I've entered
my 3rd and final year at De Montfort University, and we've already
be handed our first professional brief set by Blitz games studio. See the
picture below for the actual brief.
We have been
allowed to use double the amount of texture space, so 4 1024s rather than 2
1024s. The triangle count of 20,000 stays the same though. Were also allowed to
interpret the brief very loosely, So in a sense it just has to be a rooftop in
any setting of our choosing.
Most people
tend to do roofs of futuristic high-rise buildings I wanted to do something in
the other direction. So I’m going for a low rise middle eastern temple/mansion,
which has recently been used as a communications outpost for the army.
As this
level is based in the middle east, lighting is a strong component which will
really sell the level. So the best engine to pick to get the best out of this
project for me is Cryengine. An added bonus is that I had a wealth of
experience using Cryengine from our group project last year. See Here for blog.
With any project
i know time management is the key to efficient workflow. So firsts things first
was to make a brief timetable to follow strictly over the next 4 weeks.
The next
stage in this process was concepting. So i gather up as many references as possible
for a mood board from there i created some basic drawings and a birds eye view
of the floor plan.
From all the references and concepts, i produced a primitive white box so i could get an idea
of dimensions, flow and composition. The white box went under several revisions
until i was happy with it.
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| From Oldest to Newest |
In my first
version i planned to make a large dome in the courtyard, but i later scraped
this as i felt it took away the main focal point from the communications tower
to the dome. Whereas i wanted the player to always have the tower in view as
this was the end goal for the player to get to. I also saw the tower as my ‘hero’
asset so i wanted as much attention on it as i could. Although i did want
something in there to give a better sense of the height of the tower. So i made
a tower on the corner which has been half destroyed. Having this building would
now allow me to place loads of debris around the area, making the level more
interesting and selling the point that it was an outpost under attack.
The next reversion i scaled down the rooftops to get slightly more crowded feeling. I also
added another set of stairs for the player to climb, this is give a greater
sense of height and the feeling of ‘climbing towards to goal’.
Texture
planning was the next major step, as i had to sort out what i was going to
texture and how much texture space it would get. As well as what texture is going to tile. Below shows how I've split up the 4 1024s.
I split up
all my individual assets over the 2 1024s, so i could get as much texel density
as possible as these assets are reused a lot throughout the level. All my
tiling textures are split between the 6 512s. Then the 8 256s are for decals
and alphas,. I decided to do that as alphas are quite intensive, so by keeping
the texture as small as possible i would
limit the strain on the engine.
Below is
some of the tilling textures present in the level:
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| Bricks |
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| Floor Tiles |
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| Rubble |
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| Wall Concrete |
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| Military and Communications Assets |
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| Building Assets |
Below shows some of the alpha textures i have done.
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| Plant Pot Bush |
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| Barbed Wire |
Next step is
importing the assets and level into Cry to get a better feeling for the level. Check back soon.
