Spontaneous Sunday: World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap

Spontaneous Sunday is here again, and this week I have played World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap (2016, Neocore Games, Xbox One). This is one of the free games on Games With Gold this month.

"World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap is now available for purchase by XBox Live Gold users. It is the first Games With Gold for January 2017 and it came earlier than expected. This video game is a tower-defense title with elements of action-RPG that was initially launched for PCs in 2015. Finally, it made its way to game consoles through XBox Live."

- itechpost.com on the game's recent XB1 launch

What do I expect from the game?

Before the game's release in December, and it's inclusion in Games With Gold this month, I had not previously heard of it, but decided to download it and add it to my (increasingly large) collection/backlog of Spontaneous Sunday games! As its part of the Van Helsing franchise, I expected it to have similar themes and visuals i.e, fantasy, gothic and mythology.

The game promises a "truly unique mixture of tower defence and action RPG". My experience with tower defence games is really just playing casual browser games while I was bored in high school, so I was intrigued to see how a console tower defence game would work. I am a fan of action/RPG games so this also gave me high hopes for Deathtrap!

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

Upon reaching the game's main menu, I was instantly presented with a choice of character class, out of Sorceress, Mercenary or Marksman, and a short paragraph about the class' abilities and strengths. I thought it was odd that it jumped straight into this choice, and wasn't sure which one to go with, so I looked away from the screen and picked at random and ended up with Marksman.

A video then played in which a narrator explained pretty much everything about the game in a couple of minutes, from gameplay, to the different traps, to the customisation and upgrade systems, while accompanying visuals and gameplay showed on screen. This video went on for a while and explained things fairly clearly, and I managed to follow it for the most part, but it really did give a lot of information very quickly and made my head spin a little.

Shot from the intro cutscene

Shot from the intro cutscene.

I started a new game and another, much shorter and less dense video played, explaining the game's backstory and lore. The game is set in another realm, and the player character's mission is to stop the invading monsters from reaching gateways to the real world (the game's "tower" equivalent), by creating gauntlets of traps in different strongholds (levels). The emphasis is on the different traps, and its clear that a lot of thought has gone into their design.

First view of the world map, from which you start levels.

Now I was presented with the world map, which shows the realm which is made up of floating islands. It looks pretty cool! I also noticed the game's music, which soon became one of my favourite things about it. I was less fond, however, of the UI and menus. They look a bit dated, like they're straight from a B-list RPG from the mid-2000's, and the text is too small to comfortably read from what would normally be a reasonable distance. I also checked out the inventory and upgrade menus, which looked daunting at first but were actually pretty easy to grasp.

Character inventory/stats menu

"Darkmoor" - the first level.

First view of a level

I started my first battle, and felt like I wanted a challenge, so chose to play on Hard. There was a few  tutorial messages about how levels play out, how to place turrets etc, then I got to work setting up for the first wave by placing a couple of turrets and traps, launched the first wave, and the chaos began.

Enemies approach from different angles, and you must work with both your traps and your character to stop them. It's a simple premise, but makes for some fun and rather frantic gameplay. I made the right choice going for Hard difficulty - it is fun and rewarding but not impossible. I finished the first level with 2/3 stars and just one enemy got through, so I replayed and got 3/3 stars. The action is fluid and satisfying, and theres just the right amount of RPG and strategy/planning elements involved.

Having completed the first level, I gained access to the first tier of customisation options and character and trap upgrades, and the game began properly!

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

After the first level, I completed 4 more, some of which took a couple of attempts, unlocked some gear, and upgraded a bunch of stats and traps. The level of content and customisation is really impressive for a tower defence game, and the action RPG elements really add a lot. The addition of these features is probably essential, as the core concept of a tower defence game is pretty simple and the game might not stand up in the current gaming market without these features to flesh it out. Having a character to move around and play as gives a greater sense of agency and a much deeper gameplay experience than tower defence games where you simply place the towers.

