Zac Ford / / Digital Design: 2012

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Music

For my music in the scene I chose Balam Acab's "See Birds" because I feel it fits the dark and minimal atmosphere of the scene. Also quite handily it was free to download from last.fm.

These are pretty much the only sketches I did for the second part of the project, the initial 5 ideas for improving our model (yes the word "repeat" counts as a sketch). I will try and sketch more in future projects as I know it helps a lot with the process. I tend to do a lot more of my "Sketching" in the actual software rather than on paper. Maybe a bad habit.

Final Video. Gyroscopic.

100 Words

The whole way through with this project I have wanted to create something simple, yet elegant. Being new to 3D modeling I wanted to try and work within my limitations. My aim in the project was to discover as I work and try not to just stick to a single idea like I usually do with projects. After a lot of work I decided my final scene would represent datum. I wanted something minimal and abstract but also has a nice attention to detail and a nice finish to the scene with no loose ends. Performance and reliability were another area I payed attention to. There was no point working so hard on something only to have it end up not working in the final scene or creating choppy video due to low frame rates. I made sure every thing I have done in the scene was on purpose and learned a lot about the function of cry-engine and sketchup while I was working.

Sunday, 7 October 2012

Video Test 2.

Friday, 5 October 2012

One more..

More materials. Think I've finally nailed it with this one.

Shining.

More playing with materials. Really happy with how its starting to look. The light shining off the model looks really nice.

Thursday, 4 October 2012

Materials.

Just playing around with different materials, I want the model to look really abstract but I'm not sure if this material is what I'm looking for. I do like the "Gigeresque" look of the texture though.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Up and running

Just an image of my center model finished and imported, I added a gravity box and changed the tornado settings so the smaller stars stay centered. It looks pretty awesome in motion. Now just have to work on the materials.

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Gyroscopic

Upon reviewing my current scene I wondered what it would be like to have my model rotating around a more centralized larger model, similar to the way a gyroscope works. I think this will give the scene a bit more interest and maybe the viewer can be based on the central piece while the smaller objects gravitate around it.

Thursday, 27 September 2012

Video Test.

A Video of my model in motion, pretty much just a test of recording at 1080p 50fps in fraps.

New Model.

Just some pictures of my scene with the new model imported. It looks good but the glow effect looses a lot of detail. I also think the glow is kind of cheesy. It looks really cool from a distance though. I wanted to have some close up scenes of the model too and the glow just doesn't work with it.

Back to Sketchup

Reworking my model in sketchup to find something that works. A lot of them didn't work as physics objects for some reason, I think because they were too complex or had overlapping geometry.

Sunday, 23 September 2012

Useful Stuff.

I've been keeping a notepad file of some of the handy things that have been helping me with Cryengine. Will keep adding more too this list as I continue.

Tutorials

http://www.youtube.com/user/CyberGameArts/videos?view=0
http://freesdk.crydev.net/dashboard.action
http://www.cryengine3sdk.com/cryengine-3-tutorials/

http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/CRYAUTOGEN/Home [Commands List]
http://freesdk.crydev.net/display/SDKDOC2/Creating+a+Basic+Cinematic+Scene [Cinematic Scene]

Commands

To find a list of commands in the editor just double click the input bar of the console.

g_showhud - Hudd off
r_displayinfo - Info off
r_nodrawnear - Player Model off
g_walkmultiplier - Change walk speed

s_MusicEnable 0 Disable Music
s_SoundEnable 0 - Disable Sound
g_tpview_force_goc 1 - Force left camera view

Misc Tips

- Clicking the go to selection button on the top toolbar will instantly take you to your selected object. (very handy for when your object is imported to 0,0,0 or if your very far away from something).

- F1 Enables third person camera.
- F3 Enables noclip mode (Flying)

-By default shortcut keys will not be shown in the menus or when hovering over buttons, to turn them on right click up by your toolbars and go to customize > options > show shortcut keys. This really helps with learning the shortcuts while you work.

-Playup will only export the textures for the model once, after that if you want to reimport the model you will have to manually place your textures into the texture folder where your model has been imported, and redirect cryengine to where those textures are.

-Only place the master material file onto your model otherwise it will not save, the sub materials can be changed as long as you place the master onto your model before saving.

-To make custom textures for cryengine install the crytiff plugin for photoshop 32-bit. (Possible that all textures used will have to be re-saved in photoshop using the crytiff plugin)

-To add physics to your model drag in a Rigidbodyex object from the entity menu on the rollup bar, change the model to your imported model by using the browser to find your .cgf file and it will apply the physics to your custom model, the material can be edited just like any object.

Physics and stuff.

Trying something a bit different after getting to know Cryengine a lot better, This is a pretty simple model but creates a cool effect when repeated. The model has a colored custom material applied with glow set at 2 and a light radiating the color grouped with each one.

The scene is set up with a grav box over the whole thing, and a box with an invisible material applied so the ground is solid over the water. I added a tornado with Viewdistratio set too 0 so its invisible, upon starting the game all the objects spiral upwards.