#modularassets

[redguy985]

[kalungepallavi]

Circuit Claw Development: Building the Modular Alley Patch

This week, I dedicated my efforts to advancing the modular alley patch for "Circuit Claw," the core environment that will bring our futuristic Indian cityscape to life. The primary goal was to design and model versatile, reusable assets that could seamlessly blend traditional Indian architecture with a cyberpunk aesthetic, creating a cohesive and immersive urban environment.

This is my first time working on modular assets, so I watched some quick YouTube videos to get a better understanding. My goal is to create solid block elements for the environment that align with the designs and references.

Few Concepts/Designs for the ModularAssets which I collected from different sources like from Google, Pinterest,etc:

3D Modeling in Maya

With the designs set, I moved on to 3D modeling in Maya. The focus was on creating detailed, yet performance-efficient assets. I modeled various modular components like wall sections, shop shutters, and balcony structures, paying attention to how they would interact within Unreal Engine 5. The goal was to ensure these elements could be reused across the environment without sacrificing visual fidelity.

1.

Next Steps:

Having completed the almost the half of the modeling phase, I’ll soon shift my focus to texturing. My plan is to achieve a hand-painted style that captures the vibrant yet gritty atmosphere of the alley. Once the textures are complete, I'll integrate the assets into Unreal Engine 5, where I'll continue to test and refine the environment.

Stay tuned for next week's update. Hopefully, where I’ll dive into texturing and further asset integration! :)

References:

Matthew Marquit. (2017, July 24). 3D Modular Building Concepts [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bY3mmBunpo

Stefan. (2019, December 15). Beginner Introduction to Modular Modelling #1 References [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H227qxzfCn4

[sindy-cgvirtual]

Assessment 2 - Milestone 2A 

(KNB221 CG Toolkit)

This is my progress of the Modular assets so far. I have roughly created all the almost all necessary assets in the concept art and assemble them together according to the reference image. 

However as I mentioned above, this is only the rough version of the model, in order to improve on the realistic appearance of the model, I would add bevel and smoothing effects to the modular assets to make it look better. 

Moreover, as for the plants in the reference image, in the following weeks I would create an improved version of it with variations to maximize the flexibility and re-usability as well as the quality of the modular assets.

And this is the rough breakdown of the assets, excluding of simple cubes and planes with various dimensions.

There will be definitely more individual assets after adding the texture to it, even though the shapes are simple and same, but the textures will not be the same such as making same 4-sided planes for walls and ceilings, but the textures will be different, even though the dimensions can be adjusted and adaptive.

Moreover, after adding more details to the shapes of the assets, some of the shapes will not be able to be shared between similar assets, so there will be increasing number of assets after adding details in terms of textures and shapes.

With some of the modular assets I have roughly assembled them into different kinds of buildings, the car-park(left) and a house with a yard (right).

Although these are not the completed version but I just wanna test for the flexibility and re-usability of the modular assets and it turns out really fine. Hence in the following weeks I will be focusing on polishing the individual assets and adding textures. 

[sindy-cgvirtual]

Final Submission

(KNB221 CG-Toolkit)

If you were to go back to the start of this assessment to do it again, what would you do differently to complete the task?" 

Due to lack of consideration, I did not consider the sizes of the assets initially, so it has taken me much times to resize the assets and assembling. The sizes are very important for modular assets to make each other assembled seamlessly for re-use.

So if re-do this modular assets again, I will start with the sizes at the very beginning. Plan before modelling, and calculate the sizes of the main assets to make sure they are proportional to each other, which are good for scaling and flexible dimensions. 

Also, as will also make a beveled version especially for baking the texture, as in real-life everything will have bevel edges, so using high-poly version for baking texture and then use for low-poly models can improve on the appearances as well as the real-time rendering efficiency. 

Further more, I think it will be efficient if assembling from bottom to top, which enables initial snapping to the ground without moving the whole assets afterwards, which the mouse-clicking is just too messy. In my case I just assembled randomly which has caused much extra work such as keeping snapping downwards to the ground after many assets have been assembled.

Additionally, it is very important to ensure the models in 3D work-space is set to zero in position and rotation, as well as the rotation of the XYZ-axis. As for this time, one of the window is set to 0.067 degree of rotation, even though the amount is very minor, but this can still cause trouble with snapping. It also caused me extra hours to figure out the ‘minor’ problem which is not minor actually.  

[sindy-cgvirtual]

Online Progress Update

(KNB221-CG Toolkit)

During last week, I have shown the break down version of the modular assets to the tutor and it is suggested to adjust each of the asset to be proportional to each other for better dimensions for assembling.

So I have adjusted the assets with regular and realistic dimensions such as the window has the dimensions of 200cm x 130cm x 20cm.

Except for the dimensions, I have also added frames to the windows.

I have also started with the unwrapping process, and started the texturing process in Substance Painter.

I was planned earlier to add more details to the assets such as smoothing or bevel effect to make better shape, however I feel the low-poly version works fine with the textures. And I have searched on the internet for some modular assets examples. some of them still looks good without smoothing effect.

Also, for modular assets creation, I think it is necessary to consider about polygon count problem. Even though Unreal Engine 4 is powerful enough to run millions of polygon count, however, in order to maximize the flexibility and customization of the assets, in terms of complexity and quantity, it is better to keep the polygon count as less as possible while ensuring the appearance still  looks fine. 

So I have chose to use the current version of the assets for texturing.

One thins needs to be mention is that the textures I have created previously for the wall are not seamless (I forgot to capture the screenshot) which is not good for modular assets. I think it is necessary to make sure the textures are seamless when assembling together, such as the bricks of the wall, hence it is important to seam the uv maps during the unwrapping process. 

And this is the improved version of the textures which are seamless after assembling together.

So far I am still working on the unwrapping and texturing process, while I have imported the completed assets into Unreal Engine 4 for assembling.

For this week, I will try to complete all the texturing and import them into Unreal engine 4 for assembling according to the concept art image

And for the final two weeks, I will try with the alembic exporting for the animation to make the environment vivid. Besides that, most important will be assembling the modular assets into other functional buildings to test and prove the flexibility and robustness of the modular assets I have created. 

[sindy-cgvirtual]

Unsuccessful import with Alembic format

For the balcony, this is my previous version of the asset,  I have created the asset with small size to be assembled together to maximize the flexibility of customization in terms of dimensions. However I find this is not very convenient for users to manipulate as they may still have to adjust the sizes for some specific dimensions. Also when building the lighting of the assets there will be shadows between the asset which will is not good.

Texture Coordinate function for the balcony

If I use the UV map texture for the balcony, when the size of the balcony asset is adjusted according to its ratio, such as adjusting the width of the asset solely, the texture will be stretched which looks wired and bad.

So I just render out the texture without uv maps and using the TextureCoordinate function in Unreal Engine 4 to adjust the texture size, in terms of U tiles and V tiles. In this way, no matter what size of the balcony asset is adjusted, the size of the texture can be adjusted accordingly with appropriate ratio. 

Delete unseen polygons (side polygons) to reduce the shadows between edges and corners

Using one texture for 3 separate part to make sure the textures are seamless to each other.

Glass texture

Another 

final result

Final Outcome

Different Configuration Reference- Parking Lot

Indoor environment of Parking Lot

Full Assets

Final Video with voiceover