Battle Arena: Final screenshots

Battle Arena: Final screenshots

Once I was happy with my arena I took some final screenshots. Theres still a lot more things I can do to this arena and many things I want to do. The only things stopping me from doing them is a time limit and the know how of pulling them off. The lighting is a bit messed up as I have not yet been shown how to fix this. I've tried to work it out myself but whenever I do I seem to break the scene.

All in all i think ive come a long way since the start of the year as I didn't know anything to do with creating a game. This has been my first time touching Maya and Unity and im now really existed to see what I can come up with, with more knowledge and confidence.  

Battle Arena: Good vs Evil.

Battle Arena: Good vs Evil.

Mostly every game has two different sides/factions, so i decided to do the classic good vs evil.

I thought this made the scene look a lot more dynamic as well. To do this I thought I could use the skulls that I already had in the scene to better use. I created crystal skulls that i coloured red. I then designed the flags to the same fashion.

The evil side did used to be in the lighter side of the map but i didn't think that worked very well, so moved the scene so they were in the shadowed part of the arena. I think this is much more effective.

I decided to have the good side as more of a druid/ nature loving side. hence the vibrant green flags with a Celtic tree design on them. I also created a celtic cross to add a more holy feel to it.

As I wanted this to be more of a fantasy style arena I wanted to add some magical balls of light on either side of the arena. So for the dark side I made them glow with a red tinted light and for the good side a yellow tinted light. I also added animation to these orbs so they floated up and down within the arena. Once i was happy with that I added particle effects around  them so they would have a more magical feel.

Battle Arena: Trees

Battle Arena: Trees

I have been thinking there has been something missing from my arena for a long time. I then had the realization that I didn't have much greenery. so I thought trees would be the perfect thing to add to my arena.

The image below was found on google Images and I thought it would be perfect for what the leaves for my tree as I decided to do pine trees. The background was white but I deleted that. I did this by changing the levels of the image so that it was all black and copying it into a different layer. so one was full colour and the other was black and white. then on the black and white layer I used the magic wand tool to select the whole image and then invert the selection so I have all the background highlighted. Then I change the layer to the full colour one and deleted the selected area (background). It was now ready to be put into Maya/Unity.

This was my first attempt at creating a tree. I think it would work wee for a evil looking tree if i took the leaves off but it wasn't looking much like a pine tree!

Also the Tri count for this tree was very high at 30,000+ Tris just for one tree.

I decided to give it another try at making the tree. I thought i didnt need branches coming off the tree as the leaves can do that effect for me. I then had a Christmas tree in mind while modeling this as they are pine trees.

I was much happyer with this design but I thought I could still get the tris down a bit.

 I got rid of a few layers of leaves and it made the tri count 9316. Much better than 30,000+.

I added a tree to each side of the arena so the fighting arena was still balanced and then I added trees behind the rocks to make it look like theres life beyond the arena.

Once this was in the scene I didnt think the colour was right so i change the leave colour to have a darker green overlay.

Battle Arena: Flags

Battle Arena: Flags.

I wanted to add flags that were not static and would flow in the wind. I started out by modeling a simple wooden frame within Maya to hold the flags up. I then made a plane and UV unwrapped it so I could design the flags in Photoshop. (see the post 'Good vs Evil' for information on as to why I chose these designs). 

You may be wondering why these next to images are stretched. well the UV unwrap was created for the plane in Maya but once I figured out how to create the flags in Unity and get them working it was much easier to make the plane in Unity. so as to make the texture not look stretched in Unity I had to stretch it in Photoshop, seems odd I know!

I added Skulls to the evil side to give it fore of a sinister feel.

I started out by creating a new GameObject in the scene, I then added a Plane to the game Object and re sized it to what I needed. Once I was happy with it I added the chosen texture. I then created a Cloth on the object. this creates the Skinned Mesh Renderer and the Cloth (seen on the right hand side of the image below). Within the Cloth drop down I changed the External Acceleration and Random Acceleration. these determine the direction of the flag that would be flowing in the wind. Once the game is played  the flags turn into a cloth like object.

Battle Arena: Birds

Battle Arena: Birds

After I did the rats I felt the scene could do with some more life in it, so i decided to add birds flying around. This also gave me a chance to try out the rigging I was shown in a 2 hour lesson.

I started off by googling low poly bird models. I found this image below and thought it would be perfect to work from for my bird.

I made this bird by starting with a cude and extruding the faces out and re sizing the edges.

Once I was happy with the shape of the model which only came to 200 tris I started to add rigging to the body and wings of the bird. I connected to wing joint with the end of the wing which allowed them to move fluidly.

I then made a texture in Photoshop for the bird. I wanted it very simple as it would only be used as a silhouette in the sky.

I then started to animate the wings going up and down within Maya. I was shown how to do this in the same lesson as the rigging. 

it was all going perfectly well until I tried exporting the scene/object into Unity. Once I did this the model of the bird was not there. I tried many different ways of importing this model into Unity buy every time I tried it wouldn't be there, only the animation was. After watching countless YouTube videos on the matter i decided to just take the rigging off the bird and try it that way. This for some reason fix the problem. this meant I could animate the bird moving but not have the wings flagging as it flys. If my hand in wasn't so close I would love to finish this and try again, maybe i will do this in the future as i really want to understand how to do this.

Image below is it in the scene. I had them start away from the main part of the arena as I didnt want the camera so show the birds animation start again.

Battle Arena: Images

Battle Arena: Images

I took a few screenshots of how the arena is looking so far. I still have more to add but im really happy with how it is turning out.

I also added a skybox to my scene.

Battle Arena: Fire and Smoke.

Battle Arena: Fire and Smoke.

Particle affects can really help build the atmosphere within a game. for mine I used fire and smoke.

I have large stone torches placed around the around which light it up. from these torches I have fire with smoke billowing out of them.

Below are screenshots of how I created the particle effects. the images of the fire and smoke where supplied by my teacher. 

Image below is a screenshot of the fire within the scene. I added a point light at the same point as where the fire is.

Battle Arena: Statue.

Battle Arena: Statue.

I wanted to remake the statue for my battle arena. I liked the style for the statue but I didnt make it very well the first time. I made a mood-board of the images I was basing my statue from.

I used the old statues I made to help me make the new one.

I made this one to have 4x as less Tris as the last model I did. this also makes it look a lot better.

I deleted the faces that would not been scene by the player/camera.

I got the texture I used on the rocks and painted over it so it had a slightly different feel.

I then added this to the statues rock bottom. I also added moss to it. to do this I placed a moss texture i found from online and then within photoshop rubbed away the parts i didnt want.

I did the same with the main texture of the statue. I also draw in a few other larger rocks around the statue.

Once I was happy with the statue I placed It within the arena. I didnt want to animate the statue as its made of stone and to me wouldnt make much sense. so I decided to animate different things in my arena instead.

Im very happy with how this turned out. I found it rather hard to model this as I am not yet comfortable modeling but thought this turned out really well. Once I had placed this into the scene I placed some of the arrows on it to make it look like they are sticking ot of it.