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Photo real environments.

Discussion in 'Made With Unity' started by dclarson, Oct 6, 2007.

  1. dclarson

    dclarson

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2007
    Posts:
    32
    Well it's time to post.

    After a long period of testing many popular game engines, I settled on Unity, and have been busy pushing its limits. Integrating Unity into an already complex pipeline has been an edifying challenge. I do appreciate OTEE masking the applications complexity with a straight forward interface and approach which satisfies my usability, scalability and compatibility requirements. I'm positive future versions will provide more rudimentary drag and drop solutions freeing up time for more imaginative game concepts.

    Here are some in-game environment images. My objective was 'photo real' and Unity 1.6.2 made it possible. These simple images are composed of basic polygon geometry with surface baked textures, a custom made skybox, particle system and Zero lights! (No bump or normal maps were used in Unity. I found that layering them with a complex texture made my UV's pop, and masking UV seams is a time consuming pain).

    Well enough rambling for now. I appreciate the Unity community for it's willingness to share ideas and discuss difficult topics.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. norby

    norby

    Joined:
    Jul 10, 2006
    Posts:
    277
    Very nice . which application do you use.
    i like the way you do the shadows and lightning.
    looks real.


    Norby
     
  3. nickavv

    nickavv

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2006
    Posts:
    1,801
    That is very incredible. O_O Good work!
     
  4. jaydubs

    jaydubs

    Joined:
    May 3, 2007
    Posts:
    136
    Howdy, these are excellent results ... can u be nice enough to reveal 3 things for us 3D game dev wannabes:
    - How did u use zero lights and still be able to see things?
    - What 3D application did u use?
    - Can u post a link to a web player of the scene? I'd like to see how it looks as played.

    Much thanks,

    JW.
     
  5. Aras

    Aras

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Nov 7, 2005
    Posts:
    4,770
    Looks very good!

    I guess he uses lightmaps, i.e. "bakes" lighting into textures in some 3D application.
     
  6. AaronC

    AaronC

    Joined:
    Mar 6, 2006
    Posts:
    3,552
    Nice mood. How did you do the volumetric fog in the first shot?

    Jaydubs, Aras is right, if you bake lighting, you dont need lights.

    AC
     
  7. DaveyJJ

    DaveyJJ

    Joined:
    Mar 24, 2005
    Posts:
    1,558
    Wow, fantastic results. Can't wait to see more of what you'll be doing!
     
  8. jaydubs

    jaydubs

    Joined:
    May 3, 2007
    Posts:
    136
    Hmmmmm .... I thought once a scene is imported into Unity you NEED to create Unity lights to see your meshes ...? I haven't tried without. Maybe this is an answer to some problems I'm having with the "look" of my scenes ...?


    JW.
     
  9. VICTOM

    VICTOM

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2005
    Posts:
    233
    You need to set the rendering setting for ambient to 100% white to use the 'light' from the texture as it is in the texture. The default ambient is a darker grey that lets 'real' lights light up the textures in game.

    Cheers,
     
  10. VICTOM

    VICTOM

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2005
    Posts:
    233
    As for the renderings they look great - the only thing that bugs me is that there is a manhole vent where the steam is coming from - yet isn't the tub filled with hot water? If so the steam would not be coming from the manhole but from the entire surface of the water.

    Very nice work! :D

    Cheers,
     
  11. jaydubs

    jaydubs

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    May 3, 2007
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    Thanks for that Vitcom ... and I think the tub is empty :)

    JW
     
  12. guategeek_legacy

    guategeek_legacy

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2005
    Posts:
    659
    You could also modify a shader so that it is unlit by Unity and will display exactly as the image is. I use this for my sky domes. - Jeff
     
  13. Proto

    Proto

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2007
    Posts:
    79
    Very nice! I would love to see an interactive version.
     
  14. dclarson

    dclarson

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2007
    Posts:
    32
    I appreciate your comments and Interest.

    Software I use for modeling and Surface Baking the Textures is Lightwave 3d. The most time consuming part of this learning project was getting the settings in Lightwave fine tuned so my UV seams wouldn't show up in Unity. My textures are 2048 each, which is not judicious for real game design, and getting away with no lights required turning the Edit/Render Settings/Ambient Light to white, that's a good and bad thing - areas where you need that dark atmosphere are challenging to control.


    I've include my FBX files which have the geometry and textures embedded so you can build the project. The textures are far from optimized, and having a lot of wasted space isn’t good UV design, so if you are learning don't do what I did for your final game output. Put as much stuff in your UV space as will allow. I needed to keep thing simple for better diagnostic clarity, so keeping objects and textures separate helped.

    Zip file contains - FBX, assorted other textures used and screen capture of my unity particle settings.

    Making Steam:
    The Screen capture images for the particle system show how I made the steam. Make a new Alpha/vertexLit material and attach the Dynamite_Smoke image, and make sure you generate it with Alpha on. Set the Color to white and the opacity to 2 (Note: you can do a material as an Alpha/Diffuse as well, but the vertexLit makes it a little brighter)
     

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  15. dclarson

    dclarson

    Joined:
    Jan 14, 2007
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    32
    Walk around file
     

    Attached Files:

  16. jaydubs

    jaydubs

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    May 3, 2007
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    dclarson, a huge thanks for this insight.

    JW
     
  17. Proto

    Proto

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2007
    Posts:
    79
    Thanks for posting the files, it looks very nice indeed.

    Re: seams above the door. As it looks like you've already used a "UVBorder" on the surface camera and setting the image to clamp had no effect, I suspect that it is your geometry that is responsible for the seams that appear at extreme angles, rather than your textures / material settings.

    I noticed that the points at the top the door have no corresponding points on the walls either side (i.e. the poly above the door is suspended rather than part of the wall). Also, where the inner/outer walls intersect your wall ends are poking through the surface.

    One way the seams above the suspect door can be removed is by adding another point to the walls on either side and welded them (creating tris to meet the door corners). I've also removed the wall intersection seam by cutting the outer wall edge short before it intersects with the inner plane.

    It's a bit hard to explain in text so I've attached an example.
     

    Attached Files:

  18. Red Ocktober

    Red Ocktober

    Joined:
    Oct 28, 2005
    Posts:
    84
    i may be wrong here... but isn't that supposed to be a sit around sauna, or steam bath... and not a 'Roman Bath', or Japanese bathhouse type thing...

    ... even though there appears to be a minimalistic, almost zen mood to the entire scene :)


    really nice looking scenerey... lemme download and take a quick steam...

    --Mike