LARGE scale 3D project (second year SECOND semester)
(24/03/2024 - 12/05/2024)
What were the goals of the project?
I wanted to challenge myself in multiple ways.
Firstly: through referencing complexe and emblematic architecture, which I did by using a few photos of real life Japanese streets as reference. I decided to only use 4 different photos as reference to not steer too far from the specific type of street I wanted to recreate.
Secondly: through the creation of an easy to iterate upon system where elements could be added, reused and arranged in a multitude of ways to create as much variety as possible, without expanding the scope too much.
Thirdly: through the sheer scope of the project, by aiming to create fully modeled, textured and integrated set pieces that featured all of the details from the original references. This was a challenge that was not implicit in the assignment, and that I personally decided to face.
In doing so, I was able to get a lot of experience in planning my own work as well as an overarching schedule and priority list for the production of 3D assets, and a project as a whole.
And, finally: through the optimisation of my assets to allow for the rendering of as many buildings as possible with minor performance impact.
PROCESS
After the initial reference gathering process, I drew concept art of each of the set pieces and theorized their systemic implementation. The scope of the project being set, I planned out its production to ensure an equal degree of quality and visual cohesion between each set piece.
First I made the models for each module in Blender, making sure that the topology was coherent and economical: since I would be attempting to render a whole street.
Then, I textured my models in Blender not individually but simultaneously, since I was often working with similar materials from one model to another.
I found most of the textures for my materials on ambientCGÂ and modified them to change their color, height maps and various other properties to match them to my needs. I did my best to reuse textures where I could and to use textures of coherent size to ensure that the project would be able to comfortably render the target number of buildings, at the target framerate.
To complete the project, I imported my models into Unity and programmed the logic behind the procedural street generation system, then worked to implement lighting and post processing effects that would bring the best out of my scene while making every detail visible.
