Environment Assets - Tomb & Statue(Remade)

Using Ncloth To achieve realistic effect

Earlier on in the project, when i created the main character I was torn when it came to creating the cloth trousers on him and the folder jacket wrapped around his waste. I wanted to create the cloth and jacket with using Ncloth within maya but I wasn't comfortable with the process so wanted to make sure I could deliver the best model with the skills that I already had.

when it came to creating the environment assets however, I had a lot more time to experiment with things like Ncloth in maya. So When it came to creating this coffin/Tomb I wanted it to appear as though they had mages entombed within this coffins and would have they're body set in stone on the surface with a sheet half covering them. This was the perfect opportunity to experiment with Ncloth to achieve the level of detail that I wanted. 

Here is the final rendered coffin within quixel with its normals taken from a higher poly version of the model that I created in zbrush, where I added cracks and detail in it using the brushes in the sofware. I wanted to give the coffin the same level of detail that I gave the statue earlier on, where it would appear as if it had been kept within the dungeon for a long time.

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When it came to unwrapping the coffin, I realized that I had been wasting space with previous environment assets on the texture sheet, using the whole texture space for one object each. So with this coffin I decided to change this and utilize the texture sheet. As I knew that I wanted the coffin and the statue to have a similar texture, I decided that these two models would be able to share the same sheet.

This then meant that I had to rearrange the statues uv within maya and rexport the model ready to bake in xnormal with the coffin at the same time.

Mage statue in engine

Enviorment Assets - Skull Torch

Because of how I made the skeleton, I realized that I could use separate parts of the model to create other assets, so when I was given the task of creating a torch that would be placed through out the level I thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to showcase this. 

So I exported the skull as a separate object and reworked the mesh so that instead of a whole skull that had a jaw it would instead be a half skull, that I could place within a torch.

I then placed the exported skull within a scene where i could make it into a torch. I wanted to essentially make it appear as though they've stabbed the torch through the skull and then fitted it to the wall. In the screen shot below you can see how I have achieved this effect.

I also have unwrapped the UV's so that the skull is separate from the torch so that I could easily colour ID the two parts of the model, so that the skull will be able to have a bone texture and the torch can have a rusted black metal texture.

Above are screen shots of the finalized textured torch rendered in maya. I've been able to add a bit more detail to the skull by sculpting it in zbrush, I also wanted to add the same carved rune on the skull that is on the bracers on the character to give the idea that these runes are used to imbue magic into the objects within the world. 

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Torch placed in engine. 

Environment Assets - Prisoner Stocks

Textured Stocks with posed Skeleton rendered in maya

Here Is the low poly object that I created within maya ready to be put into Zbrush to add a lot more detail too. I wanted the stocks I made to be a little different to the normal wooden stocks, I instead wanted there to be big metal hinges on either side of the stocks wood so that it could open up like a door rather than slide upwards like tradition stocks.

This model did require a colourID map however, so i took a snapshot of the low polys uv's and colored in the whole pieces and then added different colours for where the metal parts of the model would be. 

Here are some screen shots of the stocks rendered within maya after they have had the all its textures added to it from the quixel process of the workflow. I have also added the skeleton model to these stocks the same way I did with the prisoner cage earlier on. I then exported the two skeleton posses as separate obj files so that they could be added to the stocks within the game to create the same illusion as the prisoner cages that they arnt just copied and pasted.
Because of the way that I created the skeleton, it also meant that I could remove pieces of the model and place them around the scene so I removed the skull in one of the poses and placed it at the base of the stocks to give the idea that the skull had fallen from its time being there.

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Environment Assets - Prisoner Cage

The prisoner cage was the first environment asset that I began creating that was going to use the skeleton asset. To make up for how high poly the skeletons where, I wanted to ensure that I made these assets as low poly as possible.

I knew from the beginning that this model was going to be made of one rusted texture through out, so that it wouldn't require any colour ID maps or anything to separate out any textures.

Above is the finalized low poly prisoner cage model with all the textures and maps baked on it from quixel. I wanted to give the cages to feeling that they've been within the dungeon for years, and the prisoners where always untended, left to die in their cell. 

Here are two examples of the poses that I was able to put the skeleton that i made earlier on within the project into the cage. This meant that I was able to export the cage and then export the skeleton as one object in the pose that It was in, so that when it was imported into the game, the skeleton would be in this position. I wanted to create two different possess so that each cage looked a bit different so that the player saw the illusion that not each cage is just a copy of the other one.  

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Player Ragdoll - Jack Schular Animation/VFX

The player does not have a death animation so I wanted to create a ragdoll effect similar to the skeletons however I very quickly ran into a problem. The orentation of the bone joints had not been correct in the player rig.

I attemted to change the orientation of each bone but I could not seem to change the orientation of the object of the bone so it did not fix the problem. I decided to create an entirely new rig making sure the joints had no rotation transforms and this allowed the player to ragdoll correctly.

Skeleton Rig and Ragdoll - Jack Schular Animation/VFX

We wanted to place skeletons around the map but it would be very time consuming to create each individual bone so I wanted to create a ragdoll prefab which could populate the scene. I initially created a rig that could be animated correctly where the spine would bend and deform as it moved. When I tried this rig as a ragdoll however it did not look right. As the skeleton would not actually have animations within the game I decided to create a second rig where each bone would not be skinned to the rig but would be parented to the bone heirachy. This allowed the skeletons to ragdoll properly without deformation of the bones.

I created a script to find each joint with the ragdoll colliders and turn off isKinematic and turn on the detect collisions this allows us to pose a skeleton if we wish and then trigger the ragdoll as the player interacts with or walks into it. I then attempted to come up with a script that would allow the individual bones to seperate from the ragdoll allowing the skeleton to explode however I could not get this functionality to work.

Coding - Player Controller and Spells - John Howard

Task

Create a player controller to test the AI and showcase Jack's animations and effects


Basically our animator and vfx guy had a lot of stuff that didn't make it into the game due to some problems with the main character controller. So I decieded to spend an evening setting up a completely new character controller. I used the ethan animator tree then added Jack's attack and spell animations to it. With a modified golem health script to act as the players and an entire input script that calls different spells. I'm surprised how quickly I was able to do this and whilst its buggy this is code done in 4-5 hours. I will come back to this after and set up a fully working non buggy controller that can be used in my next game. I was very happy with this though. And so was Jack who appreciated being able to showcase his work.