Creating

Games with
Unreal Engine,
Substance
Painter, & Maya
 Creating
Games with
Unreal ­Engine,
­Substance
­Painter, & Maya
Models, Textures,
­Animation, & Blueprint

Jingtian Li, K
­ assandra Arevalo, and
Matthew Tovar
First edition published 2021
by CRC Press
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and by CRC Press

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 To our amazing colleagues, supportive family,
and my beautiful fiancée Tong.

– Jingtian Li

To my family and colleagues. Thank you for all the support.

– Kassandra Arevalo

Dedication to my parents, Alejandra & Manuel Tovar.

– Matthew Tovar
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

Chapter 1: Maya Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Basics of Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
What is a 3D Model?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Translation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Anatomy of a Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Edge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Face . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
Object Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Normal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Modeling Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Polycount. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6
Size and Proportion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Basics of Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Tutorial 1.1: Modeling a Security Camera . . . . .7
Other Useful Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Grow and Shrink Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Extract Faces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Combine and Separate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Create Cables or Pipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Extrude Along a Curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Duplicate, Duplicate with Transform . . . . . . . 38
Duplicate Special. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Mirror. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Center Pivot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Change Pivot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Snapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Hide Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
View Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Assignments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
Geometry Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

vii
 Tutorial 1.2: Modular Set Pieces . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Grid. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Create a Base Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Chapter 2: Maya Set UV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

The UV Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
UV Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
UV Tiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Cut UV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
UV the Floor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Texel Density. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Chose the Right Texel Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
UV the Pod. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Chapter 3: Set Texturing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

PBR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Tutorial 3.1: Texturing Modular Pieces . . . . . . 93
The Substance Painter UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Light Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Ambient Occlusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
PBR Material Channels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Generators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Assignment: Texturing the Rest of the
Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Chapter 4: Level Asset Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Game Engines. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Unreal Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Tutorial 4.1: Get Unreal Engine 4 and
Visual Studio Up and Running . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Visual Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
UI of the Unreal Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Tutorial 4.2: Export Our Assets to
Unreal and Build Our Material . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

viii
 The Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Color R, G, B, A Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Material Instance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Tutorial 4.3: Set up a Test Hallway . . . . . . . . . 157
Tutorial 4.4: Create Parameters for
Our Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Chapter 5: Level Creation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Tutorial 5.1: Create the Interior of
Our Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Tutorial 5.2: Create the Landscape of
Our Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
The Quixel Megascan Ecosystem . . . . . . . . . 224
Tutorial 5.3: Set Up Quixel Bridge . . . . . . . . . 224
Tutorial 5.4: Create the Landscape
Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Material Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Tutorial 5.5: Place 3D Assets on the
Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Chapter 6: Lighting and Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Baking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Lightmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Lightmap UV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Lightmap Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Lightmap Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Volumetric Lightmaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
Mobility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
Tutorial 6.1: Optimize the Lightmap
Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Lightmass Importance Volumes . . . . . . . . . . 253
Lower Down Baking Quality for Quick
Iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
Tutorial 6.2: Adjust Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
Tutorial 6.3: Add Post Processing and
Other Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Post Process Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

ix
 Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Chapter 7: Character Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265

Concept Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Style Sheets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Polycount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Setting Up Image Plane in Maya . . . . . . . . . . 267
Eyeball. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
Create the Eyelids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
Create the Eye Socket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Forehead and Nose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Mouth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Rest of the Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
Ear. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286
Neck . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Internal Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Body. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Hairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Weapon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314
Final Clean Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Chapter 8: UV Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

UV Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Tutorial 8.1: Character UV Mapping . . . . . . . 322
Mesh Inspection and Cleanup . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Body UV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Eye UV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Hair UV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Garment UV. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Chapter 9: Character Texture Painting. . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Skin Texturing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Hair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
Eye . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Upper Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362
Pants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370
Belts, Straps, Pockets, Holster, and Boots. . . 375

x
   Gloves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
  Watch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
  Gun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
  Other Details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
  Export Textures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
  Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389

Chapter 10: Rigging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Joint Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
Joint Placement—Hip, Spine, Neck,
and Head . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Tutorial 10.1: Create the Joint Chain for
Our Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
World Joint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Joint Placement—Left Arm . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Joint Setup—Right Arm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
Joint Setup—Legs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
Foot Roll Rig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
Setting Up the Foot Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . 412
Tutorial 10.2: Bind and Paint Skin
Weighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
Painting Skin Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
Mirroring the Skin Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
Copying the Skin Weights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420
Tutorial 10.3: Set Up Arm Controls . . . . . . . 422
Constrains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
IK Arm Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425
Tutorial 10.4: F inger Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
Tutorial 10.5: Clavicle and
Body Controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
Gun Joint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
Final Hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Chapter 11:  FPS Animation in Maya . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

FPS Animation Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
Referencing the Character Rig . . . . . . . . . . . 436
Save Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Display Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
Camera Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Game Animations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442
Creating a Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

xi
 Weapon Movement Simplified . . . . . . . . . . 444
Two-Handed Weapon Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Idle Animation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
Cleaning Up Odd Jitters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450
Ease-In’s and Ease-Out’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Graph Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
Keywords Aside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Attack Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
Walk Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
“Got Caught” Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456
Keywords Aside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
Reload Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460
Considerations and Conclusion . . . . . . . . . 462

Chapter 12: Unreal Character Asset Creation. . . . . . 463

Tutorial 12.1: Character Asset Import . . . . 464
Skeletal Mesh, Skeleton, and
Physics Asset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Subsurface Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470
Tutorial 12.2: Export FPS Animations . . . . 473
Bake Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
Tutorial 12.3: Motion Captured Data. . . . . 476
Tutorial 12.4: Animation Retargeting . . . . 480
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Chapter 13: Basics of Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Relevant Programming Languages
(From Hard to Easy) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
C#. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Python. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Blueprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Tutorial 13.1: Create an UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
Event Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
Execution Pin and the Order of
Execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
GameMode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495
Machine Code, Source Code, and
Compiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

xii
 Tutorial 13.2: Refactoring Our Load
Level Mechanic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Variable Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
Built-In Variable Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502
Custom Variable Types. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
Tutorial 13.3: Make a Sliding Door Class. . . 505
Parent Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506
Character. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510
Collision. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
Casting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

Chapter 14: Player Character. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Tutorial 14.1: Create the First-Person
Shooter Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 528
Pawn and Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529
Roll, Yaw, Pitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
PlayerController . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536
AIController . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
Tutorial 14.2: Set Up the Animation. . . . . . 539
Animation Blueprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Event Graph. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540
Animation Graph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
Vector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
State Machine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
Game Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Player Controller/Controller/
AIController . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
Actor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Pawn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Character. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Skeletal Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Animation Blueprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
Widget Blueprints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 550

Chapter 15: Weapons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Tutorial 15.1: Create a Base Weapon
Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

xiii
 Socket. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554
Owner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Instigator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557
Persona . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563
Animation Montage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
Comment Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577
Tutorial 15.2: Weapon Attack
Cooldowns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
Enumeration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582
Tutorial 15.3: Weapon Damage . . . . . . . . . . 586
Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587
Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 588
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Chapter 16: Health and Damage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615

Tutorial 16.1: Create a Health
Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
Actor Component . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
Tutorial 16.2: Character Hit and Death . . . 621
Tutorial 16.3: Health Regeneration . . . . . . 629
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Chapter 17: Inventory and UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Tutorial 17.1: Weapon Pickup . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
Tutorial 17.2: Weapon Switching. . . . . . . . . 642
Tutorial 17.3: Create the In-Game
Weapon UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Widget Switcher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Canvas Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
Anchors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
Alignment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654
Tutorial 17.4: Create the Health Bar . . . . . . 663
Tutorial 17.5: Create the Pause and
Game Over UI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
Assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

Chapter 18: Security Camera. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Tutorial 18.1: Implement an AISeer
in C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682
The Header and the Source File . . . . . . . . . 687

xiv
 Tutorial 18.2: Create the Blueprint
Version of AISeer by Inheriting from
the C++ Version. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694
Tutorial 18.3: Create a Security Camera . . . 699
Tutorial 18.4: Create a BP_Monitor
Class that Shows What the
Camera Sees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710
Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Chapter 19: Patrolling AI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717

Tutorial 1: Create the Patrol
AI Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718
Tutorial 2: Create AI Controller and
Behavior Tree for the Patrol AI. . . . . . . . . . . 725
Blackboard and Behavior Tree. . . . . . . . . . . 725
Cache Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749

Chapter 20: Boss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Tutorial 20.1: Create the Boss Class . . . . . . 752
Tutorial 20.2: Boss Attack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 757
Tutorial 20.3: Boss Death and Winning. . . 763
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Chapter 21: Audio and VFX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769

Tutorial 21.1: Add Audio to the Game . . . . 770
Tutorial 21.2: Add Extra VFX to
the Game . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 783

Chapter 22: Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 785

Tutorial 22.1: Package the Game for
Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 786
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 790

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 793

xv
Acknowledgments
It takes the effort and support of many people to finish
a book like this. We would like to say special thanks to
everyone who contributed to this book.

