FRIDAY!

Yo peeps on friday evrybody needs to come in to the labs for 12.00. We need to sum up how the project went and then work out what we are going to say/ do in our presentation, im thinking some kinda dance might go down well.....we can talk about it anyway.

gas masks

was having some serious problems recently regarding my laptop choosing not to turn on. Looks like i missed the dead line for handing in models but they are done anyhow, maybe you will take them, maybe you won't.... if not I'll put it into my project portfolio.

Quick update, we now have sandbags n guns

Group Meeting

As we need a group meeting of some sort to do this (from Carter's post):

2. A bullet-list post-mortem, based on discussion with the team:

we need to sort something, as we haven't managed to be all together in the same place in ages can I suggest that we all agree a time to meet on msn or something? Or at the very least just post comments to this until we've got a little bit of oppinion going. I won't suggest a time as I don't know peoples schedules, but I can realisitically do whenever.

Assesment structure for group project

Each group to put a folder on K drive labeled for their team. The level will go here. Then each team member has a subfolder below that for their personal work.

1.A walk-and-talk through of the finished level in Unreal, highlighting:
A) the development from initial concept to final environment (how well the finished product replicates the initial concepts)
B) any alternative ideas tried and rejected
C) highlighting any special features

2. A bullet-list post-mortem, based on discussion with the team:
A) what went right
B) what went wrong
C) what we’d do differently and
D) lessons to take forward
for an example see:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3606/postmortem_saber_interactives_.php
but there’s no need to write a huge essay, just summarize the key points

3. Each team member to produce a visual presentation of their own assets in sub-folder below group folder
A) conforming to industry-standard presentation style
B) JPGs viewable in Windows Pictures and Fax viewer are sufficient – no need for powerpoint
C) all assets should show clearly wireframe, rendered and textured view, with box outs for texture sheets and any special features you want to highlight

4.each team member to place their max files in a their personal sub-folder
A) use a logical file structure so that we can find things without effort
B) include all necessary files, textures, etc
We will also have a verbal debriefing based around the post-mortem where we shall extract essential lessons that need to be taken forward to third year work

And so

The images below are from a completely new build of the map I've essentially had to build from scratch after the other one messed up so amazingly, I've reimported everyones models, although your probaly not gonna see them here -alot still need to be placed, tighened up the materials for the blockworld as well as improved the materials for peoples models

The lightings brand new and has been shifted to night time with a strong moon present, which solved alot of the problems i was having and gives a nice contrast to the amber yellows of the gas lamps. The lighting in the main room is about 60% complete I'd say so far

Cutoff day is this Monday

The final date for completing your models and giving them to me, with the pivots in the right place and so on, is this monday (14th april) - any later and I simply won't take them.

Carter

Moss Questions

Just a brief thing - I'm just getting onto texturing the moss that I'm supposed to be doing - basically I'm going to make 3 different size circular clumps and one or two broad 'sheets' of it which could then be combined with the a selection of the clumps to get varying patches - is this the best way to do it?

Or alternately, could someone (presumably Carter) send me a really quick rough floor plan of where you want it to go so I can make sometihng more specific to that area. Thanks

Blockworld texturing (pretty much final)

Thought I'd post iup a few shots of the blockworld with the new improved textures. Models have been toggled off and is displayed in full bright mode

Lobby has been retextured a fair bit, textures now blend with each other and all look part of the same theme. The section containing the lift was raised up to create a step and to seperate it from the main lobby section. A new tile texture was created to replace the pink one i had before, although im thinking it might need desaturating a bit.

This is a shot of the main room looking from one of the alcloves near the lobby. The useless space to the right of it was raised up and is using a rusty galvanised metal texture im thinking a machine or something could go here to better use the space

This is the main room looking back towards the lobby the original red bricks were desaturated a fair bit while windows were added in to create focus and to better display the scale of the room, the section containing the top windows was cut short to make it look as if a section of the building was created inside the main room in fitting in with the ruined/industrial theme


So this is what I've done email me or leave a comment, aditionally im planning on dialling down how much work i do on this to concentrate more on my art work so don't expect any huge jumps in stuff over the coming weeks

oh yeah probaly should mention the parts of the texture that don't line up or obviously tile im planning on slapping a trim model over them to disguise the fact

Rough area plan

Thought I'd respond to a few questions I've received over the corrugated iron and pews and where everything is going to go.

The image to the left shows roughly the size of the two areas, the pew and stage area in blue and the subsidence hole and chimney area in red and how the two will overlap, this certainly isnt set in stone and the two sections will shift and change shape as stuff is added to them.

As for the stage Dale is making it might be worth posting up what you've done so far so everyone can see what your up to

For the corrugated iron, Hicks if you fancy making your own corrugated iron models that'd be cool - the variety of textures in use should makie it look pretty nice

here are some bits of it carter but the way it deforms is a bit mad and i have all ready made some for the gate and a couple of other bits man, so if u see mine and u see yours there compleatly different so its going to look a bit weaired mate, so its your choice.....and no i don't know y its underlined and i can't turn it off.

Snow?

Are we actually still going to be using snow in the level? We've had a pretty decent coating today and I've taken a ton of reference photos incase we end up needing them, so if they are useful I'll put them online when I'm back at uni in the week, thoughts?

