Documentation

Slums Environment

I aim to produce a realistic slums environment level set in Kenya on a PS3 platform.

 

 

Personal Aim – To become an environment artist and demonstrate my capability of designing weapons.

Objective – Design and create a successful playable FPS level and further my technical knowledge within the game engine (UDK).

Genre – FPS, SHMUP.

Audience – 15+

Software – I will use 3ds Max and UDK as the game engine.

Technical Specifications for:

·         Lead Character

Poly Budget – 7000 Tri’s demonstrating clean and solid topology.

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Style – Mercenary with armour

·         An NPC

Poly Budget – 4000 Tri’s

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Style – Kenyan rebel

·         A Vehicle

Poly Budget – 3000 Tri’s  

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

One abandoned vehicle used for parts and on bricks

·         The Environment

Poly Budget – 20,000 Tri’s

Textures – 10xDiffuse, 10xNormal and 10xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024 on each

I will use a mixture of unique texturing and tillable texturing for the slums as well as reference images.

·         Weapons

Poly Budget – 2,500 Tri’s per weapon (14 weapons) 

Textures – 1xDiffuse, 1xNormal and 1xspecularity map with a budget of 1024x1024

Realistic weapons will be hidden in one shack ready for the lead character to collect for example this Scar-L assault rifle.

Level Design

  I don’t know much about level design to be honest so I have been looking through a few websites gathering some information from tutorials and articles. It’s quite clear how much planning and preparation is put into the design before it started. I will go through a process I think is a general guideline I think everyone seems to stick to when creating an environment. The majority of artists I have looked at have planned and executed a whole map in just 3weeks. I’m guessing this must be industry standard but I think time management is vital when doing so.

 This is the basic work flow I have come across with most artists but i have been looking at one in particular named Alex A.Galuzin

Ideas – Initial vision of the level, what it consists of. This will mainly be images of things that trigger your imagination, put them all down on a mood board and write a list of the things you want to include, don’t set a technical limit yet. Get some cool ideas to work from for inspiration then you can move on.

Reference – Collect reference images, get a feel for the atmosphere you want to create, this gives you a better image in your head of what you want to achieve in the end.

Visualization – this puts you into the mindset, it’s very important to see your final product before it is done. If this doesn’t happen you will be doing it by trial and error which will equal bad planning and a lot of frustration.

 

 

Planning and Execution – Sketch out a few visually pleasing guidelines of what you think the map will look like for example a top down view of how it will play out and where you would want the player to explore. After this you can jump in to the editor and starts blocking in big shapes in your map, no details just get the basics down roughly.

 

 

Atmosphere - Set the scene outside the environment to create the feel you wanted. Add the sky and terrain to see how the space will look, again not much detail the basic lights.

Playable Map – Test the map, run around in it, see if you like how the map is planned out. Having no details on the map at this stage will help you really concentrate on the layout itself.

Textures – Start blocking in your textures and getting rid of the checked patterns!

Adding Objects – Any objects you wanted to include can now be modelled and textured it’s like a phase one of putting in the detail. Still at this stage add the big details then go to the small and don’t just concentrate one area of the map.

Adding Objects Phase 2 – Strat detailing specific details of the map, polish up individual areas.

Lights – Add the light you think will create the best atmosphere you want to achieve

Gameplay – As well as you ask other to play the map, they will probably find flaws that you won’t!

 

  Following these artists has given me such a better idea of what level design is all about and how to develop my own ideas. I will do more research like this when it comes to group projects!!

Visual Composition

 I think it is vital for anyone trying to develop their skills in art to understand exactly what meaning of visual composition is. The term composition means ‘putting together’ this is basically elements put together by conscious thought, it can also be thought of as the organisation of the elements of art according to the principles of art. Understanding this principle and being able to develop it in my work is a professional skill I need to acquire. When looking at successful piece of work you can see how and why that person has placed the elements in a particular order, for either realism or for the image to have impact and make the audience feel a certain way. For example if a  photograph was taken at a man’s level this would treat him as an equal, if one was taken from below it could result in an impression of dominance.