The upgrades and customisation add more depth to the game.

The game's general look and feel is also a positive point. There's not much that really links the game to the Van Helsing universe, but the themes and visuals are reminiscent of it, at least. Neocore Games have made several Van Helsing games and probably chose to create this game as part of that franchise to "stick with what they know" and capitalise on an already established franchise rather than risk a stand-alone. The graphics, environments and game art are all visually appealing and interesting to look at it. Everything is generally well designed and thought out, from the core gameplay, traps, enemies and level design, and its evident that a lot of effort went into it all.

Some levels have areas outside the main gameplay zone, and bonus objectives.

The lore has also been well thought-out. Each level has a backstory and there is an encyclopaedia of enemies that includes artwork and details about their strengths and weaknesses, abilities and stats. The traps are incredibly varied, with turret, ground, poison, and summoning types, amongst many more, all of which can be upgraded. The enemies are equally varied and interesting. Enemies vary in speed, size, whether they walk or fly, how they attack, whether they are humanoid, beast, demonic or ghost-like etc. Every level also has a unique boss, all of which are unique and need to be approached in different ways to be defeated.

One of the early-game bosses.

One of my favourite things about the game was its music. The music suits it perfectly. The game could have gotten away with the standard generic RPG music seen in many games, but Deathtrap's music has a bit more about it than that. The menu music is dark, dramatic and haunting, with plucked strings, interesting percussion and subtle vocals. In levels, the music is dynamic and fitting to the action that is occurring.

What don't I like about the game?

I only have a few minor negative points to mention about the game. As I mentioned earlier on, there's the somewhat generic, retro-looking UI. It doesn't do much to set itself apart from other game's of the genre and it looks dated. The text is also far too small - though I do have pretty poor eyesight!

As I was playing on the hardest difficulty, I failed a few times, mostly on the final waves during the boss fights. When you fail the level, you have to start the whole thing again, which seems slightly too punishing. I feel like the player should have the option to start from the previous wave, or at least a point halfway through the level rather than restart the whole thing.

One final very small thing that I'd like to note is that Deathtrap doesn't feel terribly accessible. The gothic, otherworldly setting might not appeal to more casual gamers who aren't into that sort of genre, which could limit the breadth of the game's accessibility. While having an established name behind your game is usually a good thing, I find myself wondering if creating a game within the Van Helsing franchise might serve to alienate people who are not familiar with it? Just a thought.

Final Thoughts

World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap really has a lot going for it and I'm glad that I decided to play it today. In my mind, its a perfect example of how a tower defence game should be made in the current gaming market.

There's a lot more content and features than I was expecting, and the game could probably be forgiven for having less, but the developers really fleshed the game out and created an interesting and unique gaming experience. The ability to approach levels strategically while also getting stuck right into the action at ground-level is something rarely seen in games, but Deathtrap achieves it well. Deathtrap is charming and stylistically appealing, though the UI seems to be lagging behind and needs to catch up with the gameplay in terms of modernity!

World of Van Helsing: Deathtrap has only recently come to Xbox One, and is Neocore's first release on this platform. I wish it (and them) well!

Learning UE4 Sequencer - Milecastle Video

This week, I have used the Sequencer feature in UE4 to create a camera fly-through video of my Roman Milecastle environment. The Sequencer is a tool that replaces the now-obsolete Matinee feature from earlier versions of the engine, and allows you to set up camera sweeps, events, movements etc. within an environment. I decided to give it a go after sitting in on a Sequencer tutorial that the undergrad students were having.

The video is just under 3 minutes long and has camera sweeps of the interior and exterior of the environment from a variety of angles. I also used Sequencer to make the doors open as the camera approached them in the video. It was a bit of a tricky feature to get the hang of initially, but now I have a decent grasp of it and I've started to think of other ways that I could use it in the future.

I also created a short piece of music for the video, which is something I wanted to do for the original submission, but didn't have time. I researched Ancient Roman music and instruments, and also took inspiration from game soundtracks such as Age of Empires II when creating the music.

