Progress Update
I’m struggling to keep to my,
admittedly, unrealistic timetable over the past week due to life getting in the
way and working the Easter bank holidays. Regardless, I am trying to maintain a
decent level of motivation, which I’m finding hard, but I feel that I finally
have a clear(ish) idea in my mind for the assets I plan
to create for my small environment area. I want to do a bit more in game visual
research before I dive in and I’m certainly a few research posts/concept
designs away from modeling just yet but now that I am on the right track I can
keep moving forward rather than feeling like I’m hitting my head repeatedly
against a brick wall.
Uncharted 3
I am starting with another selection of
screen caps I have taken from a video walkthrough of Naughty Dog’s latest
masterpieces, Uncharted 3. Whilst this game is primarily focused within the
desert, there are a couple of chapters at the beginning of the game where Nate
and Sully find themselves in a jungle deep in France. I thought this would be
good to study for influences and inspirations for my semi
jungle/temple/mysterious environment that I’m trying to narrow down!
Here is the video that I used to take the screen shots below...
I really like the different levels of terrain, how the
rocks are mounted upwards and vegetation covers them. I also need to remember
to consider these images when doing texture studies.
I think the way the tree forms an
archway for the player is effective environment creation. It creates a frame
for the games pathway bridging the environment and the game together for the
player. 
Similarly here, the trees and rock
formations create a pathway so that the player can read the environment in
terms of gameplay and understand where they must progress to. 
More inspiration for possible monuments I could build
and how they would react to weathering within a jungle environment, how they
would deteriorate and break down and how they would appear visually. This is
also inspiration for composition and structure.
I love the way the tree roots are
hanging down over the rock cave just ahead of drake.
More visual influences for how
structures are broken, weathered and aged within a jungle environment, very
similar to that within my imagination of how structures (if any) would appear
in my environment.
Inspirations!!
As I am struggling a bit to decide on
the core assets that I want to create within my jungle-esque environment I
thought I would do some basic research into what people have already created in
3D in the hope it would inspire me. Here are some inspirational pieces of work
that I have found which I know are going to help influence and inspire me.
Firstly, I started by searching tags
such as “3D jungle assets” to see what came up. After a while I came across a
website, http://www.minifloppy.it/, which belongs to
Francesco Camarlinghi (or “minifloppy as he’s known on the
internet). On here, minifloppy shows his UDK jungle model that he has created
in the form of a video (which I think is really impressive).
I mentioned earlier that I really liked
the way that the tree roots draped down over a large rock formation in
Uncharted 3. Well, I also found another blogger from 3D artist/modeler Christine Snelling who shows a model
where some tree roots do just that. It’s really helpful to see this created as
an actual 3D model.
Another render she shows is helpful to
me as she has textured the rocky roof and showed how the moss and vegetation
would have overtaken and grown upon the tiles.
I also found artist Tom Schillinger's BlogSpot which contained a
small variety of Vietnam jungle inspired assets which I am finding really
inspiring to study. I really like the
idea of creating a bridge, and keeping in them with the idea of it being a
mysterious/magical area maybe it could be floating similar to Martin Teichmann’s floating
world project I studied earlier. I also want to have a crack at building a
tree/tree trunk. I think its really helpful to have examples of both 3D created
models photograph references so these will help me greatly.
From a basic Google image search for 3D
jungle assets I was able to find a website which offered these stock models that people could buy/download to use
within their environments. I have absolutely no intention of doing this for my
project; whats the point? But I do find them very helpful in terms of
inspiration and influences.
To finish up this long, image heavy
influence/inspirations blog post I am going to show the image I found posted
up on http://www.game-artist.net/forums/vbarticles.php?do=article&articleid=47
where
Rob Adams, a previous lead level designer at Naughty Dog, was being interviewed
and was discussing Uncharted Drakes Fortune. When asked about the challenges
faced for level design he talks about player cues, direction and hints that the
environment can give. He states that lighting, composition, mood colours,
lead-in lines and audio cues that work alongside the environment are incredibly
important.
Next, there is an image shown of a
heavily vegetated jungle environment which I found really helpful and inspiring
because it shows the model with the wire frame over the top showing how
some of the structures and formations were modelled. I think this is incredibly
helpful!
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