Blocking Out

Now that I had chosen my idea, I began blocking out my shop in Maya.

I started by setting up the grid to match the one in Unreal, and imported a mannequin approximately 180cm tall in order to give me a sense of scale while I worked out the size of my shop.

From here, I created simple shapes to block out my design starting with basic cubes and manipulating them to form each floor of the building. I worked carefully, using snapping to keep everything neat and organised. Initially, I struggled to make it match my drawing, but after adjusting the proportions of the shapes and adding some details it began to resemble it more closely.

Next, I worked on the potion brewery tank from my design. At this point I brought in some additional references from the Harry Potter films. I wanted to get the shape right as a mixture of a brewery tank and a potion bottle.

After this was complete, I looked at the overall shape and silhouette of the shop so far. I noticed that there was a lot of empty space behind the brewery tanks, something I didn't account for in my design as I made it in 2D.

To fix this, I added a cross gable roof inspired by one of my reference photos. While mostly a stylistic choice, I decided to place a door so that it would also serve a purpose as a way for the shop owner to access the brewery tanks when needed. I used the scaleman to make sure the door was the right size.

Then, I made a quick potion bottle on the bottom floor and began working on the pipes. Using a tablet, I took a photo of an orthographic view of my shop and drew over it digitally. Since the pipes are an important part of my shop's design and identity, I wanted to take care with their placement. I used this method to quickly see how the building would look with different pipe layouts. Through doing this, I found I favoured diagonal lines over right angles, and a messier layout was a better fit with Diagon Alley.

Now that I'd mapped out the placement of the pipes, I went back into 3D. Using these reference images which I took from the back of my house, along with images of Victorian buildings, I blocked out the pipes in Maya with basic cylinders.

Finally, I made a quick sign in the rough shape of a potion bottle and added it to the building. I'll spend some time working on the actual design and branding later.

This is how my finished blockout looked. Overall I enjoyed the process and I now understand why this workflow is used by professionals in the game industry. It allows you to quickly establish the layout, shape, size, scale, proportions and composition of your environment without committing too much time or effort.

On reflection, I may have gotten a bit carried away refining the shape of the brewery tank when a simple cylinder would have sufficed at this stage. I've learned that it's important to be flexible and not commit too much time to any one area of the blockout as you may want to change it later anyway.

References:

bricksandbrass.co.uk. (n.d.). Roof Designs in the Victorian and Edwardian Eras - Bricks & Brass. [online] Available at: http://bricksandbrass.co.uk/design_by_element/roof/victorian_and_edwardian_roof_designs.php [Accessed 7 Nov. 2023].

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worldofleveldesign.com. (n.d.). Blocktober: Your Quick Start Guide to Blockouts. [online] Available at: https://worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/guide-to-blocktober.php [Accessed 8 Nov. 2023].

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Potion brewing images from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (2009).

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Drain pipe photos taken by me.