Napoleonic Fusilier - 3D character

Last Tuesday, I tried my hand at character modelling for the first time in several years, and modelled a simple humanoid shape from a tutorial video. In uni the next day, Josh, one of the MA tutors, was setting a character design brief for the 2nd year undergrads so I sat in on the talk and decided to do the brief myself! The project aim was to create a character, be it 2D or 3D, and present the character through a desktop wallpaper.

I immediately got to work researching, gathering images and sketching up some ideas. My idea generation included fantasy/medieval characters, through archers, rogues, boxers and eventually I ended up at my final idea, a Napoleonic fusilier. I experimented with different proportions, both realistic and stylised, and decided on a tapered, upside-down triangle shape for the character, with broad shoulders and thin legs in a stood-to-attention stance, with a big hat and holding a rifle. I drew a final front and side view to work towards in Maya and began modelling.

I also considered the characters personality and had it in my head that he would be a loyal, brave and capable soldier, who followed orders unquestioningly, but was reckless and full of bravado. His role in a game would be that of a general foot soldier in a casual strategy/RTS game, perhaps on mobile or a PC/console indie title, and the character could be used several times rather than being a single, unique, named character.

Here's some images of the development process and final presentation shots:

Idea Generation

Idea Generation - Using realistic scale

Idea Generation - Experimenting with unrealistic scale

Idea Generation - Unrealistic scale. Personality.

Final concept.

Selection of reference/inspiration pictures.

Final technical presentation.

Presentation shot / wallpaper (in UE4)

Presentation shot / wallpaper (in UE4)

Presentation shot / wallpaper (in UE4)

Presentation shot / wallpaper (in UE4)

This project has been a valuable experience for me and has helped me to develop my character design and modelling skills. Though character modelling is not what I want to go into in the future, it is certainly a useful skill and experience to have. I plan on doing some more character modelling in the future.

Spontaneous Sunday is Back! - Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

That's right, Spontaneous Sunday is back! This week was my first week back at Uni after the Christmas holidays so it's time to pick back up where I left off before Christmas and bring back Spontaneous Sunday, my weekly blog post in which I play a game that I've never played before and make a write-up about it, in the interest of broadening my gaming knowledge.

I'm starting off Spontaneous Sunday season 2 (as I've taken to calling it), with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon (2013, Ubisoft, Xbox 360). This was one of the free games on Games With Gold recently. I'm playing it on Xbox One via backwards compatibility.

"Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a 2013 comedic first-person shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is a stand-alone expansion to the 2012 video game Far Cry 3. The game, a parody of 1980s action films and video games, takes place on a retro-futuristic open world island with players assuming the action role of the military cyborg Sergeant Rex "Power" Colt.The game was released on 30 April 2013, for PlayStation 3 and on 1 May 2013 for Microsoft Windows and for Xbox 360."

- Wikipedia on Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

What do I expect from the game?

Blood Dragon is a stand-alone spin-off to Far Cry 3, which I played quite a lot and enjoyed, and it uses the same engine and gameplay systems. I expected Blood Dragon to be something of a "re-skin" of Far Cry 3, with largely similar gameplay and design. While I did enjoy Far Cry 3, I spent most of my time on the multiplayer (which was really enjoyable with some interesting mechanics, an under-rated multiplayer in my opinion!), but I only played a little bit of the single player and didn't enjoy it as much for a couple of reasons, e.g, the story didn't grab me and I found the inventory/looting system clunky and uninspiring.

With that said, though, I set out with an open mind and thought that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon's unique aesthetic and tone might grab my attention more than Far Cry 3 itself did. Blood Dragon received good reviews and I am generally a fan of Far Cry games (FC2 is in my top 5 favourite games) so I expected to enjoy it.

First Impressions - What did I think of the game in its first few minutes?

