Week 20: Getting stuck in.

I had my first feedback with Mike and Craig earlier this week, I showed them the work I had done so far, (I'll post that below) They realised I want to peruse concept art as a career instead of 3D artist or environment artist.

Their feedback was so useful, I really felt like I was being treated like an adult and not a kid drawing stupid monsters. They had some fantastic ideas on how to advance my work and make it all gel together as a body of work for one theme, instead of lots of disjointed sketches and paintings.

As i'm working on my own they suggested that instead of a small 3D level that I instead create all the concept art for a game, as a real portfolio builder and a chance to create a large body of work over a long period of time.

Oh baby.

I didn't think I would get the chance to really specialize like this in this course until the third year, but Christmas came early! Its so exciting but at the same time pretty scary seeing as if I mess up or dont meet requirements for the weekly work load then the only person to blame is me.

I took a scatter gun approach this week, I just wanted to make art without focussing on just environments, just props ect.

Alice Concept. (With teacup armour.)

The idea here is to have some different armour sets that match and are suited to her environment, i.e: a mushroom forest armour and underground armour for the rabbit hole.

Prop ideas.

Caterpillar concept (Quite early though this one might need more development.)

Cheshire Cat.

I used a really efficient workflow for these concepts that involved photobashing and using colour balance layers like crazy, I might do a more in depth breakdown of some of the concepts next post.

I kind of broke away from the theme that I developed with the rabbits, eperimenting with a more absurd and as mike put it 'perverse' style.

Oh yeah I will be posting all the hi res concept art for this project on this sleek looking tumblr: http://joehurleywonderland.tumblr.com/

Thanks for reading! Lots more concept art to come in the following weeks.

Week 19: Alice in Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland is the theme for the OTM (Off the Map) project. I wasn't too excited at first as I've always thought that Alice in Wonderland has been done to death a bit, having had so many films and spin offs made of it. 

Just realised I'm already complaining about it. Its actually a really cool project theme, I know I will have a lot of fun with it.

Notice how I said I? That's cos I'm working alone on this project. Yep, all alone.

This is such a breath of fresh air for me being able to work on a project alone. I usually enjoy working in a group (to an extent), but the last group project really left a stale taste in my mouth. The thought of being my own boss for a few months and producing game content that I want to make just sounds like heaven. 

So yeah, I'm very thankful to be alone for this project. THANKS! 

I have listened to the audio book of Alice in Wonderland. (Alice in Wonderland now being a public domain it was just on YouTube.) This was really just to remind me of the story and characters available in the book, but to be honest I really didn't like it very much, I found it quite boring and the structure felt a little all over the place.

 I can't even write a blog post properly though so I cant really chat.

So far I'm trying not to jump straight into the concept art for this project and to spend longer on the research and development area of the project. Me being me though this obviously didn't work, so I did some concepts for male rabbit builders in hot pants. 

(Shout out to Robin Doody for helping with the design for the rabbits.)

I think this angle, although really fun, might not be a great way to approach the rest of the story outside just the rabbit hole part. I don't want to limit myself too early on.

I've got a meeting with my mentors next week, will be great to get some feedback on my ideas so far. I'm excited! 

Week 18: Container city is DONE!

Oh my god I didn't think I was gonna make it.

This last week has been tough.

All day every day has been spent grinding away on our level,final touches, fixing things that are intent on staying broken and dealing with a lack of sleep. Here are the final screenshots of some parts I was responsible for in the level.

I didn't do the container shop in the background but the foreground parts I mapped out in engine and textured/lit them. I had to make sure that parts of the level where the player wasn't meant to go were not distracting, but also interesting to look at.

Leading the player in with lines was something I tried to incorporate into this part of the level. People's eyes naturally follow lines, so to guide them through the level towards the exit I placed wires around the level. 

I think it was quite effective in the end and worked when we test played the level. 

With the lighting in my shop I tried to make it mirror my original concept for the aromatherapy shop as closely I could, while still adhering to the limitations that arose with our group project. Really red and really dingy was what I went for in the end. I think it should be slightly brighter than it is in the final level but we kind of ran out of time.

As well as leading the player around with wires on the floor, here we tried to use light to lead them through the shop into the final area of the level. We got the idea from one of the skyrim developer videos where they mention that they used water to act as a guide for people if theyre lost in a dungeon or cave.

We are really happy with how it came out as a whole, there are always things you want to change and make better but time really didn't permit us to indulge in this. If I had to re-do the project, I one thing I would have to change is to choose a group early, rather than being stuck with people I don't work well with, but I can't complain its not been that bad.

Just had a heart crushing moment though, I thought I was completely finished with the project, about to go home and have a lovey shower, and I now have to write the asset list for everything in scene. 

RIP me.

Week 17: Containers, more containers

Nearly finished, next week will be a review of how the project went. We have been importing all our models and textures into engine this week and are pretty much finished now. To be honest its been pretty painless, the only annoying thing about this project has been one team member in particular.

I really don't like to talk about people behind their backs but this person has just been horrible to work with from the start.

He's been very rude and demeaning towards myself and another team mate and constantly seems to pat himself on the back about all the work he's (we've) done.

Really put a downer on this project having to work with someone that doesn't work well in a team and clearly needs an ego check.

ANYWAY, enough being angry with team members. Here is some early screenshots of my shop area of the level. I populated this area and added general props and misc items around the level to make it look more inhabited.

