Bit more Subway!

I hadnt touched the small maintanence corridor bit that would lead to the locked door for this prototype so now i have as it was the last real part to complete

This is just the way in past 1 of the destroyed trains, the waters a little dark as there doesnt seem to be a way to make the bsp stop blocking light so the easier way im getting round it is copying all my lights then putting them underneth the water aswell in the same place but slightly dimmer..i think its alright




The actual corridor, i admit the post processing effects i applied to the rest of the area makes this part look a little nuts but i quite like the grungy sort of feel so instead of making another post processing i think im gonna keep it as i dont think it looks too unrealistic and i did want it to be quite dark and gritty compared to elsewhere


Some rubbish floating in the water and some randomly placed machinery they are all pretty much decoration so it didnt really matter what machinery also you can see in the corner where the water is flooding in.



The other side of the machinery and on the right you can see the locked door that stops the player going any further


Better shot of the water gushing in...it looks a bit blue and pictures dont really do moving water justice but i think it gets the point across


I pretty much just need to finish the entrance up and then link it to the london map it just depends if im having any triggers here which might cause some editing so ill probably leave the levels linking up till the end to be safe

Subway (not the overpriced sammich!)

I havent posted in quite some time, ive been busy working on my subway map which will connect via the underground entrance in my main area

It was going to be quite big initially but i just dont have the time, 7 weeks left and ive still got a stack of things i need to do including an entire new map in crysis!

So anyway yeah its really quite small, just one section to show how it would look in the full game there will be a gate blocking the way in this map you would get the key from an npc which would let you advance

well its changed quite a bit as until this past week id only spent about 20min on the whole thing, its doesnt look TOO much like the subway we know today but then it is 50 years in the future so i think the slightly more advanced look fits well


Well the first image is quite a lot different to the one id posted a while back, ive had a lot of issues with the shape of trying to make it curved, bsp brushes dont do it well, on reflection i probably should have made my own large curved shape as a mesh and then i wouldnt have had all this hassle but with my track record i think i quit on models for now

So it looks quite different as ive tried to bring it a bit in the future, ive changed my custom materials to a brighter colour, added post processing effects to give it a slightly light/blue look and darkened it up a bit aswell to add some realism instead of looking like some sort of hospital

As its only a small section i needed a way to board the edges off, well everythings colapsing up top so it makes sense to have rubble coming in and slowly crushing whats left of the zone so here is one side:



These trims are to make it look futuristic as well as hiding all the damn brush errors the geometry is cutting into each other making random gaps but i think these work well at covering it, ive also added the lights the whole thing doesnt help in giving it a curved look as you can see all the sharp angles but without redoing the whole thing i cant see anything i can do, its better if i just finish the thing now


working on some more decoration, some poster/boards on the walls and rubbish on the floor, ill probably add quite a lot of rubbish over the entire floor and maybe some in the water


This bit just shows that some support piece has colapsed through the roof and water gushing in, its hard to make it look realistic without making the entire roof from scratch in pieces but i think the rubble doesnt look too bad


After going round for a few hours trying to decorate the place im just getting a feel for how it looks how you would enter through the doorway


This is the first shot but added more detail, some adverts top left, some panels top right this in real life would have the train timetables on but again i dont have time to make some pointless texture that no one will read i dont think it makes much difference, ive also dropped a light down with some wires hanging down


Bit of a long shot i did toy with a height fog adding some depth to the area but ive toned it right down and make it black so you cant quite see the end adding a bit of danger i think


This is about half way down the passage showing some more colapsed lights/decoration with wires hanging down


Now were at the other collapsed end, this side the water is gushing in however



The entrance passageway and the door behind the train leading into a maintance corridor which will be limited via a locked gate for this prototype, i think it shows enough of how the subway would actually be like in Tephra however i do intend to add quite a few more water drops/leaks to make it look more dangerous, maybe darken it up a bit and get some sounds in left.

