After having a taste of environment design this past quarter, I’ve decided to devote the majority of my summer to working on another level.
Currently my goals for the summer are as follows:
1. To make a portfolio site
2. To import my level design project last quarter (Bonabba Village) fully into Unreal. As well as give it some updates.
3. Concept Paint, design, model and texture a 3D environment (while using primarily 3Ds Max and Unreal)
4. Possibly a character design with the help of zBrush.
As I’m starting to budget out my time and figure out what I’m going to do for my Level, the character seems less likely to happen. But I’d like to get another sampling of that kind of modeling before I rule it out entirely as something not for me.
Anyway, onto my environment project, which is my primary reason for being here. I went to my local Half Price Book store in order to see if I could find some nice architecture reference books. Just something to inspire me on what I wanted to do. Back in the winter, I did a quick environment of an attic scene. I really liked the aesthetics of it. This old farm house kind of feel. So I was leaning more towards that kind of design. As I was browsing I came across the following 2 books:
Both I’m pretty sure were meant to be part of a set. One is a collection of photos of English country villages and homes, the other is of their interiors. Perfect. But I don’t want to mimic just one village’s looks. I was very drawn towards the aesthetic look of Great Tew in Oxfordshire. 
There very old buildings generally boast thatch roofs with old stone and brick walls and just an overall sort of eroded and shabby look to them that I find to be visually very interesting. But as I started to try and sketch out an estate (and I’ve decided my level will focus around a single home, primarily an interior, but with an exterior as well) I realized that even with Great Tew’s style it was still feeling somewhat generic. I wanted this building to be something that isn’t quite so everyday. So I started just tacking on bits onto a basic home, while trying to create a sort of saggy look to the building. With leaning walls and oblique angles. Sort of as if every different section of the house was supporting the other. I came up with the following quick sketch:
I’m starting to get the concept I want down. The section of the estate on the left with the chimney I imagine as being what was the original part of the home, while the other sections were tacked on. But even so this wasn’t quite enough for me to know where I was going so I decided to do a quick 3D sketch in Maya. I came up with the following:
It’s much more “leanier” than my sketches were since I was able to directly move walls here and there to see how it looked. I’m considering adding more sort of tacked on upper rooms like the one on the far right of the building. It will have random planks of wood helping to support it against the outer frame of the house. While doing this I’ve also started to think of the interior and where things will lay. The book of the English cottage interiors is very interesting with the amount of clutter and just funny objects that can be found inside, so it’s this part that I’m most excited about doing. Hopefully I’ll have a layout for the interior soon, and then I will start on my actual concept paintings (once I get my tablet laptop back).
In other news, need to start thinking about my website also.
Please give your thoughts. I almost want the house to be more exaggerated in its strange angles. But I’m afraid that may be going a bit too far.
