Spark Detailing Exercise #3: Day & Night
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Netherlandistan Join Date: 2005-02-03 Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Netherlandistan Join Date: 2005-02-03 Member: 39643Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
SDE#3: DAY & NIGHT
"Build a corridor with some kind of exposure to the outside, be it windows, skylights or some other means. Create two scenes with this corridor, identical in geometry and props: one lit up during day time, one with night time lighting."
Restrictions: The corridor floor surface can be no smaller than 128x512 units (inches) and no bigger than 256x1024 units. Creating an exterior is optional, but not necessary. Open exits to other interior areas are allowed, as long as the corridor meets the size restrictions mentioned before.
Earliest due date: Saturday January 30th (two weeks from now)
Latest due date: Monday February 1st Monday February 8th
Tagging the people who participated before to draw the attention of those who've been involved already.
@Asraniel @[=Alex=] @Zavaro @malx @Insane I hope this list will grown before the next edition of the SDE!PURPOSE AND RULES
This is a creative, visual exercise that is meant to help you get better at lighting and detailing your levels. There is no need to make your entry abide by unwritten NS2 mapping rules such as limited lines-of-sight, avoiding tactically OP hiding spots, etc.
When submitting your level in this thread, please post enough screenshots from various angles to show off your work, include links to the .level file (or the Steam Workshop page if you published it there), and links to any source material you used. You are free to use concept art, photographs, sketches, or any other sources for inspiration as long as you include them in your submission post. Please try to include your thoughts and motivation for what you were trying to accomplish; point out what you were happy and unhappy with, etc.
Use this thread to post questions, discuss the theme, and eventually post your submission. Once submissions are posted, please try to discuss and post constructive criticism on each entry. If your submission isn't completely done by the end of the specified period, don't sweat it. Just post it, and we will try to provide feedback on what's there.
The rules may change in later exercises.
Comments
Now is the time when you post insperational posts.
Anyhew, that's my status update. Anyone else have anything to report?
I'll maybe create something in a few weeks too.
Remember though, SDE#3 runs until February 1st. I don't yet know when/what the next installment will be. It also depends on the success of this round.
We all know you want to bring back ns_bast!!
Please please please can you do an "ALIENS" inspired theme bro, they are so industrial and gritty looking
The hadleys hope set they used would make an amazing competition
OH MY GHERD!
Btw. the lights are doing some weird things on the door? Don't know why.
I've read about this exercise on the 4th, wanting to get started with spark anyways I decided to make my first room/floor as a quick attempt to send in. Only a few hours before that I learned about a building by Le Corbusier, his architecture is a lot about light(silly) and easy concrete-constructions so I thought this might fit quite well.
Due to its simple form I wanted that for my first exercise with spark: I could easily mess around with probs and lights and just everything because I used spark a bit a few years ago and remembered what a pain it can be. So I could go almost without carving and forming out, no layers groups whatever.
After the basic room was made I tried to make it look more ns2ish. I was listening to the ns2 soundtrack so i guess maybe thats why the scene has more of a first Terminator or one of Carpenter's if you want. I could have put more hours into it, making the whole shape more complex but I was happy with the quick ending (~12 hours, a lot of browsing through textures and probs including).
Playing with probs, lights and textures gave me a good impression of how the editor works and what it does not provide. Yet I wasn't able to figure out how to make proper steam/dust?, would love to see it coming through the floor-vents.
I was very unhappy with the behavior of shadows on the last wall, forcing me to shove in more faces in various angles between the light source and the visible wall to block the light.
In the end, it was a lot of fun to work on this and I would love to exercise even more before facing the work of a whole map.
EDIT: I will show more and link to the eventual workshop page later this week.
I like the level of detail you put into your scene, and the composition of especially the first screenshot. The vertical theme on the left wall with the horizontal slice of light falling across it is a cool feature. A good mix of geometry and props that results in neither standing out as such. The little cluster of objects in the middle of the corridor breaks up the repetition of the surrounding architecture. The light dangling from the wire is also a neat way to introduce an interesting light source for the night scene. Ceilings can often become a boring flat space, but you've kept yours interesting.
The first thing that stands out to me, mostly because it breaks with the level of detail of the rest of the corridor, is the right wall. You spoke about the simplicity of the concrete constructions of your reference material, so I understand what you were trying to do there, but the minimalism of the geometry gives it more of an unfinished look. The diamond plate floor texture on that wall also appears out of place. I am personally not a fan of the extruding block between the windows, but that's probably between me and Le Corbusier, not you.
The night-time screenshots have the unfortunate effect of the coloured light hitting those yellow pipes. I ran into pretty much the same issue with my own entry. I had used a LOT of bright yellow textures early on, which looked awful when I threw blue lighting on it, and opted to replace them with neutral textures instead. In your case, the teal and yellow colour pattern distracts from the quality of the geometry and props it's shining on. Additionally, while I like the warmth of the red lighting, I see no source for these lights, which serves to confuse. I can't tell exactly how the light is projected from the light prop dangling from the wire. That spotlight could use some atmospherics on it. Ideally, it would point at that cluster of props, to highlight it within the scene.
Finally, to address your desire for steam: that kind of stuff is done with cinematics. Place a cinematic entity, select it, and brows to /cinematics/environment/ in order to find a bunch of useful steam cinematics. Keep in mind the Repeat Style value of a cinematic, some need to be set to Loop, others to Endless.
I hope my feedback has been helpful, you've got a lot of potential so I hope to see more of your work!
Comments on my hand drawn geometry appreciated :P
As a security guard who spent many night hours wandering around buildings at night, I feel particularly qualified to talk about nighttime window reflections
A window does not become that much of a mirror, especially not one as clear as the one in the day shot. The reflection in this image would be much darker, in the dark areas, and occasionally a bit lighter in the light areas. The contrast would be much lower the darker you went, so many dark colors become indistinguishable, and also partly because the reflected light almost becomes a new light source, further darkening the darks.
The current lighting looks like the window changed to a perfect mirror.
I hope that makes sense. I spent a long time looking at windows at night appreciating the reflection, not so much time spent trying to describe the visual qualities of the reflection....