Friday 11 December 2015
Thursday 10 December 2015
Management evidence and evaluation, Organisation, positives and negatives of product, action plan for self improvement (1000 words)
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
Throughout the style matrix project I chose to specialise exclusively in doing 2d character concepts, I did all three character concept briefs within each of the three style guides. The reason I chose to do this is simply because character design and concepting is something that I have always enjoyed, and is something I wish to pursue and specialise in further alongside improving my drawing ability and draftsmanship. I also saw these projects as an opportunity to learn and prepare for my final major project, which I had already decided was going to be heavily character oriented. Doing these projects allowed me to pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to consider most when tackling my FMP.
I generally started each of the three projects in the same way, by first doing some kind of research, whether in the form of collecting reference material or looking to existing artists and concepts for inspiration. After that, I began concepting initial ideas by doing quick sketches and plenty of thumbnails to work up from. Along the way I would implement reference as I saw fit. I would also look at the way other artists had used design language to communicate an idea in order to understand how or why something worked or didn't work and to see how I could put similar design tools and theories into practice within my own work. I found that this was an effective way to gage the level of my own work and concepts and be analytical, however sometimes resulted in work that looked more derivative than original.
For the most part, I was fairly pleased with the final outcomes of each of the three projects. However, after reflecting on the work I can see a lot of room for improvement, both in terms of actual idea and technical execution. One the main areas for improvement that I could see which was also picked up on by other people, was giving more time to the development and generating of ideas earlier on. During the style matrix projects I often stuck closely to an initial idea, without giving myself room for play or experimentation. This was mainly due to the relatively short time span of each project, however doing this only hindered potentially better ideas from growing. Before starting my FMP, I am going to take into account the amount of time I need to allow myself for experimentation and development of an actual range of ideas in order to give myself a lot of material to work with early on. Likewise, something else I need to consider when creating characters for my FMP is how long it is going to take me to produce a ‘finalized’ outcome, as well the level of finish I am aiming for with the fully realized concepts. This is very important as it is a determining factor in how many characters I should aim to produce in the given time.
When producing my final outcomes I constantly thought about how I could achieve a finished look in the most efficient way, that also fit the style guide. I needed to develop a reliable method or approach that I could use when creating a finished character. Having a specific method to painting characters in each project definitely helped to keep the characters styles consistent. For example, in the highly stylised Nano pirate project I used flat colours with single shadows to achieve a cartoonish look. For the most part however, the success of a character design was not determined by the method or style but in the actual application of fundamentals and design ideas. In the heavily armoured character project for example, it was very important that the character looked realistic, and I achieved this by using more realistic proportions, anatomy and poses in I comparison to the stylized nano pirates project.
I thought one of the main positives of my final outcomes in the three projects were the characters themselves. I was able to put solid understanding of anatomy, gesture and shape into practice, to create characters that were convincing and conveyed some sense of actual character through posture or body language. I also made an effort to try and create different and interesting value structures, looking at ways to use a range of values within my characters.
In the case of one project that required twelve characters I reached a point where some of the designs started to echo each other and look too similar. Most of the twelve characters in my nano pirates project had very solid shapes that made them distinct from all the rest, however several of them recycled similar design language and could easily be taken as a different or weaker iteration of the same character. This is very important to consider as I plan to design at least fifteen characters for my FMP . If all my characters are all going to be executed in the same style I will have to think of ways to make each character unique and distinctive, through not just shape but also colour, gender, archetype or ethnicity etc.
In summary, the key thing I have taken away from the style matrix projects is the importance of allowing time for development of ideas, and allowing time to fail and experiment early on. Doing so does not only help narrow down a successful design but also gives me a lot more material to work with later on. Generating concepts is as much about finding out what you aren't looking for as what you are looking for. Something else I have learned is that while it won't improve your design any further, it is a good idea to develop a solid and reliable method to stick to when executing the final concepts. Doing so helps your concepts to remain consistent with each other and within the style guide. When beginning my FMP I plan to use a calendar to allocate time periods for each stage of the project, beginning with initial research, concepting and exploration, and then allocating individual time slots for each unique character to be realized and ready for presentation. I will also have to allocate time for putting the work together as a book, poster or development diary, ready to be printed and presented as a final outcome.
P13202443
Throughout the style matrix project I chose to specialise exclusively in doing 2d character concepts, I did all three character concept briefs within each of the three style guides. The reason I chose to do this is simply because character design and concepting is something that I have always enjoyed, and is something I wish to pursue and specialise in further alongside improving my drawing ability and draftsmanship. I also saw these projects as an opportunity to learn and prepare for my final major project, which I had already decided was going to be heavily character oriented. Doing these projects allowed me to pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses and what I need to consider most when tackling my FMP.
