project week 10

Finally, I have got the most part of the leve design and I feel tired after over night. I have finished 90% of the texture but I did not set the lighting because I want to use emissive light in the dark instead of sun light, so I put the lighting to next quarter. I think I need to create my own material for the water and also I need to refine the terrain by adding some vegetation and rocks.

I have gained many experience for level design in this quater and I am looking forward to learning more about 3d character design next quarter.

 

 

project week 9

This week I was working on another level design piece. I have tried to use emissive light for night environment. Emissive light is an additional color source that is added in the final light of an object. This is only because when we want a object simulating and giving off its own light, just add emission light to get an effect on object in a scene. The effect of emissive light is pretty good, I enojoy it more than sun light.

project week 8

This week I was working on UDK of those static meshes. I have figured out how to reduce poly counts to avoid lagging.

I want to import well polished models and use a varriety of different meshes, however, it has caused a little bit lagging. Therefore, I try to replace some of the different meshes with ones I use more frequently in the level. It might not look as nice, but I can use normal map and specular map to make it look different. 


Normal maps allows me to keep my file size within my budget, while still being able to have assets that look like complex 3D models with the kind of detail I want.Using normal maps can save me a lot of time as well. With CrazyBump I can actually adjust  normals to show more or less detail from the reference image.

 

 

project week 7

This week I did another play test to get ideas from others.

For the play test section, there are 6 people who took the play test; the general feedback is positive and meaningful.

  From the demographic aspect, most people are between 20-30 years old and half of them are female.

 In terms of genre of game, most players have ever played flying game. For the game interface, most players think the interface is not bad, but it can be improved. For the level design and game environment, most players believe the environment is enjoyable but still needs to be improved. 

They have provided some suggestions about  my game environments and art style. Most players have basic understanding about Chinese architecture style, most of Them like Chinese architecture style like watching document films about Chiense traditional architecture. 

For the texture, most players expect more details to be added for the buildings. For example, the environment needs to add more vegetation and rocks, the main character needs to be well polished, the water color should be grey or dark blue. There should be  some dirts or darks spots on the surface of wall.  

 

project week 6

This week I continue to work on the texture, I have discovered new tools for the texture, such as clouds, texturizer, offset and gaussian blur.

Cloud is a  filter that is really great for adding extra texture to my work, especially for developing a nice smokey effect for the wall.

The Texturizer filter is similar to the Clouds filter, but with a few more options. There are four different types of textures – Brick, Burlap, Canvas and Sandstone. I can also adjust the scaling of the texture, the relief and the direction of the lighting.

The Offset filter is a useful little tool for shifting the position of pixels on the canvas. I will often use this filter when creating repeating patterns in Photoshop.

 

project week 5

This week I work on the tecture for the buildings. I use brushes to paint the houses as well as the fliter tool of photoshop to simulate the paint effect.

You can use filters to clean up or retouch your photos, apply special art effects that give your image the appearance of a sketch or impressionistic painting, or create unique transformations using distortions and lighting effects.

I have used different tools such as film grains, paint daubs, poster edges, sponge, accented edges etc. These tool helps me to convert a realistc image into a painted artwork.

 

project week 4

This week I have created new temple for the scene. Temples symbolize the long history and rich culture of China, and are regarded as valuable art treasures. There are many different religions in China, such as the Buddhism, Christianity and Islam introduced from other regions, as well as Taoism and Confucianism, the native-born religions. Of course, temples or houses of worship of different religions differ.

 Chinese temples are well kept cultural artifacts of every dynasty. And temple culture has influenced every aspect of Chinese people's life such as painting, calligraphy, music, sculpture, architecture, temple fairs, folk-customs and many others. The following are typical religious architectural styles in China.

The European churches often use complicated spire, arched domed roof and stained glass window to convey religious morals. Every detail of the buildings tries with intentions to express the opposite of the Promised Land in Heaven and miserable world on Earth. However, in a different way, Chinese temples want to express the concept of the integration of heaven and humanity, that is, human beings is a part of nature. Followed by this idea, many temples actively embrace themselves into nature. The building integrated with nature is exactly the embodiment of the integration of heaven and humanity. This is to explain why many Chinese temples are located in mountains and forests.

 

project week 3

This week, I have created a small water town. The water town is small but should be interesting for gamer. The water town has resident houses, hotel, restaurant, boat, bridge and fisherman house. The dragon would fly over the water town and player would be able to get the whole perspective of the town by controling the dragon.

All the streets of the town was built aside the rivers and streams, and the streets link to the bridges. There are ancient structures standing nearby the river, great scenery will be seen from those structures. The most funny thing is that the convenient transport is not vehicle but small ships.

I try to keep the buildings to be low polygon and mark them with different colors. The purpose for that is I must export them in to smal pieces and compose them again in UDK.

 

project week 2

This week, I will continue to work on the level design, I try to emulate the environment and architecture of a water town in East-Southern China.

 Zhouzhuang is one of the most famous water townships in China, situated in Kunshan City which is only 30 kilometers (18 miles) southeast of Suzhou. It is noted for its profound cultural background, the well preserved ancient residential houses, the elegant watery views and the strong local colored traditions and customs.

Zhouzhuang is surrounded and divided by lakes and rivers, 14 stone bridges cross the rivers, showing distinctive views of the water-town. Twin Bridges which comprise Shide Bridge and Yongan Bridge are the most famous and is considered the symbol of Zhouzhuang. I think this piece of environment would improve the visual enjoyment of my level design quite a lot.