Argatona Station
Alright Guys, and Girls, Here we go. First Polycount Post Ever! And I'm starting off big. I'm an Aspiring Level Designer, and Enviornment Artist, and this is the single Biggest project I have ever taken on. This will easily take me 9 months (until i graduate)and will hopefully be the Highlight of my Demo Reel. as well as there being a LOT of art for this level, there will also be a lot of Gameplay, code, post effects, etc. So if you're strictly an art Person bare with me, as my main goals no matter what include the following:
Game Runs at 60fps NO MATTER WHAT
Level is fun to play
Gameplay Mechanics fit the Level in all aspects and gametypes
Goals for this project:
To hit the style of; Planetside 2, Halo Reach, Tribes Ascend, and Section 8.
To get all Code and modified game properties implemented before all the art is finished
To Conquer all problems encountered with the UDK, and 3ds Max along the way, rather than using a work around (problem solving, not doing something else that works just fine)((For learning purposes))
To produce a beautiful and fun level, that can hopefully support 32 Players and all game mechanics Host and ClientSide.
The way this thread will Kindof work for me is i'm going to post progress as often as possible, and problems i encounter and what fixed them, I want this post to be a learning experience for me and everyone reading it.
Here it goes, Reference Images
Backstory and Description:
Argatona Station is a military base and staging area, originaly controlled by a Imperialistic Army, fighting breaks out as half of the troops stationed at Argatona decide to go rebel after a harsh political decision, blah blah blah yaddah yaddah.
The station is equipped with a large hanger for vehicles, repair bay, control center, medical ward, morgue and artillery shelter tunnels, and Gymnasium wich durring times of war is used as a resupply bay, or as I'm calling it "The Staging Bay" (i can't really explain it, best reference i can give, Remember in blackhawk down where they cook the pig that they shot from the side of a blackhawk, and the room they gather grenades, night vision goggles, ammo, m16s, all that junk, yeah, that room.)
Hope you guys are as excited as I am, I made an executive decision with all the other people that live in my head to only post this on poly count, as the people on the UDN Forums are mostly *^&(SWEARING SLANDER BAD NO NO WORDS)&^*....
Game Runs at 60fps NO MATTER WHAT
Level is fun to play
Gameplay Mechanics fit the Level in all aspects and gametypes
Goals for this project:
To hit the style of; Planetside 2, Halo Reach, Tribes Ascend, and Section 8.
To get all Code and modified game properties implemented before all the art is finished
To Conquer all problems encountered with the UDK, and 3ds Max along the way, rather than using a work around (problem solving, not doing something else that works just fine)((For learning purposes))
To produce a beautiful and fun level, that can hopefully support 32 Players and all game mechanics Host and ClientSide.
The way this thread will Kindof work for me is i'm going to post progress as often as possible, and problems i encounter and what fixed them, I want this post to be a learning experience for me and everyone reading it.
Here it goes, Reference Images
Backstory and Description:
Argatona Station is a military base and staging area, originaly controlled by a Imperialistic Army, fighting breaks out as half of the troops stationed at Argatona decide to go rebel after a harsh political decision, blah blah blah yaddah yaddah.
The station is equipped with a large hanger for vehicles, repair bay, control center, medical ward, morgue and artillery shelter tunnels, and Gymnasium wich durring times of war is used as a resupply bay, or as I'm calling it "The Staging Bay" (i can't really explain it, best reference i can give, Remember in blackhawk down where they cook the pig that they shot from the side of a blackhawk, and the room they gather grenades, night vision goggles, ammo, m16s, all that junk, yeah, that room.)
Hope you guys are as excited as I am, I made an executive decision with all the other people that live in my head to only post this on poly count, as the people on the UDN Forums are mostly *^&(SWEARING SLANDER BAD NO NO WORDS)&^*....
Replies
Alright I've officially started making proxies. First here's the original concept, just to flesh out a sort of idea of what i was going for. I'm not a concept artist, the perspective's off and stuff. Just an idea, not an art book
Concept of "The Core"
And then after drawing out my design in illustrator I went through and drew out floors and stairs with BSP shapes.
Then I continued by adding my white boxing tools, set up in 32 units =1 foot (double scale) by making lots of perfectly sized cubes and snapping them together to form walls. Then also made proxies, that sadly haven't been concepted yet so they are based off real world vehicles for now. but their dimensions should be similar
I've also taken POV with brief descriptions.
