Project Goals and Milestones

American Old West Mining Town, Arizona Territory ca. 1885


Background

Approximately 7 months ago, I spent 11 weeks on a project designing and building assets for an Old West mining town for a hypothetical MMO called "Silver Rush Online." It's important to note the specific platform as MMO, as opposed to just saying the project was for a game, because there is such a large diversity of "games," from next gen console and PC single player games to mobile phone or Nintendo DS games, to Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, and everything in between, because of the difference in modeling resolution across all those various platforms. A Playstation 3, for example, can present much higher poly models with advanced normal and displacement maps for a single player game than a typical PC MMO could. It's a way of justifying, then, why the models are so low poly and lack a lot of fancy zBrush work.

Goal


To produce 3d environmental assets suitable for use in a Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game set in the American Old West, ca. 1885 in the Arizona Territory. The scope of the project includes only the geometry (without textures) of buildings, props, weapons, and other objects associated with an Old West mining town. These will be presented as rendered scenes using ambient occlusion rendering. Terrain will be built inside 3ds Max as a substitute for game engine-generated terrain, and will not be subject to the polygon limits associated with the actual assets. This is due to the difference in the way terrain is generated in a game engine as opposed to the level of resolution necessary to produce that type of terrain on a plane in 3ds Max.


Milestones


The project will run from April 7th, 2009 until June 11th, 2009.


4-16-2009:

• Investigate exporting existing assets to Torque Game Engine
• Evaluate exiting assets for quality and usefulness in the final scene
• If necessary, schedule time to improve existing assets
• Design layout of town and determine additional assets required

Results:

Untextured models in Torque Game Engine are unsuitable for demonstrating modeling quality. DTS objects (static mesh objects in Torque that are not portalized objects) do not cast shadows, and the engine's ambient light renders all detail impossible to see. Details are normally shadowed in the textures to provide definition. Will post in-engine screenshot to demonstrate this. Made decision to render the scene in 3ds Max with modeled terrain substituted for engine-generated terrain.

Existing art is appropriate for inclusion in the final level build, with a few refinements. Have scheduled time to address a few minor issues to update the existing assets.

General town layout has been designed. This will be tweaked on the fly as the level is assembled and as assets are viewed in the scene relative to each other.

Additional assets required:

Landmarks:

• Train Station
• Post Office
• Doctor's Office
• Auction House
• Gun Shop

Generic Town Buildings (to be reconfigurable into several different structures each, as needed):

• 3 Generic Commercial Structures
• 3 Generic Residential Structures
• Outhouse
• Tent

Objects:

• Stagecoach
• Steam Locomotive
• Furniture as needed
• Flora as needed

4-30-09

• Evaluate prior milestone and schudule time for adjustments, as necessary
• Lay out existing assets in 3ds Max as shown on map
• Research historical Old West, emphasis on residential structures in mining towns
• Design and build "kitbash" pieces -- building blocks for assembling numerous "generic" structures
• Assemble generic structures into town layout as completed
• Address refinements to existing assets
• Evaluate level layout and alter as necessary

5-14-09

• Evaluate prior milestone and schedule time for adjustments, as necessary
• Design and build "landmark" structures

5-28-09

• Evaluate prior milestone and schedule time for adjustments, as necessary
• Consider any existing structures to add interiors
• Add interiors to necessary additional structures

6-11-09

• Evaluate prior milestone and schedule time for adjustments, as necessary
• Design and build prop objects and flora, as necessary for level decoration
• Turn in completed project for evaluation