I generally started each of the three projects in the same way, by first doing some kind of research, whether in the form of collecting reference material or looking to existing artists and concepts for inspiration. After that, I began concepting initial ideas by doing quick sketches and plenty of thumbnails to work up from. Along the way I would implement reference as I saw fit. I would also look at the way other artists had used design language to communicate an idea in order to understand how or why something worked or didn't work and to see how I could put similar design tools and theories into practice within my own work. I found that this was an effective way to gage the level of my own work and concepts and be analytical, however sometimes resulted in work that looked more derivative than original.
For the most part, I was fairly pleased with the final outcomes of each of the three projects. However, after reflecting on the work I can see a lot of room for improvement, both in terms of actual idea and technical execution. One the main areas for improvement that I could see which was also picked up on by other people, was giving more time to the development and generating of ideas earlier on. During the style matrix projects I often stuck closely to an initial idea, without giving myself room for play or experimentation. This was mainly due to the relatively short time span of each project, however doing this only hindered potentially better ideas from growing. Before starting my FMP, I am going to take into account the amount of time I need to allow myself for experimentation and development of an actual range of ideas in order to give myself a lot of material to work with early on. Likewise, something else I need to consider when creating characters for my FMP is how long it is going to take me to produce a ‘finalized’ outcome, as well the level of finish I am aiming for with the fully realized concepts. This is very important as it is a determining factor in how many characters I should aim to produce in the given time.
When producing my final outcomes I constantly thought about how I could achieve a finished look in the most efficient way, that also fit the style guide. I needed to develop a reliable method or approach that I could use when creating a finished character. Having a specific method to painting characters in each project definitely helped to keep the characters styles consistent. For example, in the highly stylised Nano pirate project I used flat colours with single shadows to achieve a cartoonish look. For the most part however, the success of a character design was not determined by the method or style but in the actual application of fundamentals and design ideas. In the heavily armoured character project for example, it was very important that the character looked realistic, and I achieved this by using more realistic proportions, anatomy and poses in I comparison to the stylized nano pirates project.
I thought one of the main positives of my final outcomes in the three projects were the characters themselves. I was able to put solid understanding of anatomy, gesture and shape into practice, to create characters that were convincing and conveyed some sense of actual character through posture or body language. I also made an effort to try and create different and interesting value structures, looking at ways to use a range of values within my characters.
In the case of one project that required twelve characters I reached a point where some of the designs started to echo each other and look too similar. Most of the twelve characters in my nano pirates project had very solid shapes that made them distinct from all the rest, however several of them recycled similar design language and could easily be taken as a different or weaker iteration of the same character. This is very important to consider as I plan to design at least fifteen characters for my FMP . If all my characters are all going to be executed in the same style I will have to think of ways to make each character unique and distinctive, through not just shape but also colour, gender, archetype or ethnicity etc.
In summary, the key thing I have taken away from the style matrix projects is the importance of allowing time for development of ideas, and allowing time to fail and experiment early on. Doing so does not only help narrow down a successful design but also gives me a lot more material to work with later on. Generating concepts is as much about finding out what you aren't looking for as what you are looking for. Something else I have learned is that while it won't improve your design any further, it is a good idea to develop a solid and reliable method to stick to when executing the final concepts. Doing so helps your concepts to remain consistent with each other and within the style guide. When beginning my FMP I plan to use a calendar to allocate time periods for each stage of the project, beginning with initial research, concepting and exploration, and then allocating individual time slots for each unique character to be realized and ready for presentation. I will also have to allocate time for putting the work together as a book, poster or development diary, ready to be printed and presented as a final outcome.
Friday 4 December 2015
Nano Pirates - HAND IN -
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Nano Pirates
For this project, the brief tasked me to design 12 miniature pirate characters based around the idea of the burrowers; small people that live in and around the house.
For me, having to create 12 unique character designs in a three week period proved to be a difficult task. This was mainly because I had to spend a lot of time thinking about overall design and shape language, having each character be unique from one another yet still be a part of a cohesive whole. I started out by creating a collection of initial thumbnails to work from. I worked these up one by one, sketching rough linework over the top. As I progressed through the project I would constantly go back and revisit the concepts. In order to sell the idea that they were small I tried to give visual queues in the form of small household items that they could improvise as tools or weapons. Their clothing is patched together from scraps or found fabric.
I kept in mind that this project had to be highly stylised. This helped a lot when trying to create visual contrast between the characters. I used a lot of contrasting shapes within the characters designs, thinking about primitive shapes as a basis such triangles, squares and circles. I used a lot of thin to thick design language in the characters anatomy and clothing, placing emphasis on areas where a characters body transitioned from thin to thick such as at the joints and pivotal areas of the body. When it came to colour, I used very simple block colours with a clipping mask over the top to block in shadows. This gives a solid shadow and is an effective way to quickly imply lighting and volume.
