An Investigation into Modular Environment (Victorian) - Dissertation progress thread

Hi there!!

For my dissertation project (of the MSc 3D Computer Games Design), I am going to make a 3D modular environment with a victorian theme. I really enjoyed “The Order” and also the new trailers of “Assassins Creed Syndicate” so I decided to use the victorian theme for the project.

Basically, what I want to do is to develop a modular workflow and make a study about it. I decided that instead of modelling first, I will make texture atlas and then model through them following some guidelines and that way I could create a lot of texture variations of the same mesh.

The workflow is based on jacob07777’s (from purepolygons) method. His thread is awesome, with breakdowns and also his product is available to buy in the UE4 marketplace (http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=144838)

I will use this thread to post progress, seek fedback and improve the final product, which I will release for free and I will also make breakdowns of it.

I have until the 15th of September to finish it :smiley:

To sum up the introduction, I will create a full scene using modular assets. I will also make props and use engine game features like vertex painting, folliage, etc. The game engine I’m going to use is UE4

  1. References: I’ve spent a lot of time gathering references, from movies, books, games and also internet. I’ve found a lot of buildings that have awesome compositions and are modular. Here they are some moodboards of them:


A folder full of references if anyone is interested:

I really like this screenshot of one of the ACS trailer, which is a good example of what I want to do, but with more buildings.
I’m having trouble to find a good picture of one street that I like the layout of it. What I dont want its to just create a straight flat street with simple buildings at the sides.


This is an example of the breakdowns I’m doing now of some of the buildings, to see modularity.


2) Texturing:
For the textures, what I’m going to do is to make some of them using zbrush, another ones substance designer and of course with Photoshop

This is going to be the next step of the project :slight_smile:

Any suggestions or feedback for the project will be very much appreciated, specially now that I’m in the beginning of the project.

Thanks!!

Like I said to you in Polycount, I wish you the best. If you make this a quality one, you could get $100 from each you sell easily.

I’ve been working for some days on the theory part of the thesis (most boring part, but it’s important to research methods). Besides that, I really wanted to do some tests with the road and vertex painting.
One project i made some months ago had a street with buildings at the sides, and a modular road. The final result of the road was a little bit “flat” so I decided that for this project I would learn vertex painting and make some awesome materials :smiley:

I’ve made a material that is going to contain the asphalt and the pavement. Also it has vertex painting for puddles and dirt!! (thanks to tutorial). Also I made some tests with substance designer to make a texture for the “asphalt”

The final material is this (sorry for the mess, a lot of stuff inside hehe)


And some screenshots of the material applied to a tessellated plane:


----------------------UPDATE-----------------------------

Here it is a quick update:

Basically, what I did first was in photoshop create a 2048x2048 document, in Edit/Precerences/Guides,Grid & Slices I set up the gridline at 64 pixels (also changed the colour) and 1 subdivision. Then when I press Control+H I can see the guides that are 64px size.

I made a “guide” texture by drawing lines in the guides in that document and exported that document to a png.


In 3D’s max, I set the units to “generic units” and I created a plane of 2048x2048 with 32 length segments and 42 width segments. That way I converted it to edit poly and selecting polygons I detached rows that I used to start modeling the trims


Back in photoshop, when I’m creating the texture (using the AO and NM baked from max), I can create quick masks using the guides

  • Concrete High Poly Objects:

  • Metal High Poly Objects:


So this is the concrete texture applied to a plane right now:


I want that kind of clean concrete in order to match it with the references (later then I can change the global colour in UE4). I would love to see some feedback in order to improve the texture.

The metal texture will be similar. The good thing is that they follow the same ammount and size of objects so I can easily have variations of the same trim by swaping the textures (I can even make a wood trim texture). Inside UE4 I’ll be able to modify the global concrete and metal colours.

After finishing the trim textures, I’ll proceed to make the bricks, slabs, roofs, etc tilleable textures which will have some guides. I’m planning to make them using substance designer, as for tilleable textures is awesome.

----------------UPDATE--------------------

I have been working on the textures and materials of the trims. I have made diffuse, normal, roughness, metallic and colour mask of both concrete and metal (although I am using a pure black for the concrete metallic one). The textures are not finished, I would love some feedback to improve them.

  • MATERIALS:


The diffuse part is the only tricky one. Basically what I did was a to lerp between my original diffuse and a colour (exposed to change it in the instanced material) by using the Colour Mask texture as an alpha. The Colour Mas texture is a black and white texture in which I specified which areas I want to affect the tint colour (in white) and which areas I want to keep the original diffuse colour (in black). I use gray tones because I was able to get a better blending between them.
Also the “Cheap Contrast” node is to make the edges softer so that way there is not a huge change between the diffuse and tint colour.
The Tint Ammount and CheapContrastAmmount are also exposed to change them in the material instance.

NOTE: Right now the textures are imported in single files but in the final project I will put the different textures in the channels, so that way I can have the diffuse and normal in single textures and then one texture with the Roughness in the Red channel, Metallic in the Green channel and Colour Mask in the Blue channel.

Some animated gifts to see that I can use a lot of different colours in a easy way being able to change it in the editor.

  • Metal Trims:

  • Concrete Trims:


----------------UPDATE--------------------
Things are starting to look good!!

I finished some brick textures and made a window in order to test the variations and trims.
I decided to use Substande Designer to make the brick textures because I want to have a lot of diferent brick styles for my buildings. This way I can easily swap the materials and create tons of variations.

Following a tutorial by @pipesfranco, I made a complex brick generator with 3 different brick styles (2 regular bricks, 1 slab). All the important parameters are exposed so I can change them inside of UE4 and get cool variations.


Modeling was the next step, I wanted to be sure that everything was perfectly lined by the grid and proportions were correct.


Following @jacob07777 breackdowns, I unrwaped the model in a way that will always tile (I also placed the seams in the grouts so is not that noticeable)


And here it is the test inside of UE4. As you can see, using this method I can get easy variations with just 1 geometry. This way I will be able to make different buildings in an easy way.


As you can see, its the same geometry but the brick texture change, as well as the window frames which use the trim textures and the window glasses.

Closer look of it :smiley:


My next step is to model a lot of different windows, doors, stores pieces so I can make some buildings!!

Again, any feedback will be very much appreciate it

Hi Konedj, first off - great work you have here, and thanks very much for sharing it! I came across this thread during research as I too, am investigating modular environment design for my Computer Games Technology course. As it currently stands, there isn’t too much documented on the workflow, and whatever is available doesn’t fully encompass newer techniques such as PBR workflow, and software(s) such as the substance suite, from what I’ve found at least. I’d be very interested to speak with you via PM or email about how your dissertation went, and your thoughts on how you could have improved, post conclusion? I’d also be intrigued to hear about how you structured your written work alongside your artefact, and if you made any tests etc, or if you just documented the process?

Thanks!