Next Gen Environment on UE 4: A redesign of the level The House of Blossoms from Thief 4

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1 Next Gen Environment on UE 4: A redesign of the level The House of Blossoms from Thief 4 Oscar Nacher Garcia p Games Practical Project Proposal

2 Overview My proposal for the Games Practical Project consist in redesigning part of an ingame level from the game Thief 4 (Eidos Montreal, 2014) at a high level of quality and fidelity to the original art style, using professional techniques and tools, like Unreal Engine 4 from Epic, the level is set in an exotic Victorian Brothel and opium den with touches of gothic architecture and Asian, Victorian and ottoman decoration. The environment architectural elements will be modular, which means that it will be possible to create more rooms with only a few elements. The map will consist in at least, one main room filled with objects, and if there is enough time, two more rooms: A bedroom and a studio, It will also include some interactive elements like switchable lights; the map will be playable on first person and it will include an small camera walkthrough through the map. Motivation / Rationale and Research I have chosen to make an environment on UE4 because I want to focus my skills on environment art and design, and I have chosen to redesign this level of Thief 4 for various reasons: - Great setting: I wanted to do a medieval/victorian fantasy environment, and this level of Thief 4 includes medieval architecture, with an exotic touch, that I think is exactly what I m looking for, also this kind of ambience allows me to play with lights and shadows to achieve a dark and mysterious ambience. -Excellent example of a high quality professional environment: trying to redesign an environment like this, made by professionals of the industry, will help me to learn how it was made, and it will help me to improve my current skills while I try to achieve an AAA environment quality. -High number of assets: The environment includes a good amount of small but detailed assets and props, I have always been attracted to asset and prop production, because I think that small assets and details are what really brings life to a level, with this environment I can focus on asset production rather than architectural elements production and will be a great motivation for me. Also I want to use Unreal Engine 4 for two good reasons: -Next gen Engine: UE4 is a next gen, professional engine that includes support for next gen techniques like Physically Based Rendering, using this new engine will demonstrate my knowledge of new techniques and tools of the industry and I think it will be a vital part of my CV.

3 -Previous experience: I have previous experience working with UE4 and using PBR techniques, I know the art pipeline, so I don t have to expend time learning how to use the engine. You can watch an example of my previous experience with UE4 at my portfolio; I worked as an environment artist for a project called 65North. Objectives Link to my portfolio example: -Redesign part of the Brothel level from the game Thief -Modular environment -Use the next gen techniques on UE4 like Physically Based Materials -High quality assets -Camera walkthrough through the map -First person playable map with interactive elements Eidos Montreal, (2014), Thief Brothel, Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014).

4 Project plan: 1) Pre-production -Research: How the original level was made? How many elements does it have? Which kind of different styles are mixed together (medieval, Victorian, Asiatic, Turkish, etc.) and why they work well together? What techniques and tools should I use to achieve the desirable look at UE 4? There is something from the original level that could be improved with these new techniques and tools? (27 October-03 November) -Block out areas, layout, modularity, assets and props (03 November-10 November) -Prototype map (10 November-17 November) 2) Production -Produce modular architecture elements (17 November-08 December) -Produce assets and props (08 December-12 January) -Build the map (12 January- 26 January) -Postprocess and lights (26 January-09 February) -Create the Blueprint events and interactive objects (09 February-16 February) 3) Post-Production -Testing and fixing (16 February-23 February) -Camera cinematic walkthrough and postproduction (23 February-02 March) Global Project Plan October November December January February March Weeks 27-oct 03-nov 10-nov 17-nov 24-nov 01-dec 8-dec 15-dec 22-dec 29-dec 05-jan 12-jan 19-jan 26-jan 02-feb 09-feb 16-feb 23-feb 02-mar 09-mar 16-mar 23-mar 30-mar PreProduction Research Block out Prototype Production Architecture elements Assets and Props Map Building Postprocess Blueprints PostProduction Testing Cinematic

5 Technical overview The project consists in a redesign of a level from the game Thief 4, using Unreal Engine 4 from Epic, the level selected from the game is the House of Blossoms, which is set in an exotic Victorian Brothel and opium den. The level will consist in at least one room filled with assets and if there is enough time two more room will be added, a bedroom and a studio, the map will not include any characters. The level architectural elements will be modular and there will be some interactive objects, like switchable lights, made with blueprints, I ll also use PBR techniques and professional tools like Autodesk 3d Studio Max, Adobe Photoshop and Quixel NDO ; the level will be playable on first person and, if there is enough time, it will include a small camera walkthrough through the map. One of my concerns are the Blueprints, as I don t have that much experience with them, but I m sure I ll will be able to handle them as I have previous experience with Kismet from Unreal Engine 3 by Epic and I have already started to learn the basics through official tutorials from epic. Project deliverables A High quality redesign of part of the House of Blossoms level from the game Thief 4, using next gen techniques like PBR and a next gen engine Unreal Engine 4 from Epic, the map will be playable on first person and it will include some small cinematic events and interactive props. The level and his elements will be made from scratch at a high level of quality and fidelity to the original art style. Eidos Montreal, (2014), Thief s Brothel Studio Concept Art, Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014).

6 References Front image: Eidos Montreal, (2014), Thief s Brothel, Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014). Eidos Montreal, (2014) Thief [Computer game]. Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014). Autodesk, 3d Studio Max 2014 [Computer program]. Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014). Adobe, Photoshop [Computer program]. Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014). Quixel, NDO [Computer program]. Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014). Epic, Unreal Engine 4 [Computer program]. Available at: (Accessed: 23 October 2014).