Took longer than I thought adding bin bags and pipes everywhere.

Textures will be added after we have everything in scene, this gives us the chance to have a good feel of what it looks like before we start tweaking roughness maps and all that malarkey. Looks pretty good so far, but its far from over.

The shop

Crate interior

So when the textures are in we need to:

- Add blueprints to exit/enter level.

- Re-do lighting.

- Curl into a ball and cry

- Add sound effects and cool stuff like rain.

It sounds like a little, but if I have learnt anything from this project its that things always take longer than you originally think they will. Always. At least with game art.

Week 16: More Container City

Week 16 went so quickly, I’m not if that’s because there is so much work or because I’m having fun. (probably the first one.) Our feedback on Thursday was as I expected, “TOO AMBITIOUS”. So we are going to crop our level, and just focus on the market area. I don’t really like the concept we are working from but I’ll just grin and bear it, we need to get going now anyway there isn’t time to redesign stuff.

Neon lights and Chinese new year is the aesthetic we are going for in our level. 

PBR (which i am still baffled by somehow) is going to look great on some assets like the wet cobblestones and electrical wires.

Now we are going to each be responsible for a number of things in the level. We will each have our own shop in the market place and a general handful of useful props each to model and texture. This sounds relatively straight forward but organizing 4 people’s work into strict texture budgets is very frustrating and to be honest very boring.

(When you’re spending more time looking at spread sheets than drawing and modelling, you start to feel like you’re on the wrong path.)

I know its definitely worth while though, if we don’t organize now I don’t know what we will be doing when the deadline is approaching.

Anyway I understand complaining isn’t fun to read about so here’s my concept for the ‘aromatherapy’ shop I’m in charge of. Ive look a lot at Chinese shops and herbal medicine shops for reference. We really want the neon lighting to be dominant in the level.

"Mum trust me this is gonna get me a job."

Aromatherapy shop concept.

Im modelling like a mad man right now, trying to create a bunch of props to populate the level with, we want a lot of detail in the level as you explore it, little pipes, debris and crates all add up to make the environment more interesting.

So many props. This isn’t even half of them.

Week 15: Container City

 Already missing the holidays, and having a group project first thing back isn’t really what I wanted. We got given the brief and everyone already seemed to have groups. Anxiety kicked in and I was already panicking about not having a group to work with. Great start back!

Luckily I found a group that needed one extra member, so our group is now 4 people. We started brainstorming ideas together asap.

This stage of a project is one of my favourites as you can really have a lot of fun thinking in every possible way the project could go. Keeping this stage relatively short (2-3 days) means it is inexpensive for time but is really worth every moment, as a well planned and thought out idea saves you countless headaches in the future.

We thought we could make better use of modular assets if our whole level was on a smaller scale than our original ideas. This would also mean our level would be more compact, but the textures and models would be of higher quality.

At the momment we are planning to o a level with different stages, a shady interior part, a market scene and finally, a small private club area to finish. I think this is way too ambitious but due some pushy team members we are going to wait until the feedback from our presentation next week to decide.

I tried some quick blockouts of my part of the level which was to be a few shady corridors where the player starts out and I did some concepts for potential containers. So far my area is all inside so I am making sure I make good use of artificial lighting. So far the dystopian feel is definitely prominent.

Initial ideas for some dodgy container contents.

3D blockout for a brothel/hotel concept, still a WIP

Concepting these I used a 3D base of the inside of some container shaped boxes (I had to change the render options in max to let me render the inside faces of planes.) This just meant I could focus on colours, props and ideas, instead of spending valuable time planning out perspective grids. We have a presentation next week, not sure what we’ll be showing for that but I’ll write about that next week!

Week 11: Why didn't I do it better?

Not completely sure what to do this post about with the character project done so I’ll just reflect and show off the other character stuff I've been up to.

I’m not very happy with the way my character turned out. I don’t really think I spend long enough on the texturing and I am kind of regretting only using a 1024x1024 texture sheet, some extra details and better res texture would have been nice.

I could have also done with a kind of recap on rigging as being able to pose my character would have been a nice touch. Alas. I definitely learnt a lot about modelling with this project, especially on more practical and cleaner ways of low poly modelling.

Time management is probably where I fail the most, I am so bad at motivating myself to start something I don’t want to do (Especially with blogs.).

 I always tell myself “Yeah do your blog in a bit, just do some more drawing first” or the classic “You just need a coffee, go get a coffee first.” The reason I feel that I often under perform on the 3D side of the course is because of putting drawing and 2D stuff before 3D, whatever the 2D is.

I know it’s bad but my favourite way to spend my time is staying up until 5am or 6am painting and drawing, (working on stuff unrelated to the course.) I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to change that though its just too fun.

Anyway, I decided to do some more work on the character project in my spare time this week, working on some concepts for environments/in game mock-ups.

3D Paint overs like these are a great way to churn out concepts for environments with tricky perspective elements present in them. I didn't actually use 3D for the sand one which lead to loads of trouble along the way. 

(Actually I did use 3D for that one but only a small render of the character to have him the same proportions as the other image.)

Haven’t finished these quick ideas for the skeleton enemies yet but I will throw them in too. See this is what I mean I’m not going to get graded for this stuff but I spend way more time on it than my actual coursework. 

There is another image I did of some of his abilities but I can't find it. 

(Down to poor file organisation.)