Asset list and drawings

Hello there world, I have been doing some drawing of the sort of buildings I wish to create within my village and i've found it extremely time consuming and I may of over scoped this part of the time line. Currently I have only one building drawn out in a basic isometric form to build upon the advice given to me to make all blocks and items fit one block. Here below is the drawing I've completed to help guide me into choosing the assets and create the asset list. The asset list may be quite large but a lot more buildings can be built from this kit if they were made.

From the isometric drawing, here is a snippet of all the pieces I would need to create to make this model. This list will most definitely expand as I would like a slight variation in my buildings.

Hopefully I can get the next set of buildings done very soon to add to this list. Although you have to remember that a Chinese house can be made up of many buildings put together so this may seem like a large amount of assets for a building, or maybe I'm not dividing it up enough yet.

Basic map design of village

Based on my research here is a simple top down view of the style of map and layout of the village I would make, although this wont be the final design, it is a taster as to the style of orientation and organisation of the houses I hope to aim for. All the main entrances facing south to keep away from the North winds, tight and close structures with small alleyways. I hope to design a few more in the next two days.

Miscellaneous inspiration of various chinese buildings for top down map

As I am now currently trying to sketch down a few drawings of top down maps of my eventual village layout, I searched on the internet for some images to get me in the right mood or to create a 'mood pallet' to aid my drawing, as this always seems to help me. There were a few images I found very useful and that gave me inspiration. I started by looking at google maps to see if I could see any older districts fo China to get a style of layout of some buildings to give me some foundations but I foudn that China is very secretive about showing off their countrys map to the West.

Here are some of the pictures I found inspiring and helpful whilst drawing down top down maps, although some of the pictures don't have the same features of the Sui-Tang dynasty, they still do have some similar aesthetics.

A man climbs down a ladder after sweeping dust from atop the entrance to his small residence in a "hutong", (or small alley in Chinese) in central Beijing, on April 22, 2011. Doorways leading to "hutongs" and their "siheyuan" (or small courtyard houses in Chinese) once criss-crossed the city, but they are quickly disappearing with Beijing's fast evolution into a modern metropolis. (Reuters/David Gray)

 

Interior view of an earth building located at Chuxi Village, Xiayang town, Yongding county, in east China's Fujian Province. There are about 30,000 earth buildings, dating mostly from the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, in the Fujian Province, southern and eastern China. (Reuters/Kin Cheung)

 

A Chinese man paints the scenery while a villager rows a wooden boat passing by some of the Ming Dynasty's ancient buildings built along a river in Xitang, Jiashan County, Zhejiang Province, on May 16, 2011. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

 

Ethnic Dong minority villagers walk through a covered bridge on their way to a Kam Grand Choir gathering in Tongguan village of Liping county, Guizhou province, on October 17, 2011. (Reuters/Sheng Li)

All these images were found off of a collection of new an old Chinese Architecture blog, the blog can be seen below

Links:

Chinese Architecture Blog
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/chinese-architecture-old-and-new/100409/

Updated Dissertation timeline

Since the project proposal feedback, i've been slipping behind on the timeline and on my workflow progress; this was because I did for see the fact that I would have so much to work on from the feedback and also the time it takes for this extensive research to take place. I now wish to produce a more updated and realistic time line to construct around my time and to produce the best dissertation possible.

Project Timeline:

2nd November - Finish draft and hand in final dissertation proposal before the 4^th of November

25^th November – Complete any touch up research that I receive from the dissertation proposal, so that the following months work is much smoother.

 

9^th December – Research into one dynasty of the Chinese culture and choose the style of village I want to create. Begin to draw top down layout designs on how I would like buildings to look and be orientated.

16th December - Decide on scale and size of the models as well as to construct an asset list of what will need to be modelled. Complete individual drawings of the general look of each model to aid in the construction of the models.

30^th December – Begin to model each asset without unwrapping UVW’s. Test scale and size in UDK where possible. Assemble a basic grey box area of the modular assets to see them all together to test scale an size.

17^th February – Continue modelling if needed and start UVW unwrapping on each asset ready for texturing. (May take longer as not as experienced in UVW unwrapping, although research into quicker uvw mapping will be undertaken over the course of the project.)

10^th March – Experiment with Mudbox/Zbrush and the NvidiaNormal filter in Photoshop in texturing the assets with diffuse specular and Normals.

24^th March – Import and construct the Village within UDK with textures and assets.

7^th April – touch up and add more details to models where needed or where some models issue are found. If no issues are found or are ironed out and total polygon count allows (45k polygons). Create a couple more assets to add a more realistic atmosphere to the scene such as trees, pots and tiles.

