What I did over the summer

Over the summer I found myself getting back into 3D. Because of the free time I had, I wanted to play The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim again. As I was playing, I looked at certain objects in the game and thought I could do better, so I began learning about customizing the game aka "modding". I started by looking at items that were already known to me, I went back to a game I used to play called Runescape.

Runescape is a game that is internet browser based and runs on a form of javascript known as RuneScript. Because of that, the game uses very low polygon models, which lack detail. They are even lower resolution than the original Playstation (though this has changed in a recent update)

Iban's Staff

So I started re-creating existing items from Runescape and the first one was Iban's Staff. This is how it originally looked:

So using Autodesk 3ds Max, I began creating my own version of it and I ended up with the following. 

This was a learning curve for me as I had never put any mesh into a game before. I had a lot of problems with collisions and getting it to show up in the characters hand. After a LOT of time spent, I finally figured it out and went on to creating textures. For this process, I had to learn about a texturing technique called UV Mapping, where each polygon receives a coordinate so that it knows specifically within an image what should show on the mesh. Photoshop was used to create the textures.

For the Staff to look presentable in game, it needs a different set of maps. A Diffuse basically represents the colour whereas a Specular map tells the game how much light should hit that area. A Normal Map is information on raised surfaces, so if you have a rough texture, you'll want that to appear rough in game and not flat. The Alpha is also a specular map and at this point I didn't understand them correctly, so technically they are wrong.

Once I had compiled all of these together and done editing elsewhere with NIFSKOPE and the Bethesda Creation Kit (a tool for editing the game) the finished result looked like this and was uploaded to Skyrim Nexus and Steam for users to download and add to their own games. I was surprised because it got quite a lot of views and had a few review videos made.

Saradomin Godsword

I didn't stop there either, I went on to recreate a sword that I had once owned in Runescape, the Saradomin Godsword. This was a personal favourite and was requested a lot after I had released the Iban's Staff. The original:

My version:

Knowing what I had learned previously, it was a lot easier to create new items for Skyrim. Most of the time spent comes from modeling the items and then doing the texturing; the actual editing of .NIF files is a lot less work.

This time around, my mapping was a little better. I learned that if you have similar shaped items or things that are mirrored, you can overlap the texture coordinates and they will use the same image space. This saves a lot of time and also gives you more room for other segments of your mesh. Every texture I make is 4096x4096 pixels in size, so if I were to put each of these separate maps together, you'd be looking at something 16384x16384 (which is almost 8 times the size of today's standard HD)

This is how it looked within the game:

Granite Maul

Next came the Granite Maul, a huge hammer that was supposedly wielded by Trolls. This is how it originally looked in Runescape:

My version was just as simple but a lot higher quality. It was harder to texture than the previous weapon due to the shape of the "brick" at its head. I figured it out eventually though and it too became quite popular, being downloaded and reviewed by YouTubers.

I was still having a bit of trouble with the Normal Mapping. I was using a plugin made by Nvidia which would create them from an existing image, the problem was that it gave a pretty flat appearance. It looked okay in game, so I didn't think much of it. Not shown is also a CubeMap, which helps with reflections.

This is how it turned out when finalized in the game:

The Imperial Legion

My next project was unrelated to Runescape. I decided that the faction within Skyrim known as "The Imperial Legion" lacked a fitting, superior shield. Because their logo is shared with the official logo of Skyrim, I decided to make a shield centered around that. The idea was to make something huge, which provided great protection at the cost of being quite heavy. My concept ended up as this:

This was a little different to my other modifications because it was only at the start of this project that I realized I should start to try and lower the amount of polygons within the model. This is so it doesn't require a huge amount of resources to render the item within the game, which if too much, would make the game laggy and unplayable for the user.

The one thing I enjoyed about doing this one, was that I used real photographs for the textures of the wood. I did have to manually paint in a lot of the lines and darken areas so that it appeared to be a solid object and not flat. In the end the appearance worked quite well and it became one of the best shields to be added to the game. Unfortunately I was struggling with collisions on this, so when dropped by the character in the game, part of it would clip and disappear under the ground.

