Oh, an update

Before i begin with chars i went back to double check my UT maps, my warehouse im happy to leave apart from any npcs..my subway needs the post processing altering a tiny bit and the corridor leading up to my London map finishing off..that will be about 1hr.

My London map, well quite a few issues with it im never satisfied but i spent a couple of days trying to add some more meshes to the more empty places and trying to fix my house which doesnt look right, with 15min build times and continious crashes i had to have a cut off point or id be here till next year tweaking it, so i declared it finished today, i may add npcs, thats just going to be related to the video not the actual map, i put in a depth of field effect and changed the height fog a tiny bit, added more meshes and walked away, its around 7000 objects and theres about a 70% chance of it crashing when i try to save/build it was my first map in ut3 and it shows so i think its best i just left it

nothing really i can show in screenshots however as it doesnt look noticeably any different to how it did last month

next blog updates will be some badly drawn npc's

Just a note!

I wrote down a few weeks ago i wanted to stop drawing in april which left me a few weeks to tidy up my current maps and the document aswell as making a possible video

Ive completed all the guns/enviroments i intended to draw which took me a lot longer than expected, i want to draw a few characters and enemies with the remaining 3 days of April which means ill probably end up with not as many as id have liked but still thats all i have left in the way of drawings to do

The document is around 11k words and will grow a little with the characters/bios after that it will just need some sorting out i think

I did want to have a map made in Crysis but ive broke sandbox and ive reinstalled it like 5 times and reinstalled my graphics card drivers a few times..and its still broke i dunno whats happened but i dont think im going to fix it until i reinstall windows..which im not prepared to do with 3 weeks till the deadline, however i had been messing around with the UDK a few months ago and with my own tree made in speedtree and a few days playing around with the terrain editor and such i had this:



i was making a dark looking gothic castle portfolio piece (yeah i know its not very dark ive just put 1 directional bright light in for now) and just messing around spamming my tree, however if i make a few more of my own trees and remove the castle, add a few more waterfalls, also the latest UDK build comes with a jungle looking map i might be able to make something a bit rainforest looking which could be substituted instead of my crysis map, i dont think it will be very big but its better than nothing.

9 down 1 to go, and here it is

Last enviroment for Tephra - South America



It should play a little like the Africa zone, the main internet source here seemed to be based in Brazil and this image is based on Iguassa falls which is in Brazil, the idea is that the main town area nearby had been totally destroyed by the shifting of the plates so there isnt even much left to explore, people who lived here would have had to get away but large cracks in the earth stopped them from heading another direction and instead was forced into the forest where although not idea doesnt seem to be too affected by the ground shifting

As i said its like the Africa zone so you need to scan around with your pda looking for a suitable location, there may not be much in the way of enemies here but the enviroment itself would cause quite a lot of dangers with waterfalls and steep rocky cliff faces as well as possible missions to take you back to where the city once was perhaps looking through remains for items.

Another Enviroment

Melbourne next, as it seemed to be the HQ of one of the main internet providers in Australia. I looked for some reference photos of Melbourne and it seemed to be quite a busy city overlooking the sea so i thought it would be interesting if the events which caused the plates to move also caused a tidal wave to flood in and destroy a lot of the smaller structures nearer the coast, that aswell as the rising of the water levels would make this enviroment quite dangerous as you would need to navigate inland to the skyscrapers where its safer by jumping over large pieces of debris without falling into the water which could wash you back to the start or out to sea.

Once you would make it to the safer zone you would be able to explore the larger structures here and although some would be closed off due to flooding you should still have quite a lot of people still living here aswell as more who was living closer to the coast and now are homeless which should give an array of side missions aswell as finding the correct room for the backbone.

Next Enviroment

Now for something a little different, as i mentioned in the Japan post about increasing population i think this is something that would probably be affecting other parts of the world too by this time zone, i think with the advancements of technology it would be quite possible for large citys to be built in the middle of the Antarctica as there would be lots of flat empty surfaces around. They would need to be incased in there own sort of bubble so they would have their own ecosystem as Antarctica isnt exactly inhabitable but i think this is quite plausible.

They would have an airport if people would ever need to leave but the place would be big enough to have everything inclosed, homes, work places aswell as entertainment and would be stockpiled of resources for many years. The internet would also be provided wirelessly so the aim here would be to deploy the small devices mentioned in the African level to get coverage across the entire zone.

The zone probably isnt too affected by the events except losing the internet, the water levels will have raised and it would probably be a little colder but as everything is contained in the dome the place should look like a pretty normal unaffected city.

Enviroments part 2!

I had 10 enviroments to do! i already had the final zone, Denver uploaded months ago as that was the first concept pic i made for the other enviroments and recently i uploaded 4 of them i think, London didnt count as ive got imagery for that all over 4 + 1 + 1 = 6! so i was missing 4 zones and spent the last week doing them as drawing takes me 3x longer than it should

so Anyway first up is Tokyo as that was Enviroment 6



I dont think ive made it look too like Japan which is a bit of a shame, they have a lot of signs on buildings which ive tried to copy but i cant write in japanese so it ends up being scribbles.
The idea of this zone was that like the European zone a chain reaction of events which caused the tetonic plates to move has triggered earthquakes in Tokyo, as its around 2050-2060 and they have already gone through so many of these events i would presume by this time the structures would have been developed to survive the effects so although the roads been split up and theres cracks running up buildings majority of the place still stands.
Asia in general seems to have quite a population issue already and by this time that would be another couple of generations making the place even more crowded so i decided there would be mass underground complexes made which would contain thousands of apartments for people and would also be where a lot of this level takes place ive drawn an entrance to one in this picture, i think it would act like the London Underground where there are numerous entry points dotted around the town but eventually they are all linked up

The internet provider i discovered for Asia was IIJ and within my story ive planned that the maintance room would be somewhere underground as they would have just built these structures around exisiting places instead of pulling up hundreds of miles of internet cable

PDA Music Player

Simple little mp3 type player screen where you can sync the device with others around the world gaining access to more tracks and then you can use the sort button to sort by alphabet or genre for example.

