Design process（make model）

 

PROCESS

This week, I started modeling the interior of the Queen Mother of the West Palace. At that time, when I was drawing the concept drawing, I only focused on the position of the Queen Mother of the West's throne. I thought the research was not clear enough, and the passage before entering the main tomb chamber was not added either. So before starting the modeling, I watched the depiction of the entire tomb passage in the TV drama again and sorted out the entire relationship.

这周我开始进行西王母宫殿内部的建模，当时画概念画只关注了西王母王座的位置，我认为调研的不够明确，而且进入主墓室之前的通道也没有加上，所以在开始建模之前，我又去看了一遍影视剧对整个墓道的刻画，并梳理了整个关系。

I'll describe it again in words. I've sorted out all the processes of this entire area, from the very beginning of the Devil's City, which is the desert, to entering the water pool area after passing through the sunken ship. Based on the murals on the ruins beside the water pool area as a clue, the main characters fell underwater, passed through the underground passage, found a hole, jumped in and entered the alchemy room. They triggered the mechanism. The alchemy furnace above fell and smashed a hole in the ground. The main characters jumped down into the reservoir, found the mechanism and opened the door opposite the reservoir, revealing thousands of stairs. They followed the stairs up to the main tomb chamber and met the Queen Mother of the West.

我用文字的方式再描述一遍，我梳理了整个这个区域的所有过程，从最开始的魔鬼城也就是沙漠，到经过沉船后进入水潭区域，根据水潭区域旁遗迹上的壁画为线索，主角团掉入水下，经过地下通道，发现一个洞口，往下跳入后进入炼丹室，他们触发了机关，上面的炼丹炉掉下来把地面砸开一个洞，主角团往下跳进入蓄水池，找到机关并开启蓄水池对面的门，露出了上千层楼梯，顺着楼梯往上走到了主墓室，见到了西王母。

（This sketch is very messy. But since I drew it by organizing my thoughts before modeling, I think it's fine as long as I can understand it myself. So I'm sorry!）

（这个草图很混乱，但是因为是我自己建模前整理思绪画的，觉得我自己能看懂就行，所以对不起！）

I have made some adjustments to this sequence in my modeling. Firstly, the areas of the desert, the sunken ship and the pool are the same. However, for the section where players fall from the pool into the underground passage, I have changed it to walking forward. They can first see the palace of the Queen Mother of the West. When players think they have reached their destination and can directly see the Queen Mother of the West, they actually fall into a trap. As soon as players enter the palace, they will step on some kind of mechanism and fall down to enter the alchemy room. Because according to my research, the Palace of the Queen Mother of the West is real and I hope to incorporate it into the game, that's why I created my previous model. This week, I was mainly modeling the parts of the alchemy room, the reservoir and the Queen Mother of the West Palace.

Because the main characters jumped down from the passage to the alchemy room and then from the alchemy room to the reservoir, I think there is some repetition in the way of jumping down, which is possible in TV dramas but a bit boring in games. So I combined the alchemy room and the reservoir and designed it as: Locate the mechanism to activate the reservoir. The reservoir reacts on the alchemy furnace. The furnace rotates and moves the iron chain to trigger the mechanism at the door, immediately opening the bronze door and thousands of staircases. Of course, this is just my idea. Since I can't carry out the specific operation of the mechanism, I just built the scene.

In the book, the main characters have been constantly attacked by the monster described in the book, "pheasant Neck", which is a mutated snake. At the end of the underground tomb chamber of the Queen Mother of the West, there is a huge snake mother protecting her all the time. So in this place, snakes are actually sacred. Therefore, in the modeling, I placed the model of the snake monster on the wall. It can both give people a shocking feeling and be in line with the original work. In the middle of the entire alchemy room is an alchemy platform in the TV series, but I combined the alchemist and the reservoir to design a “Bagua Formation” so that it can better follow the mechanism I had in mind, because “Bagua Formation” is a very mysterious but regular and historic thing in China, I will attach a brief introduction:

我的建模对于这个顺序有所调整，首先沙漠，沉船和水潭的区域是一样的，但从水潭掉入地下通道这一段，我改成了往前走，能首先见到西王母的宫殿，当玩家以为到达了目的地，直接就能看到西王母时，他们其实走进了陷阱，玩家一进宫殿就会踩到某种机关掉下去进入炼丹室。因为根据我的调研，西王母宫殿是真实存在的，我希望把它融入到游戏当中，所以才有我上一个建模。这个星期我主要在建模炼丹室，蓄水池和西王母宫殿的部分。

