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.