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.