Small Story change

Small update, the year of my game has been changed to only being 50 years in the future, a few reasons for this...my map wasnt quite as futuristic as it would be, it explains why ive got some of my londony looking rails and other meshes and why big ben still looks relatively intact

It explains the choice of the clothing ive done and also the reason i set it that far in the future was due to satellites being used over everything else, however thats probably a lot closer than we thought

its easier to make things that only are a few decades in the future instead of centuries as that would probably look more like Mass Effect

A building!

Well i thought id go for my biggest model yet, although while still trying to keep it simple as i dont really enjoy making my own models..its nice to know but unwrapping is just horrible, so i made a building in 2 seperate pieces as i played around with unwrapping something this size into 1024 with a lot of overlapping and i usually screw it up so i played it safe

a vray renderrr!



After many hours making the textures and replacing the 1 building i really didnt like in my game, well im expericing some issues with the way sketchup handles faces, there a lot of unnesseccary faces which gives my models some weird dark polygons for no reason, the material helps quite a bit but its still noticeable

the shadow below is from big ben but i think it looks stupid and you cant really follow the shadow over the road so i turned it off


Better shot now with some lighting and tidying up


And the back..still needs a bit of fiddling as im having quite a few issues with sketchups crap

Another Model!

road..side...rail..barrier..thingy!

the current stock one im using is alright, its quite futuristic and fits in but i think this fairly simple one ive been working on suits England a lot better:



Its so much more appealing to show a shot of it as a render than just in sketchup...

Anyway despite the simplicity i think i made this model about the worst most inefficient way humanly possible it took hours, and combined with the hours of unreal crashes ive had today this has taken a ridiculous amount of time but textured and finished heres my new rail:


Simple but effective i think, it suits the place quite well, hopefully i can make a lampost to replace the unreal one and start on a building tomorrow.

Bit of UT work!

I got bored of paperwork...again so i decided to go back to my London map, my warehouse/hub is pretty much finished apart from any npcs/triggers i may add later on but my main area is still empty and unlit in a few places, i also had some issues to fix and possibly make some more models.



Previously the water just..hit the floor and it looked stupid, the alternative was to have a layer of water covering the entire map but it lost a lot of detail so instead ive tried to make it look like the f loors give way under the constant weight of the water, i find it quite limited with the available meshes and wasnt prepared to spend any time making my own so ive tried to use some broken pieces of concrete and lots of rubble, with a blocking volume you cant really see the gap and i think it looks fairly real.

Ive also tried to go round some of the darker areas and add more lights, i could just up the skylight but then it would lose the atmosphere so im trying to make the place rely on the lights that are working around the place so this building was pretty much pitch black before now you can see it anyway



Im not totally happy with this next area yet but ive started to add more lights, under the cinema doorway, the blue generators on the right and the door for the warehouse here now has some lighting




In this shot ive added some lighting to the warehouse bays which i still may adjust its a little bright i think, also an abandoned storage container has been added which could have a possible npc or an item inside, either way it makes the place a little less bare


I think thats about it for now, these fixes and small adjustments have taken me a day or 2 and im still not totally happy with the settings but they are getting closer to what i want and if i run out of time at least i have something

India concept shot

So this is the concept shot for the level in India, it doesnt look how i originally planned the Indian level to look but after doing my research over the place called - Navi Mumbai



It looked a lot more hi-tech than originally planned so this is the concept i went for:




Lots of tall buildings in a closed enviroment, the idea behind this map is that it will be incredibily hot due to being closer to the equator than quite a few of the other enviroments, so for this you need to get into buildings fairly quickly as staying out in the open for too long would slowly damage you, this is something that i found in Mass Effect 2 which i thought was quite an interesting feature and made the zone more interesting.
Also this level will open up possiblitys of sniper shoot outs between you and the hostiles between different buildings through windows. A lot of the level will take place inside due to the outdoor heat so this makes this enviroment different to the rest of them, the goal will be in 1 of the towers high up and you will have to fight your way through the different levels to get to the top, and doing side missions could award you will key codes to bypass some floors in the correct building.

