Modelling

Modelling and texturing the Island

Modelling and texturing the Factory

Modelling and texturing the Bunker

Modelling the Characters

The characters took longer than I expected to do as of not having any character modelling experience lots of tutorials had been used to create the end designs.



This Screecher Model was created using box modelling starting with a subdivided cube and shaped using tools such as extruding, loop cutting and proportional editing to receive the end shape of the model.



These other designs were spine modelled by starting with a plane and mirror modified across to then create one side of the face to save time and give accurate results I had no difficulties using this method although it was very time consuming to manually move vertices's, edges and faces into the right position.

Final Renders

Tutorials/Materials/Software Used

Tutorials Used

Corridor Scene/Game Trailer:

Tutorials used
http://www.vimeo.com/9853432
by Andrew Price

Materials used
cgtextures.com - Textures used for the corridor scene

Modelling:

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/character-modeling-in-blender-basix/


Characters:

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/character-modeling-in-blender-basix/
http://www.blendercookie.com/2009/11/14/model-male-base-mesh/


Environments:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhLuA5kpn2Y

Rigging:



Texturing:

CGTextures was used for all the textures used throughout my project ideas. The tutorials were also used from this site to enable me to be able to blend to textures together before then applying to Blender.

Lighting and Rendering:

http://home.elka.pw.edu.pl/~mskrajno/tutorials/lighting/general/General.html
http://yafaray.org/documentation/userguide
http://www.blendercookie.com/category/all/tutorials/rendering/

Software Used

Blender 2.49 and 2.5 aplha versions

Blender 2.49 was used for the modelling
Blender 2.5 was used for rigging as the rigging tutorials prefered using the alpha build as the new Blender has a more acurante auto weighting function for easy rigging. This took a while to learn mainly because the interface has completly canges than to the old versions and had to learn to adapt to the new version.

Yafaray

This software took a while to learn to get to grips with but as I was using it for multiple projects I soon got to grips with it and learned quite a bit about lighting and enhancing renders.

Microsoft Project

This was used for the creation of my Gantt Chart

Photoshop

Used for merging textures

Vehicles

Heads Up Display First Person Design

This is an idea of how the game will look with a basic HUD using as little display icons to give the viewer a clearer more realistic looking screen. In the top left is the current battery power of the torch, the bottom left are the online players currently playing in coop and will display a voice bubble when an online player is communicating online in game chat. Finally the bottom right will be the amount of ammo the player currently has for the particular weapon they are currently using. there would be more interactive display icons with in the game when interacting wether it be opening door or healing a player with a health pack only appearing when close to a door or player for example.

Logo Designs

Enemy Designs - Military

This is a model being used as the russians to help demonstrate the gameplay.

Pyro



The pyro uses a flamethrower its primary weapon and has very heavy bullet proof armor with two high powered lights they are the soldiers that are the prepared defense of the russian soldiers built for repelling the Screechers. The two lights are used to defend against the monsters and to blind players especially those currently using night vision.

Animating

Appending in Blender allows me to be able to import a mesh and armature into a scene ready for animating. I did this by opening a scene click file>append then located the rigged character file and opened the object folder in there and shift selected the mesh and armature and clicked append.

The character was modeled by using keyframing in pose mode to create the move ment of the model using the I key to insert a keyframe applying the location and the rotation of the bones.

Rigging

Rigging the Screecher



Added an armature and sudivided and positioned into place using B-Bone mode to create segments in the neck and spine bones to produce a much more flexable bone to give realistic movement.



After adding an arm I selected the shoulder bone and then shift selected the top of the spine and parented the two together using control + P and kept the offset.

Duplicated the lower spine bone and parented to the original keeping the offset, the selected the upper spine and shift selected to the duplicated bone and parented but this time connected rather than offset. I also selected the upper spine bone and in the bones options unticked the inherit rotation so to allow more movement around the characters waist.

Then I parented the thigh to the lower spine using shift select and control + P keeping the offset. This method allows bones that are connected to move simultaniously in their relative position without having to be actually connected to one another (linked).



Selected the arm and leg duplicated them using shift + D then changed the pivotpoint to the 3D cursor and scaled the duplicted armatures on the x axis by -1 which then mirrored over the selected armature.

Selected the mesh and shift selected the armature then used Ctrl + P to parent the two together, using "with automatic weights". In pose mode the armature now controls the mesh but had a slight error with the eyes as when the head bone moved vertices started stretching from the eyes. Fixing this error could not be easier after selecting the head bone I then selected the mesh and went to weight paint mode where I could then add the vertices to the head bone by painting them.



Rigging the human mesh

Exterior Designs

Abandoned Military Factory



This is the abandoned military factory one of the locations that the player will encounter through out the campaign of the game.

Island



Island design.

Textures used from cgtextures.com
Rendered Using Yafaray with Blender

Interior Designs

This is inside an underground bunker in the abandoned military base where the screechers are more commonly encountered here players will have to use the use of very little lighting movining between flickering lights and by defending themselves with their torches.

Game Ideas/Mechanics

Team Leader Idea

The team leader will be randomly assigned from the start of the game. If other players are unhappy or just wish to switch team leader there will be an option to vote in a new team leader randomly assigning to one of the other 3 players.

The team leader has the power to choose the teams (if they want to split up to take alternative routes). This method may make obstacles easier to overcome by each team helping one another out from different vantage points. The leader can also choose to keep the team together at checkpoints where they have the option to choose. This could put the team much more at risk as they may be more vulnerable to partially sighting one another if they lack in communication when switching between night vision and torches. There may also be less opportunities to ambush and set traps to make the other factions to eliminate one another. This method can be more effective when healing one another as there will be more players to help give cover in close combat.

Puzzle Based Game play

This will be Puzzle based in terms of the different tools of visually seeing with different gadgets. For example it might be easier to see with night vision in areas where as harder without. However with the torch this can make Screechers flee due to there sensitivity in light and can blind them but also can make it easier for enemy military to detect the players. The environment will also work against the player sometimes as there might be a lot of fire and smoke making it hard to use any gadgets but also put the players at risk of getting attacked from Screechers. Players will have to think about tactics like covering one another with torches to progress and avoid being attacked. Switching tactics around will ultimately help the players to progress. If one player shines a torch into a player using night vision it will blind that player temporarily so communication is key to avoid partially sighting your partner.

Test Renders

These two images above were created in November 2009 when I started to test lighting within scenes.

Corridor Scene Video - Light Test






Island Ideas Tests
1.

2.


These were some early on test renders for my Island design.