HI!!!!!

Well, what's up guys hope you didn't miss me bossing you around the last couple of days. We did a great job up to know and you guys made a great effort going that extra mile on the last week and it clearly showed in the end result. Once again great job! But we are not done yet, I gave you a couple of days to clear your mind and forget about this project for a second, but it's time to get back in. (Although its really simple stuff hehe). So, here's the list of the stuff you guys have to do by TUESDAY. So I can apply those changes on WEDNESDAY so its ready for thursday. There are also a million extra little details that I'll be making inside of UT3. If you don't understand what you are supposed to do from my simple notes, then CALL ME, and I'll explain them ok? They are really simple tasks, but that doesn't mean that they don't have to be done properly. We are having a meeting on tuesday just to talk about the meeting on thursday. Here's the list.

Create grading strip map - Flickering of lights -(Randin)

Change texture - Remove text from the sign of the mine -(Anthony)

Create alpha for - trees for the top of the trees -(jeff)

Change texture - Change alphas on the grass to fade at bottom-(Anthony)

Change texture - Desaturate the color of the mushrooms. -(Randin)

Create texture map - Re-texture the lamp posts. -(jimmy)

Create texture map - Re-texture the shopping carts.- (jeff)

Base texture for the waterfall – (Jeff)

Texture minecart – (Anthony)

Redo-bridge –(Jeff)

Make a rusted track map - Rusted tracks. -(Anthony)

Re-import windows on buildings, individually, so they can be placed individually and we can apply different maps to them. -(lee)


See it's highlighted and everything so you can't miss it. Also, there is two extra things you guys have to do.

1. Do a small list of the things that you we think we set of to achieve when creating the cogshire.

2. Run through the map for about 30 mins. And find the coolest vista of shots you can find, if you can take a screenshot of them, that would be great.:D


ok? Lets do this guys, there is no going back now. Lets finish this thing.:D Good luck!


P.S. Randin, when you are runing the level in unreal type "stat fps", and tell what numbers you get, see if they drop somewhere and stuff, so i can optimize or push level a bit more ok?? (need to know sunday)


thanks guys



Go team Excelsior! *jumps with a hand up in the air, and freeze frame against the shining horizon in the background, (insert) cheezy inspirational music*


Faded out


LOL...

hey whats up guys...

Good job on the meeting on saturday guys, I think it all went pretty smoothly. We got a lot done, but there is still a lot of work to do. We are one week away from having to presnet so lets keep it up. By this thursday guys all you models have to be FINISHED and textured so check the list (its here in the blog.) so you guys can check what are you suposed to do. NO EXCUSES it's written down, then the model has to be finished and textured, by the BEGINING of the class ok?

Good luck guys let me know if you have any issues.

Andres

color opinions

hey guys, there was some debate as to the color of the microscope lab, different types of metals, and all, so i'm putting these up so we can decide on tuesday's meeting.

I think it's important that the silhouette stands out against the rocky color background and the foliage surrounding it. I'm afraid that brown or gray gears will get lost against the rock background, so i'm leaning towards the middle one.

question: most rust goes brown or red, is any of our metal going to have a different color oxidation? like copper goes green

Randin

schedule for text

hey whats up guys? I'm posting the list of stuff we said we would scan the list of stuff we are going to texture. I scanned it and then forgot to put the names of who is doing who...:S. Ha but here's the scan, and a list:

Jeff - Pipework/Gears/Conveyer Belt
Lee - Engine / Waterwheel
Gene - Crystal Fountain
Andres - Terrain / Trees
Anthony - Library
Randin - Bucket Variations/toolboxes/wrench/picaxe/shove/hammer
Jimmy - Signs/Crystals/Witchdoctor stuff


I also leave here a progress of the terrain I'm working for on. Still a lot of work, but working on it.



Andres

Good job on the midterm guys, we did great, keep it up!! We got a presentation next week..:D

Here's our WIP

WIP shot of the town, this has to be FUUUUUULLLLLLLLL of fancy little props by next week. SO let's do it.:D (and running in UT3).



Andres

whats up guys!!!

What's up:

Lets do this guys, this is our LAST WEEK of modeling, so we got to give it our best. We have to get these models ready by Tuesday if we want this whole project to work. Please make sure you put the models inside the dropbox BEFORE the meeting on Tuesday, ha and don't place all of them on Monday, in case Jimmy makes some suggestions on your models and they can be corrected by tuesday. My worklfow and Lee's depend on the being ready, so let's get this stuff ready :D ok?

Here's the updated asset list for this week's work. It's also available on the dropbox just in case.



Let me know if you have any questions I'll probabaly be online all the way till tuesday haha, cause I dont' have class on Monday. So don't hesitate to call me or email me if you have any questions, or want extra modeling tasks (no matter how unlikely that might be haha). Anyways, thanks for the great commitment and work so far, let's keep it up!


Andres

Homework for thursday!

