Michael G's Progress/Work done Update

I've began building different areas now.

I have also built and textured indented walls so the environment is less samey within the game, the added variation increases immersion

The vent is now pretty much complete, allowing the player to enter it and hide from enemies.

Another Small light with a light shaft effect, this one however is flickering due to power loss, i've applied an animation to the shaft, light, and material.

I've Added some small lights to the stairs to grab the players attention and lead them in the right direction to explore.

I've also began adding clutter that has been shoved against the wall like it would be realistically, this adds some immersion to the environment.

Here again is an example of the new texture of the wooden garbage pile, you can really see the definition and depth in normal map.

I've put a small light behind the helpful man with a light shaft applied, with a floor light beside him also to make him stand out some more.

I Have Also Updated the Textures of the wooden garbage piles, the bump map did not have enough depth to it before, so i re-did it and it's now much more intense and realistic, as well, beforehand, the Diffuse lacked any dirt and looked too clean, so applied to grunge to it to blend in with the environment more.

These are new crates i have modeled and textured with a specular, diffuse and normal map using crazy bump.
the diffuse texture was completely made from 3 seperate metal textures and a custom made roll texture with an overlay metal texture on it, with some dirt and grunge to finish them off, it was done in Photoshop.

This area here features a small light which casts a shaft through the wooden panels that are used as a bridge to cross the gaping endless black hole beneath the player.

A Metal Panel Texture I Created

New Additions :

Light Shafts: I've found a light shafts script online and applied it to a selection of lights. the effect is wonderful and really adds to the immersion and atmosphere of the game.

Crates: I textured and built the crates in photoshop and Maya, the bumps on the textures were done by Filling a selected area, changing the layer to multiply, and adding Stroke, Outer glow, Inner Glow, Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow to the textures to give them the metal panel indentations

Indented walls: Built and textured by myself to add some structural variation to the environment.

Small Lights: Small light textured and built by me, so i can place them around the map conveniently 

Stairs

Environment building

New Footstep sounds

Giant hole with wooden bridge

Vent

Light Dust

Added Clutter

New Alien Floors

The Testing Room/ Lab II

This is the rendering of the earlier sketch I have created. It is not finished, but I have done enough to get the idea of the environment across. I got feed back from Ewan on how to make my images better in terms of composition and realism and it was really helpful. I plan to use some of the techniques he sowed me to perhaps create and design the on coming concepts.

The Lab Area Sketches WIP

My sleeping pattern is official messed up guys. These are the sketches I have done for the lab area that Michael made a layout for. I have being creating sketches for them since Thursday, I plan to carry on finishing them up on Monday, because I seriously need to start my dissertation, I still haven't started it and I got a meeting with my supervisor this Thursday.

This is Michael's layout of the labs - Storage Rooms, Staff Room, Chemical Research Lab, Toilets. I have tried to base the sketches below to this layout as much as I can.

What you see below is the mood-board/references I have created to aid me in creating the labs.

So in the images below you can see the sketches that I have created, I am posting these up so you guys can see and let me know which one you might want me to start painting first - I am planing to start painting the storage rooms first - where they keep the bodies  and some equipments.

The Testing Room/Lab II (Where all the experiments take place)

The Chemical Research Room

The Staff Room

Testing Room/Lab III

Testing Room/Lab Sketch I

This is a sketch of the lab that I created the other day. My team suggested to include sleeping chambers/pods. I will experiment with other ideas  today and tomorrow also - I will try to at least create one decent image that is some what complete. I haven't used any reference for this or the other concepts that I have created so far, but I really need to start doing that.

We are still trying to make the interior environment subtle and muted in terms of colour pallet so that this aspect can contrast with the exterior environment - to give the idea that the inside is dangerous and  the outside is somewhat peaceful. I want the variance of mood from the outside environment to the inside to have an impact on the player. Originally  I wanted the whole map to be subtle and only when the player escapes the environment the mood changes but the latter can also work if done correctly. Michael wants for the outside environment to look similar to avatar all colourful and staff but I am trying as much as I can to make it not too cheesy and not too colourful.

Reception - Basemesh Paint-Over IV

This is a paint-over that I did on top of a base-mesh that Michael created for the reception. I did this about a week and a half go, it depicts the main character using his power to illuminate the path.

Outside Environment Concept

This is another concept I started it is meant to depict the sea in the outside environment. Again I need to remember to use reference. This concept is on hold at the moment, I will continue it when I finish the other tasks that need to get done.

We are trying to sell the idea that the environment is in another planet similar to earth - Michael gave me the idea of putting two moons/suns in the concept. The game is going to depict night time so I need to keep that in mind also when I continue with this concept.

Outside Environment Concepts

Just playing around and having fun with concept art.

(Michael) Edit:

So i really liked Yodahie's picture, and my comment related to adding more texture, and shadow, so i did a comparison with what it looks like when you add a simple dirt texture on a multiply Filter. The result gives the picture more detail.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These are concepts of what the forest might look like. On the next environment concepts I am going to use textures of leaves and forests from photos to help me create that added realism. This idea of adding textures was suggested by my awesome team members when I mentioned I was having trouble creating realistic environment concepts.

Today I am going to continue sculpting the monster base-mesh in ZBrush and in my spare time I will try to create more environment concepts and a concept of the main protagonist.

Tree Concepts

Hello,

So we have being doing a lot of pre-production in the past couple of weeks. Michael has being working in unity, experimenting with programming and animation implementation to get the core game play working. David has being creating assets in 3ds max. I have being working on some pre-visualisations of the environment concepts and starting a base-mesh of one of the monsters in Zbrush. Very exciting staff, I cant wait to see what we come up with in the end. :)

These are some of the tree concepts that I have created. They will be pretty low priority at this time but they show what we are thinking about. We are trying to go for a peacefully vibrant forest to contrast with the inside environment. I will upload more environmental concepts to the Blog soon. The trees show the an idea to the scale of the environment, but they also show how David might approach modelling them.

Environment Maps

These Three maps in order show:
The Outside Islands
The Reception
The labs
The offices map is yet to be completed.

The Outside Islands will concept of the similar structure of a typical island on earth however the flora and nature will be different, it will be similar to avatars forest environment, this is because the contrast between the outside environment and the inside environment will make a bigger impact on the player in regards to atmosphere and tension.

The reception will consist of neutral colours with a flowing structure. The structure has been built this way to impact the workers in a way that leaves them calm and assertive, the same with the colours.

The labs area will consist of multiple corridors that simulate similarities of a maze thus allowing the player to get lost. When a player is lost, they become fearful as they are unfamiliar with their surroundings, therefore creating suspense in a creepy dark atmosphere. The labs will also feature seperate rooms such as a chemical research room and experimental room. These rooms are subject to change depending on time.

Reception - Base Mesh Paint-Overs

I am not a very big fan of paint-overs but below you can see the paint-overs created after Michael provided me with a Base mesh of the reception he created. He provided me with different views of the reception and my task was to do the paint-over and try to create a mood in the environment. I was going for the abandoned and mysterious look as discussed with the team so the colour pallet I used was limited.  I am going to do one more paint-over where the main character is depicted using his special power.

I plan to experiment on how Tom's hands and arms are going to look e.g. tattoos no tattoos? how far the trench coat will reach hands, what the trench coat will look like etc.

Environment Concept Experiment

This is an environment concept art that has being create to show what the colour scheme of the exterior of the game environment might look like. This is obviously a rough sketch that I did and nothing close to production quality.

This could be what Tom might see when walking into the unspeakable environment or it could be what he sees when he escapes from it. Just experimenting with the different types of mood we want to create for the player.