"The Zone" Blog 04: A Bridge Too Far (Or as far as you need it, actually)
Entry posted by DaveLee ·
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Hello again, everyone! It's been a busy few weeks on the Zone project, and a lot has been accomplished. Besides the work presented here, a lot has been going on behind the scenes as well. Last week Josh wrote the GMF Processor, which collapses GMF models into an optimized mesh. This tool has helped speed up in-engine performance significantly, and you can try it out for yourself here: http://leadwerks.com/werkspace/index.php?/topic/1767-gmf-processor/
I've also been fixing mesh errors and cleaning up and tweaking previous assets - it's the non-glamorous side of being a game artist!
I still have news on the "new art" front, of course. The paved road bridge (based off of the famed "Bridge of Death" near Chernobyl) has been completed. First off, here is a look at the small version of the bridge:
Like the railroad bridge, I have also completed a modular version of the road bridge. It comes in End A, End B, Middle, and Middle with pillar sections for now. In the near future I will be completing a destroyed section as well which will help close in the area that players can explore.
I also have some larger renders to show today. Last week I was attempting to get the "save render" script working. After having difficulty getting it to work in the actual Zone map, I put together a small showcase scene with more of a mountain environment. Here are some of the larger renders from that scene:
You may have noticed a few new assets in this scene. The largest one is the Bober Warehouse, based off of the Bober train station in the real exclusion Zone. It features a full interior as well as exterior, and you may even be able to explore the attic by the end of the project.
But, what's a building without some furniture? I've been working on some wooden furniture props to help fill the buildings that will soon be populating The Zone. More variants, as well as other furniture like old lockers and tables will be coming in the future as well.
Thanks to the modular bridges, I was able to drop them into this mini-scene with no effort. Here's an overview:
If you haven't tried the 3.32 beta yet and you're working with heavy scenes with lots of vegetation, you should try it out. This scene has billboards disabled (meaning that the thousands of trees and plants I have in it are all being rendered at any distance) and I'm still maintaining 10-20 FPS on my nVidia GTX 285. Although, I wouldn't recommend these kind of settings for your games, as your users may complain about playing a slideshow!
That's it for this blog post - thanks for reading!
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