Week 7

This week I continued to work on major interior assets. The first task was to model the kitchenette, which wasn’t the most exciting job but a fairly important one. I had decided that for most of the asset I’d use tileable textures, and have one texture sheet for details such as the plugholes and oven grilles. This all worked pretty well- I still need to make a tileable for the work surface but as it stands it is acceptable.

The next asset I decided to touch upon was the cupboards over the bedroom door. I say touched upon as it wasn’t long before I decided other assets were more important. I had a surprising amount of trouble deciding on what material I’d use. The materials I’d used for the white cupboards in the kitchen and the black bedside cabinets were both too bold for the location, they couldn’t match the walls perfectly and I thought it would be weird for them to perfectly match the flooring, although this did look the best by far. Eventually I created a new wood texture, this time stained/painted grey. I like the result, so I’ll probably use it on other assets too.

I started making some clutter to put with the cupboards in the form of a rucksack and sleeping bag, which were quick to sculpt. The texture I used was fairly small, but this is efficient as they are seen from a good enough distance. In the picture below you can see the state I left the asset. You can also see an Issue I am having with the light from the bedroom shining through the ceiling. This might be a problem with setting one of those lights to not cast shadows. Lighting is still something I need to heavily tweak.

I quickly moved on to the orrery, possibly the most important asset of the main room. I had my work cut out to make it believably functional while still having the look I wanted. A real-life orrery tends to have the planets held up by struts from underneath, so they do not intersect each other. However, I thought this looked too old-fashioned for what I envisioned, despite still wanting the main structure to be physical. I decided the best way to get the look I wanted was to have the orbits of each planet be technically rails, with the planets moving along them independently. Unfortunately I forgot that the other purpose of having the planets suspended from below was so that they could rotate on that axis. I already wanted to put holographic signs by each planet, so the compromise I came to was to encapsulate each planet with a holographic shell that would itself rotate, showing their correct axes.

I still need to work on the holographic signs of this asset. I think it might also look good to have a curved screen behind it, so once I’ve finished the main element I may move on to that. Looking at the scene currently I think there is too big a contrast between the technology of the orrery and that of the kitchen, but I’m now considering adding holographic controls to the oven and microwave. The other issue is that the kitchen looks odd on its own, so it is important I get the freezer made quickly.