 7^th April - 15^th May – Work on finalising dissertation

 17^th May – 16^th May to be the absolute deadline of handing in dissertation.

Tileable textures

To construct my own models I have usually taken textures from royalty free stock image websites and plonked them in Photoshop, and then using manipulation tools on the texture for the asset. This technique has served me well creating individual assets however I've never needed to make a texture that needs to be tileable and seamless for modular assets, this is nearly a necessity when using assets which can touch each other or be very close and still be the same material.

So browsing the internet to find advice on creating seamless/tileable textures and stumbled across a free stock image website for use for artists. www.cgtextures.com I quickly found a variety of desirable and useful textures that suited the materials that Chinese used.

The Chinese use compressed earth to create their non load bearing walls, although the texturing website contained no mud wall textures, I found that the plaster section of the website supplied me with a variety of similar white washed walls that were useful.



White Plaster texture

From the advice I have found on line, it was clear to me that one of the most important features of a tileable texture is to reduce or choose a texture without many obvious features.

Tonal values of the texture need to be consistent along the image, to create this consistency, I was advised to desaturate the image and then add a luminosity layer and change the high pass levels to create a texture with consistent tones.

The patch tool I found was the most useful tool for removing obvious features on the texture, the spot healing bush was also a handy tool and does similar actions, but you lose sharpness quality when it does it's calculations.


Here is the final tileable texture, there is 4 textures there and I find it hard to notice the seams on the edges of the image, which is exactly what I was aiming to produce. I then took this texture and created a makeshift wall plane in 3ds Max to demonstrate the tileable texture on a game object. Below is the textured plane. 



As well as creating a diffuse texture for the plane, I also began exploring the use of normal maps to add more detail to the surface, I have used this technique before and it gave a much more detailed effect with near minimal effort. The Nvidia Normal map filter for Adobe Photoshop was used to create this normal map below, this Is a quick and easy way to produce a detailed normal map, but there are other ways that normal maps can be achieved.

Links

Tileable textures and how to construct them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy2cwSV0Iys

Building Materials

As the time line suggests, by now I should have chosen a Dynasty and drawn a few concepts of what my village arrangement could be like as a final set of assets, however due to the amount of feedback I received and work that needed to be done to get up to speed with refining my dissertation, I have pushed the time line back a week to fit in some more posts about textures and materials.

I was advised to look more into texturing as the textures are very important when considering modular components can be tiled and placed along side each other. With this in mind, creating seamless textures is going to be a priority, however before attempting to create some of my own I would like to also research into materials from Chinese architecture as to get some practise for the real thing later on in the project.

 The Chinese used a lot of wood in their structures and also later on some stone, however it was mostly pressed earth and wood. But why did they chose to use wood over the stone? Stone as they would have known was always to last longer. The wood has environmental issues such as weathering  fire hazard and insect damage, however they still chose to build with wood materials, but why?

"Wooden buildings last long enough for more than several generations to live under, but not long enough to become part of archaeological excavations. Buildings were made to be lived under, they weren't made to last thousands of years solely for our benefit. Those that were built to last, such as tombs, did last."

Finding that the structures are made of wood was easy, however all books and websites seem to only suggest wood and not any particular type of wood. However after an hour, I found a website which gave a hint as to what wood was used and why. This wood was White Cedar or also know as Melia azedarach, or even Chinaberry tree. This tree is often found in southeast Asia and produces toxic berries but is mainly used for it's timber, the wood is of medium density and varies colours from light brown to dark red. The seasoning process of the 'Chinaberry' tree is relatively simple as the planks dry without cracking and also have a resistance to fungal infection. This would mean that having huge cracks within the texture isn't required.


Melia Azedarach/White Cedar/ Chinaberry

Small texture file of dark wood



Photograph courtesy of Ronald G. Knapp
1987, Shifuxiang, Zhejiang Province

Tiles are a consistent part of Chinese architecture and keeps the insides of the construction dry, the materials used is clay from the earth, however they use a special construction method to make these which I found that will also help me with my model tile construction.

To the right you can see a woman rolling clay out to the dimensions of the block on the floor, this gives the tile a relatively manageable shape with the tile creation.



Photograph courtesy of Ronald G. Knapp
1987, Li village, Jiande xian, Zhejiang Province






The clay is then rolled over a 'pot' like shape with the makers markings on them, after it has dried it is removed and separated into quarters, which must mean the angle that a tile must be is 45 degrees. It is the fired and painted if necessary.






