Northern water tribe

2011

Northern Water Tribe
GA2 Game Architecture 2 Production
Design Document (PDD)
Version 3.0, 7 July 2011

Janice Devina Tirtautama – 090332
NHTV University of Applied Science, Breda
7/7/2011

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Table of Contents
Introduction and Background ......................................................................................................... 3
Visual style of the Movie ................................................................................................................ 5
Movie ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Anime ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Look and Feel ................................................................................................................................ 7
Environment ................................................................................................................................ 10
Architecture ................................................................................................................................. 11
Chief Temple ............................................................................................................................ 12
Underground Ice Cavern .......................................................................................................... 14
Main Staircase .......................................................................................................................... 15
Open Battle Place..................................................................................................................... 16
Corner Railing........................................................................................................................... 17
Railing ...................................................................................................................................... 18
Lamp ........................................................................................................................................ 19
Armory ...................................................................................................................................... 20
Fort ........................................................................................................................................... 22
Mediatic .................................................................................................................................... 23
Healing Huts ............................................................................................................................. 23
Bridge ....................................................................................................................................... 24
Lighting and Special Effects ........................................................................................................ 25
Visual Target ............................................................................................................................... 26
Workflow Requirements .............................................................................................................. 30
Technical Requirements .............................................................................................................. 38
Additional Workflow ..................................................................................................................... 39

GA4 - Game Architecture 4 – DM-Northern Water Tribe – Page 2/43

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Introduction and Background

"A level designer creates worlds where game takes place and where players interact with
the game. It is safe to say that “without a world no game.” The game sets boundaries,
creates challenges, accommodates objectives, introduces threats and most of all tells a
story. .. ”
GA2_Game_Architecture_2_Course_Description_1011.pdf

At the previous GA course (GA1) I designed a level which has to have a sufficient gameplay and
is based on a certain theme. This project is about developing the visual appearance of the game
level from GA1. This development is including further art style research according to the theme
since the level itself should be able to let the player feel the atmosphere of that certain theme.

“The student will set art guidelines regarding the environment, architecture, props and decoration
of their game world, which will be recorded in a Production Design Document. At the same time
the student will implement detailed static meshes.”

GA2_Game_Architecture_2_Course_Description_1011.pdf


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This level that I made is based on the theme of Avatar The Last Airbender and directed by M.
Night Shyamalan.

“The Last Airbender is a 2010 American adventure fantasy filmreleased on July 1, 2010.[5] It is
a live-action film adaptation based onthe first season of the animated television series Avatar: The
Last Airbender. “

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Airbender]

“The story begins with the discovery of Aang, who is quickly revealed to be the last of his people,
the Air Nomads (hence the title, Last Airbender). The evil Fire Nation wiped out the Air Nomads
a century prior in hopes of breaking the cycle and preventing the next Avatar from being born.
This would pave the way for the Fire Nation’s attempts to take over the world. ”

[http://screenrant.com/last-airbender-reviews-rob-66800/]

There are four nations in this movie which are placed on different locations and each of it has
special type of Architecture. For this assignment, I pick the theme of The Northern Water Tribe,
which is the North part of the Water Tribe, where the last scene of the movie took place.
Therefore I named the level DM -Northern Water Tribe.


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Visual style of the Movie

The visual style is inspired by
the last scene of the movie
which takes place at the
Northern Water Tribe and also
the anime version.

Look and Feel

Since those two (the movie and the anime) has interesting style, I am intended to combine the
unique part of those two.

The theme can provide a lot of option of art styles. I prefer it to be cartoony to give more
variation of shapes. The anime style is quite simple. On the other hand, the movie part has a lot of
good detail, but the shape is a bit blocky as most of the assets are made within rectangular and
straight shape. Thus, I want to combine them to have more dynamic shape where I can play with
the proportion.


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The atmosphere that I want to build here will be based on the story of the movies and the anime
which is the same. The main line of the story is elaborated at the introduction chapter.

Then, at the final sequel of this movie, the fire nations go to the Northern Water Tribe in order to
occupy it and get the avatar with them. They are quite strong offender while the water tribe
people are more likely to defense. Water tribe’s people always live in peaceful situation, but the
fire nation’s people are always prepared for war.

This is the picture of the basic level made in the Unreal Development Kit; showing the location of
the main places.

Red : Armory and Storage room,

Pink: Mediation,

Purple: Healing Huts,

Green: Waterfall,

Yellow: Open Battle Place,

Orange: Chief Temple,

Blue: Fort,

Cyan: Bridge.


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Environment
The level itself will be blended with the environment. It is placed on a large frozen ice (like a
separate island) surrounded by water. All the things there are built on top of that frozen ice.
Therefore, the ice stone will cover the outer part (bellow picture on the right) and some ice stones
on the surface of the water. There will be some variation of rough icy rocks copied around and
adjusted to any different size, and placement.


