[STAGE] Eternal Champions, Trident's Stage, Kaiser D

Kaiser D

Say what you will about how bad this game was, but it was a massive guilty pleasure for me. I would love to pay homage to my all-time favorite cheesy fighting game (sorry Shaq-Fu) on the Genesis and Sega CD.

I decided to go with my favorite level, Trident's:


I have always been fascinated by the idea of Atlantis, so instead of modifying what you see in the image, I'd love to concentrate on what you see in the back. See that little domed city glistening in the horizon?

Yep, I'm gonna make this stage INSIDE THE ATLANTIS DOME.

Atlantis is open to so many ideas I still don't even know where to begin. I'd like to retain the whole "massive spires towering in the background" look, with having the actual fighting surface be one of those swooping huge bridges you can barely make out in the image.

I picture the fight happening on one of those platforms (sky highways?) while huge white towers stand in the horizon. I haven't really thought on what would be the best way to portray a glass dome covering everything, and if that would count as a sky dome or would be an additional giant mesh (yikes).

Anyway there you have it, here is a quick & dirty inspiration sheet I gathered from The Internets, all concept is © and ® of their respective artists:



I'm excited. I'll start sketching tonight or during the weekend, if the aftermath of St. Patrick's leaves me with enough motor skills.

Cheers!

ParoXum

Man that's a really big enviro you're going for then! Good luck.

Kaiser D

Oh no I don't plan to build the whole city, unless they gave me until december!

It would be a more contained section of it, let's say like this gorgeous one from BlazBlue:


I'm thinking a bridge or suspended platform with buildings towering in the back, showing off some Atlantean architecture. In terms of layout I'm seeing it more like a Street fighter 4 level, where you only get a front view and the sides.

Also I didn't mention it above but I'm aiming to get this into UDK.

Kaiser D

Ok so I had to stop sketching, I am not a dedicated concept artist so this was taking me way too much time. I decided to leave it at a point where I can start blocking out stuff.

Here's my idea:



For this version the city is going to be submerged, giving it kind of a massive dome out of Bioshock feel. Only a few types of buildings and one main building in the middle which is going to be the level's focus. Depending on how the tri count ends up after all that, I might add bridges connecting the structures coming out of the water.

Anyway, thoughts? suggestions? I'm all ears- err.... eyes :poly121:

Kaiser D

Block-in time!

Still undecided about the placing of buildings and if I should add more of them.

Akuma1x

nice! this is a great level!

Kaiser D

Thanks! Glad you like it. Need to crank up the speed though, this is taking me forever :poly141:

Kaiser D

Major overhaul!

I noticed I was approaching the buildings the wrong way, treating each one as an individual piece. Instead I decided to build more modular parts and build the city in the background with those pieces. Gone is the floating orb in the middle (still undecided about completely scratching that idea) and I rebuilt the city to look more like the one from "Stargate Atlantis", so I cranked up the number of buildings.

Here's the latest shot from Max:



Let me know what you think. Man I'm so behind :poly122:

S2Engine

Wow, pretty cool scene! I think you could try moving some of the larger buildings in back around some, maybe make it not as symmetrical. Like one of the clusters could be closer to the center, etc etc. So I can see that the foreground is intended to be the fighting ring, but I'm not too sure on the scale there. Any plans for objects up there or will it be mostly open?

Kaiser D

Thanks! The foreground which is the fighting area is supposed to be a bridge looking over the rest of the city, I'm still thinking hard on what objects to include in the bridge for clutter/scale. Atlantean crates and trash cans? hehehe.

Another thing I was wondering is if I should position the camera so the other side of the bridge shows and it actually looks suspended. I've tried dozens of views but always go back to this one.