Outpost 11

Hello, I'm Eric Scruggs and I hope you enjoy my project.

I'm a first year student at CG Spectrum and I made this level in my Game Design Course under the mentorship of Scot Bayless. I call this project Outpost 11.

Exterior Video

The player's path would first enter the ground level door and use an elevator to reach the top floor where the drone control and roof access are located . Then the player will reenter the elevator and go through the main control room and take the hallway to the common room, then exit the level through the yellow door.

Interior Video. Starting from the top floor and traveling through the command room and hallway to the common room and level exit.

This level was intended to be a location in a larger game world set in the setting of near future Antarctica. I have always enjoyed ice and snow levels in video games and felt inspired to create one. Locations in this world were to contain elements the player would seek to destroy or dismantle, such as, computer servers, satellite communications, and power supply.

Under the mentorship of Scot Bayless at CG Spectrum I’ve been able to learn a great deal about level building, set dressing, and lighting. A year ago I had no experience working with Unreal Engine or any Art related software. This level is the start of my journey in hopes to someday become a game designer. It started as a crude drawing on the back of an envelope and finished as a video game level. In the pictures one can see that from gray box to set dressing this level has undergone a lot of learning curves.

Transitions for the Outpost exterior.

Transitions for the Control Room.

Transition for Hallway to Common Room.

Transition for top floor with drone and roof access.

To develop the character of the outpost I placed and created elements I thought would make the level more credible. I added the drone and truck. The truck is a marketplace asset but I added spotlights to give life to the headlights and a blue-green cab light to add depth to the prop. The drone has undergone changes, its took a couple iterations to model a credible drone in Unreal Engine.

I wanted to have the level feel a little bit alive so I thought adding moving pieces would accomplish that. For the satellite I made the light blink and  the dish oscillate. For the hyrdofan I made it rotate at a constant speed to give the idea of power generating for the outpost itself. The last piece I decided on was a flag. I realized in a lot of games locations are marked with some sort of movement or light and decided to mark the outpost with a waving flag, lit by spotlights.

At the end of my coursework, I'm happy to show what I've made so far in just a year without any prior experience with Unreal engine and hope to keep pursuing video game design as a career. I hope you enjoyed the project. Thank you.