Module Evaluation.

1.Problem Solving & Methods of working.
To begin this project I did some concept art to finalise the style I wanted to use in game. I did this by taking sketches of characters and importing them into Photoshop, and then I took textures from photographs and applied them to these drawings. Using Photoshop’s artistic tools I shaded and highlighted the images using a pen tablet device. For example, in one piece of art a knight is on his horse which meant importing textures for the horse’s coat, mane, hooves and head. Then I imported textures for the knight, which involved different types of metal and cloth.
After this I chose to simply begin designing levels, I find that I work better through trial and error rather than through concise planning on paper before beginning design work. I began by designing a later level as it would be more complex. I knew it would take the longest to do and be good practise for the other level I was going to design afterwards. I had a few issues with lighting initially and scale. I had some problems in SketchUp with creating models as I was teaching myself to use the program as I went along. As I currently didn’t have 3D Studio Max, I did not have any way of importing my models into the Unreal Graphics Engine. So I proceeded to design the subterranean part of my level. This would be the ruler of the City’s house which concealed an underground cavern system that leads to a temple. I chose to do this because I could use a lot of the models that came with the games editor. The design of the house was to be in great contrast to the rest of the city. It wanted it to be obvious where the wealth of the city was going from the architecture. This meant that the ruler’s house needed to be vast and luxurious. I researched medieval interior architecture and found that arches were primary features that were both for support and aesthetically pleasing. Also as there was no electricity all the lighting sources had to come from natural light, candle-light or fires. This posed more of a challenge than modern lighting levels as the light sources are not very powerful and I had to balance the strength of the light so that the character was able to see to move around without losing the realism of the surroundings. In the temple, I wanted to have a supernatural feel to the chambers and decided on having flames rising out of the water; spiralling to the ceiling way above the player. This was a good idea but took a while to execute it so that the effect looked exactly as it had in my mind’s eye.
At the same time as designing this level I was taking my character concept art into 3D. I downloaded a program called Daz 3D which is really good for character creation. I downloaded some human models and basic clothing sets. I then customised and edited the models and clothing to create my own characters. The program took a while to get used to but once I had figured out how to retexture their clothing, it was relatively quick and easy to put my concepts into creation. I found it hard to balance my final major project work with my dissertation work during this period so it was helpful to have at least one aspect of the project that was relatively easy.
My desktop died twice during this project and has been giving me problems ever since. I had to continually back-up in case I couldn’t boot up the next day. After having the hard drive wiped in an attempt to fix it I then had to get hold of a copy of all the programs I have been using. I had real difficulty getting hold of 3D Studio Max and eventually applied directly to them for the educational edition of the program. Once I eventually got hold of a copy to import my models with (only a month before the deadline), I then had great difficulty teaching myself how to use 3D Studio Max. After speaking to other students at college I managed to successfully get my models from SketchUp into 3D Studio Max.
I then got my models into Unreal but had more problems as some of them imported inside out. I then had to go back to 3D Studio Max to edit the “normals” of the models which basically flips the surface area of certain sides of the model. I reimported them to the Unreal engine and textured them with custom textures. These were made using Photoshop, I created a 512x512 pixel image and then imported the desired photo over it and saved it as a Taga file. The photos used were some I had taken in medieval cities on a personal trip to France.
Lighting on the city level was quite hard to get in balance as again the issue of artificially creating natural lighting is ironically difficult. The skybox was difficult to customise and took a while to find the right one to fit the mood of the level.
I tried making some models from scratch using just 3D Studio Max but I found it really hard and at the end of two days I only had one cooking pot! However, every time I tried importing this model into the Unreal editor it would crash. I desperately wanted suits of armour for the interior of the house so I downloaded a model of one and managed to use the skills I had learned, to edit it to fit in with my level. However texturing it in Unreal didn’t come out as well as I had hoped. The Gears of War Unreal editor was very unreliable and would crash every ten or fifteen minutes towards the end of the project. This was incredibly frustrating and time consuming. In future I would use a different edition of the editor as I still feel that Unreal is one of the best for the style of design that I favour and for ease of use when it works correctly.

2.How The Product Works.
The levels are loaded into Gears of War either through the game or through the editor. The player can then explore the levels I have created. The player starts at the gates of the city, they have free roam of the different quarters which include: housing, military, trade (docks) and the ruling family’s house. When entering the house (level two), the player can explore the ground floor. The player can take the staircase down to the kitchen and cellar. In the back corner of the cellar is a hidden passageway. This leads to an underground cavern system of which there are three main chambers. These finally lead to the temple.

3.Testing & Feedback.
During the creations of my maps I would constantly be jumping in and testing the game levels to make sure scale was correct, distances to walk were not too big, there was enough space for battles to occur and that the lighting in every area was just right. I also got my housemates to try it out to see what other gamers thought of it. The feedback was useful as everyone looks at things differently.

