I remember back in the days when Resident Evil 1 was released. One of my friends had a Playstation and we used to sit for hours just playing. The game story was about a few soldiers investigating some mysterious incidents up in the mountains, just outside Racoon City. During their mission, they are being chased by something they can't identify, and they end up in the Hall of a big Mansion, and this is where the game begins for the player. I remember the first time I saw that Hall, and I was very impressed. I've always wanted to create graphics like Resident Evil 1, and since I was about to write a new tutorial, I thought I'd try it out, and the result is quite pleasing if you ask me. This is the first part of the tutorial, where we will start out with creating simple Black & White drawings of the room shape. The tutorial is a step by step, so even if you are a complete beginner, you should be able to manage this, although, I will not explain what the different Tools do. Designing the Room before building it can be a wise choice, and for this I use Photoshop, because all I need to do is draw a few lines, set a few measurements, so I have something to start with. Any 2D paint program should be able to do this, since it's just a simple B&W image. The pictures below are the ones I made, and these are the ones we will use.

Picture 1	Picture 2

Okay, I take it you took a look at those B&W drawings and got some sort of idea of what we are going to build here. The Hall will have two levels, Level 0 and Level 1, and we will start out with building the walls of Level 0. Before we start out building, lets make sure you have the same configuration as me.

Start by loading up Modeler, and then bring up the Display Options Panel by hitting "d" on your keyboard. Click the Viewports Tab and change the second Viewport to the following.

Picture 3: The Viewport 2 settings

Next click the Units Tab and set the following settings.

Unit System: SI
Default Unit: Meters
Grid Units: 125
Grid Snap: Standard

Click OK when you're done to save the new settings. Activate the Box tool, bring up the Numeric Panel and enter the following settings.

	LOW		HIGH		SEGMENTS
X	-4,65m	X	4,65m	X	1
Y	0	Y	2,8m	Y	1
Z	-4,65m	Z	4,65m	Z	1

Close down the Numeric Panel after you've entered the values and hit Space to create the box and to deselect the Box tool. Hit "a" on your keyboard to fit this new box in all views, it should look something like picture 4.

Picture 4: The first box created

This will be the main wall for level 0, but we need to deform it a bit. Bring up the Change Surface panel by hitting "q", and then create a new surface called "Walls_Wood". Give it a brown colour (R: 170 B: 90 B: 40), enter 75% for specular and keep the rest to the default values, then click OK. The box should now turn into a brown colour in the perspective view. Switch to Layer 2 and activate the Box tool, bring up the Numeric Panel and enter the following values.

	LOW		HIGH		SEGMENTS
X	-4,5m	X	4,5m	X	1
Y	-1m	Y	3m	Y	1
Z	-4,5m	Z	4,5m	Z	1

Close down the Numeric Panel and then hit Space to create the box. Switch to Layer 3 and activate the Box Tool again, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following settings.

	LOW		HIGH		SEGMENTS
X	-1m	X	1m	X	1
Y	-1m	Y	2,05m	Y	1
Z	0	Z	1m	Z	1

Close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to create the Box. Activate the Move Tool by hitting "t" on your keyboard, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following values.

X	4m
Y	0
Z	-2,5m

Once the values are entered, click Apply and then close down the Numeric Panel. We will mirror this box twice, so activate the Mirror Tool by hitting "Shift+v", then open up the Numeric Panel and set the axis to Z. Keep the other settings to the defaults, close down the Numeric Panel and just hit Space to finish the Mirror operation. Activate the Mirror Tool again, bring up the Numeric Panel and this time set the axis to X, keep the other settings to the defaults and close down the Numeric Panel. Hit Space on your keyboard to complete the operation.

We will move this box, so use your mouse in the Top View (Viewport 1) and drag a lasso around it to select its points, like in picture 5.

Picture 5: Drag a lasso around the middle box

When the points have been selected, activate the Move Tool again and bring up the Numeric Panel, use the following settings.

X	0
Y	0
Z	-5m

Like before, enter the values and then hit Apply to move the box, and then close down the Numeric Panel.

