New level prototype

Generator Prop

To warm up on the highress model on the gun, I've created a new prop. It's meant to be some kind of mobile generator which can be used as a cover object.

Gun Test: Firing sequence

Gun 3D model

Here's my model of the AA gun. I'll try to the post a little test animation clip soon to show how it moves.

I made a couple of design changes, most important one is that I've opted for 2 sets of barrels instead on a single set. Main reason was that's it's more technically correct, otherwise you won't need to have 2 ammo magazines ( the 2 big cilinders at the back). Besides, the more guns, the cooler the gun !! :D

2nd major change is that I've replaced the cheesy anime 'fins'at the rear and replaced them with a radar assembly and some more support modules.

Rebel AA gun

Long time since my last blog update. Moving to another country takes some time. But now it's about time to create some new posts. Here's the first one. This is the initial concept for the main rebel AA-gun.

I'm going to create a prototype based on this concepts and I'll try to get it in UDK to see how it works when you control it.

Guns!

I've had an interesting time creating thumbnails for a couple of anti air guns. Most are based on ship's CIWS missile defense guns and the rest are inspired on some WWII flak cannons.

The left guns belong to the 'rebel'faction and the ones on the right to the 'Utopian' faction

Blog purpose update

I've changed the purpose of this blog. In the future I'll only be using it for my personal project which I'm now turning in a full game project. Interested artists, programmers or designers can always contact me if they're interested in contributing.

I've used Weebly to create a personal site with an overview of my work:
http://roelgrevendonck.weebly.com/index.html

Hidden Hangar Bay: Concept exterior

After looking back to my current work I had come to a conclusion that the scope was a bit to small and not really impressive enough.
So when I had some spare time during the last couple of weeks I designed a background which might suit the hangar bay environment and give it some more bang.

The city environment is much more clean and sophisticated looking compared to the hangar bay which was the intention. I'm playing with the idea is that you've those kind of guerilla style bases hidden in an environment that's dominated by an utopian style civilization.

Below are some picture to show the process. The concept has a dual purpose. I use it to design the environment and it also can serve as background for an impression painting to illustrate the concept of the game.

Note: The gunship is still temporary and will be replaced by a rendered model eventually.

To fit better with the background story, I think I'll relocate the hangar bay to a cave. At the moment it was located beneath the foundations of a building, but it felt a bit contrived and illogical, not to mention that it was not clear at all.

Hidden Hangar bay: New Screens

Note: screenshots taken in UDK

Hidden Hangar Bay: Components

When I work on an environment I find it always rewarding to make it component based. The components itself can be used in a flexible way, allowing for fast, intuitive changes for aesthetic and design reasons.

Besides the benefits for art and level design, a component based system is also more performance friendly and it's more economical time-wise because you've only to build a limited set of objects.

Hidden Hangar Bay: Concept Sketches

These are some of the concept sketches I've made for the environment. The greyscale version was the initial concept. However it felt to confined so I decided to get rid of the roof in order to make it feel more grand. It's meant to look like it's situated below the foundation of huge sci-fi building. That's hard to see in this setup so I'll to make and exterior shot sometime.

The wings of the plane are in the 'fold'position in the concept, but I've changed that in the 3D version, because the wings where a nice surface to walk upon.

Hidden Hangar Bay: Gunship and Environment Prototype

These are the first screenshots I made of my portfolio project: "Hidden Hangar Bay". I just had completed the plane, made a rough prototype in maya  and exported it to UDK. I'd already played around with the lights and the water. finding out how to setup the water material and more in particular the reflection proved to be challenging for a someone who's new to the unreal engine.

I like this phase of the project a lot. Because everything is so low-poly it's very easy to play around with composition and (walk) distances. I kept true to the initial concept image, with only some minor changes to make sure it all connects in a logical way and is fluent to walk through. It's always better not to get ahead of yourselves and do everything step by step. Otherwise you might wind up with a beautifully detailed scene, but then have to painstakingly fix some major problems and end up with throwing much work away that could have been avoided.

Plane mesh and textures

Poly count: 27.820 triangles

Hull normal map

Hull normal map

Main engine color map

Main Engine normal map

Specular and Emissive maps

 Here's the plane's wireframe and a selection of textures