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"The Zone" Blog 04: A Bridge Over Troubled Waters


DaveLee

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Welcome to another installment of “The Zone” level design blog. Today I’ll be detailing what has been going on since the last blog post, which includes some new and imported assets as well as some significant changes to the level design in the Editor. I implemented the new SSDO that Josh posted recently, and redid the lighting based off of a few tips he suggested. The main sunlight is a white-orange, and a very dark blue-gray ambient light is used to lighten the shadows and balance the lighting. I posted my current SSDO settings at the end of the blog post if you are interested in seeing them.

 

To start this entry off, here are several overview images of the level. As you can see, the placeholder vegetation is gone and I have begun to populate the level with vegetation created by Pure3D. If you have been thinking about buying some of their vegetation packs, I would highly recommend them! The roadside pegs and yield sign are also by Pure3D. Check out these images for some examples (note that not all vegetation placement is final):

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-00-11-41.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-00-34-44.jpg

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-26-06-13.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-22-19-56.jpg

Editor-2010-04-10-00-22-43-97.jpg

 

I also used the Fill option under my cliff side texture to auto-fill all areas of the map with a slope greater than 7 degrees. If there are areas above 7 degrees that I want to paint with another texture I can do so, but as you can see from these screenshots using the fill tool helped me to automatically create some interesting texture work for me to build off of. I have also deleted all terrain that isn't visible from the "play area" to save resources.

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-22-58-49.jpg

 

The first of several new dirt road textures is now complete and in game. The first image of the road also shows one of the new radiation warning signs. These signs are placed both on the borders of the Zone as well as areas of extremely high radiation.

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-27-12-11.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-30-09-48.jpg

 

The railroad bridge first seen in the last blog post has now been fully modeled and textured as well. I created high-poly bolts and baked them into the normal map and used a WACOM tablet to hand paint most of the diffuse texture. The first two images are large in-engine captures that show an overview of an assembled and disassembled bridge. Theoretically, the bridge can be made to fit any length that you need. I'm also showing a re-sized (1024x1024px) version of the bridge's diffuse texture - the full size is 2048x2048.

 

bridgehigh01.jpg bridgehigh02.jpg

 

RailroadBridgediffuse.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-31-02-12.jpg

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-31-30-91.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-31-49-55.jpg

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-39-24-19.jpg Editor-2010-04-10-00-44-34-74.jpg

 

Besides the railroad bridge in the “new assets” department this week, I also have a small outbuilding. This is another background building without an interior (expect a full building in a blog post soon!):

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-47-03-21.jpg

 

Some road barricades have been completed as well, with damaged versions to come:

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-48-32-09.jpg

 

Finally, as you may have picked out from the first few images in this post, I have created a few low-poly background buildings for this map:

 

Editor-2010-04-10-00-45-44-13.jpg

 

And that wraps up blog post #4. If you have anything you would like to see in the next update, or if you have any suggestions be sure to mention it in the comments!

 

SSDO Settings:

 

#define aointensity 6.0         // between 1 and 5 is good
#define aointensitydiv 2.5
#define aofalloff .35
#define aosamples 8                     // dont change
#define aopass 4                        // 4 * aopass = samples
#define aocut 0.6
#define aosize 0.5
#define aoscreenlocked 0                // enable this for screen locked AO

 

...

 

               #define raycasts 6//Increase for better quality
               #define raysegments 8//Increase for better quality
               #define aoscatter 0.5
               float raylength = 0.5;//*dist*1.0*50.0;
               float cdm = 1.0;// * dist * 50.0;

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8 Comments


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the bridge and the brick wall textures are really good, I can see you added several layers of texture detail for them. Good Job Dave Lee.

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Love the bridge Dave, not so sure about the bullrushes in the Pine woods though, their normal habitat is shallow standing water with lots of light but hey... great work!

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Guest Red Ocktober

Posted

yeah... the dirt roads got my immediate attention... verrrrry realistic looking...

 

the first one is perfect, but the second screenshot, the one to the right, looks like there's lil golden nuggets strewn around the ground... those yellow rocks either should be removed, or the pallet set to something more like the rest of the scene...

 

and the water... it sure is 'troubled'... it totally takes away from an otherwise impressive scene (i know, me and water B) )... i hope you'll get an improved version to work with in the next update (selfish wish :D )...

 

 

your texturing is first rate... nice detailing on the bridge...

 

looking forward to seeing how this develops...

 

 

--Mike

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What really amazes me is how when you are far away, okay, you've got billboards, and things don't look that detailed, but then when you are on the ground, everywhere you go there is this incredible detail. It's something that I marveled a lot at with the Crysis engine.

 

It looks like you got just the right color for the shadows. You could even go pinkish for the sunlight, depending on how late in the day it is.

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I like the dense tree in pic 3 middle right, and stone texture in picture 4 lower left. The indiviudual barricade models looks also good, but the house behind it is missing some light/shadow dynamics. I think overall the ambient light is a bit too bright, or then the colors are too equal. I think reality is a combination of matching colors plus a few completely unmatching colors. Also important is a completely unreasonable highlight of bright spots, and vice versa dark spots. Those are things which make CGI look more real, just stepping out of the box and doing some wild things.

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