Wolfbane

At this point I had actually burned myself out, staying up to all hours of the morning working on these things. I decided to create something simple, a small dagger that would be effective against Werewolves. The idea came again from Runescape, which originally had the worst looking model in a game I have ever seen. I mean, seriously anybody could make this:

I tried to stay true to the original design, but put my own twist on things. Instead of just having some random pointy ends, I decided to make the spikes look more teeth like, as if they had come from an actual Werewolf. My design is as follows:

This one was interesting because after I had done the UV mapping, I realized that it was going to be complicated to texture. I then found that I could mirror textures slightly and then remove a lot of the areas which made it very obvious. I think this is how the professionals do it too, so that you don't get any texture seams.

I was actually really happy with how this one had turned out. To me it looked like actual metal within the game and I was also getting a better understanding how of specular maps worked.

Inferno Adze

The next item I decided to recreate is called The Inferno Adze. The idea was that it was a Pickaxe and Axe in one. I thought that would be very useful inside of Skyrim because there is no other item that does anything like that.

Because the item looks quite funky and wouldn't fit into Skyrim at all, I decided to make it something that would be forged under the Dwarven smithing category. I tried to redesign it completely so that it now fit into the game. The end result was quite popular because it mean that people didn't need to carry both an Axe and a Pickaxe, so weight wise, it was efficient.

Texturing this was also quite a nightmare because I hadn't really made preparations within the model. Luckily, I cut a few corners and hid some of the texture seams in areas that would never be seen by the player. It was also a struggle trying to match it precisely to the existing Dwarven weapons already in the game. I had to make sure the gold looked gold, while still keeping the metal looking aged, yet sharp.

The finished product came out better than I had expected and looked quite realistic, something a lot of the other items already in the game fail to do. It got quite a lot of positive reviews and while there were a few bugs with animation, it still was a hit.

HD Armored Circlets

After a bit of a break, I was playing the game again. My character uses circlets because I get to see her face, instead of it being covered up by a Helmet. I decided I didn't really like the standard circlets within Skyrim, so I decided to make a range of my own. This is what a default one looks like:

To me, the design is nice but it's SO low quality. I like things to be crisp and clear on my screen. Low resolution graphics on a PC should be a thing of the past! So, I came up with this design:

Now, because it is a headgear, it has to fit EVERY race and gender perfectly, so I had to make multiple versions. Texturing it was a little different than before. I tried out a different normal mapping method, which yielded completely different results, results which were more fine tuned and detailed. There are 9 different default armor types in Skyrim, so I made one for each. This is just an example of one of them, known as Glass.

This was another turning points for me, not just because I learned a different process with normal mapping, but because I learned that you didn't actually NEED a seperate Specular map. Instead, the map in the alpha channel of the Normal Map could be used as Specular, as long as it was correctly set within the models file properties. This actually gave even better results within the game and requires a lot less time testing. 

This is the same circlet rendered within Skyrim's engine. The set of circlets became VERY popular within the community and between Skyrim Nexus and Steam, have a combined total of around 90,000 total views, with an additional 16,000 unique downloads. It was definitely my most successful modification to Skyrim to date and because of it, I started a Facebook fanpage, which currently has 80 users in just over a week.

This is something I really enjoy doing and definitely something I enjoy learning about and putting time into. I'm nowhere near at a professional level yet but I think given time, I could well contribute to large gaming companies and next-gen games. 

So yeah, this is what I got up to art-wise during the middle to end of the summer of 2013. I know this was a long post and may sound very confusing at times but I hope it gave a little insight into what I am going on about if I ever mention doing 3D for games.

Also I forgot to mention that one of my modifications was recently reviewed by Gamespot, which next to IGN is probably one of the biggest gaming websites on the internet.