UGAC - Master Chamber - AndrewRaZ

#1

Title: The Tween Space
Genre: ~ Mythological, fantasy
Type: Action/Adventure, First level, training area/basic exposition and introduction

I figure I’ll try my hand at this challenge. I’d been debading doing one for a while, and this is as good as any to start on. Working on fleshing out my concept, which is not really my strength.

I'm taking a little different route and doing an outdoor interior, in the form of a cave.  I've had this idea for a while, and this is a good excuse to actually do it.

Ok, a little backstory info on this area.

This is a cave in England, undecided where exactly, probably will end up somewhere in Britain or Ireland, which serves as a small portal for a few demons to pass into the mortal plane. The portal is not very big, nor is it “deep,” meaning it doesn’t tunnel deep into the otherworld plane, so only creatures with a strong attachment to the mortal plane can use it, or creatures of substantial power. In ancient times, it was discovered by humans, and was used as a ritual space and sacrificial altar, but it has long since been lost to humans, and that which was there is now in disarray and crumbling. One corner of the cave has caved in to the ground above, and a tree has been growing down over the years toward a small spring in the walls of the cave–little more than a trickle–and provides a source of light which illuminates the altar space during certain times of the year.

The portal itself is ancient, though it is not the oldest portal on earth. Only the Elder demons know how and when they were created, and were around at that time. Only the Elders, and a few other upper-level demons, also have the power to create or destroy these portals, though these demons are so powerful, they can create individual portals at will, so they don’t bother with fixed rifts. Fixed rifts also have a tendency to grow over time, much like a black hole (the concept is similar), so leaving them in place too long (i.e. more than 10,000 years) is generally a bad idea. The portal in the abbey was covered up by the abbey’s main window, and over time, the cult rituals devoted to the portal were abstracted, and the original knowlege of what lay behind it was lost. After it was abandoned, however, the growth of the portal shattered the window, and the physical manifestation of the portal is spreading out into the physical plane.

edit: changing the concept more to be a bit of an Irish/Scottish abbey type structure underground, not many of which still survive.

One of the characters I have been working on, Nilia, uses this portal when she needs to go back and forth between realms. Because she was born on Earth, she has a strong attachment to the physical plane, and so is able to use the portal easily. Nilia is a third-generation demon, and is fairly low on the demon power heirarchy, both in terms of authority and supernatural powers.

If you want to read more of the notes I’ve written on this project and characters, you can do so on my website here, but it is not necessary to this environment.

#2

couple fast concepts based on a mockup from maya.

main area:

portal gateway:

#3

Cool! You could do a lot with the lighting in this and take it in a couple different directions (demonic cave, goblins, sanctuary, etc.)

#4

alright, i did a couple other mockups in zbrush on the door, which is really pretty much the focal point of the area.

i’m not very good at coming up with my own ideas, at least in the visual sense. i can write stuff, but that doesn’t help from an artist standpoint. to that end, i’ve got some references i’ve been using, and i’m trying not to blatently rip them off.
one image from some doom website, and another from Joe Mad! which i like a lot, and would love to make, but i need something a little more original, and something smaller.

based on an italian door. i was originally thinking of a skull, and the mouth would be the door, but this is really nothing like it. looks too much like a freaky clown. bleh.

i like this idea a little better, but it still needs some work.

i’m thinking either a cross between the one directly above and the one from the previous post, or maybe the original skull type idea. i’m going to need to explore that one a little more though.

#5

Well, here’s the skull doorway I had in mind. I’m sure i’m ripping this off from someone else, because it doesn’t seem a terribly original idea. I think of all of these, the ones that are less face-ish are going to work better. The skull would have to be darned big–the mouth opening where the actual doorway is would have to be a good 15 feet high, making the whole thing 60 feet, which is a huge cave, and this cave isn’t that big. I think I’m going to go back to some of the original more door-like ideas.

For reference, yes, I did consider the old floor-based portal, where they appear in a flash of fire and runes and all that, but this portal is for creatures that don’t have the power to create their own portals like that, and have to use fixed rifts.

#6

hey RaZ, nice to see that you decided to go through with participating in this challenge. Look forward to seeing what you’ve got in store for this project!

#7

Ok, spent the day doing research on subject matter, reference material, and texture and style refs, as well as a little bit of modeling and texturing. Only started some tileable textures, right now at 512, but will probably be scaled down to 256 before I’m done.

