Built in Maya and exported out into Unreal Engine 5. This blockout was created to test my ability to create a fully modular asset kit that could be used to desgin and blockout a Fallout Vault. Using Vault 114 as a reference for the design, I constructed a kit that could be used to create a wide range of vault spaces depending on the type of level / narative design needed.
Reference for creating modular assets for the main room
Final render of main room
Project Manegment
Above is the link to the Trello board used to map out the design flow for this project. This details how i broke down the design so that the level could be deconstructed from the origianal game and turned into a modular asset kit.
Breaking Down The Vault
Before work can start on the blockout. i needed to gather references from the game. This included size references for the player to get a sense of how big the enviroment should be during the blockout phase. I also had to observe the levels design and find elements that could be broken down into modular assets. These would then be used to create the final build of the project
Constructing The Vault
With the assets identified to create the building blocks of the vault, a low level blockout was created to test that the assets could function in the modular enviroment. This test was important to check that all the sections would allign correctly, there would be no point moving onto a high level pass of the project if the modular kit failed to function correctly.
Fallout 4 Modular Vault Kit Layout
Below is the modular kit i created for use in the blockout phase of this project
During the design, i would use screenshots to plan my next actions for the project, including areas that might need to be changed to fit the modular pipeline if the scale was in question.
Final Build
The final build focuses a lot of detail around the main "landmark" of the vault. This space was the most important for the overall level design of the vault as its a cirtical path in the story of the game. Comparing screenshots taken from the game along with the project at the same locations show that there is nearly a 1:1 recreation of the vault. This concludes that the modular kit was created with a high level of acuracy and could be now used to build new vaults for players to explore, each with their own narative. This would allow the level designers to create these spaces with a high turnover so that they could be passed along to QA and then on to the art team for an art pass if the blockout was the correct fit for the given narative.
Challange Mode
Along the process of creating the blockout. Challnages would appear that meant having to rethink the design of the vault and its sections. One of these challanges was that I had create a window wall tile. While this functioned as intended at the spawn of the level. It didn't work for the lower levels of the vault. The window tile was found to have a gap between the two rooms it was used to connect, this meant that an additional piece had to be created to bridge the gap. This was more of an oversight during the concept phase of planning which was easy to fix once it was discovered. This has taught me to take extra care during the planning phase to ensure all elements are as acurate as possible before comminting to a build.
Lessons Learned
Overall this design has turned out very well. My usual blockout process involved using Unreal Engine to blockout spaces however, with this project I would use Maya to create the enviroment. This was a challange itself as I had never used the software before, so getting to learn these new skills was a fresh take on how I would usually approch a blockout. Since this project i now mainly using Maya for all my level blockouts where a modular workflow is the best option.