Archive for January 2012

the first research stage

Top influences are

World of planes, sky odessy, uncharted waters online, fish and marine life with in the designs them selves and a slight hint of crimson skys, this game im regesterring as not of an influence of design but more of the influence of the battles... The audiance of this game will be +12







I've also worked on why the planes are influenced by sea and marine creatures.

The two nations are influenced by fish as they used to be seafarers and when they started to develop aircraft they first looked at the sea for their influence, they looked at the way fish swam and glided around in the water and of their dynamic shapes, and these shapes have been the tradition ever since.

Ive started to look at all types of planes ranging from WW1 to WW2.







WW2




Gatherring silhouettes of the planes is useful for future designs and development, they made many in WW2 to identifie other planes and ships.








here I'm looking at the fluidety of the metal work, and craftsmenship, and also loooking at the elements that are simular to that of fish.



Fish


I really want the aircraft to be based around fish and parts to be influenced from them. as a whole I don’t just want to be sticking an engine on a body of a fish, I want parts of other fish that can be used to create other looks of the planes. For example the tale plane of a from a fish, the engine exhaust being like the fish gills, its armour plating like scales, like that of a lobster.  
    

I really like the way the smaller legs look like the part of the engine
Angel shark I really like the shape of this I could see a plane just right here.





Manta ray interrestingly looks as if it is flying.

This is incredible as the fish is actually flying and teh bone structure is a brilliant way of showing how the planes wings could be constructed.




 I loved the shape of this for I could just imagen it come right at you with wings and all guns blazing.

The loster armour plating is good styled armour, but if I turned this upside down you could get bomb bay doors. The skales also gave me another idea influenced from death race, the panels could have acertain amount of life and then then player could release them one after the other, gaining speed and a chance to dystroy the oponent behind him.


The antenna gave me an idea for the exhaust, just like the large long exhaust they have on harley davidson bikes, or on hot rods.   

I really like the magestic style of the manta ray



There are many interesting elements to an octipus I could drag into the construction of a plane, for example the head can be like the cabin


A puffer fish styled weapon could come in handy in a dog fight, for example two planes chasing each other, and the one in front releases a large spikey explosive ball in attemped to dystroy the one behind.


on these planes maybe its not just the plane that is influenced by fish but also the colours of the plane aswell




Project ideas

These are the ideas that I have had for my project, I started thinking of this idea over christmas, and now I have created a premis and back story of my idea.


Two sets of nations fight over air space in the sky, one call themselves the National Force and see the others as Pirates taking their land and airspace, and the pirates see themselves as liberators from the oppression of the national force. There has always been this battle between them; the pirates want to fly freely. Both battle over air space… the ‘pirates’ capture, steal air convoys and cargo to sell and to make better planes.  The National Force are just as bad, by cutting off food supplies, choking the air space and force arresting pirates and fixing penalties on pirates, buying and claiming pirate air spaces by extreme unfair force.   


Now onto the game.



The World

The world will be based more in a fantasy world rather than in the real world. It would be more based on alternate future with people using piston engine planes. Planes are the prefered choice of transport due to many fragmented island.
When you first start the game, you start off on a main set island of your choice. You have a choice between Pirate, and National Force (NF), the map changes between the pirate islands and the national force islands... The two areas are divided by borders. Within the world, the places are segmented between air spaces; there are also neutral zones and wilderness zones. You also start off in a plane of your choice, this being your first ever plane, it’s not going to be the best,



Neutral zones


These are where both plane groups can fly without anyone one shooting each other down, they can challenge, place bets on each other, but they must go to a wilderness zone to fight. Neutral zones are also good places to trade rare items found out in the wilderness. Neutral zones have a very large air ports and towns, were you can meet hang and yes go into the local tavern, (yes you may not be able to fight in the sky) BUT you can start a brawl in the tavern, so keep your character well-guarded and strong physically, plus also another way to make money... "Hedging a bet on the Pirate or the NF can win a tad of money as well as lose".



Wilderness zones

These zones are large open dangerous places. PVP (player vs player) is allowed, there are no NPC's, so whatever planes you see are real people’s planes. They are full of hidden items, the deeper you go the rare the items, But the deeper you go the more the dangers, example: extreme storms, random tornados, heavy turbulences, deep narrow canyons and large caves with random rock falls, very high mountains with thin air and volcanoes and many more things I can’t think of right now so fill free to add them to the list =). When flying around you will hit up on very awesome places, like hidden landing points, old flying ruins and flying islands.



Jobs

Mechanic, everyone needs a mechanic, to fix their pride and joy, as well as fixing your own you can fix others, as you can only fix one of your own planes at a time. So if you go out getting 3 of your own air craft shot down, you can palm the other 2 off to other people for repair, (pending on their skills, and costs).



Weapons maker, goes without saying the more weapons you create and sell the more, happier people will trade, you will also eventually combine weapons and essentially creating your own, making your mark on the map, (this takes allot of time experience and high levels to do and materials) plus if you create brilliant weapons, you can sell them, and start to make a name for yourself as a weapons maker... But so people don’t go off making their own weapons, selling them and customers, getting angry as they’ve been sold low quality overpriced weapons. They must be thoroughly be tested, this is done by, you only being able to create one new combined weapon a time, that combined weapon has a rating up on its success in battle, for example, 500+ take downs, durability and down to the percentage of how many times the gun jams up.


Engine tuner/producer, very much like weapons maker, instead of combining engines, you tune engines, and this is tested on speed, stresses, durability, engine failures and engine blow outs.


