Part of our brief was to find a competition and
work on it as a live brief. At worlofleveldesign.com I found an old
competition that suited my skillset and gave me the chance to
continue my UDK training.
The challenge
was to create a visually appealing and interesting environment using
UDK with the custom assets created by WarrenM.
I started by collecting reference imagery based
around the pirate theme. This consisted of photography from real
pirate coves, concept art and scenes from films such as Hook and The
Goonies, and images from the granddaddy of pirate games The Secret of
Monkey Island. The images I found were often set at twilight with
foggy dark blue hues, lit only by the lights shinning from the
windows of the tumbledown wooden shacks. Other common elements were
rickety gangways, galleons and crows nests all of which seemed
cobbled together from ill-fitting wooden planks.
Starting with the default night-time lighting in
UDK, I dropped all of the assets into the scene and began 'kit
bashing' them together to explore the different assets I could create
from the limited selection we were supplied with.
The assets leant themselves well to objects like
boats, chests and walkways all of which would fit with the theme of
the challenge. Of course with the wooden plank asset almost any
structure could be built, although this would mean building them
plank by plank, but in doing so would give that tumbledown feel.
I
was inspired by the spiral shape and texture of the rock asset, it
reminded me of fossilised coral which leant itself well to a sea
cave. By scaling, rotating and merging the rock asset I decided I
wanted to make a secret pirate cove with branching walkways and
splintered shipwrecks around the entrance. The rocks I've started to
clump together have begun to look like a rock monster so I could take
this in a completely different direction to my initial idea, whilst
remembering to stick to the theme.
I
worked on a few more structures to create walls and archways, with
only one rock asset it was tricky to reuse it without the repetition
being obvious so I tried to make the spiral forms flow into one
another to look like folds in the rock. If any of the assets were
scaled too large you could easily begin to see the pixelation of the
texture. I
placed the rocks to rough out the initial outline of the cove to
estimate the scale and height.
By
duplicating, scaling, and rotating part of the arch I saved time
creating the domed shape of the cove. It doesn't look great from the
outside but it'll only viewable from the interior anyway. If I was
building a structure like this for a game I would use a single mesh
to keep the poly count as low as possible, but that was against the
rules of the competition, and as we were asked to create concept
pieces polygon count wasn't an issue.
I
created some terrain for the floor of the cove using the landscape
edit tool in UDK and then using the brush tool to create a simple
slope towards the back of the cave. The
interior was staring to come together, I used some of the rock
structures to create stalactites and stalagmites to give the cave a
more natural look. I removed some of the rocks in the side of the
cove to allow some of the moonlight in and add some visual interest
to the scene, I'd like to experiment with the volumetric properties
of the light to strengthen the light shafts that are already there.
With
the environment roughed out I started to create houses for the
interior, I imagined this cove to be a colony of marooned pirates
that have built all the structures from pieces of shipwrecks that
have washed into the bay. I tried to make the structures as modular
as I could to same time by reusing assets I'd already created to make
new ones, using the grouping functions in UDK to create groups within
groups really helped to speed up this process.
I
made a few more buildings adding detailing such as the ships wheel to
suggest that cobbled together feel. I also wanted the environment to
have multiple levels so added balconies to one building that I wanted
to string together with chain link gangways. Looking back on my
progress I really should have added some randomness in the width of
the planks, like I did with the length of those on the roof to get a
more realistic feel. I haven't worked on the interior of the
buildings, but I'll probably do one as proof of concept. I'd also
like to have more randomness in the window shapes of the buildings, a
round window would look good as if it's a salvaged porthole.
I
began to place the assets around the edge of the cave as if they were
built up against the wall, whist paying attention to randomising the
assets by mirroring and rotating them so the repetition was less
noticable. I grouped a point light with the lantern asset supplied to
place in each building, this simulates the same lighting that I'd
seen in the pirate images from my research.
One
of the larger structures I worked on could function as a tavern or
meeting hall, acting as the focal point or hero object in the scene.
I created additional details, such as the crows nest and ladder by
manipulating the plank asset, to enhance the theme and salvaged look
to the structure. The only BSP brushes I've used in the scene were
for the mast, keeping within the rules of the competition. However I
had to use the plank texture provided which was noticeably pixelated
when applied, it won't matter as long as I keep the asset at a
distance from the camera when I take my final shots, but this would
be an issue in a game level.
I
placed additional environmental details such as the leaves around
the gap in the cove where light would be available for plant growth.
As well as adding more visual interest I hope it acts as a signpost
to the viewer that there may be an environment outside the cove such
as a tropical jungle.
I
used the plane and textures we were given to create the sea for the
environment. I placed more assets to suggest numerous shipwrecks such
as the decaying ribs of a galleon, small boats shattered against
rocks, and submerged masts.
I
continued to work on the scene thinking about the people that may
inhabit it, how they move about, and the structures they may have
built. There needed to be more verticality in the environment so I
created a chainlink bridge asset that I could use to link buildings
of different levels. I was keen to have walkways around the
stalactites, in a game this would allow for multiple pathways in the
level making it more interesting, and allow the player to get
different viewpoints of the environment. Placing lights at the end of
some of the walkways highlights them to the player to let them know
it's an area they can access.
The
level was starting to come together, however due to time constraints
I was unable to put the finishing touches to the environment. I
underestimated the time it took to create the assets, mainly as they
were built plank by plank. The scene was also becoming very dense, at
this point it was taking half an hour to generate the light maps to
be able to preview the lighting in the scene. As proof of concept
what I had fit the themes and requirements of the brief, and the beauty shots below communicate the idea I wanted to convey, they just need some extra work with detailing and lighting.
