The Part Of The Story Nobody Likes... - UV Mapping

It has been a while since I updated this blog but that has come down to various different factors. My last post was from me beginning to model the tree in ZBrush. After spending a lot of time sculpting the tree, I finally got something I was pleased with. I then began to UV Map, which took an insane amount of time but I am happy to say I have now finished UV Mapping!

So here is my finished piece in ZBrush. (The different colours represent the polypaint which gives a rough idea of the UV Map created:

Final Model

I created the UV Map in Maya as I had much more input in what I wanted from it. This process took me an extremely long time but I am now happy with the result. At first I UV Mapped all idiviudal branches so I could place the seams where I thought would work best. Once I did this, I went on to sew as much of them together in order for a seamless piece. The previous image shows clearly where the seams will be. Here is my final model in Maya along with the UV Map:

UV Mapped in Maya

Personal Notes

I am at the point of this project where I am relatively anxious of the final outcome. With this beign a new field to me, I hope I can get it as close to the standards of my last project (which I was really pleased with). I have it all in my head, it's just getting it to come out like that!

My next step is to begin painting the tree and placing it into Unreal Engine 4 - thats when things start to fall into place - I will paint it for the next two days and by then I will called it pretty much finished (maybe come back and edit the texture map at a later date). I want to (next week) start assembling the rest of the scene, starting with the hill, and then adding in some other (much more basic!) trees and bushes. I can then come back to this tree and add some more features to it (ropes, hatches etc)

Here is a quick updated list of what is too follow:

• Place into Unreal Engine 4
• Finish Diffuse Map/Normal Map (Make two and multiply)
• Sort landscape (Hill + Night Sky)
• Begin making various bushes
• Add further features to main tree

Lighting etc will eventually be added to this list...