change of mind.

as i was drawing out the next part of my track, i pondered the idea of the long shortcut i had placed in the map re-design earlier, that would take the car on a bumpy and hard to drive terrain path, it would skip out the viaduct bridge completely if the player were to take this shortcut so i choose to leave it out, i wanted the via duct to be driven across as part of my track and didnt want the player to be skipping it through the shortcut. as the design of my track goes on shortcuts will be added or removed accordingly to how i think it will help the track best.

this is the last part of section 2 of the course. a 2nd water tower is added here at the top near the exit of the mineshaft and that would be the location where the secret path would of branched out from, but i choose to leave it out. the blue square represents a broken minecart which will been arranged as a ramped piece of rubble and will be a jump for the player.

More, more, more!

Continuing of more track sectioning concepts.  hoping to finish off the track sectioning designs today and begin in further more concepting of assets and objects.

This is my first secret shortcut in the track. it will swerve off to the left of the road. it will be a muddy path thats thinner than the rail tracked road of the mountain track. all the shortcuts for my course will not show up on the minimap, and will have to be spotted while racing. A quick reaction is needed to swerve into the short cut path here as it wont be noticeable until the player gets real close.

This is the second half of the corner showing the rest of the first secret shortcut path. also this is the 2nd section now of my track as indicated by the left part of the pic. the first section being on the other 3 pics.( i choose to section the track up like this because it makes this concept stage easier to detail the whole course from start to finish, showing each and every bend)

This is the first part of the 2nd mineshaft of the course, this mineshaft one a little more complex than the first. again a blocked off tunnel at the top left will give the mine some natural design and feel to it.

The 2nd part of the 2nd mineshaft has a small event that takes place. where as the player is racing down the straight a mine cart will roll round the corner on the rails towards them. they will have to react quick to swerve round it, there will be space just enough for the car.

Track Section breakdowns.

Start work now on sectioning the track out from start to finish. using basic color details for the design i have a section of the track on the left of the image and then a zoomed in look at a specific feature or event for that part of the track.

first section of the map is the top part of the mountain. the first straight will have a rockslide that tumbles down at the side of a water tower. the player will have to race ahead as fast a possible to avoid the rockslide, the result of the rockslide will block the second straight of the road forcing the player to quickly turn left into a mineshaft.

the first mineshaft section follows a fairly straight forward D shape design. the off sections of the mineshaft is for the mine carts to dive deeper into the mines but will be blocked off with stationary mine carts resting on the tracks. i added this to simply give the level a more authentic and natural design because in reality mine shafts went for miles into mountains and branched off in many tunnels.

re-design and more art

Bit of re-designing here, shortened track for limited time and design reasons. Originally the track included an industrial zone whcih would of had many warehouses and factories the car could blaze through but cutting that out help shorten mt track and take a workload of design off my hands. the track now seems a decent length though still will require a bunch of work to build. for now im settle with this, but as i start to build the level within unreal depending on whats limitations and hold backs things may change slightly as with any design. also added few thinner lines to the course which represent shortcuts. 

Below is a piece of concept art for what the mine shafts will look like. following typical design aspects of a 19th century mining tunnel. the mine shafts though at the moment are a wobbily feature in terms of design, as to how i can approach building them within in unreal leaves a few questions. so as design goes on mine shafts are subject to change.

Next i'm working on flushing out the track in more detail down to the object placement, water towers, hazards, and sectioning of each area, with a lot of sectioning to do using very detailed concepts such as the ones i've produced so far seem out of the question, time is precious and need to keep the following concepts at a level of detail that are understandable and detailed enough to demonstrate the track but not over detailed to the point where im falling behind by spending too much time on them.

Art oh struggle some art

Wow this piece of art took me a strangley long time to produce, i seem to have got very rusty on my artwork over the past few years, and find it a struggle to produce ideas that are in my head in visual pieces, i tried to stick with the color scheme and set the distance values correctly, not to impressed with it myself but it gives a pretty ok idea to what my mountain section of the track will look like, with the tracks for the mine carts and a muddy path next to it for workers walking up and down.

The section here is the bottom most part of the mountain path where it turns off into distance to the Viaduct and river on the left

Be coming down the mountain!!

After looking at the images i collected and figuring out what main things make up a typical 19th century town/city i then began to plan out some ideas in my head of a track.

