Fighter Game - Environment

For my second year at university, we were tasked with: designing, modelling, texturing, and getting into Unity a character model and environment model for a mock fighter game. This will focus on the environment work.

This is the early 2D design for my environment setting. We did a lot of work on aspects like scale and size because we were making a fighter game level, so 2.5D. 

We chose a two-by-three screen area for the play space, meaning there was two vertical levels and three screens horizontally along. As you can see, for this early design I didn't think about the scene around the play space, I was just focusing on aspects within the play space. 

For my piece I chose to set it in busy central city (Canary Wharf for example) on an area with a balcony (For the vertical).

This is early on in development, as you can see it's all still in white box and there isn't much detail, and you can see the screens laid out in the back so that I knew where I was working. I also decided to move into Blender for the environment model because I felt it would be better for larger scale models, whenever I do large pieces in Maya the viewport is always a bit buggy and hard to work with.

Even though this is early, you can see the original design coming through in the play space (Centre middle building) and new design features I was thinking of like a small river section and bridge going over it, both on the left.

I really liked using Blender for the model, I think Maya and Blender both have their strong points, and it was fun learning Blender's with this model. I used Blender very early on in my Game Design career and then moved into Maya, so it was nice to go back to it.

These are three more images of the Blender scene further into production. The scene is more blocked out with higher detail on the models, and I had started putting in other assets that I was modelling in Maya. You can see some of these assets like the seating and ticket machines in the second image.

To fill space around the edge and close off the scene I used large, scaled building models, and added the windows the give that effect. This was my first time having to design a level that flows together, for example the river under the bridge/train line which connects to the back of the scene where you can see the train pulled in at the station.

I got to experiment a lot with Blender during this design process; using tools like arrays to duplicate and spread models or experimenting with Blender's bevel which can give a stairs effect. It was a challenge. but a fun one, learning the shortcuts for Blender and where certain commonly used tools are. 

This is a screenshot of the final Unity project. I had to take the model into Unity so that I could present it. The model is finalised and all assets from Maya have been put into the scene. I also textured the environment, using Unity and some Substance 3D for the Blender work and then used mostly Substance 3D for all the Maya assets. I was eager to use Substance because I'd seen how intuitive it seems and the high-quality textures that come out of it.

Overall, I was happy with how the project turned out and I took a lot from the work I did for it. I got to learn about software's other than Maya, like Blender, Substance 3D and a bit of Unity. The Unity work was the biggest struggle for me.