First, many thanks to my most supportive mentor and

colleague Adam Watkins. This book becomes much more
organized, precise, and informative than it would be
without his guidance.

Also, thanks to our Matthew Tovar and Kassandra Arevalo

for writing the fantastic rigging and animation chapters;
this book would not be complete without their effort.

Finally, special thanks to my amazing sister, Rui, and many

other family members of our team. Your support has been
of enormous help.

xvii
Authors
Jingtian Li i s a graduate of China’s Central Academy of
Fine Arts and New York’s School of Visual Arts, where
he earned an MFA in Computer Art. He currently is an
Assistant Professor of 3D Animation & Game Design at the
University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas.

Kassandra Arevalo is an instructor of 3D Animation &

Game Design at the University of the Incarnate Word in
San Antonio, Texas. She previously worked as an animator
at Immersed Games.

Matthew Tovar is an industry veteran animator. He

has worked at Naughty Dog, Infinity Ward, and Sony
Interactive on such games as The Last of Us, Call of Duty:
Modern Warfare, and, most recently, Marvel’s Avengers
with Crystal Dynamics. He is an Assistant Professor of
3D Animation at the University of the Incarnate Word in
San Antonio, Texas.

xix
Introduction
Making a game of their own is always the dream of many
people since they are teenagers. As new technology
emerges, that dream becomes more and more accessible
each year. There is an exponential growth of game
releases over the past decade. About 10,000 games were
released on Steam in 2019, and around 1000 games per
day were released on mobile devices.

One of the reasons that more games are coming out is

because there are more and better tools to make them.
With the release of free game engines like Unreal Engine
and Unity, to name a few, start making games is within
the reach of everyone. The competition between the
game engine developers pushes them to implement
new features every year, and we have seen a burst of
improvements to the tools.

Outside of the game engines, new developments are

happening in every corner of the game industry. Softwares
like the Substance Suite solve the texturing process in
innovative ways. Newer generations of hardware like
Nvidia RTX and Playstation 5 push realtime rendering to
new heights. And new categories of devices like Oculus
Rift, Steam VR, and Microsoft Hololens are pioneering new
user experiences. To add on top of that, services like Quixel
Megascan and Adobe Mixamo are providing libraries of
reusable assets that significantly improve productivity.

It is the best time than ever for anyone who wants to dip
into a game development journey. However, making a
game is never an easy task. It requires all kinds of talents
to put together a working game that has amazing visuals,
engaging gameplay, immersive audio, and an overall
well-balanced system. There are many sources where you
can learn different ingredients of game development, but
only fewer sources explain the whole recipe. This book is
dedicated to cover the entire process of making a game,
from making assets to programming, and all the way to
package a complete game.

xxi
Who’s It For?
This book is designed for beginners who want to start their
game development journey and are unsure where to start
and which direction to go. As a reader, you are going to
jump into a well-organized learning track that guides you
through all aspects of game development. It also shields
you from noises and focuses on the fundamentals, which
gives you a solid foundation and is able to branch out to
nitty-gritty details without losing the whole picture.

For any game enthusiasts or students, this book is a

perfect fit to get started with game development. For
teachers, this book offers a well-structured solution for
your curriculum. For anyone who wants to utilize the
game engine for interactive products, this book covers the
skill you need extensively as well.

What Does this Book Cover?

This book covers all aspects of game development that
includes but not limited to:

Environment Modeling
Environment modeling is the process of making 3D
models for environments. We are going to cover what is a
3D model, how to make them, and how to optimize them
for your game.

Character Modeling
Character modeling is the process of making 3D
characters. We will cover how to approach organic shapes
with additional modeling methods.

UV Mapping
We are going to learn how to create a 2D coordinate of a
3D model to map textures to the model. The process we
call UV Mapping.

xxii
Texturing
Texturing is the process of defining the color and all other
aspects of the appearance of the model.

Rigging
Rigging is a technical skill to add skeleton and controllers
to animate the character.

Character Animation
We are going to cover the techniques and theories to
animate characters.

Game Engine Lighting and Baking

We are going to practice workflows on lighting an
environment, which includes how lights work in the game
engine, and technical details of baking the lighting.

Game Programming
We are going to cover programming languages, theory,
and practices to create gameplay.

We will also explore audio and VFX solutions and many

other small details you need to know to create a game.
At the end of this book, you should have everything
you need under your belt to start making your next
awesome game!

Final Notes
It is critical to point out that game development is
time-consuming. Please dedicate your energy and time
to the learning process, and don’t easily give up on any
obstacles. With the internet at your fingertip, you can find
solutions for just about anything.

It is also important to acknowledge that tools change

all the time, and you should always learn new stuff and

xxiii
explore new ideas. Please take away the theories we cover
in this book, but don’t be religious of the tools we use.

Alrighty, we know you are tired of reading introductions,

and many people jump over it. It is time that we start this
fantastic journey and start making some awesome games!

Jingtian Li
May 9, 2020
San Antonio, TX, USA

xxiv
 CHAPTER 1

Maya Modeling

We will jump into the production by discussing modeling.

3D models are the foundation of the graphics of modern
games. They encompass the environment and characters
you see on the screen. An eye-catching visual is one of the
key components for a game to succeed. In this chapter, we
will discuss in detail about how they are built.

Basics of Navigation
Autodesk Maya will be our tool of choice for modeling.
It is not the best modeling tool on the market, but it is the
most used over the entire production pipeline, especially

1
 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.1 Maya’s user interface. The origin is the area at the center of the grid.

for animation. So, let us get Maya up and running on your

machine. The UI (user interface) will look like Figure 1.1.
The large region in the middle of the UI is the viewport;
this is where we see our models. It is currently empty,
with just a grid in the middle to indicate the center of the
world. The center of this grid is called the origin.

To Navigate around the viewport, hold down Alt key and

drag the left-mouse button to look around the viewport.
To zoom in and out, hold down the Alt key and drag the
right-mouse button. To pan left and right, hold down the
Alt key and drag the middle-mouse button.

A 3D space has width, height, and depth, each

represented on three axes called the X, Y, and Z axes.
The lower left corner of the viewport shows the directions
of these axes.

Rendering
The shape is drawn by the Graphic API, but the lighting is
calculated by the Fragment Shader written by the game
engine programmer. It is a complicated process, and we
do not have to understand the details and math behind it.
It is enough to know that the renderer is the tool drawing

2
 Maya Modeling

whatever you see on screen. Maya’s interactive renderer

(that shows you what is currently in your scene) is called
Viewport 2.0.

What is a 3D Model?
In the menus, go to Create->Polygon Primitives->Plane.
This will create a shape in the middle of the viewport.
On the right side of the UI, look for the Channel Box.
This is a brief list of essential attributes we can tweak
for the object. Under the INPUTS section, click on the
polyPlane1 to open it and change the Subdivisions Width
and Subdivisions Height to 1 to make the plane only one
polygon (sometimes called a “face”).

What we are seeing now is the building block of any

model – a face with four corners that we typically call a
rectangle in geometry classes; in 3D graphic terms, we call
this a quad. Any complicated shape can be composed by
assembling many quads together to create 3D forms.

Translation
On the right side of the UI, there is a column of
manipulation tools. You can try and use the Q, W, E, and
R buttons to switch between these tools: Q for the select
tool, W for the move tool, E for the rotation tool, R for the
scale tool.

To select the model, simply left-click on it or drag a

selection box over it. To deselect the model, click in the
empty space, or hold down Ctrl and click on the model,
or drag a selection box over it.

To move the model, after selecting it, hit the W button.

This will display new handles (called gizmos) that will
allow you to move the object. Try dragging the various
arrows to move it only along a particular axis. Look
carefully at the gizmo, and you will see squares that can
be dragged to move it along two axes at the same time;
you can even drag the cyan square in the middle to move
it freely along all axes in the 3D space.

