Off The Map- (Part 3)

Week 21

Off The Map- (Part 3)

This week my focus was level design, I used tools available in Unreal Engine 4 to sculpt the terrain of my landscape, making hills and valleys that added a natural feel to the surroundings. This task proved difficult because it was my first time using these tools so I had to use videos and other resources available online to teach me how to construct a landscape. Another issue I ran into was the scaling of the environment, I got round this problem by modelling a fountain to place in the map that helped me scale the environment, by eye, to a suitable level that fit the size of the playable character.

Off The Map( Part 2)

Week 20

Off The Map( Part 2)

I have had the time to study the book and other resources including meetings with tutors to discuss what my project will be.

I have to produce a scene where I include the tea party and the rabbit house. Because the individual scenes in the book I thought it would be a good idea to link these to parts of the book, that are pretty far apart, by using a forest environment and a path between them.

I decided to start off creating mood board around the rabbit house, this mood board contained anything remotely that looked like it belonged in wonderland and would be useful assets when constructing the rabbit house.

When I had enough information and imagery, I created quick concepts with photobashing techniques. It soon dawned on me that my approach had been very random, so I targeted my concepting towards creating houses that animals could live in.

With house concepts out of the way, I moved on to designing the landscape.

Off The Map- ( Part 1)

Week 19

Off The Map- ( Part 1)

This project was based around Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and was a competition sponsored by the British Library and GameCity. With materials such as maps, text and illustrations provided by the British Library, in a group of 6, we had to chose a theme to base our level around, these themes were Oxford, The Underground and The Gardens.

When I first heard that this was the basis of the task I was genuinely excited as I love the idea of a fairy tale world with a lot of seemingly random pieces, this project was going to push the creative part of my mind and I didn't need stay inside the realm of reality.

My excitement quickly turned into shock as I was informed that I wouldn't be working in a group of 6 like everyone else, but I would be on my own. This would have been okay if my brief was drastically smaller scale and was given clearly with proper guidelines and instructions. Instead I was given a scale around half of what the groups had to do, even half would be a monumental task for a single person.

To get myself going I constructed mood boards in order to give myself a creative direction and guide in the way I wanted to take this project. I also read the book to make sure that whatever I constructed remained true to the original tales.

Container City- Evaluation

Week 18

Container City- Evaluation

Q. How did my abilities improved during the project life cycle?

I have picked up new skills as well as improving current ones along the way. I have learned to make and implement blueprints from scratch to perform basic tasks as i have shown by making a extractor fan spin. Along with creating blueprints my general comfort in building levels in Unreal Engine 4 has improved drastically.
During this project I had to make more than enough mood boards and concepted multiple photo bashed shops and bars, this gave me plenty of practice at designing level components and room layouts. this project also helped me to organise my texture sheets as well as improving my ability to make textures that look old and worn

Q. Any difficulties during the project?
The only problem I felt occurred was the synergy between team members, communication was an issue, but in the end problems were resolved and a good level was created.

Q. Was this project successful?
The task was completed to a good standard and most objectives were met however there were a lot of unpolished aspects that needed improvements and some stretch goals that could have been implemented.

Q. How would I approach the project next time?
If i was to approach this project again, I would go for a different environment as in my opinion as dusty barren landscapes are overused in dystopian settings. I would have picked a busier, more organic environment where rain or other weather effects even as basic as wind could be added and particle effects such as pollen or dust could be implemented to provide a much more immersive level.

Q. What needs more improvement?
There were a few improvements that could be made to the level, small things that stopped the level from reaching its potential as a concept. The sound feels like a last minute addition that could have done with a little more variety. Some of the textures needed a higher resolution and detail and the floor could have done with more variation as it repeated a little too obviously throughout the level. A few of the surfaces were quite flat as normal maps needed more depth and detail. The grass at the end of the level needed scaling down a little as it was too low density and resolution too low to be the height it was.

Container City (part 3)

Week 17

Container City (part 3)

This week I have undertaken another task of modelling and texturing additional  assets for the level. I have used images I have gathered from Pinterest and other sources as a reference to help me model. For these assets I didn't have a specific tri budget so I tried my best to keep object as a simple geometry.

Lastly I was left with texturing. I have used 512x512 texture sheets.

Creating a blueprint was my last task for this week, I had no idea where to start but after a few tutorials I was quickly picking up the skills I needed to understand how blueprints work and how they can be used to add cool features to a level. I made a blueprint to make a extractor fan spin, adding a little immersion to an otherwise static level.

And here are some beauty shots from the level

Container City (part 2)

Week 16

Container City (part 2)

This week I have decided to undertake a task that I thought will give me a challenge, something I haven't had much experience in and concepting and a bar/restaurant sounded like an interesting job. To kick things off, I constructed a mood board by gathering images of different abandoned shipping containers and even stills from a game I used to play called Deponia, a point and click adventure game set in a makeshift and thrown together, dystopian environment.

To begin with I decided to use some painting and photobashing techniques to quickly generate some concepts. I found an image of a 3/4 view shipping container and by using other images and some paintovers I produced rough ideas to start with.

As a group we have chosen one that we really like to be further developed. To make the concept more unique I have worked on the silhouette to bring out interesting shapes by adding objects like gas tank, satellite dishes, wooden pallets and more.

At the end I came up with the final idea that was ready to be modelled.

After the concept was ready I was finally ready to model my bar, because we have been provided with a simple model of a shipping container all I had to do was use that and build additional assets around it. To keep myself organised I have set a budget of 11,000 tris for the entire model.

The next task was to texture I have used 1024x1024 texture sheet. The most important part of texturing was to keep it realistic so I have used real life images and textures in order to make the assets look Worn-out, dusty/dirty and rusty.

Container City (part 1)

Week 15

Container City (part 1)

A new year and a new project, this time it was a group project where the objective was to build a city using shipping containers as the main building blocks. As a group we had to decide between a Science Fiction or Dystopian city we went with a Dystopian city. I put forward the idea of a forest environment which the rest of the group liked, so I constructed a mood board for the scene. I then went on to construct a rough city using whiteboxing techniques

Mood board

Quick block out 

I was very excited to start building this setting not only because we could have pushed the technical side and use this project to learn a bit more about Unreal engine 4 and blueprints as well as be challenging to create busy environment with foliage, sound effects, particle effects, water effects and fog. Unfortunately the group wanted to go in a different direction and settled on a marble quarry environment instead of a forest.