Visual Design: Anthropomorphism

This week we had a look at Anthropomorphism throughout the entertainment industry and were then tasked with designing a Frog character whilst adhering to the main rules.

I started as usual with some silhouettes to get a feel for the shapes and character stances I'd like to work from. Straight away I envisioned a Frog with attitude - some sort of mob boss or enforcer. From these 3 silhouettes, I ended up with a combination of the first two. Using a mood board of assembled images, I really wanted to aim for a rough and tumble sort of guy. A tough Toad, who had seen a lot whilst working the doors at various clubs.

Another part of the tutorial involved Feng Zhu and an awesome painting technique using textures. This works a treat with organic looking materials and I utilized it here to great effect. I had difficult painting realistic folds within materials - Definitely something to work on.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this guy. I certainly wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley.

Gameplay and Interactivity: Final Prototype

The hand in is tomorrow!


This experience has been full of highs and lows. Coding and Script Writing began to sink in during the latter weeks and I was able to troubleshoot my own code without resorting to online resources and fellow classmates by the end. Doors actually proved to be my enemy throughout this process. That and trying to make a working flashlight!


Level design was one aspect I'd never thought of deeply before, and in hindsight I would really have spent more energy creating a map layout worthy of the players time. If the person playing your game doesn't have a clue where to go or what to do, you have failed.


It was difficult to work to a time constraint - I had to be economical with what the level contained and how long it would take for the player to get across the map. It is easy to create obstacles but you have to consider whether or not an actual off the shelf game would contain those tricks.


Modeling can certainly be improved too. My player is given a flashlight that shines direct light onto everything I've made. Any overlapping or sloppy modeling is laid bare for them to see.


Overall, I'm pretty proud with what I've come up with. Sure, there is plenty I would improve on, as with any project. However, looking back at Greybox version one and comparing it to my final hand in - they are worlds apart.

3D Art: Battle Arena Milestone 1

With Christmas looming, so does the first deadline for our Battle Arena.

To say it and I have come a long way would be an understatement. I look back at my original moodboard and modelling attempts and can't believe where I'm at now. In the beginning I was so proud of my barrel. It took me HOURS.

Now I would knock that thing out and texture it in minutes. Maybe.

All jokes aside Maya and Unity are nowhere near as daunting as they used to be. Ambient Occlusion no longer sound like a progressive rock band - I can create Normal Maps, paint UV's, stitch them, model with some efficiency and understand how to then take these into Unity and really make them sing.

Having said that, there is HUGE room for improvement still. I need to improve my modelling workflow and get to grips with some of Maya's more intricate features that we have touched on. It is a programme all about confidence I've come to find. I certainly need to simplify my models - This deadline require a 60,000 triangle count. On a superficial level, my arena look pretty, but had I been more efficient with my triangle count when modelling, I could have added some extra areas to battle opponents in. Maybe a bridge or port. A Sci Fi tower looming in the distance. This will all come with experience and time. My columns alone take up a majority of the count.

Now it's time to recharge the batteries and get ready for the second half of the year. And take this bad boy to the next level!

3D Art: Sci Fi Door and Wagon

The final tutorials of the year and the perfect three classes to take my arena to that next level.

Now you'll notice that the actual Door isn't here - My environment didn't need the doors so I absorbed all I could from the tutorial and applied it to a number of various models in my level.

Quixel is a beautiful programme. It deserves some sort of sainthood or at least an OBE. It makes texturing far less stressful and comes up with wonderful textures that would take far too long to hand paint. Don't get me wrong, I've actually come to really enjoy painting textures, but when you can map out a mountain range that you never see close up, and just bake a wonderful texture for it in a matter of minutes....It's too good to pass up.

To use it on an object with more than one texture, you simply add different colours to the seperate elements of your model, bake some Albedo and AO in Turtle and take it into Quixel/Photoshop. From there it does a lot of the heavy lifting for you - Creating normal maps and STUNNING textures for your model.

Now having said that, it is a particularly erratic programme - Crashes are the norm and it dislikes groupings and any sort of history in your Maya models, so you have to remedy those issues first. I also had issues initially with the texture tiling incorrectly across the model, but this ended up being my fault and a simple fix.

This wagon is going straight into my Battle Arena! It looks so good, I just want to ride around in it.

Visual Design: Speed Painting

Today's session was about quickly judging composition and colour to efficiently and speedily lay block in value and form.


As I tend to be very heavy handed with detail far too quickly, this was actually quite the task. I occasionally had to resize and move different elements around to get the image closer to the reference. It really helped to greatly zoom out and block in colour before going too crazy with the details.

