Monday 30 January 2012

Wallpaper and stuff!

Okay, some progress from the last couple of days..Over the weekend I haven't done anything new, but I did re-do the chair (thanks to Blair's crit!) and it looks a lot better now. Sadly marmoset is being a bitch and creates most random seams when I render them, but  they work fine in UDK.

I also couldn't stop thinking about the wallpaper colour in the main hall. I knew I wanted everything to be red, but it just didn't look very exciting. So I tried just about every colour and settled on purple, at least, for now -

Also changed the secondary light to cyan for more hue variation! Seriously, it all looks so colourful now (no green, but I'm saving it for the Ringmaster's room XD). And light/gold furniture should stand out really well. And I still get to keep the checkered floor without it blending with everything else. Yay?!
Also, just to be over with the lighting, I want to work on light sources this week. Two chandeliers for the top, candles for the bottom. Here's a quick concept of them, too:

I really wanted to use a unicycle somewhere for the level. Originally tried making a chandelier out of one, but it didn't work out. I think they make much better candle stands ;D I think they're gonna look awesome if I make them move and balance a little bit - I played with matinee today and it shouldn't be too hard. I just hope I'll get the lights to animate with it.

Twins Room - Tea Party Concept

Just a quick doodle for the table and chairs for the twin's room.

I wanted the tea-party set to be elongated - I think it will look fun in the tall room. Not sure of colours at the moment - I was thinking pale? Whites and pinks? Was thinking of turning the twins blonde, and having costumes to match (whites, pinks, maybe blues).

Still unsure.
The chairs will be more decorative then they are here ~ gona doodle some carvings and patterns later. Not sure if I should put a cloth over the table or not.

The teapot looked like an elephant. It's not staying that way, don't worry. I was being lazy.


Friday 27 January 2012

Wallpapers

Diffuse and specular for main hall and ringmaster's room.

The main one looks a bit harsh on the eye when in the level and I can't seem to get the colours right. It should be darker and not as stripy, so that the bright furniture would stand out more.
Ringmaster's worked much better. It looks all pink and girly, but it works with the green lighting and dark furniture and isn't as busy.
Now to design some skirting boards..and doors :0

Sugar Blue Burlesque

http://www.sugarblueburlesque.com/

Perhaps a nice one to watch for costume and colour?








Ahem...

Character

She was so cool, I couldn't not put here on the blog.

Ideas for Back-Stage Assets

After taking a look into "The Circus of Horrors" I had a few ideas for backstage props we could make. We haven't thought much about this area, so just a few ideas to fill the space.

Of course we will need the basic things like scalfolding, lights, the curtain and such.


Perhaps an Iron Maiden or a human cage?


How about a glass box or jar for the contortionists and/ or magician?

Wednesday 25 January 2012

Foolchair progress

..Just baked it. (don't mind the alpha at the top, it'll have it's own texture) Has some problem areas as always, but overall it's not too bad. I dread resizing the normal map to 512 though. Maybe I'll just leave it at 1024 and pretend noone saw :I
But I really should finish it today.

..still no asset list. Fuuuuu-

UPD:

..Shrank the textures after all. Looks kinda blurry upclose ;_; Haven't tested it in UDK yet, hopefully there won't be any nasty surprises..


Tuesday 24 January 2012

Blockout progress-2

Haven't done as much as I should have, but thought I should update this thing anyway. I think having to post blog updates motivates me to get more stuff done XD
First of all I have imported my chairs into the level for the scale, although they're still not done.
 Also tweaked the lighting, orange lights are going to be from the candles. Made the doors and the doorframes and had a horrible time putting them in. Turns out the walls are more uneven than I thought :I I'll have a go at making our only workable door later on. It will have to open on the inside, as it's a bit slanted because of the walls and will bury in the floor otherwise XD
Spiral staircase for the ringmaster's room. Even with the railing and a smooth collision it's very tedious to climb all the way to the top and I can't be bothered to make that way more exciting, so I'm 99% sure I'll go with a small elevator in the end. It would be fun to design anyway, plus we'd have more dynamic elements in the level.
Piss poor attempt at lighting the Ringmaster's room. All assets are lame placeholders done in 5 minutes, so ignore those. It's all BSP at the moment and looks seriously boring. I want to redo the ceiling with static meshes, make it slanted with wooden supports like you would have in the attic or something. Technically i need to make the walls bendy as well, but I fear having to stick the static mesh walls together again...might try modifying the bsps and hoping the UVS won't fuck up. Also realised that coloured lights make everything look black. Not good news, considering I was planning to have some really dark furniture - guess I'll go with really bright diffuse and hope it works.


