Modular Victorian England

Swarmy

Hey guys! I'm going to be creating a Victorian England environment inspired by Assassins Creed Syndicate as an exercise  on modularity. I found this awesome concept art by Fernando Acosta: 


I'm going to be creating the building you see 1:1 with a twist on the sides and back of the building, as well as my own interpretation of the cortyard.
So far I've gotten the concept in 3ds and done a perspective match to make sure to get the right proportions and blockout.
I've used the people in the picture as a reference and I've figured out the height of the building (without the rooftop) is 16m and the length is around 100m. I've figured out from the tiling on the rooftops that the whole side of the building can bi split into 7 equally sized segments, each of one should be split into 3 modules (per floor)


But since I'm kinda new to the whole modular ordeal I'm having trouble with these parts:


I'm not sure which way I should go. If I model a center window module and a module without a window it will be way more optimized, but it won't look the same as the reference. If I go the second way it will look like in the reference , but it is almost twice the work, twice as heavy and I haven't seen any AAA game do it this way. What do you guys think ? I'm giving myself 10 days to finish it so expect me to update this daily! )

ZacD

Personally, I'd suggest don't try to over modularize it, and do bigger chunks. Those 7 segments, do each one of those as a chunk, but allow the top/bottom to be separated

If the pieces are too small, you'll have to worry more about seams and tiling.  

Swarmy

Hey! Thanks for the reply! I would normally go for the bigger chunks indeed, but with this i'm trying to approach it the way an AAA environment artist would. From the research I've done they go for smaller chunks and hide the seams with pillars and columns.

Swarmy

Good morning, guys!! Here's the first update. I separated the model into the individual segments and imported the whole blockout into unreal. Since I want to put the bank in an environment at least 100 x 100m I had to do the surroundings, but since I wanted to focus on the building I decided to buy a victorian street assets package from unreal. This way I can use it to spread around modular buildings around the bank, but also use the materials and see how the modules there are built. I started creating the first iteration for the modules, so today I'm planning on modelling the separate modules. 





 I'm still not sure if I should approach this by creating the reference 1:1, because it's asymmetrical and I'm not sure it's meant to be this way in a proper AAA game, or make my own symmetrical, modular version of it. I found the concept artist's blockout on his artstation and it's pretty asymmetrical.



What do you guys think if this was given to me from Ubisoft to create it, would they expect me to re-create it exactly like the concept or make it perfectly modular and symmetrical?

Omnicypher

hallway kits and facade kits are different problems at different scales of design. don't build facades out of modular hallway kits, make each facade its own large mesh, and add variety with grunge masks or vertex painting. if you do build facades out of smaller modular parts, you should probably combine those meshes to reduce draw calls, since its a wide open outdoor area. 

hallways are for foot traffic, and are designed to repeat at a human scale, while building facades are designed for road traffic, so they repeat on a larger scale. roads never turn as sharp as hallways, so they don't need the same granularity of modularity. if you have a fast paced vehicle section, especially in an open area, its better to combine the environment into larger chunks, so it loads faster as you travel. if you have a slow paced first person horror game in tight corridors with repetitive wall details, it might be better to use smaller modular wall sections, since they will often take up more of the screen than in a third person game, and can allow more efficient culling.

it all comes down to how much of the environment will be on screen from any playable point of view. split objects up so that they cull nicely when not in view, and load quickly when they come into view. for a third person open world game like assassins creed, modeling building facades as a single mesh will probably be the best choice.

Swarmy

That actually makes so much sense. Thanks mate! You pretty much solved my biggest doubt in the project. Awesome advice, really!!

Omnicypher

in this video, you can see how large the building meshes are in AC games.
skip to 5:30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGA0WZLp_08&feature=youtu.be&t=5m05s

Swarmy

Thank you! It will certainly  come in handy.

Swarmy

Little update on how the project is going: 
I took the advice you guys gave me and decided to create larger modules. I'm so glad I don't have to create the smaller modules. This will save me so much time and nerves about hiding seams. I did a basic breakdown of the modules that I'll need to build in photoshop. I'll also need to create corners for the roof module. The only thing I'm not sure about is the ornaments in between the floors if I should keep them separate or include them in the bottom or top module.


So far I've modelled the window for the top floor


I've used this to create the modules for the second floor.
I'm having 3 variations - one with 2 windows and free space on the right, a mirrored one and one with 3 windows that will use for the part with the columns.


Since the windows and the wall will have separate tilable textures, i've assigned them different material ID's and I've unwrapped them separately. I've made sure to use as much of the UV space.





I'm hoping I will finish all the modules by the end of wednesday so I can import them in Unreal and start playing around with the scene. I want this project to be not only an excersize in modularity , but in storytelling as well. This is why I'm planning on telling a story with the backyard. I want it to look like the building that was once a bank is now a hospital overcrowded with victims of the warfare going across Europe. There will be almost no signs left of the once beautiful inner garden. I'm going to have the backyard filled with medical tents, supplies and injured soldiers (if i can find the models). Obviously, since the deadline is the 19th (next monday) I'm not going to create the models myself, so if you guys know any game-ready models of ww2 props, medical supplies, tents and soldiers make sure to post a reply ^^ (preferably free or cheap asset packs) 

Swarmy

Heya, another update from me ^^
I started working on the modules that I find the hardest to do. It's not that they're hard to model or anything, but hard to read from the concept art. I'm talking about the ones with the columns. This one is nearly done, I just have to figure out the unique part on the top:

This one is as well almost done, I think I figured out how to integrate it with the others. 
Tomorrow I'm planning on finalizing the assets, unwrapping them and getting them textured. I want to create a trim texture with patterns like this:
  
and others