The walls of the buildings are not load bearing walls and so are made with compacted earth which is then painted white to protect the earth from insects and also weather. I also found that the flooring is made of large slabs of stone from the mountains, From this research I can then find materials that will be needed and create some tileable textures for practise.

Links:


Describes the wood used as White Cedar:
http://www.designboom.com/architecture/the-art-of-timber-construction-chinese-architectural-models/

Chinaberry pictures:
http://www.delange.org/ChinaBerry/ChinaBerry.htm

Clay tile creation:
http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/3artile.htm#tile3

Darkwood creation:
http://www.tutorialchip.com/freebies/showcase-of-high-resolution-dark-wood-texture-designs/

Increasing my markable limitations (Polycount and textures)

As feedback I have received a suggestion to research into polygon total and give myself a budget to work with throughout the modelling process. This would have to consider the game engine I will work within (UDK) and also it's limitations in terms of exporting and also texture creation restrictions.

To begin I will by talking about texture limits, from past experience I have found that UDK will only accept textures that are created in 8 bit mode on Adobe Photoshop, this however is not a problem and but a small tweak on the texture creation process. Without doing this, the program appears to crash and close as the texture import process begins, I must avoid this to not waste time. Also upon researching game design forums I have found that UDK will only accept textures in powers of 2, this is also a good habit to get into as other game engines will have the same principle. So 256 x 256, 512 x 512, 1024 x 1024, 2048 x 2048 and 4096 x 4096 are acceptable, however I don't plan to be using the last suggestion as these are considered texture sizes for 'hero' models or player model textures..

"General textures for Static Meshes and CSG Surfaces should still be only 512x512 or 1024x1024 in most cases, with only high detailed textures being at 2048x2048, and that is it."

With this information I have decided that the maximum texture size I will use for my individual modular pieces will be 1024 x 1024 pixels, the models I'm making are not 'hero' pieces and wont need incredible texture quality, also the texture will need to be tile able as the models I'm producing will need to be seamless in texture when positioned next to each other, because of this I cant have a piece of detail that stands out on the textures or the player will see that it is easily tile able.

From a mock up model I created a few weeks ago (see previous posts) I constructed a small section of a Chinese building to get used to the Dougong building method. From this I found that the building was 10k polygons, however there are methods that I could of used to reduce the total poly count size. I was also given advice by my lecturer of how I could split up my model to reduce the poly count in terms of each model, doing this would help dramatically to individual pieces, but not the overall kit that I will be creating. This poly count is very high for what I want to create, however I am aiming to build a model that is architecturally as accurate as possible without loss of detail due to poly count size. From researching into poly count and experimenting in 3dsmax, I hope to build my whole kit to be under 45k polygons, although I would prefer to work at a higher polygon limit, this is for a game engine so it will need to be optimised as such and thus a limitation is needed to be put in place.


A small Pagoda I found online

Links

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=99738

http://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/pagoda-chinese-3d-model/392786

Job hunting, yet again...

From my feedback i've been told to look at 3D Environmant Artist jobs. This criteria on these vary somewhat as they aren't always necessarily for game studios, but for graphic design studios.

Position 1 Unknown company (through Blue Skies Marketing recruitment)

Position: 3D Environment Artist
Career level: Executive
Education level: N/A

The company is a leading provider of state of the art software and services to major global retailers and manufacturers. They also specialise in Macro and Micro space solutions, Category Management, Virtual Consumer research and Internal Communications. They are on the lookout for an enthusiastic individual to join the company as a 3D Environment Artist who will be responsible for visualising a variety of retail environments.

As 3D Environment Artist you will have the following skills and experience:

• Experience in an equivalent multi-media based business preferably dealing with FMCG.
• Technically minded, a quick learner, and great attention to detail.
• Excellent problem solving and technical skills.
• Medium/low polygon modelling and Texture creation.
• Experience in 3D Studio Max and Adobe Photoshop is essential.
• Experience in V-Ray and Texture baking would be beneficial.

Link:
http://www.onlymarketingjobs.com/job/1142733/3d-environment-artist/?utm_source=Indeed&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Indeed

Position 2 Bioware Studios EA

Position: Environment Artist
Career level: Varies upon applicant
Education level: BA or above

BioWare Austin is seeking an Environment Artist candidate with meticulous modeling and texturing abilities to do level/environmental art.