So guys I have a simple assignment for everybody (and by simple I don't mean take 5 mins to complete it..:S, I just mean it's simple haha). I got some screen shots of what our town looks like so far. I would like everybody to take a couple of those screen shots, make some quick paint overs them, so you can add some detail to the city and make it look like it's being lived in. Remeber to add barrels, methods of transportation, carts, little devices, and stuff like that. Once you do that, make an asset list with all the stuff you painted. That way on thrusday we can create an asset list of what we need to model for next week.

Good luck guys.:D


Andres

team meeting, tuesday

Well I forgot to set a time for the team meeting during last class. But we are still meeting. I was thinking we should meet at the same time as last time, from 4 to 6 so we can have time to review the models that everyone did, make some comments changes and start working on new stuff. remember you have to upload them to the non-approved folder on the dropbox. Anyways just summing it all up:

Team Meeting Tomorrow (Tuesday)

4 to 6, we'll meet in the same room as last time (room 276 i think, the room that's on the other side from the unreal room ha)

please confirm if you are going to make it. (leaving a comment on this post.:D)

coolio, see you there guys. :D

P.S.Just as a side note, i dont think my ted is going to be able to give me ride to school this week (he's kinda sick), :S, would someone mind givin me a hand this week, :D. Just let me know.:D

Andres

Busy, busy

Sorry for not pumping out concept these past couple days guys, my grandpa's in town and my dad just had a wedding today.

Just wanted to know if there was anything you absolutely needed concept for in the near future to let me know.

Again sorry for the slow progress, but there will definitely be some modular stuff done by Tues as well as concept art.

Lets go guys! Modeling time!

Lets make this work this weekend. I will be looking forward to what you post during the weekend, remember that we must have all this modeled by Tuesday.:D try to upload it earlier in case jimmy wants to make any comments.

good luck guys...:D

Andres

Model List

As promised guys here's the model list that we are going to work from the next to weeks. Here are some important notes to keep in mind:

a) Files must be saved as an *obj

b) You must save them to the "non-approved" folder and once jimmy checks it, he will move them to the "approved" folder.

c) if you have any ideas for new props post it under this thread as comments.

d) remember to keep a decent polycount.

e)models are due by tuesday.



Good luck guys remember this is our first "crunch" time.

Andres

Congratulations Jimmy!!

Just wanted to let you guys know that Jimmy got an animation internship yesterday, and he should be starting pretty soon. So I just wanted to let you guys know and congratulate him once more for a much deserved internship, and I'm sure you're going to do great man.

Best of luck!

Andres

Story v2.0

(I incorporated some suggestions that Jeff gave me as well as some changes suggesten in previous comments on the old story. As the blog does not notify me of comments, please send any further feedback to me by email so that I can have this tightened up and solid by our meeting.)

The town of Cogshire was a thriving gnomish community. Set within the energy-rich confines of a geothermic crater in the shadow of a secluded volcano, the citizens of Cogshire spent their days happily gathering crystals from the rock walls of their unconventional home. These crystals were as unusual as the town of Cogshire itself. Years prior, the founders of Cogshire had discovered that these crystals could hold energy that they were exposed to. A visionary gnomish inventor Whizzbang Fiddlesprocket, devised a contraption that purified and focused the energy of the sun itself to be used in these crystals, and for decades these powered the myriad devices of Cogshire.

Today however, the thriving town of Cogshire is dying. Our hero enters the town via elevator systems that are running a little too slow and a bit too sluggish. He/She finds the townsfolk are scared; their way of life is being threatened, and the only person who can save them, Bob, a direct descendant of Fiddlesprocket, has vanished. Furthermore, the town of Cogshire has been beset by a plague of terrifying nightmares that have made sleep all but impossible for the once happy gnomes. Our hero must take on quests for the townspeople which will eventually lead him/her to the mine with the last two uncorrupted crystals that exist in Cogshire to investigate Bob’s strange disappearance. At the mine entrance, our hero meets a strange yet helpful witchdoctor.

The witchdoctor tells our hero that the mine has been sealed because an aberrant crystal was found, and when Bob had gone into the mine to investigate, he did not return. Guards were sent in who found that Bob and the aberrant gem had both vanished, and the mine was sealed immediately to prevent further mishaps.

He explains that the town is dying because the Fiddlesprocket’s mechanical statue in the center of town is slowing down. The only person who can fix it is Bob. He also tells the hero that the crystals in the mine are being corrupted by what he believes to be an imbalance between the planes which started shortly after Bob’s disappearance. Not only is this destroying the gnomes’ entire way of life, these corrupted crystals are radiating some kind of negative energy which has been causing the plague of nightmares to besiege the helpless gnomes.

Our hero is asked to journey through a portal that the witchdoctor believes will send him/her to where Bob has disappeared to. The witchdoctor asks for a crystal from the town to power this portal he intends to create. He gives vague assurances as to how he has discovered this location thorough his magic, and asks the hero to go there and do what he/she can to stop Cogshire from plummeting to what the gnomes view as the equivalent of the dark ages.

