Project Artus

POST 121! The final one!

2010-05-20T21:02:00.002+01:00

Before I down this bottle of Southern Comfort sat here, just teasing and mocking me, I need to upload my final post. This is my self evaluation of the work done through my final major project.

Art Us Eval

Appendices:
Work I have been doing along side my FMP. This is where I got a lot of my experience from to transfer into my FMP: http://piranhi.com/nibbles/

Learning Z-Brush modelling: http://project-artus.blogspot.com/2010/03/zbrush.html

I would like to thank everyone from the Gears of War and UDK forums for giving me some great help over the past year. I would also like to thank the guys on my course and everyone else who helped with testing and feedback.

Done, Done, Done!

2010-05-17T21:34:00.000+01:00

Game......Check
Design Document.....Check
Evaluation.....Check

The end of uni is in sight, I've just finished my final major project, all I have left is the degree show and already I have some interviews lined up, two with Codemasters which is just awesome! I'll upload my evaluation tonight or tomorrow and then I can relax in the last couple of days while everyone else panics. Sounds good :)

Final Updates: 1

2010-05-13T03:07:00.002+01:00

The final moments

2010-05-09T17:57:00.000+01:00

OK, so time to cram as much as I can in the next 2 weeks into finishing off my FMP. The game is pretty much finished, my design document is about 50% finished. I just need to start drawing some pictures, making diagrams, plans, screen shots, ideas, etc. I then wouldn't mind polishing up my game just a tiny bit more as well, now that finally, I have a working computer and I can use Kismet without having a stroke from anger.

I also changed my intro screen and changed the kismet a bit. This Kismet is Pre-tidyup, so it's a right mess, even I'm getting confused lol

UDK - The Final Frontier

2010-04-27T17:20:00.000+01:00

In between my FMP and working on Archasis, I've been trying a few things out. I did a quick Elf level and now I'm testing out shaders to see what I can come up with.

This is what I got:

I should be able to use what I've learnt here in Artus, if it doesn't crash every two minutes...

Other work

2010-04-25T01:37:00.002+01:00

Some other work I'm currently doing:

It's a material life

2010-04-08T14:14:00.000+01:00

I've become very comfortable working with Materials lately and I've moved on a long way from my water material, I still shudder when I remember my first attempt lol. I made a 'Tron' bridge the other day which gave off some really cool lighting effects, and today I figured out how to pan a texture down the Z no matter what the objects orientation in world space or how the UV's are laid out. It's only a small setup, but it helps me achieve some of the effects I've wanted for a long time and it's taken me 2 days to try and figure out. I spent yesterday trying to work out how ObjectOrientation works in the material editor, but I just couldn't get anything out of it, my guess is it's not fully implemented yet as it has no documentation. The only colour I could get out was the Blue (Z) which didn't help.
Today I took a different direction and worked with WorldPosition more. Playing around with it I managed to get the texture to pan, but it centred from the centre of the object, after some more fiddling, I figured out how to get the texture to pan completely down the Z. Now this might not looks brilliant for all textures as it can cause some stretching, but for what I want it's perfect, even the stretching works. Win Win.

Zbrush

2010-03-29T13:54:00.000+01:00

I've been building up the list of programs that I can use for my portfolio this past week or 2, this week I've been working in Zbrush. I've tried it on and off a few time over the last few years and I could never get it to work. I always thought you needed to be some crazy good artist to be able to make the cool stencils I've seen used, but I was wrong, in fact, it's quite easy for people like me, who can't draw, to make some cool stuff.

This is my first real go at making something on my own. In Z-Brush this was around 1.4million polygons, then I applied it to a pillar which was only 258 polygons.

Finished Product:

Lighting and Texels only:

Z-Brush Model:

Not amazing, but I wouldn't say it's that bad for my first model. I'm looking forward to using this more now. Especially as I also just found UV Master, finally... \o/

A wee bit more.

2010-03-25T22:27:00.000Z

As my FMP is coming to a close, I'm taking this opportunity to work on my other map, which conincidentally can also be included in my FMP. I've already thought of a story for why this map should be in the game, but it's only in the early draft phase.

Blade vs UDK

2010-03-23T18:45:00.000Z

I was looking on Eat3D a few months back, and I was blown away some of the videos they had on there. They were £60 to buy so I thought with my next loan I'll buy them, but everytime I got some money in I always had some other crap to buy. So I never go round to buying the discs, although I would still like to in the future.

So for the past few months I've been trying to work out how they got their dissolve effect, I just couldn't work it out. But last night, or this morning, it was early anyway, I had a Eureka moment as I was just getting to sleep. I whacked open my laptop and had a fiddle about, it kind of worked, but it wasn't brilliant. So this morning I had another go and BAM, I got the effect I wanted so long ago. As far as I'm concerned it's just as good as the Eat3D's one, and I have potentially saved myself £60 while also having an ego boost.

Night Time

2010-03-23T01:29:00.000Z

So my church, which acts as my HUB level, goes through day and night cycles. In the actual game, it would be dynamic and change in regards to what has happened in the game, choices you've made, characters that have died etc. If I have time, I'll be wrecking the night time version of the church level as the night edition is meant to be the last time you're at the church and it's meant to look worn and torn. Anyway, I stripped all the lighting out, modelled some candle sticks and then redid it all. Changed the post processing, added some extra particle systems and changed the sound effects to go with it.

Why take the stairs when you....

2010-03-22T16:53:00.002Z

Stairs

Finally got round to importing my stairs, in fact, I made these stairs about 6 months ago and they were one of the first things into my level, but they were just there as a placeholder. I decided I would sort them out today so I cut them in half, optimized them and then textured them. I'm still not brilliant at texturing, but it really does make them stand out now, especially with the lighting I have. As I was just using the last ones as a placeholder, I never even thought to check the model, turns out it was 6000 polys and just 1 massive object, not overly complex, but far more then I wanted and it was probably causing a bit of lag. I've now got them down to 2x700 poly models so the occlusion can work it's magic again.