In hindsight 12 characters over three weeks doesn't sound like a lot of work, however the hardest part of this project by far was trying to come up with solid character designs that used good shapes and were each distinguishable from each other. I spent a lot of time struggling with trying to make the characters unique in some way. Having the characters be highly stylised definitely helped to push that contrast. I would definitely have liked to have invested more time to exploring and generating more ideas as opposed to sticking firmly to initial concepts.
elow are the characters again with some slight revisions made during week 10
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Nano Pirates
For this project, the brief tasked me to design 12 miniature pirate characters based around the idea of the burrowers; small people that live in and around the house.
For me, having to create 12 unique character designs in a three week period proved to be a difficult task. This was mainly because I had to spend a lot of time thinking about overall design and shape language, having each character be unique from one another yet still be a part of a cohesive whole. I started out by creating a collection of initial thumbnails to work from. I worked these up one by one, sketching rough linework over the top. As I progressed through the project I would constantly go back and revisit the concepts. In order to sell the idea that they were small I tried to give visual queues in the form of small household items that they could improvise as tools or weapons. Their clothing is patched together from scraps or found fabric.
I kept in mind that this project had to be highly stylised. This helped a lot when trying to create visual contrast between the characters. I used a lot of contrasting shapes within the characters designs, thinking about primitive shapes as a basis such triangles, squares and circles. I used a lot of thin to thick design language in the characters anatomy and clothing, placing emphasis on areas where a characters body transitioned from thin to thick such as at the joints and pivotal areas of the body. When it came to colour, I used very simple block colours with a clipping mask over the top to block in shadows. This gives a solid shadow and is an effective way to quickly imply lighting and volume.
In hindsight 12 characters over three weeks doesn't sound like a lot of work, however the hardest part of this project by far was trying to come up with solid character designs that used good shapes and were each distinguishable from each other. I spent a lot of time struggling with trying to make the characters unique in some way. Having the characters be highly stylised definitely helped to push that contrast. I would definitely have liked to have invested more time to exploring and generating more ideas as opposed to sticking firmly to initial concepts.
elow are the characters again with some slight revisions made during week 10
Friday 13 November 2015
Armoured Character project - HAND IN -
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project Title: Armoured Character
For this project we were given a very open brief of having to design an armoured hero character for future IP development. The character could exist in any kind of genre/universe, however the only constraint was that the character be realistic.
Because the brief was so open to interpretation I needed some kind of a starting point. I decided very early on to narrow down exactly what I was going to do, and chose to pursue a concept that was more specific but true to the brief. I went with the idea of designing a female armoured character that had to exist in a sci-fi universe. When I started to collect reference I looked at a lot of existing IP's with the same idea for inspiration, such as Metroid, Halo and FemShep from Mass Effect.
With an idea narrowed down, I began creating quick silhouette concepts, followed by some slightly more refined value sketches. I imagined a character with several sets of armour, from light to heavy, I wanted to create a character that had a slim lower-profile suit and and much heavier bulkier armour. As I was sketching the characters one of my key goals was to have the character be obviously female, while also being fully armoured head to toe. For this reason, body language and posture was important in conveying the sex of the character.
Once I had spent some time creating the thumbs I decided to try and work up some more refined concepts in line and colour. I worked indirectly from the thumbs I had created, however I realized at this point I was having some issues. A lot of what made the initial thumbnails successful in the first place was lost when creating these more refined concepts. No amount of polish or rendering was going to help, so I decided to step back and analyse what was holding me back from pulling off a successfully more refined concept. I tried various other approaches such as going directly into painting over the top of the thumbnail, however this also resulted in something that looked very uncertain. I decided that I needed to work up from the thumbnails more directly.
When creating the final concepts, I enlarged the thumbnails I had chosen and worked them up directly from that, using the thumbnail as a basis for creating tight line work. Doing this helped me retain the successful elements of the thumbnail, and resulted in some much better concepts than the earlier iterations. Something else that also challenged me when creating this character was the fact that I was creating more hard-surface oriented armour designs . Hard surface is something I struggle with as I am very accustomed to drawing fantasy oriented characters with more organic shapes. It helped to use tight line work over the thumbnail in order to create solid looking armour.
To conclude, despite having some issues in trying to create solid looking designs midway through the project I am fairly pleased with how my final designs turned out. I wanted a female character with practical full body armour, that looked sci fi and slightly exaggerated while still remaining somewhat feasible, and I think I came pretty close to attaining just that. In pertaining to realism, the main things I thought about were ensuring that the characters proportion and anatomy weren't overly stylized, and also looking at the practicality of the armour, making sure that it could articulate and that the character would have a convenient range of motion while also being protected. Given more time I would have liked to push these designs further and explored the thumbnails more, I would also have liked to go into more detail with the armour, giving more indicators of material definition and decals to represent and allegiance/faction that the character can be associated with. Similar to the previous project, what I took away most from this project was design, being able to analyse a concept and evaluate what does or doesn't work and why. Going through a few frustrations of not being able to create a successful concept forced me to step back and evaluate what it was in particular that wasn't working, which in turn aided me towards more successful designs.
