Client Project:: A job well done

Through the stress, turmoil, blood, sweat and tears, the client project has come to its finality, the level is as build as its going to be before hand in and its looking pretty swish! I was pretty disappointed to have to resort to some pre built assets towards the end to finish populating the level but if I hadn't then there would have been a big difference in the look. Over all I can say my knowledge base from when i started the project to its finish my knowledge base has grown exponentially and im hoping my work will show that too. But... thats enough of me doing the standard jibber jabba, I'll let you decide.

Monti Cristo Games studio's promotiona; dino animations for Dino Island

A few little gems in animations by Monti Cristo games studio. enjoy

Live Client developmet... so far.. continued

Now I had made a substantial start on the outside area with time running short and knowing how many weeks I had left I made a move and start on the construction of the challenge area one. Taking forward my knowledge of mistakes I had made on the construction of the outside area. I made sure before I started I knew what kinds of things I would be creating before hand. After recapping on my original design for this challenge ... (below) I got down to experimental building

I found 3DS Max a really good inventive tool. From my Drawings and research I could take certain aspects of things that I liked or was attracted and incorporate them into the design flow of a object as I was constructing it. after some considerable amount of building time here was a simulated look of how the environment would look like.

I quickly got on high poly asset building and texturing to create over all look.
Here are the assets from this scene in the games engine fully textured(with a design concept in there too).

When it came to the ball design I had a idea of a spindle designed ball that had water contained in the middle. The water colour in the middle would indicate the hole to shoot the ball in as the hole would be illuminated in the same colour. One ball in the correct coloured hole would open the door.

The only problem that presented this was how to create a convincing water texture using the games material editor. I will openly admit that I am pretty much a complete novice when it comes to textures in games engines. and water was going to be a challenge... and I can say with confidence I was right.

I found a tutorial in my book that covered the basics and worked through to the advanced stuff. trying to learn what each node does in UDK's plug and play, and slowly but surly this was the result of my endeavours.



a convincing water texture nether the less but I wanted to see if i could work on with what I'd learnt and to see what other people did and combine my 2 findings together to see what I could get.

eventually and with along time I came up with this.

which was a lot more tasty than the first =)

This pretty much brings me up to speed on my blog so thanks for reading an keep checking as there will be more coming up soon.

Live Client developmet... so far

As its been a while since I have last posted up on my blog ill try and cover a lot of there I am at the moment in one foul swoop. Its getting close to hand in time now so heads are down getting all the final stuff made.

Basically over the last few weeks I have been making and texturing like a demon trying to get enough assets out in this small time to make this project look half good. just as a recap this is more or less what my concept design was and where I thought it was going...

So in my development process here are a few of the things i made to fit in with the outside environment.

I knew I would have to revisit the base textures at some point so as a model to test them in the world space they were fine as they were.

After getting quite a few of my assets had been made I started to get towards the construction stage just to see how it looked when it was put together.

As with most developmental processes it needed a lot of work. I had a few play experiments with how the assets could be placed as well as changing the approach to the building to give it a few of a imposing building, but to little avail. I began to look over characteristics of different cultures temple like structures to gain some influence in how to create a temple like feel to the building as one it was very ridged in its structure, and two it didn't look like a temple. After looking over my images i had come to stockpile, I came to a conclusion that I had a lot of cultural influences in my workings which could lead to a confusion in how the piece visually presented itself. However I found that Persian style architecture seemed to embody the curvaceous stylistic approach I had worked towards.

I did a bit more designing and playing around with the environment but I felt I would have to leave the outside for a later date as I now had to start working on the inside to get the main bulk up my work in place to meet the criteria of my brief. this is more of less some of the designs and state of how I have left the out side area for now.

Artifact 3 test space

This is a over look of the test space for my 3rd artefact. I have given a test player 3 choices of path from the start and each employ different methods of attraction to help the player wayfind to the area they think is right. The idea is I tell the test'e that they are trapped and need to find their way out to the outside world, and I record which way they go. I want to see if there is any indication to if new gamers or more skilled gamers are more attuned to different aspects of games (sound, light and textures) when they navigate round a level. For the texture orientated path I have used decal maps of bright red arrows pointing one way. for the light orientated map I have used light shafts to draw the players eye and a bright light indicating a outside lighting. For the sound I have used common outside sounds like birds and wind which a player will experience through a 5.1 sound system. Watch this space for the results =)

first environment tests

My first Environment test inside the games engine. This was to see how the textures mixed together when put next to each other. The gems on the door need darkening but the textures them selves work together quite nicely.

Asset Creation

after looking over my work again I realise that my topology needed looking at so here are some optimised models as a work in progress