Bridge

I also go round to bringing my bridge in. It was originally for a different design of the level so I need to try and fit it in without breaking the scene I have atm.

1 Month absence, oops.

2010-03-21T21:03:00.001Z

It's been a while since I posted about my FMP...well a month really. I just got fed up with it, but the editor especially. Fed up of BSOD's and crashes. Anyway, after my little break using UDK, I'm back now with a few more ideas. Last week I spent on my design doc, this week I've been tidying up my map, adding things here and there and today I've pretty much been solely working on Post Processing. I learnt a few tricks from a map I downloaded last week and it really helps the level to "pop".

I also think this picture is a showcase picture for my game, something about it I love. It almost gets the whole story and undertones of grief and misery across instantly.

Edit: The picture before was far too dark, even though it looked good with the flashlight. Some more playing about got me:

Whoops

2010-03-13T02:34:00.000Z

Well, turns out there was something wrong with my copy of UDK, reinstalled it and everything works now. I also forgot to include everything inside the lightmass importance volume, which is why the new building looked quite dark. Anyway, I've brought the level of lightmaps down just while I'm working on it as building is taking quite a long time now.

Here are the latest images:

Temple/Church/Religious Structure doo dah

2010-03-12T22:50:00.004Z

Ok, this is what I've been working on today. Swarm has been crashing a few times, and with 35 min build times it became annoying, so I split my level into...well levels so I could just build sections. However, I still want to build it all, obviously, so I'm going to have a quick optimize session now and see if I can get it to build. I've changed some PP effects but I don't know if I'm happy with it. I'm also going to change the lighting a bit as I think it's currently too low in the sky.

FMP? What FMP?

2010-03-11T23:13:00.004Z

I have my design doc to get started on, but I've fallen in love with this map. It's getting quite frustrating now trying to come up with different designs for each building using around just 50 assets, even some of them are just the same assets, only rounded or shortened etc. Anyway, I've just hit the 5 million triangle mark, although only around 140,000 of those are unique. My FMP is starting to take a hit, but I haven't done any optimization at all yet, and a lot of assets are in view more then they need to be, so I'll fix that. Also, I need to get rid of the massive BSP wall's, they're just creating unnecessary lightmaps.

FISH AND BIRDS

2010-03-09T19:14:00.007Z

FISH!

I know it might not seem like a lot, but this is a whole days work! It's currently using the fish model and code, but I'm going to change it to work for my birds so that I can have them flying around my new level as well as my Oasis showpiece, which means I can make it more than a screenshot.

Anyway, here are my 'flying' fish. Obviously it looks a lot better in water, and the node system allows great positioning.

BIRDS

Can't see them very good in this video, I'll upload another tomorrow.

Another Script Post

2010-03-09T15:02:00.000Z

I'm trying to follow along with UT3 scripting tutorials, which probably isn't a good idea, but unfortunatly, that's what the Mastering Unreal books were written for. It's causing a bit of a headache trying to adapt it without pretty much any knowledge of what I'm doing. Learning Actionscript 3 definitely is helping though, the way classes and OOP work is practically the same really.

Anyway, I've made another mod, this time a mutator, which keeps regenerating the players health, if they aren't a bot and aren't in a pain causing volume. I had to change a few other files which weren't in the tutorial, but now at least I know how to make a mutator and implement it in UDK.

Ok. I'll script!

2010-03-09T02:13:00.001Z

Ok, getting there. I know it's only been 1 night, but I'm already happy with what I've achieved. I managed to create the tutorial file (not a big deal, but getting UDK set up for scripting was a pain in itself!), after that I played around and built my own game type and pawn class and had a quick go with the controller class so that I could have bBehindView set to true. Now I'm trying to create a size scrolling camera. Unfortunately, the aim is still set to the middle of the camera and walking is harder then walking home pissed. I'll get there though, then I can make my Mario rip off, yeyyyyyy \o/

No, uScript!

2010-03-09T01:00:00.000Z

I've played around with uScript once before, to make a simple mod which enhanced certain weapons damage, but I could never really get into it. However, with me working more and more in UDK, I thought I'd give it another shot. I really want to do a platform type Mario game, real simple graphics etc, just something fun. It also isn't going to hurt to be able to add uScript to my CV

Anyway, this was a tutorial, but I learnt a lot from it. This gives information about an object the player is looking at when they press fire.

Lost Defiance

2010-03-07T22:25:00.001Z

My FMP has really taken a back seat these last two weeks, I know I need to work on it, but I just need a break....an extended break from it. I've been wanting to use UDK for ages, I started making a fun Indiana Jones type game, but I needed something I could stick in my portfolio, something that would stand out. So I had a look through the assets as I really didn't fancy making anything of my own. The only real assets were these desert rock type meshes, so after a little think and a search through Google, I decided I would make something Egyptian, preferably ancient. Another look through Google and I came across this artists sketch of a city. It wasn't exactly 'artistic', just a sketch more than anything, but I thought the layout was perfect. I decided to push myself, and the engine, and see what I could create. I'm using every trick I can to keep frame rate up, and it so far has only dropped under 60 (to 58) once, and I'm sure when I'm finished I'll be able to keep it above 60 all the time.

Anyway, here are some pictures. The city is only about 30% finished, that's without the extra deco layer, plus all the tweaking, fiddling, etc etc.

Half of the city outskirts will be big rock mountains, hence the name of the level. At the west side, where the rock is, there will be a big colossus structure which the river flows under and 2 paths will run through, which is how outsiders would get to the city. The other side I need to give the illusion of going on for miles, which I can do with some tall buildings etc.

Forgot to mention, I'm not sure how many individual objects there is, but there is over 3 million triangles now in the scene, but only 125,356 of those are unique, meaning it runs like the clappers still! \o/

100th Post

2010-03-02T16:41:00.000Z

Woo....