Upon reaching the nightmare plane, our hero finds that he/she is in a twisted and corrupted version of Cogshire. Upon heading back toward the town the most notable thing our hero sees is that the statue is not where it is supposed to be. Through exploration and investigation, our hero finds out that Bob has indeed been transported here and has gone mad from being trapped in the nightmarish world. He has tinkered this plane’s version of the statue into a giant clockwork robot. Also in a tragic accident, his failed attempt to create a machine to send him home, Bob has created a machine that is transmitting aspects of the nightmare plane into the material plane. This machine is the source of the nightmares the gnomes are suffering and the corruption of the power crystals as they are beginning to store nightmare energy.

Our hero must defeat the clockwork robot and replace the corrupted crystal in Bob’s machine with the one given to him/her in Cogshire. Thus allowing our hero and Bob to escape back to the material plane where Bob’s madness can be cured by the witchdoctor and the town of Cogshire can be restored to glory.

bridge

Here's the bridge concept, I'm not too happy with it. If you guys have any suggestions they are very welcome.

Team Meeting

Just reminding you guys that the meeting tomorrow will take place from 4 to 6, and we will meet at 4 sharp in the student lounge. Let me know if you guys are going by commenting on this post.

Andres

Excelsior Logo

Hey guys I need to include some sort of logo for Excelsior in the presentation. So if guys have any ideas please sketch them and post them on the Dropbox in the Logo folder. If there is one you guys particularly like from the DropBox let me know commenting on this thread, kinda like voting. And I will clean that one up tomorrow morning before the meeting.

Final Concept

Hey guys here's the final overall mood concept for the level. Gene did a great job of mashing our bunch of ideas into one level I'm really happy with the result. What do you guys think?



P.S. How are you guys doing with your assignments for tuesday? (remeber the to-do-list is on dropbox.) Also I would really appreciate if you guys could send me your school schedule to my mail.:D Thanks!

Story v1.01b

The town of Cogshire was a thriving gnomish community. Set within the protective confines of a geothermic crater in the shadow of a secluded volcano, the citizens of Cogshire spent their days happily gathering crystals from the rock walls of their not so average home. These crystals however were no ordinary gems. Years prior, the founders of Cogshire had discovered that these crystals could hold energy that they were exposed to. A visionary gnomish inventor Whizzbang Fiddlesprocket, devised a contraption that purified and focused the energy of the sun itself to be used in these crystals, and for decades these powered the myriad devices of Cogshire.

Today however, the thriving town of Cogshire is dying. Our hero enters the town via elevator systems that are running a little too slow and a little too sluggish. He/She finds the townsfolk are scared; their entire way of life is dying, and the only person who can save them, a direct descendant of Fiddlesprocket, Bob, has vanished. Furthermore, the town of Cogshire has been beset by a plague of terrifying nightmares that have made sleep all but impossible for our once happy gnomes. Our hero must question the townspeople which will eventually lead him/her to the mine to investigate Bob’s strange disappearance. Upon arrival at the mine, our hero meets a strange yet helpful witchdoctor, who lives near the mine entrance.

The witchdoctor tells our hero that the mine has been sealed because an aberrant crystal was found inside and when Bob had gone into the mine to investigate it he did not return. Guards were sent in who found that Bob and the aberrant gem had both vanished, and the mine was sealed immediately to prevent further mishaps.

He explains that the town is dying because the machine that Fiddlesprocket invented which is housed in the statue located by the library in the middle of town is slowing down. The only person who can fix it is Bob. He also tells the hero that the crystals in the mine are being corrupted by what he believes to be an imbalance between the planes which started shortly after Bob’s disappearance. Not only is this destroying the gnomes’ entire way of life, these corrupted crystals are radiating some kind of negative energy which has been causing the plague of nightmares to besiege the helpless gnomes.

Our hero is asked to journey to the nightmare realm, with the help of the witchdoctor, to restore the balance and to rescue Bob who can fix the statue and stop Cogshire from plummeting to what the gnomes view as the equivalent of the dark ages.

Once our hero meets with the witchdoctor, he/she is asked to take two crystals to the statue in the middle of town. One is mounted atop some sort of arcane staff of some cryptic significance, the other is the last uncorrupted power crystal in Cogshire. The staff is to be used by the witchdoctor to transport the hero to the nightmare realm. The other is to be used to restore balance to the planes and thus save the mine from complete corruption.

Upon reaching the nightmare plane, our hero finds that he is in an alternate version of Cogshire. Upon heading back toward the town the most notable thing our hero sees is that the statue is not where it is supposed to be. Through exploration and investigation, our hero finds out that Bob has gone mad from being trapped in the nightmarish world he was transported to. He has transformed this plane’s version of the statue into a giant clockwork robot. Also in a botched attempt to create a machine to send him home, Bob has created a machine that is transmitting aspects of this nightmare plane into the material plane. This machine is the source of the nightmares the gnomes are suffering and the corruption of the power crystals as they are beginning to store nightmare energy.

