UTMC - Azure Space Castle
Hello!
As a fan of UT (started playing them shortly after GOTY, 2003 and GOTY being my favorites), I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into this.
In a nutshell, my idea is a space castle that is floating above a blue sun/star. The blue sun is it's power source, but has known to have unpredictable solar flares, which has caused some damage to various parts of the castle in the past which will play a part of the landscape. The castle itself is based on a floating Asteroid, and the blue sun is a good opportunity to get lots of pretty blues into the scene and hopefully do some nice color contrasting. Hense, "Azure Space Castle".
First Step:
Mood boards. I have an idea of what I want the scene to look like, but nothing concrete yet. Because of that, I started off with some mood boards of different space images for inspiration and reference for composition and atmospheric impact.
1
2
The next step for me is to do some thumbnail sketches, just one or two to get the ball rolling, and then I will likely dive headfirst into the rest of it- with a few UT games played in between, haha!
As a fan of UT (started playing them shortly after GOTY, 2003 and GOTY being my favorites), I couldn't wait to sink my teeth into this.
In a nutshell, my idea is a space castle that is floating above a blue sun/star. The blue sun is it's power source, but has known to have unpredictable solar flares, which has caused some damage to various parts of the castle in the past which will play a part of the landscape. The castle itself is based on a floating Asteroid, and the blue sun is a good opportunity to get lots of pretty blues into the scene and hopefully do some nice color contrasting. Hense, "Azure Space Castle".
First Step:
Mood boards. I have an idea of what I want the scene to look like, but nothing concrete yet. Because of that, I started off with some mood boards of different space images for inspiration and reference for composition and atmospheric impact.
1
2
The next step for me is to do some thumbnail sketches, just one or two to get the ball rolling, and then I will likely dive headfirst into the rest of it- with a few UT games played in between, haha!
Replies
Some Thumbnail sketches. Basic, but I like the angle and composition of the top left thumbnail a lot, and the 2nd shot helps me picture how I'm going to approach one of the main rooms, which is essentially the throne room of the castle, but with a massive chunk out of the right hand wall where you can directly stare into the blue sun!
Will probably go more into detail on those 2 next.
The start of mashing together some color for a rough idea. I need to fully flesh out how I want the castle to be structured along the asteroid.
Started drawing the "blue sun" in a bit more detail, as well as the skyline. Will need to add some solar flares and still needs a bit more tweaking I feel. Not 100% on the color but liking the direction its taking.
Now starting the reshape the asteroid a little bit and figuring out a baseline for the castle. Have only got until tonight to finish this since its due tomorrow, so will have to start implementing ideas pretty fast.
At the moment things don't quite feel "melted", but the general atmosphere of both "awe" and "danger" is coming across pretty well, though will be hopefully more stressed once i finish off the solar flare eating the smaller chunks of asteroid.
The main feelings I want people to feel when they see this/were to play this as a level is Awe and danger, mixed with a little bit off "well falling off this might hurt...a lot".
To help you out on conveying your idea, I looked around and found this pretty indepth tutorial on creating a sun easily in photoshop. Sometimes it's better just to let photoshop do the heavy lifting instead of trying to paint all of the nuances especially when you're choked on time. Remember the day and age we live in, information and tutorials are everywhere.
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If you're trying to go for a solar flare with that geysure like thing, I'd say right now the values are too uniformal and doesn't convey a huge burst of energy. Again, we live in the age of the internet, all it takes is a 2 second search on google for "Solar Flare". One of the most important take aways from looking at reference of solar flares, the bottom part where the sun ejects the flare is the brightest because it's literally erupting like a volcano off the surface.
https://www.google.com/search?q=solar+flare&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=lZfeU9SDLdaoyAT82oHICA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg&biw=2144&bih=1068&dpr=0.9#imgdii=_
Good luck man
However, I did take your feedback on board though and amended the big solar flare and added some more. Also tweaked the sky a bit and already it feels better as a whole.
Thanks for the tutorial link, I've favorited it for future ref. The scene feels very much like I want it to now.
Here's my final shot.