• Bachelor’s (BA) degree from an accredited 4-year college or university or equivalent industry experience preferred
• Up to three years in game development, with an understanding of Real time Graphics issues, shipping one or more titles
• Proficient knowledge of MAX and/or other 3D software package, Photoshop, Z-Brush
• Ability to work within a style, including a style set by another artist
• Solid understanding of color theory, and be able to create balanced & appealing color palettes
• Experience using proprietary editors, software and tools
• Skilled at modeling supporting assets with or without concepts and designs
• The ability to create custom materials and all associated maps (bump, normal, parallax, spec, etc.) for new or existing assets
• Understanding of material shaders and proprietary tools
• Thorough understanding of architecture and nature
• Solid understand the aesthetics of environment, function vs. form relationships, as well as what makes a game level fun and intriguing

Link:https://career4.successfactors.com/career?company=EA&career_job_req_id=27449&career_ns=job_listing&navBarLevel=JOB_SEARCH&jobPipeline=Indeed

Dissertation proposal feedback and changes

I recently received my dissertation proposal feedback, and although it wasn't fantastic, I still have to act upon the feedback to create the best journey of learning possible. So below is feedback from both my markers and which I will be acting on as soon as possible. I've outlined in orange what I will need to do to overcome the issue with the proposal or the dissertation overall.

FIRST MARKER COMMENTS:-

Your learning outcomes are reasonably concise. However, you propose to gain a better understanding of texture creation and UV unwrapping, and neglect to include a single entry in your bibliography which addresses these outcomes. This is very concerning. Similarly, you propose to improve your modelling skills ‘overall’. This is an incredibly vague proposition, and impossible to mark. You must be more specific. What are your poly and texture budgets, and why? What textures will your materials comprise of, and how will you be creating your normal maps? Are you intending to create a realistic environment?

I understand how this is important to the dissertation as an assessable piece. Here i will need to look at current examples and my own mock model example and produce a total polycount I can work with. I will also have to research into how large size textures are used in current games. I will although be creating my normal maps using Nvidia's Photoshop normal maps plug-in. I will also be doing a research task where I find and research materials found in an ancient Chinese village and then attempt to produce a tileable texture for that material.

 Your analysis of job adverts is perfunctory. I do not understand, however, why you are referring to a ‘3D Game Artist’ when, presumably, you are tailoring your dissertation to the position of 3D Environment Artist?

 

Although my job searching was slightly off with 3D Game Artist instead of 3D Environment Artist, I didn't think it was "Perfunctory" effort on my part, however. As they are different job positions I will plan to research a few 3D Environment Artist positions and see how they differentiate in terms of skill requirements. to a 3D Game Artist. This will also aid me in choosing whether to focus on improving my 3D modelling efficiency(Polycount) or improve my texturing skills.

 I can see what you are intending to create Tom; however, before you progress, you must provide a more thorough framework for your assessable criteria, and this should be used to better inform your time line.

 

Hopefully, researching deeper into the areas named above, this will eliminate such confusion and produce a markable dissertation.

 SECOND MARKER COMMENTS:-

 Overall I thought this was a solid research proposal. You have undertaken appropriate research into the style of the buildings that you are proposing and this is guiding the research. In regards to the bibliography I wonder if there are more texts dealing with the issue of modularity in the construction of assets and their utility for game production. You have been blogging regularly and this has allowed us to see how the project is progressing so that is very good. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

Since this has been marked I have created another blog entry on modularity, however I will research further into modularity in the coming weeks.

The theory behind Modularity

I was asking some of my readers about my blog and queried them if there was anything missing that they would liked to of seen on here and two of them suggested more information or an explanation about modular assets and what their specific purpose is in a game and the theory behind them. From I've been looking online at articles and found a post by a Bethesda studio employee named Joel Burgess and he explains the theory of modularity and the benefits it gives to his game studio.

Joel explains that modular assets are an import factor within their games due to the fact that the majority of the games he's been involved with are hugely scoped. Fallout 3 (2008) and Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (2011) are games which consist of vastly open worlds which all need filling with content, filling this world with unique designs and models would just be inefficient for the development team as well as the game engine running the games.

Joel mentions that to construct their levels the team construct systems known as 'kits' In this instance he explains how a pipe kit can be used over many different areas within fallout 3 and it's levels. A kits purpose is to be a set of models or items that can be positioned together or uniquely to create something that is often larger as a whole. This pipe kit below from fallout 3 is made up of only four pieces but have a variety of combinations when used together.

Modular assets are fundamental when it comes to Bethesdas techniques in making their games. Although Skyrim was made by a team of only 90 people they were able to make one of the largest open world games on a console to date. Apparently the content in game spans over 16sq miles, this is a big space to fill, and with a small team this would of been impossible without modular assets. Well not impossible, but extremely inefficient and time consuming nonetheless.

