Propper Jobs

This week Dan and I have been busting out all the props, amongst other things. We've got a lot to get through, but we're about halfway through the list we set ourselves last week.

I spent some time tweaking the mood and lighting of the level last week to better suit our vision of a grimey, wet looking city. I also added in placeholder cityblocks either side of the wall which REALLY helps sell the scale of the place already, they are very overbearing and it feels like a city already.

City blocks, before lighting tweaks

Added raised highways, fog and a nice wet sheen

Bin designs to push the futurism a little

Starting to litter the area

We're kinda of tweaking the lighting as we go at the moment. There are definitely areas and elements that are suffering at the moment, (that tree looks horribly green in the courtyard) and we'll have to do multiple passes and make sure the lighting suits the composition of elements in the scene and leads the player around the level nicely.

Cryengine's hologram shader does a nice job for the futuristic advertisements. I've also made some animated textures for the pulsating glow on certain props, which could be applied to ads and tv broadcasts with scrolling text.

Next up, more props and signs! And hopefully an animated monorail...

Level Building

Since our last update we have started to slowly replace the original white box with designer boxes. These designer boxes were original planned to be used as a base so we could import the designer buildings back into max to make the final buildings. But due to a bug in cry we couldn’t export the designer buildings, so we’ve made the decision to make these buildings purely in designer. While this has made things difficult as we can’t use vertex painting to blend between 2 different textures, it’s has allowed us to build the level very quickly and because we have a lot of modular models to break up the textures it has worked out surprisingly well. Using these designer buildings as bases we used all of our props and modular assets to start building loads of unique buildings.

To make building the level as efficient as possible between the 2 of us we started to use the layer system in cry. We did have a few problems at the start of the project when trying to use the layer system with models and textures showing for one person but not the other, but we resolved it by making sure we had the same file directories.

We have a layer each to work on which relates to a certain part of the level which we are responsible for creating. Luc is focusing on the courtyard area, while I’m focusing on the commercial/police area. This has allowed us to produce the level very quickly.

As we started to build up the level we felt some small things we’re missing which would give us a lot of atmosphere. So to get a better idea of things we started to use cry engines default models, such as particle effects, water effects and vegetation.

We are moving onto the props this week, so we can’t start adding in the much needed character for the level. We have come up with prop list and divided what props which are doing:

Attack of the Shacks

The past two weeks we've focused on getting more large pieces finalised and in engine. We decided to go back and block out the bigger forms in cryengine, as the whitebox we initially used was one big mesh imported from max, we couldn't move things around and change scales of objects.
The modular sci fi assets are done. Some prefab buildings have been made ready to populate the levels.

 We've since decided to scrap the playable sewer area because it felt unnecessary, and also due to time, but will still keep the sewer pipe spewing out waste into the slums

I gathered some more ref to get a better feel for how the streets feel at eye level.

Dan's road is in place, making the level look 100x better already.

He also made a new cinderblock texture that resembles the brickwork in the Rio slums more.

 I've been working on a series of favelas to be placed around the sewer/low end areas, and using the blend layer system in cryengine we get a really nice worn plaster look using vertex paint modifiers.

Quick blockout of the monorail system above. The next stage is trying to get the path constraint animation that the monorail car follows into Cryengine, which has proved difficult because Cry only accepts TCB controllers

I've drawn up a quick sketch of the wall and am in the process of texturing

Modular buildings part 2 + Attack of the sickness bug.

Last week was hectic for both of us –Luc fell ill at the start of the week and I fell ill at the end of it. We both got hit hard with our colds so the week wasn't as productive as we hoped, plus for one full day we had to type up an article about our Pudding Lane/Off The Map project. So apologies for the late blog update. Luckily we planned for a buffer week at the end of this project so if anything like this did happened it wouldn't affect the quality of our work overall.

The work we did do last week was carrying on from the week before, which were the modular pieces so we could start producing all the buildings. Luckily we got everything done to a standard where we can start putting together the buildings. Some pieces aren't fully textured yet or need further tweaking but it’s enough for us to get a good idea of how the buildings are going to look.

