{"id":1005,"date":"2025-04-13T13:41:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T05:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.admiralspee.site\/?p=1005"},"modified":"2025-05-16T14:18:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T06:18:45","slug":"%e5%ad%a6%e4%b8%9a%e8%a1%8c%e8%bf%b9-%e5%bb%ba%e6%a8%a1%e4%b8%8e%e5%8a%a8%e7%94%bb%ef%bc%882%ef%bc%89%e9%a1%b9%e7%9b%ae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.admiralspee.site\/en\/archives\/1005","title":{"rendered":"Academic Traces | Modeling and Animation 2 Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I created a train station scene for coursework, the main assets of which include: a locomotive, three different interior coaches, and a large train station building. It was inspired by a game, but unlike the game's complete fantasy style, I used a combination of reality and fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, P.R.China - June 14, 2009: China Railways DF4D Diesel Locomotive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Astral Express in Honkai: StarRail<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Process<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I referenced both the models that exist in reality and the locomotives in the game for the design of the train locomotives. As you can see the locomotive in the game is a combination of a steam locomotive and a revolver, resulting in a simple steampunk style effect. My design was to replace one of the steam locomotives with a diesel locomotive. So I modelled the locomotive as it exists in reality and then added revolvers and steampunk related parts on top of that to get close to the effect in the game.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The realistic reference I chose was the Chinese DF4D diesel locomotive. Firstly because I am familiar with it, and secondly because it is easier to model as it has a more square shape. In addition, its shape is very symmetrical on the left, right, front and rear. So I modelled a quarter of the shell and then mirrored it once based on the z-axis to get the front half of the shell. The second half was used to add the revolver parts.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since I can't draw designs and I don't have any proper reference pictures, I present and adjust my design directly through the basic squares and columns for the second half of the model. The bogie is more complicated, so I extended the bogie of the train model I made before, which can save time.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In the second half of the refinement, I made the original squares and columns into the classic magazine structure of a revolver, and added the pipe structure common in steampunk.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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In order to utilise the mapping space to the maximum extent possible, I removed all duplicates when splitting the uv's. This also includes duplicates in models with symmetrical structures. After splitting the UV's they are then filled in by mirroring or duplicating them. This part can actually be further optimised, for example by removing some faces that are not exposed. I did remove a small number of such faces, but not enough thought was put into it and still a lot of faces were wasted.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The texture was painted in Substance Painter. The colour scheme is the usual dark + gold colour scheme found in steampunk, plus some grey.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Since the game engine used later is UE5, I used the UE4 template when exporting the textures. Compared to the Arnold template, the UE4 template exports the Roughness and Metallic textures to the green and blue channels of the same texture, which not only reduces the number of textures, but also doesn't affect the use of the textures in Arnold.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

There is no fixed reference for the design of the coach. I have only referred to the actual coaches in terms of size, window layout and some details, while the overall appearance was imagined from my impression of classical train coaches. There are three types of coaches, two of which have exactly the same appearance, while the third has a partially identical appearance. So I divided the coach into two parts: inside and outside. The outside is the entire body (including various details on the outside and the interior walls on the inside), which will be reused in all three types of coaches. The inside is the various pieces of furniture, which will be made into separate modules so that they can be placed as needed in the game engine.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the locomotive, the coach is perfectly symmetrical in the x and z axes. So also only one quarter needs to be completed and then the whole is obtained by mirroring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I split the inner and outer surfaces of the coach body in order to make it easier to adjust them individually and to save space on the mapping. When splitting the UV, the inner surface was split by a quarter. The outer surfaces were split by halves, as I plan to draw text on the outer surfaces. If this were not a factor, the outer surfaces could have been split in quarters as well.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Then various details were added. The doors were not made together at this point because they needed to be made interactive later in the game engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to achieve visual uniformity, I tried to achieve a similar Texel density for all the parts when splitting the UV's. This density is not only uniform for this coach model, but also with other models such as locomotives and buildings. The texturing also ensures that the coach and locomotives are stylistically uniform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The second coach just adds some room dividers compared to the first. In the texture drawing there are some small modifications to the interior.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The third coach has had the rear structure and window layout adjusted, in addition to the addition of a divider. Some adjustments were also made to the UV's of the body, with the inner surfaces becoming split according to halves.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The interior furniture was designed to be reused as much as possible in different coaches. It includes five types of seats, three types of tables, two types of doors, five types of lamps, as well as curtains, cabinets and beds.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the models of furniture are small and take up very little space at the same Texel density. So all models of furniture can use the same texture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because the lights in maya are difficult to import into UE5, I only gave emission maps to the parts that need to glow when I made the lamps, and then added another light in UE5. But in order to render it in maya, I then duplicated the surface of the lamp that needed to be glowing and gave it Arnold's Mesh Light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The railway station building is referenced from King's Cross railway station. As there is a lot of repetition, the building part is also designed along the lines of modular patchwork. All the modules were made in base size of 50x50x50. Vault and Truss were made on the basis of a circle with a radius of 250.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Because they are larger and use more UV space at the same Texel density, more textures are used in the building part. To save space, where walls and Truss are split UVs by halves and columns are split UVs by quarters, Vault reuses duplicates.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

When painting the textures, I created a light yellow stone tile material for the walls similar to King's Cross. For the various frame parts an effect of steel with light green paint was used. The floors were mainly made of marble.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When importing the model in UE5, I merged the mesh bodies for the locomotive and coach separately so that I didn't have to manually merge them in maya ahead of time. The furniture part and the building part were not selected for merging.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Materials need to be made separately. Just import the texture into UE5 and connect the material to the corresponding texture. One part of this involves translucent materials, but models with translucent materials in UE5 can't render shadows. I didn't think of this problem at first, and only found it in UE5 at the end. But now it's hard to change the material again, so I had to change some of the translucent materials to opaque ones.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lamps are added with corresponding point or surface light sources in the blueprint. Because the lamps are replicated in large numbers in the scene, using the blueprint allows for uniform control without the need to manually adjust them one by one.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The last thing is to set up the individual models in the scene as envisioned. Since the default Directional Light is bright enough, there is no need to set up any other lights in the building.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Presentation Video<\/h2>\n\n\n\n