Bethesda use the principle that the main character, if humanoid should be exactly 6ft tall or 128 and about 32 Unreal Units wide. As I'm also making a first person game with doorways I will have to also take this into account. Joel suggests that all of their doors within their games are wide enough so that two characters can pass through the doors at the same time, so at least two characters wide. And so maybe I should also take this into account.

I have also noticed over the articles I've seen about modular assets is that they all use a type of grid or scale. Joels calls it a 'footprint' in this article and he stresses how important it is to keep to the grid laid out initially at the start of development. Kit pieces that a level designer finds that don't fit with the grid quite right should be noted and given back to the artist to create a solution for. Luckily the way in which the Chinese build their houses is relatively symmetrical, so constructing houses on a scaled grid would hopefully be pretty straight forward.

Carcassonne, a well loved board game of mine was also mentioned to contain modular art assets within it's creation, however I attempted to think of  my own board game which consisted of different modular assets within it. Settlers of Catan I also consists of modular assets also I believe, with the same principle as Joel explains that is used in Carcassonne, Catan creates a different game board everytime you play a new game, if you don't use the regular set up for beginners.

Links

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoelBurgess/20130501/191514/

https://starfosterblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/settlers-of-catan.jpg

To village or not to village

Elevated view of a courtyard house in Beijing

After having a discussion with my dissertation adviser about my proposal it was suggested to me to maybe change the overall outcome of what I was producing. He explained to me that the main point of modular assets is that they can be relatively small but create something with great complexity. Although I was proposing to make an ancient Chinese temple with courtyard, this would not require that many modular assets to complete. Furthermore once I had completed the models, they wouldn't have much reusable value, which completely goes against the whole point of creating modular assets for level design. This then made me rethink about my total outcome and bring me back to an idea that was mentioned within a previous meeting, and this was to create a small Chinese village from modular assets.

From images and diagrams from 'The World Atlas of Architecture', houses and temples are made using the same techniques architecturally. Although they are not so flamboyant, they use a lot more enclosure space and white walls. Red timber skeletons are still a huge feature, although they are not so obvious as the temple. Clay tiles are also a common feature as are the way the buildings are organised, through my  research I have found that symmetry is used throughout the whole of Chinese architecture through the construction as well as the orientation and positioning of each building. This is because the Chinese believe in 'balance' within their daily lives.

Also with the creation of a Chinese village I also have the opportunity to make my own smaller temple for the village. As the Chinese are highly religious in their culture, most or all villages have their own temple, be it large or small. If I have time I could also create a small Buddhist temple from the modular assets also. A house in China are simple forms, the majority of houses have courtyards joined onto their houses or even the house surrounds the courtyard. There are no windows on the outside walls, but only on the inside facing the courtyard, this also ties in with the south facing gate, this technique stops cold prevailing wind from the north. The only entrance to the house is often a small gate or fence facing south.

The size of a house is often dependant on wealth, size and the taste of the family, but generally a House compound will have an inner courtyard. Below is a few diagrams showing the basic layouts of many house designs throughout China, this is also similar to how I would hope to design my own assets.



Three-sided courtyard house

Four-sided courtyard house






Double courtyard house

Links

Blog/website that explains the different types of houses, also good variety of diagrams:
http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/3intrhme.htm





Draft dissertation proposal

So this week i've been working on my dissertation proposal. Here is my draft and after i've been advised for changes i'll upload a more accurate one, Enjoy.

Dissertation proposal

After researching into the Culture of China by using videos, articles, blogs and a variety of books; for my dissertation I wish to design and create a small ancient Chinese temple with courtyard using 3ds Max which will be imported into UDK. This temple will be constructed out of modular pieces that a level designer could then create their own temple layout from. The layout of size and scale will be that of a first person game and so the assets will need to be scaled as such. I will be trying to keep as much ancient Chinese architectural accuracy through this dissertation with the structure of these modular pieces which means the models will be relatively high poly.

 Rationale:

The skills I wish to develop over the following year and of the completion of this project are as follows

·         To research and gain more knowledge as well as an understanding of the importance in modularity within games, especially within level creation.

·         From that I also want to be able to learn about a complex system of architecture (Dougong) and replicate that into a 3d model. Building from my knowledge of modularity, to then design these models into modular pieces.

·         Gain a better understanding of texturing and unwrapping models to improve my modelling skills overall to help me obtain a career in the games industry.

 After university, I want to become a 3D Game Artist. Although having a portfolio of work to show will help me acquire a job such as this, I need to work on the skills that are required of me to be employed in that job role in the industry.

