FINAL

Video Walk-Through (be sure to watch in HD)

You Tube

Start


Destroyed building


Killer's Apartment


Back Alley


Smelting Plant


Full Level Shot


150,736 Total Triangles

Texture Sheet, a bit less than total limit (image shows all diffuse, decal and particle textures).
http://chrisholden.net/ch_ss_final_textures.jpg

The deadline submission was my priority. I'll be releasing a download of the level soon.



ORIGINAL POST
It looked like so much fun, I've decided to kill two birds with one stone. I'll be creating a city level with assets I can, after the competition, use in my udk game (which currently has no assets). It's the philosophy I'm telling myself to justify all this. Anyway, on with it...

The layout will begin in the street, enter a building which leads to an apartment, out the back window into the alley and into a large warehouse type facility. Definately the kind of stuff seen in Double Dragon or Final Fight.

Here's a little vid from the UDKs

Video

Going to pound out some materials tonight, maybe a few placeholder assets, MEH-BEH an asset list.

Nice block out so far. Looking good. I can imagine a lot of moving things in this scene and lots of things to grab and throw at enemies!

Little update vid here,

Pounded out a few materials to lay ground work for the look. It's a bit dirty.

The background buildings came out pretty neat. Got the idea from Double Dragon. The sky is one of Unreal's skies I'm using as placeholder for now. And yes, that's a TV freaking out in the apartment room.

The transition area between sky and play area will be fences and buildings. Then it's prop and go!

You Tube

Wow Cholden that background looks ace!

I'm afraid I'm going to make a better one now. Damn you

that works really well looking forward to more awesome!

Tonight, I wanted to add some things to bring the level to life. My first assault was into Kismet. With this I added swinging lights, opening doors, breakable windows and so on. I also put in a few particles, decals and light beams. Soon enough, I'll stop making fancy smoke and mirrors and start making assets for this level.

You Tube

yea, that's right, I'm going to out-techincal adam & Virtuosic.

Really cool stuff! Love the light and colors of the background and the sense of depth.

HAHAH! I dunno if you can do that Chris. I really like what you have in place though so far.

Originally Posted by cholden

Tonight, I wanted to add some things to bring the level to life. My first assault was into Kismet. With this I added swinging lights, opening doors, breakable windows and so on. I also put in a few particles, decals and light beams. Soon enough, I'll stop making fancy smoke and mirrors and start making assets for this level.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMlzauYqt5Q

yea, that's right, I'm going to out-techincal adam & Virtuosic.

TENTACLE!!!!

A whole butt-ass of updates here:
Updated start area.
Redid the sky (with my own sky pic).
Added metro train to background that appears at a random rate.
Explosion setup at first door (currently using unreal particle as placeholder).
Minor changes to interior apartment area.
Major updates to alley, lots of wires added using UDK's spline system.
Interior of warehouse built as steel mill with lots of particles and death lava.
On a silly note, intro/outro UI pop-ups with competition banner.

Happiest with the alley area currently. This area will be great all propped up.

You Tube

Since the vid quality is really starting to show, here's some fancy screenshots;
http://chrisholden.net/ch_ss_wip01.jpg
http://chrisholden.net/ch_ss_wip02.jpg
http://chrisholden.net/ch_ss_wip03.jpg

This is looking pretty cool already. I wonder what awesomeness you'll have by the end of the challenge.

I know it's all WIP at the moment but it might be cool to vary the size and shape of the lava pits in the final area.

The train is a really nice touch, maybe raise it up a bit so that you get that nice volumetric light effect when it passes between the sun and the camera.

As much as I like what I see... it seems like a lot of details are getting lost in the huge amount of grit and grim you have in this scene, is there a reason why you are going so heavy handed with that?

too much bloom and lightray loving tone it back or make it somewhat more dynamic and less constant look a t me...

This environment is looking really cool. I especially like the two areas you took shots of.. outside of the strip club and the alley.

This will look badass with some more stuff in it.

I think the train should come just slightly later. (1 or 2 seconds)
I watched the video like 5-6 times and didn't notice it until i read Ben's comment. That train is an awesome feature, though.

