Killhouse Remake Week 1 - Block out

Alright, time for the big project! "Remastering" Killhouse from Call of Duty 4.

Now, technically this map has been recreated twice. Once for Modern Warfare Remastered, and once for CoD Mobile. The official remastered map will be referenced as well. The official remastered map was running on their now older graphics engine, so I will also be referencing the map King from the latest Modern Warfare game since it is in a similar environment and shares the type of materials as the original Killhouse map.

Original Map

Map "King" from the latest Modern Warfare title. Similar type of environment, materials and props used as Killhouse. Using as inspiration and reference on the quality bar or exceed if I want to be able to work for Raven Software. Also want to achieve the same type of dramatic lighting without negatively affecting gameplay as seen above when recreating Killhouse.

Beginning block out in Maya and testing in UE4. Blocked out the main game-play geometry.

First thing I began to try and tackle is matching the scale. I loaded up the original map and timed myself walking (not sprinting) across the map in both horizontal and vertical directions. Then in UE4, I used a box brush and kept scaling it until it matched about the same speed as what was in CoD 4.
I exported the BSP in Maya and overlayed the top down map of Killhouse and began blocking out all the core gameplay areas.

This map:

Schedule:

Since this is a huge project with a lot of pieces I decided to break things down into what is a hero asset and what isn't. I will be using some asset packs as well as using Megascans to help aid the creation of the map.

Week 1: Gather reference, block out core areas, setup UE4 project, divide up asset creation.

Week 2: Bring in basic materials on all block out assets in Engine. Import megascan assets and unreal market place assets to begin to clutter the map, and place in areas of the map that are missing geometry.

Week 3: Create shipping container asset (full high-to-low poly pipeline) and begin lighting scene.

Week 4: Crate any custom decals needed, clutter map with assets and decals, render out scene with basic post-processing.

Post week 4 project: Work on remaining hero assets such as the video camera with tripod, ammo crates, and vending machine asset as scene in the very back of the map. For the car assets in the map, I plan on searching for a scan of a destroyed car that I can purchase and create a low-poly model for. I did notice in the latest Call of Duty game it does look like the destroyed car assets have been created from scans.