Group Project Meeting

We had a group project meeting in which we created the following paragraphs together:

The aim of the project is to create a three-dimensional historical environment, centred around the Beverley Gate entrance to the city of Kingston Upon Hull, in April of the year 1642. The project is designed to showcase an interpretation of what the area immediately around the entrance would have looked like on the market day, several days before King Charles II attempted to enter the city, and was refused by Sir John Hotham. The environment is set around midday in order to demonstrate the hustle and bustle of the city on market day and to show some of the city’s preparations for its defence. We have a few various buildings in the level including market stalls, tavern, two blacksmiths, stables, brothel, bakery, butchers, tanners, guild hall, tailor, farm house and barn; as well as Beverley Gate itself and the city’s wall. We have used historical references where possible to re-create an accurate depiction of Beverley gate and the surrounding area. However creative license has been utilised due to the unfortunate lack of accurate physical evidence.

The environment will be created to be interactive, and will play as a game level. The environment will include a hidden object game where the player has to explore the environment in order to collect all of the objects, which reside on a list in the corner of the screen.

Ideally, we would like to present the project to the public using a combination of: pre-rendered video, virtual reality/360 degree video, and augmented reality. The pre-rendered video would be a fly through of the completed environment, as including the hardware to be able to utilise the environments interactive features would be impractical in a public space. The video will play on a computer monitor. We would also like to be able to render to video in 360 degree 3D, and use a QR code to allow people to download an app and watch it using a mobile VR headset like the Google Cardboard. We could also place the video on YouTube 360. We would like to use Augmented Reality to create an assembly game, where the user is required to physically interact with cards on a table top to recreate the environment as we have created it in the video. At minimum, we would like to be able to create the Pre-rendered video and the 360 VR video. Our intention is to engage, inform and inspire in the year of city of culture. We wish to demonstrate to the public, both local and tourists, the city’s heritage, allowing them to connect with a part of history that is usually not widely seen by or known by the general populace.

Unwrapping

The first thing I did once I had opened my barn was add a unwrap UVW modifier, which allowed me to create a UV unwrap.

I then selected all the polygons in the workspace and clicked the ‘flatten mapping’ option in order to separate all the polygons.

The next thing I did was attach the front of the building to one of the sides of the building. I did this by using the line selection tool to select the side edge of the buildings front face. This allowed me to see where the selected edge was attached to the other edges in the UV unwrap workspace. I then rotated the front of the building and the side of the building that I wished to attach to it so that the selected edge and the edge highlighted in blue were next to each other.

I then moved the two elements together so that the selected edge was lined up as best as possible. I then selected both edges and used the stitch to average button which stitched the two pieces together.

I placed the objects on the outside of the working area so that I could stitch the pieces together however it does not recognise anything off the small working area.

I then used the break tool to unstitch the seam however I decided to undo what I did and go back in case the stitch average tool had distorted the shape of the polygons.

So I sorted it out by re-arranging all the polygons and placing them underneath the last stitched pieces that I made.

I then unwrapped my roof, however there wasn’t anything that I had to change as everything was laid out fine in the workspace.

I attempted to unwrap the large door on the front of the barn however when I flattened the mapping the UVW modifier scaled the polygons to the wrong size.

This is when I re-sized the front of the door and attached the two sides onto it.

This is the finished unwrap for the large door.

This is the unwrap for the door, I had no problems with this, I simply put everything in it’s place, stitched the seams and shrunk it slightly to fit on the workspace.

This is the door handle map, and I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t aligned properly, however I used the straighten selection tool to straighten the polygon.

I had to remember to first attach all the pieces of the house together before I could use a UVW unwrap.

Bible Research And Design

We came up with a small list of objects to make as a group for the game play option. As part of a group we sat down and decided who would do tasks, I was given the Bible as they were fairly Religious back then and felt that this would be something that fitted in with the era that we were doing.

There are many variations of the Bible. Different Bible’s brought out at different times.

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The Holy Bible is one of the most common Bibles now however you also have Bibles such as the ESV Bible and NIV Bible which vary on translations used.

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There is also the Catholic Bible which has extra parts in it due to them celebrating more Holidays and worshipping differently than other Christians with Feast Days and praying and reading certain parts of the text at certain times.

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However for the purposes of the game I felt that the more simple the Bible looked the better that it would fit into the game due to things probably not looking brand new. It is likely that everything they would have had back then would have been used over and over, allot like today. The Tyndale Bible was the first ever Bible to be translated into English. However it was illegal to translate it into English back then so William Tyndale then faced charges and was executed even though he simply wanted to help people read or listen to the book being read in a language that they understood more fully.

