[STAGE] King of Fighters '98, China, Fearian!

fearian

I am in! I didn't think I'd be able to enter dominance war as I'm going into crunch mode with my final year of university - but an environment challenge? Too good to pass!

I already have university projects on the go, but one of them is an environment piece I haven't got started yet! So I figured I would kill two birds with one stone and squeeze the competition brief into my uni brief! I've already stated I will create a near-future, hard sci-fi, urban environment; so with that In mind I set out looking for fight stages that I could redesign in that specific direction!

This actually turned out to be a pain in the ass, because knowing I don't have time to do anything too epic and specifically looking for an urban setting didn't leave me with many options. So I'm down to two options. One makes sense, but is a little dull, one it crazy and makes no sense. :poly142:

Option #1: KoF XI, America Stage.


This would be really easy to do over as a cleaned up modern and appealing shopping district, but the background itself is pretty dull.


Option #2: KoF '98, China Stage.


This one is a bit more of a leap of imagination. I really love this stage as it is. The background scrolls as the boat is punted through the environment, the boat itself rocks from side to side - it's great! I would take this in a pretty extreme direction. Replace the water with a cloud layer, the rocks with skyscrapers, and the boat with a bridge between buildings.

I'm going for the crazy one, natch. :thumbup:

>>>>Latest:

fearian

This appalling concept should get the meat of the idea across, but I'm not happy with loosing the colours of the original, which I really want to carry over. Brace for bad drawing! :poly136:

I don't think I'll be updating the concept to show this (as I do not have the concept skills) but I want to aim to get the other buildings closer and more in your face like the original, as well as carry over the colour of the rocks to the buildings cladding, and the red highlights from the padoga to some billboards. I also want to get some roof gardens in there to get things seeming a bit more lush!

Reference hunting and block outs tomorrow! I'm going to go get drunk on Guinness! Happy St. Patrick's day people!

fearian

While I didn't get much time to work on blockouts today, I spent a good deal of time hunting down skyscraper references and getting a feel of where I want to take the buildings in the background. I definitely want to bring the skyscrapers forward to really dominate the scene and loom close, like the original rock outcroppings (Top left and bottom right boxxes). To get that blocky rocky feel I'm going for a boxy Bruce Graham styled design (lower center box), with some slants to give interest to the silhouette. I plan to bring back the hint of red with coloured beams (ala the tepai 101 tower, right, and the bottom left box)

I doodled out some designs and came up with this. Lots of support beams, and interesting diagonals, and a few outcrops for roof gardens.

EMC3D

Did you cut that brawl logo out yourself? Need one of those myself.

Nice concepts, can see the visualization coming together, looking forward to seeing this progress!

fearian

Haha, yeah I did! Pretty shoddily too! It looks fine when sized down though :P

Here's the cut out logo to save you some time!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2759490/brawl_logo.psd

Ben Apuna

Cool stuff, I like your re-imagination of that level.

Modular buildings should be fun.

Good luck!

EMC3D

fearian wrote: »

Haha, yeah I did! Pretty shoddily too! It looks fine when sized down though :P

Here's the cut out logo to save you some time!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2759490/brawl_logo.psd

Thanks alot!

Buckster

You seem to really anaöyze where you are going with this, awesome.

Looking forward to seing more now, go go

Cheers

fearian

@Ben Apuna: Cheers! I'm starting to think the skyscrapers won't be so modular, although roof parts should be!
@Mr Bear: No Problem! I'm looking forward to your own Brawl entry!
@Buckster: Yup, I like to plan out and break down a scene as it stops me getting stuck later! But in this case, I need to justify and document my working for my own university report! I actually need to type up some research I did on a few skyscraper architects later this week for a report Yawn!

I really wanted to finish up a fairly detailed blockout today, and got up at 8 to get started... then went back to bed at 9 and stayed there all day with a fucking awful migraine My ill feeling started to fade this evening so here's what I knocked together so far!

For some reason, next to none of my brushes are casting/recieving shadows They all have good lightmap resolution, I can't figure out what I've missed, likely something simple. I blame this man flu. :thumbdown:

fearian

Cross postin!
This is exactly the same lighting setup in both the November and March builds. default light settings and three simple brushes. No settings changed.



I cannot get lights in the march build to reliably cast shadows! What changed, and how can I get some crisp shadows? :poly127:

Gannon

That's really weird, are all the default settings actually the same or did they change them?

fearian

They changed them! And they did it accidentally it seems. For some reason new brushes are created to only receive shadows from indirect lighting. its bloody mental that this has been around since december!