The Repair Bay
This room will consist of vehicles, tools, lifts, heavy machinery, a grate catwalk, and hopefully a crane or two, everything you need to work on tanks and such, it has 2 exits to hallways, and one exit to "the core"
The Core
The core is the central hub for the level there are 4 exits through hallways, a gate to the repair bay, buttresses , vehicles, crates, a large blast door (that wont open) cargo, probably eventually to be completed with giant energy shield windows (like in the horrible concept art)
M.D. (medical ward)
Sick bay, box nailing room, whatever you want to call it, will have cabinets, medical equipment, operating tables, stretchers, wheelchairs, crutches etc. Has 2 hallway exits, and one exit down to the underground halls AKA "The Morgue" (this is a possible spawn area)
The West Halls
These halls connect the repair bay the core and the MD. They also are lined with doors to the sleeping quarters (which won't be playable)
The Tech Room
This is the room that controls all the electric doors, the defense systems, the operations, planning and computer junk. Basically it's the control room. It also has a balcony overlooking the "staging area" which is used for pep talks to get the troops riled up. Has 3 hallway exits, one to the staging area, one to the locker room, and one to the repair bay.
North Halls and Locker Room
The locker room should be self explanatory. But has a hallway leading to the morgue, and one to the east halls and staging area (this is a possible spawn area)
And finally the top down view, None of this really makes sense without seeing the top down, i'm not gonna give out the design yet, because its so subject to change, so here's a screenshot with some chop added to it.
That's all I got for now I'll update after i do another pass of proxy modeling, Soon i'm going to put a roof on everything as well. Keep checking back! Feedback is ALWAYS welcome!
Anyway it seems like a big project but if you pull it off then it'll look nice on your portfolio but sometimes it's best to aim small so you can really polish it to the max. Good luck.
I unfortunately need a BUTT TON of concept art, and no one to do it. You've seen my bad concept art so there's no way i'm doing it. LOL
60 Frames is important to me, it's a goal but i have a feeling with Normal spec and diffuse maps it will be around 45. And i'm going to go as low as possible on Static Mesh Lightmaps, like 256 would be for the biggest mesh in my level, MAX.
And yes this is a rediculously huge level, but luckily, everything can be simplified easily, and if i have to when it comes time to just do the art for it, i might end up doing it one room at a time, so no matter what i'll have at least one room for my reel. But thanks for the courtesy post Habboi
Looks like a nice start so far...your reference images were nice...I'm going to steal some for my inspiration folder.
I agree with Habboi.This will take a shit-ton of work. A lot. You can simplify things, but it will take a lot to make each room different and to fill the space with props. I tried doing the same thing my last couple months out of college. A huge map idea, which turned into a slightly smaller map idea, which turned into shit art, which made me itchy to get it out of my portfolio asap. Just me though.
You have the right idea though...one room at a time..so if you get sick of it you at least have something to show for it.
Good luck!
Thanks a ton gsokol!
The art will be the hard part, BelgianBoolean will tell you, i prop REALLY FAST.
Der Hollander, Thanks, I'm excited for this project, and the people who will end up helping with it.
You got some nice work going here so far. Keep at it mate!
60fps seems like a high target, but the map --being all corridors, corners, and large open areas-- seems like a good candidate. if this were source i'd say hint brushes, area portals, and visibility optimization ad infinitum like a broken record player.
Obviously it wont run at 60 fps on every computer, but i figured a good one to test that on will be our crappy school computers
And i'm using UDK over hammer because of the fact that UDK is so widely used, and the pipeline for udk is much faster. Eventually i plan on doing a L4D level in the source engine, but not yet.
here's a quick update on proxies I've made since my last post.
So obviously the medical ward is crowded with surgery curtains, beds, surgery tool trays. But since I'm a sucker for lighting, I like to also proxy in my physical lights as early as possible,(notice the halogen light proxies on the ceiling)
I needed to get railings in fast as they are of course a big game play element, as shown in this image i have 2 railing types, one for stairs and one for straights. Staying modular. I also modeled 4 different stair sets, for different widths to fit around the map.
Tech room is still naked, but added railings.
