Week 17 - Populating our Container City.

   Third week in, and it looks like we're pretty much done texturing most of the assets! There are a few that still need to be done and then we have the job of placing everything!
   We initially split these up between us, not necessarily texturing the same objects that we had modelled. We tried to make it as equal as possible in terms of texturing.
These are a few of my favourites so far,  especially the bust tv with candles inside. I've really liked thinking of the different assets we could include in this game, because to me, it's those tiny little details like jars, forks, plates etc that really sell the look of it. They really bring the level together and make it feel cluttered, like it's a place that's being used.

   We've had a few issues this week in terms of lighting. In the containers, there's a light bleed where the sides meet the top. We've been trying to fix it, and even though it was improved slightly, it still was visible. So we spent some time thinking about different ways to cover it up and hide it from the player.

   We were thinking a bit further on the route the player could take and what it could look like at each point in terms of assets and gameplay, so from the notes we produced, I drew these storyboards to help us have a firm plan of what this would be like in a game situation.

   I really enjoyed storyboarding. It was refreshing as it's not something I've experienced a lot of, but I felt like I really contributed as a team member by doing this. My favourite area of any project is the concepting stage, but there hasn't really been a lot of that in this project. There have been paint overs of block outs, but mostly it's been a rush to find an idea, get this modelled, get that textured. So, it was nice to physically sketch out what we wanted the play through to be.

Week 16: Building our Dystopian City.

   So this has been another packed week full of container project work.  This week we have made quite a lot of progress on the city, having gotten majority of the assets built, a lot of the interactivity sorted in engine, the level layout sorted and a firmer idea of the look of the level.
   I've sort of split my time between building and unwrapping objects and creating more paint overs to help us out with how the level will look. I've been trying to get into the habit of building assets then getting them unwrapped with light maps sorted straight away, because it just saves so much time and gets everything done and out of the way.
   We've been creating a lot of modular assets, which we will be able to use to clutter the area and really build up the aesthetics of the level.

   This was the stage that the assets were at very early on in the week, we have progressed with them so much since then. We are making sure to include lots of little details that will really bring the level to life, like bottles and food cans, TVs with candles in them, weapons, etc.

   Mark has created some incredible 'God rays' coming down from the ceiling which create an excellent atmosphere through this corridor. He's also made some excellent dust particles and added sound which really is starting to bring the level together.

   

   As well as this I have been looking more into the look of the level. I thought it was important that we come to more realisation about what our scene should look like. I also produced some potential interiors that we could use. I tried to make these look fairly derelict but still like someone could have potentially tried to make a home here. 

   On Thursday we had our presentation, which I think overall went quite well. The main worry with our level seems to be that it still may be too complicated and long. In response to this we shortened the beginning a bit, but a lot of the most difficult mechanics of the level are mostly sorted out, and when it comes to aesthetics, modularity will play a big part here. We have also been looking slightly deeper into the story and look of the level. We looked at shipwrecks and the dried up Aran sea, where there are a lot of abandoned rusted up ships. We came to an idea that this could maybe be an old dried up seabed. I looked at more reference and colour picked various inspirational images. Some of my favourites were from the films 'There will be blood' and 'Waterworld'. There was a gorgeous contrast between the rusted browns and the blue of the sea in Waterworld, which I really wanted to try and incorporate somehow. I also really liked the bleak look of 'There will be blood', so I tried to combine these. 

   This is a paint over I produced from these ideas. The sky is bleak and unfriendly, with smoke from fires. I thought the contrast could maybe be achieved by blue tarpaulin instead of sea, just to add a really nice accent of colour to break up the rather brown aesthetics of the scene. 

   Over this weekend I've been building and unwrapping even more assets and now I think we have a really good amount to be able to keep it interesting. I also tried to make some fairy lights that could be used in the scene. It's conceivable that people could have found these and want any way possible to make their living space more pleasant to look at. This unfortunately took longer than I thought it would, even though it's just a texture map plugged into emissive colour. I think this is because I'd been trying to look at lots of different possible methods of creating this, and hadn't realised how simple it was to create emissive textures, because I haven't really used them before.

      I'd been hoping to create some seamless textures before the end of the weekend, to make rusted metal and so on, but I haven't had a chance to as of yet. I'm going to do my best to create a few before the end of this evening.

Week 15: Container City!