Hard to draw weather effects! but obviously i dont want to be spending too much time on these they are only going into the document even tho each one takes at least a day with my inability to draw.

I think thats 4 left then i can get onto something more interesting like the guns or even the pda/characters.

Decisions

I need someway to make my level somehow feel like a story even tho my maps wont hve any enemies due to the engines way of doing things. Ill be doing a storyboard for part of the map showing how you could complete them but for the actual showreel for the degreeshow im not sure how im going to be able to demonstrate how the game will play with a video of me running round an empty map.

The least i can do is probably add some more npcs around with more useful questions but i want to get the map pretty much "finished" to the point i just stop working on it otherwise it could drag on for months..which we dont have

Moscow concept image

I still cant believe how long they take to do, it really is a day task just to complete one of these so although this week doesnt really have any noticeable map changes (which is what id really rather be doing) i did fix the corruption and runtime errors although they wont work when i go for my tutorial they never do, and then the rest of the week has been getting stuck into this document. I know its quality not quantity but it was nice to find out what previous students did for a word count so at least you know theres a good chance your writing about the same things. Well 12500 ish seems to be one from last year and im at 10000 and is still missing a few enviroment descriptions and how to actually write down the story. Then after i show all my unreal development and work with some explanations of the imagery, all the concept art im still working on, and other prototypes in PS then section dedicated to me ranting at all the issues ive had i reckon i should easily be around that point, not looking forward to printing it however.

Anyway i went off on a tangent, the next enviroment i did was for Moscow which is the next place to visit:



Hm, well my drawing skills are letting me down but then if i wanted to improve them id be drawing a lot more...which im not, these are just whats required, but the idea behind Moscow is that the usually snowy city has been hit even harder than usual , extreme snow storms and icy winds have caused floors and buildings to be covered in ice making entering some structures tricky. Its meant to be quite a busy area of town but the playable area would be split by the frozen river in the centre which you would be able to walk over

Another enviroment concept

Okkk i hope i have enough to have a crack at this in cryengine, ive read some tutorials and got Very basics understood but i havent gone much further than that, i would like to be a level designer so i find doing all this a little pointless so any excuse at making something in an editor sounds alright to me, and it cant make my mark worse at least

Anyway my next one is Central African Republic:



If theres 3 things i cant draw (worse than anything else) its people rocks and trees...well this one hits 2/3 so its not great but its kind of how i imagined, you may look at this and think this looks nothing like africa but i did do my research!



Not THAT much different...water and lots of reeds with some hilly terrain in the background it also as you see screams to be made in crysis !

My mountains are a little more extreme due to the tectonic plates shifting although the rest of the continent isnt too affected or not in these less crowded areas at least.

Anyway so why do we go to the middle of a forest looking place to repair internets...well good question, but you dont i thought africa by this point would probably get most of their internet via satellite as a place that big without lines already laid in a lot of the countries would just be too much hassle to start so 1 device in the sky all taken care of!

But ofcouse..the fog in the sky has screwed that up, no reception nothing so you and other members of the mercury corporation are sent to different parts of Africa to deploy devices similar to wifi towers only much smaller and powerful which i havent named them yet, providing they are in a good placement the signal will be strong enough to reach each other and cause a mesh covering majority of the continent.

So you come here and have to scan around with your pda finding the best location to place the tower and away you go

6 enviroments to go!

PDA can wait, these enviroment concepts need doing

I actually really want to get to work on designing the PDA device even tho in my prototype..it wont do anything, i think the ideas is interesting..although similar to a lot of other games i still think its a good feature to a realistic game and i can make it a bit different

But yeah, back in about november i cursed about how it took me about 3 days to draw the concept art of the North American enviroment and i didnt want to do the other 9 for quite a while, well as far as im concerned the london one is done due to making so many ideas for the map so that knocks it down to 8!

