Hey there, Sam here again!
I thought I would show some of the assets I have created
Tuesday, 7 May 2013
The Effects of Sound
Near the beginning of the project the team had discussed about use of sound for the project. FOr the theme that we had intended with a schizophrenic pychopath, we thought it would be apropriate to add faint unnerving voices to our level.
We didn't just look at voices however. We also looked at creating our own sound effects for aour level such as foot steps, door creaks, electrical buzzing noises, etc.
A team consisting of Sophia, Samantha, Evie and Sam had gotten together to record various sound effects one may find within the level.
Some of the descisions we made when creating sound were dictated by noises you might hear to make you feel watched and not alone but unable to see your stalker. We wanted very uneasy sounding noises such as the metal clang of a shopping trolley or the rustling of platic bags.
The equipment we used was just a microphone and headset, Audacity, a dictaphone.
Though we had gathered a collection of sound effects, time constraints had made it so that we had to prioritise whats important (mainly the level visually) and that we weren't getting graded for sound, we never had the sound put into the level.
It was a shame we never put the voices in, but the level just wasn't laid out enough for us to think of how to involve the text around the level at the time.
The experience we had throughout the whole process however was a fun one!
We didn't just look at voices however. We also looked at creating our own sound effects for aour level such as foot steps, door creaks, electrical buzzing noises, etc.
A team consisting of Sophia, Samantha, Evie and Sam had gotten together to record various sound effects one may find within the level.
Some of the descisions we made when creating sound were dictated by noises you might hear to make you feel watched and not alone but unable to see your stalker. We wanted very uneasy sounding noises such as the metal clang of a shopping trolley or the rustling of platic bags.
The equipment we used was just a microphone and headset, Audacity, a dictaphone.
Though we had gathered a collection of sound effects, time constraints had made it so that we had to prioritise whats important (mainly the level visually) and that we weren't getting graded for sound, we never had the sound put into the level.
It was a shame we never put the voices in, but the level just wasn't laid out enough for us to think of how to involve the text around the level at the time.
The experience we had throughout the whole process however was a fun one!
Auditorium fun
Hi there!
This is
Sam writing about his journey on creating the DMU famous auditorium.
The
reason we decided upon making the Auditorium in 3DS Max rather than create the
rooms like the rest was because our Tech lead was having problems creating it
from UDK.
My first
problem I encountered was to get the size right. With the blueprints from
Blackboard and the Queen’s building, I had to make sure to keep referring back
to the actual level built to keep the size consistent. It was a massive pain as
the rest of the queens building would lag my computer to the pace of a tortoise
as well as the rest of the level obscuring my vision.
Making
many reference images of the auditorium was essential. I was trying to get it
as accurate as I can to begin with the modelling to make sure I had captured
the main parts that made it the
As time
went on and I pushed the auditorium further and further it started to speed up
much more when I had the desks put in. With the room and desks made, this
created a template in which I could use to gauge and create other assets. The
chairs were copied and pasted with the exact amount as in the lecture theatre.
Before copying however I had unwrapped the original chair to save myself time
in the long run.
The
curtains were a pain to create. I tried using the cloth modifier only for the
plane to fall straight through the cylinder I wanted it to drape over. In the
end, I had to take a different approach I found on YouTube. It involved
attaching a group of verts to the cylinder and animating the cylinder to
shrink. This would create a curtain effect in which I would repeat it a few
times and then Turn it into an editable poly when I was happy with the shape (a
little expensive in tris though!).
 |
| Screenshot of my progress |
During my
time on the auditorium, other members of the team would help me in creating
some other assets such as the auditorium lights, seminar stand, projector and
the white boards.
Sophia
and I had an idea we wanted to experiment with in which we would have corpses
and body parts hanging from the ceiling and littering the floor. I had her
create a human body to experiment with.
After
getting down the main mesh, I oriented away from keeping it as complete replica
as I wanted to darken some of the furniture and assets within the room to
better suit the mood and feel we wanted from the level.
Towards
the end seeing everything fit together in the level felt really good. The
experience I had with creating the auditorium for a group project made me feel
much more confident with my 3d skills.
During
the whole time, I had thought up many ideas I could include into the room,
however most of them just didn't suit the theme we had. Oh well, it was fun
thinking them up at least!
Assets...
