UV's optimization

As you know, Avi and me are in charge for texturing the level. Here is the approach for UV optimization:

As we can see, we've got one of our sections fitted in the UV area in a way there is no overlapping, which is good. Yet still is kind of messy, and can delay the texturing process if we are using Photoshop - doesn't apply if we use mudbox or zBrush, since we are painting over the model on those packages... downside is our textures lose quality compared to working with Photoshop straight. So, let's take a look at how our UVs are currently arranged:

In here we can see each platform has their UVs placed separately from each other. Makes sense, since they are moving platforms and are an entity on themselves. Yet still, when they are put together, would be nice to have a sense of continuity on the texture, so we arrange our UVs in a way they resemble a single tile, just as they appear at the level:

Organizing the UVs this way helps speeding up the texturing process, since, let's say, if I paint a yellow arrow in the texture file, it will come across just right:

To get it right with the previous arrangement, I'd have to hunt for the right UV on each section and try to puzzle-paint the arrow hoping for the best, which is timeconsuming and not the best approach.

Arranging, of course, doesn't come for free. We need to pay special attention to which faces are getting aligned and make sure what we see selected in our UV Texture Editor is what we want to match in the actual model:

Another issue we are facing here: the main platform's UVs are way too small, this won't give enough room to place a texture with good resolution:

There is also an issue: both UV patches are referring to the same platform, yet still their size is radically different, which will cause less texture quality in one side compared to the other side: 

This particular case is doubly unfortunate since the smaller area happens to be the visible area, and also the most important. 

The more area we can use, the best resolution we get, so we will try to make this area as big as we can, and try to get both areas the same size. Then we face a dilemma here: get either two same-sized decagons in our UV map, or place both of them in the same area, so they share the same texture on each side. I decide to go for the latter, odds are we won't get to see the part below the platform that often, and will save time on the texturing process. So, at the end, our UVs fit both sides of the platform:

Then we got this mini piece of platform that connects everything:

. We can choose either connect it to the other platforms, or to the Crystal platform (or connect absolutely everything, problem with that is massive waste of space due proportion issues). We also need to be very careful as of what faces are we connecting with what. We can make use of the edge selector, so we know which pieces go together:

Sometimes we might even have to break the UVs in pieces in order to puzzle them together.

And well... at the end we end up with UVs looking like this:

They are not perfect, we got a floating space up there that belongs below a tile so doesn't really matter. We are in the final countdown so we can´t afford to be perfect, we got to prioritize: main areas get the bigger UV space and fit UVs, unseen areas won't get such royal treatment :)

Avi will be in charge of the UVs from now on, so show him some love. Merry Monday!

Caruso Textures

Caruso is almost completely textured but may need a little extra touching up from Nell if there is time because there are a few changes that Cullan would like applied to the mask. Also, I didn't have time to come up with a proper design for the vambrace so it is blank right now - would probably re-do it later with a similar aesthetic to the weapons.

The diffuse map:

Occlusion:

Normals

Screenshots taken from Maya after the normals and colours were added. I think he looks pretty good (even if no one gets to see his face)

The mask [so far] from different angles. I don't think there is enough time before the deadline to apply any alterations but this is likely to change/improve at some point.

Textures

Hello guys! I am facing some problems with the texture part. Not the textures themselves, that comes pretty much straightforward, more like problems in the ZBrush - Maya connection. Here you have an screenshot of how the Ravager looks in Zbrush:

This is pretty much Texture map + Normal map + a ZBrush material called "jelly bean".

Everything awesome so far... but when you try to recreate it on Maya, THIS happens:

As you can see, gets massively screwed. Texture map displays ok, the Normal Map is the one that doesn't show correctly.

This already has got the following tweaks:

• Layered material, so the crystals look transparent and more "glossy" than the rest.
• 2D bump attributes tweaked to "use as : Tangent Space Normal", and played with Bump Depth.
• I also played with the Alpha Gain in the Color Balance tab, does pretty much the same than this thing above. 

 Avi suggested to redo the sculpting subdivision levels without smoothing. I tried that, but it kept the low poly hard edges and looked quite bad.  Asking around I got David to shown me a way to do both things: use smooth in the subdivision levels and keep the original low poly proportions. He made a video for that in here:  https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwDFuVSgOQ2EMTFOdTFvd2l6Rkk/edit?pli=1 .

I followed that method, then again, that was not the problem, as you can see:

Render with the first lowPoly-smoothed Normal Map 

Render with the second lowPoly-preserved Normal Map  

Only difference you can appreciate is the change in the pattern design due I had to sculpt it again, but other than that is creating a weird bump in the facet limits in the crystal, instead of defining them as it should be:

I also got the maps tested in marmoset:  

This render gave me cancer :c , and totally lacks transparency.

Assuming is an issue of shaders, materials and/or illumination, I guess what follows is to send all the files to Josiah for him to test it into Unity, and see if we can do something so this doesn't get lost in translation. You can find these files at 3D Art > Enemies > Ravanger in the DropBox folder. They are objRavager.mb, Master_nm2.psd (normal map), Master_Trans.psd (transparency map) and Master_tx2.psd  (texture).

UV maps for Caruso

The UV map is done so Caruso is ready for texturing. Thanks to some tools that Avi informed me of the entire process was actually quite enjoyable and far easier than the methods I used to use!