Titanic.

When beginning this project the first thing that came to my mind that i really wanted to add to the game was the surreal concept of a large liner ship in the middle of a desert. i felt this would be a really strong visual element using the extremes of contrast to take the player out of the comfort zone i directly into the the surrealism of the environment around them.

I started by sketching out a idea utilising the use of a main focal point in the foreground to give a sense of the epic scale of the vessel in front of you. also in the distance between the two half's of the ship i will be adding a small bandit camp which will show the scale of the vessel in comparison to objects in the same area as the main focal point.

I then redrew the image cleaning up the basic concept to show a clearer idea of what i want the end piece to look like, i also added ink to the lines to give better definition.

i then started working on the image in photoshop changing the positioning of the ship to match better with the perspective of the environment around it. finally added rough splashes of colour to start me off, i will add to this developing the layers till i get the wanted look for the overall image this will be a ongoing work i will post as it progresses till its completion.

As shown in my first concept drawing i am wanting to use the titanic as a ship wreck which will be placed in the middle of a desert adding to the surreal feel of the game. taking this into mind i needed to find a way to find the scale in comparison to my level design which i am at the moment working on. i found an image that gave a close estimation of the scale of the Titanic in comparison to a person a car a bus and a airbus plane as shown below.

 i then took this image and shrunk it so to scale with the map itself and played around with different ways in which it could be layed out by placing it on the map in two sections as the wreck of the titanic is now. along with input from both my tutor Gareth Sleightholme and fellow pupil Paul Heath we agreed on the best way it should be display on the map with the stern section of the ship sticking vertically upwards as a tower and the bow of the ship laying flat as so it can be used as a shanty like city within the ships itself this i demonstrated below.

upon scaling the image upto the map layout it came apparent to me that i had underestimated ise the the scale of the vessel and this is one of the reasons i had to revise the layout of how the ship would be set in the terrain.

i decided to research further into scaling for the actual creation of the Titanic model as previous research i had done into scale was more directed at scaling the Titanic to the terrain itself, i also wanted to look into the shapes for the titanics hull i was really plesed when i came across original white star liner blueprints from the building of the real ship these are shown below.

As you see from these images they show an indepth visual of the layout of the ship on all of the decks i also found further images as seen in the second blueprint sheet which the second one in the centre shows the gradual curvature of the hull whihc will be very helpful in the development of the 3D model as it pretty much sets out the positioning of the vertex's and the curviture of the loops. although this said due to the constraints of modelling this for a game engine some sacrifices in the shape will have to take place where i feel it be best due to the constraints of polygon count.

before development of the Titanic model i looked for a varied amount of reference images to get the best idea of how the finished model should look this was as well as the scaling blueprints shown previously, these images where to show the ship in its whole state instead of in sections as the working drawings depicted the ship. i have built up a large enough port folio of reference images that i feel comfortable now to begin the basic modelling of the ships intact shape.



although the images above show how to get the intact shape of the ship the model itself is to more represent the wreck of the Titanic which meant i have had to also research reference images to coincide with the Titanic in its current state so to get the best and closest representation of how the ship looks as a wreck these images are below.

also as i will hopefully be creating some interior areas in the shit if time permits  felt i should look at reference for the most iconic parts of the ship, first to come to mind was the grand staircase. this research will be continued, but below are some of the reference images i have collected so far of the interior.

i have started modelling the front of the ship as of yesterday and so far it is going well still alot of detail to be added but been careful where i add detail and where i dont add detail to allow most of the features to be present without overloading the polygons

Firstly i started with a side elevation and a slice through front elevation of the ship i turned the side elevation on its side and using the line tool created a spline in the shape of the ship to scale with the scale image always taking into mind that when scaling all axis of the pkane the image is on would have to go up in the same denominations so that the scale would be kept throughout. ones i had closed the spline i then converted it to a editable polygon that replaced the outline that i had created with the line tool. now using the front elevation of the ship i extruded the polygone to match the width of the image making both the width and length both accurately to scale. this now meant i had a perimeter box to build within i set this to a transparency level so i coud obviously see what i was working on within. i then started building the model by creating two box primitive and positioned them where the break in the two halfs would be and began on moddeling the fron end first.

i added extra swift loops to the box primitive as i felt fit to the imagery i had and worked using the image that is shown in my reference that shows the gradual changing in the shape of the hull which i felt i had gotten pretty accurate and was happy to progress on and tidy up what  fet was wrong when issue arrose.

i then started to block out the structure of the super structure on top basicall adding more loops and extruding them out to get the basic shape ready to add further deatail later in the models development.

i then added some materials to get a idea of how it would look with a rust like texture on it as i had atisipated using on the final model. this gives insight into what it looks like in different colours but i feel the use a full texture of rust is a little severe and gives it a orange/pink colour which does not fit with the realistic art style of the game i am working on.

using a copy of the render i decided to make a more intricate concept peice using both the render and actual images from my reference to overlay on the image to make a painting/collage effect which i feel clearly displays the concept i had in mind for the final scene in game.

Further development is obviously needed on both the 3D aspects of this model and aswell the concept aspect of this scene this will be a ongoing thing and will be updated as i progress.

I was now happy with the shaping of the front of the ship and the only other further work to do on this was to add detail and damage detail also, i felt that before starting on this i would start work on the rear of the ship and do the rest in stages jumping from the front of the ship to the back so that the overall shape lined up.

I started by working on the stern by using the original blocking out shape to get the side elevation shape of the sculpted ship correct before moving onto a front on perspective of work, this can be seen in the image below.

once i was happy with this shape i added more vertical loops so that i could start to bring the the shape of the stern of the ship front on to give it the ship the Titanics trade mark reaer end.

as you can see from the image above i brought in the verts to give the same shape as the reference that i was using it was slow work but rewarding to see the shape emerging from what was before a square box. i continued ths until the basic shap was there as seen in the image below.

when i finally got the basic shape i required for the stern of the ship as seen above i then worked on defining it to get a more accurate and smoothened feel overall and also added some slight detailing.

you can see in the picture above the detailing i worked into the front end of the ship taking a break from the stern to give me chance to look further at the reference material so that i could get the shape as close as possible to the subject matter.

i then transfered these details across onto the stern of the ship also working on the rear decks and as you can see the stern shape is alot smoother than seen previoulsy.

i added a few more details to the reaer but felt happy with the shape and happy to continue with other things. i felt that i should take a break from this model for a while and concentrate on other models whilst at the same time studying further the reference and research to do with the Titanic so that when i return to this model i can set out more things to add or even detract as i feel neccessary.