BA3b, Asset / Indie Dev, Week 1

FIRSTLY

Let's take a peek at the assessment requirements for the project:

I plan to spend week one searching for inspiration and hope to begin to define my project idea.

I'm currently thinking of creating a hard surface environment, something completely different to my last project; which involved only organic modelling. I'd like to create something with bright contrasting colours, possibly in a cell shaded or comic book style.

Artists to research:

Hang Dong

Li Shuangyue

Wang Ning

Guan Jian - Masterkey

Cai Zhichao - Trylea

Geng Fei - Fei

Possible environment ideas:

60s style diner

Small castle
Treehouse
Brothel
Castle
Labyrinth
Study
Apothecary
Magician's Storage
Delicatessen
Crystalline forest
Secular Congregation Hall

Laboratory
Obelisk
Dungeon
Tekkonkinkreet Style Street

The colourful, dense environments of Tekkonkinkreet could be a great inspiration if I choose to create an outside/exterior scene. This would easily be self contained due to the sheer density of buildings in Tekkonkinkreet's Japanese style streets.

One designer, Orlando Velasquez, has already attempted this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypxX3Q4g3ao

In comparison to Velasquez' environment, mine would be fully textured with a skybox and complex lighting.

This style of dense habitat features in many video games, animations and films; a world of resources for artistic inspiration. Obviously even the most extravagant of these environments are somehow grounded in reality, so I would be able to find real life reference imagery for less stylised assets.

Gravity Rush 2

Borderlands 2: Sanctuary

Japanese Alleyways

Piss Alley Tokyo

The Longest Journey Dreamfall Chapters

I started blocking out a potential alleyway composition in Maya. I think having a curved alleyway would enable me to create much more interesting compositions, without having to fill the space in the distance.

What objects could my alleyway scene contain:

Corrugated Metal
Graffiti
Weeds
Signs
Bins
Rubbish
WIRES
Pipes
Metal Bars
Electric Box
Windows
Brickwork
Concrete
Tarmac
Floor Grates
Boxes
Lanterns
Dirt
Lamp Posts
Sign Posts
Vending Machines
Gumball Machines

I think it's most important that I get the materials I need to create in Substance Designer finished quickly:

Metal
Corrugated Metal
Tarmac
Brickwork
Concrete

Though it would be good to model several assets to start building my scene in UE4 asap also.

I'm going to need to establish the level of detail that I would like my environment to feature, i.e photo-real, stylised, cell shaded etc.

Producing a stylised environment would enable me to spend far less time on creating the meshes and textures for individual assets, though a photo-real environment would be more challenging to create, meaning I would learn far more in the process.

Settling somewhere between these two options could be a good idea.

I'd like to have the bulk of my assets ready by the halfway point of this project (week 6 out of 12) so I will have plenty of time to build my scene, work on post processing and lighting etc. I know that sounds insane but it might inspire me to work double-time, saving myself from the stress I usually experience toward the end of a project.

Dat cat game:
https://hk-devblog.com/