BA5 - WW1 Trench Scene Entry 6

Since my last post, I have hit a snag. There is a tool in Maya called Boolean, presumably named after the Victorian mathematician, George Boole. I have found this tool very handy in creating models. Unfortunately, I was recently informed that this tool is unsuitable for creating models for games. This news renders all my 3D work thus far, broken and effectively, unusable.

This is a major setback for my project. So I have had to remake all of my models, without using the Boolean tool. Needless to say, I have found this very frustrating. On the other hand, my time spent making those obsolete models was not entirely wasted. I think it depends on how you look at the situation. I think any practise on modelling objects in Maya is time well spent. I can still say that I learned to model at a faster rate, and more efficiently .So, all in all, not a total waste.

I have also doubted the suitability of my scene as a whole. I wanted to create a stretch of trench line, which I could import into either UDK or CryEngine3. This would allow a player to walk around my trench and see it from a first-person viewpoint.  This considered, would not be reflective of my game, ‘Beast’s of Battle’, which is a third-person action game, experienced from the perspective of a WW1 warhorse. It would be impractical in game terms to see a warhorse charging down a very narrow trench. So I have decided to rethink the environment I wish to make.  Previously, I wanted to construct a trench, with various ‘everyday’ detritus scattered about the scene. I may have added an officer’s dugout, for example, and maybe a Vickers machine gun that the player could man and fire. This would have been all well and good, but not really true to the nature of my game. As you would never get to walk around and experience things from a man’s point of view, or entered the dugout, or fired the machine gun. Although, on the other hand, maybe for the limits of this project, I would be allowed this freedom.

Nevertheless, I have gone on to sketch up a rough idea of a more open environment, still set within the First World War setting. I thought about making a ‘start point’ of a level. Set in the courtyard of an abandoned French Farmhouse, with army tents, crates, barrels and a commandeered stable, for the cavalry.

Here is a very basic model of my new idea, made up in Maya;

I don't intend to further sculpt detail onto this model, I am just using it here to give an impression of it.