It was time for me to start improving the airport blockout from Semester 1 and add some detail into it. The first thing I needed to do was add some walls to the subway section. This included the station platforms and the corridors.
The next step involves importing the blockout into Unreal. I applied an Automatic UV to save time before exporting each island in its own FBX. I made sure to do this in its separate directory for better organization. I also made sure to name the two meshes to not get confused which one is which, and to make this a whole lot easier.
It’s just as simple as dragging the FBX into Unreal and scaling the mesh to be accurate to an average person.
I jumped back into Maya and selected the rest of the areas with cubes being placeholder geometry.
I went back and improved a little more, adding some walls between the airport and subway sections.
I had a problem with selecting specific faces within the blockout as they would not be selected when clicked. It was only when dragging multiple faces that they become highlighted, which wasn’t ideal.
The issue is that I had some corrupt preferences that caused the face selection to be highlighted in the wrong place, so I had to go into the Maya folder and delete the preferences (Howald, K., 2022; Maya Learning Channel, 2019).
I also added a floor plane underneath the actual floor so that Unreal shows the mesh rather than it being invisible due to the black plane being visible, and I’ve added a roof to the corridors too.
Most of the blockout is fixed. The main thing that needed to be complete was the ceiling in the corridor between the station and airport sections.
I assigned lambert shaders to geometry that will apply different textures, starting with the floor separating the main airport building to the terminal.
Reimporting the floor mesh with the changes allowed me to experiment with placeholder starter content textures to test the results.
I applied the same process to the airport walls to make the landscape more professional and immersive.
I downloaded a Quixel texture to see how well this looked, with the result looking clean (VERDE ALPI MARBLE TILE, n.d). I may need to scale the texture down for it to look good (Taylor, 2017).
I have applied another material to the scene (SEYCHELLES BEIGE MARBLE TILES, n.d) to the other floor to complete the main airport floor. Now it’s just a matter of adding the assets in.
I have gone back and ensured the hallway connecting the main airport building to the terminal is straight and not having irregular turns in its walls.
I installed a new Quixel surface (FLOOR TILES, n.d) to start working on the underground section of the environment. I used the floor tiles to decorate the train platforms.
I have installed two more textures (CONCRETE FLOOR TILES, n.d; STAINED CERAMIC TILES, n.d), But this time I used it for the station underneath the airport. I wanted it to have a metro-feel to this section of the landscape to make it feel bustling.
I have also improved the blockout and added the finishing touches to the main terminus of the airport, including texturing the interior in Unreal.
References:
CONCRETE FLOOR TILES (n.d) [Surface Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&search=tiles&assetId=vl0regvew [Accessed 4th April 2023]
FLOOR TILES (n.d) [Surface Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&search=tile&assetId=vlxjah2 [Accessed 26th March 2023]
Howald, K. (2022) Resetting Maya Preferences [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bjIuXz2ZKE [Accessed 27th January 2023]
Maya Learning Channel (2019) Maya Quick Tip: Resetting Maya to the default state [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HptugoNgwAU [Accessed 27th January 2023]
SEYCHELLES BEIGE MARBLE TILES (n.d) [Surface Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=marble&category=tile&search=tile&assetId=wgildfbv [Accessed 7th March 2023]
STAINED CERAMIC TILES (n.d) [Surface Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&search=tiles&assetId=vhqobcu [Accessed 4th April 2023]
Taylor, M. (2017) Unreal Engine 4 – Quick! How To: Scale Materials [Video] Available online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXK1pdvBUAM&t=183s [Accessed 26th March 2023]
VERDE ALPI MARBLE TILES (n.d) [Surface Material] Available online: https://quixel.com/megascans/home?category=surface&category=marble&category=tile&search=tile&assetId=uicxccrl [Accessed 7th March 2023]