Thursday 7 March 2013

Work Update – Off The Map and Visual Design.


So the Off The Map group project is going really well. Everyone seems to be pulling their weight  and we’re starting to see the level come together from all the hard work we’re putting in. Seeing the quality of the work we are producing (our group and the other 2) I have no doubt that as long as we keep it up we can win this competition. Crytek seem to be taking an interest too, with posting a blog about us here (which is featured on their main page) :


It’s really nice working within a team too. As I find any sort of demotivation is thrown out the window, seeing everyone else posting their work updates spurs me on to work (even if they’re just small updates).

So since my last update I've built all the houses which are going to be used within the level. I made a floor modular system to work with, which made the process of creating unique houses pretty efficient. I basically used all my unique assets (walls, wood beams, windows etc) to make several different versions of each floor. Then with all the floors I created I could mix and match between the ground and middle floor, roof and roof objects. Using this method allowed me to create 9 different houses in a very short amount of time. Below shows the process.

All the unique assets 

All the floors which i can mix and match

The final 9 houses

I was also tasked to create the cobbled streets. This was something I've never done before - create a highly detailed but tillable texture. This new workflow taught me a lot of different tools and approaches which I can apply to other tasks. It was a difficult task to make the texture interesting , but not so interesting that the player can see that the texture is tiling. I think I got a pretty good result, the texture has a lot a small things going on, such as little puddles caught between the stones, moss growing, and some dirt/rubble as well. But not so much that the tiling is obvious. Take a look:


That’s the 3D side of things, now the 2D side. 2 weeks ago I posted my (long) random short story. Since then I have completed the storyboard for it. I’m also pretty happy with the result with it too. The piece lacks the polish of a final piece, as the idea of a storyboard is just to get an idea down. But I really like some of the compositional approaches I took. I saw this as an opportunity to push my perspective skills, which I do lack and need to improve. I wanted scenes to have a range of wide shots, looking up at the main focal point and down. I think i succeeded  I enjoyed this project a lot more than expected, and love the character ‘Oakbeard’ I got from it. So much so that when I get some free time I’m going to make a 3d model of him.    




That’s me done, ill be back soon with another work update.