Enough celebrating, I need to get back into my FMP, I haven't really worked on it that much over the last few days. Instead I've been doing a few other things, firstly I finished my Oasis showpiece, then I started a Indiana Jones type level in UDK, which is going to be a timed assault course using physics and other fun assets. That's just something fun to do, and it will be a laugh to see everyones times. I also decided I wanted to try and challenge myself to see how fast I could make a map, so I gave myself 12 hours and I used UT3 to make a speedmap. This is what I ended up with, it may seem a bit bare in places, but it has the core gameplay element which is main thing, the extra time would just be made up of adding extra polish and deco.

Oasis, Finished

2010-02-27T15:17:00.000Z

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

2010-02-26T13:59:00.001Z

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

2010-02-26T03:20:00.000Z

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

Oasis - Part...3?

2010-02-25T22:47:00.000Z

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.

2010-02-23T00:22:00.001Z

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

2010-02-22T02:53:00.001Z

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

2010-02-22T01:06:00.000Z

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!

2010-02-20T16:51:00.001Z

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.

2010-02-20T02:22:00.000Z

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!

2010-02-17T17:07:00.001Z

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!

2010-02-17T00:36:00.001Z

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

2010-02-16T12:52:00.000Z

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!

2010-02-09T10:36:00.002Z

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.

Oooops

2010-02-06T01:28:00.002Z

I forgot to include my latest iteration of my water shader which I've uploaded to YouTube.

VIVA LA STEAMPUNK

2010-02-05T02:39:00.000Z

Out with the Gothic, in with the Steampunk. I just need to spend time making them dirty and give them the right feel. They really stand out but some of them stand out too much against my current scenes. Also GoW is playing up, hope I can fix that tomorrow.

UDK! FINALLY!

2010-02-02T00:00:00.000Z

UDK
Jesus, coming back from the GoW engine to the UDK engine is such a massive relief. It just functions....properly. No worrying about crashing if you want to create a material, no waiting around for sub-applications to open, lightmass!

Unwrap No more!
One thing I was worried about was unwrapping and texturing. Fortunately, I've been reading up on vertex blending with textures, and I think I may have found my way out while at the same time learning a feature which I can see myself using, a lot. All I have to do is unwrap my model, that's still the tricky part, but then I can just import it into UDK and use vertex blending with a bunch of metal textures and create some awesome materials. Another big plus is I can use the same materials on a lot of different assets, this is a great memory saver allowing me to bump up my lightmaps.

Here is my start, doesn't look like much...well, anything atm, but I just wanted to get scaling sorted out and have a go at vertex blending. It worked out great, my textures were a bit stretched though, but that was just lazy unwrapping on my part...1 button, done.

I'm still not sure on the setting of the map. In the reference picture, the artist has gone for a midday colour scheme, but I'm tempted to go for dawn. Luckily that can be decided near the end if I want.

1/2 way there!

2010-01-26T16:35:00.001Z

Chapter One: The Edge of Hell
Ok, this is where my game starts. I won't go into the story again but you start on a train coming back from another city and the train crashes, you hit your head - bam, amnesia. Cheesy but that can be worked on.
Anyway, I created the background for the title in Photoshop and then created the image for the Seed (the red glowing circle) in the material editor. This is my first time using interactive menus in UI scene, but they are pretty easy to do, especially after having worked in flash for so long.
It then goes into a scene where you hear the train come into the station. I used this matinee sequence, which lasts 13 seconds, to load in all the levels. In fact, The game only appears to take 0.1 seconds to load (using stat levels), on my PC by using level streaming. There is also no slowdown or lag as it's basically a blank screen with a verse from O'Fortuna on which I thought was fitting, all the loading happens without the player realizing.

Coffee, Nescafe, Hot.

2010-01-25T11:04:00.000Z

That was a reference to Picard asking for Earl Grey....obviously. Anywhooo, this has been a very productive and busy week for me. I didn't think it was possible to work 19 hours a day for seven days, but with the help of an amount of coffee that would kill a small elephant, I've produced a great show piece for todays presentation. Mix that in with the 3D work I've been doing plus my materials in UDK and I think today should go down great. When I get back I'll upload some screenshots, maybe some videos and write up on what I've done.

It's all soooo quiet

2010-01-20T02:07:00.002Z

I've decided not to post any screenshots of my work up until the presentation this coming Monday. I'm really busy atm, working from 11 in the morning till 5 in the morning (Yeah, 17 hour days....) on this project and I'm loving how it's coming along. So I don't want to post any screenies until I have it just right, with lighting etc.

Edit: A couple of things I will say, first, lightning. Doing it with 4 dynamic lights was a bad idea, I had a look at my lighting complexity and everything was red, I was wondering why it was so laggy. Anyway I deleted them and ta daaaaa, it's all fast again. Secondly, I got GoW working on my laptop, loads of things wrong with it which comes down to bad porting from Epic and M$. Anyway, I published my map to see what it would run like on my laptop for my presentation, and even the old version, with SUPER RED lighting complexity was running smoothly at 60+ fps. So I think next Monday should go just as smooth.

Full Steam Ahead (Part 2)

2010-01-17T19:44:00.001Z

OK, Client brief out the way, thank god. Now all I have left is my dissertation then I can put 110% effort into my FMP.

4+ Hours to make a light...
I had a couple of days break after I handed in my Client Project, but the other day I started working on my FMP again and I was wondering why the GoW editor didn't have very good lighting. It looks ok, but I remember the lighting on the XBox version being miles better. So I had a read about and I found some screenshots of peoples levels that had a lot better lighting. So I tried to get some dynamic lighting going when the player kicks a door down but it just wasn't working. I spent well over 4 hours trying to figure the problem out, writing on forums asking for help, trawling through the UDN. I managed to get the lighting working in both UT3 and UDK, but GoW was being a stubbern git...

So I decided I would look around the games files to see if I could find a problem, and sure enough, looking through the games .ini file, the dynamic and composite shadows we're turned off, as well as the bloom... No idea why. Anyway, after I fixed that I had a masssssive moral boost. I went on a frenzy last night and today creating some matinee and interactive scripted sequences and I also imported my railroad and built the train and train station.

