Have you ever had someone tell you something that so opened up possibilities for you that you felt like your brain exploded? Mind blown? Amazingly, it takes a few hours to recover from this experience.
Like a few months ago when I started term one of the VR class, most of my time is taken up with that. I don’t find a lot of time for working on other things. However, this week turned out a little different.
First up, I refined my business card. I chose a different font that has a bit more thickness to it which, I think makes it easier to read. It also needed a little better spacing. Then a little adjustment to the art was needed. I reduced it’s opacity to 35% which really helps. It actually makes the art a little more readable and not as overpowering.
This week was time to get started on the project for term 2 of the VR class. The cool bit is I get to build a dungeon. However, I’m not very fond of the textures on the prefabs in 
the starter project. Ok. I’m a little more than not very fond of the textures. I really don’t like them. They appear to have lighting baked into them and they just don’t line up well. I was lamenting this in my weekly check in. For the part that asks what I’m stuck on? I said I was stuck on the really ugly textures.
I was then informed that I don’t have to use the models they give us. So I thought about cruising the Unity Asset Store to see if I could find something better. Then I was asked about if I had tried exporting things from ZBrush to Unity, followed by a YouTube link to someone demonstrating how to do that. It’s a little involved because of the need for dealing with UV’s and such, however, in the end it gives you a prefab with the mesh and all the textures. Yeah, my mind was blown. However, try as I might, my ZBrush skills are not a good as I would like. I usually find it easier to make things using a box modeling program like 3DS Max or Maya or Blender. So as exciting as the prospect of using ZBrush to make a model and export it to Unity is, it’s going to be a painful experience for me.
That stated. It did get me to thinking. The same conversation had referenced Blender. Which I have. It’s free and a little more difficult for me to use than 3DS Max. Still, I could do something simple and test if I could do the same thing as with ZBrush. It turns out that I can. It’s the .fbx export and it does the same thing, though not with all the additional maps like you can get with ZBrush. But it still gets me something I can work with. If I can do it with Blender, maybe I can do it in 3DS Max. I had to test it. And yes indeed, I can export from 3DS Max using the Game Exporter option and I get a nice asset for Unity that when imported comes in as a prefab with it’s texture already there. I think my brain exploded at this point.
It took a while for me to recover but I came up with a slightly different idea for my dungeon and for the material it would be made of. Instead of brick or stone I’m going to use a metal look and I think I’ll handle the lighting a little differently. If I can make it work. I’m going to try to get the ambient lighting to come up through some floor grates.
So this week’s VR class work and my 3D modeling practice turned out to pretty much be the same stuff. I’ve got a little more than half the pieces I need modeled and textured. I have a few items to still apply texture to and a few things to model still. I need a roof and I’m thinking of doing something a bit arched. Maybe. I also need a spot sort of light. And Some vents for around the ceiling. Here are some in progress shots of the dungeon pieces. I hope to have the rest done in a day or so and then back to putting it all together in Unity.
This week will be more dungeon modeling and more VR class. I expect to get the dungeon all setup so I can start the user interface and then making it all work. I also intend to get my business card uploaded for printing. I should have better screenshots of the dungeon next week and who knows what else so come back to see what’s up. And before I go…