Academy in the Desert

[Xisthruos]

It's been a while since I shared anything. For various reasons, I can't show everything I've been working on over the past year, but I do want to make it more of a habit. I'll start with this sidequest area I've been working on lately:

Redbrun Building Exterior:



Government building leftover from when the Redbrun military had a strong foothold in this particular stretch of arid desert. While mostly forgotten, it still retains a small staff of workers who maintain the grounds and interiors.

Since I was kind of making things up as I went along with this, I tried to match the color scheme with the desert tiles, but now I feel like this choice makes the building too boring. I will probably want to change the red brick exterior to concrete, and perhaps make the overall design more colorful (red/white/blue banners?), similar to what I did with the building's interior. I'm not satisfied with the glass shading either, particularly regarding the sky window on the top right of the building. I haven't worked on the desert topography surrounding the building yet, but I don't anticipate making it particularly complex.


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Interior of Redbrun Building:



Interior of the Rebrun government building. I'm unsure as to the building's exact purpose, but I'm leaning towards a military academy or library theme, where the player would be able to obtain items/information/skills that would prove useful in battle. I want the building to be occupied by staff, yet still feel empty--rustic, but not in disrepair. I've already produced my share of desolate, abandoned buildings by this point.

I'll maybe want to shade the glass and change some of the artwork and scenery around, but this is pretty much done.

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Update: I decided on the rest of the maps. I'll post visuals when they're prettier.


Classrooms:
Two mostly identical classrooms. They have a drab utilitarian feel. One has a chalkboard, one has a projector (which might be fun to use, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself.)

Library:
Darker motif, dim lighting. Spans two floors, connected by a staircase and enter-able multiple ways. Has its own balcony. I'll need to create two versions for when you're above and below the second floor balcony. Some old computers tucked away with the bookshelves.

Small Office:
Tucked away under the library stair is a small office/reading room.

Utility Closet:
It's in here because it took me all of 5 minutes to create with my vast array of generic closet tiles. Houses a connection to the basement.

Red Basement:
Two-tone red-and-black minimalist dungeon. Pipes, ductwork, boiler, and various basement-type paraphernalia. Foreboding, probably full of monsters. Want to keep it simple visually, though.

Blue Basement:
Below the red basement. Two-tone blue-and-black this time. The visual gimmicks make the place resemble a military bunker, specifically munitions storage. More metallic surfaces, at least one bridge. Long forgotten weapons storage crates and/or neat stacks of discarded warheads help frame the corridors. Secret base style control panels. Keep minimalistic feel, however. Empty, abandoned, probably taken over by non-Redbrun, inhuman forces.

Missile Silo:
At the end of the Blue Basement, here's a long shaft leading back up to the surface, not too far from the academy itself. Might also have a large crack that provides connection to other cave networks elsewhere in-game. Not likely to be housing a live missile.

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Any constructive feedback is welcome. Thanks for stopping by!

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Academy in the Desert

Looking good so far!

The sky windows are cool, and the shading on them looks fine to me. If you really wanted to improve them, you could try incorporating some subtle transparency (what are the shapes and values of the things under them?) and reflectivity (what parts of the sky or orange environment will reflect across the glass?) effects.


On the exterior, what's working well is that your entrance is your focal point and it is the area with the most detail. You also have good secondary and tertiary areas of interest in the sky windows and front-facing windows. What's not working so well is that these areas are framed and separated from each other by fairly large areas of mostly "blank" roof and wall space.

Color differences could break up some of that monotony, but color and texture in an artwork are really just icing on a cake, something that sits on top of a foundation. You could add visual interest to your building at a more foundational level once you place a few more objects or architectural features, which will create more underlying form and structure. Maybe there could be a box out between the windows, or more lights lining the walls, or vines crawling up the walls, or some conduit and air conditioning units along the walls or on the roof, etc.


In the interior shot it like the bookshelves are supposed to be deeply embedded into the walls? If not, then the bottom boundary of the shelves should stick past the bottom of the wall trim. If so, then maybe try punching up the value contrast and color to differentiate the books, as the bookshelves looked like funky window drapes to me at first glance. Also, there is an indication-of-scale issue where it looks like the books are close to a third as tall as the blue double doors. Judging from the size of the bust statues and the repeating floor tiles, it looks like it might be that the double doors are too small in comparison to everything else.

[Xisthruos]

Re: Academy in the Desert

Thanks for your input. I can usually tell something is 'wrong' about an image by instinct, but it takes a more conscious effort to determine precisely what's causing the problem.

