FMP - Progression Concepting.

From my research and data collected, I feel more focused and directed.

I realised the next stage maybe challenging but I am highly motivated to start because of the enjoyment I feel I will get on completion.

Some imaginative thumbnail sketches for practise and to get some visual ideas down.

These are just some quick thumbnail paintings of the Wizard House.  I just wanted to get my ideas down, very rough but it's a start to work it out.

I decided to create some fast white boxes of the Wizard House. Just looking at different shapes and what I can play with to create a unique building.

A quick design of ornaments.

One thought was to create some simple plant-pots and quirky ornaments for the garden.

I started to do a practice white-box, which I did in 3DS max. I made a high-poly plane and then used the graphite modelling tools to create the terrain.

After constructive feedback today, from my tutors, I realized that I was going off track with the big scale elements and the route to the Wizard House and needed to get back to focus on the garden and the house. I need to have a small surrounding environment but nothing over complicated.

Initially I was going to have the player start at the bridge and then there would be water falls on the left, with mountains, trees, rocks and more, that the player would encounter when walking through.

However, such detail would cost me dearly in both time and resources resulting in reducing the key focal point which is the Wizard House.

This rough white-box of the bridge and pathway has been included here to demonstrate the initial idea for the start of the level. If you just imagine a waterfall on the left and tall trees, would be surrounded by grassy, rocky terrain, whilst walking across the bridge to the pathway

I did find the 'enclosed' feel of the trees was, what I would be aiming for,  hidden away in the 'forest'.

This is not the building I will be using, but just placed something in the scene, perhaps with a surrounding wall. The image I wanted to create is surrounding forestry and then the garden full of fantasy elements with an awesome Wizard House :)

FMP - Moodboards and ideas

From a  break down of my brief from my previous blog, it is time to get in some visual elements and development.

From my project in the summer I did look at 'Natural Homes' and created a small 'Camp Scene' from it. Now I have improved all my 3D skills since then and throughout my third year,and I am ready to further develop that theme and go with a Fantasy Wizard House.

http://www.caemabon.co.uk

 http://naturalhomes.org/
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/11/19/exotic-endangered-plants-flowers-trees-forests/
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/09/01/10-more-intriguing-genetically-modified-fruits-veggies/
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/11/03/strange-rare-bizarre-endangered-flowers-plants-and-trees/
http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/10-must-try-exotic-fruits/

 Very much my inspiration and resource for alot of things.

It was a bonus to have kept my previous mood boards which can be of use and I may re post some of them.

As I mentioned in my brief , there are many descriptions I want to create and achieve for my environment. Following are some mood boards to give more of an idea where I want to take my project

A collection of Mushrooms which I will put my own design elements on to, with different patterns, shape and colour. Scale is also a factor because I will have them larger than normal to give that fantasy element.

The final visuals show a different presentation of mushrooms which show difference in size, colour and design.

I have decided to add many exotic Plants, Vegetables and Fruits to be very saturated with bright vivid colours within the garden. Can add particle effects, emmissive and even some movement.

  

More pictures of exotic plants.

A small capture of exotic fruits like the Durian fruit, the grey,green image similar in appearance to the seed of a horse chestnut . I find them beautiful and appealing in the design, texture and how they are shaped around the exterior, then inside it is another dimension.

 I have many references, I am of a horder of them. I decided to put most of them, the key selected ones into a massive moodboard where, I can zoom in and out and everything is in one place.

I still have space to add more if I need to.

Third year: Final Major Project - The Wizard House :)

Final Major Project Brief

The brief

My final major project brief will be ‘Natural Building and Natural Living’ I will have this placed in a private garden / land, with natural materials for the build of the buildings and the environment.  They will all simulate being hand calved for that extra care in detail and unique designs. 

The environment

The place will inhabit a Wizard / Mage, who is self-sufficient and lives of his own land/ garden. This allows me to add cool factors of fantasy fairy tale elements, such as strange creatures, plants, flowers, fire flies, mushrooms and trees.  They also have a purpose to be there because the Wizard would use his own garden to create spells, herbs and medicine. The perimeter of the garden will be protected by a large stone wall with a front gate entrance and uneven ground leading to the wizard’s house crossing a small bridge, with ornaments, statues, signs, pots, ponds, wells, and others are around the garden.

The wizard house

The wizard house will have the essentials; symbolic handcrafted furniture, table, chairs, bed, fireplace, lights/candles, spiral staircase, kitchen, left out food, with the interesting wizard assets such as spells, books, wands, potions, staffs, swords, cloaks and many more.

SFX will be used around the level.

The budget

·         Game platform: mid to high end, ps3, Xbox 360 and PC.

·         Genre: RPG

·         Primary Reference: I will go and visit Leicester Botanical Gardens to get plants, flowers and other information, if I need to extend this research I can always go to Birmingham Botanical Gardens. I have bunch of primary references that will aid me in my asset creation and texturing.

·         Secondary Reference: I will look at films such as The Hobbit and Harry Potter for inspiration / ideas to gain awareness into the fantasy realm and acumens of wizardry. Natural homes will be great resource when I design my level, assets and building. They are real world homes with a lot of individual, personal, cultural attachments to its reason of design / location. That has natural handcrafted materials like wood, clay, cob, stone, thatch and more, that my level will comprise to require?

·         Modelling budget: Models – 150,000 Triangles

·         Texture budget: 252mb = 21.0 RGP Textures @ 2048x2048 (.tga)

The textures will have default of diffuse colour maps, normal maps and specular maps and additional texture maps such as skybox, alphas, emissive, special effects and particles.

·         Software: Unreal Development Kit, 3Ds Max, Zbrush, Adobe Photoshop, Crazy Bump, Ndo2, Xnormals.

Time scale and schedule:

My time scale and schedule must be at its optimum in order to finish two/ one week before the deadline, which allows me to optimise and review my work. I have broken down the weeks of my schedule for me to follow and achieve.

3 Weeks: references, mood boards, sketches, concepts, designs, whitebox environment and larger assets.

4 Weeks: models, unwrap, lightmap, import, textured environment, SFX effects/ particles. With blogging, feedback and testing continuously

4 Weeks: models, unwrap, lightmap, import, textured environment effects/ particles. With blogging, feedback and testing continuously

4 Weeks: SFX effects/ Particles, bug-testing, improve models/ textures or adding. House clean files, prepare a fly-through and finish documentation.

1 Week: Completed and tripled checking it all work and load.

The challenges

·         Time management

·         Keeping to an fix schedule

·         Learning UDK

·         Creating visual effects

·         Keeping player interested in focal points

·         Assertive decision making

·         Keeping to an art direction and following up my 2D designs

·         Effective pipeline and strategy