The game's retro-futuristic, 80's sci-fi aesthetic is present from the moment the game begins, with a cool-looking front end (above) and dramatic synth-y 80's soundtrack that suits the game very well. The main menu and in-game menus are set out like early computer operating systems which also suits it well and is fresh and interesting. I launched a new game on medium difficulty and an intro cutscene began. The cutscenes in the game are all retro-looking, pixel art cartoons. The first one introduces the game's backstory and player character, Rex, a cyborg soldier. Gameplay begins with the player attacking an enemy base with a minion from a helicopter. Rex is then set down near the base and the tutorial begins.

The tutorial was a fairly simple base-infiltration mission in which you learn how to move, sneak and fight, but the unique twist is the way in which the game communicates with the player: it's as if the game is self-aware, and the tutorial messages are tongue-in-cheek and filled with irony, such as "Press A to demonstrate your ability to read", this tone is present throughout. The game isn't afraid to mock itself and break the 4th wall through in-game messages and tips in loading screens. It includes little nods to the other games in the franchise and subtly calls-out action game tropes. This gives the game a lot of attitude and a unique sort of witty charm.

Tutorial for stealth takedowns.

Exterior shot of the facility from the first mission - a pretty cool environment.

A Blood Dragon.

I finished the first mission, then another pixel-y cutscene introduced the main enemy, Sloan. The 2nd mission began in a cave and I soon came across some of the game's eponymous Blood Dragons (above), these are very dangerous glowing creatures with powerful attacks but poor eyesight and they feature heavily in the story and gameplay, they can be enticed into attacking enemy positions which makes for an interesting mechanic.

I was surprised at how little of the original Far Cry 3 could be seen in Blood Dragon; the visuals, menus, setting and characters are all totally different and it really feels like a totally different thing altogether - I found myself wondering why Ubisoft saw fit to lump it in with Far Cry 3 at all? There's only a handful of similarities, such as the vehicles, the appearance of the map, the audio and some of the core gameplay. Blood Dragon is more action-packed and the gameplay is more streamlined. This, along with the aesthetic and soundtrack, meant that Blood Dragon gave a good first impression.

Aswell as futuristic architecture, there are old ruins.

What do I like about the game? What does it do well?

As my experience with Blood Dragon went on, I only came to enjoy it more and more. Being a cyborg, Rex can breath underwater, sprint forever without tiring, jump higher and suffer no fall damage - this is reminiscent of classic shooters and its refreshing to be unburdened by these human limitations. This also heavily influences how combat and movement play out...

Blood Dragon offers some seriously hectic and very enjoyable and satisfying moments, such as sprinting and hurling yourself off a very high dam into the water below and being completely unscathed (and getting an achievement for it, too!) and sprinting and jumping around blasting enemies with the shotgun. This is just one of the instances in which Blood Dragon's lack of realism makes it a better game: other examples include the liberties taken in the story, which would risk being condemned as ridiculous in other games, but because Blood Dragon is a unique parody, it can get away with almost anything!

I'm sure that the developers felt a real sense of freedom when making the game. It's like they took the basic components that made Far Cry 3 and said "how can we just make this a crazy, light-hearted and fun game?".

Shot of the dam, which is the setting for one of the missions.

It seems as though every feature is more streamlined and geared towards providing a more fast-paced, enjoyable experience. This means that the game world is smaller and objectives and key areas are closer together, so there's almost no possibility of travelling becoming tedious, but just in case, there's also a handy fast-travel feature. However, the streamlined experience and smaller game world do have their down-sides, which I will address later on.

The cyborg eye mechanic allows you to tag enemies for tracking.

The game's environments are really visually appealing and interesting, if a little samey. The missions usually take place in labs, military bases or facilities of some sort, with lots of flashing coloured lights and consoles, corridors etc. There's also a few set-piece locations such as a dam and a huge underground silo with dragon-egg caves underneath. In terms of mechanics, it is generally the same as Far Cry 3, and my favourite mechanics in that game are also my favourite in Blood Dragon, such as tagging enemies, ziplines and takedowns, but there's also a few new ones that add to the gameplay nicely, such as chained takedowns and aerial takedowns.

