Final Year Project: Courthouse

For my final year project at University, I am going to create another environment for Hitman Absolution, this time trying to emulate the Hope courthouse foyer.

The environment is a western courthouse foyer, lit by bright sunlight. It features a lot of wooden fixtures, a Hero asset of the statue in the center, and a large domed window in the top for light to shine down. The environment is mostly made up of wooden panels and fixtures, allowing it to be quite modular. Also, no skybox!


 The key mistakes I made last time were:

• Too conservative with tri limits
• Lack of detail
• Did not play the game to look at in-game art, as a result my art was different in quality to in-game material
• lack of set-dressing and planning
• Lighting was different to the concept, concept was a lot brighter
• Did not make moodboards or conduct prior research

To remedy this, I've drawn up plans and have taken a couple of in-game screenshots of the environment I wish to create for reference purposes. I will begin with basic Max blockouts and then textures, and from there I will create the environment in either CryEngine or UDK.

CryEngine: No lightmaps, closer to the engine Hitman Absolution uses.
UDK: More prior knowledge, easier to use shader system.

Here's some in-game screenshots of the environment I took when exploring it last night:

Hopefully will start working on it soon, planning everything out first and doing research before I dive in.

Assets to do first:

Wall panels

Stair banisters

Domed roof

Door frame

Window frame

Leather couches

Flags

Wall lamps

Busts

Plant pots

Portraits

Textures:

Marble floor

Wallpaper w/floral trim

Hopefully when my tutors approve I can get started. I look forward to it :)