Off The Map: Modelling like mad

Just a quick update on what everyone has been up to this week;

Stating off from last time we have progressed a lot, we have almost finished modelling there is only a few little assets and some main environment left to do and we finally have nailed down a style.

After Denzil copying the art style of Ink Quest we decided that this was not the way to go forward, mainly because we want to do something new and colourful. However this test was very beneficial and we are incorporating some of this style into the beginning of the level.  

Denzil's Ink Quest inspired environment.

Ink Quest

As I have already mentioned we are very close to finishing modelling; just a few bits mainly for me to fix with the overall environment, so that all of the assets will fit together in engine. We made a shared spreadsheet to help us keep track of what everyone is doing and what is left to do; this includes whether it is unwrapped, textured, its tricount. Here's a few of the models made this week. 

One of the floating houses made by Braden.

Lily pads made by Luke.

Book stacks for the environment made by me.

We have also decided to use more of the images that were given to us after Freddy spoke to the judges in London. We have now made our level more underground and have started to add mining tools to the level.

Mine cart made by Denzil.

One of the images given to us by the British Library.

Whilst modelling a lot of the assets I have found lots of little tweaks that need to be made to the block out, such as extension of certain parts of the level. 

Error with the block-out compared to the concept.

I am slowly trying to get everything to fit but this might be better to fix when we have built everything in engine so that they can be sized perfectly.

Level block-out compared to the designs and concepts.

I have come to conclusion that I will just have to tweak it continuously whilst working on the environment to make sure that it is to scale with Alice and her mechanics. Speaking of mechanics, I spent Monday morning working on a few little things that needed editing such as getting the logs to break when big Alice jumps on them and making Alice float down the rabbit hole. So far I have managed to do these basically but I am unsure whether there might be a better way to do these later on. 

But on the the good stuff here is Freddy's final paint-over of the entire level;

Final level paint-over.

This clearly shows the transition of paper sepia tones to stylised saturated models. I am really happy with how this has turned out and I really hope that we can replicate this overall. Here is what the mushroom section is looking like at the moment;

Dan has also started blocking out his Alice model and I think we have almost decided on a final design; number 4 shown below.

Dan's Alice concepts.

That's everything for now, next time I do an update we should be completely modelled and have a lot of texturing done; fingers crossed everything goes to plan.
Cheerio for now.

References:
Ink Quest image: http://www.gamrreview.com/news/91979/a-look-at-lionheads-cancelled-title-inkquest/
Mining photo: http://wchildblog.com/2014/05/24/photo-story-rare-early-flash-photography-images-of-cornish-miners/

Off The Map: Deciding a style

So leading off from last week we have come quite far and we are beginning to see our ideas become a reality. To start off here is Braden's finished concept for the "Eat Me" room,

This was the basis from which we worked on to design the rest of the level. I really love the sense of depth and paper feel to this but it still needs something else.

So at the beginning of the week me and Denzil decided to swap jobs and he has been working on UE4 mechanics and has managed to get a re-spawn and checkpoint system working, which I would have never have been able to do.

However whilst Denzil has been working in engine I did a block out of the level and tested it in UE4 to make sure that it plays well and that there was no issues with scale and proportion. After testing it I did some quick renders and we have started to do paint overs of them to get some finalised concepts on the go. We had some issues with deciding how much colour to use and ended up doing paint-overs of other peoples work to make it seem more cohesive. At the moment we have decided to go quite colourful but keep the bookesque feel with the paper textures and try to incorporate books themselves into the level. Here are the concepts we have so far;

Rabbit hole, "Drink Me" and "Eat Me" room

The book path

Extended book path

Extended book path repainted

Lily pad jump

The Caterpillars lair

As you can see we have changed our look quite drastically. We are aware that it might not work too well with the overall book style so we are keeping our minds open to change. At the moment I am working on doing a final model of The Caterpillars lair so that we can texture it and see the best style to go for.

Dan has also been working on Alice and I am over the moon with his concepts;

I ablsoloutely love number 11 and I feel like we are going the right way in terms of us doing an Alice based on Alice Liddell (The girl that inspired Lewis Carroll).

Alice Liddel.

Denzil has also been working on card characters if we manage to do the second level of our game these will be used for that:

I love number 7 and 8, they have a unique feel to them but still refer to Carroll's original illustrations. 

Lewis Carroll's original card character illustrations.

And finally Braden has also managed to get some UI to work in the level here is a quick work in progress shot;

obviously the graphics have not been designed or made yet but me and Freddy feel that having something like this as the background;

would work quite well with the overall style and look of the game.

That's everything so far, update you soon.
Cheerio for now.