4.Evaluation.
Self Appraisal.
Overall I think I have worked well on this project, I have achieved and learnt things that before this year I had no idea how to do.
During the earlier part of the year I found it really hard balancing the work load between my Final Major Project and my dissertation. As I have always struggled with writing I found the dissertation very demanding and it took a lot out of me. Once the dissertation was handed in I was able to focus my efforts on my Final Major Project a lot more.
Another balancing act was the balance of my university work and my life as I have two jobs and lots of other commitments such as my hobbies and building and maintaining a website for a theatre company that I am involved with.
3D Studio Max was quite frustrating as I had to learn it in a very short period of time. Unreal constantly crashing drove me insane and as it takes a while to reboot it consumed a lot of my time. My computer failing on me in a big way was incredibly disruptive to my work and was incredibly frustrating. My laptop just isn’t powerful enough to do the work and my desktop has all my work programmes on it so being without it for week or so at a time was really bad and put me behind. Blogs are something I have never used before and I don’t quite understand the blogging craze a lot of people enjoy being a part of. I completely understand why it is used in our course but it is something I have real difficulty doing, probably because of my dislike and trouble with writing.
The best part for me was creating the levels, especially the city as it had been in my head a long time and finally building it into an interactive environment was really good. I enjoyed the process of getting the sketch up models through the different programmes into the game engine, although it was a lengthy process and I had trouble with it initially I enjoyed building them up and finally see the city come together. Another aspect of the project I enjoyed, as I am interested in history, was the research. I did hours of reading and research to make my game world and story as believable and as strong as possible. The character creation was pretty good fun too. I liked experimenting with different poses and costume ideas and it was good to see the sort of figures that would be walking around my game world.

Improvements.
The improvements I would like to make on my levels would be to use matinee to create more interactivity in the levels. To include the music that I had sourced for them, create more models in 3D to decorate the house. It is a bit sparse and I only managed to furnish one of the rooms out of potentially four. It would also be really good to replace the Gears of War character with one of my own but unfortunately this is an incredibly lengthy process that I just did not have time for. Another thing would be to add other characters roaming the streets and include my custom head up display. A part of the map that I did not get to finish was the tunnel that led from one of the other entrances in the temple to the church in the middle of the city.
The main thing that I would do differently is to start teaching myself 3D studio max before I even started my third year as it is a massive programme and there were many more assets I wanted to create for the game. I would have also started my dissertation work sooner to spread the work load. I would choose a different version of the Unreal engine as the Gears of Was edition was not reliable at all but unfortunately this is something you don’t really find out until you are a couple of months down the line and it starts to strain with the size of your map. Because of the story and theme of the game, research took a lot of time up. If I was going to do this project again I may decide to do something a bit simpler however this is the game I wanted to make, the sort of game I would want to play. I would of liked to have spent more time on the 3D models in sketch up as they could be improved. Sketch up gives you no control over the polygons in the models, this is evident when you get them into unreal as you get some strange lines on the faces of the models however I think that I lit them quite well in unreal and they do not look as bad as they initially did.

Future Scope.
Well I know this is a game that I would love to play and would love the opportunity to take the idea to a developer and see what they thought.

Finishing touches.

Just to make my project look a bit nicer I made some mock screenshots of game play and used them to make a game box for my game if it was ever to be published. I am really pleased with this.

House finishing touches.

I didn't complete all the models I wanted to make for the house, the one I did caused unreal to crash every time I tried importing it. So I used unreal meshes to finish off the dining/conference room but i still really wanted there to be suits of armor on the walls of the building so I found a model I could use online. It was a fantasy suit armour but I was able to use the techniques that I had learned to edit the model to make it fit in with the rest of the model and I think it makes the entrance hall look much better.

City Centre

There was a large space behind the church in the city centre and there wasnt really enough room to put another street of houses down so I made it into a square a stand for the city herald to stand on to preach the news to the people. I chose to keep it as saracen architecture a long with the rest of the city as I wanted the church and barracks/stables to be the only new buildings that the crusaders have built after taking the city.

The Dock

Here are some screen shots of the dock area, this took a while to get the look just right as unreal was comftable with me using the landscape tools and had a tendency to crash. I wanted the dock to look like a busy place that has stopeed for the night so I took the time to re positon assets so they were not uniform and this gave the place a bit more of a 'lived in' feel.

City

After a long and difficult time with 3ds max and unreal I finally got my sketchup models into the graphics engine. I had a few difficulties because some of the walls came out inside out so I had to take them back into 3ds max to flip the normals so that unreal could recognise which side of the wall was the outside. I then had to re texture all the models using custom textures in unreal that I had made using photo shop. After getting all the main models done such as the walls and the houses I started to populate the city around the church.

City 3D models

Here are some pictures of the model progression through sketchup. I have gotten pretty comftable with sketchup and I am pleased how the buildings are turning out.The second picture is the same building imported into 3D studio max with the normals corrected and the third is a screenshot of one of the city streets.

