March Entry: Not my Daddy's Dungeon!

[Gamerprinter]

I almost thought not to participate this month - such an old school dungeon with all the contents pregenerated and required, I thought how could I be creative with this?

I just couldn't get excited about hand-drawing this one.

Truth tell, I've not really been able to play with much 3D in my past challenge participations, so I thought 3D might be a way I could get excited about this.

No backstory or flavor direction yet, just the basic layout.

The textures used in this image aren't the final ones. I just wanted to differentiate the walls from the floors. I haven't placed any doors yet, just door spaces. I going to clean up some of the door wall areas to blend in better.

This image uses "global lighting" which I won't use in my upgraded WIPs or the final, its just showing the layout in this early 3D stage of the design. I will be using light spheres and light cones for most of the lighting. The final render should be much darker than this. I want to incorporate torches and torch light with flickering (looking) cast flames of light on walls and floor.

I will be creating all the content for each room (SANs monsters as per challenge requirement.) All objects will be 3D casting shadows, etc.

I am planning to keep this conical camera view - note that foreground walls are not shorter, rather you are almost looking straight down at the walls here, whereas perspective shows more wall verticles surfaces further from the camera.

WIP so far...

[industrygothica]

Excellent. What program are you using, if you don't mind my asking?

[Gamerprinter]

I use Izware (Nichimen) Nendo 1.1 as my subdivisional surface modeler, and old Raydream Studio 5.5 for my 3D rendering. I have a few others, but this old program is one I'm very familiar and easiest to use. Proggie nolonger exists except as Cararra, as its next generation equivalent.

I will also be using Photoshop and Xara Xtreme before I'm all done!

[Gamerprinter]

I found some better textures (from Redrobes posted texture site in the reference forum) I blended two textures for the floor and added a grid - I see I need to nudge the floor towards the camera and to the right, just slightly.

The walls are natural stone, carved out, rather than bricked up. Paving belongs on the floor but not on the walls here in the dungeon.

Still using global lighting.

I think I will actually work lighting one room/corridor at a time with the "production frame" set to just view the largest room, then move it over each additional room I work on. Then I'll composite all the maps into one map. Since the camera will not change position, the perspectives should be correct.

Because I can add other accoutrements than those required - I'm thinking of adding torture devices in room 4 along with the cage and manacles.

I also found a great texture for the pile of manure!!

WIP so far...

[ravells]

Lookin' good, GP!

[pyrandon]

Nice! (And congrats on the manure texture--it's not every day a guy can say "I have great poo texture!")

[Gamerprinter]

I changed the wall texture again, I'll settle on something eventually. I moved and resized the floor so the grid would fit better, still not perfect...

I created a large anthill to represent the den of these worker Formian Ants in room 5, I will still add more stuff. I might place a treasure box partially buried in the anthill. Haven't decided whatever else would indicate Formians here.

I created the cage for Room 4, those "things" in the corners are supposed to be spider webs with funnel centers - hard to see, I'm not quite happy with the web texture I'm using, though I may have to live with it. Notice on the floor the words "Death Comes" written in blood along with splatter marks - this covers the "hand scrawl" indicated in the room description.

Still need to add lots of stuff. I would say another week of content creation before I'm satisfied. Then experiments with lights for rendering the final scenes for compositing. I may even produce a straight down functional map view to see what the final looks like...

WIP so far (this is a larger image than previous - I wanted to insure the subtle details can be viewed...)

[Gamerprinter]

I created my manure pile, though it might change before its done. I added some white mushrooms around the base of it to give some "life" to the pile.

In the Krenshar's chamber, I placed the large table. I stuck my "Roche de la Sorcier" map to give the Truth potion and the Bloodstone, something to standout against. There's a bag containing the room's treasure, gold pieces.

I'm seriously thinking about creating a bag of Purina Krenshar Chow with Purina graphics on the bag - since I really don't know how to show evidence of a Krenshar without the Krenshar present???!!!

Anyway, WIP so far... (this image is even larger, since I wanted to show the stuff on the table better - still not high enough resolution, though...)

[Gamerprinter]

I'm seriously thinking about creating a bag of Purina Krenshar Chow with Purina graphics on the bag - since I really don't know how to show evidence of a Krenshar without the Krenshar present???!!!

I wasn't kidding. Everyone else seems to have take the route of comic relief, so this is my comical element of this map.

I've created the graphics and objects for this, but I think you won't be able to see its magnificence at map resolution, so here it is up close.

[Redrobes]

Fantastic. Purina marketing drones, take note !

Does it come in kitten and senior varieties or maybe indoor dungeon lite ??? What do you think the flavors would be ? Cockatrice 'n Wereboar ? Or just the old Human 'n Rice...

I think we should have two votes, best map and most silly. (The silly one being the most important this month, naturally.)