I'm loving what you're doing. Keep playing with the bloom settings. You might want to tweak the SSAO settings more if you're already doing that. Coming along great though.

I think I got a little bit of everybody's here.

Ben, I did raise up the train, remodeled the train (needs materials), put in another train going the other way, and built up a nice track for it. The shadows through the windows do some really cool things.

Jason I think it was like that to hide that there were no details. It'll be dialed out once textured assets start falling in place.

Shep & jeffro, yea those default settings are really intense! I've just started scratching the surfaces with those settings this weekend. Chopped most of them in half or more.

ngs616; the train is set to a random play rate, though it was a little high. So I chopped it in half, but then added another train. In a real game setting, this would be cut way down. I left it a bit high so wouldn't miss it in the video.


Other new stuff:
Added a bunch of trash props. Animated the clouds in the sky.

Still a lot of totally blank areas. The exploding door area will be a blown out, rubble area, and the flashing TV room will be moderately furnished. The street itself (what player stands on) need more which I'll likely invest more foreground to help cover.

I invested quite a bit of time in optimization. Seems silly for the challenge, but the idea was to also reduce build times.

I few quick things for you Unreal users, After building lighting, the log tab of the Swarm Agent has a lot of useful information. In the Lighting Build Info, sort by % Lighting Time, select high percentage objects (static meshes), and click Go To to see what this is in the world. I like to check a few of these out to make sure it's things I mean to be at the top, and not a whole bunch of tiny, insignificant things.

Here's a video (this time with sound) Edit: I had no idea frap recorded my music player too, so enjoy the Six Feet Under by accident)

You Tube

Here's a image of the area that got the most work:




Here's a few little things I put together in Kismet for this competition (note: if you were making a great game you'd want to use unreal script for most of this)

First, if you haven't see the camera setup, here it is:
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/3rdudk.jpg

To remove the hud, you can go into the console and type ToggleHUD, or you can tell Kismet to put in this command for you.
Right Click > New Action > Misc > Console Command

You'll need to attach a Player variable to the Target.
Right Click > New Variable > Player > Player, and uncheck All Players.

With this setup, you can use any of those useful console commands without having to put them in every time. For this level, I used SetSpeed 0.6 because I felt the UDK default run speed took me through the level too quickly to get a good look at it. Also, when I'm working on something at the end of the level, I like to set the speed up to around 3 so I can get there quickly.


You can also remove the hud via Cinematic Mode.
Right Click > New Action > Toggle > Toggle Cinematic Mode
If you still want to be able to move, uncheck Disable Movement. I leave Disable Turning on for this level since I want the player to run straight down the level. Hide HUD is automatic with Cinematic Mode, and I also like to use Hide Player for testing things without that robot on the screen.


huzzah!

This is coming along nicely. Feels very dynamic and "alive", keep it that way
Oh.. and thanks for your tips on the UDK camera and stuff!

Good progress. Environment is stunning. Great work

\m/

Fantastic level, I love all the minor details you have going on, I feel it really brings it to life. I've been watching this since the beginning and you truly have made leaps and bounds, congrats. Keep up the fantastic work, and don't stop jamming the metal, it always helps produce top quality work ;)

wow great work! the train in the background is cool!

if I were you, I'd drop the level after the jump out of the window
(but then your trains in the back wont line up anymore)

*edit* and by dropping I mean lowering the streetlevel below the window, to make the jump more epic

Originally Posted by Veko

if I were you, I'd drop the level after the jump out of the window
(but then your trains in the back wont line up anymore)

*edit* and by dropping I mean lowering the streetlevel below the window, to make the jump more epic

Maybe there could be a staircase in the apartment that would bring it up a level or two. Seemed silly to me to have an apartment right in front of the entrance door on the first floor anyway.

Originally Posted by Zipfinator

Seemed silly to me to have an apartment right in front of the entrance door on the first floor anyway.

You should see more apartments, and remember it's a side-scrolling game competition where you fall in a lava vat and die.

JEsus chris! your like this scary game art making machine. It might be cool to mess with some verticality, for ex. taking the action onto a rooftop via stairs or a pile of junk or something. Or maybe the player falls down a big hole, and thats where the industrial area is.

Man, this is unreal!!!!