Asset Creation by Lucian Achiricioaei

Research complete...

The first idea for the game was a first person shooter, a level in the StarCitizen universe (that kind of feel) this idea was to be materialized in the Cryengine, but after a debate with my colleagues we decided to go for something more simpler; so we started developing this alien character (with humanoid features so the player would feel related to in a way), he would be an explorer but more of an antiquarian, or a collector who encountered some technical difficulties with his ship and crashing to this nearby inhabitable planet which seemed abandoned.

After the meeting with my colleagues we decided that the planet should have a Mayan-Egiptian look but more Mayan. Also inserting some alien symbols.

The main goal for the player is to find some parts to repair his ship and leave the planet.
I've searched and made a mood board for our planet.

After this I've started to develop some assets for our game;Also gathered texture material.
All architectural pieces were built to be modular, as you can see an example the pyramid bellow is only 1/4 and by duplicating and rotating it 3 times along the center would result the pyramid as seen in the second image below.

Here you can see the full pyramid

         

We will have to add more hi tech stuff, otherwise this train it will look weird all by itself.

   This train will probably be "crashed" on the ground bent and rusty. as a sign of a more recent disappeared civilization, together with more ruins, temples and pyramids and other hi tech stuff.

 Other game assets

I decided to incorporate an earlier design/model that I made during summer, this will play a panoramic role so the player won't be able to interact with the ship, just to see it and restrict player movement. The ship will look like deserted, with rust moss and vines on it.

An electronic device meant to be places on pylons surrounding the main pyramid

And finally some texture assets 

  The train has been textured using Substance Painter entirely I haven't used any photographic material, the writing the lines and the symbol were made using stencils created in Photoshop.
Below are some of the stencils used for texturing.

 The Obelisk

 I tried at first using stencils to make the bricks but the result wasn't very satisfying so I've done it manually. This is NOT procedural generated textures as some people may affirm, all content was painted using brushes and layers inside Substance painter, because i didn't know that particles are using the UV positioning to have XYZ axis orientation,( the most important is UP and DOWN)  I was unable to use particle brushes on these assets; this lesson is learned and in the future the UV's will be positioned made accordingly.

Game engines...by Lucian Achiricioaei

                 

Starting from scratch   Part 1

      The terrain creation in Cryengine was relatively easy, sculpted the terrain, textured it and added different particle effects like waterfalls snow and other. Because the university only supports Unity, and because i didn't had much support or/and tutorials and because the engine is not as widely used as Unity or UnrealEngine4 I decided to switch to Unity.

  Part 2

Unity I found it dissapointing despite it was easy to import textures and assets, the game engine felt clumsy, after i tried for several hours to put multiple terrain specular maps on one terrain but failed to do so, and after i started whiteboxing the level, at a point when Unity 5.0 beta decided to crash by filling the project hard drive with 20 gigs of unknown information forcing a restart and loosing significant progress, also another issue encountered was the skybox; it was showing me in game mode some weird black artefacts when I decided again for the last time to switch the engine... 

This time to UE4;

Part 3

 In Unreal 4 things are going smoothly, I've managed to import these assets create terrains, texture them and create collision objects for them , but because we changed our mind and we switched from first person to third person, when traveling through the maze, sometimes when going around the corners the tight spaces, are forcing the camera to snap close the character and then back, which spoils the game-play, even if I change the camera distance (closer to the player)  it's still not very pleasant, so after completing the maze I've decided to roll back to the beginning and start again from scratch building a new terrain reducing the size of the maze while making it wider.

Here I put some textures just to get the feel,some UV's are not in their place and need to be worked on. On the terrain I encountered some difficulties as I couldn't scale UV's and make a multilayer terrain both in the same time... both procedures use the same UV input. I will try and find a way around this in the future.

 The maze here is practically nonexistent I only kept a cross with the left way to the temple, the right way to a tower and 2 spaces where I'm going to put some hi-tech assets and a forward way to advance through the level.

Working on lighting, also adding some collectables as a book and a power sphere. Worked on third person/ first person switch.

Summer Research - By Sabina Piasecka

During this summer, I have traveled quite a lot around Europe. I was able to see how do the every day lives of other people look like in different countries located in Europe - Including France, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands. I have taken pictures, ventured through charity shops and looking for things, however I was mostly stunned by the architecture in France. Mainly many well preserved buildings that were around 300 years old. This gave me more of the idea for a post-nuclear game located in one of such places like France where you can see the contrast easily between the old architecture and the new built things.

Below I will present a couple of photos I have taken while visiting these countries and explain how did they inspire me and made me think about everyday life back then and everyday life now. It gave me more idea for a game setting that we could possibly have out of many.

France
This is the Saint-Fargeau Castle located in North Central France. These kinds of castles were "everyday life" for people who lived back 300-400 years ago.
 I am very interested in the old time architecture, especially grand buildings, and visiting this place was very inspiring as it gave me a good idea of creating a game that could be either open-world or with certain levels, and this castle being one of the levels where the player would have a mission to kill zombies/monster waves that would come onto him.
The castles around France as well as other old architectures are quite popular and there is a lot of them around the whole country.

This photography was taken inside the Saint-Fargeau Castle. It shows a reading room that was used by the aristocracy back then for relax and book or document reading. It shows also clearly how back then people would spend their time and the kind of entertainment they had.

I think a world setting in a post nuclear world with these castles and landmarks around the map would make it quite interesting.


                                       Modern France - Yet in the Past
While traveling around France I have visited many cities and villages in which the buildings were very, very old and yet kept intact and people would live their everyday lives there. This gave me a very serious idea about a game, in which the user would explore a post nuclear world around such village - thinking that the nuclear war and disaster happened back in 1700's, but as he would scavenge around the abandoned buildings he would be finding modern life things and items that would not fit to the thinking pattern and would make it more interesting for the person playing the game.

The streets and buildings in a small village of Noyers that is surrounded by walls - no new modern buildings, no typical McDonald's or anything of this kind. People living in this peaceful setting in the very old buildings with very narrow streets, when back then there were no cars but only carts with horses.

This village is very well kept and gives you the journey into the past. It is an amazing feeling, but well, what it is for the residents of this village if not simply Everyday Life?

During summer when I have been traveling I took many photos as well as I did many drawings that can be used for the idea of a game. I have observed people reading newspapers, waiting on a plane on the airports, as well as in restaurants in different places of Europe.

This is my quick pastel sketch of the old timey buildings located in France in which people live until nowadays.

There are many restaurants and shops located around, mainly in the lower parts of these buildings. They date up to 1500's.

These are my drawings of people who were waiting on a train station for their train.













Later I started getting more creative and started designing characters that could be used for the game, starting with simple things such as the photo below and infusing the drawing with the color.

 

Below are photographs that made me think about Everyday life as well. I was not thinking about my everyday life in particular, but for example for people who work on boats or ships and have to cross the seas or canals every day. It is something normal for them but not for me in particular.

This is Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris. I found the shape of the trees interesting which is why am I including it in this post.