Unit 7

 

Research

The Mayan Temple

The reason I am choosing the mayan pyramid to be my game level is because I saw one in a movie called “the Ruins” which instantly made me like the design and therefore research more about them to see there different styles as well. I also think this is the coolest looking one out of all the other locations I found. This is the definition for a Mayan temple “A unique and intricate style, the tradition of Mayan architecture spans several thousands of years. Often, the buildings most dramatic and easily recognisable as Mayans are the stepped pyramids of the Terminal Pre-classic period and beyond”. Meso-american people first built these pyramids around 1000bc-400bc and was first built to honour the feather head serpent god. There are hundreds of Mayan ruins throughout Mexico, Belize, Honduras and Guatemala, but the Yucatan Peninsula have the most impressive ruins. They are usually built near forests or can be built in jungles.

The Coliseum

The colossuem is a type of coliseum but is famous for its sheer size and quantity. An emperor called Vespasian began the construction of a colossuem in AD 72 which was then completed in AD 80. The definition of a coliseum is “a large theatre,cinema or stadium”. This was built by man power with around tens of thousands of slaves who all had to build it out of stone and concrete. The colosseum is the largest amphitheatre in the world. Amphitheatre means “theatre in the round”. It’s dimensions are 189m long 156m wide and 50m high which is nearly the same height of a 12 story building. This building also had up to 80 entrances and I believe could seat around 50,000 people. The people would come to watch sports and entertainment events such as gladiatorial combats and wild animal hunts.

Dover Castle

DOVER CASTLE, Kent. Aerial view of the inner bailey and keep showing the forebuilding.

Dover castle was built by King Henry II and he began building it in the 1180s and over the next 800 years it’s buildings and defences have been adapted to meet the changing weapons and warfare that happened. The building is on a hill which is also close to the shortest sea crossing between England and the continent which makes it have a good strategic stand point. This castle was built on chalk which is a sedimentary rock and therefore easy to mine through so in the castle there were many tunnels exiting and entering the castle.

 

Creating Terrain Test

I started off by creating a default plane with a grass textured ground.

 

Then used the …….. tool to lift the ground up and create bumps to created a realistic feel to it as the ground is not always flat and will have hills and bumps in it.

 

I added many trees to yet again add to a realistic features of it.

 

Next I added water to create a lake type feel to it which gives the place more life.

 

since wind is a motion I cannot show it in a picture however you can see that this tool will control the wind of the trees around it and give them life.

MORE MAYAN [YRAMID RESEARCH!

Sky view image of mayan Pyramids

Creating the Mayan Pyramid

I created a cube then created subdivisions and extruded them upwards. I also extruded out the stairs but then realised it wasn’t effective.

So instead I created my own stairs by placing many different cuboids in a diagonal pattern. I also made the top of the pyramid larger so I can create a little temple on it. As shown I started it off by extruding pillars from the corners of the top square.

I then decided to get rid of the pillars as most of the temples actually are more closed off than open, so I made the opening like a doorway, so very small compared to the surrounding surface area of the walls. I did this by selecting the faces around the square and extruding them upwards.

I then added railings to the stairs so it looked more like the original images. as well as making them look more like stairs. I did this by creating a rectangle and smoothing the edges then proceeding to angle the rectangle to get in-line with the stairs. I also added a roof to the top part of the pyramid which I did by using the bridge tool to connect the edges. I also added more subdivisions on the side of the roof to give it some nice detailed and artsy feel to it rather than just a bland square box.

Inside the temple I made a vass/fountain where they would make their sacrifices on. I created this by creating subdivisions on the ground using the multi-cut tool and then selecting the sub-divided faces and extruding parts one by one.

I then attempted to texture my Mayan temple using a nice stone/mossy stone texture I found. However as you can see it only looked good from the birds eye view because anything on the x or z axis where glitched.

As shown in the image above I managed to fix the texturing glitch by going to uv settings and clicking on “planar” then clicking on x axis which does all the faces on the x axis. I then did the same for the z axis and it was complete. I then needed to do this to the stairs.

This was to show you what the blueprints of it looked like from birds eye view and the side view for my Mayan pyramid. This is very similar to the blueprints in my research so I know my pyramid is very accurate.

In the video above you can see that I textured the stairs doing the same technique as the rest of the Mayan pyramid by using the planar for the y axis and x and z axis faces. I also textured the alter inside the temple to a nice gold covered stone so that it seems more rich and sacred. texturing that was a lot easier cause I didn’t have to do planar and do each side of faces individually, instead I did normal which does it roughly to scale anyways.

Second Mayan building

I wanted to add more buildings and structures so the landscape and area around it felt more connected and relevant. So I found this picture of another building and decided to give it a try. I did not intend on doing all of the buildings in this picture but just mainly the stairs and a little arch way.

I started by creating a massive rectangle and then building the separate parts around it. I decided to reuse some structures I created before such as the stairs and the cornered stair type things. I was also planning to add a broken stairs area next to it so started by creating a simple slope and then would add on little parts of it disconnected. This was in reference to the first image as they also have broken stairs in.

After doing a lot more work you can see I also added the arch way type thing with a roof on which is also in the first image. I decided to add my own touch and have a bit of it collapse at the end so it seems more realistic and therefore old. I had to indent the ground so that it looked like it had collided and made an impact on the ground. I did this by using the multi-cut tool to create a sub-division and then I selected that face and by using the extrude tool I intruded into the ground. To create the archway I created a cuboid and then using duplicate special I managed to create multiple along the x axis. I then had it so whatever I did to the first cube it also did to the rest of them. I then extruded the top face of the cuboid at an angle so that it created an arch and then connect to each other at the top.

I then Textured this building using two different textures. One for the base and one for the arch type building. Texturing the base was fairly easy however texturing the arch type building was very challenging as selecting all the faces wasn’t the easiest due to there being little space in between the archways.

Putting it into Unity

I started off by creating the terrain. This was very simple as I used the same steps as I did for my test but just had a different location. I had the spawn point set inside the first building which you would then walk through the path to the second identical building where you go up the stairs and get onto an elevated piece of land. Then if you continue through the path will find the Mayan pyramid.

In the top of the Mayan Pyramid I added a fire on the alter as this is where the intense scary music will start playing. I did this to add the scare factor and I placed the fire slightly higher than the alter so it seems like a spirit of some sort.

Adding Audio

Adding audio was very complicated but I got there in the end. To add audio you need to go click on add audio source then you will have to get the file of audio you want for example in my case it was called “Ashley John-Prince (Jungle beat)”. Make sure you have ticked on loop and play on awake and ticked off the rest. Also make sure the volume is one 1 not 0 and make sure the volume Rolloff is on “Logarithmic Rolloff”.

You can then select how large you want the area of music to be playing in and where it will fade away. For example in my case I wanted nice chill music up until the character reached the Mayan pyramid and then I would have my other scary intense music playing.

Final Game level recording

 

 

 

Evaluation

Overall I think my game level went quite well. My techniques were very effective especially for texturing the buildings as I struggled at the beginning but then overcame that and found out how to do it even quicker and more efficiently. My research definitely helped my outcome as My Mayan pyramid is almost exactly the same as the ones I researched. Especially when comparing the blueprints you can see how similar they look. I would say my second building was also very influenced by the picture of buildings I had found and therefore heavily influenced by the research as that is research. Researching the buildings helped out a lot cause I would find that different parts of it will have different materials and therefore I would need to have multiple textures.