Starting Unity

Hello everybody!  Our class has now moved on to a new (free) game engine called Unity.  I feel like it is more programmer oriented than UDK, but I like it so far.

We have to do some Digital Tutors' tutorials to start out with.  I have started doing the "Introduction to Unity" course and so far it's pretty fun.  =]

Here is what I have been building and learning:

     How to put together models in a 3D space,

     making a hallway,

     finishing the hallway,

     installing doorways into the scene,

     finding out the importance of "modular level design" or building a complex scene with a few of the same objects (walls, doors, props, etc.),

     finishing the rooms,

     creating a first person controller and generating colliders (so your mesh is solid),

     adding lights to the scene,

     baking lights into the scene, deleting the lights, and saving game memory,

     adding textures,

     bringing in prefabs,

     adding more prefabs with textures (paper piles and ammo crates),

     sometimes you can bring in simple objects (capsules) and use them as colliders for your geometry,

     bringing in particle systems (FIRE!  UDK all over again eh?  ;) ),

 

     adding sound to the fire,

 

     making glow animation to make the fire appear more realistic and alive,

     creating physics, 

 

     (Like flaming cryotanks rolling towards the player)

     adding pipes and textures,

     putting in more props,

     (Like a room full-o-barrels!)

     refining the hierarchy (it can get messy when you start to accumulate hundreds of objects in your scene) and putting in sliding doors,

     and learning about how to script portions of your game (like the OnGUI Function).

     The rest of the videos continued with going over scripting.  I thought that this tutorial was actually really fun.  =]  Unity is a really cool program.  Here is a video showing a little bit about what you can do with Unity.
 

Personal Project.

Hello everyone,

I decided that one way that I can relax, have fun, and still get work done is to start building my own level using UDK without having to follow any tutorials to make it.  Here is what I have so far:

I starting sculpting some terrain.

I then added a skydome and some grass texture.

I started sculpting a hill.

I made a large cylinder builder brush and tried to texture it like a stone wall (had trouble).

I made it look a little better.

Then I used the subtraction tool and UDK's static meshes to start building an inside to the tower.

I was having trouble with the lighting so I made a LightMassImportance box around the tower.

I then was able to get better lighting effects.

Here is what the inside of my tower looks like so far.

Don't worry.....there will be more later.  ;)

Maya to Zbrush to UDK

Hello everyone.  The next tutorial that we have been working on was on YouTube and was called, "Maya to ZBrush to UDK".  The Australian dude does teach you some things, but be prepared for long long videos and lots of "ums".

First I made a plane,

used the bend tool,

measured my geometry,

masking portions of it,

used the inflate tool,

molded some geometry inwards,

started adding details to it,

used different brushes for textures,

and more geometry,

and then started painting my model.

I got stuck in trying to make the texture map because the instructor is using an older version of ZBrush. I am not quite sure how to make it at the moment.  I will try to find out tomorrow.

 

Yay!  With Jeff's help I was finally able to get the texture map off of ZBrush.  I also used Crazy Bump and Photoshop to help me get and modify my texture's normal and displacement maps.

 

Here is my simple mesh from Maya.

 

 

I started learning that UDK can be used to texture simple meshes using super detailed texture/displacement maps from ZBrush. 

 

 

Here it is with its texture maps.

 

 

And here is what it looks like when I tried to make a cave with the mesh, haha.  

 

 I think I will try to see if I can get a kinematic animation going on in there (if I have time).

 

This video looks a little bit different because I had to quickly redo the steps that the youtube instructor was teaching.  Here is a short video of me running around in the cave of doom.

 

 

Beginning My Journey

Hello everyone, here begins my journey in video game engines.  I will try to gain as much knowledge on both UDK and Unity before it is all over.  Wish me much luck!  =]

First off........UDK!!!!

I finally got my Design3 account setup yesterday and so I spent 13 hours today learning more about UDK.  After going through about 50 videos, this is what I learned:

First I went through "UDK Introduction & Setup" and learned about the interface about a few of the tools of the system.  (4 videos long so no pictures).

Then I went on to the next "UDK Basic Techniques": 

I learned to make terrain starting off with just a plane,

 how to add textures to objects & a skydome,

 sculpting and painting terrain textures,

adding water and trees,

 giving water volume, blur, and underwater surface texture,

bringing in pickups (weapons and ammo) for the player,

 adding a vehicle,

 and learning how lights affect objects in your environment.

Then I moved on to "UDK Basic Level Design".  I think these tutorials are really cool because you can make really complex looking levels with a low polygon count.  Here is what I made and learned:

 Working with additives and subtractives,

adding lights to the scene,

 building walls,

 

adding textures to walls and floor,

putting in game objects (statue),

 putting in columns for support,

adding a roof and lights (FIRE!),

fire pit (for FIREEE!!!),

FIRE!! (He likes that fire),

 

 adding a monk statue (he's really a Jedi; who likes fire of course),

mirroring the statue and fire to the opposite side of room (saves time; and did I mention FIRE!!),

increasing size of fire pit and adding torches for different lighting (translation: FIRE!!!!!),

adding a skydome and folliage,

and lastly I learning to add noise, ambient light volume, and lightmass to my environment.

I had thought in this project we were required to make our own tutorial showing how we did the things we had in our screenshots.  I think I may have misunderstood haha.  Well, here are my 5 tutorial videos I worked on:

I hope that I was able to teach you something!  I might try to make this into a habit so that I will get better at making tutorials and so that it will be more bearable to watch them haha!