Post 15: Arcade Machine

Reference Images

A bunch of different coloured arcade machines, complete with a title that simply says what it is. I like the coin operative slots at the bottom, as it stays true to an arcade settings with the addition of a key lock for staff to maintain the cabinet and test the game it’s built in. I would definitely choose to model these features into my version.

What I like about this image is the button layout and how it’s shiny exterior makes you want to play using the controls and its two joysticks. I guess I could do something similar to that.

I like the texture on this designed arcade cabinet. It captures the steel-ness of the asset while trying to appeal to its foamy appearance. If I could, I would totally take notes on how to do this.

Process

I got started by dragging in a cube polygon and stretching it out via the vertex mode to the shape I want it to be, creating two edge loops for the walls that stick out a few metres. Here is what it looks like.

My priority was to expand the base above to begin sculpting the cabinet. I went into vertex mode and selected the top, extruded it and dragged the front edges to move them outwards a bit to show what is in the image below.

I then headed back into face mode and extruded the top faces, dragging them up a bit before the section where the lines retracted back towards the back slightly are met. From here, I went back in vertex mode and moved the front points back to resemble an arcade cabinet more than anything else. From there, I headed into face mode and extruded the top faces once again, this time slightly sending it back to act as the screen. Now here comes the tricky bit. I extruded the top faces closer to the back and extruded them to make the top cover of the cabinet, making sure I drag the top-most edge in intersection with the screen’s edge above. I extruded those three faces to make the final design I have now.

Now it’s time to make the arcade control pad. I started by making a cube polygon and scaling it to a rectangle, creating two loops in the middle. I then used those newly-created faces and extruded it with the use of scaling to make an evenly-shaped D-pad.

This one required at least three polygons to create. I had to make the joystick control area by creating edge loops around its polygon, then selecting all of the faces on the side and scaling them to look like a modern control pad. I created a cylinder and ball, making sure I join them up with the pad to make what it looks like now.

For an added bonus, I created two circle buttons to act as an action feature such as jumping and shooting in the cabinet’s built-in game. I gave them a separate lambert colour to distinguish them from the rest of the controls.

I selected all of the controls and duplicated them, ensuring I keep them within the pad area, possibly having to scale them down without the polygons being disconnected. I achieved this by grouping them together.

I had thought about this for a while in where to place the coin slots to play the game. I initially put this beneath the controls. Upon closer inspection of the reference images that I have used, I decided to move them closer to the feet of the machine and mirror them to have two coin slots, like so.

I also created a key lock for any staff to access the interior of the machine for maintenance. The way I did this was creating edge loops in the center of the circle and extruding the faces back twice to make a key shape hole.

Throughtout the asset’s moddeling, I ensured I would name every polygon that I’ve created so that when it comes to texturing, I know which is which.

I also had to UV the model and layout the shells as with any other assets I have made as part of this too before I attempted to texture the cabinet. Once that was done, it was time to export as an FBX.

Substance Painter

I went straight into the Texture Set Settings and made sure to include the ambient occlusion channel by clicking on the plus sign. This was to display any shadows on the asset clearer, which I didn’t think there was, but it’s still good practice to perform this action before texturing.

I got started by basically thinking about what texture the cabinet was going to appear as. I have decided to settle on a worn out steel-like texture that would make some aspects of the machine shiny and display some gradual wear and tear.

I decided to fill the control pad in a rubber texture because this is where the players will rest their hands upon, so I would need it to be a smooth surface nonetheless. The screen also had to be a different colour to display the aspect ratio and scene of the game, so I filled that layer black

I also had to texture the buttons and the joysticks too. The D-Pads are fine. I went with a black colour tint for the joysticks and circle buttons are red for how when the players would see them, they know which is which. I previously thought about moving the text above the screen, but due to some complications of me trying to plaster it in that area, I had to move it below the controls, just below the key lock which I painted white for it to be seen.

A few more areas to texture, including the coin operative area had to be black as well to direct the interested players to have a go at the built-in game. Once all was said and done, I went ahead and exported the textures, ensuring that I included the Mixed AO into the output maps beforehand.

Bringing Into Maya

I selected the asset and assigned a new material like before, making sure it was the right shader before continuing. Yep, it is. Great!

I started with the BaseColour as always, selecting file and choosing the right texture map for the asset is vital as it displays the work done in Substance.

The same rules apply to the Metalness, Roughness and Normal maps, but for those I had to also change the colour space to Raw for it to display correctly.

Another perk is having the bump mapping plugged in the asset. I remembered to select Tangent Space Normals in the ‘Use As’ drop down option before plugging in the texture for the best result. What was now missing was the ambient occlusion, so I hopped into hypershade mode and created an AiMultiply node, converted the AO and BaseColour nodes in the instructions followed to get the shadows visible on the asset like in the image below. Now it is time for the lighting to begin.

Evaluation

There are quite a few oddities with this asset now that I’ve finished it. For starters, the lighting on the asset in some angles seems off, which can be distracting at times. Another thing is that the textures appear to seep in and out of each other. It is clearly noticeable around the coin slot area where there appears to be a unnecessary detail in the form of an unwanted barcode-like oddity. That was probably down to me not UV’ing every single part of the asset before texturing it. A previously mentioned thing is that the head of the asset where the text should go has small vertical lines visible, which denied me the chance to put anything there, even text. I think for the future if I ever made this again, I would greatly improve on making sure I UV stuff correctly instead of assuming it is okay. I think that I would need to improve overall with this one.