Our hero must defeat the clockwork robot and replace the corrupted crystal in Bob’s machine with the one given to him/her by the witchdoctor. Thus allowing our hero bring himself and Fiddlesprocket’s grandson back to the material plane where his madness can be cured by the witchdoctor and the town of Cogshire can be restored to its prior glory.



(Cogshire, Whizbang Fiddlesprocket, and Bob are just place holder names. These will be changed based on team consensus.)


P.S.
If you haven't already, take a look at the comment I posted on the other story in response to Anthony's feedback. there are a couple of questions in it that i need answers to before we can finalize this story.

here's the same house but revised...

Andres

Some rounded out corners to make it more house looking and friendly, steam chimneys, coming from the kitchen and or, heating system. Connecting the pendulum with pipes to make it look more technological.

3d stuff!!!

Hey what's up guys! I told you I would have a 3d version of Jeff's concept of the house by today, and here it is. If look at this piece, as well as Jimmy's work on the hut, you can see the poly count and optimization style we are aiming for in order to have a big environment like the one we want to have. For example in the house the round sections are not perfectly round, but round enough (if that made any sense). Any ways I will finish this piece tomorrow, because it still needs some detailing, and I will uploaded to the Dropbox. Have a good weekend guys, I will be online checking up you, so good luck, and remember to have all your stuff on Tuesday. Also remember to read the story and post comments on it. Anthony already posted a bunch of very useful comments. So I'll talk to you guys during the weekend.



P.S. One of the secrets to keep the low poly count on the house, was that most of the gears are only planes with alphas and they are not actually modeled, but they still look good up close.

Andres

house1

Wanted to post this concept up if any of you guys wanted to get a head start on modeling some stuff, I'll be throwing some more stuff in the drop box some time tomorrow.

Background Story [post feedback]

The town of Cogshire was a thriving gnomish community. Set within the protective confines of the crater of a dormant volcano, the citizens of Cogshire spent their days happily gathering crystals from the rock walls of the volcano they called home. These crystals however were no ordinary gems. Years prior, the founders of Cogshire had discovered that these crystals could hold energy that they were exposed to. A visionary gnomish inventor Whizzbang Fiddlesprocket, devised a contraption that purified and focused the energy of the sun itself, and for decades, crystals powered the myriad devices of Cogshire.

Today however, the thriving town of Cogshire is dying. Our hero enters the town via elevator systems that are running a little too slow and a little too sluggish. He/She finds the townsfolk are scared that their entire way of life is dying, and the only person who can save them, a direct descendant of Fiddlesprocket, has vanished. Our hero must question the townspeople which will eventually lead him/her to an ascetic witchdoctor, who lives near the mine entrance.

The witchdoctor tells our hero that an aberrant crystal was found in the mine, Fiddlesprocket’s grandson had gone into the mine to investigate it and when he did not return guards were sent in who found that Fiddlesprocket’s grandson and the aberrant gem had both vanished. He explains that the town is dying because the machine that Fiddlesprocket invented which is housed in the statue located by the library in the middle of town is slowing down. The only person who can fix it is Fiddlesprocket’s grandson. He also tells the hero that the crystals in the mine are being corrupted by an imbalance between the planes which started shortly after the disappearance of Fiddlesprocket’s grandson. Our hero is asked to journey to the nightmare realm with the help of the witchdoctor to restore the balance and rescue Fiddlesprocket’s grandson who can fix the statue and stop Cogshire from plummeting to what the gnomes view as the equivalent of the dark ages.

Once our hero meets with the witchdoctor, he/she is asked to take two crystals to the statue in the middle of town. One is mounted atop some sort of arcane staff of some cryptic significance, the other is the last uncorrupted power crystal in Cogshire. The staff is to be used by the witchdoctor to transport the hero to the nightmare realm. The other is to be used to restore balance to the planes and thus save the mine from complete corruption.

Upon reaching the nightmare plane our hero finds that Fiddlesprocket’s grandson has gone mad from being trapped in the nightmarish world he was transported to. He has transformed this plane’s version of the statue into a giant golem-like robot and this tampering is the cause of the imbalance corrupting the gems in the material plane. Our hero must defeat the golem robot and replace its corrupted crystal with the one given to him/her by the witchdoctor. Once the robot is restored to its rightful place our hero brings Fiddlesprocket’s grandson back to the portal where his madness can be cured by the witchdoctor and the town of Cogshire can be restored to its prior glory.

Week 2 Meeting (Part 2)...

This is a screen shot of the asset list, as you can see, we have 3 columns, main assets, middle assets and detail assets. The list of main assets is what will need individual concepts, colored and finished to present to SONY on week 3. These assets are the ones that give the personality to the level. Then we have the middle assets, who will have probably simpler concepts not necessarily done by Gene or Jeff, and finally the detail assets, which are pretty much self explanatory.


During the meeting we added and adjusted some of the assets in the list to fit some of the newer concept. This list will be constantly updated and we will, check of items first when they get concepted (the ones that require concept), and then checked off once they are modeled.

