Stalactite - Blender and Unreal Engine - 3/26/2024
This is one of three variations of a stalactite I made for my unreal engine project. To make it, I started with a cylinder in blender. I then used primarily the extrude tool, scale tool, and manually adjusting vertices to make the base shape of the stalactite. The spikes were also made using the extrude tool. After I had created the shape of the stalactite, I unwrapped the texture, and painted onto it using a seamless stone texture from the internet. After doing all of that, I took it into Unreal. In Unreal, I used the node system to modify the texture, making it a lot darker and pixelating it. I also made a blueprint for it instead of dragging the model directly into the scene, which allowed me to make a custom collision box for it, since the one Unreal made by default for this model was not very accurate. I like this model because it is the most interesting of the three stalactite variants, and I think it looks nice in the cave environments. The main thing I learned while creating this asset was how to paint textures in Blender more effectively and also how to edit the materials in Unreal. This was the first model that i learned how to pixelate in Unreal, and I was able to use that same set of nodes for other assets too.
Fence - Blender and Unreal Engine - 3/26/2024
This model was also created in Blender and then taken into Unreal to edit, just like the stalactite above. To make this, I primarily used extrusions and compound boolean objects to make multiple planks. Overall, the process of modelling this asset was quite similar to modelling the stalactites. However, the texturing process on this model was more involved. On the stalactite, I only used one texture to paint onto the model, but with this model, I used multiple. I used two wood textures for the base of the fence, making lighter bits and darker bits to make the wood look rotten. I also used a moss texture to place on the tops of the planks and where the fence touches the ground, which makes the fence look even more weathered. Like the stalactite, I also pixelated in Unreal using the visual scripting system, and I also desaturated it slightly.
Crate - Blender and Unreal Engine - 3/26/2024
Like the other assets above, this was modelled and textured in Blender, then taken into Unreal to make some changes to the texture. However, this model is not static. When you shoot the crate with the weapon, it breaks into pieces. To make it do this, I had to learn how to use Unreal's chaos physics system. I already had some exposure to this system from the FPS project we did a few months ago, but I had to revisit it for this, so I'm now more familiar with it. I also had to play around with the shatter settings so that it would look how I wanted it to when broken, and I had to hollow the model out, which wasn't something I had considered while modeling it. In the game, these crates will primarily function as decorations, objects that hide secret tunnels, and containers for loot or energy refills.
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