After settling on the general tone of the sub-surface level, I've started quickly fleshing out textures for the actual surface area. Three new surfaces, the brick wall and and two leafy ground tiles -- one with garbage.  -- the props need attention of course, later, after the fundamentals get settled.

The plan calls for an overgrown semi-temperate forest lasciviously reclaiming a patchwork urban center,  abandoned but with subtle signs of feral inhabitants.

Gonna crash through it quickly and post here -- blogging progress seems to help me finalize things; otherwise it's just too much fun piddling and tweaking things like a hunched monk inscribing the Tao on a grain of rice.

Yummy! Wall and Floors of this type look good to go.

Interestingly, one could prolly whack out a quick game at this point -- from an environment art perspective anyway -- by simply retexturing this static mesh set. The models are all flexible, snap easily together and lend themselves to easy variation.

Throw in a monster or two and you might get something like the old iPhone Silent Hill game.

A moorish window, of atmospheric design.

I updated my Flickr stream with a bunch of Florida shots focusing on the insane proliferation of odd atmospheric phenomena.

Chemtrails vs. Contrails -- it's like chocolate sleeping with peanut butter's wife.

I've recently started seriously thinking about creating a UDK title for PC and iOS -- a winning situation even if I somehow stumble; I suspect I need to bolster my environment art portfolio after so many years of going to meetings like a boss.

Coming together a little, much more work need but moving along . . .

So, the working title is Hotel Four and grew from my frustrations with Capitus, another game with a hotel setting, in 2d, which I am also pushing forward through the agency of Construct.  It's a kind of friendly race to see which game concept rushes in the most headlong way . . .  Capitus being drawn and animated almost entirely on the iPad, with Hotel Four being all fancy with the hoo-haw.

And from the other direction . . pipe and root are placeholder for now.

The basic idea is a kind of inverted building, with the penthouse and such deep underground and the basement level on top, exposed to the surface. Screenshots here depict a quick visual pass of that latter stage.

Lighting only pass . . unhappy with the subsurface scattering on the cieling tarp, but this mesh will be remade with hanging strips and such, will reapproach the issue.

Lighting from the other direction -- UDK really has a lovely lighting model.

I block out the meshes first, apply scrumbly textures and then pick out salient features for high-resolution map extraction -- in the case just the walls and the floor. It's enough to define the area without being finicky and, frankly, mimics how I would proceed under actual production conditions.

Around the corner, where to the left I will next add access to the surface.

I'm pretty happy where it's at so I'm going to tackle the topmost, surface level next and integrate those assets more fully into this 'basement' area . . .  I am picturing an Enki Bilal inspired fusion architecture, steadily losing ground to a dry, temperate reclamation by forest and refuse.

More from the Succedaneum (Manifest) series, an ongoing work where I take portraits of people with thier heads wrapped in bandages. Increasingly I am finding the more interesting pictures are taken during the application and removal of the wraps  . .

More can be seen via my Flickr stream . .

suc·ce·da·ne·um   n. pl. suc·ce·da·ne·a 

A substitute. 

[New Latin succedaneum, from Latin, neuter sing. of succedaneus, substituted, from succedere, to succeed; see succeed.]