Documentation

Slums Environment

I aim to produce a realistic slums environment level set in Kenya on a PS3 platform.

 

 

Personal Aim – To become an environment artist and demonstrate my capability of designing weapons.

Objective – Design and create a successful playable FPS level and further my technical knowledge within the game engine (UDK).

Genre – FPS, SHMUP.

Audience – 15+

Software – I will use 3ds Max and UDK as the game engine.

Technical Specifications for:

·         Lead Character

Poly Budget – 7000 Tri’s demonstrating clean and solid topology.

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Style – Mercenary with armour

·         An NPC

Poly Budget – 4000 Tri’s

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Style – Kenyan rebel

·         A Vehicle

Poly Budget – 3000 Tri’s  

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

One abandoned vehicle used for parts and on bricks

·         The Environment

Poly Budget – 20,000 Tri’s

Textures – 10xDiffuse, 10xNormal and 10xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024 on each

I will use a mixture of unique texturing and tillable texturing for the slums as well as reference images.

·         Weapons

Poly Budget – 2,500 Tri’s per weapon (14 weapons) 

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Realistic weapons will be hidden in one shack ready for the lead character to collect for example this Scar-L assault rifle.

Level Design

  I don’t know much about level design to be honest so I have been looking through a few websites gathering some information from tutorials and articles. It’s quite clear how much planning and preparation is put into the design before it started. I will go through a process I think is a general guideline I think everyone seems to stick to when creating an environment. The majority of artists I have looked at have planned and executed a whole map in just 3weeks. I’m guessing this must be industry standard but I think time management is vital when doing so.

 This is the basic work flow I have come across with most artists but i have been looking at one in particular named Alex A.Galuzin

Ideas – Initial vision of the level, what it consists of. This will mainly be images of things that trigger your imagination, put them all down on a mood board and write a list of the things you want to include, don’t set a technical limit yet. Get some cool ideas to work from for inspiration then you can move on.

Reference – Collect reference images, get a feel for the atmosphere you want to create, this gives you a better image in your head of what you want to achieve in the end.

Visualization – this puts you into the mindset, it’s very important to see your final product before it is done. If this doesn’t happen you will be doing it by trial and error which will equal bad planning and a lot of frustration.

 

 

Planning and Execution – Sketch out a few visually pleasing guidelines of what you think the map will look like for example a top down view of how it will play out and where you would want the player to explore. After this you can jump in to the editor and starts blocking in big shapes in your map, no details just get the basics down roughly.

 

 

Atmosphere - Set the scene outside the environment to create the feel you wanted. Add the sky and terrain to see how the space will look, again not much detail the basic lights.

Playable Map – Test the map, run around in it, see if you like how the map is planned out. Having no details on the map at this stage will help you really concentrate on the layout itself.

Textures – Start blocking in your textures and getting rid of the checked patterns!

Adding Objects – Any objects you wanted to include can now be modelled and textured it’s like a phase one of putting in the detail. Still at this stage add the big details then go to the small and don’t just concentrate one area of the map.

Adding Objects Phase 2 – Strat detailing specific details of the map, polish up individual areas.

Lights – Add the light you think will create the best atmosphere you want to achieve

Gameplay – As well as you ask other to play the map, they will probably find flaws that you won’t!

 

  Following these artists has given me such a better idea of what level design is all about and how to develop my own ideas. I will do more research like this when it comes to group projects!!

Visual Composition

 I think it is vital for anyone trying to develop their skills in art to understand exactly what meaning of visual composition is. The term composition means ‘putting together’ this is basically elements put together by conscious thought, it can also be thought of as the organisation of the elements of art according to the principles of art. Understanding this principle and being able to develop it in my work is a professional skill I need to acquire. When looking at successful piece of work you can see how and why that person has placed the elements in a particular order, for either realism or for the image to have impact and make the audience feel a certain way. For example if a  photograph was taken at a man’s level this would treat him as an equal, if one was taken from below it could result in an impression of dominance.

 

 I have recently tried to incorporate good composition into my 3d work, I haven’t had much feedback from the design yet but I’m hoping the way I have laid out specific objects creates and impression of realism, which was the brief to create a realistic grouping of trash as seen outside on the streets. Admitting the background of my final render needed a bit of tweaking as the colours didn’t really fit well within the scene and the lighting I used didn’t compliment the brick wall. I spent quite a while arranging the different objects and making duplicates of assets to make it more interesting, I think it’s easier to apply good composition to something you can already move around, this is why so much planning and concepting is important before attempting to start a final piece.

 

 A few principles of organisation which can affect the composition are shape and proportion, negative space, colour, contrast, geometry, lines, lighting, repetition and perspective. This is important to remember when developing any work, another technique visual artists use is the Rule of Thirds.

 The rule of thirds is a guideline followed by some visual artists. The objective is to stop the subject(s) and areas of interest (such as the horizon) from bisecting the image, by placing them near one of the lines that would divide the image into three equal columns and rows, ideally near the intersection of those lines.

 I struggle to understand and put this into practise myself with my images but I am going to start using these guidelines and see if my work improves, if so my work should be aesthetically pleasing which means the elements must be arranged in a composition ally balanced way. Overall practising these techniques can only improve my work and then eventually I can develop the understanding of where specific elements within UDK should be placed. The sooner I learn this the better, better knowledge of this will help create decent level design and help me with our group project in the future.

 

Planning & Concepting

 This blog is still about elements of game design but I will be talking about the planning and concepting that goes into producing a successful product. The games industry relies heavily on the good solid initial planning, similar to writing a brief before you start modelling on 3ds and basically any design work in general. All artists require a base to work from, ideas need to be visually explored before they are processed and developed. I remember watching the ‘Black Hawk Down in the making’ documentary and thinking how amazing it was that this whole idea and art direction had come from small thumb nail concept art, a lot like a comic book. I found this interesting because it’s easy to assume that films/games are made from just random activities churned together in a sequence to look visually pleasing.

 Concept artists will be given an idea or a brief on the project, the artists will then take this idea and sketch from ten to a hundred thumbnails exploring the possibilities and designs. Then out of all these only a handful will be picked for further development. If this process is not carried out the likelihood of the project being a success is already at a low.

 I have recently taken a great interest in the game soon to be released called ‘the last of us’ unfortunately only on the ps3 platform and i believe to be inspired by the film 'I am Legend'. Visually the game looks stunning with such high intensity detail and game play, very similar to ‘Uncharted’ made by naughty dog. I have found that the artists James Paick from the USA actually contributed towards both of these games, designing brilliant concepts for both environments, below are a few concepts he put together for the last of us.

 

  I know these pictures don’t show the development of the concepts and only the final product, but they just so brilliant and detailed you could actually spend a long time looking at them. You can automatically tell how much work has gone into one of these images, the colour and atmosphere creates such an great image for the audience, and let’s be honest if you can accomplish this people will want to play your game. Concepts art like this makes the games so appealing for example Uncharted was so popular because the environments were so realistic and stunning due to the planning that gamers were quite happy just to walk around the level. I believe the to bring this kind detail into the game the 3d modellers have to work very closely with the 2d team trying to being the concept to life. The concept provided is never an absolute but its more than a guideline, obviously there are technical challenges to overcome so you have to allow change with assets etc. I hope to achieve this level of organisation and one day develop something as stunning as this.