The first realm of the dead

I wrote down all the concepts just after applying the challenge. I was so inspired, and I came up with more than just a concept for environment or props, but now it's even a game concept, I would say. So thank you for this inspiring challenge! All the ideas came after my first notes were added to the "More Ideas" section, to have like a track of my ideas and concept evolution. As you could see, I already had more ideas before writing this post (in fact, when preparing it). So actually, I don't have concept art reference because I'll do mine, so I'll update the blog post to add them, and more breakdown and workflow.  

General Concept:

The 1st realm of the dead is located in a territory where the dead are waiting to be “relocated” or reincarnated. A different astral plane, like a different planet. Death is timeless and concerns all living beings, known and unknown. The universe is therefore varied, from retro to futuristic to fantasy. The environment is dark and foggy, sometimes frightening but also surprisingly alive. Aliens, fantastical creatures and humans alike can be seen, as well as buildings of all periods and styles. The houses are representations or projections of the dwellings of the dead, so often look abandoned, faded, sometimes ruined, destroyed or burnt. There's a very dark area, like a slum, where the most destroyed houses and the most tortured beings are to be avoided! The majority of entities are ghostly in appearance, generally translucent and emitting light and mist. Rarely are there (astral) travelers, also ghostly in appearance but less misty, more like a shapeless round floating mass with a detailed face and a brighter light.  

Storytelling:

We take on the role of the future chief of a Tuareg-inspired desert tribe. Once our instructions are complete, the tribe's great shaman invites us into his tent for our final test. The task is to visit the world of the dead in order to obtain the blessing of the previous chief (by transmitting a key phrase/password that the shaman knows, for example). But to reach the deceased chief, you'll have to pass a number of tests, as the chief is much further away in the astral planes than where we're about to go (for the challenge). We enter a trance with the help of the shaman, who entrusts us with an extremely precious and powerful emerald dagger. To help us on our journey, we need to hide it where we can't reach it, deep in our hearts. Once in trance, we must find the dream shaman who will take us through the portal to the world of the dead. In trance, we find ourselves in a large desert bazaar or desert town, and are immediately drawn to a witchcraft/marabou stall. This is the dream shaman. She's very intimidating, and after explaining the rudiments of the quest, her mirror turns into a portal where we can see an infinite world, she says something incomprehensible and powerful and we find ourselves sucked in vibrating to the sound of a very powerful church bell. We finally arrive in the 1st world of the dead, where some are stuck and others are rebuilding their lives, while the majority are waiting for the hope of a new life or an evolution that has lasted indefinitely.  

Story board:

For the storyboard, I did some block-out sketches to lock my ideas and don't lose them. Of course, I'm bad at drawing; I need to practice way more, but the overall concept is established by the ideas and these sketches. It's enough to build the concept art on it. In the following days/weeks, I'll update these keyframes to proper concept art and add more with time to have a proper story board.

I'll update them with more notes for light, colors, textures and so on before doing the concept art of these keyframes. From the first to the third frame, we are in the desert camp, our tribe. The two following are the bazar in the desert and the chaman stall in the dreams, which lead to the last one, the actual challenge related environment, the first realm of the dead. We are in FPS as asked, with the possibility to play a bit to discover this world. I would like to add some animation, like draw the dagger (from our heart), open our inventory to see our equipment props..

Environment Concept:

There are two environments that lead to the main environment related to the challenge. The first is the desert camp with a focus on the chaman tent and the second is the bazar with a focus on the sorceress/chaman shop. The mirror portal in it will make a transition with some astral/universe/warp vfx into the first realm of the dead. It will be the main environment; the two before are for the cinematic intro of "this game concept" for a better understanding of the story and the concept. The first realm of the dead, as explained, is very dark and foggy, mostly frightening but with a lot of live in it with all these entities. It can be more shiny or beautiful in some areas because the death is not bad. And it's not only sadness and other bad feelings. That is for the general mood. I'll try to blend several styles like scifi/fantasy/modern/retro/alien buildings and props. Knowing the deadline and all the work it requires, for one person it's a lot to do, so I'll probably try to do just one or two main assets of that style like a building and a car/ship or bench related to each style and scatter them into the scene. I always love science fantasy like Warhammer40K, Final Fantasy and their deep storytelling as we can have in Naughty Dog too. I would like to add some character, some soul/ghost but I don't know how much I could succeed to push my vision with all the humans and creatures from different time period.

Props Concept:

        Emerald Dagger

The emerald dagger is a powerful artefact and weapon that can shift in whatever he wants to help him during his journey, from a sword to a fantasy creature or even a futuristic gun, but he can't use it for a long time because the dagger is the main prop that permits him to survive in this realm and stay bound to his world. It's why the dagger is mainly hiding in his heart, a deep spiritual place for this astral plane where people are dead so they don't have heart anymore. Even if his heart is not physically here, his consciousness and soul are deeply connected, especially in this realm, so it's why he needs to keep the dagger in him, hiding in his heart, but we could see that the dagger being his heart because he can't survive without it. I'll add the concept written in "More Ideas" part, about the Key Props from his real life to allow him to use his dagger longer add other benefits to him, like stats or powers.

        Family Ring(s) / Jewels

The first "other idea" I had been his family ring, could add more vitality, and add some fixes stats, or player could choose which extra stats he wants, and an extent time for the dagger.  

Technical:

I'll mainly use blender (as I work on it daily) for the modeling and texturing part, also for the level blockout and the overall design. I'll use photoshop for the concept art and storyboard with a mix of photo bashing and the asset I'll make in blender for the final result. For the cloth, I'll use Marvelous Designer for the first time. I'll use Substance Painter for texturing the Hero asset. For the VFX part I'll use EmerGen and maybe GeoGen for the terrain. For the reference, I'm using PureRef, and I'll put all this work in Unreal Engine, trying to make my cinematic and the concept game for the challenge. I will use Dash for the first time too, but the video tutorial was very promising, so I count on it to help me improve my Unreal workflow because I only did a few courses about making a game with it. And I'll share my Pc specs, I know that sometimes it can be motivating or just we are curious about it: I have a RTX 3060 with an AMD Ryzen 9 5950x, 64gb RAM DDR4. With time I updated the processor (Ryzen 5 before) and the ram (16gb) but I can feel the late I have with my 3060.  For photoshop and 3D sculpting I'm using a DecoPro XP-Pen tablet but I have it since 10 years ago who is became buggy these months, so I'm dreaming about a display one haha.

More Ideas:

The concept could be push for a real game, as an RPG Action/Adventure. If the concept is working after this challenge, maybe I'll try to make it properly. Like adding the concept that the MC can't stay too long in the astral plane, but his journey is way longer and harder than expected. So the chaman try to reach him by throwing the dream plane to give him more artefact, like his family ring, or other key props to permit him to not fall into the realm and stay bound to his real life/world, to earth. These Key Props could permit him to use his dagger longer and add other benefit/stats/power to him. We could have a little game on the chaman about summoning these key props, like preparing the rituals, making the moves with some FX and QTE actions. And depending on the accurate result, the props could get a rank, from common to epic or legendary. During the game we could enhanced our equipment props like +1,2,3.. even their rank but it will be more difficult. #learteschallenge