1st ever WIP screenshots

Hiya
This is my first ever post showing work in progress on my game. I'ts gonna be a kinda FPS survival horror adventure type thang. I'd be interested in your comments but please be nice as its my first time ;-)
cheers
Gaz

 

Very nice models, textures, lighting and skybox! For a first attempt you should be very proud!

Only crits I might have would be that your train track "rails" look flat and need to be blended a bit with the gravel the surrounds it. Is it geometry or is it a texture you've placed ontop of another texture?

You also might want to add some good ol' British fog to mask the extents of your model in the distance. In the top screen you can clearly see where the model ends.

Very nice start!

 

Very well done! Especially for a first try. I really like the models and textures, and the lighting is also very well done.
The scene in its current clean state already starts to create a mood. Thats whats most important in my opinion...

Maybe you want to make the lantern light-effect more white-bluish, because it doesnt fit the scene-lighting imo. If you are planning on using fog like bigkahuna suggested, i can strongly recommend throwing in some cloudy alpha-particles for a more volumetric feeling. That really adds to it!

Are you using dynamic or baked shadows for your scene?

 

wow! thanks for the positive comments. Its not actually the first thing I've ever done in Unity, it's just the first thing that I feel is actually coming together well! I've been dabbling on and off for a year or so. the skybox was done in Vue and altered in photoshop. The rails are geometry but have a really boring texture on at the moment so I agree they need work (think I've overdone the specularity as well which is washing them out.) Yeah, I really want to do volumetric fog but am struggling to get it to look right without the frame rate going very low! At the moment there is the default fog turning everything black in the distant which I like the silhouettes. Also got more objects to add to the scene for distance as well as a train which is taking forever!!
The shadows are all dynamic at the moment but I have a feeling I'll have to alter that once the frame rate starts dropping! Only problem there is that I'm using lightwave and only can export 1 UV map! I love these new dynamic shadows tho. Heres another angle-again still got to add more objects and texture floor.
cheers
Gaz

 

Wow, really nice stuff. Care to share more info about the game etc? More screens perhaps? Can I put this out on the Upcoming Games page of WMG?

 

Looks really great!

If I have to point one one thing (and I do, because otherwise I wouldn't be me), I'd say that the yellow light bulbs in the lights look far too saturated and too single-colored.

Try going outside at night with a digital camera and photograph them, then measure their color and get a bit of texture in there.

 

wow that is amazing visuals!

hope you post some webplayer soon keep it up!

.ORG

 

thanks for all the responses. Its giving me incentive to keep plugging away, although Unity is starting to take over my life!
DaveyJJ, yep I'd love it to be added to the Upcoming Games page but its still in its early stages and s it stands theres not much else to take screenshots of. I have a full time job which is preventing me from putting in the hours I'd like to on this.
Am hoping to get close to completing the first level geometry before Xmas and start on adding other characters too. I'll email you some screenshots and a bit more about the game over the weekend hopefully. Will also post a webplayer soon.
I plan for it to have a more realistic edge edge to it than most FPS, where you will have more interaction with characters and choices that can affect how the game proceeds.
Nicholas, I agree about the lights-it gets dark here now by 5 oclock so I have plenty of opportunity to check this out.
thanks again people,
Gaz

 

i agree great mood you've got going already.

nice tight ; )

 

same here... very immersive 3d world you're putting together...

--Mike

 

Wow...great job. I can't wait to play your game.

Keifer

 

Nice stuff, I like your texture work and it's cool to see someone using the dynamic shadows to good effect. The only critique I have is that the fences are sloped at the same angle as the ground, this usually doesn't happen in the real world... the fence posts would be vertical. Also as Nich said your lights could use some detail instead of just a solid yellow color.

BTW, how's the performance while using dynamic shadows on each lightpost?

Looking forward to seeing more :wink:

 

hiya
thanks a lot for the comments. Been playing around with particle fog, wondered what you thought. HEres a couple of pics and a link to webplayer. WArning:Its about 20mb so takes a whilte to load. Still got some textures and objects to work on and the geometry isnt all there so dont fall off the edges!

http://www.relish3d.co.uk/fogone.html

Yep, aNTeNNa trEE, the fence is due a bit to lazyness- I'm trying to get this level done before Xmas so want to get it in a working order and then go back n fix things now (such as make the trees better too!) Performance isnt too bad so far with shadows but having to keep optimise things as I add more. Runs smooth on dual G5 2.5 with 128mb Radeon 9600 at fantastic settings with 800x600 res. Still playable at the next res up but I have reduced the shadow distance to about 70 or 80 so they dont look too blocky and then using black fog to hide the fact that theres no shadows in the distance. I think this works ok for a horror theme tho. I reckon once I've added everything I want to then its gonna need a better system than I have to play it though!
cheers
Gaz

 

Thats very nice! Did you model all that in Unity or did you use another program and then import?

