Platformer + Final Character Sculpt

Final high-poly character sculpt before I start doing the topography in 3D Coat and decimating it for the low-poly model that I'll use in my Platformer:

I think I'm gonna change her name to either Ayla Sortwind (Ayla pronounced Ay-luh) or Ayra SinClaire (Ayra pronounced eye-ruh) because the previous name was just supposed to be temporary.

Also, we pitched our Platformer concepts and levels in Game Design. Mine revolves around my character, so it takes place in a medieval fantasy world. The story is that you play as the character above (Ayla/Arya), an undercover Assassin who received missions from the King's high general. She was ordered to assassinate a good friend of hers for a crime he committed, but upon refusing to carry out the order, is threatened with death. She kills the high general in order to escape, and makes way for the nearest port to sail for another country where she'll be safe from the King's jurisdiction. That's where the game picks up; the player makes their way through this platformer forest (the branches being the platforms) to the port city, where the boss fight will occur with the King and his forces prepared to capture you. As the player navigates the forest they are confronted with various puzzles, but have to solve them with speed and efficiency, because if you take too long some enemies will catch up to you and you'll have to kill them in order to survive. Overall I want the feel to be really fast-paced, fun, and fluid.

The main mechanics are jumping, pushing/pulling objects to reach higher platforms, swinging, speed pick-ups, falling objects (environment obstacles), repelling, bouncing on giant mushrooms, and shooting with her crossbow.

Here's a simple draft of my tutorial level (the first level), the yellow path being just one of many the player can choose to take:

Right now we're blocking in our levels in UDK and getting the mechanics to work 8)

Final Contraption + Multiplayer Map

I finished some stuff last week that I never posted. Here's my final Rube Goldberg contraption:

And this is my final death-match multiplayer map for Game Design based on the back alley, but with modifications. We were just focusing on level design, so we didn't set-dress/texture anything. The geometric shapes are all stand-ins for objects populating the level such as buildings, cars, dumpsters, and mechanical things. Level design is so much fun ;v;

Parking Garage:

DM-BackAlley

 The last week and a half has felt like crunch-time even though we're nowhere near break. We've had constant, huge ongoing project deadlines due almost every day between 3D, Game Design, and Programming, nevermind our other classes. I haven't had the time to really take screenshots and videos of all my stuff yet. Here's my modified Multiplayer Map, still a work in progress.

Multiplayer Level

The next part of our Multiplayer Level project in Game Design was to find an interesting location in Sarasota that we would model for a 7-person multiplayer map. I chose this grungy, long back-alley along Main Street that I thought was really cool because it has the backs of all these nice restaurants, but they're all beat up and trashy on this side. There's boarded-up windows, graffiti, inlets with pipes and vents, the back of an open-faced parking garage, and you can peer into the back kitchens of all the buildings. The main pathways of the level will be the alley, but players will fight and navigate through all the buildings as well, which will be connected.

 

 

Here are some quick sketches of the place:

I just finished modeling the gray-box (blocking in everything in geometric shapes) for this map, so I'll post that next time, as well as the "mouse-trap" contraption level I'm doing for Programming.

Space Egypt Final & Contact Sheets

Here are the final beauty shots of my Space Egyptian level. I ended up not being able to fix the lighting in the last shot (the bright light on the side of the building), but hopefully it looks a little better than before. It feels weird to still call this the "Alley Project" when we stopped calling it that after the first couple weeks, but I don't know what other title to give it |D

Below the beauty shots are my Contact Sheets for the things I modeled, but I plan to go back and re-take pictures of everything with UDK lighting, and fix up some things like the high poly-count for the scarab, as well as take better screenshots for the meat contact sheet. I'm still thinking over the design for the sheet itself, but I probably won't decide on one until I've made more for future projects.

I'm SO excited for next semester ;v;  There are a ton of awesome projects ahead, and I can't wait to get back to school and be super productive, haha. Especially excited for CHARACTER MODELING, YESSSS.

BTW, I'm going to keep updating this blog even though it was originally made for Game Design and the class is over. It's become my main blog since I haven't been doing much art besides Game Design and 3D stuff LOL so my other art blogs have become desolate. SO YES I'm here to stay, and I'll keep posting my projects and adventures throughout my time at Ringling 8)  TO FUN TIMES AHEAD, HOOOOO!

Level Set-dressing WIP

I never posted my props for the level we're working on in 3D because it's been a mad rush for everyone to finish them and make their levels |D  I actually just finished my props with all their fixes last night, as did everyone else because everyone had to keep making a lot of fixes to them like creating light-maps (which allow an object to be lit properly) and fixing hosts of other issues. Across both classes there have been a ton of problems and technical issues, partly because this year we were super rushed and apparently weren't given nearly as much time as last year had to work on their maps. Our class has had less than a week to put it all together for the big deadline that was today, and the other class had 5 days more than us 8\  We've been juggling this along with our boardgame project and other deadlines for Game Design (such as the One New Thing project and game commercials we have to make, film, and animate in Flash), as well as our other classes, so it's been really hectic and intense for all the sophomore GAD's. Since we were given so much less time the teachers told us to only focus on a portion of our levels instead of trying to finish the entire thing, and work for the highest quality instead of quantity.

SO here are some work-in-progress shots of my level. Everything is pretty much set-dressed, but the lighting needs a lot of work. A bunch of objects still don't have light-maps on them so the lighting isn't working for them, and then there are some issues with scale I have to fix (since everyone's stuff was a different scale to begin with) and some things I accidentally left too big. The mountain terrain in the background is going to be fixed up and have a different texture, and there are just... a whole ton of other things I have to do before it's done haha |D  I'll post my final props next week along with finished screenshots and a cinematic of my level 8)  Final week of crunch-time HOOOO!

Note - The lighting was rebuilt for the last screenshot, but I didn't have time to re-take the screenshots of the other two with the updated lighting.

Space Egyptian Map Greybox

For 3D for Games we turned in the greybox of our Space Egyptian level, which means we had to have the basic level blocked out. We also blocked in colors on the elements to differentiate them from each other so that not everything is covered in a mesmerizing checker pattern, haha.

Here's my basic map layout after many variations (the first variation was a few posts back!) The city is going to be half-surrounded by a jungley forest and the right side of the town (bottom of the map) will have the cliff-sides of the crater in the terrain. The screenshot is a top-down view from UDK.

Ignore the lighting - it's actually going to be a nighttime level, I just set up a few "work lights" for now. The first three screens are going to be the placements for the final "beauty shots" of the level. The second three are before and after shots after getting some feedback from upper-classmen playtesters 8)

 White blocks are buildings, orange blocks are marketplace stalls, and the railings are stalls with an open back that you can see through.

 

The big round structure thing here is a stand-in for a fountain, and the pillars will be obelisks.

 People said I should make the map much smaller, cut down some parts of it, and consolidate the big areas so there were less open spaces. The before and after shots are taken from high vantage points so all the changes can be seen.

The next step we're starting is modeling the modular building pieces in Maya, and starting on various props c8