A project done

Four weeks have passed since I placed the first polygon of this project and now everything have been implemented in engine and is ready for play.

It has been an interesting challenge to do something of this proportion in such a limited time and I have forced my self to learn so many new things, both artistically and technically.

The challenge for me was to build a level of as few modular pieces as possible and while doing so getting and understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of modularity.

To build this level I had to model four main pieces, some of these where then altered to add variation.

So in total seven models and four textures.

Except from the modelling and texturing I also created my own shaders and built all of the light as well as everything else that is required to make the level playable with bots or over lan.

One thing that I'm not pleased with is the reflections in the metal. I never managed to pull of a decent cubemapshader. My result is in the screens below. This is something that is on my to do list and will be fixed as soon as I get some time on my hands.

The level itself is not the most fascinating Capture the flag map ever made but this was also my intention.

By making a small non-experimental level I managed to mitigate my risks and instead give the project a bigger chance of being successful, which for me was more important.

I would much rather work on a smaller scale, making almost certain that I would manage to complete all of my planned tasks, than making something half-hearted that I would not be able to stand for.

After this project I have learned that you should use modularity for almost everything, the question is rather how modular it can be. If I where to do the same project again I would also concentrate at making the textures modular also and rather build my set pieces from the textures instead. By doing it that way you can save precious computing and instead spend it on where it matter e.g. characters and first person weapons. This will probably be my next project when I find time for it.

Another drawback of working with modular pieces in lightmap based engines such as UDK is that it can produce seams while tiling meshes. These seams are produced if the UV seams is placed in the middle of a pixel. A smart way around this is to model seams where these seams are produced, you can see this in my floor piece.

The result for the curious:  

The four main meshes

Basic layout

Print-screened directly from the editor

You can shoot, also

Hi there!

I just wanted to show of some models that I have finished in the last days.

This is one of the wall together with the floor piece. There is still some time left on the pipe texture.

Because that the wall pieces have geometry pushing in to the negative axis it produces gaps in the corners and I had to cover that up with something, so I made this doorway thingy. The pillars with the lamp is its own mesh and can be placed elsewhere. It can also be rotated making the light not visible. In UDK I am going to use the emissive for static lighting with lightmass and I think it's going to look sweet.

I have also looked in to how to create a translucent shader for a wall piece with some glass details. It's coming along and I hope to have some results next week. I have also started implementing meshes into UDK so I will show some progress of that in the next post.

Analyzing

The last week was spent designing the level on paper. At first I drew a rough sketch on graph paper of a basic layout. The was done to get some measurement proportions for the modular parts.
I then started to research some CTF maps. The maps I researched was VCTF_Necropolis, CTF_FaceClassic, CTF_Absolute_Zero, CTF_1on1_Joust and CTF_Maul. These are all maps from the Unreal series by Epic.
The things I was looking for was if the map was symmetrical, if it had alternate routes from base to base, if it has more then one level of height, if it had any open spaces and where the spawn points were placed in relation the flags.
This gave me some ideas of how I could design my own map as well as of how big or small it should be to support play for 4 players. I want to have some alternate routes and not just a corridor - room - corridor - room map.
I have also decided to color code each half of the level for the respective teams' side. This could be done either by textures or by lightning. This should help the players to locate themselves since the map will be symmetrical.
I have also an idea of giving the map lower gravity since the narrative of the level is that of a sci-fi spaceship. But this is something I will have to look into later.
After the research I finished my own layout on paper. It is not 100 % accurate yet and I am sure that it is going to and should change when I start to test the map, but will serve as a guide when I do the actual blockout in UDK.
I have also started to model several different parts. I am making them as modular as possible so that they can be tiled, rotated and placed on several places in the map. This method will let me try out new ideas on the fly in UDK and let me use rapid prototyping while designing the map.
One of my aesthetics for the map design is chaos. I have thought of different ways to compensate my design for this. One idea that I have is to let all the players spawn in the same room and this spawn room will be in the middle of the map, but this will have to be tested.

Here is a screenshot of a floor piece. I will show of some more models as soon as they are finished

Phoenix

Here we are again.

I am currently taking a new course were I am to plan and execute a project in five weeks and I thought it would be interesting for the posterity to document my working process. The assignment is more or less for me produce what I would want as long as it is connected to game design. I have decided to design, model and texture a Capture the flag map in UDK.

The first week will be spent researching CTF maps under certain criterias and later blocking out the actual level on paper. With a good paper block out I believe that I can start to model some parts that I know that I will need.

This is the concept that I will work towards.

I will follow it quite loosely because though because I have some ideas of my own that I want to try out when I have a chance.