Main room progress and stage placement pics

Hullo Alls,

Read your post Dale and you seem to be making headway with that, sorry i couldn't call you back think my phone's dying which is a lil annoying.

But whatever, progress seems to be happening on the stage. I like the direction your going in with the stage although remember to grunge it up a bit. Also im not sure if it would be appropriate to have it more ramshackle as if the stage was constructed from bits of debris lying around or look as if it was once clean and new like the last image you had and then slowly became more and more dilapidated with chunks falling off.

I've included three images showing the progress I've made on the main room which also indicates the rough position left for the stage and chairs - the space for all the stage, chairs and various other bits n bobs not directly related to the subsidence hole is a little over half the room so it gives plenty of room to play around with.

Lectern and stage would go presumably to the right or even middle facing downwards towards the entire hall, with Nikki's symol directly above it
drawing the eye

This is the view of the main room so far looking downwards from the lobby, the subsidence hole in the centre helps break up the flat boring floor while breaking the repition of the walkway pillars down the centre and the problem of masking a huge obviously tiling floor texture. The corrugated iron fence came from looking at pictures of WW1 trenches which is kinda what i imagine this area would look like

Another view of the 'stage space' the subsidence section will run up roughly to Bends chimmney model and then slip into the lectern stuff. Im planning on nuking the half pillar lecture theatre thingy to the right as it just looks retarded however which way i dress it

So thats what I've been up to so far please comment or Email me, I need comments for me to continue confidently

Main Room Asset

I have done a quick concept for an asset to go into the main room, before I continue with it I would like to discuss the idea with the rest of the group. The asset is a stage, I reckon it would be a wise asset to include since we have announced that there will be a dictator. Having a stage will allow us to use to most iconic logo, banners and graffiti designs made by Nikki plus it will fill the room up quite nicely. Also it allows us to us chairs to fill some of the up, e.g broken chairs, fallen over chairs, chairs to shoot if you get bored etc.

Here is a quick concept of where I think the most logical place to put the stage in the main room.

Let me know what you all think, I will further concept this to give you all a better idea of what I want to achieve.

Something like this but on a smaller scale, also I would like to have larger posters in the back of the stage or even the large the graffiti fist.

Annoted main room wonderings

After a pretty fruitless day idly modelling stuff I've decided to annotate a screengrab of the main room similiar to what i did for the lobby showing a few of my thoughts on how to present it all, certainly none of this is final and it was more a series of notes and reminders to myself but i figured i should post it up

Feel free to post your thoughts

Oh and since blogger won't let me upload an suitably sized image heres the link for it http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/4897/mainroomplansv3.jpg

Few idea's for the main room

Now that the Lobby is more or less complete with a few bits 'n bobs left to model its time to start thinking about the main concourse room.

We talked a few things over with Powell and here is a quick bullet list of what we came up with,

• Subsidence near start - breaks up floor
• Collapsed walkway
• plants scattered around near light - nice shifts of colour from grey to greens
• Chimmney collapsed around centre
• Various pillars to model
• Hanging banners with Nikki's designs
• corrugated iron and plank debris along parts of the walkway
• walkway glass bricks on floor
• Nikki's symbol made from debris placed on far concrouse wall - light from hole in ceiling would draw attention to it
• holes in ceiling highlighting interesting elements
• far end of concourse - collection of pews moved after subsidence
• Crates of there 'Bible' with symbol on them

Theres a fair bit of stuff here to do which needs to thought out and planned from now until the end of Easter

Stuff for Tuesday

Okies here are some screenies of what were gonna show on tuesday, Unreal did a fancy trick today of apparently saving work then losing it all so i've been reimporting stuff at home I've also adjusted the lighting, moved around some of the existing models a bit, imported and tweaked existing normal and specular maps and tryed to get it looking a bit more complete.
There are still some pretty large gaps and really obvious errors but overall i think its looking alright for tomoz

Lobby update

Thought I'd post up a few pics of whats been done so far hoping to fix the obvious problems in the images - stetching or missing textures, poor lighting etc for tuesday. Upstairs is pretty barren at the mo' so im hoping to flesh it out as much as possible for Tuesday.

Nikki: I completely forgot to ask you yesterday if you've rescaled those doors if you can have them for monday that would help make it look more complete

Hicks: How are those vending machine models doing? Again be useful if there done for monday

Thanks

Almost finished the walkway!!

So ive basicly finished the walkway! what do u guys think?
i still need to do the ol' glass brick floor bit, im gonna do it like Kian did it for their group, or i maybe a copy will just appear on my computer sometime soon............who knows(wink wink Kian)

Lobby texturing and lighting update

Two quick images showing the work in progress lighting and texturing i did today, also started adding in peoples assets.



Me and Ben decided to use limited electric light linked up to generators - its just too hard lighting it with 'natural' light and all other artifical light candles, glowsticks etc just don't have the same radius

Im currently having problems in patches of the tiles coming up pure black not really sure why is doing that

Nikki: I still need you to post up your email so i can send you the doorframe models - the one you can see in the pic is the one i scaled and it looks kinda out of place

Dale: I've heard you've been working on some staircase models be awesome if there done for monday

Hicks: Im using Ben's collapsed chimmney model as a placeholder for your vending machines to block up the entrance to the concourse - any thoughts?