Moodboards and Idea’s and my Sluggish Routine.

So last week I started on my project, my goals were as follows:

-Create the basis backstory and a written representation of the environment

-Create loads of Moodboards for the environment, character, vehicles and weapons

-Brainstorm some idea’s that can be used for the level

-Decide upon a colour scheme and play around with different ideas for colour schemes

-Draw up basic idea’s for each subject, environment, vehicles, characters

I started off pretty well with the moodboards, story and the basic idea’s but other things happened during the week, social gatherings and me waking up late, so I got delayed and didn’t get the colour scheme and drawing up basic ideas for each of the topics. I realise it’s not really acceptable to use those kind of excuses for not doing the work but it’s hard for me to suddenly start this intense routine but I guess I just need to get used it. Fuck my procrastination.

Anyway besides that I’ll share with you the basic story I wrote up.

Project: Metro Warzone 2088 (name subject to change)

“In the not so far future, a corrupt organisation is controlling some of the world’s richest and most powerful countries behind closed doors.

This has started the development of the world’s first orbital space elevator by the organisation that controls said rich countries, but the production has been halted by other countries due to a tenuous pact between the organisation and other countries lack of cooperation on the project.

After countless political arguments and disputes against the countries that aren’t allied with them, the organisation has ushered in a war against the remaining countries with the intent to take control of the last few independent powerful countries left on earth to harness all of their valuable resources and continue their expansion into space by building their massive orbital space elevator which is currently halted in production.

This has led to the destruction of lots of technologically advanced cities, forcing civilians to evacuate their homes. A lot of these cities are currently battlefields or abandoned, only to be occupied by military forces.

Some of the opposing countries have allied to fight against the organisation and defend the last few strongholds and cities that aren’t completely destroyed. Their main goal is to defend what they can and take control of the city surrounding the orbital elevator.”

I know it’s a bit cliché but whatever, it’s not about the story it’s about the visuals and the environment. I haven’t made a decision on what the name of the project should be yet. I thought about making it “M.O.S.E.S 2088” (Metropolitan orbital space elevation station 2088) but I think it might be offensive to some people and the title is kind of misleading. I’ll update you when I do finally find a good name for the project.

As for the moodboards I made about 29 moodboards in total and it’s still growing as I see more images and things that inspire me. A problem that I came across when i first started creating the moodboards was that I was getting too many concept art images from other artists and not enough real life/ real world reference or images. 

I spoke with a few friends about this and they said I needed more real life inspiration rather than someone else s idea's. They were right, looking at real world vehicles and environments gave me much more idea's and thoughts to play with rather than looking at concept art that was already completed and thought through by someone else. 

So real world reference is a big plus if you're ever in need of inspiration/moodboards.

So what am I doing now?

Currently I’m trying to finish what I was supposed to do in week 1, so I’m thinking of basic ideas for my environment. I didn’t really realise how hard it was to plan a level, since its an FPS level, I have a lot to consider, namely the layout of the level, verticality, progression, composition etc.

One thing I am doing that I learnt from my group project from 2^nd year was looking at real life maps and so I was looking at downtown Tokyo, since it’s an overcrowded city with lots of skyscrapers and buildings, just to get an idea of how they laid out their roads and pathways.

It really helped to form ideas, I’m drawing aerial maps in photoshop and playing around with their composition with whiteboxes in 3DS MAX at the moment.

Anyway that’s all for now.

Dystopian Sci-fi City Warzone Year 2088-2150

What am I doing and why?

  

As I stated previously, this summer (2014) I will be starting a huge project to really upgrade my portfolio and my current skills in 3D and 2D.

I will be attempting to create a next gen environment in Unreal Engine 4. More specifically, A Full Map for an FPS game which will be set in a futuristic dystopian sci-fi city environment where there is a war waging on. I am planning to concept all of the artwork for the entire level so I can easily visualise and create the world in 3D.

My main aim is to create an environment, 3 vehicles and 3 characters. This will include creating the streets, buildings, shops, vehicles, guns, armour, and any other assets or props I can integrate into this world. The art style I am going for is very realistic and believable.

Exact things I hope to do.

______________________________

3 Characters - 2 Females and 1 male

-1 Female Pilot

-1 Male Solider

-1 Female Civilian

______________________________

Weapons for the characters

-1 Assault rifle

-1 Pistol

-1 Grenade Design

______________________________

3 Vehicles

-1 Armoured Tank

-1 Mech-suit

-1 Futuristic Flying Helicopter

______________________________

Full Environment

-Roads

-10-15 buildings, Shops, hotels etc

-Special effects - smoke etc

-Futuristic Lamp posts, signs, ammo crates, just lots of props and ornaments in general

-LOD buildings in the background

I will be using the next-gen engine Unreal Engine 4. As well as 3DS max for basic asset modelling, Z-Brush for high poly sculpting, Crazy Bump or Quixel Suite with NdO and DdO for texturing as well as Photoshop, Marvelous Designer for cloth simulation sculpting if needed.

This will be an FPS (First Person Shooter) game which will be running on PC and next-gen consoles such as the PS4 and Xbox One. My target audience will be of an of audience of 15+ 

I picked a sci-fi environment because it’s one of my favourite genres in games, other than fantasy, and I think that I will save the fantasy level for my actual FMP in the 3^rd Year. I had been thinking about doing this kind of sci-fi project for about half a year now so I’m really happy that I have 4 long months of summer to do my project.

I will be dedicating at the very least, 8 hours per day to the project every single day.  If I don’t manage to finish it by the time summer ends, I will just have to continue it as I would really like to see this to the end. I have made a huge plan of what I want to achieve in each week and what I have to do every day. As for improving my visual design skills, I will be dedicating at least 3 hours per day doing daily sketches/paintings.

I will spend an hour on quick anatomy studies and 2 hours on a digital painting/”virtual plein air” paintings from Google map. Eventually I will quickly develop my skills as long as I stick to this daily.

Since I have 4 months for this I have split the project up evenly:

Month 1 - PLANNING STAGE and Concept Art for EVERYTHING - Environment, Characters, Weapons, Vehicles, Mechs.

Month 2 - Environment Props and Buildings.

Month 3 - Vehicles and Mecha

Month 4 - High Poly Characters - 3 Characters and Weapons.

I also have written down and planned tasks/goals for every week and every day for the first month that I will have to achieve in order to keep in track on this.

I know this is a tremendous amount of work for one artist to do, especially for me, but I still feel like I haven’t proved what I am capable of. I want to try my best and see how far I can go, besides, even if I fail the project, I will have still tried my best and would have learnt a lot more than just doing nothing.

I will be updating this blog a lot more as the days go on, updating you on my progress. In the next blog I will share with you the main storyline of the game and what it’s all about

Thanks for reading and watch this space!