Conclusion

This is likely to be my final entry for this blog so I decided to look back over the course of the project, summarise what I've done and how I achieved it, as well as explain things in more depth.

To start with I worked on my own with no assistance on any part.  it was incredibly tough, especially as I started late and only had a couple of days a week to work on it.  this meant I had to work very quickly, as 3D modelling and texturing can be very time consuming.

The design and concept evolved over the course of the project, from a game about chasing Dracula around Whitby, to a game where the player collects Jet artefacts whilst exploring Whitby Abbey, to a scene that tries to capture the style of a painting by Francis Jukes.

The concept art was produced to help me plan how I wanted to layout the level, as well as act as a very short storyboard for when things would happen.  I also worked on making the project logos that I needed for the submission.  With the changes in design I was worried that I would need to rename everything, which thankfully never happened.

When I knew what I was doing, I started making the whitebox assets.  The models were constructed in a way that allowed me to add detail at a later point if needed. these models remained for the most part, relatively unchanged and being used in the current build of the level.

I decided to use a few texture sheets as possible and I've managed to use only two textures.  The overall aesthetic I was aiming to achieve was inspired by Francis Jukes (provided by The British Library's asset pack) and popular videogames that use a painted style (such as World of Warcraft and Vagrant Story).  Components that make up the abbey are chunky and angular, and the textures were hand painted by myself.  The brick texture took the longest out of the texture pieces, as this would be the most visible part of the game.  The UV's for all of the models were mapped to a single texture as stated before, which probably took the most time.

It's been hard work but very rewarding.  I've learned a lot more than I thought I would during this project.  I will most likely take this project further and turn it into a more polished portfolio piece, as I quite enjoyed the visual style used.

Thank you for reading my blog.

Shadow in Whitby Video

(Video showing the environment in CryEngine)

The project video has been uploaded and can be seen above.  As with the images from the previous post, it's a bit dark in places but I think it will do for the submission.  I made sure to put all the required logos in, including the one in the bottom right corner.  The video footage itself was created using CryEngine's Track View with multiple cameras.

Next step is to upload everything.

Finally, Some Images

It's been a long time coming but I finally have some images to upload and show.  They show most of the environment that I've created.  I would love to add more detail but I need to submit my work.  Some of the images are a bit dark but you can still make out what they are.

There are a couple of images I really like that show the hand painted texture used on the building.  Hope you like them.

Last Stages

I've done all I can to the scene in CryEngine (not at home for the next week so I can't edit the build) but I can still post some blog entries from my laptop to finish up.  I can officially say that there will be no gameplay in the level, so I can't call it a game.  The level works in sandbox (editor) but didn't in pure game mode (not sure why and I didn't have time to investigate).

The way it works now is it will play a video when you start the game in the editor and then allow you to walk around and take a closer look at the assets I've made.  The video will be uploaded to YouTube later on and I'll post a link to it.

Just need to prepare other bits and pieces ready for the submission and I'll be done.