BEAT-EM-UP | adam & Virtuosic
polycounter lvl 19
Well, I'm in.
I've called this part of my beat-em-up environment the Tokyo Overgrow. I found these concepts from TokyoGenso that I fell in love with, and would like to take an attempt on the idea. His concepts will be reference only, I am not mimicking any of these in particular.
From there, since there is a lot to something like this - and this is something I've wanted to do for a while - I am going to attempt some execution methods used for Mirror's Edge visual style: Relying heavily on the normal and spec information where the diffuse is insanely simple. As in solid colours mixed with grey tones for grunge/dirt.
I've already begun mocking up the overall layout, which I will post when its finished. I want it to start off in a typical beat-em-up environment, a train station, and have it lead in to a water treatment facility that tells the overall story of the environment: Where the overgrowth came from.
TLDR:
Until the layout concept is done, here's my reference sheet:
I've called this part of my beat-em-up environment the Tokyo Overgrow. I found these concepts from TokyoGenso that I fell in love with, and would like to take an attempt on the idea. His concepts will be reference only, I am not mimicking any of these in particular.
From there, since there is a lot to something like this - and this is something I've wanted to do for a while - I am going to attempt some execution methods used for Mirror's Edge visual style: Relying heavily on the normal and spec information where the diffuse is insanely simple. As in solid colours mixed with grey tones for grunge/dirt.
I've already begun mocking up the overall layout, which I will post when its finished. I want it to start off in a typical beat-em-up environment, a train station, and have it lead in to a water treatment facility that tells the overall story of the environment: Where the overgrowth came from.
TLDR:
- a 'faux Tokyo' city, overgrown in vivid plant life but devoid of life
- Unlike 'I am Legend', it won't be just grass and weeds. But flowers and other colourful plants are growing. For instance, there might be a tomoto plant growing in the train yard.
- Mirror's Edge approach to visual style, and dissecting how they achieved it.
- Inspiration from Tokyogenso & Mirror's Edge
- Utilize a visual style that can make a solo-project achievable in an 8 week time frame.
Until the layout concept is done, here's my reference sheet:
Replies
Btw, your reference sheet isn't loading for me.
Good luck Adam.
Look forward to seeing more.
Best of luck, dude. I'm sure you'll ace the shit out of this.
this compition just hit the mutherfuckin roof!
really good idea going for overgrown tokyo, i've always found influence in urban abandon environments in "i am legend"
Which engine?
[ame]
Haha, that movie was so... bleh. But it had fantastic art. It reminded me a lot of Elemental Gimmick Gear, a Dreamcast RPG which would also be a nice source of inspiration.
The idea is to show 3 horizontal cells: The overall layout/plan, small planning concept/mock-up where I can get a list of assets from and plan my resources properly, and the final one being the 2nd cell + the overgrowth.
Here's where I am so far. The first area is somewhat 'done', the second area I started lastnight and isn't really meant to be seen, and the third is not done or started.
Once I'm done with this horizontal cell I will copy the entire thing, place it in its own horizontal cell, and cover it with overgrowth.
The key thing with this environment - which isn't visible in my plan mock-up - is the visual style.
The above image is purely a tool for myself for planning. For instance, I now know I will need 1 or 2 pillar types, 2 ground materials, a wall material, an escalator, and so on.
The first area is really nicely laid out, however I don't think the transition from the subway to the industrial lot is convincing enough. I think possibly taking an escalator or stairs up from the subway to a street level might be interesting. Would be a lot of fun to knock people off the escalators or tossing them down the stairs!
Really nice work so far, should be a very exciting project.
Right on!
You should then do a totally awesome haggar jump kick through the fence!
YOU GOING DOWN RYAN AND ADAM!!!!
Haha, good luck on the project guys.
Let's see some assets!
Right now we are kind of going for a Mirror's Edge look. ME did a great job at making photo-realistic materials, and that's something we have to try and mimic. Another thing we are aiming for is a saturated color scheme. That is what gave ME it's indistinguishable style, other than photorealism, they had over-saturated colors and some pretty awesome bounce lighting.
The shader i'm working on now is our Concrete Master, and it has some cool functionality. It employs an optional tint mask that represents any painted parts on the concrete, and then changes several parameters to make the paint seem as realistic as possible. This includes adding a subtle reflection, higher specular power, and the spec map will even inherit some of the paints color. The only thing that doesn't change is the normals.
Another thing I've done is turn off the shitty SSAO... Lightmass has some pretty nice AO options that can be baked right into the light maps, as seen below.
Here's some BSP tests. Very WIP still
cheers.
How are you working that tint mask exactly? To get the little paint irregularities on the transition lines?
Not sure if this is how he is doing it but I have done stuff like this in the past with LERPs and using the RGBA channels for different masks since the masks are just black and white you can use a full texture for up to 4 different masks saving a little bit of texture memory here and there.
By painting the wear and tear into the mask itself when its overlayed with the LERP and the color is either added or multiplied over you get this effect.
You can use a Vector Param that can be set up so that you can tweak the color easily and make many variants and if you were to say have 4 different masks for the walls all in the same texture you could create a ton of different looking pieces that would also be able to use different colors.
Looking good so far Ryan keep it up cant wait to see what you make for this entry
If I were to offer my two cents, I think the all the plant growth is a little to uniform. Especially at the end where its just spread evenly across the whole room. I think it would be better with more interesting clumps of growth.
Also I love the foreground electric pole, If you can incorporate a few more foreground elements I think that would be dynamite.
Consider this one of our challenges.
Its easier to mesh personal styles together and turn out something cohesive than it is to have entire different areas created by one person each and hope they gel. This is our challenge. Ryan will be taking on the train platform, I will be tackling the industrial area, and together we'll figure out how to split out the rest of the workload.
With a very distinct visual style on our hands, it is important that we work with similar techniques. So while I was pressing on with the layout concept and asset list Ryan was busting ass on techniques we'll both use to ensure our results are similar.
For now, here is the asset list and overall execution plan. Ryan will pimp the visual style guide he has when its ready - and so far it looks fucking awesome.
TOKYO OVERGROW ASSET LIST
Train platform (Ryan)
Industrial Zone (Adam)
Defunct Water Facility (Combined? We'll figure this out as we get to it.)
Global (Make 'em as we need 'em)
Effects & Lighting (Make 'em as we need 'em)
This is a WORK IN PROGRESS.
cheers