Concept: Chandelier styles

Concept: Lighting

Smart use of lighting can be key to setting the scene. Consistant lighting throughtout the map will be important. Using neon strip lighting is a subtle way of illuminating a hallway or small room. But lighting a large room such as the atrium will require a much larger light source. The center peice of the atrium will be a light hanging down into the center of the map.

This hallway looks beautiful, and its clever use of lighting in the ceiling makes the area slightly eery, while the light source is not being obvious and is hidden from plain view. I think this example is a bit to dark for what i want to create, but the technique of subtle lighting in the ceiling is a good one.

Its hard to find a good example of the exact type of achitecture, this looks to 'alien' like, but the strips along the sides provide a nice effect.

Drafts of layout to follow;

Concept: Visual style

Theres two routes i can go down with the overall visual style of the map.

  

Ulrta modern interior, similar to cruiseships of present. Lots of shiny surfaces, glass, gold fittings white and mahogany coloured surfaces. This will be alot of fun to light, but take a lot of effort texturing to pull this off effectively.

OR...

More traditional look. Much easier to texture. My ships interior wont look as bland as these interiors, lighint will be much more prominant. Hopefully i can combien the two themes. The glitz and glamour effect of the first, with the more futuristic look of the second.

The CLASSIC sci-fi ship interior, but it does show good use of lighting to combine sci-fi look with cleaner more vibrant interior. If i can reproduce this kind of look throughout the map i will be pleased. Also has a small hanging light in the middle which kind of acts as the focal point. On a lager scale this will be a idea to start from when designing the atrium.

Concept: Environment references.

Planet in the background. Makes use of a glow effect around the edges to make it look like large, but doesnt draw attention to the planet itself. Good for having the planet just lingering in the background.

 Another good example of the light around the edge. Planet probably wont be this big, but dont want the planet to overwhelm the actual ship. It should just be visible in the distance, helping reinforce to the player, that they are infact floating around in space.

Getting the effect of distant stars will be a difficult exercise. Heres a good example of the look im trying to acheive.

The distant star constlation is beatiful, and the promince of the planet is just about right, possibly a bit too much. The player will have a limited view of outside of the ship, but its still important to create a space environment which is believable.

Concept: Map Level Design Creation Guideline

This document helps ask some good questions around the setting/visuals of a level. It will prove useful to think about these, and set them out before i start work on the mod. Some section, about the story mostly, dont apply to my mod, and are more aimed at single player levels.

GAMETYPE:

- Single Player or Multiplayer?

Multiplayer

- Game Type?
DM, Capture the Flag, Assassination, Warfare, Hostage Rescue etc

TDM, DM, CTF

- What game is this map for?

 UDK

STORY:

- Story behind your map. Why are the players there? Why is the place/environment there? Write the history of your environment. What happened to the place before the player entered the environment?

- What is this map about?

- Every player at every map/level has a goal/desire/object and it is either fulfilled or denied/blocked/obstacle. Do you have this? Does it rise? This is especially important in Single Player maps.

GAMEPLAY:

- What is the objective of your map?

- Do you have a top down game play sketch?

- Will there be any puzzles? If so, what are they?

- How would the level play out? Gameplay wise?

- How would you want the player to play through your map? Visualize this. What experiences do you want the player to walk away with from your map?

- How big is the map?

- Who is your audience? Who is your player? What is your Demographic?

- How will you make the map memorable?

- Do you have basic top down view and few location concept sketches?

VISUALS:

- Is the map original? What is everyone else doing? Don't make another "everyone" map. Be original and different. How will you achieve this?

- Reference. Have you collected all the inspiration and research? What is this going to look like (proof of visual development).

- What is the time of day of the map? Season? Color? Reference.

- Feel and Atmosphere. Describe what you want to portray in terms of the feel of the map and atmosphere.

- Will exploration be rewarded? If so what will it be and in what way?

- How will you direct the player? What methods will you use? Color? Noise and Sound? Guide the player without telling them where to go. Smart design.

- What are you going to concentrate on? What do you want to learn when you are finished? What aspect of design, gameplay, fun, crazy, atmosphere?

- What is the visual trademark of your level? How will the players remember your map?

- Are the environments/locations too generic? How does their design strengthen the story?

- Custom content? Textures, Models etc. If so, what are they.

Gametype:
Multiplayer
Gamemode; TDM, DM, CTF.
What is this map for? UDK

Story:
Players are placed on a cruiseship in space. The ship is floating in Orbit of the nearby planet, Tantaari, which was suppossed to be the next destination on the tour. Players find that the ship has been deserted, and signs of a struggle remain, with burst pipes, knocked over tables, and stuff cluttering the floor. The reasons are unexplained, but suggests that there was a fight, a mutiny, or maybe an attack on the ship. There are no bodies left laying around, and the engines are still running, the ship drifitng around the planet in orbit.

Gameplay:

The object of the map is to provide a fun environment for players to play in, whether as a team in TDM/CTG or in a straight up deathmatch. The map will center around a main atrium area, and have two distinct 'ends', acting as bases for each team. I want the map to make the player feel a challenge when trying to navigate to the other base. There should be several routes into each base, but because the atrium is an open space linking to two together, passing through this area should be a danger, and encourgae the player to 'scout out' or work together to cover all angles.
The atrium should be an area that is memorable for the player, and define the map. In the center, hanging from the ceiling will be a chandelier or hanging light of somesort. As yet im undecided whether to make this a classic glass chandelier which will look quite impressive if i can get the lighting on it working well, or come up with a sci-fi looking version. Neon lights instead of glass etc. Ultimately this will be decided by what theme i use for the whole map.
As part of the concept stage, i shall be creating several top down sketches of the whole map, and more detailed sketches of specific areas.


Visuals:
Sci-fi mods are commonplace, especially within UDK maps, so i will be trying not to stay to close to sci-fi stereotypes. Combining elements of thecruiseship, such as the atrium, or the ships thrusters, will help to make this map different to others of similar theme. I want to make the player feel as though they are on a deserted ship, so small effects such as flickering lights, or scratched surfaces will help to set this atmosphere.
after collecting a few reference photos, i need to decide what type of theme i follow. I could go down two seperate routes; Ultra modern interior, white walls, glass, gold brackets etc, making it look like a futuristic titanic in a way. Or make it more conventionally sci-fi, and have grey walls, pipes, consoles, neon strip lighting in the floors etc, in keeping with traditional Unreal maps.
I think it would be wise to research a few reference phots first and get a feel for each theme, and decide which will be easiest to reproduce.

I'll be adding reference photos over the next few hours, to get a feel for the environment/location/lighting/visual style.