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King Henry the eight wanted every church to have it’s own Bible and made the effort to translate a copy into English so that this could happen. One of the main reasons behind this was so that he could place himself in a state of authority over the Church Of England. It was the first Bible that had a coloured title page and wasn’t available to the general public.

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One of the reasons that the Civil War broke out was over the sectors of Christianity. Many of the people who lived in Hull would have been either Protestant or Church Of England. So the Bible I chose to do was the King James Bible because it was the first copy available to the general public. King James who translated it also abolished the death penalty for those who wished to translate it from Latin into English.

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King James Bible:

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I created a box and changed the number of height segments from one to five and the number of width segments from one to two. I then made the object into an editable poly and selected the line tool and moved the line in the middle of the books front cover towards the left side of the object. After that I used the vertex selection tool to move the vertices on the left hand side of the model to the left slightly to create a curved spine. Finally I selected the central three polygons on the other three sides of the object, extruded them by zero centimetres, and used the scale tool to scale them in slightly and create the pages.

 

 

Collectible Objects

We need objects for people to find in the games, that means that each person needs to make one object each. We decided to name the ‘task’ list a shopping list because we thought it suited the fact that we go around shopping in a market. Here is a list of objects that I came up with:

-Bible

-Bread

-Small bag

-Dagger

-Flask/Flaggon

-Apple

-A block of cheese

-Shoes

-Hammer

-Meat produce

-Horsshoe

-Reins for horses

-Harness for horse

-Cannonballs

-Bandages

Laura:
I set the task of making a hammer as she was not bothered about a particular object, she simply wanted something challenging.

Dom:
I set Dom the task of making a small bag as he was not to bothered about the object given.

Joel:
I set Joel the task of making the dagger as that was what he wanted specifically.

Mark:
I set Mark the task of making shoes.

Henry:
I set Henry the task of making a harness for a horse.

Kelly:
I gave myself the task of making the bible.

Reflection

Up to now I have created two buildings almost completely, barring textures for them both and beams for the farm house. I volunteered to make all of them, going for designs that would help push me further due to my lack of ability to design three dimensional models. I am happy with the way my buildings have turned out due to the fact that I can see a noted improvement in the way I create them. I’m still pretty slow as I struggle to make them but the overall end product looks better than they did in second year.

I did use a bit of google sketch up after I had drawn and designed all the buildings to get a feel for modelling once again. This worked in my favour as I found it very difficult to visualize how to create something in a digital space as well as using the right tools to be able to get the desired result. This allowed me to have a play around with the software and build up on the skills I had learnt in first year, to visualize my building in a 3 dimensional space more effectively.

I also volunteered to create some objects, and asked to be the researcher for the group. When someone wanted something researching, such as door handles in the time period the gate is set it, I looked it up. I also took reference of trees that would have been around that era, choosing the ???? due to it’s darkened wood as we thought it would make sense if they used the trees around the area they had to make buildings and other wooden products so tried to pick a darkened tone of wood as that is the predominant colour of choice for buildings that we found.

I have also had experience with UV4, placing my building into it. We found that we had problems with importing the building at first, for unknown reasons. Then our tutor Paul finally managed to import it, still with no real idea with what I had done at this point. There was then the problem of placing it together and it took another two imports into the program to get my building to look correct.

Creating A Barn

Barn’s back then were known as long houses, and they didn’t just shelter animals like barns do today. Back then they split the barn in half using one half as a home and the other as a place to keep their animals. However I used a bit of creative licence as and took out the doors for the animals, replacing them with simple standard doors.

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This was the basic outline of my building. I started with a box and used the line tool to extend the building outwards.

The roof went on first, and I used the box tool, flattened the object and then placed them on top, copying the one side and manipulating the vertices to connect it together.

I then figured that the roof looked a bit weird being so flat, and asked one of my teammates and he agreed with me. I took steps to make it a bit thicker than my drawing, altering it slightly as it looks much more different in a 3D space. I also managed to slant the roof my selecting all the long edges, connecting them together with the connect tool and offset it from the centre by 60 units and deleted all the bottom vertices as the roof was far too long.

I created a box for the door, realising that it was much too small, so had to increase the size of the door. I also found out that the building was slightly smaller then what we were going for so I increased the size of that too, making sure the door was in proportion to the building. (You can see it’s much bigger then on the previous screenshot).

