Team Mark Twain _Assignment04 of Create Digital Envitonment

Reference Image:


Reference Image/Scene:
Final Render Vedio: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKSbXAra9uI&feature=youtu.be
Members: Josey Meyer, Jiaqi Cui, Colin Lantz, and Carter Lehman

Our Approach:
Modeling - Maya and zBrush 
Surfacing - Substance Designer & Painter Illustrator  Photoshop
Lighting & Rendering - Unreal

Project Management:
  • We started by grouping up to figure out which historical room we wanted to recreate. The team agreed on using GroupMe to communicate.
  • For management, Josey created a google calendar to set due dates for modeling, texturing, and the like. And she also created a Trello board to manage where assets were in their creation process. Since we had strong modelers on our team, we wanted to get half of our team started on texturing while the other half worked on modeling.

Modeling:
  • Jiaqi started the whitebox, placing cubes around the scene as stand-ins for the finalized objects so we could nail down the size ratios.
  • Passing it off to Carter, he finalized the whitebox based off of a top-down room layout and set up the camera so we could figure out which objects to prioritize.

  • Carter was in charge of environment layout which meant placing each object in the scene and making sure all the separate assets came together correctly. To do this he continued to reference the top down view of the room
  • Josey worked on the main statue while learning zBrush, using base human figures to pose and then sculpt the base. Since she was new to zBrush, this unfortunately took more time than anticipated, but it was important to get the statue looking correct since it was a focal point in our composition. But once she had it finished, she retopologized it to lower the polys and Carter simplified it more to keep render times down.
  • Once finished with the statue, Josey also modeled the crown molding and the staircase and UV unwrapped them to be textured.
  • Carter was the other main modeler who created the doors, window frames, and the lights. To create the frames he made molds for the frames out of NURBS which he then lofted and turned into polygon meshes. 


  • While the doors themselves were easy to model, they took a long time to add all the fine detail in the insets and extrusions. To make things easier, Carter placed a reference image of the doors behind the model to help him with lining up edge loops and faces. Due to the perspective warping on the reference images, it was difficult to create a perfect match but this method made things much easier and allowed for a more accurate recreation.


  • Thankfully all the door frames and window frame used the same basic frame design. So once Carter made the NURBS mold for the first door frame, he was able to reuse it multiple times. Only slight modification was needed for the window frame and front door frame.

  • The light was a bit of a challenge to model as 1 complete mesh since it required modeling in ⅓ rather than the standard ½ or ¼ repeatable mesh. However once Carter made the base and one of the extended arms that met back up in the center, he was able to duplicate and rotate the model 2 times and weld vertices together to create the final lamp shape.Unwrapping all of Carter’s models was relatively easy as he was able to use the method and tricks he had developed on his own and then taught to Jiaqi.





  • Colin also helped with modeling creating the lamp as well as the stand supporting it at the bottom of the staircase. Additionally, Colin modeled the table next to the window, the rugs, and the complex column that is found in three separate places in the scene. The column presented a unique challenge due to its unique complexity. The spirals and the decorative top were particularly complex as they began densely populated and took time to reduce their number of polygons. 
  • Jiaqi finished the wall panels repeating around the whole room. And he also created two different chairs, the grate on the floor, and the miniature table in the middle of the room. And he learned some unwrap trick from Carter.







  • UV unwrapping also took a considerable amount of time due to the complexity of the models but after cutting specific seams and unfolding things fell into place.

Surfacing:
  • Colin started with creating original textures in substance designer for the oriental rugs on the floor since those required little to no modeling. He also created a texture for the stair’s carpeting which involved tracing the original carpet pattern to find where the pattern repeats itself. He took this same process to the wall paper patterns. After finding where the wall pattern repeated he created the shapes in substance designer creating a tileable material for the wall.




  • In texturing the column and the lamp base, Colin had to use multiple layers of color in order to get convincing forms. The lamp base also had decorative reliefs at its edges and thus he hand drew each design, converting the drawing to a height map to create the relief painting the wood to enhance the perceived depth.  In studying the reference images he discovered that each piece of wood is unique and some are lighter in the middle with darker edges. The bottom wood pieces seemed to have collected more dust than the upper portions of the decorative wood pieces. He also noticed the small dings in the wood from the years of human interaction in the house. The lamp was interesting as Colin has never interacted with a lamp of this design before. It looked as if it belonged in the future rather than the past. Its rounded shapes and reflectivity were a different challenge as they contrast with the sharp angles of the majority of the room.







Carter: I textured all of my assets and Josey’s statue. For surfacing I found a varnished wood on substance share that I was able to use for all the doors and framing. For the glass in the windows and the light I used a frosted glass so as to keep some of the rough texture and not have the glass be completely see-through. The Light was a worn bronze texture and the statue used a simple marble texture. 


The only only difficult and time consuming part of the texturing process was masking out the different wood grains in the door so that there were horizontal and vertical sections matching the real life doors. Thankfully, because of my organized method of laying out UV’s when I unwrapped the doors, this wasn’t a very problematic process, just a long one.


Jiacqui textured the floor, wall panels, and the floor grate.

  • Jiaqi did pattern textures in substance designer for the floor, wall panels and the roof. Then he did UV unwrap and textures for wall panels, chairs, grate and stool he made. He also helped textured the roof. And he learned some skills in painter from Colin.









Lighting & Rendering:
  • Josey was in charge of lighting and rendering in Unreal. We decided to use Unreal due to its quick render times and Josey’s familiarity with the program versus rendering with Renderman. First, she had to import all of the assets into the scene to make sure they have proper sizing so the light would bounce realistically.


Sound Design

  • In designing sound to fit with the teams rendered playblast Colin sought to bring the viewer into the life of Mark Twain. Twain, whose real name was Samuel Clemens, was a famous American author and steamboat pilot who lived from 1835 to 1910. 
  • Lighting & Rendering:
    • Josey was in charge of lighting and rendering in Unreal. We decided to use Unreal due to its quick render times and Josey’s familiarity with the program versus rendering with Renderman. First, she had to import all of the assets into the scene to make sure they have proper sizing so the light would bounce realistically

    Technical Issues/Solutions:
    • Modeling: One of the largest issues was putting all of our assets together. Since most of the room is unique in their models and textures, it was a lot to take on for a group of four. And when putting those unique designs together, it became difficult to align properly. For example, the staircase area was modeled between all four of us, where one worked on the stairs, another did the lamp, another did the lamp’s base, and another did the wall paneling. We had to make sure everything lined up and looked good for the camera. This is where it was important for Carter to place every asset exactly where it was supposed to go and fix any overlapping models or fill in any missing gaps in the wall or ceiling. Other than the occasional model being weirdly rotate or scaled, this wasn’t too difficult of a process, and allowed for a good final check of the overall room for mistakes before passing it off to Josey for lighting
    • Maya to Unreal Transfer: Another larger issue was transferring the scene from Maya to Unreal. There were lots of little things to adjust, such as making sure the scene was scaled properly when importing and double-checking UV maps did not overlap. We had to do a lot of back and forth when we first started importing because of little issues we did not think of beforehand. Through troubleshooting, though, the scene turned out pretty well
    • Colin was tasked with connecting all the textures in Maya in order to transfer over to Unreal. This image is the basic textured Maya scene.
  • Final Render Image

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