 

 I have recently tried to incorporate good composition into my 3d work, I haven’t had much feedback from the design yet but I’m hoping the way I have laid out specific objects creates and impression of realism, which was the brief to create a realistic grouping of trash as seen outside on the streets. Admitting the background of my final render needed a bit of tweaking as the colours didn’t really fit well within the scene and the lighting I used didn’t compliment the brick wall. I spent quite a while arranging the different objects and making duplicates of assets to make it more interesting, I think it’s easier to apply good composition to something you can already move around, this is why so much planning and concepting is important before attempting to start a final piece.

 

 A few principles of organisation which can affect the composition are shape and proportion, negative space, colour, contrast, geometry, lines, lighting, repetition and perspective. This is important to remember when developing any work, another technique visual artists use is the Rule of Thirds.

 The rule of thirds is a guideline followed by some visual artists. The objective is to stop the subject(s) and areas of interest (such as the horizon) from bisecting the image, by placing them near one of the lines that would divide the image into three equal columns and rows, ideally near the intersection of those lines.

 I struggle to understand and put this into practise myself with my images but I am going to start using these guidelines and see if my work improves, if so my work should be aesthetically pleasing which means the elements must be arranged in a composition ally balanced way. Overall practising these techniques can only improve my work and then eventually I can develop the understanding of where specific elements within UDK should be placed. The sooner I learn this the better, better knowledge of this will help create decent level design and help me with our group project in the future.

 

Planning & Concepting

 This blog is still about elements of game design but I will be talking about the planning and concepting that goes into producing a successful product. The games industry relies heavily on the good solid initial planning, similar to writing a brief before you start modelling on 3ds and basically any design work in general. All artists require a base to work from, ideas need to be visually explored before they are processed and developed. I remember watching the ‘Black Hawk Down in the making’ documentary and thinking how amazing it was that this whole idea and art direction had come from small thumb nail concept art, a lot like a comic book. I found this interesting because it’s easy to assume that films/games are made from just random activities churned together in a sequence to look visually pleasing.

 Concept artists will be given an idea or a brief on the project, the artists will then take this idea and sketch from ten to a hundred thumbnails exploring the possibilities and designs. Then out of all these only a handful will be picked for further development. If this process is not carried out the likelihood of the project being a success is already at a low.

 I have recently taken a great interest in the game soon to be released called ‘the last of us’ unfortunately only on the ps3 platform and i believe to be inspired by the film 'I am Legend'. Visually the game looks stunning with such high intensity detail and game play, very similar to ‘Uncharted’ made by naughty dog. I have found that the artists James Paick from the USA actually contributed towards both of these games, designing brilliant concepts for both environments, below are a few concepts he put together for the last of us.

 

  I know these pictures don’t show the development of the concepts and only the final product, but they just so brilliant and detailed you could actually spend a long time looking at them. You can automatically tell how much work has gone into one of these images, the colour and atmosphere creates such an great image for the audience, and let’s be honest if you can accomplish this people will want to play your game. Concepts art like this makes the games so appealing for example Uncharted was so popular because the environments were so realistic and stunning due to the planning that gamers were quite happy just to walk around the level. I believe the to bring this kind detail into the game the 3d modellers have to work very closely with the 2d team trying to being the concept to life. The concept provided is never an absolute but its more than a guideline, obviously there are technical challenges to overcome so you have to allow change with assets etc. I hope to achieve this level of organisation and one day develop something as stunning as this.

Reflection & Ambition

Now I have finally made it into the second year I can start to see how much I have progressed through the first year, not just with 3ds max but with drawing, Photoshop and adopting a way of learning that suits me. Having these fundamental skills gives me the ability to concentrate less on the finals and how I’m actually going to do them and more on the ideas, concepts and planning of any projects.

For me, a stressful first year was all about learning the foundations for example, learning new software, presenting work effectively and how the course runs. I know the second year will be a lot harder and probably even more stressful (I hear in the group projects) but I have already found in this first project that I’m not worrying about as many things. Projects this year will be a lot more interesting as I have found already. This time last year I would have been panicking about weather I would have finished the work in time for the deadline, now I have finished the work with plenty of time left to so anything I don’t think is right again and I can think about the best way to present my work professionally, I have even been looking into how to make a quick video of the project. Having developed the skills and knowledge in first year allows me to think about the projects in advanced way.

