Style Guide

A collection of images that I have gathered to hone down the style of building that I am hoping to produce. These images give me a good understanding of the different parts of the building I can split up and consider for the modular approach. For example, I could produce a variety of different cornices with different patterns and dentil placements which could seamlessly attach to a variety of building facades.

I have also researched into the specific parts of buildings, which will make it easier to search for specific photo reference and refer to conventions that actual buildings follow too.

Source: Nevin (2007)

For aesthetics, I originally planned to theme it on the streets of Akihabara in Japan, which 'Cyberpunk' draws a lot of reference from. Using bright neon lights against a dark, blue toned backdrop for contrast. Where the signs on the side of buildings for advertisement were so plentiful, it seems like any available space is used for the signage. However, I wasn't too sure about if this would be possible in the time I had, having to model these assets, and devise a system of ensuring they fit together in a modular structure.

A collection of images highlighting the palette and recurring elements of 'cyberpunk' cities

Images detailing a brassier sci-fi interior, showing more recurring elements of the genre. Hard surfaces, bright lights and rounder geometry than contemporary architecture. 

Sources

Nevin, S. (2007). Building Parts Diagram. [online] Gallery.insanart.com. Available at: http://gallery.insanart.com/v/design/buildingparts.jpg.html [Accessed 23 Nov. 2017].

Poly Count for buildings

While trying to determine the poly count for the project I am undertaking, I considered how the entire project would need to be optimised to run in engine. The same thing would need to be considered if working in a AAA studio, and is cited as a requirement in most of the job advertisments I looked at.

Having decided on making a building using PBR texturing methods and utilising Polygon-sculpting methods, I looked at similar games. Considering I had looked at job adverts from Rockstar, I researched into the polygon counts seen in games like Grand Theft Auto V, Infamous Second Son. Games that use cities as their environment.

Another source I found is the Unreal Marketplace which, as the engine I am wanting to render the assets in, is useful in providing professional constraints for the work and also provides me with the means to sell my assets if I wanted to. This is a standard which ensures that assets are on par with the standards that are expected of the engine, and run in an optimised manner.

Finally, forums like PolyCount and 3D media companies like Turbosquid give some indications of the kind of poly count that is typical of certain games.

The spreadsheet below details an artist at Turbosquid's experiences with real-time poly counts. While a lot of the assets on Turbosquid reach exponential amounts of detail, the 'real time' assets represent a significantly downscaled version of what is normally offered, while still maintaining a lot of detail.

For my work, as I have decided on a modular building approach, I need to consider how much the count is going to increase, just from modularity alone. From the spreadsheet, it looks like I should be aiming for around 100k per asset, which also depends on the type of asset, and its position in the world in terms of importance, and likelihood of being seen and scrutinised by the player.


Sources
Google Docs. (2017). Poly Budgets 2017. [online] Available at: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xJmSuBZbdMOlIcdXmO9hu46GJ7-wIiWCclJwimIOJa4/edit#gid=0 [Accessed 16 Dec. 2017].

Epic Games. (2017). Marketplace Submission Guidelines[online] Available at: http://help.epicgames.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2592186-marketplace-submission-guidelines-preparing-your-assets#Submission Requirements [Accessed 16 Nov. 2017].

Nelva, G. (2014). inFAMOUS: Second Son's Characters are 120,000 Polygons; 11 Million Rendered Regularly by the Engine. [online] DualShockers. Available at: https://www.dualshockers.com/infamous-second-sons-characters-are-120000-polygons-11-million-rendered-regularly-by-the-engine/ [Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].

Update on Concepts and Level Design

Originally I wanted to outsource any level design so that I didn't have to spend necessary time on planning and greyboxing a level.

While I have been able to find different concept art that would benefit my project, I was unable to find any premade levels. However, I was able to find a lot of pre-prepared level maps that I could use use and change to fit with my desired scope and still keep in mind my stretch goal.

Using an existing layout of a city block, I was able to block out the geometry of the level using Unreal Engine 4 and while it is an extremely large project, it allowed me to tweak specific sections and view them 'in-game' 

The biggest problem I face with using real-world maps and measurements is that, when viewed from either a third person person perspective, or first person perspective, the scale appears too small. This was a problem highlighted by Luke Ahearn in 3D Game Environments, where he makes reference to how racing games intentionally use massively wide roads to combat the limitation of racing in a two lane road.

In terms of concepts, I have gathered a variety of photo references, which I hope to reproduce using textures and modular construction and combining the two methods into a hybrid of modular assets and modular textures.

City layout taken from Akihabara. Overall, it is a lot to individually 3D Model, but may be possible as a stretch goal, using modular assets.