MOAR Writing
I really need to concentrate on more of my games aspects and ideas. I want to be a level designer, so I'm pretty much spending all my time on the level, but this project will also be marked on the actual game concept etc. So, I've made a list of things I need to do, such as write down weapons, what they do, what they look like and a brief outline of the weapon. I also need to write up about the characters in the game, both major and minor. There's a ton of other aspects I need to write about as well, such as how the level design is to pan out, the pacing of the level, sequences and other interactive scenes I want to include and also the conversations the player will have in the game.

Screen Shot Heaven/Hell
I decided to take a lottttttt of screen shots to bring anyone reading the blog up to speed. I added the lights to get a feel but I'll be getting rid of them once I've uploaded the pictures. It looks nice, but it's not worth the build times until I get to the lighting stage.

Automated Introduction

2010-01-12T00:36:00.000Z

I was having a think, and I came to the conclusion that I really need to play over some of the greats again just to get a few ideas. So I was making a list and obviously Half Life was at the top, and one thing that I loved, and one of the things it's most famous for, is it's automated entrance that lets you see the majority of the level. Although Half Life adds in extra effect by showing you the level before shit hits the fan, there is no reason that I can't try and implement something into my level which has a similar effect.

My level is pretty much set-up for this, I have the train station and the train on which the player arrives. I could have the player restricted to the train, with the ability to look through windows, or just one side of windows if I wanted to speed up production and also have the player not miss anything. Some of the things I could add would be people running or having fights, scream sounds, fires in the city, explosions, even the trains lights going on and off. Anything to add to the experience. So, I best dust off that old digital download and boot up Half Life 1 and 2 again.

Being a perfectionist can be a bad thing!

2010-01-06T15:30:00.000Z

I don't know how many hours I've put into this one material, but I think it's getting there. I've managed to reduce the amount of operations it takes and I've also added a few more effects. The main one being the waves around the edges and how they reflect and refract light. As it would be a lot close to a solid surface near the coast line, it would have a lot more chance to bounce light around, not just back out the water but around the coast line. Light near the coast also has a lot more of it's original strength, the deeper it gets, the less light gets through. I also have this effect around objects as well.

PANIC!!!!! (In the disco!)

2010-01-03T17:23:00.000Z

OK, bad Chris, bad bad Chris. I thought hand-in date for the group project was the 15th, but that's the presentation date! I actually only have to this Friday, so it's going to be full steam ahead for the next few days. I'll need coffee like neo needed guns! Anyway, before I found this out I did a bit more to my room.

Splishy Splashy

2010-01-02T01:59:00.000Z

Too hungover today to work with 3D, I just wanted to take it easy. So as my water material takes about 5 seconds to respond every time I make a change, and then at least another 30 seconds every time I want to preview the change in game, I thought I could watch TV while I play with it for a bit. It's pretty much complete now, it looks a bit wrong when looking at it from the opposite side, but I'll sort that out another day. I think some of my normal multipliers are wrong.

A change of colour

2009-12-31T13:17:00.000Z

I always go for warm, orange colours in pretty much all my work. I love sunsets and sunrises but I think what really brings this scene out is the daylight colours. If I was to texture this then I would make it like it is in the reference picture, well more dirty, rusty and old, but the same base colours, and that itself would tint my room yellow/orange.

Anyway, I like these new renders so I though I would share them.

"I'll be back"

2009-12-31T01:21:00.000Z

I went back to the arm because it was bugging me, and I managed to get it down to just under 5k polys but at the same time I tidied it up and added some more detail, so I'm happy. If I knew how to bake normals better then I could easily get it down to 4k, but I can't and it's no biggie.

Busy Busy Workers

2009-12-30T15:10:00.000Z

Ok I've pretty much finished the worker arms, they could do with a bit of optimization and improvements in places, such as the turner wheel at the back, there isn't enough sides so it looks really jagged rather than smooth.

At the moment, these arms are coming in at 5.1k polys, a lot more then I really want. If I can bring them down to 4k I'll be happy, 3k and I'll be chuffed to say the least. Saying that though, these will be split into 2 or 3 so I can have them damaged or broken, so it shouldn't be too bad, especially if I can occlude some.

Over 100,000.....

2009-12-30T02:31:00.000Z

Polys, 200,000 tri's without any optimization, but it's gonna be even more then that as I have some N-Gons in there too :(

Started work on one of the worker arms today, should have it finished tomorrow, and there is gonna be 4 of these which is gonna put another bump in my poly count! There is also another 2 arms I need to make, but I can't see where they originate from in the pic so that's gonna be guess work. Then there is the train and after that it's pretty much just deco and adding more of my own stuff. I think the plan for me is to try and occlude as much of the room as possible to keep frame rates up. Luckily, the whole theme of my game dictates I can have rubble and other obstructions dotted around the room. There isn't any glass and most of the metal is dirty and rusty, so that's gonna bump my frame rate up even more as I don't have to worry about reflections or transparency issues.

I would love to be able to texture this, or get someone to do it for me, but I really don't think that's gonna happen. We'll see anyway, I should have this room finished in a week or two, hopefully before I go back to uni.

Back to Colour

2009-12-29T22:49:00.000Z

The Ambient Occlusion render was nice, but in all fairness, it doesn't really show the right level of detail for a project like this, well not at the moment anyway. Something that is really detailed, with nooks and crannys, extruded edges everywhere etc, then it comes into a class of it's own, but for now I think I'll just stick with normal rendering.

Ze Ambient Effect

2009-12-29T17:12:00.000Z

A few more shots.

Shelling out

2009-12-29T02:49:00.000Z

To make sure I can work on the scale of the room more, I've built the core structure, or the shell in which everything will fit.

Coffee > Hangover

2009-12-28T19:05:00.000Z

I woke up this morning feeling a bit groggy and not really in the mood for doing any work. 3 Coffees later I was buzzing through my project. I feel like I really should spend more time on the group project, but between working with Actionscript and working with UDK/GoW and 3DS max it's an obvious choice which one I'm gonna do. I really feel this third year has been an anti-climax so far. I was hoping to do 2-3 projects in the Unreal Engine so I would have a solid portfolio to show as soon as I leave uni. Instead we've been tasked with creating a game in Flash....

