Week 3: Starting modelling

This week has been productive for the team. We are now beginning to work in 3D for the ‘Off the Map’ project and the level is taking off.

Freddy completed the final concept for our level. This was a terrific milestone for the team and we are all grateful for Freddy’s hard work. Subsequently, the concept would give us a style guide to work off of. Most importantly, the concept would be a sanity check for when we run into errors.

Final level design

The level design concept shows a fascinating transition from sepia tones to stylized models which would be exciting to explore in 3D.

Braden was able to benefit from Freddy’s concept, this week devoting his time to modelling assets in the style and completing the basic User interface blueprint for the main menu. It still needs work until it is complete, nonetheless it is a terrific start.

House model by Braden

Similarly, Braden finished this Leaf pile concept. it is cute and quirky and fitting to the style. As you may see, Braden wanted to incorporate cats into the final design of the leaf pile. It is purr-fect!

Cat pile concepts

Afterwards, Braden modelled all of the assets that were tasked of him by the team. Of these assets, this included the houses in our level. Among taking influence from the level style, Braden also took significant inspiration from the ‘Strawberry Hill Gothic’ art style. Our lecturer Jack influenced Braden to use this style and Braden did a great job of exploring it through his 3D models.

Now that Braden has completed his assets, next week he will unwrap them for texturing.

Luke also spent this week unwrapping. Although he felt ill last week, he was determined to work hard in order to support them team. He did an excellent job this week by modelling a number of assets for our level. This included; the chandelier, picture frames, lily pad, Victorian globe and the fireplace. He used a number of references to model these assets, nevertheless, the assets’ style adheres to the level style. Thus proving Luke’s hard work has certainly paid off.

Denzil had a slight muddle up with the level style. He had assumed that the team was using one source of inspiration for the level. As it turned out. Freddy and Amber were using multiple sources of inspiration as they were creating their own style. Understanding that this process required time and concentration, Denzil refrained from staying idle and made himself useful by creating this paper town project, as a backup idea for the team. Denzil took considerable amount of inspiration from Lionshead studios’ Ink-Quest’ and the results are brilliant- Keep up the good work.

Denzil's paper town

Dan also got to work on the designs for Alice this week. After finding out that the character would be based on the original Alice in Wonderland, Alice Liddell- Dan used this week to continue to concept. He generated quick line drawn concepts to identify form and shape without getting bogged down by detail.

Following this, he photo-bashed a number of designs which eventually led to the clothing concepts. In his designs, Dan explored the different styles that Alice could have. Among showing Dan’s though process, the concepts also demonstrate how much the dress has an influence on the overall design of Alice.

Dan's Alice concepts

He has done a great job and after it was completed, Dan created this refined concept to nail the design of Alice.

Number 4 is the strongest design, however Dan will try to incorporate aspects from all concepts. Of course, he can always come back to these concepts later, but for now, he has a strong basis to start modelling from. Fantastic job Dan!

To conclude the team’s work, Amber created a spreadsheet to-do list for the team to work off of. Additionally, Amber began to rework the block out the basic forms of our level and then export them into Unreal Engine 4.

Of course, Amber needs to make a few tweaks to the assets in engine, in order to fit the concept. Similarly, everything will need to be scaled to Alice and her mechanics. Nonetheless, we are grateful 

 for Amber’s hard work as it means we can start to see our level being put together, which is nothing but exciting.

So there you have it, this week has been fascinating and productive. Hopefully, next week should be promising.