References:
Photo of Alice Liddell: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/07/meet-the-girl-who-inspired-alice-in-wonderland/259474/
Lewis Carroll illustration: http://www.stylezza.com/exposition-alice-at-wonder-cards-land-at-issy-les-moulineaux-museum-551
Book with bottles: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goddess_spiral/4329276330/in/photostream/

Off The Map: Off our rockers

So we have finally started the off the map competition and I am really excited! We need to win!
The brief is to create a game/environment surrounding Alice's adventures underground. The topics are Oxford, Underground and The Gardens. 

It was a rocky start at the beginning but we have done a lot in a week. There has been a few issues with evenness in our group; lets just say we have no concepters or engine people but we do have 3 environment artists and 3 character artists. So as you have realised I'm not best pleased that I have been given the job of engine person; I love engine work but I am just not very confident in being able to produce all the amazing ideas our team has come up with. Luckily my team is willing to help me and there is lots of other peers willing to lend a hand. So I will still be able to do alot of modelling and texturing (that being my speciality).

In this first week we all have been concepting and brainstorming to try and come up with some decent ideas for our game; and we have decided on a book/paper feel side scroller. Here are a couple concepts to explain what I mean. 

These are just a few quick photo-bashes to show what each of us see in our heads. We are still in the process of deciding what way we are going to go, for example are we doing it all book like but having it get colourful towards the end? or are we having the foreground realistic and the background paper cut-outs? We are still having some issues with this but we should hopefully clear this up next week. 

In my eyes this concept is perfect and is beautiful but I need to see what the rest of the team think.

I have also been working on the mechanics of the level here is a couple sketches I did to explain the pick up system we were going to have.

Unfortunately after trying these out in engine I had a few issues with picking up a second object; after you had grown or shrunk you couldn't pick up another item. This caused lots of confusion which meant I had to find another way to get the mechanic to work. Luckily a couple peers helped me out with some new blueprinting which means that when ever you press 1,2 or 3 you will either get small, big or normal sized. I still need to hook this up to when you pick up an Eat me cake or a Drink me potion but it should be a lot easier now. I have also been testing out pop up elements, such as animated trees; when you walk with in a certain radius they will start to pop up in the background. This will add an element of fun into the game.

Looking forward to updating you,

Cheerio for now.

Farewell space mushrooms: Container City Post Mortem

This week has gone incredibly quickly yet not quick enough, I am happy to see the back of this project even though I love our out come. The week has been a mass of emotions and stress, plus with VFX we missed an entire day of work; over all I am physically an emotionally exhausted (this might be due to not having a day off in this entire project). Never the less lets get onto the cool shit that we managed to create in 4 weeks. 

Here is all of the assets that I made that got used in the final level:

Over all I am very happy with my modelling in this project and I have learnt a lot about modularity. My favorite two assets I made have to be my hatch and my second floor; they look visually appealing and really fit the style of the level. 

Modular hatch asset

Modular floor asset

The presentation today didn't go too badly, we didn't get negative feedback or positive feedback so we are still unsure whether the tutors like it or not. They just think we were all stoned for the entirety of the project...

But to be fair we do look like this whenever the word space is mentioned...

Overall I am over the moon with our outcome and I would have never have been able to make anything like this without my awesome group; and I am happy that we decided to not restart on this project because we have learnt so much and encountered lots of problems which we now know how to fix; we also know how to plan and go about doing a project like this again.

Without further ado here is some beauty shots of our level;

Living quarters

Habitation area

Habitation area

Over grown corridor

Over grown corridor

Over grown corridor

The bridge


The storage room


Air lock corridor

Here a quick list of everything that I have done in this project:

Assets:

• Wall1
• Wall2
• Wall3
• Wall_Room
• Ceiling1
• Ceiling1_Frame
• Ceiling1_Tile
• Ceiling2
• Floor1_FrameAndPanel
• Floor1_Frame
• Floor1_Panel
• Floor_2
• Hatch_Open
• Hatch_Closed
• Airlock
• DoorFrame1
• Door
• OpenShutter
• ClosedShutter
• DoorBroken
• Leaves 8 clumps Collaboration with Lucy
• Wall PC Collaboration with James
• Amber_Poster
• Amber_Boot
• Amber_Banana
• Lucy_Polaroids
• Beth_Poster
• Stickers x14