3
Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

To rotate the model, after selecting it, hit the E button,

drag the circles on the gizmo to rotate it around different
axes. You can also drag the yellow one on the outside to
rotate it around a plane that is perpendicular to the angle
of the viewport.

To scale the model, hit the R button, and drag the various
boxes to scale it along their respective axes. You can also
drag the various squares to scale it along two axes at the
same time; you can even drag the yellow box in the middle
to scale it up along all axes, essentially making it bigger.

There are more tricks about this sort of manipulation that

we will cover later on when we jump into modeling.

Anatomy of a Model
Edge
Hold down the right mouse button on the model, and you
will see a pop-up menu we call a Marking Menu. Here, we
can see various parts of the form we can switch to. With
the marking menu active, slide up and chose Edge; the
four edges around the face now appear to be in a lighter
blue color. You can click on any of the edges to select
them. When an edge is selected, it will be highlighted
with orange color. Once selected, you can change to the
Move tool (hit W on the keyboard) and drag the three
arrows to move the edge along the respective direction.

Vertex
You can also hold the right mouse button again and chose
Vertex. Four purple points will show up on the corner of
this face. These are the vertices where edges meet. You
can click to select any of them and move them around just
like how you can move an edge.

Face
Hold down the right mouse button again and chose Face;
you can now select the face and move it around as well.

4
 Maya Modeling

Edge, Vertex, and Face are the three important elements

of any 3D form’s polygons. We can add and tweak these
elements to create any shape we want.

Object Mode
Hold down the right mouse button again. This time, we
chose Object Mode. This will allow us to move the model
altogether. Object, Vertex, Edge, and Face are the primary
modes we keep switching between while making a
model.

Normal
Use the alt-left, -middle, and/or -right mouse drag to
rotate your camera to look at the bottom of the face.
You can see it appears to be black. Any face in 3D has
a front side and a back side. The front side will appear
normal, while the back side will be black or invisible
(depending on the rendering engine). Maya makes the
back of the face black in the default setting. To view
this, using the top menus find Display->Polygons->Face
Normals.

Press the Q button to switch to the select mode to get

rid of the Move tool handles. We can now see a green
line sticking out from the front face of the model. In
general, the front of the polygon should face outwards.
It is possible though to render both sides of the face.
Consider a situation like rendering a piece of paper. Here
we would definitely want both sides of the polygons seen,
but otherwise we want to avoid rendering both sides, if
possible, to avoid performance overhead. Since games
have to draw many frames each second, we want to
always ensure that we aren’t drawing anything we don’t
need to (Figure 1.2).

Modeling Rules
Before we start modeling anything, let’s talk about a few
important rules when modeling for games.

5
Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.2 The elements and normal direction of the quad.

Polycount
Each of those four-sided faces we looked at earlier
can be triangulated into two triangular polygons. We
typically use the number of triangles of a model as the
number for polycount, even we use quads to make
a model. The reason we use the number of triangles
instead of quads is because a triangle is guaranteed
to be a flat surface, while this is not guaranteed for a
geometric figure with more than three vertices. Thus,
the rendering process uses triangles as the basic
rendering unit. Fewer polygons means your game is
easier to run (less data); so find the balance of including
the needed number of polygons to describe a shape,
but not extras.

Topology
Topology is how the faces are laid out on the model.
Use quads if possible, because quads have a strong
sense of directionality and are easy to represent shape
evolution and deformation. We want the flow of the
quads to represent the change of the surface. Figure 1.3
shows how topology is critical for deforming a face. The
loops of faces around the orbicularis muscle, nasolabial
fold, and orbicularis oris create an essential structure
to support the facial expression. Long story short,
topology is for the purpose of better representing the
shape of the model and supporting the deformation for
animation.

6
 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.3 Effective topology (the flow of polygons) is critical to support the
deformation that will come later in animation.

Size and Proportion

Size is a critical aspect in 3D modeling, no matter how
detailed a model is. If the size or proportion is off, the
model will never look right. In Maya, the default unit is a
centimeter. This is the unit across many popular programs
including Maya, Unreal Engine, Blender, etc. Other
software, like Unity, use the meter as the default unit,
but converting between the two scales is an easy math.
One should always check sizes and dimensions to ensure
things will work with physics simulation, rendering, and
animation; for example, if you are modeling a staircase,
then you have to know that the general height of a stair
is around 18 cm and the depth is 28 cm. Converting to the
right scale as you move assets from Maya to your game
engine is trivial, but focus on building assets in Maya at
the correct scale for its unit size (centimeters by default).

Basics of Modeling
We will jump into modeling right away and introduce
various tools along the way. Keep in mind that the only way
to improve is to practice; there is no shortcut to get better.

Tutorial 1.1: Modeling

a Security Camera
Step 1: Basic Shape. Choose Create->Polygon
Primitives->Cube. This will create a cube at the
origin. This cube is also referred to as box by
3D artists. In fact, what we are doing now has
a nickname called box modeling.

7
Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

Tips and Tricks

In Maya, with nothing selected, you can hold down the
Shift + right mouse button to pull up a type of menu
called a marking menu. If you do this in the Viewport
where there is no other object, the marking menu that
will show up allows for the creation of new object. You
can use this to create a cube in the same way as Create-
>Polygon Primitives->Cube. Learning shortcuts like this
will drastically improve your modeling speed.

Step 2: Dimension. With a bit of research, you will

find that a common security camera is about
18 cm long, 10 cm high, and 10 cm wide. Make
sure that the box is selected and look to the right
side of the UI. In the Channel Box (Figure 1.4),

FIGURE 1.4 The Channel Box is at the top right of the Maya UI and allows you to
change the position, rotation, and scale of a selected object.

8
 Maya Modeling

change the Scale X and Scale Y to 10 and change

the Scale Z to 18 (Figure 1.5).
Step 3: We are making a camera that looks like the
one in Figure 1.6; one of the major differences
between our box and the image is that the
camera’s corners are rounded.
Switch to edge mode (right-click
and hold on the box, and choose Edge
from the marking menu). Select the four
edges across the length of the box (seen
in Figure 1.7). Go to Edit Mesh->Bevel or
press Ctrl + B to bevel these edges. This
operation splits the edge you are selecting

FIGURE 1.5 Adjusting the size of a cube (box) via the Channel Box.

FIGURE 1.6 Our target camera.

9
 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.7 Using the bevel tool to round the edges of our cube.

to multiple ones. To round off these new

edges, look for the pop-up menu (labeled
polyBevel1) and change the Segments
value to 3. Change the Fraction to 0.38
to shrink the distance between the newly
beveled edges.

Tips and Tricks

To select the four edges, you can rotate the camera view
to look at the side of the box, and then drag a section box
over these four edges. Alternatively, you can select one
of them, hold down the Shift button, and double-click
the next one. Maya will select all edges that are between
the same loop of faces; we call this selection of edges an
edge ring.

Step 4: Soften edge. Swap out of Edge mode into

Object mode by right-clicking (and hold) and
choosing Object from the marking menu. Click
in an empty space in the viewport to deselect the
rounded cube. See a harsh line on the rounded-
out corner? This is due to that edge being
“hard.” To soften it, swap to Edge mode and
then select that edge and hold down the Shift
button and double-click the next one to select
the entire edge ring. Use Mesh Display->Soften
Edge to make all the lines of this ring a soft edge
(Figure 1.8).
Step 5: Frontal opening. Go to Face mode and select
the front face of the camera. Go to Edit Mesh->

10
 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.8 Softening the edges.

Extrude, or hold Ctrl + E to extrude the face.

This creates another segment right at the faces
we selected. Press the R button to switch to the
Scale tool. Drag the yellow box in the middle
of the Scale tool to scale the new face down to
make the thickness of the shell. Take a closer
look, and you can see the left and right contour
of the opening is rounded. With the Scale tool,
scale with just the red box handle (it will turn
yellow when you are using it) to scale the face
down across the X axis. Once done, we do
not need this in the middle anymore, so press
the delete button on the keyboard to delete it
(Figure 1.9).
Step 6: Add Curvature to the side edges. To round the
contour, we need more geometry. Go to Mesh
Tools->Multi Cut. Hold down Ctrl, and hover the
cursor on the side edge. Maya will give a preview
of the edges that will be created if you click the
mouse. Before clicking though, hold down the
Shift button, to snap where the previewed ring
will be created. This preview will snap every 10%
across the length of this edge. Move the cursor
until the preview lands at the middle of the edge,
and click to finish adding the new subdivisions

FIGURE 1.9 Using the Extrude tool to create an opening at the front of the camera.

