Monday Group Session

Today we had yet another group meeting to share our problems and progression. Problems were texturing, and flashy textures, which all became resolved after an hour or so. I soon got to work on creating glass and texturing them, a little bit of experimentation is needed with glass to get the right tint, going for a mid blue colour. Whilst Swati is working on updating the team journal and creating lightings, Jackey figuring out how doors work and operate within Crysis, Wirada is finding textures for fittings such as doors.

Glass is not as simple as it seems, it takes a while getting a perfect fit into the window frames, I think our overall building texture looks really nice, very similar to the conceptual renders that were provided. We managed to get the two views (requested by Jeremy) of the conceptual renders. Swati is now working on lighting, I'm just hoping that the lighting doesn't slow down our map as it did before in the week 8 fabrication, this caused a major problem as it made the map very laggy and you could not navigate your way through the map properly. After shes done ill put in the water for the well and private swimming pool, and create the fish tanks that will be hung off the inner walls of the well, hopefully if all goes well the only thing we have to do tomorrow is A.I, the presentation room, reference materials, objects, and the video scenes.

Advanced Level Specialisation

I found this video clip, which I think is at an advanced skill level to do. I personally do not know how to create this, which is a rocket launcher with its own HUD and even a missile tracking system. Seems like you may have to alter the game more, and most likely edit some C++, create your own images and text, and most definately scripting for the auto tracking of the missle. This link may if updated show a tutorial on how they did this, it is obviously achievable.

Reference:

Source: Hud View, Crymod, http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=42512&threadview=0&hilight=hud&hilightuser=0&page=1, (Date Accessed 14th June 2009)

Source: Hud View2, Crymod, http://www.crymod.com/thread.php?threadid=42512&threadview=0&hilight=hud&hilightuser=0&page=1, (Date Accessed 14th June 2009)

Source: Javelin Hud Test, Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Rli5cgMEY, (Date Accessed 14th June 2009)

Modding a HUD - Another Attempt

I decided to switch to Flash CS3 to make things easier as the tutorial also uses Flash CS3. The tutorial which I used started out pretty easy, I was actually flying threw it pretty quickly. This by the way is a pre-made layout for the HUD, which then in Flash you have to edit the text fields into dynamic text, the difference between this tutorial and the others is that this one uses text to change the amount of health, ammo, and energy, whilst the others uses flash animations e.g. creating a health bar, green to red to display health.

The images below shows my progression.

During the tutorial it states that doing the C++ is not necessary and the HUD "should" still work, unfortunately for me it doesn't. So after editing all the text to dynamic, you save then export the file, then create the Mods folder within the Crysis directory, rename the file to .gfx. You then now have to find the sdk file, in which after doing some research I found out that you need to download a program called Mod SDK, installing this program failed on me.

Above: The error when trying to install MOD SDK

But if you do happen to get it working and open up the SDK file, you then can go through find and edit the C++ as shown in the pictures in the tutorial. I'm still not quite sure on how to launch the MOD, the picture belows shows an external program used to quickly launch the mod, it could be MOD SDK. Anyhow the flash file should be saved into the directory Crysis/Mods/MyMod/Game/Libs/UI

Group Session

Today we had a group meeting, this meeting gave Jackey, Wirada and myself a chance to see how everything is coming together, I finished my model in Revit a couple of days ago, Wirada is working on texturing and importing the building and other objects into Crysis, while Jackie finishes modifying the terrain which looks really well. The textures chosen for this the building had to be changed, I noticed that the wall textures looked stretched thus making it blurry. I went to search for textures, the end result was using a standard texture on sketch up, which I adjusted the colour so it would look similar to the conceptual perspective provided.

I also learned something useful today, I went through the tutorial on how to import textured models into Crysis, seems really easy to do with sketch up, all thanks to Wirada's blog. I did this to experiment how different types of themes would suit the interior.

Above: The texture I have chosen for the walls throughout the building, the above walls (purple, orange) was the textures before, which will be changed.

Above: I'm hoping if we get enough time that this is what the theme of our kitchen will look like, personally I think it will match up, as our building has light coloured walls, and white window frames.

I'm choosing themes for rooms because on the old fabrication colours did not match up really well, having a set theme or style throughout the building will create consistency for the eye, also rooms would not have a dramatic change when entered.

I started looking at the "how to create a fish tank" tutorial by Allan. The tutorial is useful but I'm having a bit of trouble on the fish appearing. All our team is waiting on now is the building and furniture to be textured and imported into Crysis so we can place it on our modified terrain.

Reference:

Source: Kitchen View, Momoy, http://www.momoy.com/2008/06/10/inspirational-kitchen-design-from-ewe/, (Date Accessed 12th June 2009)

Final Building Form (Process & Development)

The past few days I have been working on re-modelling the whole building. This process was harder than it seemed, alot of planning went into the placement and function of the rooms, the ramps that circulates around the building starting from the ground level down into the pool level took a while to figure out. As stated before, the model is now resized there was remarks previously on how big the building was before.

