End Of Week Two

I have neglected my blog this week.

Having spent most of my time researching and developing my idea. I had reached a point where I had boxed out my level and began to build the static meshes that would fill the space.

IMAGES TO COME

Yesterday I decided in true big red button fasion that I did not like the flow of my level. I have been told that if a level is not fun to play when blocked out it will not be fun even if crammed full of static meshes/Interesting Items. The design I have developed and produce now feels far more fluid and I am far happier with it.

Having seen the tutors today I have been given some pointers to improve it further. Areas I need to consider are;

* Defining the different areas - through the use of colour or light.

* Pipes under the bridge to break up the expanse.

* Make the Cells walkway out of a grate that allows bullet penetration.

* Reduce the height of the level - If the level is too high there will be an issue with the range that the player can see and what to put in the view. There may be no enough time or space to fill the players view.

*Shafts of light in the walkways. Possible idea.

I am feeling quite positive as these are only minor areas that need approaching.

Next week I want to flesh out the level having the majority of the static meshes completed so that I have three weeks left for texturing, bot paths and sound.

Week Two

Well I am in the second week of this six week project and everything is going according to plan. I previously mentioned that I didn't want to build anything until this week but I must admit I did start to block out my level on Thursday.

This really helped me a lot because it enabled me to see the scale of everything and as such looking at the layout I decided that it was not adequate. In the design stages it worked fine but the restriction of 4096 by 4096 for the playable area saw my design being too large. I have re assessed my layout and have produced a new design keeping the same elements but jiggling them into a more condensed package.

Having spent the week watching some specific films I have produced many design drawings that have helped me put together the basics of my level. I plan to develop these so that I can utilise them in my prtfolio and hopefully they will show my conscious descisions and changes as I develop my level.

By the end of the week, I would like to have all the main features blocked out and performed some basic flow tests. for this I will ask people to run round my level and give feed back.

Spacial Awareness 2

This is the second time that I will be approaching this subject. In the first year we had to design and model a research facility that encompassed set criteria, but only concerning the interior. This time we have to create a prison that has obvious signs of escape that deals with interior and exterior. We need terrain and a number of specific buildings/areas in the level such as a torcher device and time travel machine.For this we will be using 3D Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and Unreal 3. The unreal engine is familiar to me as we used 2004 last year so adapting to the new layout should be fairly straight forward.

My initial thoughts on this project are.................................. good design is the key. Last year I created a level that did not flow. It would not have been a good playable level. My assets were adequate but I really want to focus on the level flow and layout.

To do this I plan for the first week to research and draw. I will not model anything until I am certain I have an idea that I will stick with and that will work. Obviously there will be points in the development where I will need to adapt my design.

My primary research will be games and films.

Call of Duty 4

Unreal Tournament

Lord of the Rings

Demolition Man

Chronicles of Riddick

Pitch Black

Star Wars

Matrix

Farscape

Decent

Island

Prison Break