Assets around the Environment

There were many assets that needed to be placed around the environment. This was because we were trying to fill the environment and needed to give the player something to look at and run past. We wanted the player to feel as if they were running around a shopping centre. When it came to thinking about what would be in a shopping centers, all sorts of ideas came out, which included Bins, Cameras and Benches.

The Bin.

The Bin was a fairly simple model that I constructed. I looked into a variety of different designs that were around shopping centers, especially in the 1980's and this is the result that we came up with, it also helps match the benches that I created. I like the fact that there is a combination of metal and wood, giving the bin a slightly designer feel. These had already been placed around the environment by our game designer and we were fortunate enough that he managed to replace all the old greybox models.

A Video Camera.

The video cameras was something that I felt were import to the game as its based in a shopping center. it helps give the feel that you are not alone in this world, that people are watching your actions. That a world outside of the environment exists. I managed to find some fantastic reference of security cameras from the 1980's which I felt were perfect for our game. There are some fairly basic color that suit the style of the camera, with the beige being perfect for it.

A Drinking Fountain.

Again by looking online, I managed to find some reference of some drinking fountains. This again helps us feel the environment with some themed models, while at the same time, the model's tri count is low, meaning that the performance of the game is not affected due to the addition of these models. I incorporated the beige color for the security camera and managed to put it in the bottom plating of the fountain. I even managed to make the drink tap fairly low poly. This is a short drinking fountain and will sit on a wall above the ground.

A Single Bench

The Benches were a vital addition to the environment as it helps sell to the player that this place is part of the real world, people come here and they shop. There was a fairly simple design that we managed to find online, which we felt was perfect for the game. Just like with the vending machines I had to make sure that there were more than one model on a U.V map in order to save materials. I just happens to be on this particular map, there were 5 models on the map. This was good as it does help the game run smoothly, however it does lead to some of the texture being slightly stretched.

The Double Bench.

After I had constructed the single bench, I felt that I needed to add a double bench, exactly like one that you would see in an actual shopping center. This was fairly simple to create, all I had to do was use the single one that I had created earlier, cut it in half, mirror it and connect the two. I then needed to create a barrier in the middle that would separate the two sides and add the wood planks so that the style that we are trying to enforce follows through.

A Pot Plant.

The model needed to be fairly simple, it would host some of the foliage that I would be creating later. Looking at designs in a shopping center, this is really the only thing that stood out for me that looks like it would fit in the environment that we were creating. 

To help save the use of an explicit amount of materials, me and the game designer had a discussion, in which he had suggested that several of the models should be U.V'd together, and textured. If the model has the appropriate Color I.D, then it will not matter if you texture all of these models in Quixel. Once the materials are made, thanks to the color I.D, you can place the material on each one of their models, with only the texture that you set on the combined map in Quixel for that model appearing.

Assets in the Game.

Assets around the Game.

It was nice to come back to modelling, even if it was just low poly models that would suit our environment. The one thing that I had learnt out of all of this was to optimism models a lot better, which means reducing the tri count to a minimum and mapping sure the texture space is not wasted.