Part Two: Ben Matthews. Environment Artist.

I carried on creating initial 3D work whilst I waited for the concept artists to finalize their concepts.

I created a modular set of pipes for the game using Maya. This will help to bulk out the environment and hopefully create an industrial atmosphere to immerse the player into the world. Pipes are great in games as they provide the illusion of purpose, the space immediately feels more important as it is given meaning.

Creating a modular set allows me or the game designer to quickly build up an area as and when We please without having to model/ texture a new asset every time. It also allows us to save on tri count and easily create or alter cover points by placing pipes where we need them.

All of the pipes in this scene were created using only the above segments. I repeated them around layering bigger pipes behind the smaller pipes.

This modular pipe set might not be used in the final game, however they demonstrate how I can use modular pieces to flesh out an environment quickly. Modular assets are important if we want to create a large environment, whilst keeping the project size down.

The second stage.

   Since the last update I tried to make some designs for some of the corridors that will be placed in the game, trying to capture the mood and the feeling as well.

I also went and did some door designs.

Part One: Ben Matthews. Environment Artist.

This is the first post covering my role this term as an Environment Artist within a team.

The team i'm working with consists of . . .

• Game Designer/ Coder/ VFX: George Burchmore.
• Environment Artist: Ben Matthews (Me).
• Environment Artist (Props): Reece Stansbury.
• Concept Artist: Razvan Prajanu.
• Concept Artist: Rastislav Smolen.
• Character Concept: Steve Welch.
• Character Artist: Jay Pickett.

Together we have formed a team called Ninja Kebab. your probably wondering why we called ourselves Ninja Kebab, it all comes down to our lack luster attempt to come up with a suitable name for our team. And somehow we fell upon Ninja Kebab. However We hope a lighthearted name will catch the attention of our audience.

Our team logo, created by Steve Welch.

We decided to create a first person shooter this term. Specifically an old school style fps such as Doom in a style similar to Grindhouse. A slightly over the top fps that is fun and addictive to play.
We hope that being ambitious and choosing to create something challenging will help us to learn more about game development and level design.

What is Grindhouse? - http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grindhouse

My role as an environment artist will be to aid the game designer/ concept artist in creating a fun and interesting level design. Once we have settled upon a good design I will build the level and texture it.

I will specifically be focused on creating the large set pieces, walls, floors etc. Reece Stansbury will be creating props to populate the level I create.

In the first couple of weeks whilst the concept artists were creating initial designs I didn't have any environment work to do. So I set about creating concepts in 3D in an effort to aid the design process.

In the first few days of the project I created a concept/ design in 3D for a bridge that connects a heli pad to a base. It was just an initial idea I had for the player starting point. I also animated the bridge. I did this to help teach myself the basics of animation in Maya and to aid myself in relaying My idea to the rest of the team.

Heli pad concept.

I created the bridge along with its animation over a couple of days. Initial ideas and keywords we used for inspiration helped me to create a simple walkway system that is futuristic, yet believable.
The basic premise behind this design is simple. A platform (similar to a camera dolly) is fired out of a hole in the wall by compressed air. This platform is resting on a set of rails that stretch over to the landing pad. The platform holds 4 metal plates which are pulled up by levitating magnets as the platform travels along the rails towards the pad. The plates are then held in place by magnetism allowing people to walk between the pad and the connecting platform.

Here is a short video showing the animation I created. 

This animation helped to demonstrate to the team how we could use magnetism to solve problems in game, such as collecting objects, opening doors and extending bridges. Magnetism is also a believable concept, we already have strong electric magnets in the real world so its feasible that (in the future) humans could create magnets strong enough to hold walkways in place. It also gives us (as a team of designers) an excuse to create floating walkways, and doors. This helps to create a futuristic environment. Our aim is to create a level that conveys the time period to the player without us having to directly tell them. However this is a very early concept, and may not make it into the final game.

I carried on with this early concept work by creating an initial level layout in 3D. The game designer created a starting point but was struggling so I stepped in to help. I created this layout in a few hours.

My hope here was to get the ball rolling and allow the team to progress with concept work. I tried to keep game play in mind whilst creating this layout; what would be in each room? where would the player go? where will the cover points be? where will the enemy spawn? Ultimately these are all decisions that will be made by the game designer and not by me, however it is useful to keep in mind game play whilst designing an environment.

I am aware that this level layout is very large. And most likely way too ambitious, however it was useful; and stopped the team from hitting a roadblock early on. It also provided me with some useful world building experience. I had to create a base layout that made logical sense whilst keeping in mind the path the player would take.

The beginning of the project.

For this project I am one the environment artist. My job is to get an overall design of the rooms, the mood and the lighting that we will be using in the game, not to concentrate on individual pieces of the environment.

So as usual I started by gathering some references, some from movies, some from other games but also some from industrial sites. 

After that I started doing some quick designs of the base in my sketchbook and even when a bit in Photoshop to try and do the entrance of the base. 

I few, selected, images that I gathered.

Games Production - Christmas Prototype

Games Production - Christmas Prototype

After submitting our Winter submission, I was eager to begin working on our next game for our Spring assignment. We had already decided on our team, and although we hadn't fully discussed what we wanted to make, I personally wanted to create a first-person shooter. Over the first week of the Christmas break, I created a small gameplay prototype to show to the rest of my team, and to begin figuring out if pursuing this idea would be possible with the specified time-frame.

The style of gameplay I was aiming to re-create is a style that can be found in 'old-school' shooters released in the 1990s such as Quake and Doom. Two gameplay aesthetics that typically characterize this style are a fast player movement speed, and an ability for the player to fire weapons accurately from the hip without aiming down sights. These two aesthetics were the main focus of this prototype.

I created a very small level for the player to move around in and some basic enemies that walk towards and shoot the player. Similarly to Unity's Standard Asset FPS Controller, the player movement is controlled by rotating and moving a capsule-shaped GameObject with a camera. However, instead of using a Character Controller component, I decided to use Unity's rigidbody physics in order to create a more natural feel for the movement.

There are some elements of feedback for the player in order to exaggerate the feel of the game. For example, the camera tilts when the player strafes in order to accentuate the speed of the movement. The recoil animation on the gun model is also vastly exaggerated in order to attain the aesthetic I was aiming to achieve.