Grand Finale!
The end! I feel like my entire final year at university passed so quickly.. and although I got to learn so, so much more, so much more than any previous year, it's still strange to me that today's technically my last working day in labs. Tomorrow I'm only panning to submit my work and figure out how I'm going to take a video of my level in Unreal Engine in order to showcase my Final Major Project.
One of the two very last things that I had to do in regards to my scene was texture the last mod kit consisting of the posters which have been scattered predominantly across the second floor, although can also be found laying across the entire level and the rope which is in the smallest, furthest room - the Ritual Room. The other was the pentagram.
Posters..
I didn't intend the posters in my scene to have any complicated textures on them. I wanted to give the player the impression that most of them are, for example, just pages that have been torn out of a newspaper and painted with some symbols used in rituals.. or perhaps just ramblings that would be difficult to decipher in the long run. They aren't neatly spread across the wall, nor looking very flattering with the blood spilled across some of them - but once again, that too was very intentional because I wanted to build somewhat of a creepy atmosphere. Especially in that room.
Result..
How I textured the posters was simple - I went on the internet and found a bunch of royalty free images that fit the image that I had in my head..
Then, I downloaded a couple of images that I was that I could use and edited them in Photoshop. I removed the unnecessary detail and stamped a couple of images one on top of another in order to create that overlapping effect - as if the remnants of the newspaper were underneath, and an illegible handwriting was on top. Then, what I did was invert the black and white images and export them from Photoshop as alphas and then import then import them as alpha maps in Substance Painter. I found this method works because Photoshop is very easy to use when it comes to editing images and combining things, using texture maps edited in Photoshop as alphas to stamp onto planes is a fast and efficient way to make posters in Substance Designer. If there was colour, it would've been a little bit more difficult.. but because of the nature of my scene and the time period in which my environment is set in, that wasn't the case - I intended them to be black and white.
Pentagram..
Once again, in order to texture the pentagram, I went on Shutterstock and searched for some royalty free images that I knew I would be able to use. I wanted a pentagram that didn't look too perfect but rather had some spills - I thought that would indicate to the player that perhaps it had been painted messily and most likely in a hurry.
This was the original photo.
I still wanted to add a little bit to it though and make it more unique, so I once again imported this image in photoshop, turned it black and white and exported it as an alpha, then went onto Substance Painter and turned on the alpha blending mode, and then I added the opacity channel.. after that I just painted over the image. I added my own little text saying ''help me help me help me'' in the middle because I wanted to suggest that perhaps somebody had been trapped inside of that circle, as well as a blooded handprint, suggesting that they might've been hurt.
In addition to all of that.. before I was ready for submission, I wanted to give myself a little bit one working day in order to sort out my naming conventions, to organise everything in folders and make it a lot easier for the examiners to know what is what and what is where. Also, I wanted to just make sure that everything in my scene was in place and that no assets nor texture maps were missing.. not this time.