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Most of the area surround the level will be covered by water, snow and ice. There is no
vegetation.

Some sculptures will be added at the hill to give a nice shadow effect (more details will be on the
chapter about props).

Architecture

According to the original story, there are some main places located on this tribe such as the Chief
Temple, Healing Huts, Armory, and Underground Ice Cavern. There are also some additional
places such as the part of the fort, battle place and the mediatic.


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Chief Temple

“The Chief's palace is a large structure built on top the highest tier of the capitol city and is
the most recognizable landmark. “

The texture and the color are used for most walls, bases, and the roofs of other buildings.


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This roof parts are used at the other buildings as well although the placement will be different for
some of those buildings. The measurement here is enlarged.


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Underground Ice Cavern

It is located bellow the Chief Temple. `These interconnecting ice caverns are located
underneath the city and were naturally created by the ocean water eroding away the ice. Seals
and other animals live in these ice caverns and the only way to get to them is to swim
underneath the freezing water.“


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Main Staircase

They are the main path to go to the Chief temple; one at the right side and one at the left.
They are located in front of the Underground ice cavern.
The picture here is just half because they are symmetrical. It can be mirrored to the other
side.


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Open Battle Place


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Corner Railing


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Railing


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Lamp


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Armory

The basic form is a tube with smaller diameter at the bottom. It is using the same main
structure as the chief temple. Especially for the details of the Roof part, more information
is provided at the previous chapter together with the chief temple.
The base of the roof will be filled with its detailed part as those at Chief Temple.


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3

Properties inside armory:

1: Fire base. It is placed on the second floor (1 on the right). It is supported by four sticks
placed on its corner.

2: Some other props which is placed on the floor, table, shelf, or hanged (2 on the right).

3: Some traditional weapon.

4: the lighting inside. It is made of stone, stuck on the wall.

These props are placed close to the wall as the player will still have enough space to walk
around. There must not be anything blocking the big window on the front because the
player will be able to go out through it.


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Fort


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Mediatic

Healing Huts


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Bridge


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Lighting and Special Effects

[image: http://piandao.org/screencaps/ep18/ep18-798.png]

This level takes place during the night when everything is quite dark and the moon appears. The
reason is that the appearance of the moon is the important part within the story to let the player
feel the story. When the fire nation attacks the northern water tribe, the night becomes the crucial
scene. The only light source is the lamps which are placed on the level. It will be dark as the left
picture and it has some light. It will look like the middle picture, but darker and foggy like the
right picture. The light color will be soft blue like the middle picture.

There are a lot of small lamps because the sunlight is not enough.

Additional effects should be added for the water. Water shadder can be used to give a little
moving animation and depth of field. The animation should not be too fast, it should be slow and
calm. There will be a waterfall; it will be nice to have it moves with the sound and blurry effect as
well.


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Visual Target
For GA 4 project, I would like to continue with this concept I had. However, I chose a part of the
level to work on since the whole level is pretty huge.

I pick “Healing Huts” with its surrounding to be modeled and textured. It is a solid building based
on Japanese style in combination with cartoony look as it is described at the Healing Huts part
before.

Its part is made of the same roof structure and base as it is explained at the Chief Temple topic
above. The surrounding is bordered by some sort of stone railings and water. The water is
animated.

These are the unlit screen shoots:


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Then, these are the final version:


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Workflow Requirements
It begun with GA1 project in which I designed a level based on the movie Avatar (The Last Air
Bender). Then I made the realization of that design using UDK Editor.

That is the overall view of the whole level. For GA4, I am taking the front part of the level as
shown by the picture bellow;

Some additional details were sculpted using zbrush and exported to maya.


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It was some trial by placing different colors and textures.


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Those above are the building blocks.


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Those are the materials in udk. Some objects share the same material and textures.

These are the color, normal, and specular textures. There is also an alpha map used to give a
glowy effect for small lamps. For these textures, I also used mudbox and photoshop. Then, I
checked the results back and forth to maya or mudbox.


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This is the final scene that I approached for now. The foggy effect is created using two height fog
with different color. The scene is set to be dark, so I used some point light with small intensity.

Technical Requirements
The poly budget must not be over 100000 for a complete scene. For the building itself, it should
be less than 55000.

If the amount of detail can be achieved by normal map from sculpting, then it should not be
modeled really detail. Any faces that might not be seen must be deleted. Most of those building
blocks have two uv sets. (one is the unique uv and the other is the uv without overlapping).

The foggy effect should not block the view of the player. The light also should not be to dark and
those small lights should guide the path of the player. Overal view of the scene should look blue-
ish like those in the icy or cold places.


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Additional Work Flow


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Overal Level Overview


Northern water tribe

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