Week 3

The general feedback I received was that the block out was 'too blocky'. Which I guess I misunderstood what block out meant.

I need to improve on cameras which I will do once everything is in Engine and I can see where the focus needs to be.

I also had some feed back from some course Alumni. They said I should try and cut down on the details so it doesn't become too noisy from a distance which was something I was initially worried about, so I was glad they made this suggestion. It was also suggested to me that I switch the way the windows were on the bottom floor so there could be some kind of 'halo' effect surrounding the stairs from behind and that I should consider having the time of day at night to have some moon glow. One other suggestion was that I used a physics drop to make the book piles look less placed.

I thought the moon glow would make the scene look really awesome so I had a quick go at trying to work out how to change the sky dome. I assumed it would be a bit like in UDK which was simple but I couldn't seem to find anything on it, which was confusing. I managed to get this eerie green glow going on but I couldn't get it light enough whilst still having the effect. I didn't want it to be this dark and I also thought the glow gave off the wrong feel I wanted to shop to have.

I made a bit of a mess whilst trying to create the sky above so I had a go in a new project quickly. I eventually found that if you rotate the sun upwards, it makes moonlight. Who knew?! But as this was a new map and such, I would have to just re-make everything which I didn't really have time to do. I thought it would be better to have the map in daylight as I assumed I'd have a lot of darkness in the lower level as it is, never mind having it at night. I can always have the halo effect with sunlight rather than moonlight anyway.

1

So I began the modelling stage by following my plan and modelled he bookcases first. Using a few selected images like [1], I estimated the height of the bookcases and used the scale model to make them the right height and width.

I chose to UV models as I went so after they were uv'd, I exported them and replaced the other bookcases in engine.

The next task was to create the top floor. After exporting the BSP from Unreal, it was just a case of making the top floor, bottom ceiling and the skirting separate.

2

Using image 2, I began creating the arches for the bannister beams.

1 - http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/42103252.jpg
2 - http://www.miragebookmark.ch/images/lello-bookstore-interieur.jpg