This week specifically saw us finishing up everything regarding the complete build of our game. This week would see me prepare myself for the last asset I was about to create, which was a simple overbed table that could be moved up and down for food and medical tools to be placed onto. I initially thought about the plan to make it as simplistic as possible compared to last week’s asset. Considering my plan for next week also is to playtest the game and report any glitches or bugs back to the team leader to fix, I would have to be quick and careful about making this asset. I jumped into Maya and the first thing was to set up the project folder and its directory for the files to be placed inside, like the FBX import and the Maya file should I be taking a break. I’ve been doing this step for basically every asset that I have created to save alot of time and give me some control over Maya. After that was done, I got started making the actual asset, which I started with the wheels surprisingly. My plan was to make my way up to the top of the asset by beginning at the bottom. I created a taurus polygon for the start of the process, like what is shown here.
Following the steps with the last asset, I deleted the interior faces of the taurus and fitted a cylinder polygon inside and duplicate the wheel to make another set to align on the Y axis. I also connected the two with a a cylinder polygon that would connect with the bottom of the pole underneath the table, like so.
I then wanted some a 90 degree curve on the pole so that the mesh would be accurately represented. This is what you see in the image below after I attempted it, not a bad way to go about things.
By mirroring the asset, the poles and wheels would be flipped in a way that I want it them to be.
That was just a teaser of what is to come. I deleted the mirrored half and focused on the created half, hoping to make it easier for me to duplicate in relation to the last asset and saving some time. I created another cylinder poly for the legs of the table support and position it well so that the bottom half is covered by the pole. I focused entirely within the upper portion and extruded the newly created edge loops out to make an outcrop in the mesh.
To make the asset more accurate, I wanted to capitalize on the bolts and how the table will be adjusted to different heights. So therefore, I had to make a table bolt that would act as the adjuster. I created a new cube polygon and decreased the radius so that it resembles a triangle more than anything else.
I created some edge loops on the three faces on the triangle mesh so that when going into vertex mode, I would straighten the polygon out without any hassle. This took a while for me to, as I wanted to get the right shape for this kind of adjuster for consistency. This what I came up with in the end after smoothing the mesh out.
I made a new cylinder polygon and scaled it enough that it wouldn’t be noticeable. This will act as the adjuster connecter and will likely be where the bolt mechanism will be placed inside, so I stuck that in the middle of the triangle and combined the two polygons to align with the top half of the table leg, like so.
Next was the bar that would hold the table upright as it would appear. I created another cylinder polygon and used the orthographic view this time to pinpoint the exact position in which I would bridge the two cylinders together. I modified the end caps so that only one face would be present on both ends of the desired cylinders and then I multi-selected both of them to bridge to make the 90 degree curve from the Y to the X axis.
You can see it better in this image after I had duplicated the mesh to make the exact same thing to align, making a perfect table support for the asset.
Now it was time to make the table that would be the main focal point of the asset. The way I want it to be is that I want a table with curves in the corner. As this was the popular way of going about this, I went for it also. I started with a cylinder polygon and deleted the faces on three quarters so that only one would be left out. I then used that to extrude to make the shape what you see in the image below.
I tend extruded the straight ends of the polygon to make a nice table corner for me to mirror exactly how it should look in the image below.
Mirroring the same mesh again gives me this nice looking table surface for me to align with the upper half of the table support beams for it to rest nice and firmly to be attached to.
The last thing to model in relation to the asset is the walls that would accompany the center length of the table. I started by mimicking the same process used for the table, but this time. I didn’t want to extrude beyond having this shape in the image below.
By mirroring the polygon and tweaking its scaling, I was able to make a quick table wall that wouldn’t be that big enough, but adequate to hold items that may fall off the side should the asset be titled.
I ensued myself to perfectly align the polygon with the tables edge so that I could repeat the process with the other length.
Once I was okay with how the modelling went, now will be the process of exporting the model to be textured. I opened up the UV editor and ensured myself that the seams of the cylinders will be better, and I wasn’t wrong, but wasn’t right either. I ensured myself to follow what I did with the previous asset to clear out any unwanted seams to make the cylinder shell whole and also did the same for curved pol towards the upper half of the supports. Here is what the curved UV shell looks likes.
I also had to make sure that the adjuster had a perfect UV shell too, as the seams on the sides of the adjusters will be noticable and had to be stitched together.
Next was the UV inspection at the top of the asset, mainly the table and its walls. I ensured to make any unwanted seams on them disappear, as the issue will be clearly visible when opened in Substance. It looks alright to me, so I exported the selection as an FBX and opened up Substance once more.
Substance Painter
First things first, what I needed to accomplish was baking the asset and including the ambient occlusion channel map into the output for the shadows to be detailed clearly. Once that was finished, I scanned the materials for a wooden surface for the table and came across a neat looking texture that would be perfect for this type of asset. I also made sure to mess around with the scale and rotation in order for the surface to appear clearer, like so.
I had to something about the upper half near the table, so I applied some black coated iron to the support wielders and the table adjusters to make them stand out while also changing the colour of the steel poles to white for distinction and identity.
For the bottom half. I applied the same aluminum texture for the wheels as with the wheel rims on the previous asset and also applied a black steel addition to the wheels.
Altogether, this is how it looks. I’ve expanded on the design and added in some dust particles and dry mud to the poles and table surface respectively to give the asset some backstory of being in disrepair in the asylum setting that the game’s vision intends it to be.
Once everything was done and I was satisfied with the texture’s appearance, I went ahead and exported them, making sure the ambient occlusion map was included like we all of the other assets within Substance. I made sure by creating a new grayscale channel and dropping the Mixed AO into it, setting the output name to AO. From there, all I really had to worry about is where the textures would go, so I directed them to the sourceimages folder inside the porject folder as with any other asset and saved.
Bringing It into Maya
I jumped back into Maya and assigned a standard shader to the entire asset for this to work. From there, I started with the BaseColour texture map and worked my down to the Normal, making sure the former’s Colour Space is set to the default sRGB. Everything else should be set to Raw as with the other assets. All I had to do was plug in the right texture map and turn the texture mode on for the results to show. Bear in mind the Normal map’s usage had to be set to Tangent Space Normals as an addition to using the standard method.
With the AO texture map, I jumped into the hypershader and selected the AiMultiply node from the Utility drop down menu on the right side of the window, making sure I convert the BaseColour and AO to the shader’s BaseColour in the process.
Here is a close-up image of the shader after the texture map was plugged in.
Once the textures were all plugged in and the AO fitted within the asset’s hypershader, I started to perform the final step, which was the render and lighting setup. I created a plane and extruded one side to bevel, making a curve to act as the photography screen. I then created an area light and a camera. However, I have used another area light for the backdrop, as I wanted the background to have some colour. You can see the setup in this image below.
And here’s the high quality render with the coloured gels technique implemented to show the contrast in relation to the table from the background. There is also a key with close softbox technique as the asset has no shadows creeping towards the front view of the camera.
Evaluation
All in all, this asset was fairly simple to create and texture, purely due to it being a basic overbed table design most commonly found in hospitals and asylums that the game takes place in. If there is one thing to take away from this for improvements, it’s that the adjusters seem a little off upon careful and close inspection. I haven’t really done a good job at making it fully symmetrical. I think I can keep that mind for next time.
How the rest of the group are doing
While I was making the table asset, Jack had already finished modelling the level and Max is still implementing the code into the game to make it more functional for the Beta release. Tony has been busy with creating some promotional artwork for the game, something like a game title or background for the front cover. Next week, I’m going to playtest the builds that are already on itch.io and maybe find a couple of bugs to report back to Max for him to fix.
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