Deselect everything now and switch back to Layer 2. Open up the Change Surface Panel by hitting "q" and name this surface "Wallpaper". Give it a light brown-grey colour (R: 180 G: 150 B: 110), set the specular to 0% and click OK.

What we have in Layer 2 will make up the Inner Walls. Layer 3 is where the doors will be; now we just need to subtract this out of the Main Wall in Layer 1.

Now we are going to perform two Boolean Subtract operations, so switch to Layer 1 and put Layer 3 in the background. Activate the Boolean Tool by hitting "shift+b", select the Subtract operation and click OK. Hit "m" to get the Merge Points Panel, and just use the Automatic function here. 30 points should be eliminated.

Switch to Layer 3 and delete the 5 boxes, we don't need them anymore. Go back to Layer 1 and put Layer 2 in the background, perform another Boolean Subtract operation, then merge the points. 28 points should be eliminated this time. Switch to Layer 2 and delete the box. The content of Layer 1 should look something like picture 6.

Picture 6: The basic Level 0 Walls

Since we will be adding stairs later on in this tutorial, we might as well prepare some things now to make it a bit easier later on. Switch to Layer 2 and activate the Box Tool, then bring up the Numeric Panel. Enter the following values.

	LOW		HIGH		SEGMENTS
X	-3m	X	3m	X	1
Y	0	Y	2,8m	Y	1
Z	2,5m	Z	4,5m	Z	1

Once the values are entered, close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space, then hit "a" to fit this box in all views. Working in Top View, drag a lasso around the points shown in picture 7.

Picture 7: Drag a lasso around these 2 points

Activate the Set Value tool by hitting "ctrl+v", in the Panel that comes up, set the axis to X and the value to -1m, then click OK. Do the same thing with the other side but use a value of 1m this time. The final product should look something like picture 8.

Picture 9: The Polygon Statistics Panel

So select the Wallpaper Surface there, and then hit the + to select them. Close down the Panel and we're ready to continue.

We will use the Bevel Tool on these polygons to add doorframes, and some frames that will follow the floor and ceiling.

First we need to change the surface for these polygons, so bring up the Change Surface Panel by hitting "q", select the "Walls_Wood" surface in the pull-down menu and then click OK. The selected polygons should now turn into a brown colour in the perspective view. Keep the polygons selected. Activate the Bevel Tool by hitting "b" and then bring up the Numeric Panel. We will perform 10 bevels here, so enter one of them at a time. Here's a tip on how to use the bevel tool. Bring up the Numeric Panel, enter the values for the first bevel, hit "Space", then hit "b" and then "n" again, then proceed with bevel number 2. Here are the 10 bevel values.

	Shift	Inset
1	-20mm	20mm
2	10mm	10mm
3	-10mm	10mm
4	5mm	2mm
5	5mm	4mm
6	5mm	6mm
7	3mm	8mm
8	0mm	10mm
9	-5mm	5mm
10	-10mm	0mm

When you are done with the 10 bevels, keep the polygons selected and bring up the Change Surface Panel, and set the surface to "Wallpaper", then click OK. Activate the Knife Tool by hitting "shift+K", and then bring up the Numeric Panel. Use the following settings.

Axis:Z

Once the Values are entered, close down the Numeric Panel and hit Space to perform the operation. This will split the selected polygons 1m up on the Y axis, and this will become wooden panels later on, but first we need to deselect the upper part. Working in the Back View (Viewport 3), drag a lasso like in picture 10. Picture 11 shows the selected polygons after the lasso tool.

Picture 10: Drag a lasso to deselect the polygons above the Knife cut

Picture 11: These polygons should be selected now

With these polygons selected, bring up the Change Surface Panel and change the surface to the "Walls_Wood" one, then click OK. If you look at the perspective view now, the selected polygons should have turned into a brown colour.

With these polygons selected, we will now perform another 13 Bevel operations. Activate the Bevel Tool, bring up the Numeric Panel and use the following values, one by one.