UNIN 7
TIME LEAP
The time period I chose was Shangri-La it is a fictional place beyond the Himalayas. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise, and particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia.
I decide to challenge myself to model and create something similar to this mystical land and temples like Taktsang Dzong on the mountain side looking over to the other mountains. I want to make a similar concept showing, height, depth of feel.
The structure of the building is in away symmetrical and large amounts of detail around the structure. you get a real sense of scale with the mountains in the back. You also see the pray wheels near to the ground. The area where the building is built gives the feeling of magical place.
This area shows the structures covered in the pray flags hanging all over the place even stuck in the bush. The flags are tatted and worn down showing that it has been there for a while. The way that is built shows a sense of freedom with the open area and the atmosphere.
Taktsang Dzong Situated on the edge of a 900 meter (3,000 feet) cliff, the Taktsang Monastery or Tiger’s Nest creates an impressive sight, and is the unofficial symbol of Bhutan. It is about 2-3 hour, totally up-hill hike from the parking lot to the monastery.
The Uncharted game series is known for its archaeology discoveries and ancient game environments. In the second game you play in the Himalayas this is my idea to base the environment in the Himalayan mountains. The textures on the wall make it look brittle and old. The flags blow in the wind as the helicopter comes down to fire at the main character
When I saw this picture I was enthusiastic to make some similar. The temple on the side of the mountain gives a real sense of scale and how high up the temple is on the mountain. The area is full foliage, green plants and trees. You also see stairs that go up all the way to the temple.
the pray temple was the detailed area and began to think how can I implement this into my final piece. the place is really detailed from top to bottom and full of color. the way the picture was taken show the depth and scale how big the place is and the detail in the roof and pillars and to the fabric hanging down from the roof as well. If I was planning to put this into my project it would be some how difficult to replicate.
The similarities in these images are that they are really colourful and surrounded by a beautiful landscape. Although same are concept art from game it broadens my final idea and because of the mythical aspect I could make it similar in some way having spirit gates with lanterns and pray wheels and colourful pray flags hanging around and moving to the winds breeze.
Concept Art
The art was the basic part and I tried to figurer out the layout of the map to run around and explore the rest of the area. I tried to capture the sunlight in a cave glazing over to the mountains. Why I did it like this way, I was trying and make it immersive and mystical as the golden sunlight as the golden peaks on the Himalaya,
I would spend trying to come up with a composition and looking at references to get a basic idea of what I exactly want in the end result. Concept art is the most important thing before a game or story is portrayed in the final outcome. However first idea of concept art you rely go with. Once a certain concept is finalised they would go more in depth and develop on that but ideas can change throughout the game or story of a movie.
I tried as much as I can to get to the layout of the sketch. when taking a screenshot of the environment I would refer back to the sketch and see if I got back to the original plan. In the sketch I tried to capture the natural way how the pray flags would hang and to get the mountain in the background. You can see changes in the screenshot as more builds in appears. I tried to capture the likeness of the sketch as well.
Why made its like this? I was trying to capture the likeness as well as the sense of scale and the natural way mountains were formed. The sketches gave me an idea of what exactly what I wanted, layout of the map and style.
PROGRESS MODELING
In MAYA I started to model with the basic shape of the main building and then using basic box modelling. When I was modelling I didn’t make things to accurate but instead making it similar to the final in my style of art. Some objects where difficult to construct for the lanterns I used Booleans to get the center hole where I would place the fire and on the arches in the prayer room. The large torii I used cylinders and soft edge to get it the more rounder shape and keeps the polygon count down.
For most basic structures I did create my own textures in Photoshop just the keep it from have a repeated pattern.After all the buildings where done I then began to place cubes all over the place to get the basic layout of the map. Once I got the layout I began to add detail with rocks and flags hanging from the temples . repeating patterns did occur but I simply built over it to hide all of it.
INSIDE UNITY
Once into I exported the final models to unity I did have a few problems with it the quality did drop quite a lot but then I had to add bump maps and just to increase certain parts of the floor and rocks and wood of the extra detail. I did animations in unity with lanterns swinging in the wind and playing with particle effects.
After placing things where I wanted it to be I then used the first person controller I walked around the map and seeing if everything is scaled to the right proportions. The right Lighting and ambient colour and burring lanterns with fire adds to the feel of a humble and peaceful area.
WALKTHROUGH
This walkthrough is rather to see whether everything is scaled to the correct proportions and see what needed to be fixed. Overall this project was challenging to make and produce but enjoyed everything about it. Seeing it come all together made it more interesting. You can see flags blow in the wind and lamps swings and even the bridge swinging. The scale is correct and the mountain in the distance.