Medieval village by Daniel Nilsson

[Daniel Nilsson]

Hi I'm a Level Design student at the game assembly in Malmö, Sweden. And this is some work I did for an assignment. The Assignment was to create a village with at most 10 meshes (excluding terrain, speedtree & skybox that is) we had three weeks (half-time, we had other projects on the side) to work on it.

The reason I posting it here is cause I'm think about giving it some more polish maybe add some more meshes and replace some of the props and maybe later using it for some portfolio work, so I would love any feedback!

And here's my village!

Edited October 27, 2012 by Daniel Nilsson

[mjens]

Nice job, I see lots of work here! Cool! Did you thought about making the ground less flat, with some more details (rocks, bushes, grass), the path is very generic. Maybe use a mesh instead of a texture on the terrain? The wooden houses on the left on the middle screenshot are aligned to terrain. I think it's not a good idea to build in such way - think about placing furniture in such interiors The scene is really isolated, maybe some hills and more trees there? Oh and I think that heavy brick walls are to heavy to hold the buildings on such a small logs. Such buildings needs a big foundation and it is possible to build such thing but not on wooden logs.

I know that that's a lot of work but before starting making of scene how about using references? Why it's important? When playing game lots of guys will say that it's not realistic, or even stupid. This turns into bad game immersion. I guess putting such a work into your folio won't get you a job in serious game dev company. Use reference pictures before starting modelling if you want to make smething awesome and not out of this world. There are lots of refrences on Google for "medieval house":

Google search for medieval house

I think you've a bit misunderstood the stone corner at the big building. That's a typical problem. Check the ref pic. As you can see there's one size of the stone placed one on each other to make a corner more durable. I've seen such style as you've made in Renaissance architecture but you've wrote "medieval" so it looks like a neo-medieval fun park. Sorry if it's to harsh feadback but I'm a architecture freak and referece pics lover

10 meshes you say? Challange accepted:

1) road (tiled, use terrain to hide road end)

2) grass (change scale and rotation to make it less "the same all over the scene")

3) house variant 1 - without roof (tileable in Z axis - you can make one or two floors, you can make additional skins to change the wall texture and maybe some mesh elements to show/hide using skins)

4) door attachment to the house - you can model balcony at one side and entrance at another so you'll have 2 meshes in one

5) schelter/barn attachment

6) roof attachment

7) house variant 2 - without roof (same size for the roof but can be way more different at foundation)

wooden scaffolding on the coast

9) rocks for coast

10) tree

Nice challange, good idea for the MapCore Contest

Edit:

you can also try to make modular walls for houses instead of the coast with scaffolding and rocks!

Edited October 28, 2012 by seir

[Daniel Nilsson]

Okey thanks a lot! I fully agree on the flat ground being a bit boring and could use a lot more detail and geometry. Also think I'll work with adding more of a foundation to most of the houses.

And about those houses in the middle screenshot to the left, they're supposed to be more of small shacks or outhouses so I thought It would be cool if they seemed somewhat neglected and a bit sunken to the ground but maybe I should make it clearer somehow.

And about the houses on the pier I didn't use bricks on those houses because they shouldn't seem to heavy but maybe that wasn't enough? Do you think adding more poles to build up some more of a foundation help?

And by the way the meshes I created and used was: A plank, a log, a plane(walls and roof, just a different material), the window, a brick, a lantern(also used it for hinges, so the lanterns back side sticks out from the doors), a wooden bend, and the signs outside the buildings.

And thanks again for the feedback, you've given me a lot to think about!

[Sentura]

just to be clear, we're talking level design here and not 3d artistry?

the reason i ask is because all i see here is a scene that would look good with assets. Did you make any design thoughts about this at all? What is this space going to be used for?

[Daniel Nilsson]

Oh I'm sorry forgot to write that this was created for an assignment where we had no focus on the gameplay aspect, so it's just an environment scene. But yeah the overall focus of the course is Level Design just not in this assignment.

[mjens]

And about the houses on the pier I didn't use bricks on those houses because they shouldn't seem to heavy but maybe that wasn't enough? Do you think adding more poles to build up some more of a foundation help?

Yep, this will to the job! Try it. I'm not saying it's not possible but it's unusual.

And by the way the meshes I created and used was: A plank, a log, a plane(walls and roof, just a different material), the window, a brick, a lantern(also used it for hinges, so the lanterns back side sticks out from the doors), a wooden bend, and the signs outside the buildings.

And thanks again for the feedback, you've given me a lot to think about!

Now that's a modular piece Creative but impossible to use in pro game development. Or maybe why not, with a bit of luck...

[Sentura]

if you only had 10 meshes to work with i would personally have suggested smaller more modular assets in an environment that would allow that. i think the reason the environment is looking bland right now is because you focused too much on a concept that didnt allow for using only 10 meshes. also, what seir said about houses on stilts are usually not so heavily built

Edited October 28, 2012 by Sentura