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 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

(new edges). These edges have their tip and end

connected. We call this kind of line an edge loop.
Repeat and add the same edge loop on the other
side (Figure 1.10).
Step 7: Turn on symmetry. Modeling is time-
consuming, so we want to save time if possible.
To do this, we can turn on symmetry, so we
do not have to manually add the edge loop
on the other side. The setting is located on the
second row of buttons (Figure 1.11). By default,
the setting is at Symmetry: Off. Click on the
drop-down arrow on the right and choose
Object X to toggle symmetry on across the X
axis (Figure 1.11). After toggling symmetry on,
selecting and performing commands on one
side of the geometry will affect the other side.
Step 8: Add Curvature to the camera opening.
Double-click on any edge of the edge loops we
created in Step 6 to select the entire edge loop.
Press Ctrl + B to bevel the edge loop and change
the Segments to 2. Go to Vertex mode (right-click
and hold on the shape, and choose Vertex from

FIGURE 1.10 Added edge loops on either side of the camera chassis.

FIGURE 1.11 Turning symmetry on to allow us to mirror our modeling work.

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 Maya Modeling

the marking menu) and select the vertex in the

middle on the edge of the hole. Use the Move
tool (W) to drag it away from the center a little.
Select the vertex above the middle vertex, hold
down shift, and click on the vertex below the
middle vertex to add it to the selection. Drag them
also away from the center. Work your way around
the opening and adjust the vertices until you get a
proper curvature for the side (Figure 1.12).
Step 9: Extrude the inner face. Double-click on any
edge of the hole to select the edge loop around
the hole. Hold down shift and left-mouse-
button and drag the loop inward a little; this
is a quick shortcut to extrude a new ring of
polygons. Select the edge ring along the newly
extruded edge and hold down the Shift + right
mouse button. In the resulting pop-up menu,
select Soften/Harden Edges->Soften Edge; this
will make the inner edges soft. This command
is the same command in the Mesh Display->
Soften Edge. Hit the R button to switch to the
Scale tool. Hold down Shift again and drag
the yellow box in the middle to extrude a new
small ring of polygons. Switch to Move tool,
hold down shift and drag the new edge ring
toward the back of the form to fill out the inside
(Figure 1.13).

FIGURE 1.12 Using Vertex mode and symmetry to adjust the opening to create a
round opening.

FIGURE 1.13 Using the Extrude tool (Shift-drag) to create polygons for the inside
of the form.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

Tips and Tricks

Shift + right mouse button is a very common shortcut.
Basically, it will pull up tools or commands to the current
element you have selected. If nothing is selected, doing
this will pull up a wide selection of primitive polygons.
Almost all commands we need can be found in this
pop-up marking menu.

Step 10: Camera lens. Click in some empty area of

the Viewport to deselect the camera body. With
nothing selected, hold down the Shift + right
mouse button and chose Cylinder. Go to the
Channel box and set the Rotate X to 90. This will
rotate the cylinder 90 degrees in X and lay the
cylinder down. Scale and move the cylinder so
that it is roughly the size of the lens of the Camera.
Step 11: Lens frontal rims. Switch to Vertex mode.
Select the vertex at the center of the front faces,
hold down the Ctrl + right-mouse button, and
in the resulting pop-up marking menu, chose
To Faces->To Faces. This will select all faces
that share this vertex. Turn off the symmetry
(remember up in the second row of the interface).
Press R to go to the Scale tool and hold down the
Shift button and drag the yellow box to extrude
the face in. Using the Move tool, hold down the
Shift button and drag the face back in; keep on
extruding with Scale and Move tools to create all
the rims of the lens (Figure 1.14).
Step 12: Bevel the rim. Select the harsh edge loops
on the rims of the lens (remember, you can do
this by double-clicking on an edge while in Edge
mode) and press Ctrl + B to bevel them. Select
all the edges in the front of the lens, do a Soften
edge command to soften the edge of the lens
(Figure 1.15).
Step 13: Curvature of the lens. Select the vertex at the
center of the lens. Hold down Ctrl + right mouse
button and chose To Faces->To Faces. Switch to
the Scale tool and hold down the Shift button
while you drag the yellow box to extrude the
faces down to about half of the original size. Use
the Move tool to drag the faces forward a little.
Grab the vertex at the center again and move it
forward a bit more. Select the edge loop around
the center vertex and press Ctrl + B to bevel it.
This will give us the curvature we need for the

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.14 Using the Extrude, Move, and Scale tools to create the front rim of
the lens.

FIGURE 1.15 Beveling and softening the edges to create the rim of the front lens.

lens. Finally, soften the edge loops we created to

make the lens feel smooth (Figure 1.16).
Step 14: Clean up history. Maya remembers
everything we’ve done and stores this in the
Input stack under the Channel Box (Figure 1.17).

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.16 Finishing off the lens by adding curvature to the glass portion.

Go to Object mode and drag a big

selection box to select both the shell and
the lens of the camera. Go to Edit->Delete
by Type->History to clean up the history.
This will make all the construction history
disappear (the shortcut for this operation is
Alt + Shift + D). It is important to delete the
history of the model regularly to ensure the
model is stable and the scene is not getting
heavier and heavier.
Step 15: Outer shell. Select the outer layer of faces of
the lens that we made from a box. To do this, go
to Face mode and grab one of the faces that goes
across the depth of the model. Hold down Shift
and double-click the next one to grab the whole
loop across the depth of the model. Hold down
Shift + right-mouse button and chose Duplicate
Faces. Dragging the arrow that is facing away
of the face that the arrows are sitting on, this
Duplicate Faces command creates a new model
from the faces selected. This allows you to shift
the faces away so we can easily create a shell
(Figure 1.18).

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.17 The Input stack of the Channel Box. This shows the History of steps
created thus far.

FIGURE 1.18 Creating a shell by duplicating faces.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.19 Try and follow this visual guide to tweak the shape to match the
research.

Step 16: Tweak the shape. Figure 1.19 shows

a sequence of steps using the techniques
introduced in earlier steps. Try following the
images to match the shape.
If you need help, the steps are: Grab the
Outer shell we created in Step 15 and use
the Scale tool to stretch it longer. Hold down
Shift + right mouse button and chose Multi
Cut. Hold down Ctrl and click to add an edge
loop closer to the back end of the shell. Press
Q to switch to selection tool and double-click
on any edge of the newly created edge loop
to select the whole loop. Scale this loop up
and drag it slight down to create the wider
portion of the shell. Add another loop closer
to the front of the shell. With this loop still
selected, press E to switch to the Rotate tool.
Hold down Ctrl + Shift and rotate the loop
to tilt it forward. (Note: you can see how the
edge is constrained on the surface of the
model when rotating, which is great to create
the tilted frontal shape.) Select the front loop
of faces and delete them. Toggle symmetry on
and add edge loops to mark out the edge of

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 Maya Modeling

the opening in the middle of the shell. Select

the corresponding faces and delete them. Add
an edge loop really close to the edge where
the seam between the upper and lower shells
is. Finally, delete the face loop in-between to
open the seam.
Step 17: Upper shell hole. Add an edge loop at
the center of the model. Then select the new
loop, press Ctrl + B to bevel it and change the
fraction to 0.32. Switch to Move tool and use the
Ctrl + Shift trick to slide the edge in the center
forward to mark the front edge of the opening.
If you are not sure if the face is gone or not, you
can go to Object mode and grab the shell and
press Ctrl + 1 to isolate it. You can press Ctrl + 1 to
toggle the isolation (Figure 1.20).
Step 18: Add thickness. Grab all the faces of the
model (using Face mode and either double-
clicking on any polygon or marquee-selecting).
Press Ctrl + E and drag the arrow to extrude the
faces out to add the thickness.
Step 19: Back arm. Create a cube. Move and scale it
to create the basic shape of the back arm. Add
an edge loop in the middle and bevel it to give it
curvature. Don’t forget to smooth the edges of
the rounded back (Figure 1.21).
Step 20: Connect back arm. Grab the back arm and
the inner shell of the camera. Go to Mesh->

FIGURE 1.20 Creating an upper shell hole, and finally isolating just the shell.

