Continueeeed..!

Thoughts for the Whitebox so far?
Well yes its going much better now but the only draw back is that its taking a bit longer than my initial tests. Terrain is difficult to work with and in my previous tests It was only along the lines of quickly place it rather than thinking of the entire thing as a whole.

Ill be working on the Whitebox again today but my thoughts at the moment are that what I have has a few too many trees. Ill continue though and see what happens, can always delete trees if im against them.

Again im thinking out loud even while trying to finish the one that I am on! But I think having the level so from the village you can see the river (or at least evidence of one)


Right my comments on this..

Right the docks at the bottom I do quite like and having a field just above it (influenced by Oakfield in Fable 2) about having it raised with a fence around it.
The level continues to go up hill into the village. As I mentioned before I think there may be too many trees, so much that they detract too much from what im trying to acomplish. Then gets to the village which is quite similar in style to my previous whitebox but.. After thinking about having the river visible from the village I think I want to stop this and try again.

What I want to acomplish:
Want to create a riverside settlement which has interesting aspecs to eventually lead the player down to the docks being the "Objective" not as a game but simply as an area to walk. I don't think it should be very forest orientated, The trees should be used to mark where the player cannot go but not done so obviously. A few should be able to be walked around.
I want the village to be self supporting for this market about having someone who works with chickens, fruit and vegetables and fish from the fishing ports. The actual village section I want quite populated with buildings and the like and have the docks quite quiet in comparison. Having it like a filter of Human,bit more natural, then completely natural (being the river at the end. I want it to be a pleasant area to walk through but not namby pamby, cuddely, cute, blegh - The main reason that I want a day/night cycle, also thought it would be quite interesting for the use of lighting and shadows.
For the most I want the buildings inaccessible though there may be a couple of exceptions. I do want a pub building somewhere in the center of town, I think that even small settlements should have a central building.

Continued

Towards the end of yesterday I was getting a bit frustrated with my progress, still the dilemma of not having much control over terrain in 3dsmax (even with that paint select tool) so I stopped and thought id try it again. Another attempt with a little more patience and to work on one specific area at a time.
In this case I started from the bottom going up.



I thought using the paint selection bit by bit is probably the way to go.
fairly quickly got it to this stage working on the dock area.



The idea of the boat house being connected from the ground going into the water area but rather than having the boathouse on 1 level, have some stairs going up to get to the proper level - might be quite interesting. Then the docks near by near a little beach where a couple of boats can be left (those not wealthy enough to have their own boathouse) As for trees around im not so sure about them but like iv seen in Fable I quite liked the idea for the area to be quite rockey with grass growing over it.



As before this will be ongoing throughout the day and hopefully ill get another whitebox made to aid in exactly what im wanting.



Bit further along..

Now While making this I decided that rather than having a huge open area to condence everything after placed, I tend to find from experience with the rooftop that more enclosed is better for the player to look around, has to have a balance between open and enclosed. While labeling this image actually I was playing with the idea of having an older unused pier and fishing hut away from the newer section. Having a difference of older and newer may be interesting to look around.

More progress..
Im still finding it difficult to control but bit by bit it shapes up.


Im trying to bear in mind to condense the area a bit, I moved the entire area forward a little distance. I want to get the sense of things being crammed in as its all they have got. In essance the boating area wont be very popular as it is mainly for the fishermen of the village but even so, trying to get the sense of them making something out of nothing.

More..more!..MORE!


For this progression I thought about having a small farm house which can own a little piece of land bringing in vegetables and fruit to the market each week. Im not sure if ill use this idea with the fruit bushes but its something to explore at least.

It Begins!

So, this is it. The official start for the final major project - Riverside settlement for me. Now I was hoping to get a few more whiteboxes done over the Christmas period but in the feedback sessions I was asked to try and enhance my rooftop and vehicle project. It taken the entire time to get them completed so didn't have the chance to continue. But I am back now and eager to continue.

My previous white boxes were done during the 'ok I know what my idea is but not really whats happening layout wise' period and I think i still am at that stage. I have a better understanding of what I want and by my 4th one it was starting to shape up.. but I still wasn't happy with how it was going.

To reiterate what i want;
A little road outside the village to start as the introduction to the level, trees towards the back of the village with gaps which allows the player to ride past and think 'Oh! whats down there then!' then a turning into the village starting with the main houses to the center full of various market stalls which the occupiers are hoping to sell.

From my research from West-stow I will not just be doing 1 of the houses but all variations if possible with the different thatching methods, but also I want to update them slightly to get out of the solid Anglo-Saxon tone and going more through the ages. There was also a workshop building at west-stow where the Blacksmiths do their work, and with that various props can be positioned around that area.

The entire village is on a sloping hill down to the river but also it will not be a regular hill but one with various forms.
A few sparse houses will be closer to the riverside with 1 small field (probably ploughed) with various agricultural tools scattered (base on the research I taken from that Art-In-Action venue) enclosed by rickety fencing.

Then the actual riverside which will have a small boathouse and a bit of a pier with various equipment used for fishing, eeling and other boating activities.

Along side all these will be a few natural props being trees, plants, animallife, produce on the market stalls and a night/day cycle looking at the different lighting styles.


Listing it like that puts it into perspective and hopefully ill be able to start another whitebox with these elements in mind and get a good layout going.




