Week 18: Container City Post-Mortem

After 4 weeks the Container City project is officially done, with today being the final presentation of our level. Hours before our presentation we couldn't gain access to the server where our level was but thankfully there was an easy fix and the presentation went okay and had a positive outcome. In this blog post I will try and cover my involvement with the Container City assignment.

Concepting

Like all other briefs, this project started with my group concepting. The only 2 restraints for the level was that is must feature containers and be either futuristic or dystopian (or both!), apart from that though we could design what ever level we wanted. After a few hours we all eventually settled for the idea that these containers were taken over by an ancient tribe. A ship had crashed ashore and the local tribe used the left over wreckage as their home, you'd play as one of their prisoners, trying to escape.

I began trying to put down these ideas onto paper. We wanted a rough level layout as quickly as possible so when a layout was well-liked I made a very rough block-out in 3DS Max. Looking back at it and especially after seeing some of the other levels being made I think we could have pushed the size of our level slightly. This could have given us more room to try and explain our story even if it meant more asset work.

Once we were all happy with the basic layout we all started concepting the rooms. I took the cells and also decided to have a go at the altar area too, anything to get me to draw some more. I am actually surprised by the results of my concepts but they only give an initial idea and do not really give a good sense of mood or atmosphere due to the lack of values and colour. I'd really like to try photobashing, as I am quite good at Photoshop and photo manipulation, but I think I am scared of bad results at the moment so I have put if off.

Cells Exit

Cells

Altar Entrance

Altar, looking back at the entrance

While doing this concepting we were also constantly gathering reference from the internet, here's a link to my pinterest board related to this brief.

Early Development

To make sure we could keep track of the assets we were creating I made a quick asset list, borrowing heavily from the one I used during the Film Room Project; this asset list grew a bit over the development like the previous one did. I couldn't figure out a decent way to show the texture sheets used though, as many objects shared texture space with other assets which made things confusing.

We each picked certain things to tackle, like particle effects or foliage with the modelling being divided up as there was so much to do. Below is a screenshot of some of the earlier models I made; a container had been provided so I just had to retrofit them to the other sizes and damage a version of one of them.

As a group we chose to create the building blocks of the level first, with all the filler props coming later. This way we'd have a much clearer idea of what the final level would look like and be able to adjust anything if we needed to. I used 2 1024s for all of the textures for my models, but I without a doubt think I could have optimized it much better, possibly allowing more space for more assets. 

Development

After doing the major components we all then focused on populating the level. I also had the task of creating the water material we wanted to include. At first I thought this was going to be daunting task but I found a really helpful YouTube tutorial video[1] which was simple to follow and gave great result, even if the reflections don't work correctly.

As I wasn't the person working in engine I unfortunately don't have any development shots of the level, as most of my time was spent modeling and texturing, therefore it might be hard at the moment to get an idea of what the level actually looks like. Instead here are the texture sheets I had used for the assets. The metalness and roughness had been combined in an RGB space on the right sheet, the left sheet had no metal, so instead I just used a constant in the material editor.

Towards the final days of the project I moved onto decal duty, wanting to create a variety of decals to add extra life into the world. Before this I had never created a decal but there wasn't much difference between creating a texture. All of my decals were 256px in size, yet surprisingly looked fine even when large, which really shocked me.

End Result

For half of the assignment I was unsure if we'd be able to pull this off, as our level wasn't necessarily that "modular" yet I think the final results look really good. There are obviously a few things I'd love to change or tweak but that'll have to be done another time. I'll stop typing for a bit and let the final screenshots talk for themselves.

During our presentation it was mentioned that we could have pushed the idea further and I agree, with more palettes with objects on, just left alone. The larger level size I wanted could have accommodated some of these extra story telling props. Looking at some of the interior screenshots now I do think we could have used some extra colour, as they are very orange and brown.

The next assignment is now upon us and it's become clear that this Container City project has been more of an introduction to level design, which will filter into the next brief. I won't go over the new assignment in this post but I am already quite excited for it.

References & Notes
[1] UE4 - Interior Water #1 by Pub Games