Research
Before I began doing anything for my project I did research relating to everything to do with my project as a whole. I started the research by doing the project rationale which was creating a power point presentation looking into what I wanted to focus on for this project and what I was inspired by to help me think of an idea for my project. In this power point I stated how I wanted to focus on creating an environment for my final major project, so I decided to choose different genres I wanted to focus on. I created mind maps for each genre I wanted to focus on, and I looked into the style of the environments for multiple games of each genre. I ended up deciding on focusing on the SCI-FI genre for my environment as I did the fantasy genre in my last project, so I wanted to try something more ambitious/new. The two games I focused on for the SCI-FI genre were, Prey (2017) and Dead Space. I compared both of the styles of the game as they both had different SCI-FI styles and decided to focus on the industrial SCI-FI style of Dead Space rather than the sleek modern style of PREY. I created mood boards for both of these games environments. I also looked into possible mechanics I could implement into my environment, unfortunately, I did not plan my time too effectively and I couldn’t implement these mechanics along side creating my environment. Thankfully though, I feel as if the presentation went well because I managed to get a distinction grade for it as I put my point across clearly and explained what I wanted to do for my project. After doing this I moved onto other parts of my research. For one of my research sections, I looked into the different types of levels designs that could’ve been used in my environment. These types of levels being: Alley, Hub, Island and Path. After doing this research and looking into each level type individually I decided to go with the Alley level as I wanted my environment to be somewhat linear with a secret that can be found if the player. I found this quite easy to research as I had looked into each level design in my previous project which was also an environment. Another section of research that I looked into was audio for my environment. I looked into things such as ambient sounds and used Dead Space as an example for audio. It was a lot more brief compared to my other sections of research unfortunately, as it wasn’t a main focus. Another section of research I looked into was mood boards for multiple things for my project. Different, things like mood boards for certain assets, the skybox etc. I also created a survey for each mood board I created to get feedback from my peers about what would be best for my project. The final thing I looked into for my research was different art styles in games, which is a very important part of my environment. I looked into the art style of games like borderlands (cel-shaded) and Dead Space (exaggerated realism). I ended up focusing on the exaggerated realism art style, as I thought it would fit my environment.
Design
After completing the research section of the project, my next priority was to move onto the next step of making my final major project environment, which was the design section. I began the design section of my project by creating a list focusing on what assets I hope to create for my final major project environment. I knew I wouldn’t be able to implement every single environment, but I wrote down as many as I could think of/as many as I researched to give me something to aim towards whilst working on the project. I managed to create a good amount of the assets, I even created some that weren’t even on the list. Which means I did not plan out everything as well as I could have. The next section of design I focused on was the level design of my environment. I did this by using shapes in Adobe Photoshop and creating a key for what each one represents. The first version I created was a rough design of the level showing off the corridors and rooms of the environment. It wasn’t until the cleaner version where I keyed it. Unfortunately, in the level design I wanted to create a second floor for the environment. This was way too ambitious of me which means I wasn’t able to implement it into my environment in time. The next section of design was concept art. I created two types of concept art, one was for the environment overall and the other was for some assets. I created two types of concept art, one of them was a drawing concept. The other was creating a model concept of what one of the assets may be like. I didn’t put too much time into this section as I wanted to move onto other parts of design, meaning I didn’t create concept art for every single one of the assets I wanted to create. The final section of design I focused on was creating the blockout for my environment. Thankfully, I did not have any issues at all with creating the blockout of my environment. The level design I had created was clean and easy to read which allowed me to easily map out where I want to blockout certain things in the environment. Another factor that helped me was how I had blocked out for my previous project, which gave me a good amount of experience when it came to creating the blockout for the environment. I also created placed blocks for where I was planning to place assets I wanted to make. I feel as if I planed my time efficiently for the blockout design section.