Then we reviewed the work schedule. I believe it is imperative that we stick to this schedule in order to create a level with the level of quality that we want to make. In order to have enough time to polish assets, polish textures, and play test the level. Finish most of the heavy work by week 7 also means we will have 3 more weeks to work on some of our other finals (time that I know we are going to need). Here's a jpeg of the schedule.

Again we have a couple of columns here, the first column are the weeks (in school weeks), the second column, is when we need to START working on stuff. The third column is when the stuff needs to be COMPLETED. The fourth column offers some detail on what needs to be completed, and any extra notes are added on the side with a " * " symbol.

Well, finally the "to-do-list" for Thursday:

Gene- will work on the final concept for the city as well as a color pallet.
Jimmy - finished concept for the witchdoctor stuff.
Jeff - 2D concept for one of the main assets (ask gene or me for extra guidance, (anyone but the statue)).
Anthony - 2d or 3d concept for 2 middle or detail assets (like the fence)*.
Lee- compile the story from the notes I will post tomorrow morning .
Randin - 2d concept or ideas for 2 middle or detail assets*.
Andres - make a finalized paper map based on Gene's concept.

*Randin and Anthony post on the blog tomorrow what are you going to be working on, so you don't both work on the same thing.

(Both of these files are available in the dropbox, make sure you download them and have them with you.)

Let me know if guys have any questions about anything.

Week 2 Meeting

Hey what's up guys. First of all, I want to thank you guys for being so "hands on" with the project and keeping up to date with what's going on and for the good attitude overall. Also thanks for posting your ideas and opinions on the blog, that's also been very useful.

Now I will make a quick recap of the meeting today. I will address the subjects that we talked about in the same order the meeting plan had them stated .

First of all (Paper Map):
It is crucial that in order to create a level we have a paper map. This will provide order and flow into the level. I came up with a paper map, that will suffer a couple of tweaks after what we talked today and depending on the overall concept that Gene will make of the level (I will talk more about this a bit later) the changes will mainly involve scale of the main city, building placement and size.

Here's a scan of the paper map:



Concept art:
Second thing in the agenda was...(agenda haha sounds kinda fancy, anyways...) the concept art. We talked about what we had so far, how would we improve it and what needed to be done by Thursday.

We talked about the overall concept that Gene made of the level and how we are going to modify that into the style that we want. The first concept had a bit too much of a "mine" and wood look, and we are going to shift away from that and embrace more gnomish, and technological elements. We are going to keep the layout and the mine carts and all that cool stuff, but there is a list of things or ideas that we are going to follow with the whole level, when concepting and when modeling as well as some other ideas for the level. This is the list:

-The main material is metal, with some wood
-The tones and materials used will be, gray, blue, green, golden tones. Using materials like copper, brass, iron, etc. (instead of the brown wood-like tones we had in the 1st concept).
-There's going to be big, clunky, "clockwork-like" gears.
-All the main structures must look majestic and pretty.
-We are going to keep the mine cart tracks that go through the island and connecting with the sides, we are just going to reduce the amount of tracks so it doesn't look just like a mine town.
-We are going to have a big fancy bridge that connects the cliff side with the main island. The bridge will have again lots of gears, be really grand and majestic, as well as including a cool pulley system.
-Our 4 main vistas are going to be: a) the bridge, b) the entrance to the mine (where the witchdoctor* will be), c) the town square and d) the overall thing, the crater with the main island.
-There's going to be some geysers in the level to support the idea of the volcano in the background.
-Very industrial, and "inventor-like" feel to the whole level. Emphasize this using hydraulic arms, gears for windows, pipes and steam powered and crystal powered (I will explain the crystal thing in a second) mechanisms.
-There will be a tall tower in node 3 (the second smaller island).
-The island in the middle will be beneath the mouth if the crater, but above the path height. As well as surrounded by a wall that is taller than the player for optimization purposes.
-There will be waterfalls falling from the main island because there is a geyser that flows on the inside of the main island, and drips out as waterfalls. This is how the gnomes get their drinking water.
-The door in the houses will be bigger in proportion because even though the house is small for gnomes, the door is bigger to allow more races to get in.
- We will NOT model interior of ANY of the buildings.
- The town and all the elemnts in the townwill be powered by crystals that charge up with energy that is purified by the statue. This is a key element of the story and I will explain it more in detail on Thrusday because it's kinda long, but very intresting and cool. (Maybe I'll write it up tomorrow when I have a bit more of time.)

*We might change the race if the witchdoctor to something else yet to be determined because we're not sure if the erudite (being a scholar and all) would turn into a witchdoctor and stuff, so we all have to think about what race will the witchdoctor be.

So that was all we talked about the concept, I know a lot of progress, that's why important that you come to the team meetings. Only three more things to go, the asset list, the time schedule for the work and the stuff we need to get done by Thursday.

(I will put the rest of the stuff in a separate post cause this is getting ridiculously long haha)
All the files are already in the dropbox including the schedule and the asset list.

