Sprint 2 Overview

 The majority of my work this sprint is actually preparation for significantly more work in Sprint 3. It's been decided that I am going to be the main texture artist of the group, so the other modelers can just focus on pumping out more content, then send it over to me for texturing and exporting.

The issue being, that we only just initially started the larger and more complex models, meaning there is currently not a ton of work for me to actually texture.

Because of, I've been tasked with preparing the materials that will be used in a lot of these up and coming models; creating a ton of new dynamic smart materials. This way I could get ahead on work without needing to care about UV maps, or even seeing the final look of a model.

The first smart material I created was a generic concrete one, most likely to be used in building and other infrastructure:


All the materials are designed in 2k, as that's the highest quality level we are expected to export texture maps in. That being said, I made sure the the materials still look nice if significantly downsized.


The sidewalk material is flatter, and focuses far more on scratches and soot. It is based off of tiled sidewalks, and those the cement used was actually smoothed. The material is weathered and overall looks quite nice. I also made a model, including a high poly bake for the side walks.


The model is super optimized and is just 10 tris, with the high poly bake being about 80. They are modular, so the clip in nicely with the surrounding streets and buildings.

Speaking of the streets, the next material I made is asphalt.


Its clean and freshly paved, but the sticky and smooth layers clearly represent the rock used to create modern roads. I was pretty happy with how this turned out, as I was struggling to mimic that smooth yet bumpy texture.

The last smart material I created was for shattered glass.


This one was by far the hardest to nail down, and relies heavily on high poly models, or in our case, a high poly bake, to work well. This is because it is a smart material, so all the fractures generate randomly. Meaning no matter what, there will be areas with more or less breakage depending on the models normal bake. This will be used for the broken version of building windows, and I was pretty proud for how it turned out, given that substance designer was not used.

After the materials I started to work on a few more of the props. Being that we are planned to how a city with at least 20 blocks, props being low poly is paramount.


the flap model as two variations, both of which actually share the exact same UV map. The map itself has tons of shell stacking to further optimize the object, as it will most likely be thrown on a texture map with lots of other props.

Speaking of UV stacking, I utilized it even more for the roof AC unit:




On the right you can see the higher poly version which will be used for the bake. The flag also will use one to make the pole actually be a pole, instead of a elongated trapezoid. The vast majority of detailing will be done in the texturing phase. This is where vents, and all the other "physical" seeming details will be added, heavily utilizing normal maps. This allows me to greatly decrease the overall poly count, and greatly increase the performance of the game.

This wraps up the majority of my work. We were hoping to have far more models done, so I could start texturing them this sprint, but it seems as they will be finishing up within the next week. Meaning hopefully, I will be given significantly more points to work on for Sprint 3!




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