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project Title: Armoured Character
For this project we were given a very open brief of having to design an armoured hero character for future IP development. The character could exist in any kind of genre/universe, however the only constraint was that the character be realistic.
Because the brief was so open to interpretation I needed some kind of a starting point. I decided very early on to narrow down exactly what I was going to do, and chose to pursue a concept that was more specific but true to the brief. I went with the idea of designing a female armoured character that had to exist in a sci-fi universe. When I started to collect reference I looked at a lot of existing IP's with the same idea for inspiration, such as Metroid, Halo and FemShep from Mass Effect.
With an idea narrowed down, I began creating quick silhouette concepts, followed by some slightly more refined value sketches. I imagined a character with several sets of armour, from light to heavy, I wanted to create a character that had a slim lower-profile suit and and much heavier bulkier armour. As I was sketching the characters one of my key goals was to have the character be obviously female, while also being fully armoured head to toe. For this reason, body language and posture was important in conveying the sex of the character.
Once I had spent some time creating the thumbs I decided to try and work up some more refined concepts in line and colour. I worked indirectly from the thumbs I had created, however I realized at this point I was having some issues. A lot of what made the initial thumbnails successful in the first place was lost when creating these more refined concepts. No amount of polish or rendering was going to help, so I decided to step back and analyse what was holding me back from pulling off a successfully more refined concept. I tried various other approaches such as going directly into painting over the top of the thumbnail, however this also resulted in something that looked very uncertain. I decided that I needed to work up from the thumbnails more directly.
When creating the final concepts, I enlarged the thumbnails I had chosen and worked them up directly from that, using the thumbnail as a basis for creating tight line work. Doing this helped me retain the successful elements of the thumbnail, and resulted in some much better concepts than the earlier iterations. Something else that also challenged me when creating this character was the fact that I was creating more hard-surface oriented armour designs . Hard surface is something I struggle with as I am very accustomed to drawing fantasy oriented characters with more organic shapes. It helped to use tight line work over the thumbnail in order to create solid looking armour.
To conclude, despite having some issues in trying to create solid looking designs midway through the project I am fairly pleased with how my final designs turned out. I wanted a female character with practical full body armour, that looked sci fi and slightly exaggerated while still remaining somewhat feasible, and I think I came pretty close to attaining just that. In pertaining to realism, the main things I thought about were ensuring that the characters proportion and anatomy weren't overly stylized, and also looking at the practicality of the armour, making sure that it could articulate and that the character would have a convenient range of motion while also being protected. Given more time I would have liked to push these designs further and explored the thumbnails more, I would also have liked to go into more detail with the armour, giving more indicators of material definition and decals to represent and allegiance/faction that the character can be associated with. Similar to the previous project, what I took away most from this project was design, being able to analyse a concept and evaluate what does or doesn't work and why. Going through a few frustrations of not being able to create a successful concept forced me to step back and evaluate what it was in particular that wasn't working, which in turn aided me towards more successful designs.
Friday 23 October 2015
Viking Character project - HAND IN
Leyendecker Vikings - HAND IN
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Leyendecker Vikings
The goal of this project was to design a selection of semi stylized Viking characters that had to be somewhat influenced by the work of 1900's American Illustrator J.C Leyendecker. The main character is described as a "sprightly young girl" however the rest were up to me.
As this project had to be "semi stylized" I felt I had a lot of leeway, as semi stylized can refer to and incredibly wide variety of styles. In a similar vein to Leyendecker, I tried to keep my characters looking fairly whimsical while still grounded in reality and believable to look at.
I spent a lot of time browsing pinterest for some basic reference and things that interested me, and collected a few Leyendecker pieces that I thought were a good representation of his typical aesthetic
Leyendecker Illustrated contemporary american life throughout early 1900's America, this is far from the subject of Vikings, so I knew the main thing to look for and take influence from was his colour palette, mark making and overall Aesthetic.
I started out by concepting the sprightly young girl, as I knew this would be the hardest by far. I created a few rough silhouettes, which I took forward as value paintings to see which worked best and why. At first I wasn't happy with the way this character was turning out. A lot of the concepts showed lack of character, or had a slightly uncanny appearance. I worked through the concept further until I arrived at something I was satisfied with. At this stage I wasn't as preoccupied with the Leyendecker side as much as trying to get a good design down first.
