UDK Level

First of all before I started to create this level I exported my 3D model as a FBX which is a file type that is compatible with UDK. I also prepared my UV texture for UDK as saving it as a BMP file which can be used for texturing. When creating my level I started off from scratch.

  I had to add a terrain which was 50x50 patches.

 I then went to to terrain editor and lifted some of the terrain up and make the terrain all bumpy. I then added some of the pre-made rocks onto the terrain. To add texture to my model I right clicked the went to new material it then took me took Material Editor, where I then made a texture Sample and select my texture. It gave me a preview of what my material would look like as well. As I have already set the UVs in my model the material should go to where it should be.

How it looks right now.

When importing my model and textures to UDK I had to open up the content brower then at the bottom I imported both files and saved my packages for later use. Placing my tower into the level is simple, after I imported it I simple had to just drag and drop it to the level.

For the texture on the terrain I simply had to do the same thing I did with the UV texture but with another texture. These two textures below are the textures I used.

This material is the dirt material for the ground, I went with dirt as I was planning for the outside to be natural but with dead grass as the area is dieing around the tower.

This is the dead grass material I was talking about, It is to show the area around the tower is dieing as it is owned by a necromancer, a mage of death.

 To add texture to terrain you open up Terrain Editor and in the area big area below which are layers you right click and select new terrain setup layer and select the layer you want, I selected the dirt one first which covered the whole terrain with dirt.

 I then added the dead grass material which I then select and painted over the dirt material.







To create the water effect I went to content brower and at the top it says actor classes I went to that and then chose the fluidsurface actor, I created a surface on the UDK map and moved it to where I wanted after that I applied a pre-made water material to the surface and it created the water.

This is the end product I produced for the level, Felt like I could of added more things to it or made the level bigger as a whole and added more textures and so on.

3D Modelling and UVs

To start off this tower I would be creating I created a simple cube then added the sub-divisions in. I would then start to extrude these faces still I had to shape of a tower starting to form. I started with the base of the tower which would be a simple block where the tower would then come out of from the middle of that block. To do this I had to select the center faces and then simply extrude it out. I curved out the square corners by moving the vertices around till the corners become smooth.

After creating the block and extruding the middle faces upwards creating a tower like objects I created some edges around the tower which would create more faces which I would then extrude to create one of the extra rooms coming out of the towers and on the other side I did the same thing but instead of a box I created a rectangle which I would extrude further to create a different looking room.

These spikes were a complete accident as I was trying to extrude the face of the platform I accidentally had the vertexes selected instead which created these spikes which gave my model more of a necromancer look to it so I decided to keep them and then had my platform in the center of them so it seemed the spikes were attached to the platform sides. 

I changed some of my designs during the modelling process and instead of a room coming out of the I decided to have battlements instead because the room coming out of the tower made no sense as it had a really thin support structure so I created a hallway which with connect the towers together. 

 I extrude the back end of the original tower to create a much larger tower behind it at the top however using my design ideas as reference I changed it up a bit instead of creating a enclose diamond shape I would of this sort of square stone hedge like shape with the crystal floating in the middle of it

For the texture of this I am thinking of maybe dark stones like a dark marble or something of the sort for the top bits while the rest of the model would be bricks.

Using the top of the larger tower as reference I added the same sort of thing to my platform just to add more interest to it which would also have a crystal in the middle floating. To make it different however I had a cross at the top by extruding the top of the pillars and then merging them with the other side.






I added a rising set of platforms and at the center of it the crystal would be floating, just having the platform flat looking boring to me so this added a bit of interest



I also added a bridge to my structure which would lead to the top of the battlements. This bridge will later on have stairs which I will add later as they are going to be quite simple to add.









I added more of these battlements around the top of the larger tower to do these I created a single corner of these battlements then extruded the faces which would create the path leading to the other corner which was just another copy of the first






This is when the mesh of these battlements started to get really messy and when I found out I had no control of my meshes which I need to improve on.

  As you can see in this image the faces are everywhere and one of the faces do not look right while some edges are going into the faces. To find all of these edges and such I went to isolated view and started to delete some edges and faces and started to add new faces and so on

This is the finished product of the battlements after the clean up as you see in the image there are dots on the faces these are face centers which were used to help me find out of place faces which were not needed I also went on to wire frame view as the solid faces were getting in the way.