‘For me. Life is continuously being hungry’ this is part of a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger in his body building documentary I watch a while ago ‘Pumping Iron’. In this documentary Arnold is constantly eating he needs to fuel his body with high protein, high carb meals as a body builders diet is essential to succeed in any competition. Although I am interested in sports and often go to the gym, this doesn’t have much relevance to what I am studying but I found myself always using it to motivate myself. I talk about this because it’s exactly how I feel about the second year, I find with the right motivation and dedication I can succeed this year. I’m excited about the new projects and also the thought of possibly finding myself work experience through the summer!

My ambition for the second year is to leave with more than 60%, I hope to achieve this through all 3 modules but am yet to find an area I wish to pursue. A lot of people on the course know which direction they are headed for example, they want to be a character artists or environmental artists. Hopefully as I progress through the year I can think about it more and decide on which area I would succeed in. I have recently taken an interest in weapons but I’m not sure if that’s because I have been playing Borderlands 2 who won the award for the most amount of weapons in a game! Look how good these are!!

 

 

Year 2!

 

  Year 2!!!##


Well here i am in the 2nd year! Right now the emotions are high, i already have the the first few projects to complete and have had so long off will take me a few days to get back into everything! i decided to go travelling for the summer which seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm struggling to remember anything on 3ds! Anyway i had an amazing summer in sunny Europe topping up the tan and taking plenty of photo's! I actually stumbled across some amazing architecture in Croatia as literately none of the houses are the same, everyone is unique which is far from what we have in the UK. I had so many ideas for environments for levels, the use of colour in Europe is used so much more.



So our first Game Production project is to model and texture a trash box with rubbish, i have been doing some research and taking photos around town and finding random things people would throw away. I think i will try and add a PG tips box, cereal box and a banana skin into mine as they seem like the fairly generic thing to see in trash. The brief sets a fairly realistic scene so i think ill stick to what i see out in public and add a few personal touches. General modelling of the project shouldn't be a problem, although the texture of the bin bags does look like it could be a little tricky. I think spec maps and lighting will be vital in making this look aesthetically pleasing and realistic!

 

 

This picture gives you the general idea but a bit too much for what I'm modelling. Mine will be about 4 bin bags a few box's and some cardboard. I think i should include a brick background and pavement to make it look a bit more real to life. I have 3 weeks to complete this project so hopefully it will be looking like a good bit of trash!!

 

I'm exited starting the second year and looking forward to the group projects! I will be working alot harder this year as it all counts from now on! I also attended an interesting demo given by mike about a few characters from games and how they were put together. A very useful talk gives a good understanding of how to be the most efficient you can be and how useful all the maps are because they produce such a good finish to the final!

 

Final Post

Through out the 1^st year on this course I find I have been constantly struggling to find out how I can specifically improve on different areas. Although I know we feedback sheets, which are barely readable, but they do provide us with information to help with our development, however I would love to suggest an increase in the amount of time we actually get with a lecturer. I feel that even though I have been here a year I haven’t spoke to any of the teachers for longer than a minute, obviously I understand that there are 60 students which all cry attention or maybe I’m being stupid and I’m used to the usual college teachers that nag on at you to get on with work. 

 Looking at the current state of the industry and game development I can only agree with the structure of the course no matter how intense it is I think its only preparing you for what’s actually expected at industry standard. The drawing, writing and 3d work is only increasing your chances of landing a job at the end. In a way I wish I could just learn the beast of 3ds max and solely find a job in doing so but I believe everything is just as important, developing drawing skills will make your models look realistic and believable. I do love working on 3ds Max and sometimes annoying as it is, when I can see the finish line I find it quite therapeutic.

  Looking at my own feedback sheets I am struggling with visual design, I have not passed one formative assessment yet and I am worried that what I have done won’t be enough. Practice is the only thing that helps in this course but you should always be able to see yourself improving, which I think I can.

A very important issue, which I know a lot of people, feel the same about is the labs not being open later. At the beginning of year this was a real issue for me as my unfortunately my laptop wasn’t powerful enough to run a lot of the programmes we needed to use. Now this would mean I could only use the lab computers but there not open on weekends so realistically I only have 2 days to use them. I know everyone would much appreciate the labs being open later especially 3^rd years. 

 Not sure if this will be a useful suggestion but I have wanted to look at a very successful piece of 3^rd years work in detail. I would like to see how they actually got to this idea and the process they went through to develop the work into a decent project. I think more of this would give 1^st years a better insight of how to approach their work and develop their own ideas. I know there is pictures of work posted up around but none of the initial ideas are, just a thought.