3D Concepting the Puzzle Room: Off the Map

The main aim here was to try and create an extremely complex room that actually only consisted of a handful of parts.

The Barrel Vault ceiling is what I’m going to keep from these images. The doors are far to exaggerated; they’re not that relatable any more.

Here I have tested 4 different roofs. The first is a highly complex repeating pattern, the second is a vaulted ceiling with the detail from the first design projected on to the centre square of each vault. The third is just the vaulted ceiling.

I was very pleased with all of these designs, but they are extremely tri heavy. The above ceiling in particular is a 30 thousands try ceiling. This seams extremely high but this is the entire ceiling for the room. This room in game at this point will be all that will be loaded, so the engine should easily be able to run it. For this project we have no budged requirements we have only three things to take into account, does it look good, how to make it look at its best, and does it run. The first ceiling does cover all of these points so it would be fine to use it as a game asset in this scenario.

The way I have modelled these pieces also means that I can easily break up the panels and add large dynamic cracks.

Due to worries about the tri budget of the first roof from members of my group, I did model and texture a version which had all the detail projected on to it. In the above image you can see the result of this. Normaling this design cannot replicate the light and shadow that this surface detail would create as vividly as using geometry.

Projection Mapping

Projected Detail

I found that the above roof design was the most successful; the larger easily read forms create greater contrast across the roof. This roof is also only about 3000 tris so I also don’t have to worry about having a ridiculously high tri count. But once again I wanted to push the surface detail as I want this room to be an extremely over designed room, a real show of wealth. The centre projection maps here are barely reading so I did another projection map pass.

Projection mapping

This Time I kept to larger more readable shapes.

I also re did the bit that sits between the ceiling and the wall. This roof is extremely complex, and sets a design style for the rest of the room to follow.