And put a roof on the Core. I haven't added supporting Ibeams and whatnot yet, but that whole roof will be glass with a blast door system in case of artillery barrage.(which will most definitely be kismet implemented and happening during a typical game)
I know it's disappointing that i haven't posted much, but shit happens. I will however be working all day on this project. Be patient with the blue and white, as this is for my Level Design Portfolio, and not for my art portfolio, everything must be carefully planned and placed, play tested moved, planned and placed again before i can start doing art for it. So until EVERY room is proxied to their fullest extent (minus things like cups and cans and bottles) I'm not starting on the art just yet. I've asked a good friend to model the blast door that is shittily shown in the concept way above in my first post because he wanted a huge hard surface hero object for his reel. I'm considering making that asset the pacemaker.
(meaning it will set the standard for all the art in the game)
Also my lighting is a default June UDK setup. It will be re tweaked later.
My goal for today, is to get a roof, (or ceiling rather) on every room and hallway.
Check back later today, I might finish the roofing thing REALLY fast. In which case I'm going to start adding things like tables, tool chests, crates (gotta have crates) and yes. 50 gallon drums! (if your level doesn't have a 50 gallon drum, it's not awesome)
I'm not trying to meet the scope or complexity of Planetside 2. Just style.
Anyway Here are some shots with ceiling covering the entire map. I'm making a decision to use sky to light the large rooms, while still keeping physical lights in mind (for areas like the hallways.
I'm trying to vary the style depending on the room.
For example for inspiration for the staging area i decided to go with something similar to Cowboys stadium where the entire roof is retractable (i don't like the cowboys just their architecture, dont turn this into a sports discussion please...... ((cause i dont watch sports))) because of the fact that durring hot seasons the staging area is used as a rec room, such as for spacebasketball or whatever the hell they play in the future. Quitage with grenades? EITHER WAY it's supposed to essentially be outdoors sometimes and indoors others.
The repair depot has large windows in the ceiling because of the fact that theres no windows on the walls, the mechanics need some form of light leaking through.
The tech ward has a small amount of light due to computers, it needs to feel as basement like as possible.
The morgue should feel ominous and dark for the most part, right now there's just simple untouched point lights in there for proof of concept
And the barracks halls are supposed to be simply for utility. There won't be anything fancy here other than lights up in the ceiling that run along the walls. (which will be seperate assets)
Overall my goal is for the inside of the level (since its an indoor level) to feel so completed with ceilings that it looks like a real structure from the outside. Which is starting to I think.
Lastly I have been keeping in mind this entire time the idea of protection. When you really love someone you use it. Er, blast doors...
The rooms with gaping windows like the repair depot will have retractable blast doors OVER THE WINDOWS in case of an artillery barrage. Same goes for the core. My hopes are to have scripted random events throughout the level where these doors will shut automatically during the course of a game and a minute or so open again (with scripted Cortana sounding voice saying something like "Artillery barrage incoming blast door defense sequence initiated." Followed by "Blast door defense sequence completed" and the doors will open again. (and this is not to ambitious i've done stuff like that before)
Anyway that's enough rambling. Next up are crates barrels supply boxes, toolchests, i beams and more. Stay tuned. Not promising anything but i should have an update by the end of the day.
Here I have modeled 7 proxies. A 50 Gallon Barrel (gotta have a barrel) 3 Different Sized Crates, and 3 rectangular crates of similar size (they are basically stretched, but in max via verts, not in udk (cause doing that is bad.)
These will all have 1 texture sheet each to start, eventually 2 diffuse variants. (maybe even 3) so technically once the texturing madness begins these 7 assets will add up to 21 assets. I have taken into consideration how these crates would open.. (well except for the small one because i couldn't help but make it look like a companion cube
*******NOTE********* I fully understand that a lot of the detail on these objects will be normal mapped on very easily. However these are Mid poly proxies. Because of the fact that these objects wont be textured for several months, it's strictly for visual proof of concept. And i'm confident that UDK can handle the Tri count until then.
Onto I-Beams, Some Physical Lights, and Tables
Still need benches for the locker room, laundry bins, and something else (let me know if you can think of anything else)
I also still need tool boxes, a control console for the crane, lifts, and some other stuff for the repair depot.
Next is tech ward stuff. Giant screens a round hologram map like the one from that lame assed movie avatar. more screens, panels with big shiny buttons, you know the motions.
I'm going to do one room at a time, starting with the core.
Screen shots of the currently half proxied core.
I will probably start with the Floor and wall textures, then do the ceiling pieces, and their blast doors.Then do pillars. Then move onto crates and barrels, then vehicles will be last. Update of high poly models coming soon!
Although i don't think anyone's looking at my thread anymore because i took to long to post anything that looks finished.