I am currently in the last year of my games design course and currently working on my Final Year Project. For this i have decided to texture assets acquired off the internet. I will then compile these in 'UDK'. After that i will need create a lighting system with a 'Film Noir' style. The final product that is required is to have a cut scene just before spawn to show off the level and then for the player to spawn and explore the scene. The way i am approaching it is that its like a crime scene game where you would look around the scene.
Would appreciate any feedback! Thank you
So far i have unwrapped and textured the assets and put them into UDK. The texturing needs a few tweaks here and there but i am going to start the lighting as its the main part of this project.
As i want the player to walk around this scene, i have done some plans on where i would want the assets placed :
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@SelaZnog: Yeah I've quickly put that ground plane there haven't had a play around with it yet. no they won't stay red, i only did that so when i was painting the assets i could see what not to paint, i was thinking of having the windows boarded up with chipboard or something like that, and maybe making parts glow so it looks like light is shining through the boards, will be doing that with textures though. Will take some close ups later tonight and get them posted
@Zwebbie: I did consider this and i was going to do it but thought that it wasn't a hard enough project with no textures involved, but saying that i have looked into post processing and there are some decent material effects where you can desaturate the scene as much as you want, so i'm thinking at the end i will try playing round with that.
The other question i have is what do you want to get into? Design or art? If its design i would think more about the motives of the player, why they are here, what they are doing. Sound is another key area, a radio in the caravan for example, dropping hints to the player maybe or a scream at the beginning wanting you to rush on and find out whats going on. And not worry about the art and make sure the design is good.
The only other thing i thought was that it would all be more compact everything is quite spaced out, and at the moment you dont have the assets to keep people going along the path, like trees, rock formations, signs these little things will keep a player intrested etc. As a player in these games i like to roam around a bit, i dont want a short narrow path. By having everything closer the player they are able to go to these main/hero props to try and find something maybe a key to get in the house for example but still have the space to explore a bit instead of going A to B. Where the ending is they open the door and some sort of trigger/suspense happens and it cuts.
I hope this helps out a little bit. But it would be good to know your thoughts on how the crime happened and what happens for example at the well or the caravan. I would say get the design, layout and story sorted then worry about the art.
I do like the art side but these not being my own models, i think it would be more beneficial to this project to make the design the main focus. i do want to get into environment design and environment modeling so both would help i suppose.
Yeah i think i need to think about the story of the scene abit more before i continue, i'm going to have a think about some ideas about what happened in this scene and will post them tomorrow.
@Zwebbie: ah, i understand, do you think that if i took the texturing that i have done and then make the maps into greyscale in photoshop they would look okay? or would the textures need altering ?
Possible scenarios for the ‘Film Noir’ Scene
The station house is a well-known haunted house, which hasn’t been lived in for a long time. This was until a famous ghost hunter set up on getting footage of this famous ghost for his TV program. He believes in staying around the area inhabited by the ghost for a couple of nights, so that the spirit can get used to his presence and will not feel threated by him being there. He is supposed to check into the other members of the ghost hunter’s crew every 2 hours, but has missed the last two check ins. This often happens because he falls asleep at night, but just in case they send one of the new members of the team to check on him. [Player Spawns] and shows the name of the player.
He starts to look around the scene coming up on the house; he spots a broken camera on the floor, and hears a radio in the distance. He spots the caravan and goes to inspect it, but there are no sign of any altercations, the door is locked though. He hears a scream from the distance, which sounded like it came from a well. He starts to walk over but has to go through the graveyard. He looks at the gravestone and is shocked to find that it had his own name on it. Panic sets in (Music intensifies) and he makes his way to the well. When he gets there an image pops up on screen and a loud noise and the scene ends.
http://youtu.be/zN7Vzs2KWf4
Let me know what you think of this video please, concentrating on the lighting and textures thank you