First Week assignment - Beveled Cube + Unreal Master Material

I imported the FBX mannequin from Unreal into Maya to set up my scale. I am using centimeters with the grid being set up in subdivisions of 1, every 10cm.

Following this, I set up the cube with a 100x100x100cm scale and zeroed it. I then beveled the edges and exported it as an FBX.

Inside Unreal, I created a simple Master_Material after watching a few videos.

I was pretty happy with the results but also wanted to see how far I could push it. I also wanted to figure out how to use Emissive Color. I wanted to be able to use some of the stock textures that come in the starter content for fun but to also be able to edit them to some extent. I also realized that the cube I made would need to be UV'd in order for me to be able to use the Unreal textures.

So I watched some more videos and sort of bootlegged a 'master master' material together that allowed me to swap out Textures and mix them with black/white while changing color. I also learned a bit about Emissive Colors and managed to get it working with a blue output after some more videos. Lastly, I also included a normal map changer that would allow me to have some control there.

Here is how the UI was set up using grouping. There are toggles for on/off and some other selection options. This first material was made using the hex tile material, which I then also created a temporary emissive map out of.

And here is a simply wood material using the starter content maps. I could edit the color and intensity (mix with black/white) of the texture map to sort of create my own variance.

Through this set-up and Material instancing, I was easily able to customize blocks fast and efficiently. Apart from selecting or toggling things, I only had to type a F and color it to blue in Photoshop to get the Emissive map. I hope later on I can learn how to generate these things in Engine.

And here is my creation! I was inspired by this image I saw while reading through a Polycount post.



The link is here:
https://polycount.com/discussion/195835/unity-scene-trying-to-improve-my-lighting-rendering-skills


So here's my own take on the idea:



Interior shot (Bevels turned out nice, texture isn't warping too much so my UV's were ok)

And finally, a night time scene under the stars:

I had a lot of fun with this. I was extremely pleased with what I've learned and managed to do. I haven't really worked in Unreal this much before (I've only ever really done some basic stuff) but it feels incredibly good to be doing it again!