The Journey Ahead

So it begins, well technically it started almost a week ago so I have to detail what I have been doing since then. So I think everyone is pretty familiar with my idea, it's a taxidermy factory and I plan to do a number of areas. So this week has been whiteboxing and trying to get ideas of what the factory should have in it. The first thing I did was get a ton of reference for pipes and factory, Putting them all up would be crazy but i will select a few awesome ones and add them on at the end of this blog.

Right so I've been looking into the processed and obviously there is no taxidermy factories it's all done by hand so i have to devise a way to make it a pipe line. So I have rolers that flatten the pelts, Industrial washing machines to clean them, even like a lava cauldron to "treat" the pelts". So its all going to be based of stuff in real life but just given a new purpose. So as well as this I want an assembly line that is pumping out the stuff that all these other parts are creating and boxing them out. You can kindof see as well antlers, because i want there to be a showroom area full of animals and stuff to make it more interesting and so the level should consist of factory part, outside and showcase area. This gives me more than enough to do within the time period.

I tried some test imports for scale and proportion and I like that type of scale, just one problem...

The building looks like an ugly church with the tileable mesh i tried to test out. So on to a knew idea then...

I found this concept on DeviantART, by Robin Olausson. Really talented guy, check out his work ; 

http://www.robinolausson.com/main.php

He kindly gave me his permission to use his concept for the factory, which is super awesome. This is just so much

better than anything I could have produced.

So with that I started to model the outside of the building thinking abotu modularity of the building and stuff, its not perfect yet but this is just me blocking it out. I will refine this and hopefully give myself a good idea of how I will model the building. Right not it's all about not rushing in without doing the proper planning so that's what I'm trying to do.

I also did some test tileables to see what style of brick and stuff I want. I will be vertex painting in UDK as well so that will break up the repetition, also with the amount of pipes I want as well it should be a nice busy building :D

And then so my eyes don't bleed from all the tileables everyday I model the awesome cool stuff that will appear in my level. I don't want to be one of those people that has an awesome inspiration base but then never uses it. I am going to try and model many cool awesome stuff as I can. So this is the base for the little guy, I'll take him into Zbrush soon get him all pretty and stuffs :D

Finally Thursdays are a slow day with interviews on and stuff the day passes without me even knowing but I'm currently working on the three headed sheep chair. Again I'll take into Zbrush, might be my weekend just doing some fun sculpting and experimenting with how to create wool.

Okay as promised some kick ass factory pictures;

Factory Inspiration

Okay so as you know my idea has changed slightly to make it a factory because i feel it gives it more context and believablity. I have been searching factories to get some inspiration, these are below. I took some major inspiration from games like Team Fortress, i love their style and simplicity. I'll do some concepts soon showing different styles so see what  I like best.

Layouts and New Horizons

 So I spent a few hours today just looking at a new concept I had in mind. What happens is late at night I have brainstorms and so a thrundling idea flew through my head and now i can't get it out. What I am thinking is doing a taxidermy factory, for this I have large scale in mind. And it means I get to do a lot of outside as well. So if this idea is to progress and grow then I need to think about what I want.

Originally I wanted 3 rooms, one weird shop area, one corridor of taxidermied heads and one room of cut up animals...etc. With this idea I would have to compromise and only do one medium size room of taxidermy stuff and the outside. I want to push myself in this project but I don't want to overwork myself into a failure. I want to see about playing with stylization, its always something I have wanted to do, and dishonoured is an awesome and  I can really see the building is that style. Okay so anywho here are the blockouts;

Obviously lots of colour because it wouldn't be me with out it. Want the area to be badly polluted from the factory, sluge gushing out of the pipes, the 18 chimneys pouring smoke into the atmosphere, dead trees and plants outside. You see the second image I played a bit with the building being tilted, I dunno if I like it, just thought I'd give it a go.

So aye what esle, oh you wanna see my failed whiteboxes? Of course you do;

Okay so plain plain then phalic...I was trying to do it futuristic then kindof failed at it lol.

I also have lots of pipes reference that is really awesome :D I think it would be a nice contrast if the building is all colourful and booming as it sucks the life out of the land...ethnical :D

Speedpaints

I did a couple of speedpaints today to practice painting fur and drawing animals. I kinda felt bad for not posting anything on here for ages so that's why. I might do another post soon, I think i'll work on a blockout for a while and post the results later on tonight :)