UTMC_GROUNDED

si-man

Found this challenge quite late on but liked the theme so thought I would try and put something together in time!

I like the idea of a grounded battle battle ship for a level design, and so made this the main direction for my concepts. It would encapsulate the sci-fi and ruin aspects of the Unreal Tournament themes.

The first elements I wanted to nail down were the look and feel of the ship itself, and so started off by wipping up a few quick designs to get me started.

FirebornForm

Heh nice Space ship levels are among the top favorite maps in UT (Hyperblast anyone?) it's kinda surprising we've barely seen any of them in the contest.

si-man

I decided to go in the direction of the bottom left sketch, for which I made a quick profile angle shot. I like to play around with abstract shapes a bit in the early stages of dev, but would ultimately like to move towards something that is vaguely reminiscent of the battle star from battle star galactica.

In order to define the shape more fully I jumped into 3ds Max to create a preliminary model for paint over. This process allows me to experiment with shape and form in realtime from all angles.

si-man

I tried to think practically how this ship could work as a level. I knew I wanted it to be a military vessel, grounded on a planet, how would the players interact with that? I considered how this ship might be like a maze, possibly with interactive elements, such as power generators that teams would want to capture and could be switched on to open certain doors and open up different parts of the map. With many of the exterior wall sections broken or missing, the bridge could provide a good sniper position. Access to the gun platforms and landing bay could provide so interesting long range conflict as well as close quarters combat in the ships corridors.
Having got my ship blocked out, I needed context for it. I envisaged the ship being grounded on a deserted planet, near the equator, in a dense jungle forest with alien rock formations framing a gorge.

si-man

Ive kept the environment loose so that things can easily be worked into place when I put the ship in the scene. After positioning the and thinking about lighting, composition, and perspective, I start to work the image so that it all fits together.

si-man

I aimed to complete 2 concepts of the interior concepts of the ships as well, although time allowing I may only be able to complete 1

si-man

and here is just about where I managed to get to, kinda done!

FirebornForm

Really great lighting effects going on in these, I hope they see your submission in the other thread and count it. Your ship design is totally insane and it's funny how when I look at it in profile side view it just looks like a bunch of graphical design shapes.

si-man

Thanks FirebornForm, would have liked to spend some more time on fleshing out interiors and perhaps even got a third image done, had so many ideas I wanted to get across!! Unfortunately I work 7 days a week so finding time is tricky Thanks for fighting for us by the way, I worked through the night and was gutted when I found the finals thread closed!!! Its great to see so much incredible artwork in one place tho