   So we've come back after being home for three weeks and it's straight into a brand new project! We have to work in teams to create a playable level out of shipping containers, fitting to the theme of either dystopian or Sci-fi. I'm with Andy, Luke and Mark for this project, and this is how our first week went.
   We weren't sure what direction we really wanted to go in to begin with, so we started out by building our own individual block outs of the scene, then merging them together to see what we could create out of them. Which.. didn't exactly work in our favour. We mostly just got a giant mess out of it, but I suppose it served its purpose, which was to give us a starting point for ideas. After though,  we took away the file and each tried to refine it to come up with a smoother idea. In the beginning I quite liked the idea of the player spawning in makeshift prison cells and escaping an enemy's stronghold.

   Whilst we were still thinking about where we wanted to take this level, layout wise, we went on to mood boards to find some ideas of what we wanted the aesthetics of the level to be like. 

   I was very into the idea of a dystopian/post apocalyptic type level. That's just a personal thing I guess, I saw more room for manoeuvre and ideas with that, whereas I've never found Sci-Fi that interesting or inspiring. Personally. I mean, who knows, that may change in the future, but so far the derelict look, peeling paint and rusted metal is a much more inspiring thought to me.
   Whilst making mood boards, I realised I really liked the idea of a barren desert wasteland, which later progressed to being made into a fortified city, protecting themselves from zombies. (Zombies yay!) I looked at a lot of pictures of abandoned factories or places that had fallen derelict, such as Pripyat, but I found looking at shanty towns the most useful, because apart from not generally being built out of shipping containers, they were very much a look I thought would be good to aim for. A civilisation of people, building a home out of simply what they can find.

   Each of us then started to discuss the player's route in more detail, and Mark came up with some excellent solutions. We had to solve the problem of our level being frankly way too big, but at the same time make it interesting for the player to traverse.

   As you can see from the blue arrows in the section above, some of the original idea's were way too overcomplicated and unnecessary. 

   This was our roundabout level appearance by the end of the first week. We have still been tweaking it from this stage, trying to get a more interesting play through. 

   We all started making a list of what assets needed making, and got a fair few made and unwrapped. I also tried to do a couple of paint overs to explore the idea of what the overall look of the level could be. 

   

Week 14 - Sentry Gun Post-Mortem

   Even looking back now, I still think this project was awesome. The sentry gun project, I feel, was a great project that gave us the opportunity to really have free reign with the concepting stage.  For this project we were supposed to design and build a sentry gun that would track and fire at the player. We were given pre made blueprints for this, although a lot of people chose to add awesome things that required more blueprints. I loved this project because there were loads of really cool results, because everyone came up with something different. 

    The first hurdle was deciding what sort of subject to follow. I researched into a range of subjects but eventually decided on something ancient Chinese, because I really liked the colours and the intricate designs. I think this is another project that I'd potentially like to do again, purely because I just enjoyed it so much. Maybe I'd try one of the other subjects I'd researched. 

   We were told to bring in some objects that we could possibly use to influence out designs. I brought in a hair clip and a can opener, neither of which were particularly inspiring objects. So, instead I used some of the silouhettes in my bash-kit, as well as some silouhettes from the mood board. Next time I should thing harder about the silouhettes of the object that I'm going to use.

   I then used this bash kit to create some (In my opinion) pretty cool concepts. To begin with my favourite was 19, I really liked the legs and the use of the dragon's head as the cannon. I really like this method of idea forming, it's a really good way of making ideas when you have nothing. I had no idea what I wanted to make before I made these, then all of a sudden ideas were springing up everywhere. 

   I chose six different designs and considered which one I could take further. Amanda pointed out that number 24 looked like a cat, which sparked an idea in my head; Lucky Cats! I first thought these where Chinese, but after some research I found out that they're Japanese. 

   I continued with 4 of my choices, experimenting with which to take further, but I couldn't let go of the Lucky Cat idea. So I thought that that was probably the best bet to go for. 

   I started thinking about how the stand would work so that it would still look like a statue but would be able to swivel so that it could track the player. Whilst I was concepting this I build a prototype to check that it would be able to work in engine. 

   I then worked on the face and experimented with different expression, but then decided to stick with the typical look. 

   I experimented with different colours, and after getting feedback I decided on 4 separate colour schemes. I changed the base so it was as if it rotated on a pole, because this looked like it worked more convincingly and it didn't look like it was about to topple off at any point. 

   This was the final result. Elliot helped me get the arm to rotate as the gun fired and snap back, to look like it was reloading. I feel like I need to look further into blueprints and how the animation works, because it still confuses me a lot. 

   I'm genuinely proud of how this project went. I feel like my concepting stage was really strong, and because of that I was able to produce an end result that works well. Next time I think I'd make it higher poly and improve the textures, because there are visible seams in some parts, although I did try my hardest to cover them up. Overall I'd say that this has been up there as one of my favourite projects so far!