Well ive gone in the order i wrote the enviroments down so the first one i attempted was Munich:



Soo although my drawing skills are terrible i did look at a lot of reference photos on design choices for european buildings and actually i think i pulled it off.

The idea behind this map is the tectonic plates have all moved around the mountain range is right next to the town and more extreme than previously, its also ripping the ground apart with massive cracks splitting the town up, some buildings have gone some buildings are on ground thats slowly colapsing. You have parts of the map on different height "platforms" so you could be running across the road at 1 section then right onto a roof i think this enviroment would actually be quite interesting if it was created as i imagine it.

These take so damn long and i doubt they are worth that much but still if i get them out the way i "only" have the pda/weaponary..and characters left.....which although makes me cry as im not a fan of drawing..it should be a lot quicker.

Locations Finalized

I really underestimated this document ive got all these ideas floating round in my head about how Tephra really would be if it was a proper game but what im actually submitting is just a couple of empty maps, they are nice showcase pieces as it shows some of my custom assets which although i never wanted to make they do make it stand out instead of just being a ut3 map

however as for the document im still thinking over the plot and how to get it down in words aswell as the mechanics i wanted to add without missing anything out

anyway after spending ages on planning and researching and working out ive been able to come up with a list of enviroments where you would actually be going:

Enviroment 1 - London (UK)
Enviroment 2 - Munich (Germany)
Enviroment 3 - Central African Republic (Africa)
Enviroment 4 - Moscow (Russia)
Enviroment 5 - Navi Mumbai (India)
Enviroment 6 - Tokyo (Japan)
Enviroment 7 - Melbourne (Australia)
Enviroment 8 - Unknown Town(Antarctica)
Enviroment 9 - Brazil (South America)
Enviroment 10 - Denver (North America)

All of the above have been decided by the previous research of where internet backbones currently are and under the idea that they would still exist in the future although redundant these places are 1 of the main core spots in each backbone so now the player actually has a reason to go here.


While im trying to get all this into a structure and putting my maps aside for a couple of weeks im also working on concept art for things so the next bit ill be focusing on is the PDA system which will be holding all your information in game so ill need some more designs for that, but you will have to wait for that post!

Finishing Internet Research

Still needed to finalize which backbones would we be heading off to in Tephra for the other locations and if there wasnt any around

South America, Brazil - RedClara



This looks the best picture ive been able to find of a south American backbone so it figures to set the level here in Brazil as it seems to be the root of most of the network.

North America, Denver - Qwest


North America have a lot of backbones (Obviously) but i found this image and as you can see the yellow ones are although not totally dominating the continent they are found usually quite dense all over and are the most common at least

Yellow is Qwest and apparently their main HQ is in Denver..so thats where the North America enviroment will be.



Africa, Central African Republic - Unknown

Couldnt really find anything out about Africa as i guess not many of the countries will have an actual underground backbone and places where there are internets is probably sent wirelessly, i will use this in my story. The idea would be for Africa you dont go and reconnect an existing backbone but you instead go to a specific point in the continent while other members go to other areas and you all deploy a small device that acts as wifi tower only much more advanced and not interupted by the volcanic smoke providing they are positioned correctly

So your spefic job will be to find the correct place in "Central African Republic" ive look at some photos of this place and if i have the time id really like to make something up for this enviroment using the CryEngine as i think it looks perfect.



Antartica

Started off as a bit of a joke and just being used as a way to reach another part of the Earth but i think in the future with the population getting out of hand its possible larger towns may be popping up in these places just to accomodate people with the right technology im sure it could be habitable

But i would imagine they would also rely on satellites so coming here would probably be a similar job to Africa of not reconnecting an existing set up but providing your own.


