The Books that will help me out this year!

so following some advice from a friend in the industry, he linked me to some UDK books I should study through my project!!

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Unreal-Technology-Introduction-Design/dp/0672329913

http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Unreal-Technology-Level-Design/dp/0672326922/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294248134&sr=1-1

Both are purchased and sat with me right now! I've played around with them but not properly dove into them yet, that's subject to change in the next week or so!

After talking to my project guide, so to speak, It looks like Ill be beginning at least the blocking in stages of my environment in the next week or so!

Since I'm creating an Environment with two separate versions (one trying to be scary, the other neutral) I instantly thought of making my environment a Hospital.

At some point in everyone's lives, we have ALL been inside a hospital, for either good or bad reasons its an easy environment to get people to relate to in one way or another. Hospitals are generally very bland and vacant in terms of design and what's in them, and even naturally they seem pretty creepy and unsettling!

I feel that having one version of the Hospital during the day/all lights on and working, and having the corresponding version which will be very dark, abandoned and bloody will work well.

Hopefully I can utilise the lighting and textures enough to alter the player(s) pacing through each environment, thus proving how level and environment design can and will change a players pacing through out a level.

Even simply making the Hospital abandoned adds character to the environment, it makes the player sub-consciously think of the history of the environment and what went on there and WHY is it abandoned now? Usually abandoned places become that way from bad experiences, which will make the individual stuck in such a scenario to come up with their own theories of what the surroundings twisted past is.