Level Design for Computer Games - Modpack creation and importing to Unreal

To resume transforming my level from a simple blockout into a fully formed level I needed to create modpacks for buildings. This began with figuring which pieces I would need to make a full building and for which building within my level the pieces would apply

To make my high class house, my modpack consists of 4 wall sections, a foundation segment to allow for the steps in front of the house to remain functional, and pillars to match the height of both the full wall section, and the foundation height also.

• 1x Wall - 400x400 units
• 1x Windowed Wall - 400x400 units
• 1x Wall with Doorway - 400x400 units
• 1x Half width wall - 200x400 units.
• 1x Pillar - 100x400x100 units: applicable to corner of house
• 1x Foundation wall - 400x100 units
• 1x Half width foundation wall - 200x100 units
• 1x Foundation pillar - 100x100x100 units: again applicable to corners.

I constructed my meshes in Maya, followed by the UVing and light mapping process and then exporting each piece with the pivot point snapped appropriately and centred in the world. These were all saved out into a named folder within my file structure.

To note, the half wall sections are used in conjunction with pillars mostly, to avoid any occurrences of texture seams as the texture, whilst tileable, still presents some errors when spread across a half width wall, even with Texture Coordinated nodes in place within the material editor. I have also left the roof flat for the time being, with an eye to maybe change this in the future, dependent on design decisions.

I then applied the same processes to my second and third building with some slight differences, for the second building I required a lower window than the third, however all the other pieces were relatively re-usable for the current pass with this unit. I felt this was an acceptable sacrifice for the necessity of speed with the deadline approaching within this unit.

I created the appropriate meshes again, with the slight differences mentioned, UV'd and lightmapped them, followed with the export process again, this finished roughly three buildings worth of modelling.

I could have spent more time and put more detail into each individual piece, though I don't feel I would have physically gotten much more out of the meshes without pushing too close to my deadline maybe a little too much.

If I get more time to develop further on my models at this point, it will be largely focused on the smaller pieces of my modpack, the chairs, tables and most notably the fountain/statue at the focal point of my courtyard area, as with an eye to a final end product, I would ultimately like this to draw the eye more upon entry to the town.

For now however, I am relatively happy with the point at which my modpack stands. I am aware I may still have some work to do to improve the meshes as and where necessary, but as this will inevitably run over the deadline, this will now become a future aim to keep on improving my level.

A shot of my high class house can be seen below in modpack form;