I can understand the brief, and I know that I aren't always going to be able to do stuff I want to work on, but if this project had been one that you do yourself instead of working in a group, I would have adapted it to work with the Unreal Engine. It wouldn't of had to have been a FPS, I've seen a lot of cool ideas and I wouldn't have even had to make a fully working game. When you compare our work with what the lower years, and even some of the past students have done, it all seems a bit lackluster. I would have given my arm and leg to work on this Dock project that the current year 2's are doing, instead, again, we were stuck with working with Flash creating a half arsed project in a group of 7.

Anyway, enough about my rant! There's time for that at the student rep meeting. Here's my current update, I'll work on it again tomorrow if I have time.

19k

2009-12-24T16:30:00.000Z

OVER9000!!!! (polys)

2009-12-24T01:14:00.000Z

I'm currently sitting at the 16k mark for polygons, which isn't too bad I don't think, especially considering how many cylindrical shapes are in the scene. I'm guessing so far, out of all the object I've created, it'll work out to be 4 different assets that can by instanced in unreal. These are instanced quite a bit so that's a big plus and gives me more confidence to add a few more polys in.

I have no idea what I'm gonna do for texturing. I might just save myself the hassle and import them into UDK as they are, with just blank textures on. I really like the look of the grey and red, and it would look better then half arsed, not matching, crappy textures that I make!

Update on train factory

2009-12-23T14:35:00.000Z

Train Factory

2009-12-22T01:25:00.000Z

I haven't quite finished my other assets yet, but I don't think there is any harm in starting this room now. The picture I linked a few days back, of the train factory, will be something that I'm going to try to recreate and have as a small level in the new UDK. I'll try and make it an exciting level, maybe have a bit of exploration then a frantic firefight in an arena style, where you just have to fight off waves after wave. I'll try and make use of as many of the assets available to me in the UDK as I can and to do this I'll make it really run down and at night. Then I can have interactive dynamic lighting, overgrown plants and grass which can take use of the new interactive foliage system implemented in the December build of UDK. I'll try and make assets movable in the game and this has just come to me but perhaps I'll try and let the player 'build' his own defence.

For example, I could have a message pop up saying "You can hear noises coming from the East". I'll then give the player 30 seconds to re-arrange the layout of the level using interactive switches etc to suit an assault from the East. Although it may not have a massive effect in UDK, if this was possible in GoW (which is is in the second GoW because they have moveable cover in the form of rock worms) I would change the cover points each time the player changed the level, offering a new and fun type of gameplay.

Anyway, here's my start. Nothing amazing I know!

A living nightmare

2009-12-17T23:55:00.002Z

Seriously, my nightmares are just UV's coming to attack me. How the hell anyone textures, let alone has fun doing it is beyond me. Anyway, I'm working at it, even though it's depressing to do lol. This is where I am so far, I wanted to bring it into UT3 because I'm not sure how to add normal maps to 3DS Max and it just looked so flat.

Edit: After looking at these pictures, it looks like the main part could perhaps do with the texture being bumped up to 1024, it's currently 512x512.

My room

2009-12-16T13:16:00.001Z

After talking with J about my water material, we came to the conclusion that it just detracts too much from my FMP and it should really just be stuck in my online portfolio. So, after looking around for ideas on what to do, I came across this portfolio: http://steelbug.cgsociety.org/gallery/671864/ , belonging to Vladimir Kufeld. I found his portfolio on the Autodesk 3D Studio max homepage, and straight away I loved it!

I'm going to have a go at recreating his Train Factory piece in 3D and bring it in UDK. This can be a section of the game that I never got to add in while at the same time testing out what I can do with UDK. I think it fits in with my project and it has a steampunk feel. Also, the best thing about it is that I can pretty much have sloppy texturing, which I'm crap at, because it's pretty much all paint and steel. /Cheer

Steam Powered Cough Syrup

2009-12-16T11:58:00.001Z

I'm feeling a bit better now and have managed to do some more work. I've just been working on my steam contraption a bit more, it'll most probably be linked to some sort of house or building, maybe as a power generator or something more bizarre. It's about 9k polys atm, which needs to be brought down, but saying that, It can already be split into 2-3 parts atm, and I think I'm too worried about how many polys I'm bringing into the engine. This is 2009 not 1999, 10k polys isn't really a big deal any more.

Edit: Looking over my post, I've realised the bottom pipe has far too many polygons, I must have forgotten to bring down the interpolation, that's a spare 100 polys right there! Hurray!

Illness strikes

2009-12-15T15:08:00.000Z

As with my other projects, I've been ill this last week and everytime I try and do anything I come up aganst a brick wall. I'm finding it real hard to concentrate let alone come up with anything new. Anyway, after looking around at some reference images I've decided to model a steampunk esque structure. I really need to make a lot of these by the time I finish my level because although GoW does have a lot of Gothic buildings, they still don't scream out steampunk in the way that I want.

MEIN EYES!

2009-12-05T14:17:00.000Z

Ok, I really don't have much time to work on the material in the upcoming weeks, I have some other projects which need my attention, especially our client brief because that's due in January. Anyway, I got rid of the stupid blue colour and I made the coat line more opaque plus a few other changes. There's a few more things I want to do to it such as change the opacity around the edges from 128 units to perhaps just 64, then maybe lower the opacity a bit. The rest of the changes I can't really do without actually building my map.

Ohhhhh, shiny

2009-12-05T02:43:00.000Z

I made one massive mistake on my last upload of the water material I'm creating and that was forgetting to enable "accept lights". This gave it the flat and dull look it had. The normal maps wouldn't of worked and neither would the specular. This time I've enabled them and done a lot more tweaking. I still think the waters too blue, but it's still a W.I.P

Rainnnnnnnnnnnn

2009-12-02T18:45:00.000Z

I think I love playing with materials in UT, but even more then that, I love playing with wet things (and wet things in UT). I added the rain, and although I'm not completly happy because theres patches on the floor when you look down where it's not raining because of the way the rain is cut out into squares, I think it looks really good and gives it a great atmosphere. Again, there is no lightning and I still haven't finished laying out this area, let alone the rest of it.