At one stage throughout trying to design the character I thought about what it would be like to have the young girl somewhat older, and in doing so I ended up with another character entirely:
I also made a point to try and convey some kind of personality and actual character within my characters through the way that they were posed while still highlighting the main qualities of the design/silhouettes.
Some of the more simple characters were more easily concepted in one shot:
At some point I had to design some kind of a villain/enemy. I imagined a very typical horned helm viking, or a more brutish warrior/raider. In the end I went with a character who looked more akin to a mercenary or warrior, in contrast to the other characters who so far had been villagers and workers.
I created a couple of concepts for a sage/wizard like character too, before creating a character line up. I worked on a lot of my characters besides each other as means to try and create variety in scale and shape/silhouette.
Up until now I had only been taking influence from Leyendecker in terms of how he used a lot of straight edges and angles along the silhouette and outline of his characters. I chose three characters to render up as "final" images. Here, I started to look at more of Leyendeckers aesthetics, such as the well known hatched brush strokes and subtle variation in edges. I also took note of his colour palette which uses a lot of neutrals and warm colours.
I established a basic palette using flat colours beneath the line work first, and then a basic shadow multiply layer over the top using a single colour. After that, I rendered over the top of each character trying to achieve some mark making reminiscent of that Leyendecker might use. I wanted the far left and far right characters to have a cool/warm contrast, as conveyed with the skin tones and red beard/blue loin cloth, as well as some shape contrast; the centre character links the two using elements from both of the others.
In conclusion, I am fairly pleased with how my final paintings turned out, however I believe a few of my initial value paintings were somewhat stronger that the ones represented in the final image. I also wish I could've spent more time refining the final character paintings, particularly the stocky blacksmith who underwent a large transition from the initial concept. Trying to find a design for the young girl was particularly tricky, as I had never drawn a child character before. There are a lot of subtleties in the form that I struggled to achieve however I hope that I could properly represent her demeanour and personality with her body language. I also feel that my characters don't do a good job of imitating or representing Leyendeckers aesthetic as well as they could. The Leyendecker influence isn't in anyway obvious, unless pointed out. A lot of this is simply down to my fundamental knowledge and skill.
If I were to have more time on this project, I would probably go back and spend more time developing several of the characters further until I could find more solid designs that resonated with everybody. I also felt I should have taken the opportunity to show some kind of narrative or world building, perhaps a way to tie the characters together more. Overall, I think I learned a great deal about my own work flow, and how to take paintings beyond the initial concept phase.
Joseph Shaw
P13202443
P13202443@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
Project title: Leyendecker Vikings
The goal of this project was to design a selection of semi stylized Viking characters that had to be somewhat influenced by the work of 1900's American Illustrator J.C Leyendecker. The main character is described as a "sprightly young girl" however the rest were up to me.
As this project had to be "semi stylized" I felt I had a lot of leeway, as semi stylized can refer to and incredibly wide variety of styles. In a similar vein to Leyendecker, I tried to keep my characters looking fairly whimsical while still grounded in reality and believable to look at.
I spent a lot of time browsing pinterest for some basic reference and things that interested me, and collected a few Leyendecker pieces that I thought were a good representation of his typical aesthetic
Leyendecker Illustrated contemporary american life throughout early 1900's America, this is far from the subject of Vikings, so I knew the main thing to look for and take influence from was his colour palette, mark making and overall Aesthetic.
I started out by concepting the sprightly young girl, as I knew this would be the hardest by far. I created a few rough silhouettes, which I took forward as value paintings to see which worked best and why. At first I wasn't happy with the way this character was turning out. A lot of the concepts showed lack of character, or had a slightly uncanny appearance. I worked through the concept further until I arrived at something I was satisfied with. At this stage I wasn't as preoccupied with the Leyendecker side as much as trying to get a good design down first.
At one stage throughout trying to design the character I thought about what it would be like to have the young girl somewhat older, and in doing so I ended up with another character entirely:
I also made a point to try and convey some kind of personality and actual character within my characters through the way that they were posed while still highlighting the main qualities of the design/silhouettes.
Some of the more simple characters were more easily concepted in one shot:
At some point I had to design some kind of a villain/enemy. I imagined a very typical horned helm viking, or a more brutish warrior/raider. In the end I went with a character who looked more akin to a mercenary or warrior, in contrast to the other characters who so far had been villagers and workers.
I created a couple of concepts for a sage/wizard like character too, before creating a character line up. I worked on a lot of my characters besides each other as means to try and create variety in scale and shape/silhouette.
Up until now I had only been taking influence from Leyendecker in terms of how he used a lot of straight edges and angles along the silhouette and outline of his characters. I chose three characters to render up as "final" images. Here, I started to look at more of Leyendeckers aesthetics, such as the well known hatched brush strokes and subtle variation in edges. I also took note of his colour palette which uses a lot of neutrals and warm colours.