因为主角团是从通道跳下去到达炼丹室，又从炼丹室跳下去到达蓄水池，我认为同样都是跳下去，方式上有一些重复，在电视剧里可以但在游戏中会有点无聊，所以我把炼丹室和蓄水池融合了一下，设计成为：找到机关开启蓄水池，蓄水池反作用于炼丹炉，炼丹炉旋转移动铁链触发门口的机关，随即开启青铜门并上千层楼梯。当然这只是我的想法，因为具体的机关运行我做不出来，所以我只是把场景建出来了。

在书中，主角团这一段路程一直在遭受书中描述的怪物“野鸡脖子”也就是一种变异的蛇的攻击，并且在最后地下的西王母主墓室中有一条巨型蛇母一直保护着西王母，所以在这个地方蛇其实是神圣的，所以在建模中，我放置了蛇怪的模型在墙壁上，既能给人震慑的感觉又能贴合原著。整个炼丹室中间的位置在电视剧中是一个炼丹台，而我把炼丹师和蓄水池结合，设计成了一个八卦阵，这样就可以更好地遵循我所想的机关，因为八卦阵在中国是一个很神秘，但有规律又历史悠久的东西，我会附上一段介绍：

                                                                                                                                                                                          The Eight Trigrams table is arranged with the Eight trigrams symbols from the I Ching. Each trigram is composed of three lines (- represents Yang, - represents Yin), symbolizing all phenomena in heaven and earth. It is not merely a geometric pattern; it also profoundly embodies the philosophical significance of nature, seasons, directions and the flow of energy.

Two common arrangements of the Eight Trigrams diagram:

• The Eight Trigrams of the Primordial Heaven (Fuxi Eight Trigrams) : Arranged in accordance with the order of the universe's generation, they emphasize balance and symmetry.

• The Postnatal Eight Trigrams (King Wen's Eight Trigrams) : It is based on the nine-square grid of the Luo Shu for spatial positioning and is more often used in feng shui and actual layout.

八卦台排列的是《易经》中的八卦符号，每卦由三爻组成（—表示阳，– – 表示阴），象征天地万象。它不仅仅是几何图案，还深蕴自然、季节、方位与能量流向的哲学意义  。

两种八卦图示常见排列方式：

• 先天八卦（伏羲八卦）：按宇宙生成秩序排列，重在体现平衡与对称 。

• 后天八卦（文王八卦）：依据洛书九宫格进行空间定位，更常用于风水与实际布局 。

I built a SU model:

Why choose Bagua Terrace? It is because the Eight Trigrams are very common elements in Chinese tomb-raiding novels. Every direction of them has mechanisms that can be calculated, making them very suitable to be placed in a tomb chamber for players to explore. In the specific Settings of the game, I can place mechanisms at the four corners of the alchemy room. The activation of these mechanisms is associated with the Eight Trigrams Stone Plate. Interactive prompts are added to the game to allow players from all over the world to have a little understanding of Chinese culture.

I think the mechanism design in the tomb chamber is really interesting and can be used to write a lot of articles! But I still can't do interaction. I hope I can learn it in the future.

为什么选择八卦台？是因为八卦是中国的盗墓小说中非常常见的元素，它每一个方向都是有机关可以算出来的，很适合放在墓室中，让玩家进行探索。在游戏具体设置中我可以在炼丹室四角布置机关，机关启动与八卦石盘相关联，游戏中加入交互提示，让世界各地的玩家了解一点中国文化。

我认为墓室中的机关设计真的很有趣并且能做很多文章！但我还不会做交互，希望在未来我可以学会。

After completing the detailed research, I began to model. So far, the environment presented is like this: I will continue to make changes and continue to build the model of the main tomb chamber.

完成了细节上的调研我开始建模，到目前呈现出这样的环境：我还会继续更改，并且继续建出主墓室的模型。

(Note: As there are many shapes in the tomb chamber, I downloaded the models of snake monsters and alchemy balls.)

（注：因为墓室内的造型较多，所以像蛇怪，炼丹球的模型我是下载的）