Modular stuff for portfolio
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Hiya, after some crits had a bit of a rethink so wanting to get the best result possible I made this wall which has modular bits that fit together...
What I want to do is create some low poly walls and normal map onto them but I'm wondering is this the right way to go about modular?
What I want to do is create some low poly walls and normal map onto them but I'm wondering is this the right way to go about modular?
Replies
You could create all of these sections with just 2 models.
If you wanted to go a step further you could even make the railings a separate model so you could choose to just have the low brick wall without railings on top.
The other thing I'm not quite sure on is altering the high poly bricks and adding dammage etc, how far to go before the modular pieces look tiled if there are a few of them.
Thanks
No, I fully understood what he meant. However, for it to be "modular" design, breaking it up into small pieces would break that. It's not really modular anymore if you are just using generic A with generic B and generic C; when A + B + C = D. If that makes sense. The more you break 1 piece down into many, the less generic modular it becomes. The point of modular design in gaming, or anything for that matter, is getting to your completed design in the smallest amount of steps possible.
True, the wall and the pillars are all you need. I was just saying that breaking it down further than corner angle, wall with 2 pillar ends, and wall kinda destroys that "pre-designed" look.
The whole point of modular design is not to reach the design in the smallest amount of steps... it's really to be as re-usable as possible - the bigger and more specific you make your pieces, the less flexible and re-usable it is. For example, with his current set he wouldn't be able to use the pillar fallen over onto the floor next to a damaged wall section, since all his pillar parts have wall attached.
I have been working with modular design professionally on games for the past 3 years, I'd hope I know what I'm talking about (same with cholden, he is a very big proponent of modular asset construction).
While I can see what medestruit is saying (ie. you could build a "complete" wall layout in a level faster with your initial setup), that is not the final word of what designers and artists commonly call modular. Modular is when you can re-use it as much as possible in as many different ways.
To really complete this set I'd make a 4th section of wall which is maybe a unique-looking archway with a gate in it, or maybe take one of the standard wall lengths and knock it down so you could have a section of "destroyed" wall in the middle of the regular wall pieces.
Edit: Picture worth thousand words:
Note that all of these pieces are on a regular grid, too - 1 wall section is 4 pillars long, the gate is same width as wall, everything is designed so it can run on from any of the other pieces. So it's incredibly easy to "snap" them together on a grid either in Max/Maya or your favourite level editing tool. Basically you just end up with loads of possible combinations instead of limiting yourself to just the "specific shape" pieces you've made.
Obviously on the flip side of the coin you don't want to spend ages breaking everything down into really tiny pieces just so you can put together a billion different variations of pieces!
And as with everything in game art, there are no absolutes - there's just best working practices for different situations. If I was gonna be making a bombed-out housing estate then I'd definitely use the method I've shown here, since it'll give you the most variation and mileage without making tons of assets.
However if you were making a level where it was just one house with a small walled garden, you might want to make larger, less interchangeable and more unique pieces just so the visual quality stays high.
One thing you must be careful of when working modularly is the "lego blocks" effect - too many pieces all at 90 degree angles, repeating one after another really obviously. One neat thing you could do with this set is have a longer, curved wall section where the ends are at 90 degrees to each other, then you could have nice round corners here and there to prevent everything looking too "snapped together".
Plus you can then do stuff like put decals on top to add dirt/damage, or have ivy/bushes/trees/rocks to place in front of the walls at irregular intervals to hide the repetition.
maybe i should write a tutorial on this, heh
So I snapped to grid at 200m per grid square, the pillar now occupies 3 squares in x and y, the wall 2 in width and 10 in length. The height is also in multiples of 2 though this may not be relevant?
There's one brick there mostly sized up, was thinking of chamfering it, meshsmoothing it, adding some noise distortion to lay the wall out and then normal mapping onto those boxes there.
http://www.bigfoto.com/sites/galery/background/background_brick_wall.jpg
You can also add some over all variation like holes, cracks, moss etc.
Medestruit - ? Not sure what you mean by chamfering the edges, these are modular snap together bits so if the edges were chamfered that would mean they wouldn't be seamless anymore + I would have to start over with a new model and textures, correct me if I'm wrong but that's a huge leap backwards isn't it?
create your HP bricke=s with UVs (making sure they join in a cross formation, then duplicate them, and do an automatic layout on them once all postioned, then apply a brick style texure (no mortar just brick) with variation in colour across the map. this will randomly give each brick space in the uv map which will mean random varition great start with no painfull PS work just an extra bake for diffuse
this is sommit i made with this
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c346/Shepeiro/roofsection.jpg
I had to read that 3 times before it made sense - ugh, my head!
GCMP: Go back to your first brick pattern, it's much more interesting.
i had to write that three times befor it made sense to me sorry, the flu's been posting in my brains absence
SHEPEIRO - going to do some stylising soon so will try out your idea
When aimed for realtime + low poly, major problem attaching modular walls and objects are z-fighting - and I have implement a lot of face removal.
1) adjust the UVs at the top of the wall so the the brick highlight is at the edge, right now the there's a shadow right at the upper edge.
2) the corners aren't right, it looks like these are big slabs of concrete with thin brick tiles on them. If you google "brick wall corner" you'll see what I'm talking about.