Current Side Project: Loft appartment (WIP)

While I am waiting on some code to arrive from F-Game, I thought I would get some more practice at interior modeling.

I have had some experience in the past in this area, but feel that I have been unable to really devote the kind of time needed to do it well.

For many reasons I have always liked the idea of loft apartments, so I set off to google to get some reference material, and I am fairly certain that I hit the mother-load. Full, high res floor-plan (nearly architectural quality) and a panoramic web app (virtual tour) of the same apartment to boot!

My intentions for this piece are 4 fold. 1); to brush up on my interior modeling skills, going from floor-plan to full model. 2); revisit my previously failed attempt of cleanly laying out UVs of an interior space. 3); take my first stab at soft-edge modeling (ie furniture and such). 4); End up with something of demo quality in a reasonable time frame, and with a pleasing aesthetic. (Oh, and a possible 5th intention of living out my secret desire to be an interior decorator.)

I currently have about 7 hours into the modeling phase of things and am up to about 150 quads. I have nearly finished the base mesh, but the ceiling will add a considerable number of polys without an easy way to fake the look.

I am unsure how extreme I intend to go with the textures. I plan on filling in one version of the room with a modern theme, hanging art pieces, modern furniture/ decorations, and etc. But I am unsure if I want to also attempt a texture/lighting run with a dirty/slob-ish theme. I suppose I will just wait and see how it goes.


All of the modeling work is in Maya, and I am considering doing a full material pass and lighting rig to get some high quality renders before I take everything to Unity. If anyone has any feedback on whether or not this is a good use of time, please let me know.

Either way, I want to get an ambient occlusion pass from Maya and incorporate that into my Unity Materials. I have experimented with this in the past, but with mediocre results. Hopefully this time I will have a more pleasing outcome.

I will keep you all posted on how things are coming along throughout the process.

The following are renders and screen shots from Maya. No textures have been applied, and the lighting is not even close to being finalized.

Screen shot with walls (base mesh), main floor, bedroom floor, and (high poly beveled cube for size estimation) bed mesh selected.

Low quality render from above the bedroom area, looking into the kitchen/living space.


Low quality render Looking into the bedroom area.

Low quality render looking into the kitchen from the living space.




A much higher quality render taken after I finished modeling the refrigerator, kitchen counter-tops, sink and faucet. Lighting and shadows are coming from a single directional light.... I do NOT intend on keeping this lighting. It is simply being used to show of the refrigerator a bit better.


Current poly counts:

The base mesh is approximately 3105 polygons (including interior walls, both floors,wall pillars, ceiling, kitchen island, and all cabinets and handles) I am referring to this as the 'base mesh'

kitchen appliances: refrigerator, stove, dishwasher, and kitchen faucet = 1562 polygons

bedroom furniture: mattress, bed frame, storage drawers, handles, and all closet pieces (without hangers) = 1906 polygons

total = 6573 polygons

A bit more about me; past present and future.

I am a recent graduate of Ohio University, earning a of Bachelor's degree of Science in Communication.

My studies revolved around videogame production and I have worked on three larger titles, a few small projects, and countless other tech demos, prototypes, and tests.

I am currently in development of a 3D action-shooter set in space around an accreting black hole. The web based game (code named "F Game") is being developed by a colleague of mine, Jason Gillette, and myself in the Unity Game Engine. We are going to submit this game to the Independent Games Festival 2011, an annual event at the Game Developer's Conference.

As far as background goes; I went to the university in same town in which I was born and raised. Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. This makes me a "Townie" by default, but hey, I say it builds character. Being raised in a small town has its advantages, especially in creative, demanding industries.

I feel that I have a more hands on, dive in and get going, mentality than many others I have met and worked with. Determination, curiosity and work ethic has put me in front of a computer for more hours than I care to admit, but the time I have invested has put me slightly ahead of many of my peers in terms of understanding of various technologies and development practices.

I was raised by an amazing woman who taught me that life is tough, you must work hard to get anywhere worthwhile, and success is determined individually. The majority of my life until I enrolled at Ohio University could be classified as struggling to stay above the poverty line. I am not complaining, or seeking pity, rather I value experience. I only mention this fact because I feel that being poor forces people to think out side the box, and get used to doing everything for yourself.

I am referring to the fact that if there was a sink leaking, broken car, or a complete flood of you kitchen (which happened) we didn't bring in anyone to fix things for us. We scrounged enough money for the materials/parts and fixed them ourselves.

This mentality has extended from home repair, gardening and a D.I.Y. attitude to the world of videogame development and art creation. I do not look for shortcuts, workarounds, or assets/code to buy. I jump in and do them myself. If I do not know how to do something myself, I find out, anyway I can.

This leads me to my education at Ohio University. I was able to take the skills and work ethic mentioned earlier into the academic setting and actually succeed in earning a degree. This is a bit of an achievement because my family does not have many college graduates and some did not even graduate high school.

After fumbling and failing at finding a major sequence that interested me and fit my skill sets, I heard about a new series of video game development courses. I enrolled and fell in love the problem solving, technicality, and creative freedom that is videogame development. For the next three years I was neck deep in iteration and production cycles.

My only regret from my entire college career is that I feel that I wasn't actually taught much at all about the processes or practices of videogame development. The program was quite young when I started, only one class had graduated with that major title beforehand. The staff that was tasked with teaching the newly formed courses either had experience in other fields, or didn't have much experience at all.

What ended up happening was we (the students) were told to come up with a design, and then work on it individually for the next two quarters (20 weeks). Class times were devoted to overviewing the basics of scripting (in TorqueScript at the time), implementation of 2D and 3D assets and attempting to decipher the broken, and often non-existent documentation. Our instructor often completed (for the first time) the assignments mere days before assigning them to the students. In his defense, the students in the class were not picking up on the basics quickly, and often needed second and third explanations of a concept. Couple that with a buggy and non-intuitive engine and the result were half completed, at best and blocky representations of the designs.

In the two years following that experience we switched engines, to Unity, and were grouped into teams to develop independent designs in a start to finish timeframe of 9 months. Students were given little restrictions on content, but also little help in developing the titles. the knowledge and teaching abilities of the staff was quickly matched, then exceeded by some of the students.

I do wish that I could have been taught more about the career that I am currently diving into. That is not to say that I did not learn anything. That would be a lie. But I ended up teaching myself most of what I learned, the rest came from peer learning. I taught myself the art creation, animation tools, and ActionScript 3 in Adobe Flash, as well as the polygonal modeling and texturing in Autodesk Maya. I then set out to tackle the Unity Game Engine. I have been able to develop a great working understanding of the engine and am digging more deeply now than I have ever been able to before.

I feel that my experience in learning four different engines and 2 different 3D modeling applications will serve me well in the further. I am not set in any particular way of working and the learning curve will be much less severe than it has been in the past.

Well that is all for now, I will be posting some past work, and screenshots from my current production shortly. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me.

Thanks much,

Corey