I established a basic palette using flat colours beneath the line work first, and then a basic shadow multiply layer over the top using a single colour. After that, I rendered over the top of each character trying to achieve some mark making reminiscent of that Leyendecker might use. I wanted the far left and far right characters to have a cool/warm contrast, as conveyed with the skin tones and red beard/blue loin cloth, as well as some shape contrast; the centre character links the two using elements from both of the others.
In conclusion, I am fairly pleased with how my final paintings turned out, however I believe a few of my initial value paintings were somewhat stronger that the ones represented in the final image. I also wish I could've spent more time refining the final character paintings, particularly the stocky blacksmith who underwent a large transition from the initial concept. Trying to find a design for the young girl was particularly tricky, as I had never drawn a child character before. There are a lot of subtleties in the form that I struggled to achieve however I hope that I could properly represent her demeanour and personality with her body language. I also feel that my characters don't do a good job of imitating or representing Leyendeckers aesthetic as well as they could. The Leyendecker influence isn't in anyway obvious, unless pointed out. A lot of this is simply down to my fundamental knowledge and skill.
If I were to have more time on this project, I would probably go back and spend more time developing several of the characters further until I could find more solid designs that resonated with everybody. I also felt I should have taken the opportunity to show some kind of narrative or world building, perhaps a way to tie the characters together more. Overall, I think I learned a great deal about my own work flow, and how to take paintings beyond the initial concept phase.
Tuesday 12 May 2015
Off the Map post mortem
The last project of our second year was the Off the Map: Alice's Adventures contest hosted by Game City and the British Library. This was a twelve week long group project, with a very open brief. We had to create an entire working game level based upon Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.
What worked well in our project?
While I didn't directly contribute to this aspect of the project, we had a number of simple puzzle rooms that played out nicely. These added purpose and game play to our level, and doing each puzzle unlocked the door to a final room that ended the level.
There were a few areas in our level that visually turned out to be very nice by the end. One example was the main lobby area. The lighting was well done and complemented a number of well executed assets.
What didn't go so well?
Here's the big part, if I'm honest, there's definitely a lot more that didn't go quite as smoothly with this project. A large part of this I think was due the relatively longer amount of time we had on the project, and our failure to manage our time effectively and plan the project in structured stages.
There were a lot of bad decisions made early on in the project that lead to more problems down the line. An example of this was the art direction; I felt that we failed to decide upon a single coherent art style early on. Even later in the project there were a lot of changes and questions as to what we were even trying to achieve in terms of the art style.
Our level was also initially very large in scope and fairly ambitious. By the time we had a reviews two weeks before the end of the project we had to cut quite a lot of content and shorten the level. I think if we had made the scope of the project smaller it would have been easier to manage and would also have allowed us more time to invest into the overall visual quality.
What did I learn on this project?
For me this project turned out to be a gross example of just how much I overestimate the amount of work I can actually get done in a given time. With shorter projects, I feel that I can handle my time much more effectively, and I am solely focused on that project for the short duration. My focus peaked and wavered throughout this project, and I struggled to take things one at a time. This project has certainly given me more incentive to learn to structure any longer projects I do in future. This will be an invaluable lesson when it comes to my fmp.
Balancing quality and quantity was a large part of this project. Throughout the whole project, I wanted to give undivided attention to each individual asset, making it look the best that I could. Often, I felt under a lot of pressure to try and get an asset done as quickly as possible, but I also wanted them to at least look good within the level. However, having an asset look good doesn't necessarily mean it has to take forever. I want to look into different texturing work flows, and find ways to increase my speed when texturing and modeling. As with anything in Art, you can potentially work on something forever.
In all honesty, I think I learned more about my own working habits and management skills than I did about any technical skills. Despite having 12 weeks on the project it certainly didn't feel as though I had 12 weeks worth of work by then end. This feels especially true when I look at work produced in previous projects that took place over 3 or 4 weeks. I think this has a lot to do with work expanding in accordance to the time allocated for it completion. Having much longer on the project just made spend longer on each individual thing that I worked on. However, a large bulk of this time was also spent just learning new things too, and not just consistently churning out work. This project allowed me to learn a number of new things about different baking methods and workflows, and how to import characters + animations and set up third person blueprints from scratch in Unreal.
What worked well in our project?
While I didn't directly contribute to this aspect of the project, we had a number of simple puzzle rooms that played out nicely. These added purpose and game play to our level, and doing each puzzle unlocked the door to a final room that ended the level.
There were a few areas in our level that visually turned out to be very nice by the end. One example was the main lobby area. The lighting was well done and complemented a number of well executed assets.
What didn't go so well?
Here's the big part, if I'm honest, there's definitely a lot more that didn't go quite as smoothly with this project. A large part of this I think was due the relatively longer amount of time we had on the project, and our failure to manage our time effectively and plan the project in structured stages.