Problems with Concepts

Here are some of my thoughts based on what is in the dropbox. This was to long for the comment section and to important not to be read by everyone so I decided to make a new post. Sorry its long but they are some changes I think we really need to consider making before moving forward.


**Remember Gnomes are Tinkers first and foremost and our town should reflect that, while they are skilled at mining metals and precious gems that is not they are well known for. Dwarfs are well known for there mining and metal work ability with things like weapons. We need to outfit our town to look like a Gnome lives there, as it stands now it looks like a Dwarf town. We need off the way, crazy clockwork contraptions as the main focus of the down, not where its located.**

Based off the 3D concept posted of the town.

Problems: Gnomes while they are skilled miners are not as known for mining as Dwarfs. Right now the town looks like a Dwarf mining town with gears slapped all over the place. Gnomes are known more for tinkering clockwork stuff while Dwarfs are the miners.

Solution: I still like the idea of them having a mine but I think we should limit the tracks to outside the town that could lead to the mountain/mine entrance. Right now every time I see the 3D concept I think Dwarf town over Gnome even though there are lots of gears.

Ideas: For the Gnomes I really think we should try and focus more on the crazy contraptions and inventions that they make. Lots of there inventions fail and have explosive consequences.



Based off the 3D concept/drawings of town.

Problem: From the concepts I have seen it seems that instead of most of the town being on a big platue onto of the upside down mountain the buildings are places all over the sides of the inverted mountain. I see quite a few problems with this.

First Problem: If we have these buildings on the sides of the mountain that means the detail all along the side of the mountain will have to be highly detailed to match the buildings near by or it will look off with high detailed houses and low detailed terrain.

Second Problem: Boring view for players down along the mountain side. Since this inverted mountain is suppose to be in a canyon the view for players when along the side of the mountain will be pretty plain and boring. It would be almost nothing but the canyon walls no matter where the player would look.

Third Problem: Pigeonholing the player into set paths. Building a city along the side of a cliff will limit the freedom for the player to explore the city. There can only be so many paths to take to get from one place to another. In Everquest all there city's are large open areas so you can move from one building to another without a set path. With catwalks connecting the buildings it forces the players to go from one house to the next in a line.

Its like traveling up a mountain, there is only 1 or 2 ways up and your forces to see places based on there position on a path. A city built more on a flat plain gives players the freedom to go from house to house how they choose not based on whats next along the path.

Fourth Problem: Lack of tinker room. With buildings on the side it limits the space available for the Gnomes to do there crazy contraptions. They wont have like a lawn or a lot of space to make crazy things which they are known for. This will lead to most places looking the same with not much individuality.

Fifth Problem: The amount of work with the terrain will already be extremely high as the mountain and canyon will all have to be done with custom statics as its not something Unreal can do. If players can get close to something you have to make that area more detailed then places the player cannot reach.

Sixth Problem: This is now more then 1 zone. Have a top city, side of the mountain city, bridge off the city and path to witch doctor is really more then just 1 zone, its 2. The city uptop and the city on the side would be big enough to its own zone. This will more then likely lead to having less detail in city to get everything done since it is so expansive.

Ideas: Change things up and have most of the town uptop on the platue. This gives players the freedom to roam around where and how they want to. It also gives us more area to work with when decied what kind of crazy clockwork creations we can have the gnomes building. With the sides of the mountain we can have them less detailed and use implied shapes and forms to get across the message of the inverted mountain without sacrificing close up detail that the player could see.

We can add houses to the side later on for visual effect if it looks good but make it so players cannot reach those places. We want to focus more on what makes Gnomes Gnomes, not that we can stick there houses on the sides of a mountain. Although the conepts that were done are nice it looks like a Dwarf town with gears in it. We should focus not only on the houses the gnomes live in but what crazy inventions they are making in there yards over pully system. Not saying we shouldnt have pully systems I'm just saying it shouldnt be the focus. The focus should be all the crazy, wacky, expolsive things the gnomes build for themselfs.



Based off Andres Store Concept

While I think its nice it looks like a human house with gears glued on it. It dosnt look like a house a gnome would live in. I think the modular concepts for the houses Gene and Jeff did earlyer looked better and had more of a gnome vib to them.

Weekend Update

Hey what's up guys:

We've only been on this project for 4 days now, and it already seems to be coming together pretty nicely. I want to thank you guys for your contributions and good attitude, let's keep it up.

Now I'm just gonna explain real quick all the work that is in the DropBox, so that everyone is up to speed.

Gene's currently working with the final concept for the overall look of the scene. That should be on the dropbox by tomorrow.


(This was Gene's first overall concept, and we are working around this concept, with some of the suggestions and concepts that was posted in the previous post.)



Meanwhile, Jeff is working in some 3d concept of the houses, the craters and some other details in from the village. He uploaded some of them and they're looking great.



Also Jimmy started working on the stuff for the "Witchdoctor". This character will be an exiled Erudite (one of the classes from EQ), and their race will is pretty magical and stuff so it fits the witchdoctor description. He already posted some of the concept and he will also make some concept for the the staff the witchdoctor will have in order to open the portal to the nightmare realm. The witchdoctor will be located in the entrance of the mine.



