Friday, 28 November 2014

HA11 - Task 1

For my setting, I have decided to go with the Sci-Fi theme, precisely, for a space station environment. It is because I feel the most comfortable with this sort of environment, but that is not all. I feel like designing a space station is much easier and can give me more time to actually focus on the main environment. Since space is just a big empty space. If I went for a different setting however, like a medieval or a modern setting, I would have to take into consideration the fact that I would need to do extra work. For example, if I did a castle for a medieval environment, I would probably need to design something outside, around the castle, like some farmhouses and wheat fields, that is of course extra work that has to be done, which takes time, which I don't have a lot of, it also of course drains the resources available to me, I can only have so much polygons before the game will start to hog too many resources and bring frame rate and overall performance down. If I didn't do the additional work around that specific castle, a player might notice it, which would look terrible, or he/she might not, but of course I can't assume that for every play-tester.
Of course I could still design a medieval setting without having to worry about such things, I could for example create a dungeon environment. But I still feel like a Sci-Fi setting will have a much better effect overall, because apart from the station, I can put a good looking skybox in, and then still afford things like windows in my space station. Can't do that with something like a dungeon without a lot of lighting work, in other words, it would be much harder to create the wow! factor in a dungeon environment than a space environment.

Having said that, I began looking around for some secondary research to see what I can use in my own project as inspiration.

I created a small list of Sci-Fi media material that I want to look at, and how they do their style of space stations, both exteriors and interiors.

At start I began to research in other video game and while researching all these games, I have noticed a specific trend in how each game has built its space stations, and I concluded that you can split these space stations into 3 different categories, space stations that are built with hard scientific facts, so no fantasy, semi fantastical space stations, that include both fantastical concepts and hard scientific facts, and completely fantastical space stations, that just do not obey our scientific laws whatsoever.

Elite Dangerous:

The space stations in Elite Dangerous are designed around hard scientific facts of real world, they have little to no fantasy around them, and they represent how space stations might look in the future, once mankind learns to build efficiently in space.
In Elite Dangerous, space stations are usually huge objects, with rotating parts to create gravity on-board through continuous rotation or the entire space stations rotating at that, they have a lot of detail within them and are very well made when it comes to things like taking into consideration real scientific facts (what would a real independent space station need?) as such, they have a lot of different things, such as 'habitation rings' where the inhabitants live, the rings are also rotating to create a gravity field within the space station, things like the main star-port, defense systems, markets, etc. can also be seen within those space stations.
Of course not every space station is designed to house inhabitants, as such, some stations look completely different to others, which adds a lot of variety, but also the variety is solid in its base and justified which makes it even better.
There are also outposts, which are tiny space stations with small crews and limited space for space ships, these outposts have no gravity on them as well.


 This is the first space station that was unveiled within the game, this space station is one massive cube that rotates on its axis in its entirety. These space stations will usually have less inhabitants because they will be treated more like goods producing factories. As such, not a lot of living space is provided, but rather most of the space is spent on facilities to produce and transport the produced there goods. Within the center of the cube, we can see the entrance into the main star port where incoming space craft can dock into.



http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Stations

This is the second space station that was unveiled within the game, As we can see, it is radically different from the first one, it has rings around the main structure, which in this case are the habitation rings, they rotate around the main hub, giving the entire space station fake gravity. Within the main hub, is the star port as well as all the services necessary to trade goods and serve its inhabitants.

There are variations of these two space station 'types' that can be found within the game as well.

Ocellus2
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Stations

Space station type 'Ocellus' with a large sphere with the star port in front, and habitation rings behind it, the entire space station rotating.


http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Space_Stations

Space station type 'O'neill cylinder' as the name suggests, main hub in the form of a cylinder, solar panels that provide power to the station, and two large habitation rings, the entire structure rotating to give it fake gravity.


http://www.incgamers.com/2014/08/elite-dangerous-to-introduce-outposts-in-beta-2
Outposts found within the game, these are tiny stations with limited space for both craft and people, as well as without gravity.

Star Citizen:


https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/86778/the-other-new-ship-in-wmh-ipad-not-the-silhouettes-sq42-space-station
Albeit not a lot of material can be found about space stations in the upcoming AAA Sci Fi Adventure game, Star Citizen. I can see however, from the concept art provided so far, that the space stations in Star Citizen might have many similarities with space stations from Elite Dangerous. A big ring can be clearly visible which is supposed to move, thus generating fake gravity within that circle, there are also some platforms outside of that ring which will most likely be government buildings / star ports. It looks very practical, but whether it is based entirely on hard scientific facts is up to a debate. The space station looks very high technological and multi-purpose. It is also big. I was unable to find any screenshots of the inside or a sneak peak from outside (like in Elite Dangerous case).

