Update on an Update

Tuesday, 30 October 2012

Hi there. I know i have not been updating the blog for almost a week now. Really, the only reason i did not do so is because there is nothing much to update.

There are a few highlights and events that happened though and I will update the blog accordingly tomorrow.

I will show the progress in Houdini, the finalized level design and some outings that we had.

Here is a preview:

The Project and level name. (not finalized design)

Marina Del Rey

That is all for now.

Derp Volume 5

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Sunday again. Decided to paint some personal and project related concept art. They are all WIPs for now.

Besides that i just relaxed by watching TV and videos.

That is all. :D

Exploring Hollywood Part 1

Saturday, 20 October 2012

Me and Kevin decided to go to Hollywood and get a quick run through it. Next week we will explore more in depth with Lex.

We went to the la Brea tar pits first and explored that area for a bit before going to Hollywood Boulevard.

Here are some pictures.

A part of the Berlin Wall.

La Brea Tar Pits

Hollywood Boulevard

That is all

Three days worth of updates

Wednesday, 19 October 2012
Thursday, 20 October 2012
Friday, 21 October 2012

Hey there, forgot to update the blog for three days. Here is a summary of the work and events that have occurred the past 3 days.

First off, i managed to solve the landscape volumes problem. Here are the examples and the steps i took.

Target geometry

Pathway

The pathway is projected onto the target surface.

The whole object is converted into a volume.

Converted back onto a polygon

I can add any model i create to the volume.

This is the first step to creating our level. Now that it is working, i have to get used to working with it. 

There are a lot of possibilities with this technique. When i start on the actual map creation i will update further and explain the whole method more in depth.

Secondly, I figured out how to automatically spawn objects using the paint and VOP Sops.

Hand painted grid. White will spawn objects. Less white = Lesser objects spawned
Black = No objects spawned

Add a VOP SOP. I can then control the range map and create custom ones for separate objects. This range map is for spheres.

The range map controls.

Range map for boxes 

Range map controls

Objects are spawned. Notice the spheres and the boxes are spawning at their allocated spots. 

This is very useful as i can then spawn different objects (like trees and grass) at specific places. I will try to use this in conjunction with Ambient Occlusion.

Thanks to Freek for his paper on his previous project. He also helped introduce me to VOP SOPs and gave me small hints for me to work on and discover the solution.

That is all.

Progress.....sort of

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

I continued on the cave asignment. It was nearly done. I managed to improve certain aspects of the cave.
For example, when objects spawned on the ceiling of the cave, the points were scattered everywhere on the landscape. I wanted it to scatter only on the ceiling of the cave.

Before

Notice the points are scattered everywhere. The system still works in that the objects spawns only on the ceiling of the cave but there are unnecessary points everywhere.

So i decided to group the points by color.

So there was progress in the cave assignment. I then moved on and tried to create a landscape for the project. I tried following Freek's method form his previous project.

I managed to figure it out to a certain extent. It needs to be refined further.

I converted that into a volume.

Volumes are very useful in that i can easily mix other objects to add or subtract to the landscape. 

The volume is then converted back into a polygon. the effects are not too good. This is where i have to refine it.

Adding a cube to the ground.

That is all.