I also did a quick sketch of a store, using Jeff's 3D work as reference.




Let me know what you guys think of the work on the dropbox, with comments on this post.

Also remeber that we have the team meeting on tuesday from 12 to 1, if someone is not going to be able to make please e-mail me.

Thank you.

Andres

Concept Art Meeting Notes

So as promised guys, here are the notes that I took from the conversation I had with you early (Gene and Jeff, our concept artists who are working on the layout of the town). I also added a final paragraph on the flow of the level, if you had any ideas or comments, let me know. Hope this helps you out guys.

Location: the town, will be in the middle of the crater (kinda like a canyon)…outside the crater in the distance we will see a volcano, which will explain the geothermal activity…bottomless in the middle, and the town rises out of it…the actual town will be on top of a big rock, and node will be attached to it and floating…there will be a path made out of bridges and terrain, that will guide the player up to the main rock...and in the way there will be stores, houses, and a the entrance to the mine…all around the level, we will find rail road tracks and gears..

Notes:

Mechanical, tech stuff all over the place

Geysers, and lift powered by geysers

Houses on the mountain side and on the rock

Entrance to the mine hidden underneath the bridge

Steam columns, clouds in the bottom of the pit, birds flying by, maybe some floating balloons

Rails all over the level, carts running on the rail system.

Cranes and pulley systems

Maybe add some windmills, wither close up or in the distance

Bridges to connect the path to the houses

One main path from going to the main island, some side paths to explore and the main one takes to the mine.

Main 3 elements: bridge, town square, mine entrance.

Node 3: in a different island, floating with balloons (moon is an eye that looks at the player)

Level Flow: The player will start on the path that will take him towards the main rock (already inside the crater) to make the size a bit more manageable. The player will follow the path that will guide him to the bridge that takes them into the rock and the town square, there will be a couple of side trails, one of them will take the player to the mine. Once inside the town square, the player will see the giant statue. Then the player will get the quest from someone in the town square and will have to go back to the mine, where he will find the entrance to the nightmare realm (via witchdoctor or something) and that will be the end of Node 1.

Concept art

Hey guys, dunno if you've checked the concept art yet, but it's still at the very early idea phase. Just wanted to say again if any of you guys have the urge to start working on something, or want specific concept art of reference quality let me and gene know so you can jump on that.

Ideas for stuff you'd like to see in the village, doodads that could be sticking out of the gnome houses, minerals that might be poking out of the mine, etc would help a lot. Reference images work too.

extra stuff fir the dropbox

I know i already set a naming convention for the files for the dropbox, but I'm just going to ask for one more thing. Please add your initials at the end of the file name so we can know who did what.

Thanks guys.

Andres

quick sketch...

Idea for layout of the village (AKA papermap):

This is just a quick sketch of me throwing out some ideas. I did a simple paper map based of the concept that Jeff made. Please make comments and we will make millions of changes on this, this is only a first idea. But I just wanted to start getting an idea of the size of the town, the location of the mines, and the separation of nodes 1 and 3 (the main village and the second courtyard where the battle with the statue takes place). We must keep in mind that we can't really go ind epth with the mines because the would be like a whole new node by itself. So I thought of only ncluding the entrance to the mines. We must remember we only have 9 weeks to finish this (week one is gone and we presnet week 10).

So let's hear those suggestions. What do you guyshave in mind for the layout of the level.

Andres

The skectch is also under the concept folder of the dropbox.

Gnome's: Info, Architecture, and Story - Part 3

Story: These are some idea changes I had for the story based on the information I learned.

Since I agree we should scrap the river idea for the formentioned reasons of it already in use by another group I think we should change the dried up river bed to a path to a mine. Since gnomes value precious metals and gems we should have it so they unearthed a nightmare gem. This extremely rare nightmare gem is given to a gnome scientists who sets to work on experimenting on it. This gem is what throws him into the nightmare realm where he is trapped and becomes corruped. He could then use this gem to power up the giant gnome statue in the center of town and take control of it reacking havok in the nightmare realm.

The people in town could have knowalge that the science gnome disapeared shorty after working on the nightmare gem and that is why you adventure out along the path to the mine. On your way to the mine you meat the witch doctor who knows all about the nightmare gem and gives you the potion or whatever to entre the nightmare realm. The path to the mine could be outfited with mine tracks and possibly a few abandoned mine carts with gems or metals.

I think this idea would work best for our project as it fits into the lore of gnomes being good miners and coveting rare and power gems/metals.

Gnome's: Info, Architecture, and Story - Part 2

Architecture: This info here is what I have read and been told from someone who played EQ2 a while ago. Couldnt find pictures of any Gnome buildings on the internet and EQ2's website didnt help either. Few pictures I did find were from EQ1 and everything was pretty much just boxes with textures that looked like metal.

