Week 3: Unreal, PBR, the metric system and Cola fountains

My team and I are still working steadily and strong on our film room project, with one minor speedbump.

Unfourtunately, while the construction and layout of our whitebox in the Unreal engine went smoothly, and modelling has also proved to be not very problematic at all, there has been a slight hiccup that, apparently, has plagued a couple of other groups too. The metrics and measurement scaling in 3DS Max and Unreal apprently differ- meaning the models, scale wise, are all over the place when put in engine.

This isn't a huge problem, but it has resulted in a couple of us having to rescale and tweak our models a little, including the lower bar for me. Again, not a huge problem, this was going to happen anyway so we were prepped, it's still a shame though. That said, at the time of writing everyone has started unwrapping and texturing their models, and we should be able to put stuff in engine for the final scene by next wednesday. Really excited, how this all comes together and how good it looks is going to be very interesting.

All my models have been completed as well, save for one. Just one. The Coca-Cola Bar tap/fountain.

I swear to God I've never had more trouble finding reference for something in my life that is so easily recognised and frequently seen. This one specific bar tap is something I see around all the time, and I thought finding references on google images should be easy, so I left it until last. This is the only reference:

I'm at the point where I hate this one image. I know what the thing looks like, I've been out to bars to find it and even gone to the sellers to find a good image of it, and nothing. It got to the point where I have literally been having dreams about fighting people in a pub to get to this one fountain so I can get reference pictures of it.

Today I gave up and modeled it by eye and memory, I'm sick of looking for reference and I'm falling behind the group. Worrying about it was silly.

On a happier note, I actually got to do some PBR and bitmapping this week. The process is still strange to me, but I had alot of fun messing around with the settings and creating weird, interesting textures. I'm looking forward to applying it to the film room project and really messing with the lighting and textures of objects, I find fascinating.

Other than that, pretty standard week, but I'm tired. I still haven't completely recovered from freshers flu and I can still feel a stinging in my nose as I write this. Maybe I'm pushing myself too hard.

Either way, I'm going to take it nice and slow this weekend.