Extended Practice: Creating the Hub World, Linking Everything Together and Final Testing

Creating the Hub World
I then moved onto creating the hub world for the game so that it acted like a bridge between the worlds. This area, from our designs, is set inside an huge tree which sits in an Ancient Forest. We really liked this idea that the Ancients lived here in the peace and quiet in an area that was quite difficult to find. For the hub world me and Sophie decided the best way to create the hub world was split the work between us so she is going to be creating the assets to go inside and I am creating the main shape of it and the rooms on the side.

For me this was quite difficult to visual and figure out how to start as I was trying to imagine it as a tree, but as it was the inside I was designing I decided to get the basic shapes and extrude from there eventually getting this shape below, which doesn't look very tree like from the outside but is the right shape on the inside, the look I was going for was like the inside of the Deku Tree from the Zelda series, the inside of that tree definitely didn't fit inside the tree that you see from the outside.

The inside was definitely resembling the look that I wanted to achieve, and the space was large enough to have four characters and Keith in it at the same time.

I then went onto UV mapping, this was a fairly simple process as I really only had two things in their, the main hub and the stairs that spiral up to the next level. The stairs where simple to UV map as they were just a cut in half cylinder.

The hub a little more complex, but nothing too bad, the UV's where fairly good to sort out and I got them looking neat fairly quickly.

I then textured the hub world and I think the hand painted look really does stand out with the design. In the end I went with the reddy brown tone so that it looked like it was part of an ancient forest and this really makes it pop as the colour is very vibrant and bold, especially when matched with the wood of the floor, which I have chosen to go with the lighter wood that would be inside a tree trunk.

Creating the Portals
The only asset that I ended up making in the hub world was the portals to be able to go to my individual level and also another level on the same floor that we aren't actually making for the deadline. I wanted to bring an essence of Egypt and China into these portals and used the designs that I had previously created to ensure that this was brought to attention.

I started by creating the Chinese portal and followed the designs to ensure that it was looking correct. I really like this portal and think it represents the country well as it includes well known architecture in the design of it.

I then created the Egyptian portal to the level I am making. Again following the designs this one was fairly easy to make. I don't think this one looks as good as the Chinese one, but I tried to again stay true to traditional architecture and the columns do appear to belong in Egypt.

I then UV mapped them both, again, like the other things that I have recently been creating, this was a fairly easy task, ensuring that I produce high quality UV's so that it is easier to apply the texture too later on, on both designs.

Finally I textured them both, and think that they look really good. They both look like they are based off a particular location and still fit in well with the overall theme of the game with the hand painted quality. The only thing left to add to these later on is the texture inside the portal that will animate and take the player to the level.

Linking Everything Together
It was then time to link everything together, and this meant bringing in all of Sophie's assets into the hub world so that it could be linked with the other elements in the game. We wanted the transition between the levels to be really seamless and we wanted to ensure that they fit in with the rest of the environment but also make this the centre of the world and ensure that it looked bright, colourful and inviting. As we were only making one floor I wanted to show that there was going to more to look at in future so ensured that there were areas above the character and leading down below that where just locked off at the moment, making the player wonder whats down there and how to get to it.

Firstly, once all of the hub world was finished I brought in all of the portals, the two I had made, and the two, British and Indian, that Sophie had made. I placed them in the correct place and sized them so that they looked right before moving onto adding in Sophie's assets.

It took a bit of time moving them in and around so that they where in the correct place, but once they were all in they looked really good. The colours of the assets are all really bright and bold giving the hub world a really nice over all look to it. The assets within all link to the different characters as well making them personal to them and giving them a reason to be there.

We then set up the scripts so that the player can traverse to the different levels through the portals that we had created. After completing both of our levels we decided at this stage that it was a better idea to put Sophie's level before mine. It hasn't got as many platforming aspects and is more of a maze, offering the player the chance to get more accustomed to the controls before going to the Egyptian level which is more about platforming. This seemed to look a lot better this way and the player then gets introduced in a much more sequential manner.

The script that is used is a simple one that occurs when the player steps into the collider, this will load the next level that I select to be next to play and the script works really well.

I took a quick video here of the script working just to show the load time. The India level at the moment does take a while to load, so we need to think about ways to maybe add in a loading screen to this. The Egyptian level as is, loads fine, but the level is not yet complete and there are still a lot of details to add to it in order for it to be finished at this stage of recording. (This video was taken before the final details where added)

Adding in Extra Details

I then looked back at the level and thought that is needed a bit more atmosphere than just a light. The lights I used in the middle where therefore change to point lights so that they lit up the entire level, I then used three altogether in the middle of some jars to make it seem like the light is coming from them. I really like this idea and ended up putting some little glowing cubes in them to make them seem like glowing rocks. 

I then wanted to add in a few more details to the level and I really liked the idea of fireflies to light up the level further. I found a really good tutorial online that created a really nice effect and used that as inspiration to create my own.

I really like the look of them, and instead of making them yellow I went with more an orangy colour as it seemed to bring the level to life more and create more of a sleepy and calming atmosphere.

The hub world still needs a couple more details adding to it, but I am going to be doing this later on when I link the entire game together. This is so that I can carry themes and other things across and make the world seem bigger than it is. Other extra tiny details need to be added in as well but again this will added later on to ensure consistency.

Final Testing
We then took a final video to test that the linking of the levels work correctly and that all of the animations not only in both the environments but on Keith himself where working correctly. We wanted it to look as fluid as possible and ensure that all of the script where working in the way that they were intended. I think the overall look to the final game really brings everything to life and Keith works well running through both environments.