One big decision we made last week was to scrap the idea of doing building interiors, which we were schedule to do last week. We really liked the interior idea and wanted to have it in, but after talking we felt only a week to make several interiors for different buildings wouldn't be enough time to get it up to the standard we wanted. As the idea for the interiors would to pretty much have all the furnishings and objects you would have in a house but all cramped in a little space, we felt it was too much to do in a week and we didn't want to eat into another week which was dedicated to something else and we didn't want to attempt it half arse – go hard or go home basically.  Another reason for dropping it was because after a few weeks working with the buildings and textures we felt we needed another week to really get it up to the standard we wanted, as the building exteriors are a key part of our level.

So far with got some basic buildings built, with some placeholder geometry and textures to represent larger structures. We've done this so we can get a better idea of how different buildings are working with each other and how well the level plays now. Whereas if we just put our final buildings in straight away without testing, we would probably find a lot of the buildings don’t work well. Wasting time for us. After we are happy with these place holder buildings we will then start to replace them with the final buildings with in the coming weeks.

One of the basic high end shacks

Some place holder buildings in the courtyard

This week we hope to start producing the road and monorail system, along with making a start to the terrain.
Should have more to show next time as we have both recovered

Modular Buildings

This week our focus has mainly been on getting the modular sections of the buildings done, which includes metal panelling and trim for the high end buildings, and doors, windows and other fixtures for the shacks.

Dans modular panels

Dans early modular panels

Lucs corrugated metal

Lucs shack modular items

Some of the placeholder bashkits have been put into engine to get a better feel for how things will look. Upon initially importing however, we noticed the buildings were way too small. We were working to a 1x1 meter scale for the modular sections, but have since changed that to 1.25x1.25 to make sure everything is the correct height.

We've also started thinking more about key shots within the level and how we're going to control what the player sees with some concepts drawn up from the whitebox. This is a really key aspect, especially since our scope is quite large, we need to give the illusion of scale but do it in a very controlled way, to make sure we don't get too ambitious with playable areas. Hopefully in the next week we'll delve further into this before we start building the modular assets up in engine.

Lucs concept

This week and next, on the side, we need to start thinking about dynamic elements such as the holographic projections and cameras in the level and how the player interacts with them, we'll be doing tests in engine soon.

Lighting, concepts and textures

After the basic whitebox for the level was done and Luc did some basic paint overs for it, we felt we had the general feel for the level. So we moved onto the next most important part of the level – the design of the slums. We wanted to have 2 different types of slums, a low end slum (made out of basic materials like sheet metal and bricks) and a higher end slums (more sci-fi orientated). This is so it keeps the level more interesting for the player as they explore the level.  I produced a white box of each building type (police building, sci fi slums and low end slums). Which Luc then took to produce some paint overs to get an idea of surface detail.

Dans initial whiteboxes for the houses/shacks

Lucs concept from the whitebox

Lucs concept from the whitebox

Lucs concept from the whitebox

After playing through the whitebox within cry we felt that certain areas needed tweaking. We made some areas, like the back alleys and road system wider as they were too narrow to navigate when playing the level. We also made the centre section of the level with all the slums an extra 2 meters taller, as we felt the balcony was too low and the alley way next to it wasn’t tall enough either. Height is something we feel is important for the overall look and feel to the level, so we want to get it right.

After making tweaks to the whitebox we started to put the lights in. We did this we get an early idea of the atmosphere we wanted for each part of the level, we kept to our art guide for this. Low level slums are green, sci fi slums are pale/metallic blue, courtyard are purple and the wall/police building are blue and orange.

We also wanted to get an idea on how to lead the player down certain paths. We did a quick test by putting in a few lights in key areas, then we played the level to  see where our eyes are drawn too. First test were pretty positive, trying to be impartial our first reaction was to go down the correct path, but we feel it is a tad biased as we know the level. We plan to have people who don’t know the level play it and see where they do do get an idea of how people will play it.

New screenshots of the level with the lighting and tweaks have been given to Luc to produce some detailed concepts.

Me and Luc have produced a texture list for the houses so we know what we need to produce for them. The list also includes who does what along with the texture sizes. We have also started to produce some basic tiling textures for the level. Below shows the work:

Dans Brick wall texture

Dans Cobblestone texture

Lucs Concrete

Lucs Plaster

One of the main things we wanted discussed and sorted out was this week was how we are going to approach the modular system. We hit a few problems with what parts of the buildings we wanted to have tilling textures and what parts we wanted modular. We decided that because the sci fi theme fits well using a modular system, all of our sci fi buildings will be made out of modular parts. But on the lower end shacks we will be using a mixture of tiling textured and props.