 After looking through many 3D Game Artist applications there were many requirements that were relatively common upon the applications. A proficiency in 3DS Max was a requirement on many of these and as I plan to construct my models using 3ds Max, I hope to become more competent using that software package. Great knowledge of Adobe Photoshop was also popular, although I already have a good knowledge of this; I also hope to create a better understanding through the project as I am working alone. High quality texture creature as well as unwrapping skills is one of the skill sets that cropped a lot that I don’t feel very comfortable with so I plan on improving a great deal over this dissertation.  Knowledge of using Normal mapping with the textures was also common; this ties in with the previous requirement also. I have got experience with creating Normal maps for textures but I hope to demonstrate my ability to develop and learn this skill over the next year. I also took the chance to look at a senior position in the 3D Artist job field. It mentions that a “strong knowledge of architecture” is a requirement. This criteria sits perfectly on what I want to achieve over my dissertation; to prove that I can research a highly unknown system of architecture and then to design and create reusable game models from my knowledge and understanding.

 I have a desire to complete this project in particular as I admire the master craftsmanship that can be seen in Chinese architecture over many centuries. I also found that “Chinese architecture has been studied less than the architecture of almost any other great civilization on the globe.” Steinhardt, Nancy 2002 P1. From this fact I also found that they are also missing from our computer games, let alone our western libraries. This is an academic reason why I want to take this challenge on, to construct a scene that is not necessarily fully understood in our culture.

 

Annotated bibliography:

Below are the books and material I have used for research to support me during my proposal defining process. Here I will name the item and also how it helped me and why.

 

House Architecture [Chinese Architecture]: University of Washington [viewed 2013]. Available from: http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/3intrhme.htm.

 This online blog was hugely resourceful in the information about Chinese house architecture. Especially informative of old Chinese construction traditions such as Chinese orientate their houses South to stop the cold wind from the North. It also gives extensive information about the layout of the houses with sources. The author of this blog however is unknown.

Chen, F. (2009) "how all the Components of a Small [Old East Asian] Building Fit Together". [Dougong Chinese Building]. F. Chen ed., Youtube, 17th January 2009.

This was the video that I used to help construct my mock Chinese building on. It proved very useful in understanding a complex system of ‘Dougong.’ I found no other resource online as clear as this to show how to construct Dougong correctly. From this research I feel that I could construct my own building without guidance.

Chen, F. (2009) Anshina's Architecture (Episode 1): Dougong (斗拱). [Dougong].Youtube/Blogspot: , 31 January 2009,.

Dougong is a complex system of wooden blocks which interlock to create a series of building that can be coloured and very decorative. It also demonstrated to me the difference between each block and why they are called what they are. It had an interesting section explaining that the more layers of Dougong in a buildings construction, the more important the person who owns, works or lives in that building is in society.

Lin, Lentz, Sturgill and Reed 'Using Workflow Techniques and Modularity' DOI http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/WorkflowAndModularity.html.

Modularity I found is an important design choice when it comes to level design and creating game assets. This article teaches you the small things that a 3D modeler can do to help improve the workflow of a development team and the game through subtle change in habits to construct modular game assets. This in turn helps the efficiency and can create a greater game overall. This article I will be using to help me guide myself through the modularity section to my dissertation. This also had a detailed section about using the Grid on 3DS Max and I will hopefully be using this advice in the construction of my models.

Mlicka, A. (2006) The Psychology of the Interior. [PDF Online].BFA ed. Personal Website: June 2006.

From research into the construction of homes I found that the Chinese see a wall as a symbolic space maker and not a load bearing object in construction. From that I was advised to look up this article about The Psychology of the Interior. Mlicka goes deep into the meaning of a wall in different cultures which made me think highly of when I construct my own modular assets. The walls will need to be considered an optional asset to tie in with Chinese architectural culture.

Norwich, J., John. (1994) 'China' in Norwich J., John. The World Atlas of Architecture. 1st ed. London: Mitchell Beazley Publishers, Dec 1994 pp. 18-32.

The information and illustrations within this book inspired me to look deeper into the architecture and culture. The attention to detail of the illustrations of houses as well as the layouts of palaces are useful for deciding on my modular cut off points and orientation of objects. It has an interesting section about the architecture of monuments p28-29 which I will find useful for the layout of each asset.

PERRY, L. 2002, November 2002. Modular Level and Component Design. Game Developer Magazine 1(1), 30-35.

This article was written by the lead level design for the video game Gears of war for Epic. In this article Lee Perry explains the importance and advantages of using modular assets for the use of level design.