In regard to your feedback about the sky windows, it reminded me of the window shading I did in this level a while back. I can definitely try something like that.

Also, I realize now I could have very easily made the right side sky window big enough to cover the entire roof, making it look similar to the parthenon's (when it had a roof.) I could go on from there and add subtle details on the glass. Not sure what do do on the left side, though. Yet.

My opinion on the coloration has changed. I was mapping out the desert landscape around the Redbrun bldg yesterday, and the red brick does actually compliment the red cliffs quite well. Some banners and flags still might be a good idea (Redbruns like displaying their iconography everywhere), and I may yet have to spend some time looking at pictures of government buildings to figure out what kind of "functional architectural features" would be simple to execute and give the building the extra visual interest it needs.

For the interior shot: Yes, the bookshelves were meant to be embedded into the wall, but I don't like them there, so I was planning on removing them entirely, replacing them with hanging artwork (paintings with white borders identical to the ones already on the walls.) Yesterday, I began mapping out a small library room with a slightly darker color scheme (as though the lights are off), where the bookshelves will be placed. They are no longer embedded into the walls, and have a visible topside.

You have a keen eye for scale--I think I made the decision to create those rectangular borders around the doors just to address that issue. Mixed results. I can make the doors bigger, but there's a limit. I think I might also experiment with making the door borders white, or give them a different design that makes them stand out more. Or do something with the floor tile?

Working through this with you reminds me how inconsistent a lot of my work is, owing to the fact that it takes me a long time to move from one map to the next, I'm learning new techniques as I go along, and I'm often more eager to move to the next set of levels before I can correct every inconsistency. It's a messy process. I'll have a lot of work to do retouching artwork late in production, even once I've got most of the game's environs finished. Still, it makes a huge difference just having the levels in a well-realized state (even if they have a lot of visual errors) as opposed to staying hastily made sketches forever.

I'll put in the extra effort to pretty up this environment since I'm sharing it publicly. Maybe the reason I like to work in isolation most of the time might be one of efficiency? Maybe, maybe not...

I added some info about the remaining areas of this sidequest in the original post.

[Xisthruos]

Re: Academy in the Desert

Redbrun Building Exterior Update:



Overhaul of the previously submitted Redbrun Government building. This is much closer to the vision I had in my mind originally.

Changed color scheme and added finely manicured lawn to make the building stand apart from the desert a little more. Further sells the idea that the Redbrun military is so affluent that it can afford to spend impractical amounts of resources to maintain backwater structures like this one.

In-game, the structure front (right to left) takes up about 1.5 screens, and top to bottom also takes another 1.5. Basically, you won't see much of the roof unless you walk behind it. Maybe the building is a little too large overall, but I took care to make sure there's not a lot of boring dead space anywhere there might be interactive events. Plus, you spawn right where you can fully see the entrance, so I don't think it's a problem.

Didn't end up doing much with the window shading. Trying to keep things simple. Looks like I forgot to shade the windows on the building's top.

Side note: I omitted the surrounding cliffs since they're devoid of detail right now. More on the desert geography later.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: Academy in the Desert

Looks good! The flags/emblems and tiling on the roof really help the building design. It has a different feel than the original in that it looks conspicuously well-kept, but that's certainly not a bad thing, especially if it better matches your original vision.

And yeah, my comments aren't meant to suggest that I think they're things you absolutely need to tend to before moving on to something else. It's more like, here's some things to consider that might help your creation process go more smoothly down the road.

[Ωbright]

Re: Academy in the Desert

The first exterior shot looked pretty good, but the second one looks great! I'm glad you fixed the color issues Ryu talked about, and the new roof & window treatments look good to me, also.

One thing I might change though, is I might add a railing to the balcony on the interior map, so that the area could more clearly be defined as "upstairs".

[Xisthruos]

Re: Academy in the Desert

Hey, thanks for the compliment, Ωbright!

The second exterior shot was the result of analyzing a problem, and then just putting in the raw hours to fix it.

As far as the balcony goes, there are teeny-tiny banisters on the sides, plus I was planning to split the top (with balcony) and bottom (without balcony) floors of the main hall into two maps. You would 'transition' between the two versions of the map when you walk on the staircase, making it look like the balcony disappears/reappears according to the situation. That may or may not help, but it's the trick I'll try to use.



Speaking of hours, looking at the date of the original post reminds me how time-consuming this process is. 0.o I've been working on the old military bunker underneath the academy lately. It's fleshed out but not presentation worthy. I'm going to disappear for a while and come back with more screens some weeks into the future.