3D Character Models

I wanted to create some character models so I found a free 3d program that focuses on people. The program is called Daz 3d and it is really great to use as the basic tools are quick to learn. I downloaded some base models of a man and woman and some clothing. I then proceeded to experiment with the program trying out different techniques and poses etc. Once I got a hang of how the program worked I started making some characters for my game. I downloaded some period clothing and than customized them with different textures and layouts to give my characters the right look.

Easter Work Seven.

The final area is the temple itself. This was a lot harder to make as it is more complex. It has four entrances, one where you come from, one on the opposite end which will lead to the church and two others which will lead to other parts of the world map. As you enter the temple there are rotting corpses in the water next to the walk way, the bodies of victims of human sacrifice. The sides of the chamber has columns of rising fire coming from the water to add a super natural feel to the chamber. The fire columns were pretty hard to make but I think they look quite good, I may change them to make it more of a stream of fire rather than rising flames but that is something I may come back to if I have the time. In the centre is the alter with a bright light coming down from a black hole like portal above. There are two areas next to the temple centre ideal for combat with a large boss. The major problem at this stage is that the editor keeps on crashing, pretty much every time I open something in the generic browser. This is probably because of the scale of the level and is a problem friends on the course are also encountering.

Easter Work Six.

The next area is the entrance corridor to the tomb/temple so it needed to be very grand so I lined the sides with enormous statues of dark monks. Again getting the lighting right was a bit tricky. as the fires didn't produce enough light to show everything I wanted to be visible.

Easter Work Five.

The second section of the cave system was inspired by some of the grand sewer systems found under some of Europe's ancient cities. The trickiest bit of creating this area was getting the lighting right as the only real source of light is from the fires but I wanted enough of the area to be illuminated so you could see the architecture, giving the feeling of endlessness. I am happy with this section, the lighting on the pillar supports looks like it is reflecting off the water which I am pleased about.

Easter Work Four.

The house is grand as it is owned by the city ruler so it will have a different feeling to the rest of the city but when the player enters the caves I want them to have a completely different feel to them all together. The house and city have a very real world feeling to them I want the caves a tombs to feel epic and awe inspiring.

The only problems I came across was getting the fires the right size and the bridge mesh does not allow you to walk on it so I had to make a brush that would fit just above it so the player could cross. The other issue was the water, it was a bit tricky to get it looking good at first but I am pleased with how it has turned out as it is a key element and continues through the cave system.

Easter Work Three.

The cellar is now complete with the exception of the lighting which I am not completely sure about, I may go back and tweak it at a later stage. The cellar is not populated with a table, barrels of different sizes, sacks of grain, storage cabinets and wine/bottle racks.

After rummaging around in the dimly lit cellar the player will find a hidden passageway behind one of the cabinets.

The player will follow the corridor quite far, until they find themselves in a massive under ground chamber.

Easter Work Two.

The player will explore the house. By walking through the dining room or upstairs passage way they will find a staircase that leads to the cellar.

Easter Break Work One.

After a lot of frustration, many trips to the computer repair shop and a lot of lost time I finally got my PC ruining properly and managed to crack on with some work put a lot of hours into my level. The house is coming on well and is near completion. I have changed a few bits of the design to make it fit more with the period. I have also added more lights as before it was to dark and it was difficult to navigate and explore. It is almost furnished I just need to create some more furniture in 3D to bring in as none of the packages that the editor comes with have anything appropriate for the period. I would also like to create some suits of armour to decorate the hall.

Grrr!

As the level is getting bigger and bigger my computer and/or the graphics engine cant hack it, it is getting really slow making it almost impossible to work with. The best course of action I can think of is to divide the city into different levels, this will take some more time as I will have to split apart some of what I have already made however the end result should be that the levels will run more smoothly.

The City Governor's House.

Here is a screenshot of the interior of the Governor's house. (Still under construction.)

The basement of the house. The basement is where the storage for the house will be, so there will be wine racks, barrels, sacks of grain etc. There will also be a secret passage that will lead to the underground temple and to the church.

The Church

Here are some screen shots of the church which is practically finished.

Level Design in Unreal

I started making my level in the Unreal graphics engine. After making the walls and towers I started building them into the outer walls of the city and gatehouses.
However once I had built the walls and started creating the main buildings inside the walls like the church I found that I had got the scale completely wrong, which was very frustrating! So I saved the wall and tower separately and exported them so they could be brought back into the map at a later date and had to start again. This time I have decided to build the city's buildings first and then construct the walls and battlements around them.

Research Trip

Over the Christmas holidays I went to a Crusader era city in the south of France called Carcassone. It was brilliantly preserved and people still live within the city walls. Walking around a real city in from that period was great to give me an idea of space and small architectural details that you wouldn't notice from looking at photographs.

City in Sketchup

I have finished the city in sketchup. Sketchup is great for getting down ideas down fairly easily and enables you to see them in 3D. The hardest thing I found in Sketchup was creating curved shapes like the domes that are on some of the houses and windows but once you have created one you can easily copy and paste to quickly populate the environment with parts you need. I also did this once I made one building to quickly fill the city. In my unreal map all the buildings wont be the same and I also want to add some extra buildings like a market and a blacksmiths.