want to ask something privately, you can email me any course-related questions at stephen.b.davey@gmail.com. In most cases, to make sure all students can benefit from the information you're asking about, I'll post my reply on the course forum, doing my best to keep you anonymous.
Now I've said all that boring stuff, have fun learning how to use CryEngine, and go nuts with level design! I hope to see some really cool stuff :)
First off, I'll shortly be adding some links on the right to the student blogs for both classes I'm tutoring for. If you don't see your blog there, comment on this post to let me know, because if you're not on that list, you won't get marked!
I'll also be pretty strict with how I'm marking attendance and completion of the course's weekly tasks. For an explanation of how I'm doing to be doing things:
- Each week, you should upload proof you've completed that week's tasks to your blog. Your proof should usually be in the form of screenshots and images / videos with text explaining what you're showing and what you did. Once you've done made your blog post(s), you should post a comment on my blog with links to your blog posts for that week's task. To keep things organised, each week I'll make a new blog post with a new title (eg, "Week 1", "Week 2", etc), and you can add your blog post links as comments there. Your comments with your post links should be put on my blog no later than the day before class. If you don't do that, you won't get to talk to me for feedback in class the next day, to be fair to the students who did do the work on time.
- As per the course rules, if you are more than 15 minutes late to class, you will be marked absent. More than two absences without special consideration means you will fail the course.
- Class runs for 2 hours, so to be fair for a class of 16 people, that means each student should get 7.5 minutes to talk to me. This isn't much time, so make the most of it! More accurately, I'll check before class to see who put comments on my blog with their blog post links, and divide up 2 hours by however many students that is. So if 12 students get their blog post links to me on time, I'll be talking only to those 12 students the next day, which means 120/12 = 10 minutes each. If some of those students don't turn up to class on time, I'll divide the 120 minutes up by the number of students that did turn up - so if 10 of the 12 students turn up, it'd work out to be 120/10 = 12 minutes each. Long story short, make sure you give me your blog post links on time, make sure you make a post saying "I read your first post, Steve" so I know you read this whole post (yep, I'm sneaky), and make sure you turn up to class on time, and there should be no worries.
- If you want to ask something privately, you can email me any course-related questions at stephen.b.davey@gmail.com. In most cases, to make sure all students can benefit from the information you're asking about, I'll post my reply on the course forum, doing my best to keep you anonymous.
Now I've said all that boring stuff, have fun learning how to use CryEngine, and go nuts with level design! I hope to see some really cool stuff :)
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