The "data console" is a good feature and is similar to the journal in Far Cry 3. It offers information on the game's characters, weapons, creatures, collectibles etc, of which there are many. The collectibles add an incentive to explore and extend the game's longevity in a simple but effective way.

Finally, there's the games retro-futuristic, 80's sci-fi aesthetic, which is surely one of its biggest strengths and selling points. The developers really nailed the aesthetic and its totally consistent and well-thought out, from the retro menu system to the fact that, when the players health is low or an explosion occurs nearby, the screen distorts as if its a worn-out old VHS tape. The music is also brilliant and is very 80's indeed. Blood Dragon must have been quite the passion project for the developers, many of whom must have grew up in the 80's and remember the decade's sci-fi films well!

What don't I like about the game?

Now it's time to share what I didn't like about the game, and as is often the case, I don't have a whole lot of negative things to say!

One thing that I didn't like is that it's always night-time in the game. The sky is always a deep red, with flashing lighting which does look very cool, but its always very dark which makes it pretty difficult to see and appreciate the game-world. It also makes for less visual/atmospheric variety than in a game with a proper day-night cycle.

Vehicles return, but they haven't changed much from those in Far Cry 3!

The game's visuals are undeniably very unique. They catch your eye and are a huge part of the game's  aesthetic. But they can be quite overwhelming and disorienting at times. Also, there is often a lack of variety in the game's environments, particularly the corridors of the facilities and the terrain outside of the man-made areas of the game world (though the lack of visual variety in the exteriors could be due to the aforementioned lack of day-night cycle). 

Earlier on, I mentioned that the streamlined experience and smaller game world had its downsides. These downsides are that the game can sometimes feel like it lacks depth, and that, if you overlook the visuals, there's not as much going on "under the bonnet" as there is in other open world games and Far Cry 3 itself. Indeed, the game is intentionally more linear than Far Cry 3 and the crafting system is not present, and the levelling system is linear and doesn't allow the player to choose skills to advance. The smaller game-world feels like it lacks content and isn't desperately engaging. There's not really many moments while travelling that I found myself stopping to take in the scenery.

Final Thoughts

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is a game that's not quite like anything I've played before thanks to its aesthetic and tone. It has a lot of unique things to offer. I really enjoyed that look and feel and the retro touches and I ended up really enjoying the gameplay because of how frantic and fast-paced it is. It's easy to advance through the game and offers quick and frequent satisfying gameplay moments. While other open world games can feel bloated and intimidating in the scale of their gameplay and content, Blood Dragon is a nice streamlined and compact game.

I was wondering while playing; why did Ubisoft see fit to make Blood Dragon an extension of Far Cry 3 and not entirely its own thing? I think it comes down to a few key factors: making a game with such a radical aesthetic and tongue-in-cheek, self-aware tone is risky, and could have gone either way. If they released it as a complete stand-alone and players didn't receive it well, it would have been a big let-down. Also, the game doesn't really have enough content to work as a stand-alone (there's 7 main missions, of which I completed 5 in about 4 hours). The lack of content contributes greatly to how streamlined the game feels: if it had more content, the streamlined experience would suffer. Though it bears few similarities, I think making it an extension of Far Cry 3 was the right choice to make.

In all, Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is interesting and enjoyable and refreshingly fast-paced for an open world game. It's style and gameplay has got me hooked and I'll be playing it again very soon!

Having a go at Character Modelling!

I've stepped out of my comfort zone a little bit today and tried my hand at character modelling. I'm very much a prop/architecture focused modeller - I've only ever modelled a character once, and it was about 3 years ago! So I figured I'd find a really simple character modelling tutorial and see how it went, in the interest of starting to diversifying my skills a bit.

