Science Fiction Space Base

Development Process

Initial Concept:

My abandoned outer space themed science fiction base is set on a Mars like planet that has rolling sand dunes and mysterious lifeforms all around. You can find androids and an alien inside the level, along with fascinating plant life. The goal of this project was to create a science fiction video game level from scratch, with my own original 3D assets and code. These are the software programs I used to complete the project: Unity, Maya, Substance Painter, Adobe Photoshop, and UV Layout.

I wanted to make the space base look dilapidated and old, and I achieved this through making a mismatched scrap metal texture on the structure. There are lots of different patterns, colors, and textures on the surface of the building, but it still looks cohesive because I created a seamless texture on the UV map. I created lots of different objects on the inside, including space ships, computers, furniture, televisions, barrels, and much more. The outside world of my level features an alien, plants, water, androids, and a large explorable environment.

Workflow:

Spaceships:

I box modeled the spaceships and went for a low-poly stylized look. One of the spaceships is supposed to be a grimy, beat up space vessel that was abandoned on Planet Orilia (which is where the player finds themselves). That is why the texturing looks dirty. I was going for a retro look for the other ship, just because the other one looks more modern and I wanted to create variety in my level. The navy blue paint and rust on this ship is supposed to be reminiscent of a WWI or WWII plane.

Corridors:

For this portion of the project, I made sure that all of the pieces fit together modularly so everything would look cohesive. As you can see, the corridors look like big tubes and I designed them this way so they would be relatively easy to model, unwrap, and texture. The original texture I created in Substance Painter and Photoshop I ended up scrapping for a more industrial look.

Control Room:

The control room was a little bit tricky to model because it was more spacious than the corridors I created. I ended up using what I had made for the T-section piece and I modified that to become the control room. I also made a lot of furniture and tech devices for this room; adding little details made it feel more like a space bunker and not just a big empty room.

Hangar:

The biggest challenge I faced making the hangar was trying to make it big enough to fit both of the spaceships I created. If I were to redo the hangar, I would probably make it into multiple pieces and not just one mesh. That way, I could easily add onto it and I wouldn’t have to worry about modeling something over again. I also included an alien in this part of the project, originally this 3D model was a minotaur but I gave him a new purpose as the god of Planet Orilia. I also made some crates and barrels at this point in the project.

I created transparent materials for the crate and the barrel to act as holographic objects on board the space base. I got some of the science fiction textures from Google images, and I also reused some of the translucent materials for the holographic people (androids) in my level. I did not 3D model the android, he was a part of the Standard Assets pack in Unity. I also 3D printed the alien I made for fun, that proved to be more difficult than I thought with how thin some parts of the 3D model are.

Bio-dome:

To create the mesh for the bio-dome I 3D modeled a hemi-sphere and then added windows to the hemi-sphere. Then, I duplicated a corridor I made and figured out how to combine my hemi-sphere mesh with the corridor mesh. The various plant life forms were created using Maya’s paint effects, which were a lot of fun to use.

Programming:

The player is in first person POV, and is controlled by a movement script that is activated by the arrow keys or the W, A, S, D keys. The doors are activated by pressing F, this opens and closes them so the player has access to go wherever they please. The androids and the alien use idle animations to make them appear more lifelike in the game.