Space Engineers:

Space Engineers is a still in development game but the developers are very community friendly and allow for a variety of mods to be introduced into the game. The game itself is like building with legos in space so that can also prove very useful for any inspiration.



As can be seen in above images, the space engineers style has very 'clear' space stations, they can be in various shapes, colors and can have different purposes game-play wise, but what I like about Space Engineers the most is how it does this, it doesn't have a ton of models to play with, it only has a couple of models (blocks) but with those few, a player can make hundreds of thousands of different designs. As said before, Space Engineers can also be easily modded so players can put in their own things into the game. With Space Engineers, it provides me with a lot of inspirations not only with outside look on space stations, but also on the inside.

Mass Effect:


http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Space_stations
Mass Effect is a triple A Sci Fi Adventure game with a lot of emphasis on great, big space stations. The one seen above is called 'The Citadel' which has a lot of influence on the actual story-line of the game throughout the franchise. The station itselfs is a huge space station in the middle of the Milky Galaxy, it has 5 arms, on each arm there is a residential area for a race to live on, connecting all the arms is the ring at one end which has all the government facilities as well as star ports, the entire station rotates to create gravity for the residents, finally, the station can close it's arms in case of danger making it pretty much invulnerable to outside force. It is a great feat of design from Bioware, even more because it actually can work in real life once humans will learn to build efficiently in space.



-Taking a closer look at one of the arms of the citadel, from here, the sheer scope of the structure is really impressive.

There are of course all types of stations found within the game, stations in asteroids, deep space stations, rotating around a planet etc. They are all quite big and have very detailed exteriors as well as interiors.




Dead Space:

Dead Space is a great example to look at the interior of an industrial, dirty space station, while it is also pretty on the outside, most of the game we don't see it and therefore I can't draw so much material from it, I already have plenty of inspiration when it comes to outside, but I would really like to look at the interiors of Dead Space franchise space station.


http://www.gopixpic.com/400/space-station-inspired-office-interior-design-%E2%80%93-commercial-/http:%7C%7Cmindfuldesignconsulting*com%7Cwp-content%7Cuploads%7C2012%7C04%7Coffice-design-space-station*jpg/

http://www.mhvt.net/quicktime/eng/dead_space/chapter04.php

http://guides.gamepressure.com/deadspace3/guide.asp?ID=18218

http://guides.gamepressure.com/deadspace3/guide.asp?ID=18203
The halls of Dead Space's space stations are very dirty, dark, industrial feeling and looking, the atmosphere within them is great, but that is not all, the space station feels alive, with many different details on the walls, screens flaring, displaying messages, music playing somewhere in the background. Of course it is a horror game and all of that is done to add atmosphere to this feeling of the player being alone. 

Illustrations:

I looked around the internet for some inspiration in terms of how artists and scientists see the future of humanity in space on space stations, there is a lot of different art going around and I think that a lot of it is really good.




NASA
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245672/Home-stars-Wondrous-1970s-artist-renderings-NASAs-future-space-stations-THOUSANDS-live.html

The space stations that I have found in the above pictures are a depiction of what the future might hold for mankind. Interestingly, a lot of the space stations in my viewed games followed very close principles, spherical stations, with solar sails as its main power source, with habitation rings for residents, everything spinning in one continuous motion to give gravity. The detail on these space stations is amazing, the artists really went overboard with their projects. Especially the insides of a habitation ring. 


Books:


http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7562764-the-quantum-thief
156785
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/156785.Diaspora

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56726.Islands_in_the_Sky

There are many books depicting future as well, in different formats of course, you have books which can describe human conflict against alien creatures, I have looked at some good book covers which talk about the possible future of mankind. The covers that I pick I feel like give a good sense of the architecture that I would like to incorporate in my design.

Space Odyssey:


http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/S/Space_Station_V.html

http://www.dawn.com/news/759910/weekly-classics-2001-a-space-odyssey

Space Odyssey is considered one of the all time classics nowadays (albeit it was discarded as a stupid film even by its authors when it was created). It portrays a lot of things in a way that many things do nowadays which I looked at earlier, only that this film was the one to really pioneer it. It creates a feeling of eligibility even when at that point it is sci-fi. 
Interstellar might not have space stations per say, but it has a pretty neat space ship which in many cases can be compared to a space station in its design. It is certainly a good movie to look at for inspiration in terms of the various designs.

Comics:


Star Trek:


Star Trek is one of the most original and oldest Sci Fi shows which is still running to this day in various TV series as well as films. It inspires with its design, not only for space ships but also for its space stations. The space stations in Star Trek are similar to all the others I looked at, but not identical, they have over-exaggerated ring structures in some cases for example. Nonetheless, the space stations in Star Trek are inspiring, very well detailed and can hold up their own most of the time.

Science and Technology:


(conclude what I will use = no rotation because too difficult in terms of physics, i.e fantastical station)

Consider my target audience, mention it. - justify it

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