Krise

 

The fog really adds to those scenes, nice work! Four things I would change:

The leaves / branches on the trees really look too sparse / 2 dimensional. I'd either add more leaves and branches, or remove them all together to give it more of a gloomy, winter look.

Add some yellow to the lighting color to better match your overhead light color.

Maybe add "halo" to your two overhead lights to simulate light bounce-back in the fog.

And lastly, I'd add a semi-transparent light-cone or "god rays" emanating from the two overhead lights.

One question also: Why are you using Unity shadows for a static scene? Why not just bake all the lighting and shadows? You'll have much more control over the shadows, which in this type of lighting would have more blur than the Unity shadows can simulate.

 

thanks again people. I modelled everything in Lightwave, textured in photoshop and then put into Unity.
Yeah, I'm not pleased with the trees so am using them as placeholders for now while I model the rest of the level. I wanted to go for autumn where there would be some leaves on trees but maybe winter would be an easier option.
I have plans to add god rays but my current attempts look really bad so gotta look into the best ways for them (I think its the textures I'm struggling with there!)
I'm also using Unity shadows because I want the trees casting shadows showing a bit of movement of the branches/leaves on the ground etc.... to add more atmosphere but I think in the end I'll have to do some lightmapping to enhance it all too. Havent done that yet because Lightwave only exports 1 UV texture and the way I've set them up I'd need a second one for the lightmaps so I think that'll be done at the end. I'm also curious how far I can push Unitys shadows before it all comes grinding to a halt! haha
cheers for the comments
Gaz

 

Nice level, it looks very realistic!

 

hiya
heres a few screenshots showing one of the baddies near complete. had a break for a coupla weeks over christmas as I starting delving into AI and pathfinding etc.. and realised that my maths/vector/general programming knowledge sucks and was going mad. So our bad guy currently does lots of stupid things like spending forever walking into the platform cuz hes too stupid to go to the end where its lower. So I'm forgetting AI for a while and now concentrating on modelling the rest of the level and characters etc...
cheers
Gary

 

Awesome.

 

Very good !



http://freehunter.iespana.es/

 

They look great.
Boxy

 

Blood-splattered zombies. Excellent. (And surprisingly delicious if trimmed and roasted properly.)

 

I like the name on the sign of your train platform.
"CADAVERSby Station"

nice humor.

I'm also not sure what the earlier reply meant about when commenting on your fence being angled. If they were commenting on the fact that it angles downslope with the ramp, then that is certainly not incorrect. I've seen many a train station and military depot where the fence angled down the ramp slope. While some would probably step the fence, your way is realistic as well and it is a matter of aesthetics, if I am understanding the comment right. If they are talking about the verticle posts, then yes they should be verticle and not angled.

 

Very nice pics and bad guys! It must feel great for your first game.

 

Really great work. You've inspired me to use a modeler with some real texture capabilities. I've so far been faking all my work in Sketchup with tiled textures, but the quality of your scenes is ... well its inspiring . I'll be moving on to Cheetah I think.

I both like and dislike the fog effect. The planar quality does irritate me as they can appear fake in isolation, but the way multiple planes fade together is gorgeous. I am reminded of the smokey title graphics at the start of the Harry Potter movies.

Those zombies are great too. I wish that they were in your demo.

As far as your physics go. I can see why you'd want the player to be stuck on the tracks when they hop down, but I can assure you that it is very easy to hop out of something like that in real life. I think you should be careful in giving the player less capabilities than they have in real life.

 

thanks again for all the comments. It keeps me plugging away at this.
aaronparr - A lot of my textures are tiled, its just a case of many hours spent in photoshop to get the effect I want. I've also then created a few textures with transparency to put on polygons over the top to make it look a bit less uniform - like the rubblish on the floors or leaves and other decals.
I like lightwave to model in but the fbx exporter only allows 1 UV map which is annoying. I have modo so I might experimient with exporting from that as I believe that can export 2 maps and I'll be able to use lightmapping then and optimise everything a bit more.
thanks everyone!

 

thats is pretty impressive if they are all tiled textures... man I cant wait for the finished product!

 

thanks again for the positive responses. I've updated the webplayer so you can see how bad the zombie AI is. Gonna get back to solving that once I've finished modelling the level tho but thought it would be good to show you them in their current state. They cant kill ya yet...and watch how they sometimes spend hours on end walking into the same wall! haha
WARNING: Its about 27 MB so will take a while to load

http://www.relish3d.co.uk/fogone.html

PS.. the textures arent all tiled, its a mixture, but all the floors and walls/bricks/tarmac/pavement etc are just tiled.

cheers ears