The tutorial series that I followed is called Modeling a Simple Human Character in Maya by Misterh3D. I went with this one because it was aimed toward beginners and I wanted to start out simple, just to get back into the mindset of character modelling and see if I remembered anything! The character is human-ish but still pretty cartoony, which suited my needs because I've found myself wanting to model some cartoony characters lately.

Anyway, here's some pictures of the process and a little collage of the finished product. The whole exercise took about 3-4 hours, and I think it achieved its purpose of jogging my memory in preparation for further character modelling in the future!

Basic body and the start of the head.

I downloaded the reference images used in the video to use as guides.

Body and head begin to take shape.

Legs and arms.

Hands added. This is the final low-poly before smoothing.

Finished product after being smoothed.

Roman Milecastle / Design Practice 1 Submission Post

Design Practice 1 - Submission Post / Reflective Diary

Welcome to the submission blog post my MA Games Design, Design Practice 1 project.

I set out on this project with the aim of creating an effective, high quality and atmospheric game environment, as well as learning the methods of creating atmospheric environments along the way. My goal was to put what I have learned about atmospheric game environments into practice, while also continually learning as I went and refining and expanding my skills, both creative and technical, as an environment artist.

I have created a 3D environment depicting a Roman milecastle on Hadrian's wall, set during the late 2nd century AD in Northern England, in the winter. My reasons for choosing this setting of location and time is that I believe it has good atmospheric and immersive potential and is an interesting setting that can engage the viewer. It is set in a turbulent time in history, soon after the construction of Hadrian's wall. The symbolic nature of the milecastle as a frontier between civilization and Barbarianism is intended to give the scene and underlying sense of loneliness and danger. The winter setting also emphasises this. The conditions in the environment are intended to be difficult, which would make the player feel unease. However, I also tried to capture some of the beauty of the setting in my scene through the use of the terrain and foliage.

I tried to challenge myself with this scene by creating a large outdoor environment with quite complex, large architecture. I used many methods and tools that I had not used previously, such as UE4's instanced foliage tool and particle system. Of course, I also focused heavily on researching atmosphere in games by reading books, watching reference videos and playing games. This has probably been the most ambitious environment project I've done in such a short time, I've pushed myself to the limit and learned a lot and it has been a valuable learning experience.

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The project began in late November, after a while of trying to think of what environment to do (other early ideas included a Roman shrine/temple and a medieval castle courtyard) I found out about milecastles, researched them, and decided that was the way to go. I based the decision on the scale of the environment, it's atmospheric potential and whether I could incorporate my interest in history into it (I find that making historical scenes keeps me enthused and motivated). The software that I used was Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop and Unreal Engine 4.

I made a blog post at this early stage showing some quick concept sketches, click here to read.

I also made a Pinterest board that can be found here.

Shortly after, I began modelling, starting with very basic blockouts to establish the layout and scale. Here's a picture of the scene at this very early stage.

Very early blockout of the structure layout.

After this point, I actually didn't really make any major progress on the scene as I was advised by tutors to focus on the Literature and Contextual review for the other module, and the scene was largely untouched until the end of December.

At the end of December/1st of January, I created the final models of the architecture. I made a blog post about it which can be found here.

Early modelling stage.

Having focused on the other modules work until January 1st, I really had my work cut out for me in the week of the 2nd to the 9th. I had to get the scene from how it looks in the picture above, to finished. This was going to require more work and effort than any project I had ever carried out.

By the end of the 2nd January, the scene looked like this. Read that days blog post here.

Beginning to apply base colour textures.

On the 3rd/4th of January, I made tileable textures for the terrain, worked on collisions and began to model foliage pieces. Blog post here.

Pictures taken around this time:

My original grass texture.

The final barracks building with a basic texture.

And one shortly after, when I had painted the terrains in.

On January 5th I imported the foliage and rocks and decided to make it a snowy scene for added atmosphere! I made a blog post about it and it was to be my last post on the project until this one, as it was at this point that I kicked into high gear and became too busy to even make posts.

