Textures - Screenshot

This is a screenshot of some of the textures that have taken for this assignment, I plan on capturing a lot more and then I will organise them into relevant folders to be used in the texturing process for each room assets. 

Mood Board

This is my mood board for the subject specialist assignment, i took a bunch of photos because it was
hard to capture the whole layout in one and have it be visible. My idea is to do with the design and
layout of a sci-fi and fantasy room, to help me i have looked at examples of how these ideas have
been made before. I made sure to use images from games, movies and some items that are real to
draw influence from when it comes to designing my rooms assets. 

Research - Mass Effect rooms

*This next picture is focused on one of the bigger aspects of the room and it's not something you
would expect to see on a sci-fi ship. My first point is how it blends well into the rooms design, it's a
very bare and militaristic ship design but there is something about how the colours and the lighting
that makes it seem like it belongs there. The lighting is very good in my opinion because it lets you
clearly see what's happening side of the tank and it throws a fair amount of blue light back into the
room, but not enough to affect the atmosphere that they have already created in the back of the room next to the bed.

Having one side of the wall as the fish tank makes the room feel very compact and that there is a lot
to look at. The player can interact with the fish tank by walking up to the button on the side, this drops
food into the tank. The fish models then move towards the food and eat it, i really like this feature as it
gives the player something to interact with when they are not on a mission or are just looking for
something to do. The design for the fish models are cool, it's not super high detailed but it doesn't
have to be because you never get close enough for it to matter too much. Something like this can
inspire me to add some elements like this as a more personal feature rather than a basic room function.
I don't think ill add fish but i would like to try the challenge of getting it to look like water and then having
the finish move around in a correct manner. Having the bend in the metal panel that separates the fish
tank is a nice touch, that was probably done using the bend tool to create the shape. 

This is another picture of a room in Mass Effect 3, it's slightly different from what ive already talked
about because it's a much more social area of the ship. Because i have a living room and a kitchen in
the design of my sci fi apartment, i want to make sure that I capture some form of social element to the
room. The texture for the floor and walls is very similar to the captain's room so I won't repeat myself but
it works with the sci-fi theme and i can identify that this is one a ship because of the way the panel are
designed, a room in a building probably won't have odd panels on the floor. The first aspect of the room
that I want to discuss is the design of the chairs, I like how they have a few different designs and
layouts. We have the large L shaped sofas and bar chairs in the very back of the room, both are
modelled well and combined with the textures it actually looks like a leather sofa. I think it's the lighting
that makes the sofa shine the way it does, i'm not very good at texturing  but i will try my best to try and
replicate what I've seen here. I also like the white framing on the side of the sofa which acts as an
armrest in a way, it's the small details like his that can add a lot to the overall design of the sofa.

The tables are an interesting design, the smooth edges give it the clean sci-fi theme that I would like to
see in simple items like a table or a chair. The textures are decent and it fits with the room, probably the
best feature of the table is the centre column can light up. It's not something that I normally see in
modern table design, i don't think that it needs the lamp on the table because the in-built light is enough.
I might try and incorporate an in-built light into my design for some of my items because i think that's a
really cool idea. 

The next part of the room that I want to talk about is the bar area at the back of the room. The part that
stands out the most is the back-lit wall, it looks really cool and it highlights the whole room. Because
the light is so bright it makes the bottles look like silhouettes, this is an interesting feature because you
wouldn't have to model super well but instead make sure the shape is correct.  I feel like i can somehow
implement this into my sci-fi apartment because it's very sci-fi and would be able to blend with some of
the neon lights that will be present through the windows. It's also a very social point because our eyes
are drawn to that section of the room. The bar itself is very simple in its shape because you are just
meant to serve drinks from it, but the stand out point it the neon lights that run along the top and bottom of it.
Because the neon lights match the colour of the bar wall it really blends well. It's very sci-fi and i like it, can I
implement it into my design? Maybe but i don't want to go overboard with the lights and tech as this is meant
to be the apartment of someone who doesn't have a load of money. 