Rawski, E. and Rawson, J. (2005) 'Imperial Architecture of the Qing: Palaces and Retreats' in Rawski E. and Rawson J. China: The Three Emperors 1662-1795. 1st ed. London: Royal Academy of Arts, pp. 54-62.

The section of the book illustrates the symmetry involved within Chinese construction and helps me emphasis the reason for creating this dissertation out of modular pieces.

Xinian, F. F., Datheng, G., Xujie, L., Guxi, P., Yun, Q. and Dazhang, S. (2003) A History of Chinese Architecture 1st ed. Yale University Press, 4 Feb 2003.

This is quite possibly the most important piece of research to my dissertation, this is one of the first books that take six Chinese architects and get them to talk and explain about the different types and architectural techniques over the history of Chinas existence, even from before China existed. The book explains why and how China made their buildings modular. They have the ability to deconstruct a building and re-erect it perfectly without the need for nails or adhesives. Also explaining about how radical Chinese building techniques were that Korea and Japan took the same principal and used them in the majority of their own architecture. There are also diagrams showing how Dougong is constructed within some of the elaborate structures as well as decorations of the system.

Yu, M., Oda, Y., Fang, D. and Zhao, J. (2008) 'Advances in Structural Mechanics of Chinese Ancient Architectures'. Frontiers of Architecture and Civil Engineering in China, Mar 2008, 2 (1), pp. 1-25.

The structure of the system Dougong and how each piece interacts with each other are shown here, as well as different types of joinery are shown. Helpful for when I come to designing and making my own modular assets.

Zhang, S. and Lu, R. (2012) 'ICA3D – Intelligent Computer-Aided Ancient Chinese Architecture Design'. Advanced Engineering Informatics, 10, 26 (4), pp. 705-715.

Here I found research about a 3D modeling package that has been designed to produce a Chinese architecture instantly, however the parameters you need to put within the program to get what you need, requires a great amount of detail and knowledge of Chinese architecture.

 Project Timeline:

4^th November - Finish draft and hand in final dissertation proposal before the 4^th of November

 25^th November – Have researched into one dynasty of the Chinese culture and choose the style of village I want to create. Also begin to draw top down layout designs on how I would like my temple and courtyard to look.

 9^th December – Decide on scale and size of the models as well as to construct an asset list of what will need to be modelled. Complete individual drawings of the general look of each model to aid in the construction of the models.

 20^th January – To begin or have modelled each asset without unwrapping UVW’s. Test scale and size in UDK where possible. Assemble a basic model of the modular assets to see them all together.

 17^th February – Continue modelling if needed and start UVW unwrapping on each asset ready for texturing. (May take longer as not as experienced in UVW unwrapping)

 10^th March – Begin the texturing of each asset

 24^th March – Import and construct the temple within UDK with textures and assets.

 7^th April – touch up and add more details to models where needed.

 7^th April - 15^th May – Work on finalising dissertation

 17^th May – 16^th May to be the absolute deadline of handing in dissertation.

 Word count: 1829

The modelling challenge: Complete

Wow oh wow. If you remember from my previous post, my challenge was to create an ancient Chinese structure using the same methods used known as 'Dougong'. I must say that the challenge was a steep learning curve in terms of understanding the way in which Dougong is constructed. Although it was difficult, I did prevail and to great success. I attempted to construct the model without a poly count limit to give myself a general view over the next time I model the next building. I also thought at the end of the model that I could of cut down on some basic reoccurring shapes. I quickly learnt that the 'Dougongs' come in a variety of shapes and sizes in order to interlock and create the structure.  By the end of the model I had at least 4 different types of caps, blocks and bows. This also doesn't count for different beams for the main supports or the roof. Roof tiles were created with some simple shapes instead of individual tiles just to simply to reduce poly count for the sake of the mock up model. Below is a set of quick Default scanline renders from within 3ds Max showing the model. The colours of each shape are used to help distinguish the style, they are not textures or materials.



Perspective view

Front view

Side view

Bottom view

Top view



Unroofed perspective





Close up of Dougong detail





Perspective view again



From what I've learnt here from this challenge I need to have a talk with my lecturer about how to progress from here. I personally feel that this challenge was a success and showed me that ancient architecture isn't as difficult as I first thought if you follow a few simple steps and take your time with the construction. The building used about 11k polygons which is what I need to discuss with him if it's possible to construct this model low poly, however I am yet to consider making this modular. The building itself is modular to some extent by the way It is constructed, however these pieces are far too small to be considered efficient for game environment creation. Although during the modelling process I did think about how it could be turned modular and will continue to do so.

