Week11/Individual Process - Site analysis

Since John came to join us this week, we all have got some new specific requirements as feedback. 

For my part, which is the environment, John is satisfied with the current environment I have done. But some more details needed:
1 considering the lights setting inside/outside the church;
2 take look with the landscape in real world location (Laon, Chartres);
3 no people in the game environment but some animals is needed such as cows;
4 no background music or sound to make the environment too fancy;
5 keep the environment and daytime in sunny;

Also I have got some information from other group members, Lauren(texture) said the texture of the church is fine but he just want to keep the whole building plain in colors. Which means I don't have to spend time to put texture on the surrounding buildings, just keep they with default texture and in white color will be fine.

To get familiar with the real world location, I search them on google map in different views.

Laon, France (image capture by myself in Google Map)

Laon, France (image capture by myself in Google Map)

Chartres, France (image capture by myself in Google Map)

Chartres, France (image capture by myself in Google Map)

Rivers in Chartres is very impressive. And from the geomorphic map, I learned that the landscape for the environment should more flat and wide with some farmhouse.

I have also found a heightmap mainly of France to well understand the landscape.

heightmap view of France
(image from online: http://archive.forum.simutrans.com/topic/00098.0/)

Week10/Individual Process - Light

In order to develop the terrain, I tried to have some Light setting in Unity. Lights will bring personality and flavor to the environment as well as the whole scene.
( Online tutorial about lights setting:
https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/class-Light.html )

image capture by myself in Unity with test terrain.

In my previous Unity environment I have used one directional light, it's not as good as I expected because of the free version limited, I can't to any further shadow or shader setting to make it more reality.

Also, inside the church, lights might needed to illuminate the scenes and objects to create the perfect visual mood. The other group member Anthony tried to use some spot lights inside the church. It looks much better than before.

Week9/Individual Process - Nature Elements

Before I start with terrain, I did some research of Cerseuil in France with landform. These are some images I found:

(http://jeanjacques8420.fond-ecran-image.com/blog-photo/mes-clochets/)

(http://amicarte51.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/cerseuil-brocante-le-18-aout-2013.html)

From the images, I have noticed that the surrounding buildings are not very tall and the terrain ground is very sandy. So I search a dirt path texture to detailed the terrain.

    Texture of dirt path.                          Normal map of sand.

Texture: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/293565

Normal map of sand:http://www.filterforge.com/filters/1829-normal.html

Terrain editing inspiration tutorial video:

This is the close view of terrain with three different textures in Unity as final out come:

Then I have started add natural elements, trees and grass.

 Images of 2D grass have been used in environment.

2D grass .png images: http://www.lenagold.ru/fon/clipart/t/trav.html

Close view of the draft environment with testing models and natural element.

Top view of part of the draft environment with testing models.

In next few weeks, our group is going to work together to make sure everything going well. Personally think environment edit should keep developing during the work all the time, since all members have done their own parts, then it's definitely a new start of environment edit when we put everything together.

Week8/Individual Process - Buildings

After this weeks studio, our client John James cames join us together then we have got some new requirements and also some feedback.

For my part, which is the environment, is required to have some typically buildings around the church, and natural elements such as trees should included as well. And the terrain don't have to be the exact same as the real one, but the landform have to accord with the actual of the church to make sure it fits in our terrain.

I have also been required by tutor that, do not make the environment too fancy because the main role is the church. Based on these informations, I have done some processes.


-Surrounding Buildings:
I have got some Sketchup model from group mate Anthony, in order to test with the environment and to have path within the environment.

Firstly I separated each building as single .skp file then exported them as .dae file, which is fitable to Unity.

After exported from Sketchup, I imported them as custom assets package into Unity.

Then I have done directional sunlight setting try to create some soft shadow with the building.

And in order to get better view during the edit, I play around with the camera setting for a while to get familiar with it.

Week8/Presentation Feedback - Intellectual Property

/The Creation of Gothic Architecture
Ricky, Dorothy Kar Yan, Maki, Stefan, David, Alan.

/The Last Suprematist Sculpture

Marina, Andrew.

/The Bus Stop of the Future
Martha, Anthony, Kerre, Darren, Daniel.

From today's presentations by three different groups, I have learned a lot about Intellectual Property. It's about how can we protect our design idea by law, as a final year architecture student, it's very important and useful knowledge for further work. 
One of the group's cartoonish video is  very interesting that combined the topic with the story.

Week7/Individual Process - Skybox

Before I start to edit the skybox, I did another texture to development the terrain detail.

The rock texture makes terrain looks more reality.

Then I started to edit the skybox by following this video from Youtube:

Basically I edited the sky texture in rendering setting in Unity. 

Then assign the default sky texture into the skybox.

For the next step, I'm going to do with the plants and surrounding environment of the church.

Week7/Individual Process - Texture & Shader

For this week, I basically doing lot of research about how to make cartoonish style of environment and realistic natural terrain. And start to do our own environment in unity with textures.
Heres are some reference image I found during the research. Personally like this kind of cartoonish architecture and environment style. I would like to try to set up the environment like this image in the following steps in needed. 

Cartoonish style shader of the building.

Reference image found online. 

Before to have further process of terrain making in World-Machine, I try to play around with terrain settings in Unity as tutorial. Here is the link of the tutorial I found online.
(tutorial of the terrain making)

Grass texture and normal map are found online.

Texture: https://www.filterforge.com/filters/4739-normal.html
Normal map of texture: https://www.filterforge.com/filters/4739.html

To make own texture in Unity, I firstly have to imported new Assets, then assign the texture to the terrain. Here is the screenshot of how the texture is worked with the terrain in Unity after imported.

In order to make the texture more reality, I did some shader settings. I made a new shader instead of the default one to make sure every setting going well with my own texture.

Here is the final outcome of the terrain texture. It's much more realistic with texture that have normal map and much better with specific shader setting.

In the next step, I'm going to have some more details setting of the terrain with plants and also the skybox.