Creating Hyperion Part 2

Wednesday, 14 November 2012

This is the second update on Hyperion. Since the last update, i have restarted the map creation, keeping in mind the need to keep the node structure clean and to improve the feel of the map.

A recap on the look of the map.

The map as envisioned

Here are some screenshots from Houdini.

The base of the map is finished barring small tweaks. Since the map is also created procedurally, it should not be a problem if i needed to change anything later.

It is not exactly like the map that i drew up because of some of the limitations in Houdini.

For example the height of the map is not as high as in the concept because when i do that in Houdini, weird extrusions and artifacts appear when i convert the terrain into a volume. 

Same goes with width of the map. 

I wish i could make it a bit wider but again, weird errors will occur.

So now that the base is done, i went on to delete the unnecessary parts of the map which are the outer areas.

The outer areas where the players will not see it will be deleted to save the poly count.

So i grouped up the playing area and colored it black. The color is then transferred onto the map. Then anything white will be deleted.

The map with the black color transferred.

DELETE!

Unnecessary areas deleted.

Now that is done, i then grouped up each part of the map. Namely, the main walls, the extrusions and the walls of the water path.

They are grouped up so that Kevin can then sculpt the walls and extrusions into rocky walls.

He will use a VOPSOP to do this. For now i applied a mountain SOP just to show what i mean.

So now, Kevin will sculpt the walls while i figure out how to UV the map. Freek has pointed me in a direction and now i am doing tests to figure it out.

What i did is to UV map the initial base terrain (before volume conversion). I then smooth the terrain to get better UV mapping. Then i transfer the UVs onto the terrain model(after the volume conversion).

Now i have to unwrap each of the extrusions and transfer those UVs onto the map. As of now, i am testing it out.

Once the UVs have been figured out, i will then focus on the water pathway and the placement of objects.

When Kevin is done with the sculpting, i will tweak the map while Kevin finishes up on assets. Then i will finish up on the water pathway and integrate them with the map.

Then, the placement of the assets will start. When that is done, final tweaks will be done before the UV mapping and poly reducing.

That is followed by exporting to UNITY and finalizing the project.

I hope it all goes well and no major problems appear.