I decided I would not have any crystals in this model after all as the crystals don't give the feel of dark magic but instead arcane magic which does not fit the theme of my tower at all so I left them out. So I started to unwrap my UVs to do this you select your object and then you start to select the faces of an axis and the faces would unwrap in the UV editor.

This is what the original UVs looked like when you first open up the UV editor with the object selected. With UVs like this you would not be able to texture the model properly. Unfold the UVs will take a lot of time so will be posting after I have completed the UVs

This is the finished UVs of the full tower. With this I can now go onto photoshop to add textures to them. With little time thanks to unfolding these UVs I could not create my own textures so I had to go find some pre-made textures which were free to download and use.

These are the two textures I decided to use I liked the old brick look and how it also had some vegetation coming out of it which was also my original design idea so I chose this texture.

I chose this texture for the top parts of my tower and also for the spikes on the platform as well. I liked the rocky look to this and also the dark feel it gives off which would look good on my tower, not to sure how the two textures would look together but I will find out soon.

 To texture the UVs I had to take a snap shot of the UVs from the UV editor and then take them to photoshop where I then started to paint over the UV lines which were there as guidelines. To use these textures I simply made these two textures into stamps where I would then use my stamp tool to paint over the UVs

I simply colored over the UV lines with the texture stamps and made sure it went over the lines as if I left them out then the model would have white on it.

This is the finished and textures UVs which I will now apply to my model.

To apply the UVs you simply select the object, right click and hold and go to material attributes then on the right says color you select the box next to it and select file texture, you then find the UV textures in your files and if you did the UVs correctly then your model should be textured!

This is the final product of my tower in Maya, the texturing could use a bit of work as it looks out of resolution but the colors of the textures look average with each other, they don't stand out when together so it works. I gives my tower a dark feel which is good.





Below is a rendered out view of my tower, I will now have to put this model onto UDK.

Design Process

When designing my 3D tower I thought I would take some feedback from my friends on what time of scenario they would like my 3D model to be based off for example it could be a sci-fi landscape or a medieval landscape so to find out what they wanted I created a very simple questionnaire to ask them what type of scenario they wanted me to make. After I handed out the questionnaire and got my results most of them wanted a fantasy large scale environment so I decided to start off with that!

When looking at fantasy I usually think of swords and medieval things with a few twists like steam-punk swords or magic and so forth. I often like to incorporate modern things to it as it is a fantasy so I can usually let my imagination lead me to a certain extent. As my peers wanted something large scale I thought I would do a large tower/castle in a smaller environment to try show how big the tower/castle really is. When thinking of the tower I wanted to add a darkish theme like a necromancer lived there or something so I went to look at dark medieval towers When looking at the towers i discovered that most of them had a dark look like the image below.

So I thought for my tower I should add something that gives off a dark impression to my model like gargoyles or just dark textures like bricks that have fallen off with wildlife starting to grow inside.







I had a few ideas for my tower one of them was that it would consist of two towers connecting to each other while the other one of similar design with a front area where the necromancer would do their spells and so forth while at the back would be an entrance to the mountain it was going to be next to.








I decided to go with my first idea of two towers connecting with each other however I made some changes to it for example I have added some extra bits to the first tower which are extra rooms in the tower spiraling up. At the top of the tower is a crystal with other little crystals circling around it. I was also thinking about having a door or not as since this is a necromancer tower I was thinking maybe the necromancer would have other means of getting inside the tower to stop others from coming in. After thinking about this I would later remove the door. I would however keep the rest of the stuff.

After deciding all of that I did some studies of materials like bricks with vines growing from the inside or just vines overlapping the wall itself for reference, I would also design the top of the tower as you can see in the previous image of the tower the top was cut off. In the image below I was designing how the top would look and had different concepts I would decided that one tower top would be different to the other and also that the towers would be connected by a little bridge. I also wanted to have some crystals circling around the 2nd tower head however I felt it was unnecessary as having a huge crystal encased by the tower would give more impact and look more powerful for the necromancer tower.

Since I was also creating a 3D landscape I had to also design what the 3D landscape would be also on my survey I did people chose they wanted one as well instead of just a model so I went on to design that, what I was thinking is that the tower could be on top of a lake inside a crater which would be quite nice but also I thought that I could maybe have the tower on the side of the mountain and if that were to happen I could have an entrance to that mountain which would make the model a bit better as it would interact with the environment it was in.