There were a lot of bad decisions made early on in the project that lead to more problems down the line. An example of this was the art direction; I felt that we failed to decide upon a single coherent art style early on. Even later in the project there were a lot of changes and questions as to what we were even trying to achieve in terms of the art style.
Our level was also initially very large in scope and fairly ambitious. By the time we had a reviews two weeks before the end of the project we had to cut quite a lot of content and shorten the level. I think if we had made the scope of the project smaller it would have been easier to manage and would also have allowed us more time to invest into the overall visual quality.
What did I learn on this project?
For me this project turned out to be a gross example of just how much I overestimate the amount of work I can actually get done in a given time. With shorter projects, I feel that I can handle my time much more effectively, and I am solely focused on that project for the short duration. My focus peaked and wavered throughout this project, and I struggled to take things one at a time. This project has certainly given me more incentive to learn to structure any longer projects I do in future. This will be an invaluable lesson when it comes to my fmp.
Balancing quality and quantity was a large part of this project. Throughout the whole project, I wanted to give undivided attention to each individual asset, making it look the best that I could. Often, I felt under a lot of pressure to try and get an asset done as quickly as possible, but I also wanted them to at least look good within the level. However, having an asset look good doesn't necessarily mean it has to take forever. I want to look into different texturing work flows, and find ways to increase my speed when texturing and modeling. As with anything in Art, you can potentially work on something forever.
In all honesty, I think I learned more about my own working habits and management skills than I did about any technical skills. Despite having 12 weeks on the project it certainly didn't feel as though I had 12 weeks worth of work by then end. This feels especially true when I look at work produced in previous projects that took place over 3 or 4 weeks. I think this has a lot to do with work expanding in accordance to the time allocated for it completion. Having much longer on the project just made spend longer on each individual thing that I worked on. However, a large bulk of this time was also spent just learning new things too, and not just consistently churning out work. This project allowed me to learn a number of new things about different baking methods and workflows, and how to import characters + animations and set up third person blueprints from scratch in Unreal.
Wednesday 15 April 2015
Life drawing update
This year, I made a very conscious effort to attend as many life drawing classes as I could. Aside from the mandatory classes on Tuesday, there were sessions running all day every Thursday. Not only did this provide a good release from course work, but also gave me lots of opportunity to practice and improve my life drawing and pencil skills.
For a long time while life drawing I have been very focused on capturing gesture and good proportion, usually doing no longer than five minute drawings. These open sessions also gave me the chance to focus on more slightly longer poses, these are a few done in minutes or so.
For a long time while life drawing I have been very focused on capturing gesture and good proportion, usually doing no longer than five minute drawings. These open sessions also gave me the chance to focus on more slightly longer poses, these are a few done in minutes or so.
Tuesday 7 April 2015
Container City, Post mortem
At the beginning of the project we all had some very different ideas of where the project could go, it took us a while to finally arrive at an idea that we all liked and agreed upon. Even so, I don't think that any of us had any real idea of how it was going to turn out visually, as naturally we all had a different idea of how the final product was going to look. In the end, I think we ended up with a very nice looking project however much we may have winged it along the way. A lot of the assets turned out very nice, and worked together to create a cohesive whole. The modularity of our container city was also a strong point in our work as most of our assets were modular and fit together very well. However I think things could have been a lot better if we had established a more solid visual direction earlier on other than "lets make Kowloon walled city but with shipping containers". Its a simple concept, but again, I think everybody has a different vision in their mind of how that one specific thing could look, especially when that idea only exists as a statement.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we had to get to the very end of our project before we knew how it was really going to look, which isn't always a good thing. We could have done more concept art earlier on in the project to get a solid visual goal, but it wasn't as simple as that as we also had to manage our time effectively as well as think about other elements of the project such as the game design, playability and other aspects of the engine work. These things took up a lot of time for most of the team. There was a point of relief for us during the stage of our project when the level finally came together, as up until then we weren't sure how it was going to look. We ended up with, what I think, is a fairly nice looking project, and one that also plays out smoothly for the player.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that we had to get to the very end of our project before we knew how it was really going to look, which isn't always a good thing. We could have done more concept art earlier on in the project to get a solid visual goal, but it wasn't as simple as that as we also had to manage our time effectively as well as think about other elements of the project such as the game design, playability and other aspects of the engine work. These things took up a lot of time for most of the team. There was a point of relief for us during the stage of our project when the level finally came together, as up until then we weren't sure how it was going to look. We ended up with, what I think, is a fairly nice looking project, and one that also plays out smoothly for the player.
Monday 6 April 2015
Container City part two
When first starting to construct assets for our container city we had a few hiccups with the modularity when trying to set a standard for the scale we would use. We decided on a final scale that would export with the correct proportions in engine, this way we wouldn't have to mess around scaling assets in Engine and disrupting the modularity.
