FMP Week 16 - More texuring

  As we keep a constant flow of critique between the team, Jake mentioned the level looked a little dull and brown this week, so a bit of brightening up was in order. The idea was to have the majority of the level looking fairly muted with areas of pop. I think the reason my environment is looking this way currently is because I haven't fully imported a lot of the brighter assets textures yet. But despite this we also felt the walls could do with a few more colours added in. some muted blues/ turquoises were what we decided on. It really pushed the colours and added more interest to the level overall.

TOO BLAND A BROWN!

A few colour changes to the plaster.

More texturing cloth was done this week too, like I said in my previous post I've got a good system down I think for a comfortable cloth material. So this didn't take me too long and looks like a good cloth material in my opinion. I also took to texturing the series of signs I have scattered around the market area of the scene. These vary in texture shape size and eye draw. The more basic stalls have hand painted/ botched together signs which have little appeal aside from the obvious name/product they're advertising. Where as others have emmisive borders or text which obviously draw your eye more. These are owned by the higher quality shops/businesses such as the bar and gun shop. Which clearly have more money to throw around.

More cloth for the scene.

Variety of signs.

The main thing this week I gained was the knowledge of colour manipulation in UE4 via a blueprint system. Last week I was shown how to change the colour via an instanced material. I knew Mike Pickton had a better and more practical solution to this problem, so I asked him. He explained that you can do it specific to each mesh actor in the scene using a fairly simple blueprint in which you set a parameter. Which appears in the panel at the side settings of the asset to change the colour. The main thing that I had to do, was set a mask to the sections of the mesh which I didn't want the colour change to occur. Along with setting the section I did want to change, to a central grey colour, so the colour occurred naturally and didn't clash or mix with the initial colour.

Any colour you want!!! 

Mike said this parameter is a good way to add variation but don't use it for as asset you use a huge amount or on a large variety of assets either, because having a large variety of meshes with this on them can cause a drain on the engine. So use it fairly sparingly.

I had a weird issue this week too, with the differentiation between vertex painting a texture on a mesh and using the landscape editor. Even though I'm using the same material on both, I had a clear difference between the two. It turns out I had a value of "0" set on the specular channel on only one of the materials.

Before.

After. (And with a few tweaks to the main floor contrast)

But, oh and its a big one... that didn't fix the problem entirely. Unfortunatly. I'm still fairly confused on the mater. I feel like it has to be a difference I have no control over between the landscape editor and the process in which vertex painting is applied. Either way I have no idea of the solution. Its not to much of a problem, but its a thing that could push the environment that bit more.

Along with helping me with a few problems in engine Mike did a great talk this week about his time at ubisoft. The talk included general tips and tricks about environmental art, lighting and other placement and draw that the engine has to deal with when rendering the scene. It was a great insight into what I should be thinking about when placing assets in a large scene/environment. one thing I found particularly interesting, was when he said about how the engine draws assets in sections of the map. And if you only have one instance of an asset in that area it has as much draw as another section with that same asset instanced multiple times.