Hello, Hello. Proper Introductions are needed. Welcome to the Quantum Box, you may call me Nilix. I’m a student learning how to make awesome 3D stuff. One of the things that I want to do here on Quantum Box is provide a look into game creation, talk about concepts and theories that are put into practice and probably address things that we’ve noticed but never really took the time to think about. Now that that’s out of the way, I can move on to more important things.

So, I’m taking a class called Level Design (LDE for short). It’s a pretty interesting class. It’s a crash course of the awesome UDK (Unreal Development Kit, for those of you who aren’t acronym-savvy). It covers Asset Creation, Static Placement, Lighting, Scripting with Kismet, Effects, Matinee, the whole deal. I’m the Level Artist of my group this time around, so I’m doing the static placement and things alike. Lighting and scripting will be dealt with by the rest of my team. I’ll understand enough of it to talk about it later.

Here’s a look at the first set of objects I’ll be making.

Silhouettes. The Starting point of design

When it comes to tackling an idea, the first place to start is the concept. Concept Artists get to work on making images turn ideas into visuals for the rest of the team to see. For us, we simply had to search for reference images based on our ideas and then make silhouette images for what the model will look like.

Now, I know some might wonder exactly why we draw silhouette rather than drawing the entire concept out. Silhouette gives a lot of assistance when modeling. It tells you where polygons will be focused and how the object/character should look from a distance. Especially in fast-paced, high-action games, where players are acting on their toes. Gamers won’t have time to marvel at all the nooks and crannies, because they’re being shot at. If you can tell what an object is based on the silhouette, then it’s good to use. A player would be able to tell what that kind of object is while jumping for cover fire and headshotting snipers on the rooftops. After that, you can get started on actually modeling.

The Vendor Stand. From humble beginnings of a black and white image to a full-fledged 3d object.

Some other levels being made this month are a medieval castle, a space station, and a NYC Subway! (I would love to be in that group. I know all the references). The theme for my group’s level is Flea Market. It’ll be middle eastern style so expect some Aladdin styled assets in the days to come. See you in the future.