Visual Design: Skeleton

Below are some studies of key bone structures within the human body as well as a digitally painted front and back views with appropriate labelling.

It get's very easy to fall back on what YOU believe the human body looks like so it is always great to brush up on fundamentals every once in a while. I utilised what we had learnt in the painting for classes on the skeleton to keep it basic, yet defined:

Gameplay and Interactivity: Prototype Loop 2 and Level Design

Another prototype loop came and went. This time it got me thinking about level design. Even with ambient lighting that I assumed would guide the player, some still navigated the level in ways that I didn't necessarily want them to.


The stairs were too obviously lit and tempting to the player. I had to find a reason to keep the player upstairs a little longer, prolonging the experience and exploration. Especially if I wanted to hit the 2-3 minute mark.


I am already using subtitles to push along the narrative and the player. These could definitely be utilized to goad the player into staying upstairs a little longer. Ask them to look for fellow crew members or maybe a key....

A KEY!

A key. A combination of better ambient lighting and an actual gameplay element will steer the player into spending more time upstairs. You already need a Spacesuit equipped in order to exit the airlock and head to the safety bunker on the surface. If you need a key to open the door, that will definitely aid my cause.

Visual Design: Skeleton

Brushing up on the fundamentals is always HUGELY important. No matter how many years you work for, life drawing and anatomy studies are always worth refreshing on.


We were asked to make pencil studies of important bone structures and then paint a full body view of the skeletal structure and name the important joints and bones. This was pretty straightforward and I tried to apply the value class work we have done to the final skeleton painting.

Visual Design: Dynamic Form Using 4 Values

My work is often criticized for getting too complex to early and being overly complicated for the sake of being complicated.




This week we had to take the silhouette of a robot and using only 4 values, create a dynamic and solid looking character. This exercise in simplicity wasn't as difficult as I assumed it would have been. I just had to pick my marks more smartly and allow negative space to do the rest.


This is something I'm going to utilize in my initial concepts going forward as it really lays solid groundwork for strong concepts.

Gameplay and Interactivity: Overlapping

Just a quick blog post this time noticing a new issue with my modeling. That cool texture actually turned out to be overlapping vertices. This happens when model's get overlapped. I'm not entirely sure if I'll have the time to remodel these in time for the final hand in, but is yet another learning experience with Maya that will have to be considered when modeling in the future.

Visual Design: Tank

For this weeks assignment we had to create a tank using values in two point perspective, which is traditionally used when designing vehicles.




I wanted to create something that looked cobbled together but still functional. Rusty, yet futuristic.


I created a mood board full of clunky looking machinery from anime, gaming and toys. Ashley Wood is a comic artist who now creates toys professionally. They always have a cool aesthetic whilst looking chunky and practical. Combining this with an Ian McQue look was my aim.

Midway through drawing the final design I realized it would be difficult to figure out the correct lighting with such a complex series of shapes attached to the main vehicle. The legs and flags didn't help things at all. If I had chosen a less complex design, I would have been able to push the values further, which the task required of us.

All in all, it was an interesting exercise. I've learnt to not go totally over the top in the design stages, too early on. It really can hinder you when working out basic lighting.

3D Art: Terrain and Channels

This week we were taught how to texture models with materials made out of multiple different images.


Initially we had to create a UV map out of a plane in Maya and then open it up in Photoshop. We then used the tutors stock textures - Rock, grass and sand and manipulated them to look more unique. After this, we had to add a ShaderFX material to our Maya model and import the different images. We would then link them to the model in different colour channels to create a unique looking texture on the Plane.


My original texture ended up looking quite stretched and low resolution. It works as a place holder but in the long term I need to look for a higher quality solution...




*Update* 19th November:

Now that I have subsequently been introduced to Quixel, I created a far better looking texture for my terrain. This combined with my sculpted surfaces created a pretty cool look, far more along the lines I was going for. Yay Quixel!

Visual Design: Perspective in environment - Scifi Room

This week we were set the task of creating a typical science fiction room within 2 point perspective.

In the last session, we were introduced to Photoshops built in pen and ruler tools. They are very easy to work with and are excellent at setting up perspective grids to follow when designing architecture or tech. Anything really with inorganic lines to ground them.

First things first: Moodboard! I went for classic, utilitarian sci fi aesthetics. Alien and the Nostromo are HUGE influences on how I visualize science fiction environments.

I started off with a very loose sketch as to not be too precious with details. Using the grey wash I created some basic values to render colour from later on.

After sketching out a design I was happy with, I lined up the perspective rulers and began working in details. I wanted to keep the linework very basic and use colour to indicate the tone and atmosphere. In terms of line work, I decided to go with something a bit more comic based. I'm loving digital painting and will definitely tackle environments in that style later on down the line, but I just had the urge to go back to my roots for this project.

