Week 7: Sentry Gun Propaganda

Sentry Gun Project 'Post-Mortem'

Let's recap for a moment. A couple of weeks back we had been introduced with our new project. We had to design and model a sentry gun and then put it into an unreal scene to actually have it move around, which had been provided to us.

I started off slowly at first but quickly got a grip on everything and created some silhouettes using objects from my mood-board. After a few selection rounds I had decided on a final silhouette, which I then took into 3DS Max to create a simple block-out of my sentry gun. It wasn't really as simple as I originally planned it and it did take a bit longer, but eventually I was happy with what I had and rendered it out in 2 different ways so that I could use those renders as a base for doing some paint-overs. Those different renders were a clown render, which enabled me to quickly select certain parts of the turret to paint onto (by using the magic wand tool in Photoshop); and also a basic lighting render, which I used as an Ambient Occlusion style map for my paint-overs.

Using those renders I then created some colour variations and decided on my final design:

After I created my final design I went back into 3DS Max to do some changes to my basic block-out model. Those mainly included adding geometry to certain parts to make the model look even smoother, but I also did a major change as I encountered a problem. I did not consider fully how my sentry gun was going to move around. With my final design it was able to move left and right just fine, however it would've been impossible for it to move up and down. Therefore I decided to add a ball socket type of connection between the main body of the gun and the legs.

I then decided to create some normal maps for my model using ZBrush. This is the first time I had used this program and it took me a while to get used to it, but eventually I managed to get myself a nice high-poly model. I mainly just added detail to the connection between the legs (the part which looks a bit like the bendy material from an articulated bus). It was only a slight bit of detail added but it enabled me to have an easy introduction into ZBrush, without having to worry about adding too much detail.

I then used xNormal to bake down my high-poly model into a normal map and I also created an ambient occlusion map. This is when I encountered another problem: I had several overlapping UVs, which created weird parts on the map, as well as different parts of the model intersecting, which created artefacts. I mainly fixed those problems by rearranging my UVs and painting over the affected areas where artefacts occurred. Eventually I used the ambient occlusion maps to create my albedo map and then continued my texturing. Here are my final texture maps:

Albedo and Normal

Metalness and Roughness

I wasn't particularly happy with my texture maps. More due to the fact that my UVs were just not laid out perfectly. I had some blurry parts in my final model and a bit of distortion, however I didn't have enough time to rectify those issues so I just went with it. I also created a model and texture for the projectile of my sentry gun, which was (of course) a syringe! I was quite in a rush, but it turned out not too bad.

In Unreal everything went a lot smoother. I quickly managed modify the blueprint we had been provided to suit my needs and the turret was working fine. I had a few problems getting the projectile to spawn until I found out that the collision was keeping it from spawning (even though in the 'spawn actor' function I had the option to 'spawn even if colliding' ticked...) A bit of resizing and moving the sockets of the barrel and it was working perfectly. I also created a simple particle effect which I used as a muzzle flash. This particle effect included a few sparks flying into all directions (simulating an explosion) as well as a bit of smoke rising up. I was quite happy with my result and am in general enjoying Unreal Engine 4 a lot! Here's a couple of screenshots from the model inside UE4:

(Soon to come, I haven't got access to my Unreal scene as I am posting this.)

Posters and Reflection

Another quick part of this project and a little fun activity was for us to create a poster to advertise our sentry gun. I had quickly put one together as I was already quite out of time, spending my last few days fixing and polishing things, but here it is:

The name is taken from Florence Nightingale, which was a popular English nurse during the Crimean War. I had posted this poster on Facebook and received a bit of feedback, mainly saying that the modern sci-fi esque medical turret doesn't completely fit in with the old-style writing and tea-stained paper, which I have to agree with, since I didn't completely think this through as it was a bit more fun oriented, however my original inspiration was from Fallout posters, which had a very similar style, so it does still kind of fit together when it is placed in the right setting.

All in all, I am not overly happy with the whole project, but it's certainly better than the FilmRoom. I have learned quite a few things, with the major being learning how to use ZBrush and xNormal and I did really like my original design of the turret, however I wasn't fully able to exactly copy over my design into 3D due to texture issues. Textures have always been one of my major problems so I am still looking forward to improving on those in the future. I do feel a lot more confident in hand-painting textures now though, which makes it a lot easier to create certain textures, since it doesn't involve dealing with distortions and lighting issues from photographs. I am sure I will soon get the chance to concentrate a bit more on my textures and produce some stunning work.

Our new project has already been introduced to us, but I haven't yet started working on it, so I will leave it until the next post~