Cheers to Froyok for passing on his results from his own encounter with this problem!
Fix:

kilgariff on the udk boards wrote:

I can confirm that the bug is related to BSP properties as opposed to lightmass itself.

Steps to reproduce:
Create a BSP surface using the cube primitive builder brush
Select surface
Press F4 to view the properties

Most surfaces have these initial settings, despite them not being defaults:

Object.LightmassSettings.bUseTwoSidedLighting True
Object.LightmassSettings.bShadowIndirectOnly True
Object.LightmassSettings.FullyOccludedSamplesFract ion 0.000000

Occasionally, there are insanely high (or low, negative) bogus values.

@Froyok: For now, you should be able to fix it by pressing SHIFT+S to select all surfaces, F4 for properties, then right click on each property and click "Reset to default"

Edit-because-its-such-a-minor-update:

I spent my afternoon learning about post processing in udk for another environment I am working on and applied what I learned to my previous shot! I'll blockout the interior after my dinner, promise! Anyhow, here's the same brush blockout with shadows this time!

S2Engine

Ha! I didn't realize when I first checked out your concept that you were going to be encountering so many of the same issues I am. Went through and gave this thread a proper read, I see now how you're going about it. I like the direction you've got going, it'll be nice to see more of the blockout develop. Depending on your preference, it might be nice to see some of the more distant skyscrapers extending beyond the height of the window to give a feeling of a massive scale. Totally up to you though, either way would look nice.

fearian

So this happened! Interior architechture will be based off the style of Santiago Calatrava.



Tomorrow I have to work more on other projects, Hopefully if I have time I'll finish up the interior blockout and stick it in engine.

fearian

tiny update:

Ben Apuna

I'm glad to see you got that shadow situation sorted out.

I realize you're still blocking things out but just in case I thought I'd mention that my main concern at this point is that I think the scene is looking a little too symmetrical lighting wise. You've basically got two big shadowed areas on the left and right.

Maybe lower the left (or right side) building so we can see the rooftop and put another taller building(s) behind it. This might help to make the mid-ground a bit more varied and interesting.

Of course all of that is null, if this isn't your planned lighting direction and setup.

Other than that, the foreground architecture is pretty cool looking, nice bounced lighting too.

Keep up the good work.

ParoXum

Mmh, I really like where this is going with the pilars. Taking some great existing architecture into a game level is always a good learning experience.

I think you'll need something busy in the foreground, too.

fearian

Cheers guys! I'm still a little hazy on what I'm going to fill the foreground with.
@ParoXum: Yeah I'm not sure what yet. I'm thinking a Rope barrier curving in a wide U arc, but I want something else on one side as well, as Ben said to break up some symmetry.
@Ben Apuna: Yup at the moment shadows would be far too symmetrical. I plan on having some holographic displays in the glass windows on one side, which should cast colored light and break things up, but I'd like some props behind the fighters to fill some space as well.

Hmm, I'm gonna have to do some paintovers to flesh these Ideas out I think!

Sean VanGorder

Lookin pretty cool man. I think this scene will give you a chance to pull off some really slick lighting.

Mark Dygert

I really like what you have going so far. The lighting is coming along great!

EddieFaria

gonna keep an eye on this! great stuff!

fearian

Just a necro post to mention that I am still on this like bear shit on woods, but I've had my attention divided this week between brawl, my other environment, and other university work.

Rest assured service will commence shortly - the fucker's got to be handed in by may 4th!

felipefrango

Nice progress so far!

fearian

So, I haven't had the time I would have like to work on my Brawl stuff. And I haven't been too happy with my WIP's either! But here it is so far, I have no idea if I'm going to have time to polish this up before the deadline, but I don't think so.

cholden

fearian wrote: »

So, I haven't had the time ...

You have like 8 wip threads all over this site. I shake my fist at you, good sir!

S2Engine

Looks pretty nice, I hope you keep going with it even after the deadline!

d1ver

I really liked you original idea. Hope you finish this eventually.

Good luck!

fearian

Thanks guys!

Cholden: Haha yeah I'm a sucker for starting things I don't finish! But this will be different! *eyes sparkle* I'm gonna bring it home! lol.

Just had my uni deadlines, so I'm gonna take a lil break and get cracking on finishing this and my sci-fi street off!