This was a fun exercise and I hadn't used rulers within Photoshop before so this was a very handy one. I usually use other applications for my perspective grids so it was great to go back to basics. If I was to do this again, I'd really go a step further with the colouring to really push the lighting and textures. It looks a little amateur compared to my other work - Next time, I'll definitely paint this from scratch to have it feel aesthetically closer to the rest of my work. The line work could also do with looking a little less hand drawn too. Live and learn!

Visual Design: Tentacles

This week's task involved creating a creature that features at least 6 tentacles in its design. It couldn't be in a non realistic style which suited me just fine.

I started off with these quick water colour studies to find features, colour schemes and shapes that I really loved. I tried to go for more variation this time trying to avoid my more typical bipedal designs. This is reflected in the mood board too.

After this, I opened up photoshop and drew a very gestural line drawing of my creature. I ended up with a lot of Giger influences throughout. The tentacles are actually a parasite that attaches itself to living creature and use its body to hunt for food on the deep sea floor. When the host body dies, it finds the next unfortunate victim.

As usual, I went for a silhouette before working in the values and colouring in Photoshop.

This one took a vast amount of time. I wanted the joints to look believable and put a lot of thought into the form and function of the parasite and its host. This is a piece I'm actually pretty proud of. Next time I'd consider pushing the limits with regards to the tentacle design. Really make them alien and violent looking.

Visual Design: Halloween

With this being the week of ghouls, we were given an excellent task. We have to take a texture set for a generic female 3d model and modify it in order to look more like a zombie.

It was the first time we had taken our visual design studies and utilised them in Maya. Painting textures for UV maps is something I never thought I'd enjoy but I really find value in it. Its definitely something to keep in mind.

I decided to use Nicholas Cage's expressive face as the base and took some gore cues from Two Face in The Dark Knight.

This ended up pretty creepy.

Gameplay and Interactivity: Prototype Loop 1

This week we had to playtest each others games in their current states and provide feedback. It was fascinating watching different classmates tackle the same game in totally different ways! Granted, there was no lighting to guide the way and no scripted elements in yet. Still, the feedback gained was invaluable and highlighted a number of bugs.

Killer Bug One

No matter what, everyone wanted to head straight into the airlocks. Due to a combination of size and mesh issues, the player would get trapped inside the mesh and be forced to restart the game. Obviously this is a huge gameplay issue as the airlocks are key to the narrative of the game and its never fun to find a game killing bug. It may be worth resizing these or rethinking how they are implemented in the game.

Bug Two

I realized far too late that Unity really dislikes planes and very thin polyshapes. Many of my objects lost their faces when playing the game and this created transparent walls and surfaces the player could just walk through. Another game breaking bug in some instances, as the player could get trapped or lost. And generally, aesthetically it was rubbish. This was easily fixed by duplicating the shape and turning it inside out. Still, the feedback gathered consisted a lot with mentioning this. It created a very 'Unfinished' look.

Positives

There were positives to come out of this prototype loop, that indicate I'm moving in the right direction. The art direction was mentioned in a positive light - there were quite a few comments stating that the level was immersive and created a certain feel. Others said that it seemed like an interesting environment to walk around in and explore. It's just a huge shame that many of the key elements caused game breaking bugs.

Reflections

All in all I'd call it a successful day. I had a few important bugs discovered and got some reassuring feedback in terms of art direction. The structure of the map needs changing for sure - A lot of players got tempted into areas that I wouldn't necessarily of liked them to head in to. Its also worth considering expanding the play area on to Mars' surface. This would give another unique visual experience to the player. A lot to think about and a lot to do.



3D Art: Mushroom

Another tutorial, another set of tools that I'd been dying to try out.

When you first get your hands on Maya, modelling inorganic shapes is easy. Shape, Bevel and hey presto! Something that looks like a television. However, trying to make something that is asymmetrical..another story. Add in texture stretching and you can be in for a long day.

This utilised the curve and sculpting tools - both INVALUABLE when it came down to my Arena. Terrain and mountains suddenly became possible. This tutorial also introduced us in more depth to UV tiling and stitching. Whilst daunting when your complex model appears to be in a million parts, it really does help when preparing a model with unique properties for texturing.

I learnt my lesson from the Barrel in week one and decided to not go too crazy with the shapes that made up the Mushroom. That helped a great deal with even distribution of the texture.

Whether or not I end up using these is a different story - I feel they could fit in to my arena, but I'm not sure if they'll serve the narrative. Either way, I'm pretty stoked with how they came out!