Japan, Tokyo - IIJ



This is the only image i could find for Asian internet backbones but it looks like the choices for levels are Tokyo or Osaka, althought a bit cliched that this game takes you to a lot of "major" cities i think it has to stay this way as landmarks will be more well known.

Some Story/Document research

I spent a few hours earlier working on the documentation i started with the world enviroments where id give a rough description of each zone and add some concept art where possible

It got me thinking, why am i going to these locations, all i had originally planned down was continents but id never focused on actual countries or specific locations, so i thought i could check the locations/names of countries internet backbones as this would give you a reason to go to these places and what you would be reconnecting so ill make a little post here with some imagery ive found that i may redo if required for the game/prototypes im not sure if it will be needed

UK London - JANET:



And we can see one of the core points are based in London..so this makes some sense to this particular enviroment.

Now the whole of europe is connected by a couple of different backbones from what ive seen and one of my enviroments would be somewhere in europe so it would need to be at one of the main city points in the below map, due to being 150 years in the future it wouldnt particularly matter what city was as the place would look drastically different so im not gonna to name which city this enviroment will be in till i know where the rest are going to be.



Russia, Moscow - Golden Telecom



This one makes perfect sence as all the larger lines all stem from Moscow.



Australia, Melbourne - Telstra Corp

- no image available-

Telstra corp from research seem to be the largest/main interner provider in Australia and has main headquarters in Melbourne, so Melbourne will be the Australian enviroment level.

India, Navi Mumbai - Reliance Communications

-these images are hard to find due to constantly being updated but at least i can pinpoint the locations on the maps-



MORE TO FOLLOW!

Some Updates

Its been a couple of days so i think now is the time to go over some updates thats happened!

Firstly ive been revisiting the idea of trying to incorporate my weapon and map screen into unreal to intergrate it all into 1 file as well as being able to load my london map in from selecting it in map screen instead of having to exit the game and load the next one up, this transistion should help it feel more like a real game and i Think it seems doable with kismet and/or teleporters. I'd have it all in 1 map file but its not too realistic when my london map is already pushing the limits of what the engine will cope with so ill need to do it another way.

Alright what else we got, My hub map was being a bitch and causing runtime errors, i installed patch 5 on my laptop and managed to rebuild it and got it to cook (everytime previously id tried to cook it just crashed the engine) ..so i thought id fixed it..oh nice it works in game...but no! copy it back over to my pc and it runtimes again. This carried on for a good 2 days of taking snippets of kismet out and meshes and rebuilding and still be greeted with the same error, i remembered however UT creates a log file when you launch the game each time so i ran it again got my runtime error and found the log file, turned out my skydome was corrupted and needed replacing.
No idea how this happened as i hadnt tampered with the skydome at all is was just an unreal default one, but anyway i replaced it rebuilt and cooked it and now it all seems to be working so thats that fixed.

For now i dont really have any more screenies to show here, i havent been creating! for a few days instead im taking a look at getting some more of the document down, go into detail about my enviroments giving examples of misisons and basically explaining everything about the game i cant show in game due to either the engine or my own limitations (which combined is a damn lot) I think this will be good as i do have a lot of ideas for the mechanics and such and there is nowhere i can get them across in the engine and that will leave me more time just to focus on trying to get the levels looking as good as possible.

Im also looking into making another of my enviroments but in a different engine, ive looked at the editor in question and it seems doable, if anything it will be another showpiece for my showreel, a break from unreal (very much needed) and a good way to show i can create good levels in varied engines (well thats the idea)

Curse you HUB!

Well it was nearly done! but still i had the upstairs office to add and the back corridor where u would be able to go outside (Which im not going to be doing..i wasnt even going to be doing this!)

SO i thought if i push on with another 20hr odd session id get it somewhere "complete" the final areas decorated..some sounds in and general tidying up..ill probably come back to my maps before submitting just to do some final additions when i see them from a fresh look but as far as the map is concerned for the forseeable future it is Finished!