If we look at the amount of assets in this room we can see that it doesn't take a huge amount of models
to make the room look interesting and full. It's mainly made of simple models that are elevated with
common sci-fi features, this is something I can take away from the overall room design and implement it
into my design. To improve upon the overall design in this room I might add some smaller assets to be
placed on the tables, like drinks or maybe a couple of data pads to make it look like the room has been
used by other people. 

Research - Mass Effect Captains room

Mass Effect 3 Captain's room

http://www.gameguides.cc/Article/pcgame/allpc/201512/33512.html -  8/12/19 - Mass Effect 3
Captains Cabin Menu

https://www.deviantart.com/megawug/art/Mass-Effect-3-Normandy-Captain-s-cabin-372788686 -
8/12/19 - Room Screenshot from Mass Effect 3

https://masseffect.fandom.com/it/wiki/Normandy_SR-2 - 8/12/19 - Second room Screenshot from
Mass Effect 3 

https://www.deviantart.com/megawug/art/Mass-Effect-3-Normandy-Captain-s-cabin-372788892 -
8/12/19 - Third room screenshot from Mass Effect 3 

Whilst Borderlands 3 was a good source of ideas on how to create a theme for my rooms using lights
and texturing, I want to look at how other games have specifically designed a living space for the in
game characters. 

In the game Mass Effect 3 you play as Commander Shepard, you are in charge of a ship called the
Normandy. There are many vital rooms on board of the ship that you can visit, the one I want to talk
about first is the Captain's Cabin. This is the room that the Captain will spend there down time in and
you as a player can use it to access some of the games features. 

This image shows the level layout of the room, you can view this in game when you access the ships
map. I like how they have managed to really capture the look of the room and all the objects in it from
above, this helps you easily identify where everything is. The numbers are also helpful as they point
to the parts of the room that the player will need to access to change something on there characters
or interact with something vital. It also shows where you are currently standing in the room which is
useful for bigger rooms, not so much this one. 

This is a screenshot of one side of the Captains room, i will talk about the other views later on. We get
a good view of the wall and floor texture and design for this view, it's the classic greys and dark blues
commonly found in sci-fi games and movies. Because this is also a military ship it makes sense for it
to avoid using a more personal colour scheme and instead opt for a standard look. The floor design is
different to what I had expected because it looks like it's made up of different coloured panels. I don’t
really know why but if i had to guess it's because they wanted to separate the desks and table from the
rest of the room. I say this because we can see that the tables and chairs are all placed on one floor
surface in this picture. 

The chair models are very simple but they fit the overall look of the room, they are not super high tech
but that's not really necessary for a basic chair oj a room. Next the desk okay, i like how it sticks out
from the wall, it almost looks like you would be able to fold it down if you wanted to make room for
other items to be placed there. On the desk it looks like there's a lamp and some small objects like
data pads and other utensils. It's the small items like this that I have to remember to include in my
final room design because it makes the room feel used and it makes the desk feel like it has a purpose. 

The lighting in this part of the room is nice as it highlights what you need to see, for example the stairs
have been highlighted because if you lived in this room you would want to be able to see the stairs if
it's dark. The chairs in the corner are also highlighted because that's a place people can sit down and
talk. The lighting i also very subtle, it's not super bright which is different to what a lot of sci-fi games
use. 

This a second viewpoint of the captains room, we can now see some of the other features of the room.
We have another desk that is not actually in the bedroom, I like to think that this is for work work related
stuff and the desk in the bedroom is for personal stuff. In game it's not the case as you can access all of
your characters emails on this desk but that what i would use it for anyway. During the game you can
collect different shop models from shops, each time you find one it is placed in a glass cabinet above
your desk. This is a cool game feature and outside of gameplay it looks really cool to have in a room. I
might look at having a feature like this in my sci-fi room design because it can add some detail and
personality to the whole room. 

In the back we can see the bed layout, it's a basic double bed with some bedside desks that have
simple models like lamps and datapads. There is nothing fancy with the textures or design of the bed,
it's something that I can use as a guide when I design the bed for my sci-fi room. I like how they
managed to make the room look clean but still have things like cables and bare metal floor boards
because it's a military ship and it needs to be able to function before any fancy designs are added.