As I’ve been researching, I’ve realized that an abbey style structure underground (they were uncommon, but existed in some places, especially under persecution) is going to serve my purpose a bit better, and that i’m going to need a longer straight section, similar to the longhouse style to pull this off. Thankfully, this will be a lot of tilable textures, so I can tile and layer things. This is the first full environment I’ve done on my own, and the first on I’ve done in almost two years (wow!).

anyways, two textures i came up with today. viewport grab to show dx8 shader with bump. not fond of the first one, yet, but the second came out pretty well, if a tad obvious in the tiling.

edit: clarification: using greyscale bump maps, to save a few precious bytes in texture space by avoiding the extra two color channels. can always convert later.

#8

yeah, that second texture looks pretty good. Not sure if the tiling effect is that bad, I think you need to actually look for it at first. Regardless, it’s up to you if you want to tweak it.

#9

ok, i think i’ve arrived at a layout/composition i can be happy with.

i decided to incorporate the portal into the abbey itself, where they covered it up with a big stained glass window, which caused them to forget about the portal behind it for hundreds of years. then, when it was later abandoned (many abbeys were toward the 17-18th century, when a lot of smaller domains were conquered by larger lords), the abbey fell into disrepair, and, like most abbeys, the window shattered, though this was as much a result of the portal growing over time as it was the building collapsing.

the tree has been done away with, and i’m replacing that ‘grown in’ aspect with the portal itself, as it literally grows in size and power, spreading open like a dark flower or something.

color-wise, i was stuck between a pale beige/white limestone, more grey limestones, or more sand colored limestones. since the grey tiled section turned out better, and because it’s more interesting than the white limestone, i’m going with that kind of a scheme.

this is a pretty small abbey, but it’s not tiny, and it’s much more elaborate than the underground abbeys that remain today.

now on to some actual modeling

#10

ok, more work, blah blah. blocking stuff out, blah blah, modeling blah blah, refining, blah blah.

blah blah, bitchy comment, dick joke. not worried about poly counts yet; they’re pretty low right now. that’ll change, i’m sure.

and a window! 300 even, 2:1 texture size ratio.

#11

a view of what’s progressed so far. i’m going a little slowly, since i’m too much of a damn perfectionist to do things and leave them alone. i’m actually pretty much done with most of the architectural elements. from here, it’s adding a few details, making debris, instancing and arranging, and of course, lighting and texturing.

views from the front and from the back. still a few placeholder objects left i need to replace.

anyone have any idea what to do with those pews? the idea is that this is a small church, more of a cult temple, and there is another actual church above ground nearby. from what my research, i’ve read they had seats and pews, but there’s not much description of what they were made of or looked like. i could go with wood, though that would have degraded over the years (might be interesting to make though), or stone, which could still be in some usable form.

amazingly, this entire thing is only 11,000 polys right now. i’m actually having to scratch my head to figure out what else to add.

#12

Looking good so far, RaZ. My idea in terms of props would be to check out how a church is set up. Things you could have on the walls could be akin to stained-glass windows, maybe even use them as viewing portals to see what’s going on in the other world. Other things might include ceremonial staffs, holy books, offerings, and even statues, depending on how far you want to take this.

#13

Been a while since I updated; I’ve been juggling this and duties for our mod project (unrelated) which is going alpha soon, so we’re hitting the crunch. Anyways, I’ve started texturing things, although some are unedited non-square photos at the moment.

Portal needs to be finished, though it’s really barely even started.

#14

Are you going to be able to complete this by the deadline of August 17th? If not, there is a vote in the Rules thread about extending the deadline by a week if it will help you complete this!

#15

well, i’m definitely not going to finish everything i had intended to do for this, but i’ll get the majority of it. i’m down to the wire, obviously. the need for uv adjustments are pretty obvious. had to do a lot of optimizing and tiling to stay within the texture requirements, and i don’t even know where i stand on it right now. will clean up the lose ends tomorrow and do the lighting and rendering, and post the results. don’t think i’m going to take this comp by storm like i hoped, but i just didn’t have the time with the mod.

in any case, here’s where it stands so far, so far from finished.

#16

well shoot, i thought this thing went until friday, not thursday. so it looks like i’m out of luck and time. phooey.

#17

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.