What a water success!

2009-12-02T17:07:00.002Z

Finally, after spending ages on trying to figure out how to give the water some 3 dimensional life apart from a flat normal map, I've done it. I had some help from KazeoHin and Scruffy from the UDK forum and they helped me with the WorldPositionOffset node, which offsets the material in 3D space but keeps the object stationary.

It's still not finished though, it is too transparent in some places and it has no "coast" line. But, I'm very happy with the progress and I'll be adapting this for my FMP extra map.

Edit: New version up which has fixed the transparancy issues, I still need to add the mini-coast line and maybe change the colour, it all depends on the final surrounding.

Water, Water, Everywhere.

2009-12-02T00:12:00.000Z

This isn't to do with Artus per se, but for my final major project, to show that I can also work in UDK as efficiently, I'll be making a small extra map, sort of like a tech demo. Valve did something similar with a small game they brought out, I can't remember the name now, but the showed of HDRI lighting and a few other things.

So anyway, I made this water which is to be used as an Oasis water material for this other mod I'm doing outside uni. The textures are also my own work, the lighting effect however is Jerc's and with his permission I'll be using that for the tech demo. My idea is to have a desert island, the kind of islands you see in those cartoons where it's a small island, maybe a raft, a coconut tree, all in all about 10ft squared, something tiny. I'll be having seagulls, fish in the water etc done by uScript, it should be fun.

Anyway, here's what I've done so far.

And the material:

/Old Search - 'Railway'

2009-11-30T02:56:00.000Z

I've been really busy this last week putting my other projects on the back seat, which really isn't the best idea as my other projects are in first. I don't really want to put shots up of the game on here yet mainly because without lighting you can see anything, and screenshots in unlit are awful.

Anyway, I'm determined to finish off my railway that I started so long ago now, tonight I finished off the stairs. The bump maps fine except along the edges of the steps, so I may look over that again and just edit it in photoshop. I always say this, but I really hate texturing!!!

The return of Flash Gordon (Ahhhh Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

2009-11-27T00:23:00.000Z

I've got my lightning working in GoW now, and although this image doesn't really give it justice, when the lightning strikes and you hear the thunder with the lighting bloom, it really does give a spine tingling feeling. I'll probably have a go at making some lightning in the particle editor once I've read more into beam emitters in the book.

I had to change it from one light to 4 though because I needed shadows so the inside didn't light up. The four lights are at a 25 degree angle on 90 degree iterations. This also gives a nice effect as you can see in the image above, where there is still some nice shadow depth underneath the roof. When I get closer to the end, I'll add a lot of point lights in the game to represent the indirect bounces of the lightning, as of right now the lightning enters the doorway of the building but inside it stays dark, this wouldn't happen. I think I'll use the lighting as the primary source of lightning and mood for the level.

It Lives!!

2009-11-25T23:14:00.000Z

Before I start, I want to say this is miles from being finished, so don't be getting ideas. I think I'll be working on the map until around January/February time, after then it's all scripting, effects, extra 3D assets etc. This is the area just after you start, the place you start is in the railway station which I still need to texture and bring in. I'm going to wait to bring in my assets though because I had a problem of not being able to delete anything in my map and every time I saved it crashed, which left me the only option of starting again, which I'm glad I did.

Anyway, in the final scene, this will be darker although I'm going to make sure the player can still see. It will be raining and thundering. This will also be the area of your first encounter against some COG bots.

Initial Planning

2009-11-22T21:09:00.000Z

Every time I tried to draw out the level I'm designing it just went to shit. I'm so bad at drawing it's unbelieveable, and it puts me of wanting to work on it. So instead I decided to create a quick sketch in 3D and use that as a template for my level. So today I've just been drafting out the start of my level, it starts on the railway and you work your way into the government building. here you kill a few people, find an NPC who's nearly dead who tells you a bit about yourself and what's going on. You work your way to the back and find a hole in the wall. I'll probably add a cinematic when the player gets to this room of the camera going out the hole in the wall and giving a look over the city all burning and what not.

Here are a few of the images.

I see a sea

2009-11-21T01:35:00.001Z

I've been working on this for about 5 hours now and I'm pretty impressed with the result I've got considering I did it all myself. It's still not finished, I want to try and add some foam to the edge, some sparkles, change the suns location and fade it out...A LOT. After that I think it'll be done. I won't be using this in project Artus, firstly it's far too much of a resource whore, secondly, GoW would throw a super benny if it caught me trying to bring this into it. It's such a badly designed engine and it crashes even when doing simple materials. I will use this for my other level I'm creating in UDK though, I think it will look really good. Probably a desert island.

Edit: I tried uploading a video, but every piece of software I downloaded was a bag of wank. Fraps seemed to record only a tiny screen and CamStudio made it looks like the sea from Monkey Island.

It's pretty deep out here

2009-11-20T20:47:00.000Z

Finally, after months of being in awe of the Depth commands, I've finally managed to work out how to use both of them.

First there is the PixelDepth which works out how close the player is to a texture, and then you can interpolate between two textures, well pretty much anything actually from the result.

The second, and this took me a lot longer to figure out, was the DestDepth command. With this I'm able to work out the position of one object in relation to the object behind it. With this I'm going to try and create a sea material. It'll be pretty basic compared to others out there, but it's something I've wanted to do for a while now.

Anchor Away?

2009-11-15T21:52:00.001Z

I left my airships for quite a while, partially because I was busy with other stuff, partially because I don't wanna do too much on my FMP now and get burnt out and partially because I just got Dragons Age, Modern Warfare 2 and TF2 pulled me back in.