This is a list of all the assets that our level holds, who has made them and for what room within the level;
There are a few things that didn't get made, or didn't make the final cut;
Wheely chairs (computer chair)
Pipes
Lamp
Push trollies
Metal stool
Full body suits
Metal table
Laptop
Computer monitors (flat screen)
There are a few things that didn't get made, or didn't make the final cut;
Wheely chairs (computer chair)
Pipes
Lamp
Push trollies
Metal stool
Full body suits
Metal table
Laptop
Computer monitors (flat screen)
UDK
Ok so I managed to put all my assets into udk, just to make sure that they actually worked and there wasn't any problems. I have imported so many things now that I could probably do it with my eyes closed.
I am glad that I got to import my own assets into our group level. I think that everyone got the chance to do some importing, as I thought that this would be useful for everyone in the future.
I am really happy about how the ambulance turned out, even with all the problem, such as unwrapping and making sure the light mapped work in UDK.
Monday, 22 April 2013
Asset Time table
Ok so after a fair few weeks, we realized the group was falling apart. The original asset list failed as people were not being pushed to do the work. After finally electing a team leader, well actually we have two. (we have two because of the work load, and thought it would be more helpful for the two leaders to bounce idea's off each other) I thought it would be much easier to create a timetable of all the assets and set deadlines for everyone.
.
Ok so I split up all the assets and allocated them to every member of the group. Taking into consideration how long each asset should take, hopefully it looks fair. By having deadlines and giving people the assets to do people will just get on and do them instead of picking and choosing and finishing them when ever. (this being our original idea, and well it just didn't happen.)
After the emergency meeting during the Easter break (23rd march) we gave everyone in the group a select role. We should of done this in the beginning of the project but we thought we didn't actually need this. After find this out the hard way we finally allocated people with roles;
Producer (leader); Sam and Evie
Technical art lead; Maarten
Art director; Sophia
Artists; Everyone (as this is an on going role, through out the project)
Texture artist; Shuwei
Thursday, 28 February 2013
Assets
We went back to the Queen's building as we wanted to make a walk through to where we wanted to the player to go. There is so much to work with and also because the Queen's building is so unusual it was pretty fun. We have the player exploring the ground floor and the first floor in order to find another way out.
We don't want to give too much away of the plans...
As the theme was chosen we thought to help give the obvious look of an asylum to list out what assets we could have;
We set up all the assets into the rooms that we think would be most obvious, for example; Beds in the cells and fire extinguishers are basically everywhere.
We don't want to give too much away of the plans...
As the theme was chosen we thought to help give the obvious look of an asylum to list out what assets we could have;
 |
| (Ok this is part of our asset list, still trying to get a full page) |
We also thought that it would be nicer to let everyone choose what assets they wanted to do and felt more comfortable with.
Theme!
We have finally chosen a theme!
After looking at all the moodboards and concept art that the group had come up with, we decided that the Abandoned Asylum theme would be great.
The Asylum idea was chosen by everyone as it is a very strong theme. Everyone has an idea about what one could look like from the inside, and the amount of horror movies there are, there is plenty of reference and research to use.
We had to put all of our work so far into a presentation, to present infront of the rest of the year and the teachers. On this we should be then hopefully get some feedback about it, hopefully we will not have to start again and that the teachers will like it.
Fingers crossed.
After looking at all the moodboards and concept art that the group had come up with, we decided that the Abandoned Asylum theme would be great.
The Asylum idea was chosen by everyone as it is a very strong theme. Everyone has an idea about what one could look like from the inside, and the amount of horror movies there are, there is plenty of reference and research to use.
We had to put all of our work so far into a presentation, to present infront of the rest of the year and the teachers. On this we should be then hopefully get some feedback about it, hopefully we will not have to start again and that the teachers will like it.
 |
| Moodbaord by Evie |
 |
| Concept by Shuwei, paintover |
Meeting continued
Todays meeting 11/02/12
Everyone was here which is a good thing. We decided to hold back on finding out which engine we should use as it was becoming a main focus and I didn't think we needed to focus so much on it when we hadn't even got a basic theme down. I thought depending on what we create and what the level will hold, then that should help decide which engine would be better.
Everyone had to make moodboards to help sell their ideas to the rest of the group about the theme and ideas they had come up with.