1. There buildings are built out of 2 primary materials. Metal and Wood. Things such as stone, bricks, cloth are rarely used.
2. Gears galore - lots of there buildings feature rotating gears of all sizes.
3. Small houses but big doorways so all races can entre a gnome building.
4. Intertwine of technology and magic. Things like death rays, powered orbs and other things of that nature.
5. Primarily made out of metal for walls.
6. Lots of engines, moving parts, smoke stacks, presure guagues and blinking lights.
7. Over the top and flamboyant architecture. Not so much as World of Warcraft style if you are familar but close to it.
8. Lots of things to generate power
9. In there homeland of Ak'Anon they have large metal windmills to generate power.
10. Things are powered by steam engines
11. Observation towers for seeing off into the far distance for protection of any oncoming threat
12. Gnomes stick to themselves (from other races) but are a form cohesive whole. Same goes for there citys.
13. Massive machinery thought the city. Used to pump water to the inhabitance. Water also provides power.
14. Gnomes tend to live in groups within the city identified by there guild such as Spellcasters research near the big Library.
15. Evil Gnomes inhabit the more rundown/poluted part of the city. Lots of drains, smoke and other polutant things I would assume.
16. Scattered througt are clockwork signs to help you find your way.
17. Citys generally tucked away in mountain regions to provide protection/isolation. This dosnt mean that generally the whole town is surrounded by mountains just that its up in the mountains and protected atleast on one side by terrain.

Gnome's: Info, Architecture, and Story - Part 1

Hey guys here is some info I have found out about the little gnomes, their architecture and some suggestions for a story change based off their lore. I know its a lot to read but it has a lot of valuable info that will help with concept ideas mostly and on how better to incorporate the lore into the town and story. I will email this to everyone and post it on the blog. Will be split up on the blog so it dosnt get to long.

Info: Found different websites and a bit of second hand from 2 different people who played EQ2 a while ago.

1. Intelligent and wise race.
2. As for classes they tend to be priests or mages, and sometimes scouts.
3. Tinniest Race (might not be true anymore since the fairy race was introduced)
4. Constant tinkering with things both mystical and technological
5. Known for construing "clockwork" devices. These are generally mechanical versions of all manner from rats to dragons.
6. They also build clockwork gnomes to work for them (This is kinda what I was thinking the statue could be) ie. Large mechanical gnome with lots of gears that is brought to life by evil gnome. Thinking twice the size of buildings to show there gnome might over technology and so everyone in town can see some of it.
7. They are skilled miners much like dwarfs.
8. They treasure precious gems and metals.
9. Big into the study of technology and magic.
10. Get into lots of mischief with there inventions

story changes

yeah i liked our idea, but was a little bummed when i heard last quarters team did the tainted river thing too.
okay, here's a few ideas:

when you first enter the town, you notice the statue is emitting a purple or black glow and the ground in a 5ft radius it around it is dead. The statue was accidently cursed by some random person who stumbled upon a sorcerers stolen spell book and read some stuff out loud.

maybe it was even intentional, a warlock curses this town because they make too much noise when he's trying to sleep so they'll never get to sleep either w. this curse.

or... the gnomes have a machine that gives them good dreams, but it stopped working and gnome who made it is nowhere to be found, because he got trapped in nightmare land

maybe there was a battle outside the city and the souls of the dead are troubled & causing this unrest

____________
okay, so if the river is no longer the primary focus, do we still want it? a floating island + waterfall sounds cool, but is a lot of visual work that's not attatched to the story anymore. I say we keep it, because it sounds like it would look cool, but we need to make sure we focus on what we'll be interacting with or seeing up close

DropBox online!!!

What's up guys, ok I got the account on DropBox set. In order to start this account I needed an email so I just used mine. So after you download DropBox ( www.getdropbox.com) you need to install it, and then just log on to the account I already created:

email: huasaa@gmail.com
password: nightmare

Now you only have to sync this account and your computer, so you can have this stuff.

It's all pretty simple to remeber, and I already created a folder for the concept and a naming convetion so we can start throwing stuff in there. Hope to see stuff posted here and there soon.

Thanks guys, hope to see all of your computers synced soon.

Cheers!

Let's get this started

As promised guys, here's the blog for our project, please let me know if you got this email, to see if the blog is working correctly and to see if the blog work right. Lets get this project started. I know we are going to get some awesome stuff done! I will post the story tomorrow, or the overview, so Lee can start working on that as well. And we should ALL start posting some ideas, reference photos or sketches to help Gene and Jeff, starting tomorrow. I will be online during the weekend, so any ideas you want to share with me just let me know. I'll be online on msn, if I'm not online just shoot me an email. I'll add your contacts to MSN, later tonight so please accept me haha.

Anyways, this is our project officially starting, so good luck Excelsior!

P.S. remember the name of the blog (for now is)

excelsior-nightmare.blogspot.com

You should all download DropBox as well, os we can start syncing up the account. I will set up that tomorrow, but just so you guys can keep that in mind. ;)

getdropbox.com