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Reminder: all work due midnight

Hi guys, thanks for all your hard work this semester, if you’re worried about your grade, remember there are 2 extra credit texturing assignments posted. Everything is due tonight at midnight.

I’ll be at school tomorrow in the late afternoon, if you’d like to see your project in Virtual Reality bring the Unity project folder & files.

The process to get the scene in VR is simple once the headset is setup:

Download/import the Steam VR Plugin from the Asset Store

Drag the camera from the Steam VR Prefab folder in your assets into the scene

Save the scene with a new name, eg: VR_scene

Hit play and put on the VR headset!

I’ll take care of setting up the VR headset (HTC Vive).

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For administration purposes, not for credit.

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This is what it takes to get an A on the final project, make sure you work on lighting, as well as your 3D models & textures. 

SIMPLE CAMERA MOTION, pan, tilt, dolly, truck, etc. Pick one 

Up to 20 seconds, not including the loop back to the start if you loop

Bump & specular maps on models

Post-processing effects are required.

Due midnight May 1st as a ZIP file containing a build: *.EXE file & Data folder posted to your Tumblr. 

Check that your file works & double check your ZIP sharing settings so “Anyone with link can view”.

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Overview of Materials in Unity

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Don’t forget bump & specular maps

Add bump & specular maps to your unity materials so your 3D models aren’t all smooth & shiny. 

Use the Photoshop filter to create normal maps, for specular maps desaturate the texture to make it  greyscale & adjust it so shiny areas are lighter, matte areas are darker.

You can also try this tool crazybump, which has more settings than Photoshop and will automatically spit out several textures from one photograph.  http://crazybump.com/

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Tips for students from professional artists

“We’re all students, we never stop learning, and success is achievable for anyone who has the time and dedication for it.”

Keep reading

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Final Project

Outdoor 3D game environment

Due April 26th

1-3 group members

This post will be updated and specifics could change.

Requirements

High-poly centerpiece(s) modeled & textured

Low-poly supporting objects modeled & textured

Animated camera (5-15 seconds moving shot)

Terrain: sculpted & painted with 3+ repeating textures

Foliage (grass, bushes, & trees come with Unity Standard Assets Environment Package) rocks, rubble, etc

Tech Specs

Turn in an .EXE file

Post Processing Behavior setup

Color Space = Linear

Rendering Path = Deferred

Tonemapper = Filmic (ACES)

Bonus

Add animated characters (2D or 3D)

Add your names in the Unity UI or world space (be subtle)

Description

Outdoor 3D scene should include a foreground with 1 or more centerpiece objects that use high-poly modeling techniques and are lit using 3-point lighting; and a background made up of 4 or more supporting objects that use low-poly modeling techniques lit with skybox, directional light, etc.

Animate a simple camera movement like a crane, pan, or truck, 5-10 seconds.

Example ideas:

Bench in a park (foreground) with city skyline in background

Escape pod (foreground) with crashed ship in background

Battering ram at city gate (foreground) with castle in background

Spaceship on landing pad (foreground) with alien city in background

Gypsy wagon (foreground) with carnival in background

Fountain (foreground) with village in background

Pirate ship (foreground) with port-city in background

Ruined city gate (foreground) with ancient temple in background

Space station (foreground) with planets & galaxies in background

Cemetery (foreground) with haunted mansion in background

Expensive car (foreground) with fancy hotel complex in background

Wrecked car (foreground) with post-apocalyptic city in background

Turn your scene up to 11!

I don’t want to see the first boring thing that pops into your head, find a professional example from a game, movie, or Artstation, and then try make your design even better.

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Unity Collaboration workflow

One flaw with the Unity Collab system is that you can't actually work on the file simultaneously. Basically it overwrites your project folder each time you update.

So before you sync, make a backup your project folder.

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Speedtree error

This is a common error, “Speedtree materials need to be regenerated”

Fix: https://teamtreehouse.com/community/unity-gives-an-error-speedtree-materials-need-to-be-regenerated

Search google for any errors by going to the Console tab and copy/pasting the error. The best websites for error fixing include unity.com and stackoverflow.

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Job Search Sites (for games)

https://jobs.gamesindustry.biz/by-category/art---animation

http://jobs.gamasutra.com/

Indie/Mod Jobs: http://www.moddb.com/jobs

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All Work Due May 1st

Extra Credit 1 & 2 are due by May 1st so I can add them to your grade.

The final project will also be due online by noon May 1st, though I recommend you bring a completed project by April 26th so I can give you feedback.

April 26th will be the last day we meet in-class,  Apr. 28 – May 4 is finals week.

http://www.mdc.edu/academics/calendar/

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Post your Centerpiece Object

Please post a render of your centerpiece object along with the textures as images to your Tumblr.

Also post your reference & concept art, those are easy points that a lot of you are missing.

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Create a matte painting, take a screenshot featuring your Project 3 centerpiece and go over it in Photoshop to create a piece of concept art like the video above.

Extra Credit: 100 points (increase your grade by 10% for Project 3).

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Unity Collaboration

1. Go to the Services tab and turn on the the collaboration feature

2. Once it’s activated a number of other features will open up under it.

3. In those other options you can be able to have others access your scene through clicking Publish> “Open the Collab tool bar” or you can go to the top right of the screen and click the Collab button to drop down the menu

4. Once you click either/or a comment box will open up along with your everything you have in your scene as well as the “publish” option. Type a short sentence or give a little detail of what your scene is or just put the title of what your scene is and click publish.

5. Once everything is loaded(make sure you are in the services tab or go back to it) click the “back to services” on the collaboration window 

6. Then go to Member> add the email address of the one you are going to collaborate with and click invite.

How Others Can Access Your Scene

1. When your collaborator opens unity they will see an invite or a new scene on their main menu

2. Click on the scene; They will have to set where they want to have the file saved. Then turn on the Collaboration Feature

3. You might have to sign in again. Then under the drop down menu of the Collab button or Window click “update” and the scene will load on your file.

Finished…..

*When ever you make changes to your scene you have to go to the collab button then type in whatever changes you made and click publish. The other person will get a notification so they can update their scene……

*You can also have a feature called Collab Hisstory in which you can go back to before a scene change was made in case of mistakes. Just click Window>Collab History….MAKE SURE THAT WHENEVER YOU OR YOUR COLLABORATE MAKES CHANGES THAT THEY WILL ALWAYS TELL WHAT THEY CHANGED IN THE COMMENT BOX BEFORE THEY PUBLISH SO AS TO HAVE A LABEL ON WHAT THEY CHANGED

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Maya 2018 Upgrade at MAGIC

As you’ve noticed, the school’s Maya 2017 license is expiring before the end of the semester, so IT staff will be installing Maya 2018 on the computers this week.

One known bug is AiStandard textures made in Maya 2017 will not work correctly in Maya 2018.

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A popular UV layout tool, it’s $100 for a 1-year student license but there’s a free demo.