PDA Missions

So ive got the mission outlined in 1 line that you can follow for quick reference and would put a marker on the map and then a bit more detailed information below that would go in the database later on so you learn more about characters and the enviroments a bit more instead of just go to here go there etc

PDA Stats screen

Bit of influence from other games here, i did like the stats screen from GTA but not quite as indepth but i dont know how much further i could make this list go on if i needed to, but when you get into tracks unlocked/side missions completed?...headshots that sort of thing there could be quite a lot more if needed

PDA Weapon Screen

next up!



I regret thinking purple was a good idea for the weapons screen but as its only a prototype i guess it gets the idea across regardless

PDA Invent screen

well i remade it about 20x..which is half the reason i take so long to do anything! but im fairly happy with this:

PDA

Oh im so bored of this, between unreal and drawing..im running out of things to do that are new and slightly less boring ..but theres 5 weeks left and im forcing myself on!

Anyway i need to make a few graphics, like a mini tutorial faked within unreal in my warehouse for the bot to show u how to upgrade and then the pda which acts as the menu, which i can probably just overlay in a video i make right at the end

well i thought the PDA would be the most time consuming as i didnt want it to look toooo cartoony even tho im better at making cartoony things so after a few days work of constantly changing my idea and deletiing things and whatever we end up with this:


(Note - i didnt spell blackberry wrong)

So its a pda device, nothing too extreme, would be seen with todays tech really, its all touch screen no buttons and it has the 6 buttons at the bottom which take u to different displays on the main screen, all of which are quite self explanatory
so the main ones the map as you can see, i just took a screenshot overhead view from my map in unreal, then it has some vital information which will always be displayed whatever screen your on

its not really going to do anything as its a prototype and it will just be an image overlayed on a video..or maybe i can get it in unreal as a uiscene, we shall see

ill probably do a few other screens if not them all as it only involves changing the general colour scheme and changing the main screen

A little more nuts

I've only drawn 2 experimental ones but im sure i could really expand on this catergory if i had the time

this could have a whole host of weapons as i mentioned elsewhere about things that would affect the nervous system/brain and have people start going insane killing each other or affecting the lungs making them unable to run..or barely walk this could come from special ammo or special guns

the 2 ive drawn here, the Rail gun i took the idea from Red Faction and would have the same ability of being able to fire a high powered shot through a wall, possibly a laser of some sort as i think "energy weapons" would becoming quite popular by this time, which leads to the 2nd gun which is really just a flamethrower but has the ability to fire compressed energy into a flame of some sort instead of just fuel

There would be a whole host of these as i said but they will be quite hard to come by and ammo would be really limited as going through the game with these weapons from the start would trivilaze the entire game

Heavy Ra..Weaponary yeeah

Getting a little bit over the top now, these would be guns that would be more of a bonus award for completing a really hard side mission and you wouldnt expect to find masses of ammo around for them either, but still they should be quite fun

ive only drawn a rocket launcher and a minigun as other heavy ones would be classed more experimental

Sniper Rifles

this post does exactly what it says..in the title



Quite a traditonal looking one, then something a bit different, on a side note as you can see the damage is really ramping up, im not sure if there needs to be a damage cap as even the most powerful weapons in the game will have upgrade limits but they will come in the special/experiemental ones of which ammo would be rather limited

Getting to the big boys

Assault rifles yayyy



My M4 clone looks kinda squished but as weve gathered by now...i cant draw, again differing ends a faster weaker one and then a more powerful one with a bigger kick affecting the recoil but who cares!

Powering through - SMG's

Next class, new guns the SMG's!



Cant say ive personally ever cared for these however i guess to make things more interesting as you reach a certain class level in this weapon (and pistols) you should have the ability to dual wield them, although this may sound quite powerful you would have to take into account it wouldnt take long to empty both guns ammo supplies in this class.

Next - Shotgun!

Next up i did 2 designs for the shotgun class, so obviously quite a bit higher in starting damage but worse recoil/slower etc



Ive tried to cover both ends of the spectrum with my prototypes so we have quite a quick automatic shotgun and then a much more traditonal slow powerful one and this reflects in the stats

Guns Guns Guns

I thought id have a change and draw my guns, most of them are going to look pretty similiar as its now only 50 years in advance so they take a lot of influence from real ones around now

Im going to draw 2 guns from each "class" as examples that gives the basic stats to give an idea of how all the guns in the game would be even though there would be a lot more than what im going to draw hidden around

So today i did the pistols!



So yeah as you can see each weapon has a starting damage and then 5 key stats out of 30 with obiously the higher the better, this makes recoil look a bit dodgy as does higher mean its got a worse recoil? but to try and keep it uniform they are all higher = better

These are just the start stats though as as you upgrade the weapons through the game they can all improve somewhat.

I think i broke it

so this easter ive been learning crysis sandbox (the editor) to make another quick level to add to the FMP and to my portfolio..more the better!

well ive followed quite a few tutorials..got used to the terrain editor..vegetation all that...i was messing around and making some not bad looking tests

anyway i set to work on my final piece, the scales hard to judge but i was happily editing the terrain surface then bam it breaks



andddd i cant fix it..ive even reinstalled and its still screwed..its just constantly redrawing the screen whenever i move

im quite sick of these editors so i think ill spend the rest of the easter doing more drawning for my document..guns/chars etc..ill have a look at this again after easter, its not too bad as my unreal maps are pretty much finished except my house issue