Finished...ish level

So here it is, the finished product, kind of. We handed in this current level for our University group project. There are small touches that we would like to add for the Off The Map competition. There are sound effects that need to be placed for the trigger events, like doors opening, clocks ticking and so on.

Overall I think the whole group feels we hit what we set out to do with our level. We stuck to our idea's and adjusted them as we saw fit. We worked well together and communication on ideas and issues was paramount to a successful project.

So enough talk, lets see what we've produced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3qzXzGlfQ0&feature=youtu.be

Hope you enjoyed, Team Pending, signing off.

Wollaton Hall

Our project theme was based from ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ by Edgar Allan Poe, which is set in an abbey but we adjusted that for us so instead if would be a grand, Victorian manor house. We thought it would be great if we could get some first hand pictures and research rather than just information off the internet.

Luckily for us, we were fairly close enough to Wollaton Hall, located in Nottingham. It was completed in 1588 and is in the English Renaissance style and is quite flamboyant in it’s design. The interior has been remodelled multiple times but the exterior remains unaltered from when it was built.

Interesting fact, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ film by Christopher Nolan used Wollaton Hall as one of it’s filming locations as Wayne Manor!

Even though Wollaton Hall wasn’t built in the same style as what we were planning on creating our project in (ours was to be done in the Gothic Revival period/style), there was still plenty that we could take inspiration from and just help add to our information and knowledge. We look at the room layouts and take interesting texture photos that we could directly use in our project.

There was also other interesting rooms like an insect gallery and bird gallery among others, which may not directly connect to our project or be relevant to us (immediately) but it was definitely interesting to look at and take photos of, which all helps.

'Masque of the Red Death' by Edgar Allan Poe - The theme

For the project, we got different themes from which we could base our work on. These were Whitby, which was the setting for Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula,’ ‘The Masque of the Red Death’ by Edgar Allan Poe and finally, ‘Fonthill Abbey,’ which was a 18^th Century Country House.

A film, based on Edgar Allan Poe's story from 1964.

We chose to do ‘The Masque of the Red Death,’ which is a short gothic story about Prince Prospero that follows his attempts to avoid the Red Death, a dangerous plague that is spreading across the land, in his abbey along with other noblemen.

 

There were some themes or notable points of interest, which we took from the story and incorporated into our project. These were:

§        7 rooms (or 7 main rooms) all with different colours and themes (blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet and red/black).

§        The Clock in the ballroom.

§        The rooms being built running from east to west (following the path of the sun).

§        The figure appearing in the ballroom – Red Death.

We thought that we try and fit these into our project. Although, we could experiment a bit with the rooms since it doesn’t mention too much what each of the rooms were, rather just the colours of that chamber. We stuck to fairly traditional rooms though, which included a study, bedroom and dining room. The only one that we couldn’t differentiate from was the ballroom, since that was the feature room and would be the main finale. It was described the most in detail as well in comparison to the other rooms so we had to take into account the windows and ceiling (since we are trying to make it fairly accurate and close to how it is described in the story).

Here are some pieces from our research looking at the colour palettes and themes.

The colour palette and style for each of the rooms

Modular Building

Our main focal room, is the ballroom. Due to its size and architecture, we decided it would be best to build it in modular pieces.

This was all built by one member of the group, to secure they had a uniform look with textures that matched and worked well with one another.

This was the only part of the level that was built modularly.

At this stage we have the level at a well populated stage. We will continue with this progress leaving us time for the in engine touches.

Level in Engine

We have begun to flesh out the level with structural architecture, wallpapers and floors. These are some screen shots of the level in engine so far.

As well as this we are all working on asset creation, ready for import once the level is fleshed out properly. 

We plan to continue to create assets for the level, ready for import.

Assets

We wrote up an asset list for each room and allocated each member of the group assets to model and texture. Also, a couple members of the team were given the task of working with the game engine (CryTek) Importing the white box and working from that. 

We had to concept structural pieces in order to get the architecture right as it had to be gothic.

Main assets specific to that room were being made first.

We plan to continue this and begin to flesh out the structure of the level, ready for asset import.

Layout and Floor Plan

We now had to plan the layout of the level. We worked out how we could get 7 rooms into our level to match the story. We ended up with a simple flow plan and player flow throughout the level, this was to help us understand how we would lead the player through each room to get to the end of the level.

We decided that in order for the player to be lead in the right direction, we would have sound and trigger events to lead them through the desired flow.

We went on do draw up floor plans for each room.

This allowed us to make a quick white box level in 3dsmax.

From this we began to think of particular assets we would need for the level.

Next we want to have a finalised asset list so we can begin to prioritise and model the level and its content.