Partially stylised environment: Through the gate
It was time to pick another project this week but due to me taking time out of this poject due to Off the map stuff I have lost a bit of time; I also got asked some questions for an article on our Off the map project in a turkish newspaper, I will hopefully be sent a copy soon so I will be posting it up soon.
After starting late I was having some trouble deciding what I wanted to do for the next project I was torn between these projects:
Isometric stylised environment 2D brief
- Would help with fmp designing
- Good practice of colour schemes for fmp
- Practice of gameplay and mechanics for fmp
Through the gate semi stylised environment (asian gate) 3D brief
- Need a better environment for portfolio due to bad 2nd project
- Very open brief
- Need variation in portfolio
Blizzard Character stylised 3D brief
- Enjoyable stylised project working towards my strengths
- Can be a creature rather than human
- Angry because would have done this rather than stylised wilderness character
- I love to do characters (unsure of whether I want to specialise in environments because I don't have the passion for them unless I am working in a group)
Blizzard Environment stylised 3D brief
- Enjoyable stylised project working towards my strengths
- Need more variation in my portfolio so off the cards
Retro Robot semi stylised 3D brief
- Would have done something different for shop front and done this for the last project
I ended up swaying towards the Through the gate project as I need a better environment project for my portfolio. I then started looking at making moodboards; I went to the library and looked at books to do with interior design and graphic design. After looking at different styles I would like to go with I was torn between an ink and etching style and a graphical illustration style; I was also torn between a hotline miami inspired interior or a modular dungeon.
Whilst doing my moodboards I realised that the thing that makes environments interesting to me is the style and colours used; so this is something I am going to try and push to make this project interesting to me.
I decided to go and do a few tests to see how easy each of these projects would be and how interesting they would come out. I started by making a test interior room in a graphical style; with dramatic implied lighting.
After testing this one out I moved on to the modular dungeon making a few modular pieces and then taking them into UE4 to see how they would snap and how easy it would be to make a large interchangeable environment. After messing around with it a bit I decided I wanted to make it top down like the interior appartment would be. I took some of these assets and did a quick photobash/paintover to show what the dungeon might look like.
After finishing this I hit a brick wall and was unsure what to go with so I asked some peers and they suggested I did the dungeon due to it being more interesting than the appartment and it is easier to incorporate the gate.
I got into modelling more modular assets with the help of a friend who showed me how to snap things correctly inside 3DS Max so that my modular assets would fit together correctly and not overlap in UE4. Here's the assets so far:
-Gate
-Archway
-Straight stair
-L stair
-Column
-Floor
-Triangle floor
-Straight wall
-90° angle wall
-45° wall
-Curved 90° wall
-Half wall
-Triangle half wall
-Torch
After getting some stuff modelled I made another moodboard thinking about the things I want to have in the dungeon.
I wanted an altar room, treasure room, boss room and a fountain room. unfortunately now looking at the time I have for this project and not wanting a repeat of last project I have decided to do just the one room (the altar room) with a small hallway or something to keep it small and polished. The best thing about modular assets is that if I have more time I can always add more rooms fairly quickly. Another thing I want to add is 2D pickups that float and spin around on the floor.
After deciding I was only going to focus on the altar room I got looking at how I could design this with the assets I had. Here's a quick test in 3DS Max:
During this project I want to learn lots of different techniques and programs I haven't used before so I had a go at using the cloth modifier in 3DS Max to make a cloth for the altar. I made a highpoly inside 3DS max and then imported it into Zbrush to decimate it and then baked the high poly onto the new low poly inside Xnormal. Here's the cloth at the moment (high on the left. low on the right):
Another thing I wanted to learn during this project is Zbrush so I started off making a highpoly floor in 3DS max and taking it into Zbrush to sulpt it, I then exported it and baked it in XNormal onto a flat plane/box. I did this for multiple assets such as a cracked floor, circle floor, collumn, and a wall.
Highpoly assets ready to be put into zbrush.
Floor sculpt
When it came to the cracked floor I managed to undo a load of work and then managed to save over the file that was further ahead, luckily I have a baked normal of the semi finished one. The image above is an earlier Zbrush save so this sculpt might be something I go back to fix.
Circle floor sculpt
Column sculpt
With the wall texture I made a tileable wall section and then baked it down so I can just be tiled on the walls rather than it being unique.
It was around about this time I started designing runes for the walls and for the circle design around the altar. I tried to incorporate the gates design as much as possible so that everything is coherent.
Here's what the temporary scene is looking like at the moment in UE4:
The lighting is broken and still needs to be fixed, I am unsure of why its lighting assets so differently. My next step is to do some drawing and planning of what the altar room is going to look like; looking at details, assets, colours and lighting.