Added trees, rocks and made the scene snowy.

Over the next few days until this point, I textured all the pre-existing assets, modelled and textured all the detail items, did the lighting, textured the foliage and added post-processing effects and particle effects, amongst other things, and finished the scene. From the 1st-9th of January, I roughly calculate that I did about 70-80 hours of work...

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The Final Scene

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More pictures: http://imgur.com/a/RnXEb

So that's the final finished product and I must say, I'm really happy with hows its turned out. I've given this project absolutely everything I've got over the past few days and I hope that it shows. Now I'm going to write a bit about it!

So the goal of the whole project was to make an atmospheric, compelling environment. I've spent a lot of time in the past couple of months reading, researching and deeply considering what makes for an atmospheric game environment (or a film, play, or real life location). Do I believe that I have achieved that? In my opinion, I have, and here's my reasons:

•   The setting and era. The scene is located and set in a relatively early time in the Roman occupation of Britain. Hadrian's wall was completed in the mid-first century AD to create a clear border of the Empire which stretched from the Middle East and Africa, to and throughout Europe. The wall was in many ways the edge of civilization - surely the edge of civilization is an atmospheric place for a game?!
•   The terrain and snowy landscape. When it comes to creating atmosphere, weather is important, and snowy and wintery settings are a classic tool. They scream survival, hardship, darkness and uncertainty. I think that having the scene set in Winter works in tandem with the theme of being on the edge of the world to cement that feeling.
•   The scale of the environment. I took great care to make the environment look and feel like it could continue on endlessly in all directions, by creating the terrain in a way that did not obviously disappear in the distance. I made the wall long and with varied verticality so it could believably be occluded by distant hills. 
•   The story and historical accuracy of the setting. I have really come to enjoy basing my scenes in historical settings that I find interesting. I took many measures to add historical accuracy to the scene.
•   The lighting. The scene is set in the mid-morning on a fairly cloudy winters day, so the sun is in the North-East, often obscured by clouds, giving the scene a dim, blue tinted look that was achieved through lighting and post-processing effects. The torches and candles are warm and orange to contrast with the cold natural light.
•   Particle effects. Before this project I had very little experience with particle effects. I added fire to each of the torches, and smoke and steam to the cooking fire.
•   Models and textures. Each model was created to a fairly low-average polycount goal, to make for a more optimised scene that ran smoothly. The textures are all PBR with normal, specular and roughness maps, and metallic maps where needed. Texture sizes range from 1024 x 1024 for smaller props & detail items to 4096 x 4096 on the larger architectural assets.
•   Post processing effects. The post-processing effects that I used included tweaks to the bloom, ambient occlusion, depth of field and visual filters.

Unfortunately, I didn't have time to include another aspect that I am passionate about: audio. I would have liked to have created a short loop of music and maybe some ambient audio to go along with the scene as I think that audio is half the battle when it comes to creating atmosphere. However, the scene itself must take priority of course! Maybe I'll come back to it in my own time and do some audio.

Historical Accuracy

 Here's a list of historical details that I included or considered when creating the scene:

•   The milecastle is manned by members of the Roman army's 20th Legion - or Legio XX, Valeria Victrix. This is one of the legions that was actually based in Britain and helped to build and man the wall. The Legion's boar emblem can be seen on the flag on the tower and the shield.
•   I modelled a gladius sword that was well-researched and is correct for the period and made of the correct materials.
•   The tower contains a map that is based on a reconstruction of an ancient Roman world map by 1st Century Roman geographer, Pomponius Mela.
•   The tower contains some period-correct coins bearing a picture of Emporer Hadrian.
•   The cooking fire pot contains "Polenta" - a staple of the Roman army's diet that was made of boiled grain. I colour-picked a photograph of the dish when texturing this part of the model.

And that concludes my submission blog post for my MA Games Design, Design Practice 1 project - my Roman Milecastle 3D environment. Thanks for reading!