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.