Scene Jam IV

The story for this final Scene Jam is…up to you!

For this Scene Jam, you’ll pick any piece of Stephen’s concept art, create it in Unity, and tell the rest of the story. Show us what lies beyond that mouth to the cave, what is behind those ruined castle walls, or what lies deeper into that forest. Scoring will be based 1/3rd on how well are able to capture the essence of the original concept and 2/3rds on scene you create beyond the concept.

The first three Scene Jams have prepared you and now the reins are off. While there are some guide lines and rules below, remember to have fun and be creative! Go forth and create awesomeness!  Here are the 10 concepts you have to choose from:

Note that if you plan to do a cave or dungeon, please follow the requirements set forth for Scene Jam II:

• There must be at least 3 and no more than 6 ways to enter/exit but these don’t need to connect to any overworld space. In actual use we will connect these up to other sections of the catacombs so you can just make the entrances/exits open to empty space.
• The entire dungeon should be able to fit into a 200 meter cube. (This is HUGE! if it is larger than this then you are likely in need of professional help!)
• No jumping puzzles!

For village areas, please remember these constraints/goals from Scene Jam III:

• Shoot for 20 to 60 player houses with lots that are 20 meters by 30 meters in size
• There should be at least one road out of the city.  More are fine if they make sense
• Think about the view of the city as you approach on the road since that is how most players will actually see it.  It doesn’t have to be grand, just make sure it fits your vision for it.  For instance, a hidden city that isn’t visible at all until  you’re right on top of it could be as cool as a city that looks good as you approach it
• Think about defenses at least a bit.  This doesn’t have to mean walls since most villages don’t have the resources for such things but could be something more natural or just its location.
• Think about what it would be like to live in the houses.  While all lots are not created equal, in reality people would have slowly added to the village a house at a time and no one would pick a horrible spot.
• Think about the town square and how traffic would flow through the city.  Most stores would be in high traffic areas
• If you use terrain, be sure and keep the size 2000×2000 or smaller
• Make sure that you have a dead zone around the village that helps you conceal the edges of the maps.  Internally we usually shoot for about a 200m dead zone though it is highly dependent on the map design.
• Make sure the frame rate is acceptable!  We had a few very good levels last challenge that we had to rule out because they ran at 10fps on our fastest machines!

Scoring uses our familiar 100 point scoring system:

 Challenge Goals Met: 20 Points

• Were all the goals of the challenge met?
• How well was each goal met?

Polish: 20 Points

• Could this be put in the game as is?
• Does the map look finished?
• Are there obvious visual anomalies (like stretched terrain, missing textures, etc.)?
• Smaller more polished maps generally win this category

Originality: 15 Points

• How much custom content was created?
• How different is this map from other maps?

Layout / Gameplay: 15 Points

• How playable is the map?
• How well is the player directed through the map to goals and interest areas?

Performance: 10 Points

• 20 fps minimum on a mid range machine

Beauty: 10 Points

• Is it pretty to look at?
• Are there vistas to survey the map from?

Mood / Story: 10 Points

• Does the map set a very clear mood?
• Does the map tell a story?

 You should start your scene upload no later than 6PM CST on Sunday.  Due to the large size of the scenes, most people ended up just using dropbox, google drive, or their own server during the first challenge. You can find the rules and how to upload your finished product here:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=28725

More info about scene creation and available resources can be found here:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/scene-creation-central.3362/

Join in on this week’s discussion on the forums here:

https://shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/scene-jam-iv.3785/