FIGURE 1.21 Creating the back arm by creating a simple cube, adding new edge
loops, and tweaking those to create the desired shape.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.22 Using Booleans (Union) to merge two shapes together into one.

Booleans->Union. This will combine the selected

meshes, blast out the overlapped part, and fuse
the contact surface (Figure 1.22).
Step 21: Fix N-Gon. An N-Gon is any face with more
than four edges. This can be a problem in 3D
because it is unclear how the face should be
divided into triangles for the rendering process.
This can sometimes yield undesired output at the
time of rendering. So it’s best to rebuild N-Gons
to either four-sided polygons (quads) or triangles.
The big back face is a typical N-Gon. Switch to
Multi Cut tool, and click and drag on one of the
outer edges until it stops at one vertex. Click
and drag on one of the inner edges until it hits
another vertex. Maya will connect these two
vertices with a new edge. Press the G button to
commit the current operation and re-initiate the
same tool again. Keep clicking and dragging to
connect lines until there are no N-Gon anymore
(Figure 1.23).

Why?
Notice that we had to end up with some triangles, and this
is totally fine; otherwise, we need to add new edge loops

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.23 Using the Multi Cut tool to create new edges to rebuild the N-Gon into
three- or four-sided polygons.

to the rest of the body, which takes more performance,

and the render result will be the same.

Tips and Tricks

Click on the Modeling Toolkit button (Figure 1.24) on the
right edge of the UI to switch to the Modeling Toolkit.
Under the Tools section, you can also see Multi Cut. Click
on it to toggle it on, and various settings of the tool will
appear underneath. Scroll all the way down and open
the Keyboard/Mouse Shortcuts section. You can see how
versatile this tool is. Experiment with these different
shortcuts to speed your workflow.

Step 22: Base. Create a cube, set the Scale X and

Scale Z of the box to 13, and set the Scale Y to
8. Grab the vertical edge of the cubes and press
Ctrl + B to bevel them. Change the Fraction to
0.62 and Segments to 3. Move it to the back of
the camera body and drag it higher (Figure 1.25).
Step 23: Base bottom shell. Select the bottom face
and extrude it down. Scale the new faces down
to match Figure 1.26. Next, go to Multi Cut tool,
and in the Modeling Toolkit, toggle on Edge flow
under the Cut/Insert Edge Loop Tool section. Add
an edge loop to the middle of the newly extruded
segment. In Figure 1.26, you can see how edge
flow automatically added the curvature.
Step 24: Base bottom arm. Grab the bottom face
again. Hold down the Shift + right mouse
button and choose Circularize Components.
This will round the shape up to a perfect circle.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.24 The Modeling Toolkit can provide faster ways to work with advanced
modeling tools.

Unfortunately, it is tilted, but we can fix this by

changing the Twist value to make it straight
again. Extrude the face in the center down to
create the length of the arm. Using the same
technique used in Step 23, we can create a small
rounded bottom for the arm. Finally, use the
Multi Cut tool to fix the N-Gon (Figure 1.27).
Step 25: Create the arm bending socket edge. Select
the edges across the bottom of the arm and press
the R button to switch to Scale tool. This time,

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.25 Using the same techniques covered above to create the base of the
camera.

FIGURE 1.26 Adding new faces and edges to round off the bottom of the base.

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 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.27 Creating the bottom arm and cleaning up the topology to eliminate N-Gons.

on the left side of the UI, look for the column of

buttons we call the Toolbox. Try pressing Q, W, E,
and R and you can see how to switch between
these tools with the keyboard shortcuts. Double-
click on the button that is highlighted when you
press R to pull out the Scale tool settings. Check
the Prevent Negative Scale option. Scale the lines
on the X axis until they are flattened (they will
not overshoot). Switch to Move tool and hold
down the V button to turn on Vertex Snapping.
While you are holding down the V button, drag
the arrow of the move tool along the X axis
(red-cone gizmo) and move your cursor to the
point lying on the outer rim of the handle to snap
the flattened line to that point only on the X axis.
Do the same thing on the other side. Add another
loop around the length of the handle to mark out
the upper edge of the opening socket. What we
are trying to achieve here is to mark the opening
edge of the socket. The opening of the socket is
highlighted in the last figure of Figure 1.28.

FIGURE 1.28 Building out the bottom of the arm using a few new tricks in each
tool’s options.

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 Maya Modeling

Tips and Tricks

Ctrl + Shift + right mouse button will also pull up the
settings of the current tool. You can find the Prevent
Negative Scale setting if you press R and then hold down
the Ctrl + Shift + right mouse button. To quickly select part
of a loop, select the beginning of the part of the loop and
hold down Shift and double-click on the end of the part of
the loop. This trick works on face loops, edge loops, and
edge rings.

Step 26: Opening the socket. Delete the faces

highlighted in the last figure of Figure 1.28. Grab
the bottom edges and extrude them up. Scale
them on the Y axis to flatten them. Switch to the
Move tool and hold down V while dragging the
edges up to snap the edges to the upper corner
of the opening. Do not change the selection and
hold down Shift + right mouse button and select
the Bridge tool from the marking menu. This will
bridge the two loops with faces. This command
requires an equal number of polygons on the
two loops (Figure 1.29).
Step 27: Merge vertices. Select the edge on the
upper corner of the opening and move it just
a little bit in any direction. Notice that there
are two vertices overlapping instead of one
merged vertex (Figure 1.30); this creates a tear
in the mesh.
To fix it, we need to merge these vertices
together. Press Ctrl + Z to undo the moving
of the vertex. Then hold down Ctrl + Shift
and drag over the two overlapping points to
select both. Check to ensure that you are not

FIGURE 1.29 Creating the notch of the arm by deleting faces, extruding edges, and bridging.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.30 Our previous steps have created a form with holes in the mesh.

selecting anything else on the back of the

form. You can choose Edit Mesh->Merge to
merge these two vertices to one single vertex.
Alternatively, you can hold down Shift + right
mouse button and select Merge Vertices,
but this time, the Marking Menu will show a
nested sub-menu. We just keep dragging up
to select Merge Vertices to Center.
Step 28: Shrink and attach the camera to the base.
Grab the faces of the back arm of the camera
body and scale it up or down to make the size fit
with the opening of the base. Move the base to
attach the arm with the socket (Figure 1.31).

FIGURE 1.31 Scaling the faces of the back of the camera to fit the mounting base.

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.32 Roughing out the switch at the top using a cylinder.

Step 29: Top switch. Create a cylinder (Create->

Polygon Primitives->Cylinder). Move and scale
it to the opening of the top shell of the camera.
In the input section of the Channel box, click on
the polyCylinder1 and change the Subdivision
Axis to 12 (Figure 1.32).

Why?
We made the Subdivision Axis smaller to lower the
polycount of the little top switch. It is such a small part
that we do not need the same number of loops as the
lens. In games, polycount is important, and trimming
away those we don’t need as we work will generate
cumulative benefits in the long run.

Step 30: Reduce polycount. It is always possible to

reduce polycount of a model to save a little bit of
performance. Go to Display->Heads Up Display
and check on Poly Count. You can see on the
upper left corner of the viewport that we have
1736 Tris in total. There are two ways we can
reduce polycount:
1. Delete edge loops that seems
unnecessary. Grab the outer shell of

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

the camera, select the edge loop in

the middle, and hold down Shift + right
mouse button and chose Delete Edge.
Notice that there is no difference in the
form after deleting it. Similar cleanups are
shown in Figure 1.33.
2. If a loop cannot be completely deleted,
triangulate parts of the loop. We clearly
need no extra edge loop for the top flat
surface of the outer shell, but we have
two for the purpose of opening a hole
on the top. To fix this, go to Object mode
and hold down Shift + right mouse button
and select Target Weld Tool. Click and
drag the vertex in the middle area of the
upper edge of the shell to the point next
to it to weld it to that vertex. Using this
technique, we can weld a lot of points
without affecting the shape of the model.
We may end up with some triangles, but
it is totally fine for most non-deforming

FIGURE 1.33 Strategically deleting unnecessary edges reduces our polycount

without sacrificing form.

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 Maya Modeling

FIGURE 1.34 Reducing polycounts with careful vertex welding.