I wanted to incorporate a few zones to the maps, not just one environment to create a more varied feel and realistic approach to the design, my first idea above is made up of 4 sections, top left being country side style road in hills coming into town, with a water via duct and bridge passing over a river that flows into a lake in front of the town, then the road goes through the housing estate and past a trainstation with tracks, onto the industrial factories and finally through the scrapyard. 

This is my second idea, i came up with, i really liked this idea and began to visualise the whole thing in motion, imagining racing through the mountains at the start really stuck with me and made this idea solid, i began to develop it further in my head and finalised the map as shown below.

My second idea really came on strong with me after visualising it and became my final. so suddenly ya think? yes, though obviously as i start on the concepting of the track through art work, minor adjustments will likely occur, such things like secrets and shortcuts aswell as set pieces and possible ways of making the track versatile as possible. i want to have to have the car racing through mountains and drifting out of the way of wreckage into mine shafts rushing back out in time to jump a collasped part of road, flying over a visually wonderful viaduct with scenery into a breathing industrial zone with coal piles, factories and mills, jumping through gaps in train carriages, into loading bays of buildings and out through windows bursting down into tightly packed working class streets swerving off into allyways and smashing through objects then finishing off along a sea front. ambitious, and i will need to learn some things in unreal to pull of physics on windows and objects maybe but those things will looked into at a later stage.

Back on track. Research complete!

Note: this is not all my pictures and research, just a selected few of main importance from each area of research i did. to upload all of it would be very longggg blog post indeed. 

Ah been a busy week for me, but managed to get more work done this weekend. got pretty much all the research i need to help with my concept stage, and already have some whacky ideas on track designs. the following week i will be drawing out track layouts and ideas, using knowledge i have from many racing games, to ensure the corners and placements are of challenging value aswell as some crazy ideas thrown into the mix. though some ideas may need some hands on testing in unreal if i choose to go ahead with them. for now here is my final batch of research material.

Nurburgring, the most challenging race circuit in the world. much inspiration to help understand what makes track designs challenging. after much racing over years on simulation games i have a good feel and knowledge for every corner on this track. that will be much useful i thinks :)

Some iOS top down racers, just to get a feel of what they look like and how the designs vary. having not played anything on iOS i dont have much feel for these games but the design styles are fairly simple and straight forward.

ahh crash team racing, a classic. the track design for the game is very whacky and crazy, which i think is a good thing to be inspired into my designs for my track.

just a few of victorian 19th century research i collected. showing the style of buildings they were, the textures they used and the layouts of the working class housing. also some stylistic artwork of industrial working towns and factories help give an atmospheric feel and understanding to what the theme for the level will be. Im a very picky about having eye watering backdrops and scenery in my game levels so i take alot of interest in scenic photos/artwork.

Overcompensating??

progress been slightly slow over weekend, but managed to gather enough information on what steampunk is and how it is incorporated into deisgn and style. though i may of overcompensated  how much research ive done into this due to the fact the guidelines of the project is grounded more into reality 19th century rather than the fantasy fiction side of steampunk. nether the less, i have collected many pictures and artworks, aswell as quotes and article sections on the core features behind steampunk which all dipict steampunk in its many forms, and should hopefully prove useful along the journey of the project.

Next i will explore into victorian settings and more of a reality historic based 19th century style, which will be the primary reserach for helping produce most of my design work, based on the environment, color and architecture.

Also discovered a good set of Ebooks today, which detail level design. reading them over the coming weeks should prove invaluable  for when i start my design and development stage of the project.

Edit:

The above is a basic mood board i put together in photoshop to dislpay architectural designs within the steampunk world. images below are just a selected few of many. they show a great deal of how the design of the interiors and exteriors of steampunk worlds work and how the color schemes blend in to create the mood and feel for the enivronnment and setting. Aswell as a probaly somewhat irrelevant character image, which i spent a little time looking into, for general reasons of going out the way of the project criteria to help further understand steampunk more.

Research! Research!

Spent the morning reading through the Much Haste To Igford blog and facebook content.

Weekend ahead will be all about research into Steampunk style and themes, to help understand and get a feel for what s19th Century Steam Punk is.

Furthermore, I need to research into color palettes and schemes that fit into Steam Punk style to create different moods for various settings. Hopefully by weekend end, i should have enough research and understanding to roughly imagine many variations of level design that produce different moods and feel, along the steampunk theme.