Machu Picchu Level

So, here are the Machu Picchu shots. The screenshots are the most up to date right now.  This level I found was quite challenging because I haven't had the opportunity to really dive heavily into creating organic assets for a lush level like this one.  I spent quite a bit of time in ZBrush to sculpt out the rocks and bricks that we used in populating the level and xNormal to generate the texture maps using both high poly and low poly from ZBrush.  The low poly was obtained through a simple decimation, nothing fancy.

Machu Picchu

 As you can see from the shot above and the two below, the level was heavy in rocks, stone, moss, grass, ivy, trees, plants and wood.  I am feeling a sense of joy looking at this level and at how far I've come so far.  Working on this level has been a true learning experience.

Left Side

Right Side

Below, you will see one of the level assets that I am working on right now.  In this level, players can jump from platform to platform and in total, there are four.  The left ramp, the wooden platform, the stone platform below, and then the rocky protrusion on the far right.  

 

Stone Platform

Then the wireframe:

Wireframe

Then a glimpse into the material shader:

UDK Material Shader for Stone Platform

 This platform, like most of the assets, had their textures fully built using simple textures in UDK.  So the stone platform used a moss texture, an AO map with an alpha channel, a normal map, and a grungy map.  All these, with some fancy node usage, created the texture that is in the game level right now.  This is different from my Junkyard assets which had full textures painted and made in Photoshop and brought in.

More stuff will be coming along in due time.

Machu Picchu Tree

I was put to work mostly on the Machu Picchu level alongside with Ryan Sullivan, the art director on Scrapyard.  He taught me a ton over the course of the first half of the project duration and I really feel that I've grown a lot since I first came on, hardly knowing anything about how to work with UDK.  Now, I've gained enough knowledge to navigate UDK and get stuff done.

While the Junkyard level was more about metal, fire and lights lighting up the dark, Machu Picchu stands at the opposite end being mostly organic and lush with plant life, spacious, bright, majestic and ancient.  At the get go, I was quickly put to work blocking out the terraces, the ruins and from there...well...everything else! :)

The entire UDK foliage package was stuff that I made with great excitement due to the fact that I never really had a solid chance to tackle foliage creation when I attended Gnomon and here was my chance!

Tree - Machu Picchu

Trees from Afar

Below you will see the texture maps that I used for the tree branches.  A quick look into my workflow: I modeled out a high poly leaf in Maya, added a texture and after some deformation, baked out it's normal, diffuse color and AO.  I then created a simple poly card which I applied the leaf texture to.

My next step was to model out the branch itself and then duplicated the low poly leaf card on the branch.  I repeated the baking process again and below is the result:

Branch NORMAL

Branch DIFFUSE

Branch High Poly in MAYA

Junkyard Level Assets

So instead of bombarding the entire site with a kazillion screenshots of every single asset I've made (HP, LP,. wireframe, normal map, diffuse, specular etc etc) I decided to just post a few to show what I've been working on.  While I've been spending the majority of my time on the Machu Picchu level, I did have a hand in making a few assets for the Nighttime Junkyard level.  The Character Hanger environment where a player would select their character and outfit them was made using my sci fi engine room scene you can see in an older post.

I had no hand in designing the character hanger or moving the props around.  So since the engine room was covered before, I'll be skipping over it for this game project.  This post will show some of the things I made for the Nighttime Junkyard level.

Ladle - Nighttime Junkyard

 The ladle above was broken up into two separate static meshes and imported into UDK separately.  Each of them received their own texture maps as shown below:

Ladle Bucket SPECULAR

Ladle Bucket NORMAL

Ladle Bucket DIFFUSE

Ladle Handle DIFFUSE

Ladle Handle NORMAL

Ladle Handle SPECULAR

Next up is the trash incinerator.  My largest PSD texture file to make those maps.

Trash Incinerator - Nighttime Junkyard

Trash Incinerator - TOP

Trash Incinerator - BOTTOM

And the texture maps:

Trash Incinerator DIFFUSE

Trash Incinerator NORMAL

Trash Incinerator SPECULAR