Week 18 - Modelling, texturing, decals and cinematic stuff

This week has been a really busy one. I have finished modelling and texturing the rest of the main assets for the scene, and I have been adding details as well as starting to prepare the scene for the cinematic. I have also finished producing the music for the cinematic which I have been doing on the side for the past two weeks.

I finished texturing the windows in Substance Painter, drawing lots of inspiration from the NASA Space Shuttle and the cupola module on the ISS:

I also created more text decals to arrange around the cockpit and create extra detail. These are all stored on one 2048x2048, in blocks of 256x256, which a flipbook node uses to select the appropriate decal and outputs the corresponding UV coordinates. I then created a mesh decal blueprint using the material, which allows me to easily control which decal is displayed. I also added a quick function that allows me to use 512x256 textures if necessary (for long mesh decals)

Here are some shots of the decal in use along with the blueprints:

I also created custom screen images for use across the cockpit, I tried to emulate old computer diagnostics displays as well as the visual style of CRT screens:

I have also created another decal for use around the ship using only Substance Designer. This was then created as a custom decal blueprint with a small point light to give the effect of light coming out of it:

I also created a netting material that utilises parallax occlusion mapping to give the impression of thickness to the straps:

I also created handles to help the crew members to traverse the cockpit in zero-G, these were modeled and baked in Blender and textured in Substance Painter.

I realised the pipes looked quite bare and didn't look as if they belonged on a space craft, so I decided to create insulated covers to give them a more space age look, as well as to make them look more interesting.

I still felt something was missing from the station and I thought some cables and piping would really help give the scene some complexity. I created these using Blender, as it has a very intuitive way of creating splines and using modifiers to make them repeat seamlessly. The cable texture was then created in Substance Designer and the cables unwrapped to the texture sheet.

I also finished creating the decal for the module panels, which can be populated with different components to achieve the desired look:

I have been creating some ambient objects including books and extinguishers to help reinforce the idea that the scene takes place in zero-G:

I have added random motion to them using blueprints:

I have also been creating colour LUTs or lookup tables to help achieve a more cinematic look, as well as tweaking some post process settings:

I have started to create the basis of the cinematic after finishing the music. This is because the shots will sync up in the final cinematic. I have written a blog post here detailing the process.

Next week, I shall be finalising the scene and producing and editing the cinematic. I aim to have this done early in the week in case of any problems with the recording.