References for Chinese Street

Free Time, More Ideas

Now that I have finished my portfolio and successfully received my BS, I have a lot of free time between applying for work and fine tuning my levels every now and again.  I was watching a movie that really struck a level designing nerve, and it came from a most unexpected source.  The movie in question was Ip Man, a sort of over glorified true story of the man that was to become the master of martial arts legend Bruce Lee.

The scene in question is a simple on indeed, although I can't seem to find a still shot of it I have it saved to my instant queue on netflix and I will be using that as a reference.  A simple road that leads to what the movie calls the "Martial Arts District," a sort of culdesac tucked into a simple farming type village in sub rural China.  Here all of the schools practice in a sort of school circle to show case each others techniques and practices.  The singular road leading to this area is littered with sings and small stores so close together that it would be difficult to discern where one starts and the other ends.

My idea is to use that very vivid scene and many other references of Chinese and other oriental architecture and recreate a sort of small bustling town.  The difference with this project and the other ones that I have done for my portfolio is that I will be building the meshes and creating the textures for this one.  I feel that I have neglected my 3d Max program for long enough and I find it is time to get back into the groove of modeling as well as level designing.  I'll post images as references in the days to come and post my progress slowly.

Demo Reel on YouTube!

So I finally got it done and I decided to grab what I felt was the best portion of my demo reel and cut it out to post it on that magical little site called YouTube.  I am not sure how many people will stumble on it but I intend to put it in as many site as I can to get my name out there.

For those of you that follow me here this is the link here, please don't hesitate to spread it to as many people as you know.  Even if you think they aren't interested they might know someone who is and that is good enough for me.  Thanks!

After a long hiatus...

Although there hasn't been a post in a long time I do want it to be known that I have been really busy with the portfolio and that when it is finished I have every intention of showing it off.  If I like it enough I might just throw it on YouTube...

The remake of an older level...

Here I have a couple of images from the level created using Nuclei's models.  I have peppered in a couple of ones from UDK just to make it a little better.  It seemed too empty without it and sadly I wasn't given enough meshes to populate the level well enough.

This level is supposed to be a 2d plat-former with a slap-stick sort of feel.  The idea is that you are some sort of creature that is constantly looking for food in the gross underbelly of restaurants.

The character, called "Fred," has the ability to hook on to certain objects in the environment.  This will be used to avoid hazardous areas and traverse areas that might be too difficult to do so with the puzzle mechanics.

Apart from the couple of enemies that you will see throughout the demo you will have environmental hazards to overcome.

Because of your small stature you will be able to jump over, and sometimes go under, all sort of objects in the game.  This allows the player to choose the best way to arrive at the end of the level.

Smaller crates can be picked up to create platform to clear areas that you won't be able to with just your jumping ability.

Later in the level more traps will be placed in order to stop your progress, I wanted to give the feeling that the enemies are starting to feel your presence in their level and are making it more difficult for you to escape.

Small details, like this steak that was used as target practice, are scattered throughout the world to make for a fun yet challenging game.

Certain background objects are pretty disgusting, like this buffet table...

...or this room where all of the bio-waste of the restaurant is dumped.

Using a vent to escape the area, you will use your natural glowing ability to see the path before you.

New Direction...even less time for it.

So...for reasons that I cannot control my demo reel will be changing greatly, but perhaps this is for the best. I will be posting images of 3 different types of levels created within the UDK Engine. One of these level will be a 3d environment made entirely from the meshes provided to me by Unreal. The other ones I will talk about more and more as I get closer to getting that packages that I require to finish them. To my understanding there is a company that is willing to help me for reciprocating said company with level designs.

After Evolve

After getting back from the Evolve conference I started to work on texturing at least one asset to get the idea of what I want the look to be, this is what I have so far:



I want there to be a sense of realism but still keep it stylized enough that it allows me to create small exagerations for the sake of interest.