After brainstorming I have come up with a name which is The Engineer and I have gotten a lot of ideas for what I want my game to be and the theme I am going to base my game around. The theme that I will be using is very steampunk like but will also have an old fishing hut vibe to it, with crates, barrels and nets. All of the assets that I will be creating will look old and rustic and have an olden time development look to them. Some of them will be powered by steam, which means I need to make sure that they look like they are supposed to. For example I will need to make valves and pressure vessels and such, which will make them look old. Also the assets will need to be textured correctly, this means that I will need to make them out of wood and old metal, which is the basic theme of a steampunk game, please refer to the mood board for examples.
However before I start even thinking about designing the game, I will need to take into consideration my target audience. I will need to create a game that is suitable for 12+, which means there will be no blood or gore and there will be no sexualised content within my 3D Models. Another example that wouldn’t be suitable would be posters about drugs or bad language content.
It’s not just the objects that need to look themed, but the environment that the objects are set in. Steampunk is objects powered by steam, and a good era for this to be set in is the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution is a perfect place to set my game in because it matches the steampunk objects perfectly. I will need to create an environment for my objects to be placed, and it is important that it needs to be themed in the same way. My ideas for the environment will be set within an olden time house that will be full of piping, chains, crates etc. that will set the scene for the theme. It’s important that I can create a scene that I can complete within my set deadline, and I feel that a small corridor that leads onto a room would be perfect for this as it wouldn’t take long to design which means I can concentrate on filling it will high quality assets that make it look themed correctly.
This leads on to the limitations that will be working with. I have already mentioned the deadline which is a very important limitation to always consider because it doesn’t matter how good your models and textures are when you are nowhere near completion and the deadline is the following week. Another huge limitation is the polygon count. This can be a big limitation when trying to design high quality models that can run smoothly in game. If a model is too detailed then polygons will need to be taken away in order for the count to be taken down. The easiest way to do this is to ensure that smaller models that the player wouldn’t see or take any notice of are simple with only a few polygons that free up more polygons for the main character or main object in the room to take up. Along with this it can also be taxing on your computer if you are trying to render huge polygon counted models, and considering deadlines you don’t want to be sat their waiting for the scene to render for a couple of days because everything is super highly detailed.
So for my design I will be keeping smaller items small on polygons because the player wouldn’t see these objects, and I will make the main character and the objects that the player can see high quality because they are the most important within the scene.
I will also need to consider image resolution within my models because if something is super high resolution it will take forever to render. To combat this I will need to keep my image resolution medium because if it’s too low then the images will look poor and low quality, but if it’s too high then render time will be huge and I might not hit my deadlines.
As I am using 3DS Max the file types that I am using will all be .max, yet if I need to convert them over to other programs such as Zbrush or Mudbox then I will save all my files as .obj files because I can then open them within the program. I will also need to make sure all my texture files are saved as high quality JPEG files in order to have high quality textures. I will also use a lot .uvw files when I am UVW unwrapping and mapping, because I will need to save these files in order to edit them on Photoshop. Then I will save these as .BMP images so it keeps the background as black so it is easier to change on Photoshop.
As with all production timelines in the gaming industry there are always key areas that you need to note down and stick to. These are as follows; planning, modelling, texturing, lighting and rendering. This means I will need to plan everything I am going to do to ensure that everything looks similar, everything has the same theme and everything is thought about. After this is completed I can move on to modelling everything I want this is from the small objects that you might not see to the main character. After this is completed then I can think about texturing everything. This stage is very important because I will need to make sure everything looks right, because a badly textured modelling will make it look awful despite the fact that the model is detailed. After this comes lighting, which is equally as important because everything casts a shadow and everything looks better when lit correctly so the lighting needs to be done to a high standard. Once everything is completed then I will need to render it. Most likely the most time consuming part of this process because I will need to render everything, the models, the textures and the lighting will take a lot of time.
As with everything in business there are always legal and ethical constraints to think about. Forgetting to take these into consideration could lead to major stalls on the production or even shutdown of the production all together. I will need to think about copyright within my work. This means that I cannot use anyone else’s work that they don’t want me to, yet if I can get the permission to use a certain model or texture then I need to make sure I note it down. Confidentiality is important within the gaming industry because if someone leaks the games objects or ideas then the whole game will be ruined so confidentiality is important to the big companies, but not so much for me because my production isn’t a big multi million pound production.
I cannot discriminate within my games, which means I cannot idealise certain religions or a certain gender because it could offend someone which is a bad thing to do, because if you were in business this would lead to lower sales.
I will be documenting all of my work via my blog, which will guide you through my thought process and how I created my work. This ensures that all of my work is my own, and I am not claiming copyrighted work as my own.
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