I’ve made a couple of signs for my recent level Styx and as the number of letters grew I decided to make a file with the entire alphabet. With this I can easily create new signs if I need more. I decided to release this as I’m sure more people can use this for creating low poly game text or logos. A preview render and in-game shots are shown below. The .rar includes the following files:
Saving texture memory and time
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Styx being such a huge level as it is I need to cut corners where ever I can and still try and keep a consistent quality level. I have so many props in the level already with decent materials on them that now whenever I need a unique asset I try to build it with the material from assets already in the scene. This way I don’t have to spent time creating too many new materials (which saves me precious time I’m short of already) and it also means I don’t need to load any new materials in the level.
Recently I’ve been working on the central area of the level which is basically a huge U-turn with the street level below for vehicles and an elevated train station on top where the central spawn is. For this I had to make a number of unique assets and since I already used the elevator doors in the area I decided to use it’s material for other assets to use. This is just one example, I have a few materials returning to different assets just as I did with this one. For those of you building huge levels I can’t stress enough to do things like this because in the end people will never be able to tell you used the same material on some assets that players pass by in a split second during an action battle, focus more on the big picture! In this case, releasing Off Limits asap!
1st image is the elevator door material.
2nd image shows the asset it was made for originally.
3rd image shows folding doors which have breakable glass in them for my subway train station entrance.
4th image I used it again for a bigger asset which is a shelter placed on the subway platform. For this I used two other materials included already in the scene as well so again no new texture memory was added to the scene.
5th image is a single shelter used to mount on walls. I used them again the buildings you exit the train station from on both sides on the upper levels of the train station.
Here are some other assets I updated and made recently:
1st image shows the new exterior of the subway trains. I mainly updated the material for it. Now it has two colors, red and blue, which I use on each side of the level to indicate what side of the level your on. I also updated a few things on the model such as making an LOD model (level of detail), as it is quite a heavy asset that you see pretty much all the time within the level.
2nd image shows the updated interior of the subway trains. Before I had a different style of seats which looked bad and also didn’t work well for gameplay. I also updated the collision to improve the flow within the trains for gameplay reasons.
3rd image is an updated prop LOOM made a few years ago. What I updated on those are the gates which didn’t work on the old version and I also updated the UV layout so that the ticket scanner was only viewable from one side.
4th image shows the pillars I made for the train station underpass.
In-game shots of these assets will follow shortly!
Elevator assets
Elevator assets for Styx
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I’ve been very busy with creating lots of new custom assets for my Off Limits level called Styx. The one I finished today is for all the elevators throughout the level. For this I made multiple variations for optimal usage. Also as some game play will take place inside the elevator shafts I had to add one with an open hatch and a roof detailed model with steel cables. Below you can see some 3DSmax viewport shots and some ingame shots.
I’ll be posting more finished assets shortly as the areas I’m working on progress.
Mirror's Edge before and after
Mirror’s Edge before and after
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I found some old shots of Mirror’s Edge I took at the time I joined the team over at DICE. The shots are of the New Eden mall level and it shows how construction of a Mirror’s Edge level initially took place. As I started work on this level it consisted mostly of blocked out BSP elements. One of the first things I made when starting on Mirror’s Edge was the elevated bridge model for this section and the catwalk system below it. The blocked out version was made by the level designer and had a roughly working game play and was of great help to compose certain views in certain areas. For instance it was important in the Mall level to see the end goal throughout the entire level which was the red Ne (New Eden) Mall logo, this logo is visible in almost every section of the level and guides the player in the correct direction at all times.
The first shot shows the elevated bridge at the very start of the level. The original plan was to have a highway on the bottom level with passing traffic to dodge as you try to get across and trains on the top tier. This got switched around and the trains made it to the lower section and the highway which you never see on top got moved to the upper part. This was changed due to time restrictions. The final section now has you dodging trains and also seeking cover from a squad helicopter chasing you down the tracks.
The second image shows the street level filled with cops making it impossible to break through their line of defense. For this we needed to have the area around the cops open so that the player had no cover and couldn’t cross them on the street level. This forced the player up onto the elevated bridge. We also had voice overs and other subtle hints showing the player that the route to take was the elevated bridge and not the street level, and for players using the runner-vision it was made even more easy as you just had to follow the red objects.
The next image brings us closer to the end of the level inside the actual mall. This is taken inside the first section. The interior of the New Eden mall turned out to be a huge challenge to create as it was very heavy on performance and game play. In the end I ended up loading section 1 separate from section 2 to bring down the memory as much as possible and making huge clusters of all objects to bring down the draw calls. Also because of the complex geometry within the mall there were lots of BSP seams visible which deteriorated the slick look inside the mall. I fixed a lot of those by removing all BSP inside the main walls making both sections basically empty cubes and modeling all the floor sections which were BSP before. I wasn’t able to fix all seams within the mall and as some might have noticed it was a problem in all levels we tried to diminish as much as possible.
The last shot shows the final section of the level where the idea was to have a glass construction on top of the ceiling where in the end the player had to jump over and do some moves across the ceiling construction in order to finish the level. After multiple design phases I found an ideal glass structure that fulfilled everyone’s needs. I then created the final model which has glass cylinders dangling below as light fixtures which break when shot upon. This all blended in nicely in the final battle of this level as we wanted an epic ending.
Working on Mirror’s Edge was a huge challenge to undertake with the tight schedule we were on, but I met some great people during the development and I gained a lot of experience from it. With this I hope you get a small glimpse of how the development took place in some areas of the game.
You can check out more screenshots and the Mirror’s Edge launch trailer in my projects section.
New site design
New site design
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Finally finished a new site design which is simple and to the point. With this new design I also took the time to update my projects page. The new site is more about the full project and less about single assets, which is why you wont find any prop or texture examples anymore.
On the projects page only Mirror’s Edge is 100% final. Because Off Limits and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are still in development I can’t show much on those titles yet except the videos that are posted. I also want to thank David Shearer for doing my About picture, which wouldn’t have looked as cool without his mad drawing skills!
For those who want to know what I used to construct this site:
More updates to the site will follow once I’m a bit further down the line with the Off Limits development.
Russia work in progress video
Russia work in progress video
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A conversation on MSN lead me to this recording, thought I’d make it into a quick video for those who are interested in seeing some development work being done on Off Limits. It’s a 45min time laps of me working on one of the final sections for Russia compressed in this 8min video. At the end you can see how the area turned out ingame.
