Asset 3 : Pillar

Here is my asset sheet for my pillar in that level clipping I previously posted. For those who don't know how exactly a game engine or 3D program works, I'll explain from left to right top to bottom. and those of you who do know can skip to the next paragraph or simply gaze at the picture. Left top is the in game model, what the asset looks like while you're playing the game. Next to it is a Diffuse Map, or color map. The term has recently been switching around so I decided to use both. Its what your asset will basically look like. Next to that is the Specular map, which basically tells you what places are going to be shiny, how shiny, and what color shine its going to have. Then, next to that, is the Normal Map. The normal map is an RGB image that basically lets the computer read depth on the object. It won't actually give depth TO the object but it will cause the illusion that it has that depth. On the bottom left is the material set up for this asset in the UDK engine. This is how the engine knows what maps do what, and if they get masked off, and how to read them. There is also where you add cool effects like glowing and distortion if you want to. And last but not least is the Height map. This is simply how I generated my normal map in Photo Shop with the Nvidia Normal Map filter. I hope you now get the basic idea of why I needed these for turn, if not feel free to ask.

I generated my normal, specular, and height map in Photo Shop using different filters and layers to get the look I wanted. Due to the fact my Diffuse/Color map had so much detail I felt it was better to generate it in photoshop rather than ZBrush so that all my dents and bumps would match up exactly.

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed the technical side of my Pillar