Oasis, Finished

I'm only using my oasis scene as a showcase piece for my portfolio, so the rest of the level is moroless empty. Anyway, I'm classing it as finished so I can move on to my main project again although I wouldn't mind making a small 1v1 or 2v2 map in UT3 so I have an extra level to put in my portfolio when we finish.

Moar Orange + Moar Birds

This morning I added some extra detail and foliage, I changed the lighting and the post processing and I played around with my water material shader to adapt it to being near a waterfall. The shadows are still really dark though, I need to play around with them a bit more.

MOAR WATER

MOAR MOAR MOAR, in fact, a whole waterfall moar.

Oasis - Part...3?

I decided I wanted a break from Gears of War's constant, morale breaking crashing, and went back to UDK. I had another look at Speedtree and made some palm trees which are a lot better than the oak tree's I had before, they stuck out like a sore thumb!

I think I'm going to actually work on this quite a bit more when I get chance to try and make a sort of showpiece level, just something I can record in matinee to add to my showreel.

Contrast, Contrast, Contrast.

Contrast, it's all I've heard since I've shown my images of my church. Some say it's fine, some say it's too orange, some say it doesn't have enough shadows etc. I know you can't please everyone, and trying to do so ultimatly ends in failure. I'm the level designer so I should be confident enough to choose which I think is best, however it is good to listen to the masses, sometimes they actually do know what they want!!!

ooops....wait a minute..

Anyway, because everyone was going on about it, I decided to keep playing around, even though the actual building isn't finished yet, I think the mood is the most important aspect of this piece and the lighting is the defining factor. So, after countless playing around with post process volumes, light colour, light size, light placement, height fog etc etc, I moved on to the skylight which I totally forgot about. I was going through some of the colours and thought this would look good for my other church (I forgot to post about that, basically the same church but run down, for a later point in the game). Anyway, playing about, I wondered what a black skylight would look like, and tbh, the effect is damn 'funky', as John said. The main problem I had before was that chainging post process volumes, or lighting broke away from the effect I was going for, which was a safe haven for the player, a sort of religious protection feel. I wanted it real warm, cosy, enticing etc. Each time I changed some values, it just broke away, even if it did give more depth. However, this effect still keeps the feel I want, but it really brings out shadows and definition in the meshes. It's only a rough version atm, as in, I did it, took a screen shot and I'm now writing about it. But with some point lights, and maybe another skylight with a tiny bit of brightness, I think it should look great!

Edit

OK, I played around with the lighting for about an hour, and for some reason, 2 of the meshes wouldn't accept any lights other than sky and directional lights, god knows why, and they are key meshes (the main arches and the cog's hanging from them). I have no idea why they wouldn't light but nevermind. It started to vear away from my original image, so I've decided to revert half way back, still keeping some of the definition that was gained but bumping my lights back up. I will use what I've learnt for my second church though.

For the mob

I've had quite a few requests for me to show off my water material so here it is. Sorry it's all on one picture, it's late and I can't be bothered to cut it up into parts. You should be able to work out what each node is and then just play with the values yourself.

Got that morning feeling

I've changed my church level quite a bit over the last few days, putting my dissertation and other level on hold for now, which isn't a good idea because the dissertation is due in on Tuesday, but I'm having too much fun.


I've added a lot of matinee sequences to my level, involving birds effects and actual birds! people and a few other things. I got some helpful feedback from the forums so I had another go at my post processing, and I'm pleased with the result. It really does have that morning feeling about it.

The sun is shining, the weatheris sweet!

Ok, here's a quick snippet of the church level. This is the cinematic that plays when the level loads giving the player a view of the church. This level is a different pacing to the rest of the game, giving the player some breathing space and letting them relax.

Get a bit o sun on ya lad.

I don't want to really make any more maps/levels until I've finished my FMP because I have so much to do at the moment, as well as finish off my dissertation. Saying that though, I really wanted to show that I know how lighting and moods work, other than the dark and creepy feel I have in Artus atm. So, to cater for this I've changed my story a bit. The objective before was to get through to the Hospital to get to the Church and it is still similar, but now, when the player goes through the morgue and out the other side they meet another character, still have to decide who, I had an idea of depending on what side you were currently on affect what character you meet. Anyhow, that player leads you to the hospital but he tells you it's going to take a few hours to get there as the city is so fucked or something along those lines. This changes the time to morning and lets me act like a mini god creating light! Mwhaha.

So anyway, this is where I'm up to atm. I love experimenting with light and sunrise or sunset are by far my favourite. I'm really pleased where this is going so far, especially as it's only a few hours work.

It moves!

Finally got round to creating some videos. As you can see, there is still a lot of things wrong/unfinished with the game, but I still have 3 months left so don't panic! I'm still trying to work out why the dudes sometimes spaz out and go through the floor, and a lot was changed on the inside so most coverlinks don't work now.

Morgue!

Note to self - When researching morgues, put safe search on Google...

This is the middle of the hospital level, it'll be darker in the final version as I'll exclude it from the main sky light so the player only has their flash light. They'll be locked in the room and have to search bodies for a way out, each body they search some bad guys will spawn in the room out of sight of the player. I would like to reanimate characters that look dead, but I just don't know nearly enough to be able to create that.

The lower part of the hospital, where the morgue is situated, is also flooded as well. I'm gonna have water coming in through the roof of the morgue and I already have the water in place in these screenshots. As the only real light is the players torch, I'm planning on making most objects rigid bodies and making it an interactive environment.

MORE PICA

Now I've finally got my computer working, except the 4gb of ram I have to send back, I can finally get on with work again. Here is where I am up to so far:

-Changed the music for a lot of places
-Added an interactive scene which tells the player the game story
-Changed a lot more of the level to fit in with the steampunk style
-Widened the Government building, blocked it off inside
-Added a hospital section, first wing blocked out, need to do morgue and then a reception type area
-Planning out a church area for the final battle (Not 100% sure if I'll have enough time)
-Spruced up the area with more decals.
-Crapped my pants as my level hits the 200mb published mark....arghhh

Oh, I've also been playing my way through Bioshock 2, awesome game, writing down lots of notes and ideas. It's just amazing what they can do with the Unreal3 Engine.

Onward, to Parí!

 Edit: I have also started work on a new website - http://www.piranhi.com/site2/index.html
From now on I'll also be putting my blogs on there aswell (When it's finished it will just be www.piranhi.com).

This is my last blog post before I go away to Paris. Well, I decided to upgrade my computer and it didn't go well to say the least, wrong motherboard but I got it to fit in the end, a whole pack of broken ram, and now it seems my graphics card is on it's way out or somethings not compatible. It's taken roughly 2 days to get it working and it's far from stable, with the ATI drivers crashing every 5 minutes. It makes level design extremely hard and frustrating.

 I was on a roll yesterday though in the few hours I did get it working. I've pretty much finished my government building, again, this time I've given it a steampunk feel and away with most of the dark gothic environment. I've also finished the end of the government building scene, once you've finished the arena, your best friend kicks down the door, as long as you have killed all the enemies in the arena in the time limit, and rescues you. Then you are presented with a long interactive scene where he tells you the back story of Artus and also gives you your new objectives. This will be done with some backing music and a wall of text, but I think the player needs to be brought up to speed.

After that, he gives you some explosives and you have to blow down a wall which backs on to the City Hospital. Here you fight your way through, into the morgue and then into main reception. That's as far as I've got so far, but I'm also planning on adding a church afterwards as the final battle. The amount of extra level I've added has pushed me to the limit really, as I also have to finish my level in UDK which includes wrapping and texturing of a lot of assets. But, I should get it finished in time.