Final Renders

Evaluation

Over all I am pleased with my final result. It was a mammoth task and I think I had efficiently planned my time to get the most out of the scale I was after. Designing the interior from scratch was more challenging than I expected as for the most part I had overlooked realistic structure and form in the early stages of planning. However this was the part I was most excited about as well and managed to put up with it and really get into it giving each section a unique style and design. This kept me fresh and interested when moving on to the next part.

The initial idea remained a constant through out production and new ideas were only planned to bridge gaps in existing ones. I feel I successfully completed what I set out to achieve from the concepting stage. This is because I spent such a dedicated portion of my time frame to getting the structure to fit and flow like a real building. The biggest problem here was the stairs, both main and office. These were tricky to fit into the buildings structure and where hard to imagine in the third dimension when sketching in my notes. This left me going through many ideas that changed the shape of the rooms themselves in order to accommodate new design.

Prepared a well made archive of textures that I had found both in London and Leicester. This allowed me to quickly not only texture but inspire design for individual assets. Of course inspired design meant new imagined creations without photograph textures but with a good understanding of photoshop and the assets I had created I could generate my own. This however softened off the realism and contrast but I still think its of strong visual quality.

There where many problems that arose during production but because of well managed time I didn’t find my self battling to rush them. One main problem that couldn’t be fixed was the real time reflections. I wanted a shiny marble floor and a large glass fronted window but both these would require RRT's to look real and effective, this however drastically drained the performance of the level. Even one of these was enough to half the FPS. To combat this I had to opt for a cube map on the marble floor which did give reflections but did not line up with objects it touched. This meant I had to fade it out enough so it only hinted at the fact it was a well polished floor. As for the window this had to be kept an RTT but I managed to lower the settings just enough for it to level out on performance.

The most enjoyable bits and the parts I felt I succeeded in the most was the planning and ideas. I felt each new idea was incorporated seamlessly into the existing model. This is not to say I felt I lacked in my modelling or texturing but I felt some of these areas could have been improved. The project was set over such a long time period I found my self to be learning more things and better more efficient ways to do things faster than I was meeting each phase of the brief, this left me looking back at some parts of my level and not being happy with the final result only to find I didn’t have the time to go back and update them. An example of a successful update to my quality of work was when I made the second desk. I really didn’t like what I had done with the first desk even though I had taken it all the way to the finished stages and placed it within my level. Something wasn’t right and I decided to remodel it using new techniques and skills I had learnt since making the first. Now I am much happier with the final design and could fit it into an essentially more modern setting.

If I had more time I would continue to update and tweak areas I felt were a little lacking but suffice. You can only tweak it so much before you have to move on and I had to leave some parts as they where. This goes for texturing and modelling as well. I feel I can always add more and this is probably the cause of the scale and magnitude of the level, I just kept thinking of better parts to add on. I still am and Steve and myself were looking into extending it further, adding an underground station and possibly a rooftop. This would round it off as a completed level and something whole.

I understand that the level was more of a scene than to be something playable but I couldn’t stop thinking of new story telling devices and areas to explore.

Not only does it showcase what I know and can do, it also showcases my ability to design, overcome problems and make something to the best of my abilities.

UPDATE

I have gone back and updated nearly all areas of my blog in response to feedback, please consider this before summative assessment. 

Thank you.

Vault

Finally i get to texture the vault room. I had so many ideas of how i wanted to do this and that i knew it had to be semi interesting. A lot of banks vaults are dull but as the lead up to the bank vault was quite high tech i thought id add a little more inside it and make it quite modern. 

The vault door frame is not finished and the lighting is a little off here but this is the entrance to the vault. 

As you move into the vault the walls are covered with deposit boxes forced open by the robbers. I am going to make this area more beat up adding extra stuff to the floor. The glass on the floor needs a cube map making to give it a glass shine.

Origionally i made this out of one mesh because i was trying not to use any more BSP (that stuff really takes it out of the performance). After doing this though i found that it was hard to UV and texture so split it into the 6 sections of the hexagon with optional wall space that could support a door, deposit boxes or shelves.

Vault Floor

This is the bottom floor of my bank. The level where the vault is. Here you see the vault lobby or waiting area for people who want to watch their precious items be placed in the vault. They can sit only a room away and watch on a monitor above. This room was made to still be inviting to customers as it would be an area visited by them. Although you can begin to see the fact that this is way under ground with the concrete ceiling and exposed piping. 

Heres another shot of the room, excuse Dolan the duck, he is a placeholder for the monitor display which will be of the vault room when it is complete. You can see here the ramp and stair access to the vault corridor this is for trollies or other items to be wheeled down. This is as far as clients can go.

Here is the security on the way to the vault. It is the only corridor access the the underground vault and as you can tell by the length of the corridor, the vault room is surrounded by a thick layer of earth. The lasers work on a grid with a moving laser sliding on each axis. The railings are suspended so the laser can run freely under them. 

Finally here is the vault room which is simple in design yet interesting. 

plants

Here is how i went about making my plants. I started by creating the texture with the leaves that i wanted to use. I got these from a local garden center and tried to stick to the indoor plants because these seemed best fitting. After bringing them into max i placed each one on a plane and divided them up into subsections for deformation. 

 I stacked a bend and twist modifier to each plant so i could twist and deform them individually and come back to them later to tweak as appropriate. When satisfied i collapsed them down and grouped them up.

I made different variations of some of the bigger plants so they wouldn't look to similar when placed in the level.

This is the first lot placed in the lobby. I was torn between this or a sculpture but after deciding on the central red carpet it seemed wrong to have two sculptures either side of it. Here you can also see the chunk of dome that the robbers had to break through and that it has smashed the planter causing pebbles and soil to be scattered across the floor. This makes for a intriguing point of interest.

This was the next use of planters in my level. These are found on the lowest floor just before the vault and have been encorporated into the stairs. 

Painting WIPs

I've been working on some paintings for the offices to bring a little more colour into them. I thought id post them up here now because i'm quite happy with how they're going. I'm trying to make each a slightly different style and colour but not enough so it looks too random on the wall. They will most likely have different frames etc.