I modeled the primary container that would be used as the main component for building the level. When building the level, the container was broken up into segments; front, top, back and sides. This meant we could save a lot of tri's on areas where we wouldn't see the full container, which helped our fps immensely. I also modeled numerous assets for populating the level such as an oil drum, pallets, gas tank and modular shop shutters to be used in place of the sides of some containers. Since the container would be the primary modular asset featured throughout the level, this was modeled first and used as a scale reference when modeling all the other assets.
When modelling the container, I thought the corrugated edges on the side panels were far too sharp. Chamfering the corners meant using far too many tri's, so I decided to have the corrugated side panels all on the same smoothing group and bake a very high poly chamfered version of the side panels into the low poly. This made the corrugated sides looked more like the sides of a real shipping container with much softer light hitting the edges. Rather than have another albedo texture for a different coloured container, I created instances of the original material in Engine to create colour variations. Since this project, I have learned a lot more about the high poly baking workflow in Max, and would probably have taken some different approaches when creating my assets.
Below are some final shots of our level:
I modeled the primary container that would be used as the main component for building the level. When building the level, the container was broken up into segments; front, top, back and sides. This meant we could save a lot of tri's on areas where we wouldn't see the full container, which helped our fps immensely. I also modeled numerous assets for populating the level such as an oil drum, pallets, gas tank and modular shop shutters to be used in place of the sides of some containers. Since the container would be the primary modular asset featured throughout the level, this was modeled first and used as a scale reference when modeling all the other assets.
When modelling the container, I thought the corrugated edges on the side panels were far too sharp. Chamfering the corners meant using far too many tri's, so I decided to have the corrugated side panels all on the same smoothing group and bake a very high poly chamfered version of the side panels into the low poly. This made the corrugated sides looked more like the sides of a real shipping container with much softer light hitting the edges. Rather than have another albedo texture for a different coloured container, I created instances of the original material in Engine to create colour variations. Since this project, I have learned a lot more about the high poly baking workflow in Max, and would probably have taken some different approaches when creating my assets.
Below are some final shots of our level:
Saturday 4 April 2015
Container City, Week One
First project back after Christmas tasked us to create a section of a city or inhabited area created entirely out of shipping containers. This was a group project and we needed to show at least some small element of interactivity and playability in the level.
On the first day we sat down as a group and discussed various ideas on themes and locations for our container city. We came to around 26 final ideas that we liked, including prisons, rebel bunkers and a drug cartel, but the one we eventually decided on was a container city that would be inspired by the Kowloon walled city in Hong Kong. A densely populated and ungoverned fort like city built entirely from layer upon layer of makeshift buildings and scrap that was demolished in 1993.
What attracted us to the idea of a container city based upon Kowloon was the dirt, grittiness and dark dystopian nature of the city and its maze of alleyways filled with makeshift shops and houses. Kowloon is a city built upon layers. We thought this would make a great game level with lots of potential for detail, material definition and verticality.
Another aspect of this project we were going to have to learn was modularity. This is a very simple concept in Game design and refers to how individual assets can be reused and recycled in various ways throughout a level or game. This can include simple assets such as separate sections for networks of pipes, or larger more complex sections of dungeons or buildings. In our case, we were going to employ modularity by having a primary container repeating throughout the level that was going to be edited in different ways via other smaller assets such as windows, pipes, shop stall etc.
A good source we used to learn about modularity was Bethesda artist Joel Burgess's blog post on Modularity in Skyrim
Another large part of this project was going to be the level design. This is something none of us had touched upon as our course is largely focused on creating art and assets. We struggled for a good while debating our level design, and decided to blockmesh a few of our ideas and get some tutor feedback before deciding on a final layout.
What attracted us to the idea of a container city based upon Kowloon was the dirt, grittiness and dark dystopian nature of the city and its maze of alleyways filled with makeshift shops and houses. Kowloon is a city built upon layers. We thought this would make a great game level with lots of potential for detail, material definition and verticality.
Another aspect of this project we were going to have to learn was modularity. This is a very simple concept in Game design and refers to how individual assets can be reused and recycled in various ways throughout a level or game. This can include simple assets such as separate sections for networks of pipes, or larger more complex sections of dungeons or buildings. In our case, we were going to employ modularity by having a primary container repeating throughout the level that was going to be edited in different ways via other smaller assets such as windows, pipes, shop stall etc.
A good source we used to learn about modularity was Bethesda artist Joel Burgess's blog post on Modularity in Skyrim
Another large part of this project was going to be the level design. This is something none of us had touched upon as our course is largely focused on creating art and assets. We struggled for a good while debating our level design, and decided to blockmesh a few of our ideas and get some tutor feedback before deciding on a final layout.
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