XB2002 - Spaceship Interior

After creating the assets from the texture sheet all I had to then do was import them and arange them around to fit nicely and add lights.

I really enjoyed creating the scene within udk as everything snapped nicely to the grid and it was very quick and easy to create. However there were some complications, such as the assets needing rescaling once they were all imported and then they were off the grid afterwards. Additionally I really hadn't thought out the corner pieces properly as they really should've bent around the corners, linking the 2 wall panels together, rather than just boxes sitting there.

XB2178 - Tank Finished (Again) and Commander Modeled

 After a while I came back to the tank to redo little bits and pieces such as adding lights at the front and reshaping the turret a little bit, just to try and make the turret seem like a whole. Additionally I added little bits and bobs and bags to make the tank look a little more used to give it a bit more character. Chances are I'll return to it and edit it a little bit more, hence why I'm leaving texturing for as late as possible so I don't have to retexture anything.

I've also been upload models to www.p3d.in which is a pretty cool site for uploading 3d models so that people can preview them.The tank model can be found here and I'm quite happy with how it is presented.

Furthermore I've also begun modeling the crew beginning with the tank commander, for which I looked at stern strict veterans and of course imperial guard commissars as I knew that I wanted them to have a large hat emphasising their power but also a large coat just to look cool, though I'm sure it can get really warm inside the steel belly of a tank. The model can be seen here.

At the time or writing this post and looking back at the model he does seam to come across as a wizard or something which is something I feel I will have to change. As I intend to rig the model and have them posing I didn't stop to worry about how the semi-buttoned coat went, I was just happy that it was out of the way whilst modeling the legs.

XB2178 - Tank Modelled (hopefully)

I believe that my tank model is complete that I can them hopefully put it aside as being done so I can focus on other things such as texturing as well as modeling and texturing the crew as well which will probably take longer to do.

I'm really happy with how well it has turned out although I'm still a little undecided on the radar dish thing. It really was only placed since it was a recurring feature in anti-air tanks and I thought it would make sense for it to be there despite the fact that it really doesn't fit in with the silhouette.

 
I think I might just plough onwards though really since I've still to do the crew and the scene with some basic animation work too.

Regardless I'm quite happy with the transitions between my tank designs and I really feel that it has come along really well and I can't wait to texture it.

XB2002 - Spaceship Interiors Created

Upon deciding what I wanted my ship to look I then set upon creating the texture sheet I was going to create my modular assets with. For this I looked a range of sources such as ship interiors from Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica to give my spaceship a very industrial look and feel to it.

From this texture sheet I have a door, 3 lower wall components, along with 3 main wall and higher wall components, as well as a corner piece, a wall light component and finally 2 roof components, one with a light and one without.

3D modular assets ready to be exported into udk

I was very happy with how my assets turned out and was very excited to export them into udk and get creating my ship. Sadly however there were some issues with certain faces not being present on some assets whilst others had a completely broken pivot that was miles away from the actual object. It appeared that udk doesn't like planes for some reason so I had to add a bit of thickness to all of my assets and I then just moved the pivots myself using the grid within udk so that everything snapped together nicely.

Simple corridor in editor

I was very happy with the way the corridor came out, however when I preview it everything is quite big so I think I shall scale everything down once I've pieced everything together. Additionally I may have to rethink my corner piece as I think currently it might be a little thin to act properly as a corner piece but I guess we shall just have to see.

XB2001 - Solo Game Development

Since Christmas we have been given the task of creating a game on udk that works, is fun to play and also shows good use of kismet, therefore I do not need to worry about the game looking pretty or anything.

Initially I found it quite challenging as udk was a completely new and alien program to me and even the navigation keys were different and took some getting used to.

My initial idea for a game was that you played a regular person, going about your daily routine in a city environment and there was a zombie outbreak, since to this date I have never played a game where the zombie apocalypse has just started and there's a massive wave of panic over the populace as everyone's racing around, doing different things, some are bunkering down, others are panicking and trying to leave the area and I thought it would be an interesting game concept.

Although that's all it kinda was, the idea had no real gameplay in it, and I had no idea how to develop the idea further, so I abandoned it for a simpler idea. My other idea was something along the lines of Jetpack Joyride or Temple Run, where players were constantly moving and had to move around obstacles and avoid death whilst traveling as far as possible on a procedurally generated level. This was a simple enough idea which would also offer me plenty of opportunity to you kismet for creating moving platforms etc to make the game more difficult, although after a while it became clear I would need to be fairly skilled at coding to do this so I then opted to go for a level possibly with checkpoints.

The idea of the game is that the player must jump from pillar to pillar very quickly or else they'd fall off and die whilst the main objective is to reach the end of the level. Initial ideas for this was to increase the speed at which the player travels at so the player has to make faster reactions to increase difficulty however once again this seemed a bit too complex for me. Therefore I started looking at possibly platforming puzzles I could add to the game in order to increase difficulty such as moving platforms and tumbling pillars.