Games Art and Design NUA : BA3: Digital Modeling

The Stairs

It was a decision I made later on to put in the addition of rounded stairs to my design. I felt the door design needed more of an epic presence. When it was all flat on the floor I felt it needed something more, so the addition of round stairs is the conclusion I came too. I posted about the 2 initial stair designs I did earlier on my blog. I created them in Google SketchUp and asked my friends and family which looked better, square or rounded stairs. I also showed them my influence shots of God of War 3 architecture and after that, the majority said rounded stairs were the best option. Here is how I made them!

1: I selected the sphere from the polygon shelf, sized it up correctly against the door and wall and then used the boolean tool and “difference” option to literally cut away the back half of the sphere/circle shape from the back of the wall where it was poking through.

2: Using the extrude tool, I was able to select the entire bottom face of the sphere and offset it by -5 to bring it outwards from the shape. This was in essence, the new stair. I then re selected the new stair and used the extrude tool again only this time I needed to make it bigger as opposed to offsetting it so I set “offset “ to 0 and the thickness to -1 to bring the entire shape down. This in turn created the second step.

3: I basically rinse and repeat part 1 & 2 to make the final step.

4: I used boolean on the first step but what I didn’t realise was that when I used the extrude, offset and thickness tool that this would also make the lower two stairs stick out the back of the first stair and beyond the back of the wall and door. I used the spacebar and entered the viewport so that I could accurately use another boolean to cut the back end off.

The final outcome, view from behind

Final outcome from the side/front view

The Archway

This is another section that went through a slightly more improvised design change. As I was looking at my roof/upper door designs done earlier in Google SketchUp I didn’t feel they were strong enough. I decided to look back through my God of War 3 architecture influence images and I picked an arch way which seems to be a common “door topper” in the game. Plus we were told that our door needed to appear as if it would just appear right into the game, therefore I figured this design change was for the best.

1: I opened a sphere from the polygon shelf, rotated it 90degrees so that it was facing me and then re sized it appropriately.

2: I then used the infamous boolean tool to remove the lower half of the circle by placing a bigger cube shape where I needed it to remove the sphere.

3: Now that I have my semi circle, basic arch shape I need to actually create the arch hole in the centre. To do this I used the interactive split tool to literally select the centre of the semi circle and, with free hand, cut another semi circle I could then cut away to create the hole. I did this on both sides of the shape.

4: I was then able to right mouse click and select faces, then manually delete the faces I had created using the interactive split tool so I was left with the archway hole.

5: As I used the interactive split too with a free hand and was guessing where the centre was, there was no doubt going to be areas that were wonky. To make sure it was all even I used the viewport and right click selected vertex. This was I was able to then use the move tool and manually select vertices into place with the aid of the grid to keep them all in place so it wasn’t wonky and everything matched up in its right place.

6: Now that everything was even, I had to fill the shape as all I had was a sort of taco shaped arch with no filling. This was simple enough to fix, I selected the object and used the fill too under mesh. It filled it in nicely as you can see. What I then did was used the interactive split tool again to join the faces all the way around the inside of the arch way so that it had the correct geometry.

7: To finish off the detail in the arch I needed to make the edges stick out in a similar fashion to the pillars. To do this I needed to add extra geometry into the shape so that I could manipulate it (ignore the shape in the middle, that will be the next part I show you). To do this I inserted symmetrical edge loops horizontally and vertically around the shape.

8: The final stage was to use the extrude tool to offset the faces inwards and then change the thickness so that the selected offset faces were set back into the arch to complete the shape.

Final outcome

Archway Stone Detail

Most of the God of War 3 doors have a special detail on them somewhere or another, mostly just stone shapes that add structure and detail to the doors frame. A lot of the doors seemed to have an angled cube shape in the centre of the archway above the door so I figured I would follow suit to ensure my door and archway detail fitted into the game architecture.

1: Using a standard cube from the polygon shelf I re seized it and then used the extrude tool to offset the bottom of the cube.

2: Reselecting the new smaller and offset face, I was able to re use the extrude too to this time pull the face down at an angle by changing the thickness.

3: I then needed to use the extrude tool on the entire top face to pull it out at an angle to create the overall main shape of the stone archway detail.

4: Using my best friend Mr boolean I was able to use another larger cube to cut away the back section of the stone detail which would stick out at a funny angle (due to the extrudes) from the wall, I needed it to have a flat back.

5: Using the viewports I was able to perfectly align my stone detail over the top of the archway and against the wall.

Note: I have mentioned the wall a few times, it was so simple to make that I haven't done a guide to it, it’s literally 1 cube polygon with an extruded face to create the floor. Simple. I might add more detail to the wall later if the texture I put on it doesn’t look good enough, maybe make it into large stone sections as that’s what they would have used back then to create the wall. But again, that is a decision that will come later.

6: Now for my other trusty friend, extrude! I was able to offset the main/front face of the stone detail and then re select it to edit the thickness and make it sit further back into the main shape giving it more of a 3D presence. I plan to put texture detail in the centre of this shape, perhaps even in Mudbox but I doubt time will allow for that.

The final outcome

One main thing to note is how I haven't extruded the faces on the left and right side of the stone detail. This is because when I did it looked strange where the archway intersected the stone detail. Therefore I left it flat so it appeared as though the archway clearly goes straight through either side of the stone detail. I also extruded the bottom faces of the stone too and these were done on the left and right side as well as the front because this part of the stone hangs down below the arch and doesn’t get intersected by any other part of the mesh.

The Finished Door!

…and by finished I mean, still needs tweaking but the main mesh is complete. After showing Mark he told me I need to do the following:

Think about dragging the verts to main corners of the structure, select > vertices > edit mesh > merge vertices tool > click and drag vertices to main corners of structure. Tri’s are okay however, quads are best. Quads still count when their edges are at an angle.

Consider making the mesh more “organic”, perhaps using the soft selection tool under the move options (double click move tool), then use either volume of surface to move around your area.