After sorting out the size of my building and door, I used the spare box I had created earlier to make a window shape ready for the texture to be placed on top of it.

Of course the roof needed to be increased in size after that too, but once that was upped slightly (using the scale tool) I placed it on top, ready for it to be textured as the beams appear to be flat on the surface so it would make sense to include them in a texture.

Modular Building

Demonstrated by Paul

-modular Workflow

-Get reference shots (Not off Goggle Earth)

-Open Photoshop

-Do not need to model windowsills modually. Do it all in one piece.

-(Photoshop)
New layer, polygon lasso tool or box tool, start drawing out the modular components to section to take it into 3DS Max

-Drop the opacity to see what is behind it.

-Photoshop
Do sections of buildings- You can even pop the window in the wall still you just model it all as one. (Save once done)

-Occlusion culling-it doesn’t measure or render what it doesn’t see, until the player/camera does not see.

-Click to see the file size

-3DS Max
Length and Width has to be the same as the dimensions of the photo, not unless you have an actual scale.
Drag the image onto the building and it will apply it. Right click and go to object properties, set to freeze, turn off frozen to grey. Turn on backface cull.
-CONFIGURE VIEW PORTS, DISPLAY PERFORMANCE, RENDERING MODE SET TO REALISTIC MATERIALS WITH MAPS,
-Start with box going over half way, (material editer, make your own transparent material) add editable poly within the list,

Create and archway
-snap button turn on vertices, and constrain to axis,
-turn to editable spline through modifier list

Cut arch out of cube
-create a cyldinder that is tall and then put into box, editable poly, select vertices, delete bottom half of cylinderpitch tools, bridge tool, click between the points, make it longer than the object, compound objects, obiliun, subtract, start pick, pick the shape, although the geometry is messed up afterwards so you then repair the shape

(concaved-goes in think of caves as they go in, convexed-shape goes out)

-Mirror windows, only make half of them.

-ALWAYS COULD LOOK AT MAKING WINDOW PANES AT A TEXTURE.

-CYLINDER STARTS AN ARCH, EDITABLE POLY, INSET TOOL, BRIDGE, VERTEX, DELETE WHAT YOU DON’T NEED. EXRUDE TO ZERO, DROP DOWN, POLYGON SELECT, EXTRUDE ACROSS,

Scene undo- up it.

Turn auto save to every 60 mins.

Use Grid snap.

Assett List

-Barrels

-Carts

-Canons

-Crates

-Hay

-Troughs (Horses)

-Boxes

-Sacks (army-sausages)

-Jars and Pots (stalls)

-Shops (cart types/market stalls & permanent)

-Fences

-Torches

-Trees

-Mud

-Grass

-Poo

-Masks (Plague)

-Herbs

-Chairs

-Railings

-Scaffholding

-Fences (small garden types, et.)

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Planning

Horses-Keep their head down so that you don’t necessarily have to animate them

Trees: Certain trees did not exist in Britain, some of the ones we see and know today where brought over here in later era’s. The tree that we decided to use was black walnut trees due to the fact that the wood was dark and they would have used the trees around the area to make the houses and other buildings.

Doors: Smaller doors to help keep the heat (they used them for insulation)

Ship Building: Good carpenters, so much so that we had so many they had them building houses. Also include buildings from previous eras, and make them look old. They will still exist at that point.

Hospital: Small courtyard, two to three floors, old grammar school was once a hospital.

Plague Houses: They separated the well from the sick. (Pest Houses)

Have the doctors mask and robes in a small pile.

rfgrfgrf

Black Walnut Tree- Link:

Wood of the tree- Link:

A image of the Plague

These houses are possibly where they housed the sick as they do appear to be sectioned off from the people who were not infected. Link: (Hessle Road)

A selection of images demonstrating the plague- Link:

Bastion-Type of fort, done in the shape of a star.

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The Plague

There was a plague shortly before our game is set to take place, and we thought it would be worth a look at just in case we thought we could maybe use anything from it, or if it would effect the way everything and everyone would have looked.