To be honest, even though I have pretty much just started this Im actually quite frustrated by my progress, I seem to be getting into that rut like with my last whitebox.
After consideration i think my issue at the moment is that as my village is quite terrain based and although I do know how to do some terrain modelling in 3dsmax I find that I don't have a lot of control over what I want. This is only the previs stage really and i appreciate that the models for the whiteboxing should be basic but I think I need to find a better way of doing it to solidify my idea.



I found a way to paint the terrain with pressure sensitivity in 3dsmax where I can change the brush size and all like in Photoshop for selecting polygons, the image above shows the greater control than what I was doing earlier.
What I did earlier was just tick soft selection and adjust the brush size, below that is a button for paint, revert and blur and in the rollout there is a "use pressure sensitivity" which makes it easier to select vertices. Below is a test result.

It would have to be done in sections though as the height is translated into 6 colours, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue this isn't really enough for what I want. even though the control is better now, it isn't THAT good to be able to choose the colour and paint as its all dealt with pressure.

Whiteboxing mark 4

Although mark 3 went quite well I still wasn't 'feeling' it, couldnt get into the groove so it seemed. I basically tried another variation and moved stuff around, tried more of a field section on a different level rather than up on a bit of rock. as in previous attempts it starts with going down a road then down a bit of a slope to the village.



I tried to stay in keeping with this rock over grass idea for the level, just for a test (think of them large rock things placed in my white box as this)In Whitebox it doesn't look too impressive but I think it might work alright. Ill have to try and find somewhere with that sort of thing for proper reference though. Yeah
what you see is what you get, in keeping with things experimented with in previous whiteboxes. Although its probably the best Whitebox to date i'm still not quite there yet with how I want it to be. It simply needs explored some more but its getting there.. its getting there..

Whiteboxing Mark 3

I completly forgotton but during the summer I went to an Arts in Action fair in oxfordshire. It was as commercial as they get.. wasnt terribly interesting to be honest but the actual house which It was based there was a little museum full of all wonderful and deadly looking agricultural tools.

There were quite a lot condensed into 1 small space but it was all very interesting - apparently some of the tools were banned at their time for their lethal nature. With looking at that field idea form Fable surley I could incorporate these in my project somehow.

Anyway yes after looking at this and my other moodboards last post I tried doing another whitebox, my third attempt.



So based on the above reference I tried to make more of a working village with a bit of a field (towards the middle of the image) having it sort of overhanging the river. So far im liking how this is going. I also incorporated
this into the level on the bottom right of the image. I think it helps make it look more natural and interesting than a few bushes spread around the river.
I also thought that I could have one of the large broads on the other side (but inaccessible, perhaps with a little ship or something bobbing up and down.

Whiteboxing Mark 2

Ok for Mark 2 I was playing around with the idea of having the settlement a bit closer to the harbor and having the area surrounded by rocky terrain loosely based on what I seen in Fable 2's Oakfield village.

The idea of compressing the village a little more is what I was mainly going for in comparison to the actual Anglo-Saxon village I went to. With Mark 1, since I wasn't happy with it I stopped before i thought about the actual wooden harbor.

I seen an improovement with this whitebox from the previous but I still wasn't really getting it. I stopped at that point seen in this image as I wanted to try from the start again.

Before Going into it again I had a little break and had a look around the levels in question in Assassins Creed and Fable 2. I remember in the first one there was a little harbor in the "Kingdom" section of Assassins Creed.



Once again this is the middle-east rather than Britain which I think my village will be set in. I did look through my riverside photos I taken in Norfolk but none of them actually had anything like this around. A lot of the moorings were done at the sides of the banks with modern wooden beams and posts, I didn't want boats tied up like that in my FMP as it wasnt true to the time period I was going for and also I wanted to suggest that this village had a working fishing and eeling buisiness.

In fact the harbor is pretty plain but with plenty of posts and areas to moor up.
Also in my norfolk research I taken a photo of a boat house which I thought I could have as part of my village for the more expensive boats.

I thought it was useful also due to the fact that it looked a little dilapidated.

Yes after Assassins creed I looked at Fable 2 again.


I liked the farming element also in this village which I could maybe incorporate with my level to give it a sense of a working village. Also it would make sense for the village to have their own things to sell rather than imported stuff (compared to this age...) The fact that the field wasn't all flat and straight as you would find in the country here, its also 'touching' that the villagers work with what they have got rather than in a perfect work, and during that time not the best tools were available.

Whiteboxing Mark 1

So after that I thought it was time to experiment with whiteboxing.
I made very quick and easy representation of the buildings as well as a few market stalls loosely based on the reference I taken in Norfolk as well as my original stalls from Assassins creed.

To be brutally honest I didn't really know what I was doing for this Whitebox I had a vague idea in my head of what I wanted but I found it difficult both draw or whitebox. This comes closer to what I thought than what I could draw, basically
having a road behind the village which the player would start by. Seeing between the trees they would see what looks like a village which will prompt them to go have a look when they see the turning. There will be a few market stalls around more in the center of the village with a few aspects of home life including a pen for chickens or other live stock.

A few posts back I mentioned about some forms of wildlife which I taken photos of while on holiday and I thought it might be fun to model a few and have them animate around (which ill have to look into, I can animate in UDKS' matinee but for animals they would have to be animated in max and imported).
Also in presentation Heather thought it would be good to have a few free chickens running around. As seen in my assassins creed research there were some caged chickens also, presumably that would be sold in the markets... BINGO!