BA2b - (Project 2) Week 2 Summary

Post - Meet Up (7th March) Planning

Jobs and Roles for this Week:

This week we chose specific things to work on which we all considered the most important.

Jack (3D) - Rocks, Modular Building Assets

Billy (2D) - Level Layouts, Bracers, Staff / Crossbow

Nat (2D) - Trees, Plants, Vegetation and Rocks

Charlotte (Myself) (2D) - Terrain, Houses, Goblin Designs

Johan (Blueprints) - Polishing mechanics we have working, Learning SpeedTree

My Concept Art and Process:

1. Medieval Houses

One of my tasks for this week is to create a variety of medieval building concepts. I looked at houses for the medieval middle/upper class inhabitants as well as the lower class or 'peasants' (as they are commonly known as) at the time. In addition to this I have been taking inspiration from concept art, sketches, 3D models and real world references.

Conflicting Design Decisions

1. Real life vs. Fantasy

One of the biggest issues, especially with the peasant houses is how aesthetically the real world references look in comparison to a lot of concept art and 3D models. I want to try and stay as acurate to real world references as I can, however this doesn't really fit with the stylised painterly aesthetic for our game. Painterly looking games with hand painted assets are usually quite bright and colourful, whereas this isn't the case with these medieval houses.

Fantasy Inspiration

These concept art pieces were created by Blizzard for the Cataclysm expansion in World of Warcraft. I really love their approach to creating medieval styled buildings for the city of Gilneas, with sketches and greyscale paintings. Even though I feel like I am not as competent with sketching the way they do, I will incorporate this into my workflow in the future and give it a go for this project. I am also fond of their exaggerated shapes, for example the roofs and chimneys which fit perfectly for the painterly and stylised art direction for our game.

My Concepts:

Because Jack wants to work with modular assets for this project, one of the perfect subject areas for this would be through buildings. With this in mind, I wanted to create concept art which would have separate pieces that could fit together. I have iterated different window designs, cobblestone bases, as well as different wooden plank designs for the top half of the house.

I personally opted to draw the houses for this project because I haven't had much experience with drawing buildings at all and really want to become better at creating them.

Here are some colour iterations I have created from one of the houses in the first concept! I used the Photoshop Layering technique where I drew block colours over the top of the greyscale sketch and changed the layer type to 'Hard Light'.

Strengths:

- Visual Style: My artwork so far has been consistent in terms of the art style we want our game to look like, which is very painterly and Warcraft-esque.

- The Building itself and Research: I feel like my visual research into these medieval buildings has paid off and I have been able to replicate the style of a medieval house quite well. Weaknesses / Improvements:

- Process and Quicker Concepts: I'm still quite slow with churning out these designs and need to improve upon how quickly I can create something which looks like usable concept art for a 3D modeller.

- Perspective: Something I still struggle with is perspective and I plan on improving these fundamental skills during the summer as it's not something I can learn within a short space of time. The buildings don't look terribly wonky but they do in places which I will need to become more weary of in the future when concepting.

2. Cliff / Mountain Rocks

Johan wanted me to create a rockface texture for some of the mountains and cliffs, so I looked on Pintrest for inspiration as well as real-life reference.

Johan taught me how to create tileable textures using the offset tool in Photoshop, which allows you to see how the sides will look when placed next to each other. I'm really happy that I know this technique now and will definitely be using it in the future when creating textures like this!

This texture didn't make it into the final game because in the end there were no cliffs that would be visible within the environment, just foliage and trees instead. It was still a good learning curve and I'm happy that I now know the offset technique for texturing.

Strengths:

- Tileability: The seams aren't really visible when they're placed next to each other and I'm proud that I've been able to create a working tileable texture.

- Decision Making: Starting my texture again was the right thing to do and I was glad I did it instead of trying to edit the original one I did. Weaknesses / Improvements:

- Practicing Fundamentals: I feel like there is a lot I could improve on with my rock textures regarding fundamentals, so the colouring itself, the form of the rock and general hand painted quality. I will need to keep practicing rocks as the quality of them isn't as good as I currently want it to be.

3. Goblins

One of the other tasks I was set to do this week was create a few goblin designs.

We all liked the idea of having a voodoo-esque aesthetic to them after Billy showed us his crossbow designs, which looked very tribal and savage with the markings, feathers and bones.

My Concepts

Goblins

Strengths:

- Variation towards the end: The more heads I drew, the better I became at varying what the goblins looked like, especially playing with the overall head shapes. It was really fun and definitely something out of my concept zone as I'm not used to drawing creatures like this. Weaknesses / Improvements:

Design (?): As a group we really liked the last goblin in the third row, however we all concluded that he looked slightly too orcish to be classified as a goblin, and didn't want to confuse players with such an unfamiliar design.-

Group Decision Making

10th March - First Session Feedback

Jack was the only one who attended this as there was some slight miscommunication between what time we would be going in, as myself, Johan and Billy thought there was just a 1:30 session like last week. It wasn't mentioned in the group that we would be going to the early one as well as there being timetabling issues where the first session actually was; on my timetable it said Media Lab 3 whereas on Billy's it was apparently at Francis House. However we have learnt from this to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Crit from George, Stephen and Nigel (Written By Jack)

Need to either scrap the film idea, or implement it more. For example, before the player starts the level we see the stage being put together, boom mic in shot, old western style buildings with no back e.t.c.
Game feels too fantasy without having anything to do with the film/actor idea. I.E The Hobbit has a ton of CG and we are having it all in front of the actor.

Games to Look At:

The Shoot (PS3 Motion Game)
Yoostar 2 (Kinect Xbox 360 Game)
Spongebob Movie Game
Makers of Stanley Parables New Game

10th March - Second Session Feedback

For this session it was just myself, Johan and Billy.

Art Direction - Be careful with different concept art styles, as mine and Nats have been very stylised and Billy's more realistic. Stephen suggested maybe making the environments more realistic and the assets stylised, however we agreed that we preferred just the stylised look.

New Level Design Ideas - In the middle of the level the shield could break and you would have to use a sword. A fire could be chasing you and as you get to the top of the bridge you see angry goblins below.

Social Gatherings - Nigel suggested that if there are conflicts in ideas or discussion we should have a social gathering to keep the morale of the team happy. Which in turn could possibly help us produce even stronger work as the team will have bonded moreso.

11th March - Full Group Meeting

New Ideas Discussed:

- The director talks to the actor using a megaphone or walkie talkie

- At the begining of the level the player sees flames and smoke coming from their home town (as the hero starts in a forest)

- The players shield breaks halfway throughout the level (possibly on a bridge)

- Some bridge planks fall from a great height - dynamic

- Possibly an angry goblin below the bridge

- The player picks up a new prop/crossbow to fire at enemies (using the space bar)

Possible 2D Loading Screen at the Beginning of the Level

- Inside a trailer with a star on a door

- Directors Chair

- Goblin actor in a chair holding a cup of coffee with half his make-up on