Environment Assets
After the design section, which had me planning out different assets and creating concepts for them, my next priority was to work on creating the assets for my final major project environment. When it came to creating the assets for my environment, I began working on the most important assets, these being the modular assets that I could easily repeat throughout the environment. These modular assets being things such as, walls, floors, banisters etc. I did not want the walls to be too repetitive so I created another variation of the wall, that variation having a window in it so the player exploring the environment was able to look out into the vast emptiness of space. For the texture of the walls I decided to unwrap the model allowing me to add a good amount of detail to the asset. I did struggle quite a bit with the unwrapping as I am not very experienced with creating textures for unwrapped models. The next modular asset I created two variations for was the floor. I created a normal floor for the corridors, a different one for when I think the walls and floors are getting too repetitive and a final one for when the corridor turns to the right or left. I didn’t unwrap the textures for this model as I thought it was much easier to just texture it normally, due to it being a more simplistic model compared to the walls. Although I created different variations of floor and wall, I mainly kept the banisters the same for the most part. I also created modular assets for certain rooms of the environment I planned out. These being walls and floors for the office and storage room for the containers. I also didn’t unwrap the textures for this as they were a lot more simplistic compared to the corridor walls. The final modular asset I created was pipes for the side of the corridor and the ceiling. I created three different types of pipe assets. One being the normal straight forward pipe, another being a broken straight pipe and finally a broken bent pipe. I did not texture the pipes as I thought I would just be able to use the pre-set materials/textures in the Unreal engine. I feel as if creating the modular assets went really well as I managed to create each asset in a good amount of time, allowing me to put a good amount of detail into other assets, and things in the environment. Another extremely important asset I worked on was a door model. Thankfully, I had no issues creating this model too as I had experience from working on door models from my previous environment project. However, my last environment was fantasy focused so I had to create an industrial SCI-FI version of the door for this version of the project. I did not unwrap for this model as I wanted to texture it without issue. The first non modular asset I created was a container model for the cargo area of the environment. I actually did unwrap the texture for this model as I wanted to get a bit more experience with unwrapping. I struggled quite a bit with the texturing but I managed in the end. I then moved onto creating assets for the office section of the environment, these assets being a desk a SCI-FI computer system esque thing and a chair for the desk. I did not run into any issues whilst modelling these thankfully, which allowed me to move onto the last asset I was able to make in time. This asset being, a construction sign. I ran into quite a few issues whilst modelling this, as I had never made anything triangular before in 3Ds MAX. I received help from a peer which allowed me to create the model without too many issues.
Making The Environment
The final thing I had to do for this project practically was making the actual final major project environment on the Unreal engine. I started this by blocking out the environment using geometry blocks that were provided as a thing you could select easily in the Unreal engine, helping me manage to get the blockout over and done with quickly, allowing me to focus on the more important things to do with the environment. I feel as if the blocking out went extremely well, as I explained in the design section. The next thing I moved onto was implementing the modular assets I had created. I ran into a few issues adding these models due to the fact, I did not do measurements in 3Ds MAX which means I had to resize each modular asset to fit perfectly which was very time consuming making me loose a decent amount of time. I started with the corridor walls and moved onto then moved onto the flooring and the banisters. After doing this, it was at the point where I decided I would not have time to create a second floor for this environment, and ended up scrapping the idea completely due to it being a bit too ambitious. After doing that I moved onto placing the doors in the areas I planned on placing them. I also edited created blueprints allowing me to press a certain button that would open them if I pressed it. I struggled with this as did not know much at all about blueprinting. I received a good amount of help from a peer which let me blueprint it in time. After I had done that I looked up tutorials on how to create a space skybox in my free time because I thought it would be very fitting to have in a SCI-FI spaceship environment. I had to create different versions as the tutorial was not 100% clear meaning it took a decent amount of time to finally get right. I also thought creating a glowing sun in the space skybox would add a bit more to the environment. I ended up making the sun green as I thought it was suit the gross industrial feel of the space station environment. However, I received feedback from a peer that, that was a bad idea and they suggested making the sun orange. I implemented this idea and the sun ended up looking a lot better in my environment. After doing this, I decided to add in the modular assets for the cargo area and office area of the environment. I then placed in the assets for these areas with no issue. My next priority was creating neon signs for these two rooms. I originally blueprinted the signs to be blue but received more feedback from a peer that the signs should be orange as it would suit the industrial feel of the environment, which was a good idea. I then implemented his idea and it ended up looking a lot better. I then added the pipe assets around the corridors of the environment with no issue at all thankfully. After doing this, I thought a neat touch to the environment would be one of the containers turning slowly in space which would be easily view able from one of the windows, to add to the abandoned feel of the environment. After doing this, I then added the construction signs where I felt they would be best. I then added particles in places such as broken pipes (steam) and broken doors (sparks). I then finished off the environment by editing the lighting. I tried to make the space station feel dark and dingy adding to the abandoned feel. This took multiple tries to get right as I kept receiving different critiques/feedback from multiple peers. It took a while but I did end up getting it right in the end. Overall, I’d say the creating of the environment went quite well and I managed to get a good amount of it done within the time frame however, I feel like I should’ve planned my time a bit better and been a bit less ambitious when it came to planning the environment.
Game Design 