(not bending) forms, especially for a game

model. Similar reducing results are shown
in Figure 1.34.
Keep in mind that you still want to
avoid too many triangles; triangles are
harder to manage for the UV process (an
important part of the texture process
that we’ll cover later), and they make it
harder to do high-resolution sculpting
(if you need to do so for complex forms
including organic shapes). You can always
consult the supervisors of your team to
get their suggestions on the polycount
if you do work for a studio. The final
polycount after these optimizations is
1494 tris for our camera.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

Tips and Tricks

The Delete Edge command should be what you use
all the time to get rid of edges. The delete button on
the keyboard does delete the edges but not delete the
vertices on the edge, which means that when the renderer
triangulates, it still produces the extra triangles from those
left-over points.

Step 31: Clean up. On the top of the base, there is a

big, flat N-Gon. Grab that top face and extrude
it in. Hold down the Shift + right mouse button
and select Merge Faces To Center. Select all
models we created, press Alt + Shift + D to delete
all the history. Finally, do a Modify->Freeze
Transformation to clean up the transform.

Why?
You may wonder what this Freezes Transformation does.
Well, in Maya, a model has two primary components:
transform and shape. Transform governs where the model
is, how it is tilted, and how it is scaled; these are reflected
in the translate, rotate, and scale values in the Channel
Box. Shape governs the vertices, faces, and edges and
how they are combined together to form the shape of the
model; the final appearance of the model is the shape of
the model moved, rotated, and scaled by the transform
of the model. If you do recall, we have scaled the outer
shell of the camera, and that scale value will appear in
the Channel Box; freeze transform will clean that up and
bake the scale we did to the transform of the model to
the shape of the model. Many processes later (Rigging,
UV Mapping) do require the transform of the model
to be baked to the shape of the model through Freeze
Transformation so that the final look of the model is the
actual shape instead of a shape getting scaled, rotated,
and moved by a transform.

Step 32: Naming and organization. On the left

side of the UI, there is a pallet with a tab called
Outliner; this is a list of the currently existing
objects in the scene. Select anything in the

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 Maya Modeling

viewport and you can also see it highlighted in

the list of the Outliner. Alternatively, you can
also select an object by clicking its name in the
outliner. In the Outliner, you can hold down Shift
to select multiple objects or hold down Ctrl to
deselect.

Tips and Tricks

If you cannot see the Outliner, go to the column of
buttons where we have the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools;
the last button in that column is the toggle to show or
hide the Outliner.

Select everything in the viewport in Object mode and

press Ctrl + G to place them into a group. Something called
group1 will appear in the outliner. This is a group (really a
parent object). You can press the plus sign in front of it to
open the group and see the children models inside of it.
Double-click to rename any object there. For now, rename
the group to security_cam_geo_grp. Spend some time
renaming all other objects; the final naming is shown in
Figure 1.35.

FIGURE 1.35 Names to use in naming the shapes build so far.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

Tips and Tricks

Anything inside of a group will follow the group. You
can now grab the group in the outliner and move the
whole collection of shapes. You can put any object or
objects under a group by grabbing the objects first and
selecting the group last and pressing the P button on the
keyboard. This is also something we call parenting. If you
select something inside of a group and press Shift + P,
this will get the object or objects out of the group (called
unparenting). You can also parent one object to another
object instead of a group. In the outliner, you can click the
middle mouse button to drag anything around or drag
one object to another to parent one object under another.

Step 33: Clean up the outliner. We do not need

any other objects in the scene; there could be
other empty groups in the outliner due to some
operations we did to the model. We can grab
anything outside of security_cam_geo_grp and
delete them. Alternatively, we can go to File->
Optimize Scene Size and let Maya clean these up
for us.
Step 34: Save the file. Go to File->Save Scene, in the
pop-up Save window, change the File name to
game_set_models, navigate to a folder that is
safe and easy to find, and press the Save button
to save it.

Other Useful Commands

We have introduced some of the most important
commands for modeling. Let’s start a new scene and go
over a few more before we do some assignments.

Grow and Shrink Selection

Create a sphere (Create->Polygon Primitives->Sphere)
and select the top vertex. Hold down Ctrl + right mouse
button and choose To Faces->To Faces to select the
top faces. Hold down Ctrl + right mouse button again
and chose Grow Selection->Grow to select all the
direct neighbor faces. Press the G button three times

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 Maya Modeling

to redo Grow Selection three more times. You can also

find Shrink Selection in the Ctrl + right mouse button
marking menu.

Extract Faces
With the top four rows of faces selected, hold down
Shift + right mouse button, and choose Extract Faces. Drag
the blue arrow to shift the face away; you can now see
how Maya separated the model into two objects. Notice
that in the outliner, you can see the pSphere1 becomes
a group, and there are two objects inside of it. That
transform1 is the remaining construction history that you
can use Delete History to get rid of.

Combine and Separate

Some commands, like Bridge, can only be used for
component on the same object. So to bridge the
upper shell with the lower shell (Figure 1.36), you have

FIGURE 1.36 In order to bridge collections of polygons like this, you first must
ensure that the polygons are parts of the same single object.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

to combine the models together into one object. To

combine models, grab all models you want to combine
and use Mesh->Combine. By the way, you can also see
the Separate command right below Combine. Separate
will separate the model into multiple ones based on their
connectivity.

Create Cables or Pipes

From time to time, we may want to create a cable or a
pipe. Go to Create->Curve Tools->CV Curve Tool, and click
and drag in the viewport to drop down a CV point. Click
and drag again to add a new one; keep doing this and you
will see a curve getting created. You can hit backspace to
roll back and drag the middle mouse button to refine a
placed CV point. When you are happy with the shape, hit
Enter to finish the creation (Figure 1.37).

CV stands for Control Vertices. Maya will interpolate

between the vertices to form a curve. This type of model
is called NURBS, which uses mathematical interpolations
between control vertices to create a form. These are
fundamentally different from the camera model (polygon)
we created earlier.

After creating the curve, you can still edit it by holding the
right mouse button on it and choosing Control Vertex.
Then you can move the CV to refine the shape as desired.
The curve will be created on the grid by default. You can
go to the front, top, or side view to create your curve

FIGURE 1.37 Using the CV Curve Tool to create a series of CVs that define a curve.

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 Maya Modeling

so that the curve snaps to the grid of that view. Go to

Create->NURBS Primitives->Circle to create a circle. Grab
the circle and the curve created previously, and go to
Surfaces->Extrude□ (be sure to click the square to pull up
the Extrude Options window). There, change the Result
position setting to “At path” and change the Pivot setting
to “Component”. Press the Extrude button, and you will
see that a tube is created (Figure 1.38). This Extrude is not
the same Extrude we did with polygons; it basically places
the circle along the curve to create a frame and then
interpolate a shape out of it.

You can scale the nurbsCricle1 to change the radius of

the tube, and you can still tweak the shape of curve1 to
change the shape of the tube (Figure 1.39).

However, this tube is not a polygon or polygon-based

(which we will need for games). So to convert it into a
polygon-based form, go to Modify->Convert->NURBS to
Polygons□. Change the tessellation method to “Control
points”. Press the Tessellate button to convert the tube to
a polygon (Figure 1.40).

FIGURE 1.38 Creating a tube using NURBS extrude.

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 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.39 Once a NURBS form is created, the form can be adjusted by editing the
curves used to create it.

FIGURE 1.40 Tessellated NURBS form that is now a polygonal object.

Until now, you can still tweak the curves to change the
radius and the shape of the curve. When you are happy
with the form, select the polygonal shape and delete
the history and delete all curves and the original NURBS
surface as they’re no longer needed.

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 Maya Modeling

Tips and Tricks

If, at any time, the tube model appears black, you can
rotate the circle on the X axis until it flips back to normal.
NURBS curves and surfaces are a different type of model
that are mathematically interpolated between the
control points we created. They are primarily used for
architectural or industrial design. Most times, we don’t use
this type of model in game scenarios. However, they can
be very useful to construct a form originally (that we then
convert into polygons).

Extrude Along a Curve

Another variant of creating a tube is to create a curve in
front of a face and then extrude that face along the curve.
To do this, select both the face and the curve (Figure 1.41),
and press Ctrl + E.

In the pop-up dialog boxes, increase the number of

the Divisions setting to create a smooth extrusion along
the curve (Figure 1.42). If the extrusion is backwards,
you can grab the curve, do a Curves->Reverse Direction
to fix it.

