Decals, 3D Text and Media

Decals

What better way to add details to a scene than using decals.

I downloaded a bunch of png images with transparent background to create decals for my scene. I also added some emissive value to them so that they would be easy to read. Creating decals was much easier than I expected and here is how to do it.

Here are the decals I made.

3D Text

I wanted to create some 3D text for the shops that said opening soon or something similar. One way to do that was to model the letters in maya, texture them and then place them as assets in unreal. I wanted to avoid this as I did not have enough time for it. It also seemed unnecessarily lengthy to do and I was sure that there was some easier way to do it. Sure there was. I came across a video that utilized a 3D text plugin in unreal that could do this. It also could divide the mesh into various parts and let us have different materials for each. It also allowed various fonts to be used with the text. This plugin however is in beta. The name of the plugin is “Text 3D”. Here is how to use it.

Media

This was the most exciting part of the project. I wanted my scene to be lively and have video ads running in a loop. I found the perfect video that helped me learn all this.

I went to https://www.canva.com/ and made a few custom video ads. Some of them were quotes, some fake movie posters and some fake business ads. It all turned out to be good.

Now the only things left are improving lighting and rendering the scene in a good looking animation.

Texturing Complete

All of my texturing is now complete and the final layout is also done in Unreal Engine 5.3 along with material creation.

I have learnt a lot of texturing and material creation in Substance and Unreal 5 from this project. In unreal 5, I learnt about the difference between masked and translucent blend mode and used both to create materials for my assets. Masked has the opacity channel but it only works as an off/on button for opacity. For example making a fence texture that has holes in between will make use of the masked blend mode. Translucent on the other hand is used to make materials for assets with variable levels of opacity, such as glass, transparent plastic etc.

I initially had some problems with the glass material that I created. The glass was very weird and had no specular reflections. The thickness too did not affect visibility through the glass as it should because of refraction. I later realized I had to turn on raytracing and the refraction setting in my plugin and material node. The video below helped me a lot.

One interesting texture that I had learnt to make for the project is the texture for my barriers that are used as warning signs for closed shops and as signboards above the gates. They are animated textures with text and signs, with emissive values that move from one direction to other. We can also select what text to run from a trimsheet like texture created beforehand. This texture could be created in any software. I have created this texture in substance painter. It is just a black and white texture with white text on a black background. The material allows us to change the emissive colour, text, speed of the text and the background texture on the text. This background texture is also customizable with whatever desirable to the artist. Mine is a simple square checker.

This was the video that helped me make my animated texture.

Here is mine.

I also created my street floor as individual asset instances of square blocks of 1mX1m that randomly select a colour from the 3 options in the materials.

References

• https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.3/en-US/material-blend-modes-in-unreal-engine/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV3SoL2McFc&t=359s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxYS2eTQ6sw
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdejtyy14L4

Making Trimsheets

I wanted to texture most of my metal assets with a single trimsheet. As this is my first trimsheet I had to look for a good tutorial on trimsheets.

This was the best tutorial I could find and it honestly helped me understand the process very clearly. It also improved the way I textured assets in substance painter. This series consists of 2 videos and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about trimsheets.

I used a 4mX4m plane that I had made in maya, subdivided it into smaller parts for my Trimsheet creation. I used a 4mX4m plane because it is how much space a 4k texture will take in real life to have a texel density of 10.24 pixels/cm. My two trimsheets looked like this :

I used Trimsheet01 for pipes, gritted floor before the shops, wall panels, grills, pipe covers, railing, emissive colours for walls behind the panels and a few normal details I might need later on.

Trimsheet02 was used for slanting walls, vents on the wall connects, and platform texture.

After the trimsheets were done, I rearranged the UVs of these assets to fit my trimsheets.

Modeling Update 3

I have now finished making all the assets.

I also have UV unwrapped all these assets and they are almost ready for texturing. I have decided to make Trimsheets for the first time in my life and will have to move the UVs accordingly. The texel density for the whole scene is 10.24pixels/cm. All my textures will be 4k in quality and 4k textures with 10.24pixels/cm will take 4mX4m space in real life. All my bigger assets were UV’d accordingly keeping the texel density in mind.

This checker texture helped me a lot with UVing and keeping my texel density constant throughout the scene.

I have decided to make 2 trimsheets for my scene where all panels, pipes, railing, grills, platforms and floor utilize it properly saving some texture space.

Modeling Update 2

I implemented my decisions to change some assets and conceal the pipes for a cleaner look. Added some panels to the walls to make them look Sci-Fi enough. I left the ceiling alone and did not add panels to it because it would make the street look more tunnel and less street like. Still have a lot to change and add to the scene.

I presented this in class and my professor told me to do the final layout in Unreal after making the rest of the asset changes.

Modeling Update 1

I created a few more assets, all modular.

This was my final layout before I showcased my work to my class and got good feedback from my professor and fellow classmates.

These were some of the feedbacks I received :

• The streetlight does bot look Sci-Fi enough.
• The benches look uncomfortable.
• The railings look weird.
• The pipes are placed in an old fashioned way. They should be more concealed.
• The supports on the pipes do nothing.
• The walls too don’t look Sci-Fi.
• The fuse box looks like it’s from the 1950’s.
• The shop looks empty.

I went home and started researching a lot, finding better asset concepts. Taking all of the feedback in a positive way, I decided to do a couple of things :

• Make panels for my walls so that they look more Sci-Fi.
• Change the railings and use these ones as a barrier.
• Discard the bench and make a better one.
• Somehow hide the pipes behind the wall, maybe with some metal grid so that the pipes are used as well as add depth to the scene.
• Discard the streetlight and make a new one.
• Discard the fuse box and make new one.
• Keep the shop empty and make it look as though it still hasn’t opened yet. This is because I don’t have enough time to fill the shop with assets.

These were the assets I decided to add.

Modeling

I started blocking the layout of my scene in Maya just to get a little perspective of the scene in my head.

This was the shape I had finalized for the scene. There would be pipes running across the length of the street, some panels, railing for the people to walk safely on the platform and the sitting area would be at the end of the street.

After this I started modeling some pipes, railings, gates, benches, ceiling supports, pillars and the shops, all in a modular fashion. I tried to work with realistic measurements of all my structures so that it would not be a problem later on in the project.

This was my 1st layout after modeling a few assets.

Note : The streetlight, stairs, cameras and the feature lights were taken from the Red Vs Blue project.

Concept

I have always wanted to create a sci-fi scene of my own. In this development project I moved forward with my Red vs Blue assignment which was a sci-fi tunnel. I wanted to create something original in a modular style.

This was my Red vs Blue assignment. I have taken very few assets from this project as this project was done in a weeks and the assets were not up to the mark.

In my time in Oman I had seen a mall in Muscat which had a very interesting design. The top floor; i.e.; was made to look like a street with shops and sitting area on both sides.

I decided to combine that design with my Red Vs Blue project to make a sci-fi street with some shops and a sitting area. I also wanted some neon signs and video ads running in my street to give it some depth.

Here are the references for my architecture :

Here are my asset references :