As our level has many different rooms in it, I came up with the idea of everyone maybe creating a room, to help work faster, but a problem with this is that everyone has different styles and it might not work with the rest of the level.
An issue came up about making a time scale of what everything should be done by. Just a rough idea of mile stones through out the project so that everyone can see how much time there is and how we all need to work efficiently. This helped to plan out what everyone should be working on, when it should be finished and the time scale.
For the following meeting we decided that everyone should make concepts and make some visuals about what the Queen's building could look like.
Everyone was here which is a good thing. We decided to hold back on finding out which engine we should use as it was becoming a main focus and I didn't think we needed to focus so much on it when we hadn't even got a basic theme down. I thought depending on what we create and what the level will hold, then that should help decide which engine would be better.
Everyone had to make moodboards to help sell their ideas to the rest of the group about the theme and ideas they had come up with.
As our level has many different rooms in it, I came up with the idea of everyone maybe creating a room, to help work faster, but a problem with this is that everyone has different styles and it might not work with the rest of the level.
An issue came up about making a time scale of what everything should be done by. Just a rough idea of mile stones through out the project so that everyone can see how much time there is and how we all need to work efficiently. This helped to plan out what everyone should be working on, when it should be finished and the time scale.
For the following meeting we decided that everyone should make concepts and make some visuals about what the Queen's building could look like.
First meetings under way.
As we started the meeting, it came across as one of the main problems that people wanted to get sorted was, what engine are we going to use. We have the choice between UDK and Cry Engine.
Now as a group we have all had the same amount of experience of UDK, the basics of how to import and export. I think everyone is comfortable with this. But on the other hand with Cry Engine, none of us have any experience and it will all be down to our own research to make any progress in this. (Will this mean too much of our time will be taken up with basic cry engine research?)
Inspiration was a big part of the discussion and we asked what is the group interested in such as; games, films, videos etc.
So we have set for the weekend, for the next meeting to come up with some moodboards and ideas to help find a theme for the building and what we find that could be fitting towards the building. Everything is to help push things along and in getting started.
The Library?
Whilst photographing the building, Maarten found that the university library is actually attached to the Queens building. Could this be part of our level? Or should we just for get about it and keep it separate.
Strengths and weaknesses.
We all have them and it seemed like a very good idea to get a general look at everyone's strengths and weaknesses, this can help through out the project by helping each other out. Hopefully if someone is finding something difficult they will speak up to the group as we are all in the same boat and help each other.
As we don't all live together and myself commutes to university we thought that creating a Facebook group would help with communicating outside of meetings. Also to help with files and everyone's work, Maarten came up with the idea that we all log into drop box. This is where we can upload all our work and everyone can see the progress and what we are all working on. Also it is a great way to keep back ups. Another positive about using Dropbox is if we forget our USB's we can log onto Dropbox on any computer and access our work, but aslong as we upload.
Tasks for the following meeting;
- Think about inspiration
- Have a look at both engine's and find out which one you prefer and why, have to give reason.
- Sort Dropbox out
- Make some quick sketches and concepts of ideas
- Fill out strengths and weaknesses (these can be found in dropbox)
Getting started...
Hello there! We are game art students at De Montfort University currently approaching a group project. This has been set to help us to understand what it is like to work as a team and what it would be like to work within a company. This blog is to help us show our development through the project.
We are working on a group project that is to create a specific building on campus in a style such as resident evil. A horror shoot-um up. We aim to create a playable level within the building (Queen's building) by the end of May.
So after saying our hellos to the members and getting ourselves familiar with everyone we decided to jump in and start generating ideas, to see what everyone thought about and what styles. What theme?
As it is the early stages nothing has really been planned yet, just when and how often we are hoping to have meetings and alot of visual reference taken from around the Queen's building to help generate ideas and what we have to work with.
We are working on a group project that is to create a specific building on campus in a style such as resident evil. A horror shoot-um up. We aim to create a playable level within the building (Queen's building) by the end of May.
So after saying our hellos to the members and getting ourselves familiar with everyone we decided to jump in and start generating ideas, to see what everyone thought about and what styles. What theme?
As it is the early stages nothing has really been planned yet, just when and how often we are hoping to have meetings and alot of visual reference taken from around the Queen's building to help generate ideas and what we have to work with.
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