However, modern game graphics dictate that I add lots of wear and tear to this weapon (my brain naturally wants me to do it too!). Preferably some rust too and maybe give it a bend to make it more interesting. But I’m trying to walk a line which is somewhere inbetween the photographic reference and game art. I want to make it interesting without making it too worn. You know, people probably took care of their possesions all those years ago. Having a worn, torn and rusty weapon was probably not the best way to win in a battle. Its a different kind of challenge than what I’m used too. What I’m rambling about is that I’m trying to go for a more subtle wear than the traditional gritty wear and tear look of todays games.

Flange mace high poly render

Low poly with baked normal maps

In other news I’m in the works of finally finishing up the portfolio part of this website. So it can actually really be called a portfolio. Just gathering screenshots and going through what I have and so on. I plan on doing some kind of work related post too: to show some things I’ve done on MilMo. But that will require clearing some things with people at work first.

New lava material in UDK

I have somehow been able to free up some time for a personal project which will go under the name Sufferfield until there is some more substance to it. It’s a project I have been wanting to do for a very long time. It’s a simple game focused on action, shooting stuff and having fun. I plan on doing most of the work with key elements being handled by a few friends. I will post a lot more about this project as it progresses. Until then I leave you with two shots of a revolver and knife. Kind of work in progress but also kind of done

Revolver

Just a knife

Before you start working on a level I think it is a good idea to put up some guidelines about placement of assets, painting of material types, the color of light and so on. An example of a visual guideline could be that grass should be placed close to rock modules touching terrain to make the rock modules feel grounded. Guidelines can also directly affect the gameplay of your level. How is your levels light colored? Maybe blue light should always be used for passage ways and red light could be used to mark areas with power ups. Having some well-laid guidelines will help the general impression of your level.

Rock modules placed and lit. Terrain layer added

Painted and raised the terrain to blend better with the rock modules

Let’s start out with the first image. Now, this is a simple layout with a couple of rock modules some light and a terrain layer. The problem with this shot is the blend between the foot of the rocks and the ground texture. What I usually do is to start with raising the terrain so it connects more naturally with the rock modules. The terrain layer is a simple but powerful ally. Don’t rush and try to fully utilize the few but powerful terrain tools to get your blend right. With the smoother height blend it looks better. However, the contrast between the rock and ground texture is still very apparent.

The same rock texture for the rock modules is used to paint on the terrain

The two rock textures blending

The next step is to add some texture variation. I used the same rock texture for the ground that I used for the rocks themselves. Paint on the raised terrain and focus on making a nice gradient from rock to sand. You can mix in more than one texture if you want. I used a third texture of some gravel for the last image. This way my blend goes from rock to gravel to sand. Think about the guidelines for your level. Where should you use your materials?

Two unique rock textures are blended between to create variation

If you are making a level that uses the same rock modules a lot it can be a good idea to think about vertex painting the modules. Since Abandoned Mine takes place mostly inside I created two different rock textures for the rock modules. Make sure the textures have some nice contrast and don’t look too much like each other. Just like I mentioned in my previous posts about the rock modules it is very important that you take your time when creating assets that will be used a lot. When I was satisfied with my textures and had the materials set up I proceeded to vertex painting my rock modules to blend between my two textures and create more variation. This can be a slow step if you have a lot of modules placed on your level. But it is, like all previous steps, important to take your time. Take a break if it gets too boring and return later with virgin eyes.

You can further help the blend by adding some simple new meshes

Now we have some nice blending going on between the rock modules and the terrain layer. The rock modules themselves are vertex painted to give some needed variation. At this point I proceeded to adding grass and some detail rocks. Think about the placement of these assets to maximize their potential. Grass can be placed close to your rock meshes to help make them feel more grounded, or rooted. The smaller rocks can be placed to directly affect the shape of your rock modules. From this point you can just continue adding more assets relevant to your level or tweaking things like placement and light.

#1 Start of by cleaning your current level from any post-process effects / scene effects. We want a scene only affected by the lighting.

#2 Make sure you have the Neutral LUT applied as a Color Grading Lookup Table in the World Properties.

Scene using standard Neutral LUT

#3 Take one or more screenshots of your level. Make sure you are in “Game View” mode when you do this. The shortcut for “Game View” is G.

#4 Load the screenshots into a Photoshop document. Get the Neutral LUT above and put it on top of your screenshot layers in Photoshop. You should have something like the image to the left.

#5 You can now start applying different adjustment layers and effects. Place all adjustment layers at the top of your layer structure so they affect both your LUT Layer and your screenshot layers. You now get a pretty accurate representation of how it will look in-game.

#6 Whenever you feel ready copy your LUT Layer. Make sure you don’t lose the adjustment effects. A good way is to select the LUT Layer and press CTRL + Shift + C. This makes a copy of your selection as if it was a flat merged image. Paste this into a new document. It should automatically be sized as a 256×16 if you did the select and copy process correctly. Save this document as an uncompress TGA 32-Bit.

Simple layer layout in Photoshop to easily edit and modify your LUT

#7 Import it into the UDK and make sure you set the LODGroup to TEXTUREGROUP_ColorLookupTable. Apply your LUT in the World Properties dialog and go into “Game View” mode. You should now be looking at your scene with your LUT applied correctly.

Scene using a custom bright and desaturated LUT