But anyway, I got the model down to 2,125 polygons, which was about 3-400 better then my original model and I could probably get it lower, but I was considering having one of the airships crash land and blow up, or already have crash landed and you can go explore the crash site. Either way, I don't wanna make it too low poly now and shoot myself in the foot later. The texture size is 512x512 but luckily there isn't much detail in the material to matter. I may put some logos and other things on the final model when I bring it into GoW which will probably be next week.

I'm not sure if the emissives to much atm, that can be changed when I've got all my assets in there I suppose.

Mutate me!

2009-11-11T00:16:00.000Z

I made my first mutator today! Ok, it was from a tutorial but it was still exciting to see the possibilities that are open to you. I created a Mutator+1 which did 50% damage in each hit, had a little go with bots and had a right laugh. Tomorrow I'll go through a few more tutorials and see what else I can do. This could sway me even more towards UDK, especially if those books about UnrealScript come out this year!! I really need to decide for tomorrow though what I'm going to be doing :(

Menu Screen

2009-11-10T22:47:00.000Z

Too tired to give a full description, it's basically just a menu screen for in game. Simples!

Technical Room

2009-11-10T16:46:00.000Z

I've created myself a test lab to play around in. I've created an army garage with the little amount of resources I had available to me (1 or 2 packages compared to the close to 100 I would of usually had). I can use this room for kismet, scripting, lighting, animating, cascade and matinee so it was well worth the effort.

My first tests were to try out the new lightmass asset in UDK. It basically is a global illumination renderer for the UT engine and I'm very pleased with the results. This was with just 1 light from outside. The shadows are good but could be sharper. But mind you, this was 'draft' quality and with the lightmaps set to 8 when I could have brought them down to 2. I'll have another play around later.

God rays

2009-11-10T15:26:00.000Z

In UT3 and GoW, god rays were achieved by using static meshes or emitters. While these looked pretty cool through things like trees, they required hand placing and the object creating the god ray had to be static. Jerc, on the UDK forums is currently creating a new type of god ray using post processing effects which he kindly agreed to give to the community when he's finished.

I won't be able to put these into GoW, but if I make the game in UDK then I will be able to use them in my game. Even if I don't use UDK, it would be nice to reverse engineer the effect to see how it was made

God Rays so far:

(Tree) Stumped

2009-11-06T10:04:00.000Z

I've hit a crossroad in my project and I'm unsure which path to take. The new Unreal Developer Kit has just been released for free, the same one developers used to pay a very large amount of money for. It has all the new features including global illumination, light emmisive materials, new content browser etc. Learning this new 'engine' would really benefit my job opportunities but the UDK doesn't open GoW content or maps.

So down one road I have the new engine meaning my level can look pretty amazing with all the new features. I can still open the UT3 content but there is only a handful of meshes etc that would fit with my theme. Also down this path is learning to use the new UDK just in time for applying to jobs which could boost me to my first interview.

The other path leads me to sticking with GoW. I have to put up with a very buggy engine, crashing all the time and no access to the new effects and assets. But I do have access to all the GoW content including characters, meshes, voices, etc.

My game would probably suit a 3rd person view like the gears of war engine, were the player is unable to jump or 'bunny hop' around the level. I also planned on making my game very interactive, and actually building a whole level. This included features that would be in the game like searching cupboards, interacting with npc's, firefights, story, cinematic sequences etc, all that would be gone in place of a much better looking level.

But going into the industry as a level designer, maybe that's what would suit me better? Surely the interaction, story etc would all be left to other people and I would be making the level pretty?

I'm swaying towards the new UDK engine and I really need to make up my mind by the end of the week so I can plan out my level again. This would be going against my original proposal document but no ideas in games design stay the same from start to finish.

Put some clothes on, you big oaf!

2009-10-24T01:12:00.001+01:00

I really think this looks ugly at the moment, but I'm hoping that's because it doesn't have any textures applied to it. I've also gone over the amount of polys I wanted to use, from around 1500 to 2,725, but I'm sure it'll be fine as there's only one version, just instanced around the sky, and even then there's only going to be a few of these in the sky, maybe around ten.

Another piece of inspiration

2009-10-22T23:56:00.000+01:00

There isn't many pieces of steampunk artwork out there that really reflects what I'm doing, so to find one as good as this really makes my day.

Is it a plane, is it a bird.....

2009-10-22T16:28:00.000+01:00

No, it's an airship. Steampunk images always compromise of airships so what better way to enforce the steampunk style in my game then to stick in an airship.

This is my first iteration, with a lot of work to be done yet.

New Title!

2009-10-18T19:49:00.001+01:00

Thanks to a magazine article that a class mate sent me, I've redesigned the logo to have a more steampunk esk feel to it. Although it's quite hard to see it on the main title page that I have at the moment, I think it really fits in well with the game and gives it a lot more personality. Just showing the title off to people makes them more interested in the game....or so I think anyway.

Money Money Money

2009-10-15T13:48:00.001+01:00

I want a system in my game which enables the player to loot objects and if possible, dead enemies although the latter is a lot harder. I also want an economy system in my game, so the player gets money from missions and looting and then can spend it on weapons, hints, etc. The only problem I'm having is that GoW engine has for some weird and unknown reason had the math expressions from out. This makes it very hard, if not impossible for me to have an economy system which is a bit annoying.

Anyway, here is my first draft of a looting system, it requires the player to be in a trigger volume which would be in front of a cupboard for example, then the player has to 'use', the items/money are then transferred to the player accompanied with a sound effect. I'm thinking about having booby trapped loots as well that can damage the player. I was originally going to have the object flash, either all the time or just when you looked at it to tell the player it was lootable but trying to add a flashing expression to a complex Epic material became a pain. So instead I just have a message flash up letting the player know you can loot it.

Flashhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh (Gordon)

2009-10-13T20:17:00.000+01:00

A bit further, got the thunder down to a random interval with random length flashes. When the second thunder flash happens the sound cue picks one of 13 different thunder sounds so it really brings randomness to it. The next thing to include, but I'll probably do it in GoW, is the particle effects for rain and thunder. I think this effect will look really good for cut scenes.