Unwraps & Lightmaps

• Wall1
• Wall2
• Wall3
• Wall_Room
• Ceiling1
• Ceiling1_Frame
• Ceiling1_Tile
• Ceiling2
• Floor1_FrameAndPanel
• Floor1_Frame
• Floor1_Panel
• Floor_2
• Hatch_Open
• Hatch_Closed
• Airlock
• DoorFrame1
• Door
• OpenShutter
• ClosedShutter
• DoorBroken
• Amber_Poster
• Amber_Boot
• Amber_Banana
• Lucy_Polaroids
• Beth_Poster
• Stickers x14
• Wall PC Collaboration with Lucy
• Stasis Chamber Collaboration with Beth
• Stasis Chamber Door Collaboration with Beth
• Toolbox Collaboration with Beth
• Spanner Collaboration with Beth
• Screwdriver Collaboration with Beth
• Paper x3 Collaboration with Beth
• Books x3 Collaboration with Beth
• Magazine x3 Collaboration with Beth
• Cup Collaboration with Beth
• Knife & Fork Collaboration with Beth
• Barrel Collaboration with Beth
• Food Tray Collaboration with Beth
• Cassette Tape Collaboration with Beth
• Torch Collaboration with Beth

Textures:

• Ceiling1_Mat- Albedo, Metalness, Roughness & Normal
• Floor1_Mat- Albedo, Metalness, Roughness & Normal
• Wall1_Mat- Albedo, Metalness, Roughness & Normal
• Tile_Metal_1- Albedo, Roughness & Normal +6 Instances
• Tile_PaintedMetal_1- Albedo, Roughness & Normal +4 Instances
• Tile_Plastic_1- Albedo, Roughness & Normal +7 Instances
• Sticker_Mat- Albdeo, Metalness, Roughness & Normal
• Unique_Space_Mat- Albedo, Roughness, Emissive & Normal

• Amber_Mat- Albedo
• Beth_Mat- Albedo
• Lucy_Mat- Albedo
• Dirt_Mats- Albedo x3
• Moss_Mats- Albedo x4
• Rust_Mats- Albdeo x3
• Landscape_Mats:
  • Mud- Albedo, Roughness & Normal
  • Moss1- Albedo, Roughness & Normal
  • Moss2- Albedo, Roughness & Normal

Engine:

• Concertina Door- Animation & Blueprints
• Stasis Chamber Door- Blueprints
• Decals Collaboration with Lucy

So i think you could say I'm a team player, considering that two of our team mates had work over the weekend it meant that we had to work that little bit harder to make up for lost time.

Here is the final play through featuring my beautiful concertina door that turns purple because blueprints are evil! Enjoy.

Now lets get down to the Q&A:

Q: What went well?
A: For me all of my modelling and texturing went well, I hardly had any issues at all with this project, but we did encounter a lot as a team.

Q: What didn't go well?
A: Overall the planning was awful on our behalf, this was due to us not knowing how to go about making the level; none of us have made anything like this before. The lighting was atrocious and we should have done that in the first week but ended up doing it properly in the last week. Light maps overall were breaking, some of our team mates had sizing issues and the post processing and height fog were tedious to get right. Personally my main issues were with my blueprints and making the animation for the door work, lets just say it took 3 days.

Q: What did you learn?
A: I have learnt a hell of technical skills such as working with blueprints, lighting and a ton in engine; however I have also learnt a lot about myself. I have realised that I should push myself out of my comfort zone more, like I did on this project because I have created something completely different from what I normally do. I have learnt to be more confident with my skills mainly when it comes to concepting and texturing, and also to stick by what I believe and take what the tutors say into consideration but always stay with what I feel would be best. I have also realised that I tend to be quite hot headed and find it hard to work with people with the same temperament; this is definitely something I am trying to work on.

What my face looks like whenever anyone messes something up.

Q: How would you approach it next time?
A: It is obvious to me that we needed to do more planning and idea generation, so I would 100% spend at least 2 or 3 days working on this before diving into concepting and modelling. I would also do a mesh block out rather than a bsp because that set us back a few days. Another thing I would do is set up all the interactivity and lighting with the block mesh before even starting to think about modelling the final assets and texturing. 

Q: What can you take from this project and apply to others?
A:  Basically everything I have learnt and more; all the things to do with planning and how we should have started this project. For the next project I am planning on only working from 9am-5pm and then having time to do personal work at home and relax; because I have burnt myself out this project and it has been a stressful roller coaster.

How exhausted I feel right now...

Any who I have over the moon with our outcome and I hope that you liked it...

More to come soon.

Cheerio for now!

References:

Space Cat .gif: http://imgur.com/gallery/UTJyfEw
Angry Cat .gif: http://www.gurl.com/2011/11/19/paw-some-angry-kittens-gifs-cute/
Sleepy Cat .gif: http://www.buzzfeed.com/cconnelly/23-cat-gifs-that-perfectly-represent-your-life-s3x