Battle Arena

The High Concept I chose for the Battle Arena was a corrupted forest, guarded by a witch. As the forest has been corrupted by an unknown force, the witch, who was the forest's guardian, was also defeated and turned evil while trying to protect and heal the forest.

To portray the magical but creepy forest vibe, I researched mushrooms and rot, and looked for photos of twisted tree roots. Before sketching anything, I put together my mood board:

I then drew some blue sky sketches, to get an idea of how my arena was going to look, what kind of shape language I was going for. I really liked the tree with the face, which I ended up using in my final work, although in a slightly different way. I went with the idea of the arena being underground, as that would make for a very gloomy, wet and rotten environment and would also provide really dramatic lighting. 

 

I then proceeded to iterate on the idea and also on different gameplay scenarios. I chose to go with the second picture, as I really liked the lighting and the shape language, like everything is tilted and pointing towards the centre, towards the battleground. The light beams are like spotlights pointing to a stage, directing the viewer's attention to where the battle is going to take place.

I ended up changing the gate, as the shape wasn't interesting enough and didn't provide a strong enough point of interest. So I sketched a few ideas:

After getting some feedback, I went with the spiral one, as it repeated the circular, twisted shape language I was going for. 

I then made a rough block-out in 3ds max, on top of which I drew he detailed sketch. I made the shape of the arena more bowl-like, as the cylinder shape created too many vertical lines in the scene and made it look small. 

I ended up using the tree as the entrance to the battle arena: The spirit tree that suffers under the corruption and underneath which the Boss Monster awaits. 

I also sketched out some gameplay ideas:

I then went on to figure out a colour palette. I used photos with different colour schemes and set them to Overlay as well as blurred them to generate ideas quickly.

I chose the first one, but added more of the green and brown from the tree in the arena to make it look more consistent.

I sculpted everything in zbrush, then used some of the textures I made for previous projects to get a even more 3D information for my arena. I got everything in Unreal and took a high resolution screenshot to use as a base.

I decided to use this close-up photo, as the arena should be the main point of interest for this project and I wanted to show all the details clearly. I ended up making the arena even larger, as it still looked a bit small for a Boss battle, where the player needs to have space to move and fight.

For the rendering, I first added the details without lighting information: I added some ferns and moss and the eye and mushrooms, as well as fixed some of the things from the screenshot and added some accents and contrast. 

At the end, I added the lighting. I am really happy how it turned out in terms of light, but overall as well. At first, I wasn't planning for the mushroom spores to glow, but I think it adds a more mystic feeling to the arena. 

I also added a back view (it's pretty much the same as the other side of the arena) and an unlit screenshot of the scene from above.