FIGURE 1.41 Extruding along a curve.

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 Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.42 Tweaking the Extrude along curve options to get the resolution you desire.

Duplicate, Duplicate
with Transform
You can grab any model and press Ctrl + D to duplicate it.
The duplicated model will be at the same location as the
original (although you’ll see the name of the new form
in the Outliner). Right after duplicating, you can use the
Move tool to move the new duplicate away (Figure 1.43).

FIGURE 1.43 Duplicate allows for a quick copy of an original.

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FIGURE 1.44 Duplicate with Transform (Shift + D) duplicates and transforms

(moves) the object in the same command.

If you want to create another duplicate and have it move

the same distance (or rotate the same amount), you can
press Shift + D. You can keep pressing Shift + D to have
multiple duplications, each offset the same amount as last
time (Figure 1.44).

Duplicate Special
From time to time, we may want to create multiple
duplications but as instances. An instance is a copy that
keeps the link of the shapes between the original and the
copy; we can adjust any one of the duplications to update
the shape of all others (but not transform). Grab your
model and go to Edit->Duplicate Special□. Change the
Geometry type to “Instance”. Change the first number of
the Translate to 2 (the X axis), and the Number of copies to
“10”. Finally, press the Duplicate Special button, and you
will see ten duplications of your model, each two units
away from each other, and more importantly, editing any
one of them will affect all others (Figure 1.45).

Mirror
Anytime you forget to have symmetry on and want
to make the model symmetrical again, you can select
the model in Object mode and do a Mesh->Mirror. Try
different axes and directions to make sure you got the
correct side mirrored. The merge threshold should be
as low as 0.001 if you wish to only have the vertex in the
center mirrored. You can also change the Border setting

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FIGURE 1.45 Using instances (as opposed to copies) to make copies of an object that will change when the original is
manipulated.

to bridge or do not merge the geometry along the axis of

symmetry to have a different result.

Center Pivot
You can grab any model in Object mode and do a
Modify->Center Pivot; this will move the pivot of the
model to the center of its bounding box. The Pivot is the
location where the object is rotating around. It is needed
whenever you want to be able to rotate or scale a model
from its geometrical center.

Change Pivot
In any mode, you can hold down the D button on the
keyboard and drag the gizmo to adjust the location
or orientation of your pivot; you can also click on any
elements on the model to snap your pivot to that element.

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A good example that we want to do this is to change the

pivot of the body of the camera to the hinge of the arm so
that we can rotate it around the hinge.

Snapping
When moving an object or its various elements, you can
hold down the X button to snap to the grid and V button
to snap to vertices. The snapping toggles are on the Status
line, which is the row of buttons under the main menu.
The snap toggles are the six buttons with a magnet in
their icon. Try these toggles and see what they do.

Hide Model
You can grab any model or its other elements and press
Ctrl + H to hide them. To unhide, press Ctrl + Shift + H; this
will only unhide the object you are selecting (probably in
the Outliner) if you have something selected. It will unhide
everything if you have nothing selected. After making a
model, name it properly, freeze transformation, and hide
it so you can move on to the next one without the other
models blocking your view.

View Control
At any time, if your cursor is in the Viewport, you can press
the spacebar to go to the Four View layout, and this will
show you the Top, Perspective, Front, and Side views;
you can then move the cursor to any view, and press the
spacebar to maximize that view. However, we recommend
to just hold down space and drag up, down, left, and right
to go to these views.

Assignments
We have covered enough commands that you are
now able to create models of your own; go ahead and
start modeling some of your own models in Maya,

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.46 A selection of props that can be built using the techniques covered in
this chapter.

and make sure you find references and get the correct
measurement. Figure 1.46 shows a few examples of what
we are looking for.

Geometry Errors
Sometimes in the modeling process, some errors can
emerge. These errors might not even be readily visible in
your model, but without fixing them, you can run into some
serious problems later in a game engine. While these can
be pretty technical, and the hard-core specifics are a bit
outside the scope of this book, it’s worthwhile to talk about
them for a minute and – more importantly – evaluate how
to fix them. Here are some typical geometry errors that we
can now check on your model:

Non-Manifold Geometry. This geometry cannot

be unfolded and flattened to a 2D surface.
Typically, there is an edge shared by more than
two faces or inconsistent normal directions.
This type of model will confuse the renderer on
which side is the outside of the geometry.

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Lamina Faces. Two faces that share all of their

edges. Typically, this is caused by duplicating and
combining meshes that have the same faces.
Zero Length Edge. A self-descriptive situation in
which an edge has no length.
N-Gon. We have covered N-Gon already; any face
with more than four sides is a N-Gon.

Luckily, even though the theory behind these errors is

abstract, fixing them is usually pretty easy. To clean up
the models, go to Mesh->Cleanup□. Under the Fix by
Tessellation section, check on “Faces with more than
4 sides”. Under Remove Geometry, check on “Lamina faces
and Nonmanifold geometry”. Press the Cleanup button;
this will, in theory, clean up all the errors. Maya may
choose to delete some of the faces because they are error
geometries; make sure you check around the model and
recreate any missing models.

Tutorial 1.2: Modular Set Pieces

Making a compelling and complex environment is a
daunting task. To ease the pain, we are going to adapt to
a modular workflow. This means we will make reusable
pieces that are easy to combine with each other, like a
system like Lego building blocks. The props we have
made previously as assignments are already designed for
that purpose, but to make the foundation of our game
level, we need a more unified system. This means we need
to have a chart of sizes that our models will have to exactly
match, so they can be assembled seamlessly.

There are two size systems we can use: decimal and binary.

For decimal, we will have sizes like 10, 20, 30, 50,
100…
For binary, we will have sizes like 16, 32, 64, 128,
256, 512… (both in cm)

Both systems are popular, and we are going to follow the

binary system. The author has found that it is easier to
combine modules seamlessly and easier to match with
textures sizes, which is also binary.

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FIGURE 1.47 Setting up our grid to build modularly. The person acts as a size and scale reference.

Grid
Go to Display->Grid□. Set the Length and width to 256,
and set the Grid lines to 64 and Subdivisions to 4. Drag
the slider of Grid lines and numbers to make it a blue color
and press Apply and Close. This will create a grid that has
its edge 256 cm away from the center and a blue grid line
every 64 cm with four extra divisions in-between every
blue grid line, which makes every grid 16 cm long.

To verify our sizes, go to Windows->General Editors->

Content Brower. Under the examples category on the left
side of the window, choose Modeling->People. Drag a
standing character to the viewport to import the human
model; the height of the model should be slightly shorter
than half of the grid length (Figure 1.47). If your character
appears gray, hit 6 on your keyboard to have Maya show
the materials as well.

Create a Base Floor

Step 1: Base floor dimension. Let’s hide our other
models, so we can start our new model with
nothing else visible. Create a cube, set its

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FIGURE 1.48 Creating and snapping the first-floor module to our grid.

Translate Y to −8, set its Scale X and Scale Z to

256, and set its Scale Y to 16. Switch to the Move
tool and hold down both D and V buttons, and
drag the pivot of the box to the upper corner on
the negative X and Z quadrant. Release all the
buttons. Now, hold down X button and drag
the center of the gizmo to snap the model to the
positive X and Z quadrant (Figure 1.48).

Why?
We want the model to be easily snapped together.
Positioning the pivot to the corner of the box is extremely
helpful for the snapping. We also want the pivot to be at
the center of the world to avoid any offset.

Step 2: Floor edge trim. To help in adding trims to

the side of the floor, grab the top face, and press
Ctrl + E. Set the Offset setting to 16. This will give
us a rim on the outside of the floor (Figure 1.49).
Name this model floor_01 and hide it.
We are now done with this module. Every
time we finish a module model, we can name
it, hide it, and move on to the next one. This
way, all of our models are created in one
Maya file for easy access. This also allows us
to maintain the scale of our game. We are not
planning on making a whole lot of models for
our environment, so keeping them all in one
scene file is manageable. But if you’d rather,
you are more than welcome to create new
files for extra models instead. But be sure you

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

FIGURE 1.49 Creating the base trim of the module using Extrude.

maintain consistent Grid settings across the

various scenes if you do so.
Step 3: Base wall dimension. Create a cube and set
its Scale X to 256, Scale Y to 512, and Scale Z
to 32. Snap its pivot to the lower back corner
and then move it to the center of the grid
(Figure 1.50).

