Task 17: Documentation (part 2)

Part One

Vehicle – planet terrain buggy

This will be a single-person vehicle modelled after a dune buggy – an open-top all-terrain vehicle suitable for travelling over a planet’s surface. The vehicle should continue with the retrofuturism theme and visibly take inspiration from 20^th century vehicle designs while still looking futuristic.

There needs to be three versions of the vehicle: one undamaged, once slightly damage, and one very damaged. Each mesh should be under 15k tris.

Since the vehicle will be seen both from a zoomed out third-person view and from inside over-the shoulder, it needs to be readable from far away, and also have enough detail to look realistic from closer up. In particular, the dashboard needs to have detail that looks interesting from closer up, and some of the damage needs to be visible from the over-the-shoulder view so the player can still gauge the condition of their vehicle. The vehicle should also have a mud splatter decal that can be applied incrementally as the buggy travels over different types of terrain.

 The mesh should be textured using the following maps:

2 1024x1024 diffuse map with alphas

2 1024x1024 colour specular map

2 1024 normal maps

1 512x512 diffuse with alpha decal

 The textures should be produced digitally with Z-brush and hand painted in photoshop. The textures need to convey the different textures, especially the smoothness of the metal/plastic and how it is dented or broken in the damaged versions of the model.

Environment – Artefact chamber

One of the environments in the game will be an abandoned alien city. The architecture should be based both on real architectural designs and sets seen in science fiction. The building should feature a strong circular and geometric aesthetic with plenty of smooth metallic surfaces. 

One environment in particular will be the room housing an alien artefact that the player has to collect. The room will be tall and circular, with the artefact on an elevated pedestal in the centre. Parts of the scenery will be damaged and broken, requiring the player to complete a series of platforming manoeuvres to reach the artefact. The path the player takes should not be obvious, and the parts of the scenery facilitating the player’s path should blend in with the rest of the architecture. The collapsed parts of the scenery should take into account the underlying structure of the building to make the damage look realistic.

The environment should make use of both repeating assets to establish continuity, and unique assets to make the room feel individual. These assets need to be designed to fit together without any gaps of obvious seams.

There is no set polygon limit, but the meshes should take into account the polygon density of both the player character, and of other meshes surrounding them. Higher polygon density should be used for more detailed scenery objects, and lower polygon density for more simple shapes. Decals and varying lighting should be used to break up any tiling textures.

All textures should be produced with z-brush and hand-painted in photoshop.

Scenery object – Control console

Many of the levels in the game will require the player to activate part of the scenery. One of the ways the player can do this is through an alien control console. These will open doors, deactivate security systems, and so on.

These consoles will be repeated throughout the level, and their presence will be a clue to the player that part of the environment can be changed. They must therefore be visually distinct so the player can recognise them, although they must still fit into the overall design on the environment.

The consoles must give feedback to the player – they are unreactive when the player has not yet activated them, react negatively when a player has not solved a puzzle yet – for instance to indicate that another console must be activated first – and finally react positively to indicate when a player has correctly solved a puzzle and can proceed.

The consoled will do this both visually and through sound – for instance a green light display for a correctly activated console.

The model needs to have some part that can be moved by the player – for instance a lever. The console needs to look simple enough that it will not look strange when repeated.  The mesh should contain no more than 3k tris.

The mesh should be textured using the following maps:

1 1024x1024 diffuse map

or 1 1024x1024 diffuse map with alphas

1 1024x1024 colour specular map

1 1024 normal maps

The textures should be produced in z-brush and photoshop.