The final thoughts

When I went into designing this level, the first thoughts that went through my mind were "Oh my word, I'm actually going to make something look amazing in a game engine." Looking back on where I started, I'd say I screwed up a few times along the way. From the size of the level to the texturing, I think I did my fare share of guess work. I found it rewarding making not just the modells and textures, but also the terrain, the particle effects (especially that laser). I found myself going through every possible idea when it came down to the characters. To truth, I actually hated creating the characters. Not because I HAVE to make them. It more comes down to the fact that I build their backstory and everything else in my mind after I talk about them. It's irritating, but it can let me create a bigger picture, and a better image if it ever came down to modelling those three. I never really decided what I wante to do at the start. I found two completely polar opposite objects, and attmepted the impossible. It was a struggle, but a worthy struggle at that. I would happily come back in decades, no, years and make this game fully accessable for all to play. I would love to, but with my current skill level, I have a more to learn. As a wise man once said to me:

"You are never old until your stop learning"

And I never intend to stop.

Level Construction

Now that I have everything together, now it is time to place everything together. Without further ado, I hereby start puting the level together.

After about a good two hours of material fixing, I got it to here

Doing this part of the level seems alot more rewarding then doing the modelling or the texturing. I get things thrown at me for saying this but, it seems more rewarding placing everything into position than just build everything piece by piece.

And this is with trees! More Trees!

I sat down after working on it and realised one problem with my map: it's too small! In a scrambled effort to make it bigger, I tweeked a few things here and there and produced something bigger, not likely to be badder, but most deffinately give the player more hideing spots.

Spot the difference? I can

After forgetting to add rocks, I quickly and without any further need of panic added them in. Question is: can you honestly see them in this new and improved image?

Now with rocks? Can you see them?

Trees make the level loook more lively. There are ferns and grass alpha. Now for the stretch for the finish line! G.U.I. Here I go!

Heads Up Display and Front

Alright... so with all games, there needs to be a Heads-Up Display (or H.U.D.). I looked at games like Assassin's creed due it's high immersion and sci fi feel. Just thinking it makes me want to play assassin's creed all over again.

Minimal interface, maximum immersion, all while falling from a great high

So I sat down with me, my level and my brain, and smacked a nice and tasty H.U.D. for my game.

Ah photoshop, thou art an image maker.

This is how it would look for the level. Note, in the top right hand side, a dial like device, notifies the player of what piano mode Noct. Currently. He is the soft music (Fade mode). The points numbered 1 -9 repressent the number of songs/music attacks that are slated to the hot keys. Customisation for what songs would be the player could use would be defined out of battle.

Now for a main screen which doesn't show anything about the level!

This is the main screen... The font was made by Ola Björling (ola@techno.org) (I prefer to keep in the safe side of things

I know... it's snazzy, needs more neon lighting, but it blue is a calming colour. I chose the font "Hybrid" because it contains that neon sci fi feel that I want the level to contain. The colouring is the same in the level interface image above, because of its calming effect. The black background is used to make the neon stand out, and I stylised the buttons on the left to look like the F, G, A, and B keys from a standard keyboard.

Textures, textures, and tiling textures!

No game level is every complete without our beloved textures. To create what I'm after, I'll need tileable and mappable textures. TO GOOGLE AND PHOTOSHOP FOR TEXTURING! So we have a sci-fi building, and now we shall create a texture for it. I'm going to make something metalic, something dark... something... grim! I've found it a dark texture, now to allow it to be tilable.

Before

Neon lights on the side of buildings... GO!

After 20 tries, I landed with this

It's irritating to get textures to work... espcially since I have limited luck with photoshop.  So I crossed my fingers and made that blue neon (it looks dogy) texture from the neon Light texture

After I tweeked the glass

Before I tweeked the glass

Rock texture before

Rock texture after

Rock Texture 2 before

Rock Rexture 3 after

This texture I decided to use for most of the buildings. I didn't want something too simple, nor something too bland.