Weekly update No.4

Haven't done as much this week as i had hoped. Was a little de-motivated with other things. However i did get the grey box overall size put in, though there is still more to be done before it can be used as reference for concept work.

The outer walls in now.

Started doing some sun-shade type covers over the market

Another view of the market

Where i think the market would end, maybe some kind of depo or more open area.

The transition building, where the player would reach to go on to the next area. thinking now though this area might move to a less centralized place so as less obvious to find.

Area is far to open, more structures intended here.

Weekly update No.3

Below is some concept art created this week;

Sending Down The Probe

 Coming Into The City

 Sunrise City

Alex has also also been working out a city/town layout.

It is a circle style city, river flowing through it. There are sky scrapers in the middle and landing ports outside the circle.

From this map I have been working on a 'grey box' layout in UDK. (Unreal Development Kit)

Over the next week I hope to have a more finished and detailed map drawn out and the first section of the map boxed out in UDK so that we can use the renders to help with the concept art for the town.

Town Reference Sheet

A reference sheet so far for the town, mixing middle eastern architecture designs aswell as some more modern / futuristic for the distant skyline (which will be in a separate reference sheet)

Weekly update No.2

Ok this is a week and a day update from Alex.

Got together some mood-boards for the first town visited in 'Jam'

Sky-View Imagery: 

These are some images that had the some of the shape and feel I was thinking for entry coming down to the planet.

World Backdrop:

To go with a sky box the town will have a painted backdrop to give the player a sense of the size of the city.

These images have elements of the style feel and shapes of the buildings inhabiting the background. 

Town Mood-Board:

The building style planned is eastern European mixed with some sci-fi elements, focusing on interesting visuals over time accurate setting.

No designing of the town it's self has started yet, these mood-boards are pre-emptive as well as to help with  story boarding. 

Which follows -

Some very rough early story boards for the start of the 'Jam' level. -

Leaving his ship and entering the town gates

start of 'BlackJack' ^

The chase through town.

After this point I felt that I needed to draw out a more detailed town plan to continue with the story board for this section. So instead...

As Dani posted earlier we have also been playing around with engine possibilities 

Had a lot of fun making a test town in UDK

This is just with rough idea's so far, nothing planned out.

All done using materials and assets that come within the editor. 

Engine Criteria

For the engines we want them to be able to run the scene we are planning on doing with a good Frame Rate.

Unity
At the moment we don't want to use Unity - as with a previous project we worked on its lagged at the silliest things and was really difficult to fix as well as work out what the problems were. It isn't much of a user friendly program. And it does heavily rely on scripting. Also you have to create a collision box for each object which takes a long time. You can change the Cull - etc to make sure that it doesn't lag.

UDK
We would like to use UDK because it is simple to use for programming (thanks to a visual system called Kismet) this also makes it simple to animate as well as add sounds. It automatially builds collision round and object with one click saving time and effort. Our scene will have trees in it and this program is linked to speedtree so it would be simple to create a nice little forest. It does have some nice built in particle effects. At the moment this would be the best one to use.

Cry Engine
This would be the simplist of systems to create a forest in, but it is a lot of hassel to try and work out how to import an object into it. But it is beautiful and has a brialliant water effect. Its also simple to add AI in, as well as change the time of day and has a varitey of live time particle systems that you can use. I think this would be the best to use for a large landscape level but at the moment with the importing issue I don't think that it would be the most successful.

This is based on my opinion. The boys might feel differently. We will have a vote at some point.

Weekly update No.1

Pre-production

Week 1-2

Story board;
Intro up till forest scene

Game engine trial testing;
Unity? UDK? Cry engine?
3 > …

Concept sketches for intro;
Finish ship designs
Interior concepts
Concept sketches for initial town area
Objects
Backdrops

Concept sketches for garden;

Discussing

We have been discussing what scene we would like to do in the time provided.
At the moment we feel like we would like to do the chase scene (this will later be included in the notes). Then its being discussed that he would be in a pretty garden.
We want to add a little puzzle game. (which will be discussed at another time)
A storyboard will be created for this.

Considering using presets to create ai for people.
Changes to the weather.
Would be a fancy mansion garden. It is now an abandoned garden - so overgrown. Has lots of various interactivity.

Scene starts by landing the ship
Wander round town
wind up in a parts shop to decipher message
Guards appear to chase you
you run
you end up in  a garden hidden for the moment
You decipher the message and wander around trying to find an alternative route through the garden
The guards eventually find you in the garden
They chase you again

Carneverous plant in the garden.
For visual effects make the make parts stand out like a little glow etc.
Have creatures chase him at the end. Rather than guards

Roles

Prologue

" The player’s character is the lead researcher of a charting and archaeology team contracted on a system by system basis. Four years ago on a routine tour of an uncharted system his team went missing while down on the surface. Even with all the equipment on their ship, and numerous investigation reports, in the past 4 years he has been unable to find any answer to what happened. Yet still he finds solace in sending probes and flowers down, in an attempt to move on from this event. "

Players will be taken on a musical and artistic journey through a story born from DepthCharge’s Album of the same name. With an aspect of light puzzle solving, players traverse the world through the story alongside music.

Roles:

Alex Collins:

Creative Director

Concept Art, Narrative writing, Level Design, 3D Modelling

Jack Eaves:

Lead Artist

Concept Art, Art Style, Texture Art, 3D Modelling

Danielle Allum:

Producer and 3D Modeller

3D Modelling, Visual Effects, Engine Logistics

Daniel Badcock:
3D Generalist
Miscellaneous 3 Dimensional Assets

Arran MacInnes:

Programmer, Audio Direction

Creative Direction, Music, Asset Modeling

Alister MacInnes:

Audio Direction

Creative Direction, Sound Effects, Mood guidance

The Start

We are going to be called 'Sentimental Studios'