Buildings Style - UQdeco2800/2022-studio-3 GitHub Wiki

Overview

The building choices of this game were largely inspired by existing buildings in real-time strategy games, the building designs were created with greek and medieval concepts in mind to suit the game's overall atlantean theme, while the building art style is pixel art. Building inspirations were gathered from online resources, to outline initial designs, which were refined and added to the the game as the current building design.

Building Types

Barracks

Building Inspirations

The barracks in the existing game of Age of Empires II was used as the primary inspiration for look of the barracks which can be seen in the first image below.
This resembles castles in the real world, which can be seen in the second and third images below. These were also used as reference when initially designing the barracks.
The last image below was used as a reference for an atlantian colour scheme for the atlantean themed barracks.

Initial Designs

Sprint 1

Initially, the studio had decided on a top-down view of the game, so preliminary sketches and designs for potential barracks buildings in the game were created which suited this art style. These sketches and designs consist of the first four images.

However, in the week 4 studio, it was decided that by the design committee that the game perspective would be isometric, so new sketches were created for the barracks to suit a medieval theme as well as an Atlantian theme which can be seen in the images below. A 3:1 aspect ratio (3 pixel length by 1 pixel height) was chosen to create the design.
For the isometric barracks, the four post design for the barracks was chosen over the six post barracks in the initial top-down design mainly for simplicity when designing the barracks as well as conformity with most isometic building designs.

Due to lack of clarity with some of the design aspects of the game, in the week 5 studio, the aspect ratio was standardised to 2:1 to ensure design consistency; additionally, sprite tiles were discussed to be approximately 20 x 20 pixels, so the isometric barracks needed to be redesigned.
The current design is not the final design; however, it was created with a 2:1 aspect ratio and a size of 200 x 200 pixels was chosen for the barracks.
The barracks and sprite integration will be necessary to determine if the size of the barracks is appropriate with respect to the sprites and whether the design should be downsided for a more pixelated design.
Additionally, the atlantean design of the barracks was chosen to suit the game's theme and a darker colour scheme was chosen to match the atmosphere "doom and gloom" to match the atomshere the studio wants to create for the game.

Sprint 2

Due to inconsistency in the colour scheme and suitable pixelated art style of all the buildings as a whole, a redesign was necessary to improve in this area.
With regards to the barracks design, after implementing it into the game, it was evident that the design was too detailed and not pixelated enough. A smaller canva of around 128 x 128 pixel was chosen and the outcome was better in terms of the pixelated design which is what the studio's overall vision of the game was.
Additionally, a Google survey was conducted to choose which designs were preferred for the game. These designs included previous barracks designs plus a redesign of the barracks building in this sprint.
A level one and level two barracks was designed with two transitional stages from level one to level two, this was created in case building animations is something that can be implemented in the game during future sprints. These are the current designs at the end of this sprint.

Current Designs

Sprint 2

Town Hall

Building Inspirations

Atlantis belongs to ancient Greek mythology and the architectural style of the drawings is taken from ancient Greek architecture.
The first picture shows the Temple of Zeus, one of the largest temples in ancient Greece, built in 470 BC and designed by the architect Libon to honour Zeus, who lived on Mount Olympus, and although it was destroyed halfway through, the Corinthian column structure still stands and the ivory and gold statue of Zeus is located on the site of the ancient Roman Forum in the centre of Rome.

Initial Designs

Sprint 1

At the beginning, Wenfeng Wang provided two sketches to choose from and, after discussion, continued in the direction of the second sketch.
During the fifth week of studio, the game's UI design team discussed and specified a homogeneous standard as each designer's painting art style and colour shades differed, so the Atlantis city centre still needed some changes.

Current Designs

Sprint 2

*Due to the inconsistency of the colour scheme and art style of the building design, the final building design needed to be discussed and studied.

*Based on the feedback from the google survey, the colour scheme and art style of the first image was adopted.

*Based on the style of the first picture, two levels of town hall design were completed. Level 1 had damaged walls, level 2 repaired the walls and roof and added some Atlantean elements.

Mining Camps

Building Inspirations

The first image is a game called "A Twinship Tale", which was my initial inspiration.
The second and third pictures show how the mines and caves look at reality, which is the inspiration comes from.
Since the game style we chose is RTS, the fourth image is a screenshot of an RTS game, which was also used as reference for the design of the Mining Camp.

Initial Designs

Based on the studio had decided on a top-down view of the game and game perspective would be isometric, so this sketch be created.
This is a a size of 200 x 200 pixels, which has as the style of rst game, but a bit off the Atlantis style.

In the week5 studio, the design committee and the team responsible for the map design determined that the aspect ratio of the buildings was standardized to 2:1 and sprite tiles were discussed to be approximately 20 x 20 pixels, and limited the colors that could be used for the buildings. Because the building is in the sea, it should be mainly blue, gray and black. Therefore, the current draft design should be extensively reworked.

Current Designs

Based on last week's studio discussion, the design of the mining camp will be changed extensively. First of all, the color will be replaced with blue, gray and black, and the lawn and trees will be replaced with seawater and sea grass because the building is underwater, and the number of stones will be increased. Will be closer to the Atlantis style and other team members of the design style to maintain consistency.
In Week 6, according to the previous design works and requirements, a draft of a new mining camp was made, which was similar to the style of town hall and barrack.

In Week7, based on the sketch of the mining camp, some places of this figure were updated, so the first and second level of mining camp was designed. After receiving the result of the questionnaire, the art style of our design has been finalized, the end image of two levels of mining camp have been finished in this week.

The colors selected for the two different levels of mining camp are within the given range of color selection, and the mine cart and ore bag are designed at the mine entrance to clarify the use of this place. The tree in the image of Level 2 Mining Camp was replaced with a more Atlantean one.

Defensive Walls

Building Inspirations

As the game is set up with only wood and stone as resources, the types of defensive walls are also divided into wooden and stone walls.

Initial Designs

In the first sketch, the walls are designed as a single presentation and as a presentation connected to a short wall. This is designed to make it easier for the game programmer to build and connect the walls.
In the week4 studio, after a discussion among the UI design team, the direction and angle of the extension of the walls should fit the design of the building.

The second sketch is a redesigned version.

Current Designs

Artwork of a wooden wall after colour optimisation.
Artwork of a stone wall.