Over the course of Cyberspawn's development, I've been slowly trying to create more and more models in order to both improve my proficiency in the 3D arts, as well as fuel the natural demand for content that any game requires. I present: a potted plant.



A notable improvement is that I've now figured out how to use 'texture baking', which will go a long way in improving future models. Simply said, texture baking is the technique of applying numerous lighting and material effects to an object within a 3D editor -- Blender, in this case -- and 'baking' those effects onto a texture, which can then be applied to the object in real-time inside of the game. The shot on the left shows the baked model with only ambient occlusion calculated. This effect alone adds a great deal of subtle realism in the lighting.

The other significant feature implemented is a secondary lightmap, termed the 'actor lightmap' for the time being. This lightmap is generated across the non-solid areas of the level, and functions as a way to apply shading to actors that move around the level in and out of the path of lights. The player's weapon overlay also is affected by this, and can be seen (subtly) in the second screenshot.

It's easy to get caught up in small things like these, but I've learned that it goes a really long way in making a game look and feel better in the end. Probably the biggest lesson I've learned in computer graphics (and indeed game development in general) is the huge difference the accumulation of those subtle additions make.