Final Cinematic and thoughts

Here is the final cinematic for this environment, I used two different camera in kismet which pan around the scene moving throughout. I have added music to the scene and overall I am happy with how it looks, I focused on the interior which is what I wanted.

I feel I achieved what I wanted with the lighting, I like the transitions between the indoor and outdoor, the illuminated signs, table lighting, monitor lighting give the scene a nice 'cool' feeling from the inside then going to the outside you get a 'warmer' feeling from the sun light.

As far as texturing and materials go I wish I could have spent more time on these and set backs with light mapping and UV mapping made things worse, however I feel the scene does look realistic, I worked on making the wood and metal look good using specular maps and normal maps, with the metal I particularly used cube maps to create reflection on the floors.

As for dynamic elements I would have liked to add more to the scene such as a wind simulator and animated monitors however I feel the ceiling fans rotating as small as they are do help the scene out a lot rather that it being a static environment.

Further texture and lighting improvements and exterior progress

I am fast approaching the end of this project now and I am making some final adjustments to my materials and lighting as well as the exterior elements in my scene.

My idea was to focus on the interior section of the environment however due to the fact the back of the tavern is open I had to add a small exterior environment, I knew the cinematic wouldn't focus much on this so the quality of this area didn't matter too much as long as the interior looked good. So I created the bridge and the terrain myself, using vertex painting to blend two ground textures together, however the rest of the assets on the exterior were taken from UDK, the grass, rocks and water shader. The aim was to have an entrance which comes to the bridge then the tavern, with a river flowing under the bridge and large rocks surrounding the whole area so I can keep the scene enclosed.

Adjusting Lighting and improving textures

Now I have reach the Alpha stage my next milestone is the final presentation and cinematic. So my focus is on improving the textures, materials, lighting, and polishing the environment.

But first I have re-evaluated my original plan since light mapping took longer than expected and here is the new version from week 9 and onwards, as you can see I have devoted a week to get light mapping complete and from the feedback I got from my alpha presentation the first thing I needed to do is get a lighting pass complete, this is one of the things I really dislike about UDK and looking back at it now I wish I worked with another engine such as CryEngine, light mapping takes far too long and is a lot of hassle and is something I could have done without.

However now this is done I have been working on improving my textures and materials to create a much more realistic scene, with the next week or two this should be complete and I can then finalise lighting and my cinematic sequence.

Alpha Presentation

I'm at the alpha stage and my scene now has a basic texture pass, basic lighting and everything is set up correctly.

All of my normal maps will be created using nDo2 and Crazybump the reason behind this is high poly creation  in Maya will take too long at this stage and these programs allow me to change a photo or selections in Photoshop into high detail normal map and these are especially good for hard surface assets which I have a lot of in my scene.

I need to look at the cinematic tools in UDK further, currently I have been using one camera that moves around the scene, however what I need is a director group that goes from one camera to another allowing better cinematic shots for my showreel.

To add on to my dynamic elements in my scene, I currently have the fans rotating but if I want to further this then I will need to do research in animating materials for my monitor and a wind simulator.

I also need to look into what music to add to the cinematic, I am currently thinking about soundtracks used in games, and I will see if I can find one from Defiance that works well with the scene.

First Texture Pass

This week I have added my first texture pass in, basic colours that represent how the scene will look like at this stage instead of the of a grey coloured scene. So from this stage I can work on the textures and improve them working off the base texture, but for the purpose of the alpha stage this needed to be done. 

Dynamic elements and Lighting

I have began to experiment with dynamic elements that I want to add to the scene, beginning with the fans rotating. My idea is to have them continually rotating around and it was quite simple to implement, going in the settings and adding a movement to the fans.

I have also adding my first lighting elements, by adding point lights to the scene where needed, such as around the TV screens, entrance light, audio hub and table light as well as adjusting the directional sun light. These are just place holders at the moment and will be improved at a later stage by using the static mesh as a light source, using emissive maps to create that effect.  

Adjusting Exterior area

I have altered the exterior area slightly using different UDK rocks, and instead of leaving a space on the right side to allow another exit out of the area, I have decided to add rocks around this area leaving one exit where the bridge is which makes better sense and means I can keep the scene more enclosed.

Currently I have left the landscape plane with a grass texture on it however I will be making a more complex material at a later stage which will involve vertex painting, blending textures together and adding some grass planes to the scene to give it some depth. However the important thing here is I want to not spend too much time working on the outside area and focus on the inside because this is the most important area of the scene for me, but the quality of the scene must be consistent.