STARR Method
Learning goals worked on: Reworking/Updating texture atlas textures in Substance Designer (3)
Research methodology used: Practice-based research
So far, I had little experience with working with texture atlases and none making one inside Substance Designer. I took over Quint's provided work and analyzed it as a starting point. Making an atlas texture can be quite challenging since it's not a standard tiling texture but a uniquely mapped one, used for specific purposes. Despite the difficulty, I understood how he created the material by changing and adding my input and altering the final look (figure 01). Again, I used the previous experience that I have working with Substance Designer and built upon it by experimenting and trying out by trial and error to get to the final result. Since the specifics of the task made it difficult to find any tutorials on a similar topic, carrying out practice-based research proved to be faster in this case.
Situation: This week's main goal was to implement as much of the feedback that we gathered during both internal and external playtest sessions and implement missing content from previous weeks.
Task(s): I was tasked to rework/improve the existing roundabout texture atlas provided by Quint Winter, a fellow part-time artist. This was set as a priority because of how important it was for the finished state of the game. After that, I worked on various tasks, ranging from small cosmetic changes to improving the visibility of certain buildings and adding more game assets.
Action(s): I started off with reworking the roundabout texture that we previously had. The main issue was that it was not fitting the art style that we had set and it was left unfinished. I worked closely with Mark, our Lead Artist, since he had a vision of how the texture should look like and how it was going to be set up and used in engine. Since the texture was close to finished, I made some adjustments and added few missing details, according to Mark's feedback, we came to the first iteration (figure 01). This was also the moment where we realized that the colors of all of the models were not accurate because of a function inside the materials that was tinting the colors and was making them brighter than they were supposed to be. This made it extremely difficult to match colors and wasted a lot of our time (figure 01). Luckily, Mark was able to solve this issue and I worked out the final look of the roundabout texture, by adding 'give way' ground triangles and fixing the mismatching concrete colors.
Figure 01: Top left corner- the roundabout texture in Substance Designer, down right is the texture inside Unreal Engine. Notice how the roundabout's concrete is darker than the one of the curved roads.
Figure 02: The final version of the roundabout, with the 'give way' triangles on the ground. The set dressing with signs was done by Mark
With the roundabout ready, I moved to applying the feedback that we gathered during playtesting. The biggest issue that players faced was that the school necessity building was too close visually looking to the house buildings ( figure 03). After discussions with Mark and the design team, we decided to distinguish the school from the houses by changing the colors of the school, so the difference would be more noticeable, even at a distance (figure 04).
Figure 03: The school really does resemble the house buildings, from a distance it would be hard to see the difference
Figure 04: The school now has dark brick color and different roof texture to help it stand out a bit more
Lastly, I also quickly created roundabout sign, as requested by Mark since we needed the sign to be used inside the roundabouts (figure 05).
Figure 05: The roundabout sign is used inside the roundabouts, it's just used for dressing up the scene
Results: In week 18, I managed to finished the roundabout texture which was set up as a priority and must-have feature in the game. I also managed to reworking and improving existing game content according to the feedback of testers.
Reflection:
This week proved to be challenging, especially working on the roundabout texture. Because this was not my work and the work of someone else (Quint), it made it harder for me to work, since I haven't made it myself and working with provided content can sometimes be difficult. However, I did managed to finish the texture and got to work really closely with Mark, who really helped me with giving feedback and made the process a lot easier and faster. I also once again, quite active and participated quite often in discussions regarding how to approach the received feedback.
Resources used:
Comments