15/01/24
Texturing the other objects that needed fixing was very easy, I had already saved a few colours that I was using consistently when I was texturing the main parts previously, so all I needed to make sure was that I was using the right textures and brushes, which were all noted down.
For the fences, I was a bit annoyed to find out that one of them had issues again since I really didn’t want to try and figure out what the issue was again, but I ended up just not using the inside fence. Both of them are the same, just different sizes, so I decided I would just duplicate the object in Unreal and use the same texture for both the outside and inside fences. This way, I didn’t have to spend any more time trying to fix this issue.
For the teapot, I struggled to pick a material to use as none of them had the glass finish that I wanted. I then found the jade smart material, thinking it would look right. I tried it on, and it definitely wasn’t what I was looking for. Of course, even after adjusting the colours, something was still wrong. After a while of playing around with different masks, I found that the veined marble added a nice porcelain-type look to the teapot, Adding it on, I turned the opacity down to 44 so the green colour could still go through.
Next was to add the cracks. I didn’t really know how I could show the ageing of a teapot at first, but after a while of experimenting with different brushes and masks, I felt that adding cracks was the best way. I felt that it not only made it look more worn out, but it also added more depth to the teapot. I was quite happy with the results of this.
Once those were added, I got started on making some more objects for the scene, as I had realised that it was very empty on the other island. As the garden is the final resting ground of the two characters, I wanted to add in their graves to show that they are still together even after death.
Although my scene is influenced by ancient China, I felt that making a more Japanese-style grave was better, as I liked the simplicity of it more, You can see a vast difference between the two. In Chinese culture, those who have money tend to have grand gravesites; the bigger the grave, the more money the family has. Of course, having a grand grave wouldn’t be so bad for the scene, but I felt like it didn’t really fit in with the rest of the scene.
The gravestone itself was very easy to make, simple blocks with a few bevels, the flower pot was simple as well, using the same method as the bowls and cups from the go table.
The biggest challenge was the roof. I really struggled this time around to make a roof like this, although it was supposed to be the same as making the umbrella for the lanterns this time, so many more issues came up. This time, instead of the roof going diagonally down, there was a curve, so I found that creating the curve while keeping the rest of the object the same was very difficult.
The hyacinth flower was very easy to make. Using the flowers from the tree, I placed them in a circle facing outside, with the top only having a few in the circle, with the number increasing as you move down. Once I made the circles, all I had to do was combine them into one mesh and duplicate them. I didn’t bother making them connect to the stem like I did with flowers on the tree, as it was pretty much all covered.
Hyacinths, purple specifically symbolise asking for forgiveness or deep regret. I chose this flower for the flower offering as I wanted it to represent the regret the two lovers had when they died; their love being forbidden, they had to hide it and could only show it when they were hiding in their garden. It is a way of both of them asking for forgiveness from each other so that when they meet again in the afterlife, they can learn from their mistakes and show their love freely.
After finishing the grave, I wanted to make lanterns to hang off the corners of the roof.
For the first trial, I tried making the lantern using the reference on the right. I ended up spending a lot more time than I expected on this. With issues with beveling and extruding, I was constantly finding extra faces or edges somewhere.
I wasn’t too satisfied with the result of this first lantern, as something about it just seemed off, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, so I moved onto making a different type.
For my second trial, I found this video. I quite liked the shape and vibe of it, so I decided to follow it. It was surprisingly easy to follow, and I was very happy with the result. Making the main body of the lantern was quite simple and straight-forward, but instead of duplicating each section, I made the entire body in one piece, as I didn’t really understand why separating each section was really needed.
The part that I struggled with the most was making the side pieces that go on each corner. Using wireframe mode, I had to make sure each side was aligned perfectly so it would connect to the body seamlessly. I had some issues with adding edge loops as I added all the edge loops I thought I would need at first, which ended up with me selecting the wrong vertices in wireframe mode as the last few rows at the bottom were overlapping.
Overall, I was very happy with this lantern. Even though it took a while, I felt that the amount of time it took to make didn’t really matter because of how happy I was with the result. It made me think about the different ways I could add the extra sides to the gazebo roofs as an extra object instead of making them all one.
This was the final result of putting all the extra pieces together. Once all the UVs were done, it was time to import them into substance painter.
For the words on the gravestone, I decided to carve them in the Chinese idiom 山盟海誓 (Shan Meng Hai Shi), meaning a pledge of eternal love. Normally you would put a name on the gravestone, but since I didn’t know my characters names, I thought an idiom meaning eternal love was a good fit for them.
For the lamp, I wanted some parts to be transparent as a glass material, I didn’t know how to do this, so I looked it up and found a video. Following the video, after I added all the textures I wanted, I went into the shader settings and changed the shader to pbr-metal-rough-with-alpha-blending, added opacity to channels, and changed the settings for opacity to 0.38. I didn’t want to make the glass area completely transparent, as I wanted it to be dirty and dusty.
The texturing for these objects was very similar to all the other objects in the scene, the roof and stilts being the same materials as the gazebo, with similar dust and moss paintings of the same brush. The process was quite fast, as I had done it many times before. I was very pleased with the way the lantern turned out. I didn’t expect to be able to make the transparent glass texture so easily.