Been a long time...

2009-10-13T14:25:00.000+01:00

Haven't really updated my blog for a while. I had a week or two of before I started uni so I'd be ready for a long crunch session and then what happens? I get my Second Mastering UT3 book. So I've spent the last week working my way through there.

Last night while I was trying to get to sleep, I tried to think of a way to get lightnining to work in the game and it's actually pretty simple. This is it in it's simplest form but when I implement it into the game I will have a lot more random variables, sounds and maybe the chance for longer lightning or visible lightning streaks in the sky with help from Cascade.

I see the world!

2009-09-17T14:37:00.000+01:00

OK, I think I'm happy with the map as it is at the moment. I might add more cities, continents and other places of interest if they have enough relevance to the story later on.

Planet Earth/Zog/X.....Delete as appropriate

2009-09-16T19:49:00.000+01:00

I've started making a world map so that I can get a feeling for the layout surrounding Artus and the cities close to it. On this version I've put all the capital cities of the world on, but I think I might remove them and just add markers to places which are relevant to the story etc

More Despair!

2009-09-08T23:09:00.000+01:00

I reckon I'll do another 2 - 3 posters then I'm done. Maybe do some singular posters that I can dot around town, but they will probably be more 'Eve Industries' and 'Seed' specific.

DESPAIR!

2009-09-08T16:43:00.000+01:00

I'm planning on adding a lot of despair posters around the city. These are to show both the posters they put up for commercial use then later on to pray to god to save them etc. The addition of bloody hand prints and shears of blood should also add a nice atmospheric effect to them.

2009-09-08T15:14:00.000+01:00

Finished the actual railway now, just need to finish the stations for people to get on.

Logo's

2009-09-07T17:08:00.000+01:00

I've started to create somo logo's for the different factions, companies etc in game. Here are a few, none of them are by any means finalized, but they give me something to work with.

This was my first try, didn't really worked out how I planned so started again and came up with:

I like this image a lot more, the seed and the colours go with what the company was initially about, using what they uncovered to help the world....making a large profit on the way though. The logo is also memorable and stands out.

This is a logo for the thrones, the company that you, the player, works for.

I've also decided to call the mineral in the game "Seed". Again, I haven't finalized this but it seems relevant. I had a go at translating it into Latin to maybe find something more appropriate. It ended up translating into sperm and semen, so I at least learnt something new today.

See light at the end of the....track?

2009-09-03T03:00:00.000+01:00

I decided that everything was too dark, it's going to be dark enough in the level without my props and assets been too dark as well. So I brightened things up, smoothed out the metal so it didn't look like bad concrete and then made some specular maps. It feels like I've been working on this for far too long but I'm pleased with the result. Now all I have to do is do the lower part and then maybe make some normal maps, but I'm not sure a normal map is needed for these.

Dark and Dingy...always Dark and Dingy!

2009-09-02T22:17:00.000+01:00

Texturing has taken me a lot longer then I thought because I originally planned for multiple textures on one object but after reading up on the subject and planning ahead, I decided to break the objects into smaller parts. The texture on the lower support isn't done yet, it just has the bridges texture on, hence the weirdness.

The start of a nightmare

2009-09-02T03:41:00.000+01:00

I'm having a bit of trouble with texturing the track. From a distance it seems fine but up close it's really pixelated. The problem is it's reallyyyyyy long, but really thin in most places. I'm not quite sure how to, for example, make the UV's 1024x256 (They have to be to a power of two for them to work in UT3).
To help me with texturing a bit more though, I found a dvd I bought from 3d-palace.com. The DVD was on how to create the ED209 in low poly, high poly and import it into UT3, but I also got another DVD with it about creating a character for a game. It has some really nice tutorials on how to unwrap UV's, so currently I'm working my way through that.

Structurally sound!

2009-09-01T00:14:00.001+01:00

I was racking my brains, trying to think of something I could use to keep the station held up but also didn't look out of place. I was holding off using columns as long as I could because I didn't think it would fit right, but after a few different mock ups, I felt this style worked and looks very Victorian, a la steampunk!

Still a long way to go, also saw a picture of a sort of roof over the track which looked good, I'll try and implement that into my station.

Train Platform

2009-08-31T20:28:00.000+01:00

Not much explaining needed here, I'm now making a platform for passengers to get on the trains. This is just the basic layout, not the final model. The steps are too big and are floating in mid air atm. The inside is also empty!

Always improving!

2009-08-31T16:37:00.000+01:00

Today I've spent a lot of time working on my railway. I'm still yet to do a corner piece, but I have the bridges and the tracks created and the work together seamlessly. Texturing is going to be a bit of a pain and instead of relying on normal maps as much I worked a bit of the detail into it at the polygon level. The poly count is 300 for the tracks and 2100 for the bridge which is more then I wanted. I was hoping to keep the overall thing to about 1000-1500 polygons, but I risked adding detail in at the expensive of speed.

For texturing I think I might just add a dirty metal texture to the track and bridge and for the concrete structures holding it up, I'll probably add some detail in there. I might split the bridge up into 3 sets of UV's, one for the bridge, one for the concrete and one for the shadow map in UT3. The tracks I'll use 2.

Railways, Railways, Everywhere!

2009-08-31T03:37:00.000+01:00

To fit in with the victorian steampunk feel, I'm going to add a LOT of railways throughout my city. I want these on multiple levels going from ground level all the way to the top of buildings. If I can get the lighting working correctly I think it'll add a nice shadow effect on the player below (even at night time there's lights from fires etc)

This is what I've got so far, I still need to make corners and tracks for ground levels.

Artus!

2009-08-28T16:18:00.005+01:00

I tend to find that once a project has a name you can start to give it more personality. With this is mind, I decided to call my game 'Artus', which in Latin means Limbo (or so the translator said). I wanted a one word title which would sound catchy like google and other big companies do. I'll get out the url http://www.project-artus.com when I get my next loan through so I can have a portal for my work.

Anyway, I made a title page as well: