Making a Game...

Well my god, this project is epic! We have been given the task, as a year group, to design and make a 3D side scroller game. It will consist of 4 levels, 2 main characters and 4 NPC characters. We’ve been given the theme of fantasy, and each level has a buzzword to help shape the design of each level. We were given this layout to work from and set up into teams.

There is a team of 4 for each level which includes 3 environment artists and 1 concept artist. Then there is a team of 5 character artists, and finally there is the engine team consisting of 2 members. This project will require concrete communication between groups and all taking part in this project.


I was part of the team working on the first level, which was given the buzzword hot. I was given the role of concept artist for the team and was very excited about this job role. I want to go into concept art for my career, so this was a good opportunity to live out this role and see how I would fair in a group, almost industry like environment and setting. In the beginning, the whole team had a hand at what is considered the concept artists role. We all had to produce design and concept work to help form ideas. As time went on and the momentum picked up, 3D modelling could be done. From here, my role was to produce design work for assets, paint overs of the whitebox screenshots and general concept work for the level.  

As a team, I felt we all worked well together and were not shy to crit and open up about ideas. We all understood our job roles but were also willing to help out with each other’s work if needed. We had a lot of ideas and brainstormed things that related to hot. We also used side scroller games we knew of as reference to help work out what our level should actually be. We had a range of ideas, some fairly specific to games we knew of and some more general in terms of the fantasy theme. A theme we thought of was a hot kitchen and have a game very much like micro machines, a tiny character in oversized surroundings. However we needed to keep in with what the other teams were doing; as we all decided that we wanted the game to flow and that each level should look part of the same world. The main inspiration for our level was the trine series. We wanted to produce something fairly similar, but toning down the saturation of the colours. Once we had ideas in place, we worked well and at a reasonable place to keep momentum going. We were also constantly changing ideas which kept the project fresh and interesting to us. We all had great enthusiasm for one another’s ideas and every person’s input is shown in the final result.  

There were a few complications and the layout changed several times. First of all we did struggle to work out how the level layout would look originally. This meant a lot of research into existing side scroller games that have solved these problems before. Looking at puzzles, what could be used for platforms, traps etc. Doing all this but making fun and interesting with the limitations we had, in terms of whether the engine team could pull off all the events we were wanting. Below is a couple of early ideas we had for our level layout. We felt after time and after discussing our layout with others, it felt almost empty and that the level lacked structure. I came up with the idea of basing the platforms around a large tree, situated in the centre of the vertical section of our level.

This later turned into another issue. We ended up basing our level on the upright L shape, when actually our level was a laying down L shape. This meant a slight reshuffle of how the platforms would work in the level, especially in the beginning section. This, however, turned out a lot better and actually helped the final design of our level.

Another problem we encountered was, again, the beginning sections of the level; In which the player travels down the tree. We originally intended to have the player travel down the outside of the tree, down branches, vines and bridges. One of the engine artists pointed out that there was nothing to stop the player from running off the end of the branches. So to fix this problem, we decided to make it so the player travelled down the inside of the tree. This made for a more linear approach to this section of the level, which I feel didn’t hinder the fun in the level.

A large problem with the project was that we had little time to make this project from scratch. This issue was discussed with the tutors in charge who were playing the role of art director. As we are Game Art designers rather than game designers, we ended up taking on many more job roles then what were originally intended for us. I think we did well despite this. We were organised, held regular meetings to keep track of everybody’s progress and had shared folders which we could all access in order to share assets, to speed up production time. More of this is always a good way to improve and I think that’s what we could’ve done. Also, we could have possibly put together a timescale to show what needed to be done by when. This may have helped with leaving us more time to polish the levels.

In conclusion this project was a good experience of working on team effort with a large group. I felt it really did emulate an industry setting, working collectively on a single project. To also be working the job role I intend to pursue, was eye opening and I really enjoyed being able to fully embody this role. I think our final game turned out really well despite the rocky patches and feeling lost for reasons out of our control. I can’t help but feel with more organisation by the tutors, the project would’ve run much more smoothly and this wouldn’t have disheartening all of us at that certain point. With more time (as always) we could’ve put more effort into the after affects and possibly added more threats such as enemies that require animations. For what it is, I think the level answers the project brief, it’s a fantasy side scroller that’s family friendly. It has a story and flows between levels with a consistent high quality style. I feel we worked really well as a team and I am greater for the experience.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25bQnu5LoH0&list=FLqEoY0yw_IvFsfjLQhusMeA&index=1

King of the Dead

So, for this brief we were asked, to put together a scene including a character, throne and backdrop related to theme ‘King of The Dead’ We were in teams  of 5 and given  weeks to complete the project.

To start we brainstormed ideas and put together a Pinterest board full of images. We came to the conclusion that we wanted to be original and steer clear of the typical perceptions of death. We originally began to look at very dark, earthy ideas, full of dirt and grunge. After asking round and getting second opinions, it was suggested to us that we explore the complete opposite and have a very clinical, clean, almost sci-fi feel. 

http://www.pinterest.com/lucytstm/king-of-the-dead/

We looked into the idea of a cult and possibly give the scene some back story, as to how it came to be. We thought of a futuristic world, where people are living longer due to highly sophisticated medicine giving people an infinite life-span. We liked the idea to base our scene around a cult that resides in this world. Worshiping the dead as people are put through long empty lives. They choose to join the cult and worship a cryogenically frozen being, to whom they give offerings to, in the hopes of him granting death upon them. Below are some of my concepts that explore this idea.

As well as this idea. We also explored one of our brainstormed ideas of parasites. The idea of a being that feasts off of other beings, taking all of their life source, essentially killing so it could live. As well as residing thing the host. Below is some more work exploring this idea by Katie.

As the project continued we gathered reference from many areas. We all decided we liked the idea of an ancient culture mixed in with the sci-fi theme. We began to look at a lot of Egyptian and Mayan imagery. This helped us shape our own designs for the culture we wanted to portray in our scene.

We split the team up into, 2 people working on the character, 2 people working on the throne and the remaining person working on the backdrop. I was given the task of designing the characters head. Below are some of the initial concepts I came up with.

The overall shape of the thrown was decided early on. Below is the original design by Rebecca. It replicates the idea of a mouth and this related back to our parasite concept. With this we decided to combine the 2 ideas, making an ancient sci-fi looking scene, whereby the ‘king’ sits in the frozen chamber which resides in a mouth shaped tomb/throne. Also here are some of the modelled ideas by Tom.

The first few passes of the throne helped us understand what materials we needed to use. I was given the task of designing the character with the help of another team member. The character by far went through the most iteration out of all the assets in the scene. We went through many ideas and looked at how the characters presence in the scene could be portrayed. Below are some poses that katie came up with.

After gathering more reference and discussing ideas within the group, we decided to try taking our character appear more mutant like. Below are some explorations of this theme and the reference I gathered.

This allowed me to explore more with the face of the character, here are some examples.

Comparing these with the costume design, they both helped fuel and form ideas for each other. We continued to work on each other’s work and eventually we started to form a look of which we all liked the look of. It helped influence the rest of the scene, and I feel the style ties the objects together well. Below is the images in order as they were being produced by both me and Katie.

Alongside this, a motif for the backdrop was being designed. Hal took a lot of inspiration for the Egyptian hieroglyphics. He tried to put our own sci-fi unique cultural twist onto the design with the symbolism. Below are some of his designs.

We were also exploring colour and whether a strongly saturated colour would work well within the scene. Below are some variations. We eventually decided a more neutral colour would work best, as it was hard to situate a stronger colour to match the desired mood and feel we were looking for.

My personal experience of this project was an interesting one. From looking at our final outcome, I feel that we lost sight of what w originally set out to create. I feel possibly, by combining the 2 ideas, it made the whole project and idea generation very bland. I feel we were trying to tick too many boxes with our final.

I feel that our original very sci-fi idea would have come off much stronger and had a much clearer back story to the scene. It also would have made for some interesting designs and created great opportunities for high quality engine work. The final render of the scene however, is something I am happy with. It’s interesting, unique and shows innovative design, strongly showcasing our take on the reference we used for inspiration. I just feel it could’ve been stronger if we had elaborated more on the sci-fi cult idea. I think with more communication amongst the team, and stronger crit we may have sculpted our idea to be more refined.

The team worked well together and I felt we had a strong work ethic amongst ourselves. We did communicate well but more of this I think would’ve really benefitted the final scene. I enjoyed the experience of working as a team, and I feel it has made me more aware of my own work ethic. I learnt to show work for crit more and to try and produce work fast in order to show as many ideas as possible. This will help me to fit into a team more and make more of a contribution to help form ideas.

Back into it! (PBR textures)

So here it is, the big finale…3^rd year. Our first project was an introduction to Unreal Engine 4, mainly importing textures. The textures in UE4 differ to what we have been already taught, but only slightly. Mainly just that the names of the textures differ.

We were asked to produce 9 textures to apply to ready built material balls in engine.   

UE4 has real-time reflections built into the level, which adds a really nice touch to the effected textures. It allows to make highly realistic materials with little work in the textures themselves. 

The 9 textures I had to create were PVC Plastic, Car Paint, Rust, Wax, Leather, Stone, Gold, Iron and Copper. Below are some more screenshots of the textures close up.

I found this project to be a great start to the year to ease me back into uni work. Also a not so daunting start to using UE4.

With the final year on a roll, the focus is finding work once I graduate and this project was a great confidence boost to start the year. I feel I could’ve maybe worked on the textures more and maybe tried out different textures of my own. I feel confident about using this engine and hope produce great work throughout the year in this engine.