3The plague wipes out thousands of lives

The plague had visited Hull before. In 1478, more than 1,500 people died. A century later, another virulent spell saw Blackfriargate, where the sickness was centred, walled up to prevent its spread. All this paled in comparison with the outbreak of 1635, when the whole town was placed in quarantine. The sickness held sway for three years and grass grew in the deserted streets. The town gates were shut, with watchmen receiving provisions. More than 2,700 people were known to have died in Hull, with a similar number said to have died after fleeing to the countryside. By its end, the plague had wiped out half of Hull’s population.
Read more at http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/hull-s-horrible-history-grisly-events-plague/story-26425533-detail/story.html#6FrPfCQBBcjt0670.99

Link: Hull Daily Mail

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There were a few epidemics of the plague, one in 1537 and another in 1575. The council of Hull began to ban movement of ‘people, clothes, and household goods’ ( http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol1/pp90-171) the area around Blackfriargate due to it being the place worst hit by the plague. They fenced off the area and placed a door at each end of the fenced off area. The people in the affected area were told to only leave at specific times to take out rubbish to a set area so that someone could come along and transport the infected goods off to the river to be chucked in and disposed of that way.  If a person did recover from the plague they were told to thoroughly clean the house but stay away from groups of people just in case. They did appoint a doctor to take care of those infected with the illness, and he came from York. Between the times of fifteen seventy five and fifteen seventy six at least three hundred and twenty two people were buried in hull, which is a huge comparison to the one hundred and ten people buried in the couple of years leading up to that. The population of hull was mostly effected around the Holy Trinity Parish which was where the centre of the outbreak of the plague was.

In 1602 Hull was once again suffering from an outbreak of the plague which lasted for around two years. They built what they called ‘pest houses’ to move the sick to in the area of Myton Carr. Over two hundred people died in 1602 which was double the number of people for around that time, with one hundred and eighty five deaths being recorded in 1603. Once again they tried to minimize the spread of the pandemic by limiting movement of goods and cutting the ships and sailors from other places which were known to be carrying the disease at that time.

During the sixteen twenties the city had watchmen that stopped people from just walking in, instead making sure that those that entered hull had not come from any place that may be infected. During the time between sixteen thirty and sixteen thirty one however heavier prevention was underway such as not allowing ships from London and France directly into Hull nor could anyone from York simply enter the city, rather they had to have a certificate awarded to them by the mayor stating that they were well. One house in Whitefriargate had been ‘shut up’ (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol1/pp90-171) because someone had been able to get through undetected when they had come from a heavily infected area. They added more watchmen and cancelled hull fair, and all these preventions probably helped Hull escape a heavier death toll. Measures similar to these continued until January in sixteen thirty five when the epidemic had clamed down around the county.

1637

Come July sixteen thirty seven Hull had been infected by the plague once again even though there had been preventtions taken. This time however the first area was around Mytongate and began to spread quite rapidly to other parts of the town that lay West. Another lot of pest houses were built in Myton Carr alongside a house which was used for purely storing food and any other necessities, with two males that were set the task of taking care of those infected and burying those who unfortunately did not make it. There was no real celebration allowed even at births and weddings, as well as drinking at ale houses being frowned upon. There were no more classes for children and the daily church services were cut. In the month of August the market was cancelled and another market was started on the ‘Drypool side of the River Hull’ (http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol1/pp90-171) which carried on running until June in sixteen thirty eight. In September of that year it was revealed that around two hundred people had passed away since July, and even though the death toll was so high there wasn’t anyone infected along the river side, nor was any merchants affected. The council successfully reinstated trading with hull due to this, and a cleanser went around from house to house deep cleaning all houses that were affected. Some of the townspeople were also allowed to leave the pest houses and come home to. Other restrictions were placed on the town when the plague started to spread again. More pest houses were built and they removed all pigs from the city to improve health conditions for those in the town. Quite a few of the people were placed in lock down, including the mayor and aldermen at the castle so they did not become infected.

During the first half of the year in sixteen thirty eight there was even more effort enforced in controlling the spread of the plague. The sick were to be confined and isolated and children were ordered by their parents not to gather together even for play. Instead of just leaving the pest houses to themselves measures were put in place to clean them and fresh water brought to them even more so than previous. No one was allowed to beg and any rubbish that came from house that were infected with the plague were taken quickly to the river to be thrown in. In the month of June small gatherings for families were allowed however classes were still not allowed for a while longer, with other social gatherings and restrictions slowly but surely lifted bit by bit. Those that were given the job of cleansers were not relieved of the job until the month of September. Church services were allowed to be held around November. In sixteen thirty seven there were around seven hundred and seventy  people pronounced dead. After the plague outbreak had finally ended places surrounding hull helped provide food, materials and other necessities as well as money for the poorest.

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Links used:

http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/hull-s-horrible-history-grisly-events-plague/story-26425533-detail/story.html

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/yorks/east/vol1/pp90-171#fnn571