Proposal defining through 'Dougong' and the problems...

Situated in Nanjing, Conficius Temple

Ancient Chinese architecture is one of the least studied fields in the Western world, an important reason behind this is the fact that the Chinese over the centuries didn't write down or document their developments to a great extent. Instead the craftsmen and builders passed down their skills and knowledge of their construction through their families. "Because of the lack of knowledge of the roots of Chinese architecture, description of its elements is often translated into Western terms and architectural theory, losing its unique Chinese meanings." - Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman (2002). There is a cause to the lack of ignorance in the western world of the Chinese architectural study. This is because two major Chinese government architecture manuals were never and still have never been translated into a western language. Yingzao Fashi by Li Jie which is a technical document on the architecture and craftsmanship during the Song Dynasty as well as the document Quing Architecture Standards.
 

Shape

A major characteristic that sticks out in the architecture is that symmetry is a common feature. Symmetry became standard building practise due to the rapid expanding villages and towns throughout China.

Demonstration of symmetry and shape of chinese design

 
Orientation

The majority of the houses face south, even the modern houses built today will be constructed with the front door/entrance facing south if space allows. This is believed to be done in order to gain maximum sunlight within the house as well as avoiding the prevailing cold winds blown in from the north. Unlike western architecture chinese domestic architecture has a striking practice when orientating their houses. Due to the way the timber framing/skeleton is made, nearly all buildings and temples are desined to symetrical or rectangular.

 

Timber

 

Due to the fact not so much Western material is around based on Chinese ancient architecture, I'm finding it rather difficult to get my head around the way that the majority of ancient buildings are designed and built. However this only leads to challenge in the dissertation, I like challenges. The most confusing part of the Chinese structure I find is the way in which they construct the houses skeleton/framework from timber. Unlike Western construction methods, to the Chinese, a wall only defines an enclosure for a place in the building, however in our culture we use walls as load-bearers. These walls in Chinese architecture are known as 'curtain walls'. This gives me an important feature to think about with my modular assets; walls are not necessarily needed within a building and so should be an individual asset.

Dougong

'Dougong' which literally means "Cap and block" is the unique structural element of Chinese architecture. It is the name for the interlocking wooden brackets which supports the roofing. 'Dou' is the column on which the house uses as the supporting base, and 'gong' is the bow shaped brackets. After the Song Dynasty, these brackets became a more ornamental flare instead of aiding the structure, these are mostly used within important and religious buildings and not so much small residential homes. This is a major concern for me and I want to flag this up before I go on further in my dissertation. The complexities of the roof structure as well at the lack of documentation may lead me to modelling the roof in a different way. Although I would greatly enjoy the challenge of making it myself.

Timber Joints from Yingzao Fashi's book

Timber intersections from Yingzao Fashi's book

As soon as timber was becoming a major construction material within building, joinery has been a great passion and focus of the craftsmen of China who practised their skill so much to standards that their joinery would require no glue or fasteners. Although I wont be able to go into that much detail when modelling due to polygon count, emphasising the craftsman's skill by showing the joints on the timber with textures would be an accurate touch to the final model and could lead to more possible research?

The challenge
Now I have a greater understanding of the construction methods I will now try to attempt to make my own 'Dougong' set within 3ds Max and see if I can construct a skeleton of an ancient Chinese building.

What this will achieve for myself and my dissertation
As suggested in a previous post, attempting this will give me a better idea on my scope for the project. Currently my dissertation question is: Can a complex architectural structure such as ancient Chinese buildings be made into modular assets for use in a game engine?

From attempting this task it will give me an answer of if it's possible. If it is not possible, why not and what can I do to make this possible? If it is impossible after consulting with my lecturer, what alternative can I create? Also the complexity of the architecture could lead to a grand scale of polygons, this task will also give me the answer whether I should construct this as a high polygon model, or a low polygon model. These both need to be answered in order to define my proposal and so I wish to attempt this task.

Links

 

Informed blog about house construction in China:

http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/3intrhme.htm

 

Dougong Brackets:

http://www.chinainfoonline.com/Chinese_Architecture/Dougong_Brackets.htm

 

Dougong bracket description and explaination. Also has a informative youtube channel about various Chinese construction methods:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vRIuAOrZgo

 

Great hardback book on Chinese architecture, written by a western writer but consultation by six ancient Chinese architectural specialists:

Steinhardt, Nancy Shatzman (2002). Chinese Architecture ISBN 0-300-09559-7