Carnage!

First post! and I've been digging around in the archives. Here's a prototype level for an HD multiplayer top-down-in-3D shooter game I worked on a couple of years ago.

The game was entitled "Carnage!" and unfortunately never made it out of prototype stage. Four players battle it out with big guns to take control of the map. The screenshot shows the entire map, only 1/4 would be seen on screen at any one time.

My brief was to create a simple four screen map, I used simple 3d geometry with high resolution textures, most of the work went into detailing the textures.

Here are some development shots:

The finished plan/sketch showing the basic layout; colours represent the two teams. I decided on a basic square layout - it's always a good idea to keep things simple for a prototype.

The 3D blockout, note the scale reference texture on the walls. The cylinder in the left hand corner is the positioning for a player operated turret. Visual communication problems were coming thick and fast at this stage - for example how to describe windows and low barriers, and how to make the impassable walls obvious. In the end we settled on black lining the walls in the textures, the window solution was to use thinner lintels over the top of any appertures, the camera FOV helped a lot too.

An unlit close-up of a screen - At this stage we were unsure if the map was going to scroll or switch screens. I originally wanted to litter the floor in the office with strewn paperwork, it would have been nice to put much more detail into this map, however time ran out, and it was beyond the remit of the prototype to continue with artistic development.