Blockout WIP

I've been working on my blockout for my environment to help me figure out what stuff I want in the scene.

I started in 3DS Max trying to figure out a good layout, but found it very hard to get a sense of scale or really imagine the environment from the player's perspective. As a result it came out pretty flat and boring.

I took the result into UDK and made use of the terrain tool and existing UDK assets to get a better sense of what I wanted. After showing the environment to half a dozen students and  getting feedback from them and watching them play through the environment, I made many revisions to the layout and flow of the level. The main areas I improved were:

• Allow the player to explore a little more (less "on-rails")
• One area needed better guiding to help the player go the right way
• Improve the sense of depth in the background
• enhance the scale a little more by making things taller
• adjust the field of view to allow the player to see more content on screen
• many other tweaks

... so now I'm pretty happy with this layout and the content of the scene. None of the assets in the pictures that follow are my own.

I dare say I will make further adjustments, but I don't expect them to be particularly huge changes any longer.