The Cave – 002 (development of the interiors)

Okay… So this first “tutorial” style level sees Ululu awaking in our game-world.

You as the player can free roam this level, picking up skills, experience, learning how to manipulate, use and collect objects/assets…

This will also be the level where you first encounter the Robot Warrior/exo-suit that will eventually defines you (as the lead character) and explain the name of the game of Rabbit Heart (you control it while being at the heart of it).

I’d begun by sketching the inner chamber in my sketchbook a couple of nights ago…

You can see from the sketch that I’m already thinking about how Ululu triggers the Robot Rabbit to come to life… also note the Flying Helmet/Tank Commanders Hat that she wears in some of the earlier concept art in her hand…

…

Below are some development videos and early development modelling and art as we work out this level…

We open with a rough map.

Below you can watch a moving version of the game map (shown above) as it was when I first blocked it out in Google Sketch-Up… there is little detail and the objects are randomly placed for the most part, without any real thought… That sort of placement will come from further, more detailed production design and artwork…

Paul had already begun “blocking out” the Entrance Cave area in the modelling software… this area will have various pockets of abandoned equipment lying around it (see below)…

…though with more cables, pipes, wires and tubes and pieces of kit strewn across the floor area etc…

The following development diary videos where made just a day later… As I started to build a 3D sketch in Google Sketch-Up of the inner chamber in which Ululu first meets the Robot Rabbit/exo-suit.

…and more discussion of the interior and the escarpment and entrance… for which we are tentatively looking at the awesome artwork of 19th Century Artist David Roberts RA (1796 – 1864) as initial inspiration… http://www.artcyclopedia.org/art/david-roberts-entrance.jpg

For more about David Roberts (a big influence on the look of animations like Prince of Egypt etc) here’s the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Roberts_%28painter%29

Here we discuss the interior environment and some of the lighting effects we will be eventually looking at in a little more depth… trying to use the “internal logic” of the game to dictate some of the design decisions.

Finally you can take a little look around the “Jack Kirby machines” I designed for the inner chamber in this animated Sketch-Up model…

…and see the scale of the whole shebang with Ululu and the Robot Rabbit “terracotta army” in place.