3DS max - First project (Lighting/Finished)

 Finished 

Experimenting with various lights (spot, direct and omni) I found omni was the best for creating the glow of the plants

The finished result looks a little too simple and the plants look too flat

Wyvern Mural

3DS max - First Project (textures)

Adding textures

 The temple would not be as grand and decorated as the temple of heaven. Stone and wood basics would be used to reflect an ancient old world theme. I always liked the look of Fengshen Yanyi environments

Fengshen Yanyi (Mystic Heroes) environment

 The pillars were given a cloth material texture with a pattern at the base with a simple Native American print to accompany the styled mural

Scene with cameras set up to circle the room

3DS max - First Project (Assets)

Creating more complex structures 

 

Fountain center piece

Adding vegitation and extra beams

 The temple would be minimalistic in design with very little occupying it to go for an untouched, undisturbed atmosphere emphasised by minimal light besides an almost erries green glow from the plants

 

 

Basic structures and vegetation added

Vegetation isn't oo over-grown except from the fountain, the environment is controlled naturally. The temples found in the Tales games and Legend of Zelda are sometimes in perfect condition giving the impression they are being looked after despire the lack of intelligent life which gives them a sense of detatchment from the real world

3DS max - First project (Basic structures)

Modelling

Still getting to grips with the 3D software; making the basic structures

Round room based on China's Temple of Heaven - circles representing celestial bodies such as Earth, the Moon and the Sun and themes such as harmony 

Making pillars and stairs

Wireframe mode - adding support rigs

Temple of Heaven - Beijing

The outside would resemble Japanese and Chinese temples with Pagoda style sloping roofs

The temple would be situated in a cave with light falling in filtering through the opening in the roof

3DS max - First Project (Concepts)

Concepts

Initial idea - the room would consist of lots of light, green and yellow to give the impression of vitality

Plant life

Glowing plants will provide light for the level

Native American dream catcher inspired

East/West blend focusing on china's Temple of Heaven and Native American patterns

Floor tiles - dream catcher pattern also to reflect scales as well as perhaps roots relating to the Earth/natural theme *

Wyvern mural designs based on Native American animal
paintings and Japanese Mon symbols

I made the level with my characters Sparrow and Kunic in mind, thus made the temple his shrine
Earth also represents the body/heart in some cultures so I kept that in mind to create more temples based on other elements and body parts

The three legged crow represents the Sun in Chinese mythology and guidance in Shinto as a messanger from heaven

I liked the use of shapes/patterns and the colours in their prints, the colours are rich and earthy but stand out. Many cave/wall paintings are a reddish paint - the colour may add to emphasise age in the level 

 
* The idea was to have different temples reflect a dragon/wyvern like characteristic, the tiled floor of the Earth temple for example, Earth being the body, would represent the scales, the lack of openings and the pillars to in a way stand as the chest/ribcage.

3DS Max - First Project (Ideas)

Level Creation

Initial Ideas/Roughs 

Elements, temples, spirits, emphasis on shape and colour meaning/representations

Mix of West and Eastern culture/designs

Meaning of shapes interests me so I decided on an earth temple - in most Western cultures circles represent Earth and harmony, the swirl/spiral pattern on the floor representing the poles/magnetic fields

Tales of Symphonia and Zelda OoT have always been my favourite games - I wanted to create a temple inspired by the two

Over grown fountain with glowing plant life

Over grown look - thriving powerful environment untouched by human civilisation 

To emphasise the earth spirit theme the temple would most likely be underground. For plants to survive I implemented the phosphorescent vegetaion from Tales of Xillia's 'Fenmont' level

'Fenmont' encouraged me to research Solar Punk designs and environments 

One of my favourite levels - the colours are gorgeous

 

3DS Max - Third

Textures/Materials

Difuse

Difuse layer is for the objects material that gives it colour

Specular

Specular layer determines how much light is reflected - black is matt and won't reflect much light and white will reflect light making it glossy

Bump

Usind the NVIDIA tool for the bump map.

Gnerates the illusion of a 3D texture

White goes in black goes out

3DS Max - Second

Unwrapping

Using the window from the first weeks

Seamless texture

Unwrapping objects and mapping with a tiling temporary texture - squares and checkered patters better for visibility

Textured

Finished result

(stage one of unwrapping)

3DS Max - First

Using 3DS Max

Making a petrol can

The first steps were just getting used to the layout of the interface and using tools like bevel and extrude

Making windows

Removing and creating faces to form a simple window shape

Still getting used to the program

More complicted object manipulation

Manipulation and using splines to make a more complicated arch window