Tuesday 29 May 2012

OverAll

Finally finished my level to a satisfactory level. There are a few things that, with more time, i would have liked to have been able to fix. One being the first area that the player starts in. The texturing on that area is not my best work and could be improved with more time. Another fairly noticeable issue i was having with my level was lining all of the planes up for the rooms underground. While using planes reduces the over all the poly count after thinking about it i think using small thin boxes for walls and floor would have been a much easier and better looking option for my level. The planes did work but required a lot of fiddling to get into the right spot for each room. Another issue i was having was with my light in the start area because i didn't make the sides where the bulb would be glass of some sort it kind of looks like the light isn't coming from the lamp. Also i tried to add  a flare to the light so that when the player looked at it it looked like it was shining but that didn't work out for me.
Overall i am fairly happy with how it ended up looking. I liked the textures i ended up using inside the base. Maybe with more time i would have varied it up a bit more to limit texture looping and added some other things to the base. ( E.G. Scratches on the wall from the wolves, blood stains from battles in that base etc.)

Here is a link to the video on vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/43042718

Entry area

This here is what i decided to go with for my entrance area. if i had more time i would have made the area round so it looked nicer.



To be honest this is nothing like what i originally envisioned for this area. And if i had more time to work on this area than what i allocated it i would have made trees for inside of it and made a proper texture for it rather than try to find one on the internet (which was flipping hard to find anything that even looked remotely alright for it)
and it would have been more to my original design of in a dark misty foresty area.

Forest

So i found a texture that will work for my forest now but i need to work on the ground to get it to line up and transition nicely into the forest texture.

An issue when making my level

I have come across some issues whilst texturing the entrance area. For starters i cant find any good textures for each plane that line up with the other planes so that they blend nicely and look like it is the same type of forest.
Also another problem with the forest planes getting the ground to line up and look like it fits with the forest. So i am going to try to find a picture for the area that is a panaramic photo of some forest that will wrap nicely around all 4 walls.

Saturday 26 May 2012

Modelling asset list


Asset list
High Priority:
Wall, floor and roof for walk ways – tile able.     
Air vents through the roofs – Tile able.
Different rooms  :- entrance room (Circular, biggest room, water on the floor under the ladder for security reasons (They hear anybody landing in the water))
-Council room (second biggest, Sides of the room raised up around a centre table)
-Dining hall (Slightly smaller than council room, flat floor, several tables in the centre of room with bench chairs)
-bunk rooms (smallest of the rooms, just small enough for a desk and a pair of beds)
Entrance way (flat plane, curved plane for a wall, skybox above, cylindrical opening with lid removed and to the side)

Medium Priority:
Tables & chairs – council room (Bench seats along the walls and down the sides, high chair in center front for leader to sit, center table)
-dining hall (use same bench chairs as in council room, and smaller versions of the center table)
-bunk rooms (Small single stool and old table just for ascetics in the room)
Trees for entrance area
Lights hanging from the roof or attached to the wall (Haven’t decided which at this stage)
Street lamp for entrance area
Trees for surrounding the entrance area

Low Priority
Doors for each room (mostly will be open at all times, may add them into sections of the wall to make the base look larger with closed off rooms)
Small vanity items on tables and floors (papers, plates, cups, cutlery etc.)

Ideas for the underground area

After thinking about the underground bases theme of dirty dark wet sort of sewerish type of setting and how it would turn out in the game I have decided to just test some new styles of bases. The only other style that really stood out to me was more of a clean all white laboratory type setting and having the wolves more of scientific community rather than a pack of savage dogs as they are portrayed in other things. The only issue I am having with this style is that the wolves don’t really fit in this setting like they would in the dark wet sort of base. What I mean by this is that when they turn to their wolf form they would become more unpredictable at the earlier stages of their wolf life and this would in turn mess up the place making it harder for them to keep in neat and shiny like I am picturing it. I think I will test both styles out a bit and see which I prefer as the level design progresses. Also I’m not sure how I would get the textures of the walls and things to look exactly right without putting more lighting into the area and in turn how this would affect the performance of the game whilst it is being played.

original idea was something like this ^
but the new idea is something like this one below but maybe more white but still undecided.




Level ideas


For my levels organic element I have decided to include an entrance for the underground base system which will be a small clearing in a misty dark damp looking forest. The idea behind hiding the base out in a forest is so no civilians will discover its location and so the wolves can turn safely and hunt wild animals without concern for the humans. The modelling for this shall be rather simple. All that I will need to do is a circular plane surrounding the area with a nice foresty texture on it to give the illusion that the player is deep in a forest then have a small dirt path leading up to the entrance with some soft small grass around it. Then between the plane and the entrance hole have a few modelled trees to add effect to the area. Obviously if this was then to be added to a full game I would make the forest on a much larger scale so the player has to walk deep into the forest to find the opening and have multiple openings into the one base.
To mark the entrance of the base I am thinking about having either a torch burning or a street lamp shining next to the entrance so the player can find them without much difficulty though the forest area.