~Imagined Worlds Project (Working Up To Refine From Block Outs)~

Once the block outs were done we had to begin replacing simple shapes with our modeled assets, we started with making buildings and then UVing them. Before doing so however I created a mood board consisting of simple looking buildings. I did this because I wanted each individual model to look unique in their own way but simple enough that it'd help to reduce the feeling of repetition as you drive down the road at such a speed that it'd be hard to recognize models consistently. A reference gallery of buildings of a similar style to what I intend to make would help with that.

Now I had reference I started modeling my buildings, keeping what I had previously said in mind, these are what I came up with.

Having tried to keep them as simple as possible, I feel that they retain a decent amount of uniqueness to work nicely as space fillers dotted along either side of the road. I now had to UV them.

The UVing process was really simple but I was left with some distortion in the models. However, it wasn't a huge issue even before I'd have went and fixed them because the largest majority of the model would just be being textured a deep black. Once I had my UVs I had to place them into Photoshop to work on the texturing process.

Here I was planning ahead to how my master material within Unreal Engine would work. Black space within these textures would remain black but white areas would glow with both a color and intensity of my choosing. For the road I decided they were too simple to even need to remodel so I just went and made a simple texture to suit the pair of them, no UVs needed.

I created it as a flat equal cluster of lines on purpose because my intention was to have them stretch out to fit the shape of the road because having stretched them out initially would have just stretched them more making the wire frame aesthetic very unapparent.

The streetlamp was somewhat detailed with the extensive extrusions and beveling to make it look unique. However I also tried to keep it somewhat simple so that it wouldn't stand out too much against the simple buildings because I wanted it all to blend well.

I decided that instead of trying to work with more complicated UVs within Photoshop, I'd instead bring them into Substance Painter and manually paint the blacks and whites on.

Using the brush tool and being precise along the corners it went pretty well and now had to export the basic texture and import it into Unreal along with everything else.

Through adding the textures and models it started to better fit the theme. What I needed to do however was make the building quantity more populated to give it a better appearance of a city street.

Once I had did this it looked a lot more fitting, the last main few things I'd have to do now is get a vehicle in and moving alongside more assets to make it seem less bland. Alongside this the sounds development stage had yet to come.