Saturday 21 January 2012

3D asset - Fool's chair


Got bored of making the walls and stairs, so I thought I'd make the first asset to put in the level just for fun. This one is unwrapped and ready for sculpting, hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow. Tried my best to fit everything in on the 512 map, but even with mirroring the uvs it doesn't seem enough for a detailed normal map. Oh well.

Thursday 19 January 2012

Blockout progress

Some shots of what I've done so far.

Elevator!

While constructing a level, I have realised that currently the distance between the ground floor and Ringmaster's room is pretty long. I think climbing up the spiral staircase so high would get a bit annoying, so I thought, what if we replace it with a small elevator? There are plenty of UDK tutorials on how to make one, and antique elevators tend to have really pretty designs to experiment with.
Not sure how time consuming would it be, though. I should really make an asset list before the end of this week.

Wednesday 18 January 2012

The original troupe

...This is what happens when I get distracted from UDK. But yeah, I thought I'd paint the Ringmaster's "ancestor", and then the other freaks just popped up. Clearly life wasn't as glamourous for them. Perhaps originally they were a freaky caravan brothel that gradually expanded its business to a circus? I'm still thinking if it should go in the Ringmaster's room or main corridor.
And yes, that "geisha" is a male dwarf. Whatever works for them.

Magician Concept

I keep going to write "mage" instead of "magician" D:< stupid video games.


Anyway, you sounded baffled when I said he should be an old black drag-queen with a red wig, so here ya go:




...maybe he should be older?
He's looking rather pimp. I didn't mean for him to be so Saints Row, honest.

Does he need more shiny? Thinner trousers? More patterns? Different colours? Funkier shirt? =/

Tuesday 17 January 2012

Blockout

Currently working on the base of the level. Struggling with the grid and scale. Should be done by the end of the week, hopefully. Oh, and we might have to rethink the number of rooms. For the sake of modularity I made a 24 sided circle following Mike Pickton's advice, and while it works pretty good, There's no way to place 9 dorrs in there. Also Sai, your room will be rotated, so I have no clue how to snap anything to anything. Modularity? what modularity? :( Although if we make it straight opposite the entrance, things might be easier.

Saturday 14 January 2012

Concepts - Ringmaster's canes

Some cane designs for the room. I'll be making 3-4 of those. So far i like the 1,2,6 and 7. 8 is a luxury one that will be mounted on the wall, but at the moment it's looking kinda generic fantasy-like.

 I think there definitely has to be a sugar skull one. In fact, I've been thinking of making the Ringmaster the mexican death cult follower :D It kind of makes sense - he's mildly hispanic looking, there's a theme of skulls and flowers in his room and clothing, and generally this cult is prominent among criminals (drug and protitution rings especially) So  once I'm done with the stuff I'm currently working on, I might concept a shrine or at least a painting of Santa Muerte in his room - with a circus-y feel to it, of course.

I'll start building the level on Monday, so no more concepts from me after that time. Might do some extra doodles if I need clarification of some areas (like the stairs)

Sai, would be great if you could do some sketches of the backstage area, I haven't thought much of it :)


Tuesday 10 January 2012

Costume Inspiration - The Twins (Video)

Helloooo!


Sorry I've not posted in a while. Really need to be doing more concepts but stupid UDK is taking up all my time *grumble.* I'm obviously not as good a worker as you Marianna :,(
I'll do loads more after the deadline ~ promise! ^^ 

Anywho, I got something to show ya!

It's not a drawing... which it should be. It's actually a music video.

Now, bare with me here - I know you all grow tired of my Korean-pop obsession, but I was going through some of my old saved songs and I came across this. I didnt realise but the lady's feather costume is pretty-much the costume I had envisioned for the twinnies. So I want you to take a look :D

I couldnt find a picture, so youre going to have to bare with it lol. It's kinda techno-y, promise.



Anywho, do you think it'll be too hard to rig and move if I have too many parts to their costumes like feathers?

Oh, and feel free to post videos by the way. If you find a clip with cool environments or costumes dont be afraid to stick it up. I'll watch it ;)

Monday 9 January 2012

Concept - Ringmaster#s room-2

...There we go. Went for a more sinister look that I originally planned. There will be more stuff, but at least now I know where to put everything i have thought of so far. I'll post a detailed concept of the chairs asap, I have a pretty nice idea for them C:
..not sure if the seal rug stays, but I felt like simply had to paint it for the sake of it.

Thursday 5 January 2012

Failconcepts

chandelier and a really awful sketch for the Ringmaster's room. I'll delete it as as soon as I come up with something else, unfortunately my creativity's been a bit nonexistent lately..