Rescaling and general tweaks

The original lobby size. After some consideration and play-testing i have increased its size 

significantly. Another pillar has been added making the whole lobby deeper aswell as widening the 

stairs on each side effectively widening the lobby aswell.

This works so far and will see how i go. 

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[UPDATE] The stairs have again been dropped in hight at the base and now have two more lower steps. This has increased the depth of the lower level again and this time i feel happier.

Stair Test

The implementation of the stairs was a tricky one. I went through a million ideas and style choices before finally settling on this design. I think the two cases need joining at the top with another banister but apart from that they are ok. They appeared larger than planned and after running up and down them in UDK i found they were actually smaller. The only problem now is that the bottom step is 'uncomfortably' close to the middle pillar. This may be something that i move back after some testing. Here you can also see the test mesh for the modern walkway that comes along the parallel walls.

Stairs

  Within my lobby i knew now that i was having an exterior suspended walkway that went around the edge of my bank, somewhere to access more offices etc. To get there would be a set of stairs that would be old in design.  Remnants of the older architecture within the building and are made from cut stone or marble. 

This is the final design and fits perfectly within my bank level.

I was debating whether to make this modular or as one mesh, and although it cost more doing it as a mesh was the easiest way to get the pieces accurate.

Starting assets

So while i refine my blockout i have begun work on the assets that will not change even if i tweak layout or design e.g. desk items or the sky light.

Here is a desk top PC modelled after my own and will fill out the desk spaces of the bank.

This is the lobbys sky dome and will be where the robbers make their entrance. Im unsure as to how much damage this will cause and the mesh may need to be tweaked after deciding. (So far it is to be just shattered glass.)

Production

  One of the most important parts at this stage would be getting a solid lay out established and making something that looks to scale and designed realistically. I knew i wanted this old meets new style and would be keeping certain old aspects of the lobby. This made it difficult to create a layout that worked and fitted together well.

  as you can see from early sketches i was unsure where to place my stairs and how to make them fit within the dimensions of my building, knowing that i had this walk way and pillars in the middle.

I feel now im pretty much getting there with the shape of my bank. Theres been several tweaks and i feel several more are due. I wont have a final mesured layout until i have the exterior blockout to scale it to.

Here you can see further adjustments to the main desk and stairs. This is pretty much the design all thats left is to refine it.

Concepting

Now that i had some strong ideas running through me it was time to make it into something more visible. Here i have created some grayscale photo mash images that were quick to generate and clear enough to take my ideas to the next level.

Journal Pt.1

I constantly carry a small sketch book with me so i can quickly jot down new ideas or altered old ones. This for me is the best way of concepting and getting my ideas down into something i can use. I hold a lot of my detailed ideas in my head and tend to quickly discard them as i explore them in my mind so they rarely see the page. Here are some of my page sketches so you can see how i work.