The corridor round the back with the large door to the outdoor shooting range..which wont be done if i can help it...im not really enjoying making maps in ut that are not meant for ut!



As i had the conveyor belt going into the wall it made sense to come out at this side..this splits off and leads into 2 small unaccessible areas that would technically be holding stock of whatever parts were being made here its all worked out quite well in this respect as i couldnt think what to do with these 2 rooms


Just a shot from the other side showing some more decoration


Upstairs towards the office, the doors now been set to move up when u get close and plays a little sound..which you probably cant hear over the rain but i think its important regardless


One side of the room, this was quite a hard room to decorate, it was meant to be an office but the idea was the mercury corporation never actually worked here they sort of took it over and moved in bits what they wanted, this is what the main areas not changed much the office however has been stripped and computers and the map screen have been added, this also explains why ive gone for quite a messy wire layout with cables going all across the floor, its not meant to be tidy its meant to be a set up temp base so although it may look a little strange it is fairly accurate of what i had in mind


The other side showing some more detail


tried to get myself curled up in the corner so u can see as much of the room as possible in 1 shot


Finally a head on view with the world map, ill do a UIscene here when you get close with something like F TO INTERACT or whatever pop up on the screen, from here i may be able to make it launch the london map but its mostly for my flash video as from there i can make the map screen interactively.


Thats it i need a break from this damn thing !..i might not post for a whole..day..or maybe 2!

Hub probably as complete as my main now

Another god knows how many more hours of progress, i need a break just hoping i can have most of it done quite early so i can take the last month or so easy, watch some others sweat instead then i know it will be worth it

so anyway i went to town with the lighting and some post processing effects and getting some more detail in, ive also finished the equipment room which leaves the small corridor round the back which i havent touched for ages and then just the office up the stairs which will have the world map in and a stack of computers Shouldnt take that much longer now however i am having some strange issues with some of the meshes not taking light properly which you can probably see in a few of these shots.

Anyyway i ran round my map with the hud disabled..ill probably disable the weapon also in kismet as you dont need a weapon here and if this part is playable at the beginning of the game you wont have a weapon!

onnwarrrds:



the light seems to stop abrutly here, ive cranked so many of the meshes light resolution up the map takes longer than my london to build so i dont like constantly playing around with the lighting but still this may need a bit of work


yeah the walls still quite bare above the office..i never claimed it was finished! but i quite like the production line


high up vantage point!...from...stood on some crates..well it gives it a bit of a better view


some robots, probably here from when the factory/warehouse was in use just for some detail


the main generator of the production line looking a bit better now in the light


View from the other side..obviously


the small tutorial training area hiding behind the glass as the stack of crates looks pretty stupid in the open...i might make the glass thicker yet


the floor needed cutting up so i added some pipes underneth and with some lighting it helped instead of just flat floor everywhere


oh yeah my first working door in ut3, it was a damn site quicker to do in ut2k4 but still ive achieved the same result and now i know what to to its fairly easy to remember if not a little time consuming so on we go into the storage/equipment room


this tiny little room took the best part of a day and im still having issues with the trim up the wall where the light just..stops looking at it i might tone the blue down a little but it is meant to emit from the sign at the bottom..which took all of 5min!..if only everything was like that


Annd heres our vendor, this will be used in my flash movie later on and maybe ill have some conversation set up like i had with Steve! in the other map but here he is welding away...not out of choice but the limitations of the assets in this game wind me up ..there is 1 animation for a robot...and 1 robot that accepts the animation..so here he is..its not what i had originally in mind but the mesh is probably better than the first guy i used and he seems happy enough pottering away.


Just ran up the stairs here for a bit of a better view to overlook the map, as i say in the title its probably fairly complete now i could tweak and fiddle for weeks to get something just right but time isnt on my side so ill be finishing up the office and the back corridor next and that will about wrap this up depending on if i do any triggered events in the form of a tutorial at the start of the game..that will depend on the time.......which i dont seem to have enough of!