Cable producer, you can’t turn nor fly a plane without cables, how will you steer or clime, you can produce these but not combine.


PLANE MAKING!! in this you can sculpt your wings and body, all to a certain cost of aerodynamics, you do have a wind tunnel, to help, as well as the outside airspace...

(yes you can build your own planes from the near start, selling them will be a different matter)

Flight instructor, instruct others to help them fly better, this level can be achieved at a high level Ace fighter, with more than 1, 4th Gen planes and experience and levels.




Planes

you have 4 areas of plane, there is 1st Gen, 2nd Gen, 3rd Gen and 4th Gen. When you start the game, your plane is 1st Gen, it is the most basic of all the planes, it can be upgraded, and built up on, you also get a choice of your first plane, each choice having its characteristics in power, weight, amour, guns and altitude, you can have as many planes as you wish in the game all with different variations of guns, amour’s, engines, looks/styles.



you can go many ways with your planes, you can go lighter and faster less armored, with less heavy guns, or you can go heavier slower, more armoured, and more heavier guns



the lighter you are the more height you can gain

the heavier, the less height.



1st Gen

your basic first ever plane, but not to be under estimated, a 1st Gen plane can still take on a 3rd Gen plane, if you know how to fly it properly, that’s why there are many NPC flight schools, or if you’re willing to pay, get someone to teach you, first hand experience from someone is more useful than some NPC knowledge, in these lessons NO ONE CAN SHOOT U DOWN, and if you do crash you lose nothing, and are only able to use pinball rounds (stops cocky ACE's taking advantages of new pilots).



2nd Gen

better faster, than 1st Gen. When getting a new Gen plane, and upgrading your 2nd Gen plane, 1st Gen parts can’t fit 2nd Gen planes,



3rd Gen

more expensive, more faster, more armoured, more better, more and more, but again, 1st, or 2nd, Gen parts can’t fit this plane



4th Gen

Now... you cannot build nor buy a 4th Gen plane from scratch... you have to hunt parts, guns, wings, body, engine and cables. you cannot get anything better than a 4th Gen plane/parts, if you find a body of a 4th Gen plane, you can use all previous Gen parts to it, from 1st to 3rd Gens, you also can not sell a 4th Gen plane. The rarest parts of the plane, is the engine and guns



Rigs

NOW RIGS!!... You have your main home, your rig is your home from home, it is a mobile flying platform, it carries a certain amount of spare parts, loads of fuel, and is heavily armoured and has many defenses, and it’s also your mobile spawn point. Like planes you can upgrade them, those being lighter can fly higher, for their defense or be heavier and rough it out, or they can be faster. They are not aerial combat things they are not there to take on the world, they are like your back pack... flying them in the wilderness has its advantages and dis-advantages, you’re not going to be bullied about by storms as much, but that is just about it. If enemy fighters spot you, it’s not going to help you, you’re pretty much a flying brick, the only way to lose them would be flying into a heavy storm and hoping it’s not too heavy.

There is 1st 2nd and 3rd Gen Rigs, with all types of weapons and armour and capabilities.

FINALLY FINISHED

finally finished and completed I'm very pleased on how this has worked out its been a long jurney of new lessons and skills learnt in this project

I have taken the time to also gather what I like about this project and put it into the next one, I have many idea brewing at the moment.

I also apologise for the lateness of this blog aswell, I hope you enjoy.

record, deck, speed test

for the turn table of my scene I've looked at the speed of the record deck going round at 33rpm, and found that it maybe a bit to farst for audiance to see the model



here is the play blast of the animated deck





because its too fast I'm going to have to slow the deck so you would be able to see the skate clearly, I could also put the reason why the deck is slow, is down to the waight of the skate its self.

finaly lit


I want to really thank Alan for helping me light this scene, I really like the way the skate shows off all of its textures, and looks real like you can really pick it up and hold it. I was advised to also lighten the boxes and the turn table, as previously it dulled down the environment too mutch and the skate murged into the back ground, now ive lightenned them it makes the skate really stand out. When I was lightenning up the texture I was a tad worried that they would have looked a tad wooden, but im glad it doesn't.   

THE BIG UPDATE

over the christmas amoungst the distractions and preasent buying, and unwrapping them and amoungst eating the turkey and my mums awesome bread source (because it really is that awesome) and not to mention the mountains of chockies, crisps, party food and other stuff.  I have been working on my project, texturing the environment and finalised my 80's skate.  

 This is the attic environment over the holidays, I put a normal mapping over the walls and beams, I found working on this scene allot more faster through what I learnt from the previous two skates, I feel im become allot more faster with working on texturing, though there are still elements I need to under starnd more about using normal maps, and how to control them more in, what effect I am trying to create with them. From using them and having the expreance that I have had from using them on the skates I grown more understanding on them.
This is the scene from yesterday and today. I was asking phill about the lighting and he said about creating some christmas tree fairy lights, it took me a whole morning to create these and then did a silly school boy error and fogot to save, and Maya crashed. So I spent the rest of the day catching up. Now as you see I am trying to sort out the lighting of teh scene 


I love this scene with the 50's skate scene, I really like the way the light is bouncing off and lighting of the skate and the textures. the main help I need is up on the lighting of this scene.



This is the 80's skate, I feel happy with this, it looks really plasticky, and cheap, on the skate there, is only one specular map and that is mainly on the shoe and the trucks, there is a normal map on the shoe its self but it doesn't seem very clear part  from the wheels and front stopper, the whole skate is normal mapped.