FIGURE 1.50 Creating a base wall module.

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Step 4: Add bottom trim. Add an edge loop

toward the bottom of the wall module.
Extrude out the bottom face and move the
top edge of the extruded face down to create
a bottom trim (Figure 1.51); name this model
wall_01.
Step 5: Arch wall. Follow the steps of Figure 1.52.
Create a pipe (Create->Polygon Primitive->Pipe).
Under the Input section of the Channel Box, click
on polyPipe1 and set the Radius to 128, Height
to 512, and Thickness to 32. Set the Rotate Z of
the model to −90. Delete the frontal and bottom

FIGURE 1.51 Creating trim for our wall_01.

FIGURE 1.52 Creating the arched top of the wall by combining a pipe segment.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

quarters of the pipe. Next, hold down D and V,

and snap the pivot of the pipe to its back side
corner. Hold down V and snap the pipe to the
top of the wall we created in the previous two
steps. Duplicate the wall and delete its top face.
Combine it with the pipe by selecting both the
wall and pipe and choosing Mesh->Combine.
Grab the vertices of the pipe and the top of the
wall and while holding down X drag them down
until the top of the pipe is the same height as
the height of the original wall. You can go to
the side view to check out the alignment. Grab
all the vertices and hold down Shift + right
mouse button, go up and up again (or choose
Edit Mesh->Merge). This will merge the vertices
between the top of the wall and the bottom
of the pipe. Double-click on one of the edges
of the hole in front of the pipe and hold down
Shift + right mouse button. Choose “Fill hole”.
Name this model wall_02.

Tips and Tricks

Step 5 has many steps, but the idea is simple. We
want an arch on the top of the wall. Whenever
we need something complex, we can break it
up to smaller primitives. When we create these
primitives, we can snap them together, combine
them, and merge the vertices.
Step 6: Wall frame. Copy the arch wall we created
and move its pivot to the origin. Change its
Scale X to 0.25. Grab the front faces and press
Ctrl + E. Change the Local Translate Z of the
extrude to 16. Extrude the same amount
again, but this time, scale the faces in on
the X axis to create a little taper. Use scale
or snapping to flatten the top front faces
(Figure 1.53).
Step 7: Wall frame detail. Grab the faces in the
front middle part of the model and hold down
Shift + right mouse button and chose Duplicate
Faces. Set the Local Translate Z to 16. Grab the
bottom vertices and drag them up. Bridge the
bottom edges and bevel the primary turning
edges. This will give us extra volume; you can
create additional ones to make the model
more complex (Figure 1.54). Name this model
wall_frame_01.

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FIGURE 1.53 Creating a tapered wall section.

FIGURE 1.54 Extra detail on the walls.

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Creating Games with Unreal Engine, Substance Painter, & Maya

Tips and Tricks

Always name and clean up your models when you have
finished them. Your future self will thank you for making
everything clean and tidy.

Step 8: Wall corner. We can create rounded corners

for our rounded walls for when walls meet as we
assemble them. Duplicate and snap our modules
like the first figure in Figure 1.55. You can hold
down the J button while rotating to snap your
rotation for every 5 degrees. It is important that
the modules are snapped to each other exactly.
Have one blue (64 units) grid gap between
the two hallways or corridors and the turning
portion of the floor. This is to ensure that there is
space for the rounded transition part.
Moving on to the second figure of
Figure 1.55, select these two walls of the
turning point, duplicate (Ctrl + D) them, and
combine (Mesh->Combine) them. Grab the
two columns of the faces that will connect to
the turning portion. Hold down Shift + right
mouse button and chose Bridge Faces. The
result may look messy, so change the division
to 7, and Curve type to Blend. The resulting
middle part is going to be our turning
module; delete the extra ones on the side and
bridge the holes on the side to finish it. The
outer corner is done the same way.
Step 9: Floor variations. Create a few varying sizes
for the floor, like the gap we need to fill for

FIGURE 1.55 Creating a transition part for an outer corner.

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the turning of the corridor we did for Step 4

(Figure 1.56). The sizes we choose to use are:
256 × 256 × 32, 256 × 128 × 32, 256 × 64 × 32.
Step 10: Stair frame. Create a cube and set the Scale
X, Y and Z to 256. Snap its pivot to the back lower
left corner and snap the cube to sit at the positive
quadrant. Move (and snap) its bottom and top
row of vertices to make a tilted frame for the
stairs. Its bounding box length is 6 × 64 units (six
blue grids). The footing of the shaft is 64 units,
and the thickness of the shaft is 16 units (one
gray grid). The results look like Figure 1.57.
Step 11: Stairs. Duplicate the stair frame to create
the other side. Snap the duplication so that their
whole width together is 256 units. Create a box,
make its Scale X 32, Scale Y 8, and Scale Z 200.
Move it to the first stairs location. It should be
around 18 units high. Bevel all the edges of the
box, and extrude from the two side faces to make
the connection to the frame. Bevel the bottom
edge of the frame to add a little detail. Fix the
N-Gon after the bevel. Finally, bevel the edges of
the frame (Figure 1.58).
Step 12: Stair handrail. Go to Create->Curve Tools->
CV Curve Tool; we have covered this tool

FIGURE 1.56 Creating other modular parts for floors.

FIGURE 1.57 Building the stairs. Note that for modularity to work, the exact
positions of the snapped vertices are important.

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FIGURE 1.58 Creating the stair steps.

previously in the part about extruding along a

curve. Use the Curve tool to create the profile of
the handrail. Take care to make sure you have
enough points on the arcing part; the amount
of points you place will determine how many
segments you will have on the final polygon
shape. Use Extrude along curve techniques to
create the handrail. Addition columns can be
created using cylinders (Figure 1.59). Remember:
be sure to covert the NURBS form into polygons.
Step 13: Other modular pieces. Other modular pieces
are made with the same techniques covered
previously; here is a list of all the pieces modeled:
Walls – There are three walls, five wall frames,
and some random small blocks. The size of
the tall ones is 256 × 512 with a thickness of 32
(Figure 1.60).
Arcs – These arcs are having a radius of 256
units and a thickness of 32; an outside arc,

FIGURE 1.59 Creating the handrail using NURBS techniques.

FIGURE 1.60 Completed wall modules.

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a wall, and a wall bottom trim are also built

(Figure 1.61).
Floor – Floors with 256 × 256 × 32, 256 × 128 × 32,
256 × 64 × 32 are built to create hallways with
different sizes. Two grid modules are also built
(Figure 1.62).
Pipes – Pipes came with three sizes, each with
a radius of 16, 8, and 4. Be sure to build some
turning structures to support complicated
combination (Figure 1.63).
Stairs – We have two stairs, a higher one with
a 256 units elevation and a lower one with a
64 units elevation. Handrails were also built
to support variations (Figure 1.64).
Windows – Window came in four sizes:
256 × 128 × 32, 128 × 128 × 32, 512 × 512 × 256,
96 × 64 × 160 (Figure 1.65).
There are 57 modular pieces. It is hard to
determine how many are needed, so it is wise
to build less and try creating a hallway or a
room and see if more modules are needed.

FIGURE 1.61 Completed arc modules.

FIGURE 1.62 Completed floor modules.

FIGURE 1.63 Collection of completed pipe modules.

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FIGURE 1.64 Stair modules.

FIGURE 1.65 A variety of finished window modules.

Step 14: Hero assets. Hero assets are the assets that
we only use a few times and so might need a
bit of extra care and detail. We will create two
hero assets for the final scene; the creation
process of these hero assets is tedious, expect
to spend a lot of time on them and have a
higher polycount on these assets. But even
though the fidelity might be higher for these
assets, the tools and commands used to create
them are no more than what we have covered
(Figure 1.66).

FIGURE 1.66 Hero assets.

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Conclusion
We have finished the environment modeling part of
our games. Well, of course, we’ve only created the
individualized separated pieces; currently they aren’t
a level...yet. However, we will move them to the game
engine and assemble them into our awesome level later.
However, before we do that, we still need to go through
UV mapping and Texturing so that our models are not
white ghosts.

If you are able to complete these forms in this chapter,

you’re in good shape. If it is overwhelming and you’d
rather move onto other stages, these completed models
are available on the support website.
We will move on to the UV Mapping of our assets in the
next chapter.

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