Honours Project in Modularity...

[Iain Lithgow]

Greetings,

My name is Iain Lithgow and I am currently studying Games Design and Production Management at Abertay University.

Right now I am working on my honours project which consists of investigating different methods of designing, building and using modular and re-usable assets in modern computer games.

Below are a number of screenshots showing the progress I have made so far. At the moment it is all very simplistic but I will be updating this post as I go and incorporating any feedback I receive.

For more info feel free to visit my blog at Games Industry or Bust

Looking forward to any feedback you may have.

Thanks!



That is the selection of assets I have created so far, which when put together can create simple corridors very quickly.

[TheChan]

I would make some panels that are sunk in or something to break up the repetitiveness.

[Matroskin]

Try to break the flatnes of your walls. Add more extruded/recessed pars to add more volume and depth.
Everything looks too flat right now.

[Iain Lithgow]

Thanks for the feedback so far ^^

The next stage in the development is indeed to create more panel variations, You may be able to see in the screenshot that there is a panel with a recess in it that I placed the pipe mesh within in UDK. In theory this recess can be filled with a number of different assets that I will be creating and I am also going to create another recess version for the larger panels.

On top of this I will be creating modular assets that can be placed against the wall/ceiling to break up repetition, such as consoles and other random technological wonders

[Di$array]

Look good Iain. The above posters have some good points. Try bracking it up with first aid box, pipes, cables, etc.

For my final year's group project, me and a fellow artist on a team used a modular kit to help create the environment for the level. You can check out a few screens below if you want.
Conceptualuk's deviantART Gallery
Conceptualuk's deviantART Gallery
Conceptualuk's deviantART Gallery

[Iain Lithgow]

That's some really nice modular assets Di$array ^^

I was torn between creating modular buildings or interiors for my project but in the end went for the interior since I find it a bit simpler to explain to people visually.

[Iain Lithgow]

Unfortunately I never managed to find the time to keep this thread as up to date as I would like, but the project is now completed.

Video : YouTube - ‪Modular Level Design‬‏

Images: Honours Project Games Industry or Bust

Any further feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks for the help! ^^

[Perfect_Storm]

The idea is nice. I like the fact that the world is building up.
But the intro and outro..... damn... thats bad lol.
You sound a bit like God: " I create worlds"

Next to that, everything is still looking flat. I'm missing pillars and other objects that offset against the wall.
At the moment the wall touches the floor, there is sill a streight line. It would look a lot better if there is something like an arch that changes this pattern.

I also see some smoothing errors in your objects.
Next to that, the lighting is very bad.
You can get some decent lighting, also for dynamic objects, by removing them out of the light environment.
It also looks like you recorded the movie by just moving your mouse. Your movement is uncontrolled and shaking. You could easily use kismet to get a better result. I would try that

So, the idea is nice, but I think it needs some more work to make it stand out.

[Iain Lithgow]

Thanks for the feedback ^^

In terms of lighting etc the thing that needs to be kept in mind is that this is an interactive environment the player can walk through and learn about the assets etc (hence the dev commentary bubbles)

I designed the environment and the assets to be as simple and easy to understand as possible (very simple textures and lighting) because tests showed that if I made the lighting or textures too realistic people had trouble understanding how the environment was put together ^^'

I also had quite bad hardware restrictions on the computers it was being displayed on (members of the public came round to play through it at a showcase) which meant that if I used dynamic shadows for all the assets it slowed to about 4 FPS (The pipe room has over 250 interp actors firing off in 6 seconds! )

As for the intro and ending, people either seem to love it or hate it ^^' I personally like it, because it expresses the reason I got into game development, not because I think "Games are cool" or "Man I really wanna work on MW3!" but because it's the only medium that allows a designer to create a world entierly from their imagination, construct it, and allow a user to experience it...a bit corny I know but hey

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I'm thinking on cleaning it up and using it as an educational tool to teach new designers the merits of modular/reusable assets in modern games. Hopefully without the hardware restrictions etc I can polish it a bit better