The tutors suggested having windows around the exterior of the building, as it will give a visual relationship between the two spaces, and since there will be some sort of scenery I think its more of a reason to do so. As the building is resized smaller, natural lighting then will become an issue, but having windows around the exterior of the building hopefully will light up the ramp corridors and some of the living spaces.

The left building was the old fabrication, the right is the new re-built building, as you can see there is a major size difference.

The wells windows now look similar to the ones shown on the conceptual design pictures, I've also noticed that their drawings don't match up, the location of windows don't match from the different views of each picture. The process of creating a custom window took me a long time to do, I had so many problems the sill and head height which did not work with the numbers I inputted, and also the fact that I have never created families within Revit before.

View of the front of the building, these windows will provide more natural sunlight to the building and also for some rooms will provide a view to the outside environment. Hopefully the ramp corridors gets lit up well during the night.

Back and side view of the building, take note that under the last window, that's where the ground will be, so everything under that point will be underground much like a well.

The model completed with the roof, doors and glass have to be removed from the model, as they are to be added when imported into Sandbox 2.

Ground floor level, you can see around the building it has an offset of walls which are the ramp corridors, main stair way is located on the right, living room and dining area are up top, down below the two rooms are night zones, and kitchen and bathroom to the left.

Top right study room, top and bottom left are night zones (bedrooms) with bathrooms, bottom right is another living area.

This is the pool level, main swimming pool is located in the centre, whilst there a more private swimming pool is located to the top, the left side is a living space, and bottom is a shallow swimming area. Ramp access is located to the left where the double door swings are seen.

3D view of the ramp corridors (wall has been hidden), you can see the windows that hopefully will provide natural sunlight into the interior, and ramp corridor.

The two circles show similarities, the left image is a bit off angle. But whilst in the Crysis game it would look very similar indeed.

Pointing out the ramp corridor spaces and how the windows were used to provide lighting into these dark spaces.

This is a snap I took when I imported the model into sketch up, you could see it looks similar to the conceptual perspective, just that the glass isn't see through, and my model doesn't show the fish tanks,textures and water.

Sunday Meeting

Its very important to have group meetings now since its getting close to the submisison date. Today our group divided up all the work, so in a few days time we can collects each individuals work and combine it into one. Jackey is working on the land form, we need to make a few adjustments to the land, making it look and feel more like an desert oasis. Wirada and Swati looked into themes and furniture designs we could have for our rooms inside the building, one major problem I thought we had was that the furniture's textures didn't quite match up with the room, a suitable theme would definitely be recommended. Myself, after having feedback from the tutors I now made some major adjustments, first of all the overall building was too large, so the building is now scaled down into a more workable realistic size.

In the previous fabrication our building didn't have the ramp section which runs along the walls of the building, windows were suggested to be put in to create a better sense of a relaxing peaceful place and also have a visual connection to the external environment, before it just looked like a box with double doors. Windows are now vital to the building, as the well hole is now smaller it will probably not provide much natural sunlight for the interior spaces, therefore windows are now placed around the building, this also helps to light up the ramp spaces and some of the interior rooms. Basically we are re-creating the whole fabrication again from scratch, at least now we know the process of importing it into Crysis as it was done before.

Week 12

Russell Lowe was speaking to us during the lecture today. He showed us some of his projects in which he used Crysis, he describes the Crysis engine to be amazing, as in previous years he has been working mostly with the unreal engines, which he still thinks is great, but not as great and powerful as Crysis.

Real-time visualisation gives clients a better feel of their environment, having this you can find errors which you might not see on the plans, e.g. the elevator type lift that lifts heavy patients collided with the door opening. These errors probably will not be noticed if it wasn't for the real time environment, and may have caused major problems when the building is completed.

Stephen Peter then gave us a brief introduction on next semesters graduation project, he gave out a couple of examples to give us ideas on the decisions we can make, at this point of time I think ill be going with either time-based visualisation or just visualisation.

During the tutorial our team received feedback from Jeremy and Graham. Personally I think we need to change alot of things, building scale, materials, textures, lightings, landscape, and some other minor problems such as the doors not appearing when you first enter the game. The feedback was very helpful as advice is given to us, but weather we take it in is entirely up to us. Whilst I was modelling the building I noticed that the exterior of the building had no windows, it just looked like a block with doors, Jeremy advised us to maybe put windows in there to make the building more appealling to the eye and actually give it a feel of wanting to go inside. I totally agree with that suggestion, the outside landscape has some greenery which residents can enjoy the view, so why not have windows to have a visual relationship to the external environment. This week is really going to be full on.