Too Long PART 1

It has been way to long and with way too many progressions in my work to have left the blog unblogged... my bad.. i guess.

So... Part 1... Current state of the render.. well thats now turned into a web based Demo! You heard it right, a demo that you can download from here. OVERLAND BETA DEMO. You will need to download the unity plug-in to play it, which can be found easy by googling it... you lazy buggers!

 So here are some snap shots of BETA testing ground (It should be known that the current state of the demo is in a test bed arena, Final build will be in its own scene.) The testing ground is where I bring in new assests, test them, skin them. Script functions and then test said scripts. Lighting and general running of things.

General look at the area, I took the decision to use glow sticks to give much more of an eerie feeling about the place. As there is no power, I want to put across more and more that this is a "safe house" of sorts, and with introduction of other elements I shall reinforce this, giving the room much more character and a history instead of a soulless room. As I am one guy working on this, this will more then likely be the only playable level for a while until I properly get my head around UNITY3D it's tools, the process of game developing and scripting. Not to mention the amount of time it takes to model everything by yourself.

As I said in the previous caption, I want to reinforce the sense that your not the first to be here, hence the glow stick (emergency and improvised lighting) On these two tables will be a variety of props such as; maps, pens, rations, emergency supplies and even the odd weapon. Along these two portions of wall I want to have graffiti along the same lines as the graffiti in the safe houses in Left 4 Dead, again, telling the player that this has been used by others. Messages will consist of notes to loved ones, instructions on possible escape, warnings, messages of fear and other emotions that would come in this situation. To make these more apparent I may need to alter the lighting slightly in this area so that it is easier to read, though the use of a flashlight PreFab and scripting may help me keep the lighting and still over come this problem.

An area I'm giving careful thought about is the corner with the four bodies and the canteen shutter. I want to instill some form of remorse in the player, so this area I want to be an area with quite a few elements that create more of a back story, the chair in the corner is the first installment of that, with soon to come beer bottles, the thought behind this is that the chair may have been put their by a past inhabitant who may have been morning the loss of friends, I'm not sure yet, but I would like their to be some understandable story here. As I speak actually I'm making a list of trickets and photo ideas that could be placed on and around the tarps, some visual stimulus for the player, also something that reacts with the lighting in this area as well as creating a mood.

The old scaling model is gone and has been replaced with a base mesh I created in Zbrush, this base mesh is actually being used to create props for a later area, a storage/repair/maintenance room, lots of broken and unused equipment and lots of oppotunities to play with lighting  and sound. All in the future though.

A message for players (Might remove it, Cuts the mood of the area.)

Still working on these bloody lights to get the right Lighting affect. As I cant import lighting from Maya, I'm forced to use unities lighting system, which admittedly isn't amazing, but this is free software so I'm making the best, it does get quite challenging when you try and create more mood lighting than obvious lighting.

The scene with lighting off.

I had to take a lot of props out because of scaling issues, shit just didn't look right yo!

I love my menu board, don't know why.