Weekly Summary: 11

Specialism - 

for the specialism project I have decided to specialise in asset creation, my project will be revolved around creating a single high-quality model, focusing on High-poly modelling, baking maps and PBR workflows.

At first I thought about doing an indoor environment scene that would give me chance to practise these skills on many assets. Below is an image of reference of the room and a floor plan for the rooms.

I created a quick block-out for the level in Unreal 4 to get a good gauge for sizing. This way I could easily iterate assets and export them instantly to so how they fared against other assets in he environment.

After thinking about this a bit more I decided instead to work on just one model.

I decided that this one model would be an old lawn mower that I took reference images off before I came to university. the object is quite intricate in it's hard edged surfaces and has a lot of different parts that require different techniques to achieve, this will give me chance to learn and practise new techniques and come out with something for my portfolio.

Below is a reference board for the lawn mower 

To start the model I create a quick outline for the base so that I could get a shape quickly using the create polygon tool, this allowed me to shape the geometry fast and allow me to maintain consistency with the flow of 4-sided polygons.

the base of the lawn mower is made out of a strong metal, therefore I wanted to try to imitate that in the hard edges and shape, the goal was to maintain the idea of 'thickness' in the shell of the base to create the illusion of a metal material. At this point there were a few changes needed to the model, some of the corners were too soft and edges were bumpy. Throughout I ensured that there was not a single triangle in the base.

Below is the (semi) finished base, the shape is generally where I wanted it to be and the flow of the hard edges really work in favour of the model. Next I created the sticker that goes on the front of the base, this will be an alpha map when I come to do the low poly version.
The tires were pretty simple, just a few extrusions and insets and they looked pretty good.

I was careful with my hard edge placement to ensure the edges weren't too tight, the tire is a rubbery material so doesn't have very sharp edges. Next was this inside of the wheel, I added a small rectangle to the cap where it looks like you can pull the cap off.

Next came the shell for the engine, again this was plastic so I had to make it seem more brittle and thinner than the metal.

I reached a difficult point when I had to somehow create the effect of many holes arrayed around the rim of the cylindrical cap of the engine shell. I decided to actually create the geometry and place it above, creating the illusion that the detail is actually there.

Next I started work on the back, the large box that the grass is collected in. This area is made out of quite thin plastic, so I tried to reflect this in it's design, the corners are far more sharper. I go by the noise the material makes when you tap it, and I feel that if you were to tap on this part of the model it would create a very swift clunk with no trail, while the metal would have a bit more weight to it's sound, leaving a trail of reverb behind it.

Again, the edges are trying to reflect plastic, the angles of the curves must be very coherent yet have industrial imperfections to come across as that material. Overall I am very happy with how the surface below turned out, it took a lot of tweaking but this is one area that actually taught me a lot about hard-surface modelling.

I created bevels inside of the wheel cap using the same technique I used on the engine cap, this technique allows me to add so much detail really fast. It's also very precise.

This is the engine cap, at first I tried to extrude from the top cylinder to create the caged effect, although it didn't work as it took to much time to rotate each face to follow the same path. Instead I created one of them and simply created an array around the cap.

Here is a current view of the model. A few things need resizing to fill more space, but overall the model is coming along well.

The cage at the front of the engine baffled me the most. I didn't really know how to approach it, so i Just created a box and tried out a few things. I liked this method because I had more control over edge loops. After some tweaking (and heavy use of the soft selection tool) I had a surface that could pass as a metal frame.

This is the process of the cage from it's initial box.

After making the model I went back because the edges looked far to soft to pass as metal. It looked more like play dough. The image below on the right is the finished cage, complete with damage from constant collisions over time .

Here are a few images of the asset with a few more objects, as you can see it is starting to come together.

I created a connector between the wheel and base of the mower, next thing is to work on the underneath blade (although the asset will not be seen from underneath, but may as well model it just incase it needs to be) and the handle.

So far this model has taught me a lot about high poly modelling. I am able to differentiate material types by manipulating the properties of edges, which helps a lot. Usually I can't really see my models come together until the texturing phase. Below is a few renders using Marmoset Toolbag to show where the model is currently.

Personal Project - 

This week I've spent a bit of time working Land, I wanted to figure out a pixel art style that was unique to the game, as an example here is an image of what the general grass tiles look like. 

I was messing around when I though that it would create a coherent effect if everything was kept to right-angles and squares, it's not conventional dirt, but it creates the effect of it.

Here is the damage sequence for the grass and dirt tiles, they have 3 different states each, one perfect, one slightly damaged and one very damaged. 

Also, here are a few models I made this week for somebody who is creating an indie game, it's a private project currently but I may be able to go more in depth with it soon. It's an app game so everything is very low poly. I created a tree set so the programmer could procedurally generate different variations of the tree to his specifications. The asset uses an alpha map for the small branches to save polys.

Coherent Words Research - 

This week I started to conduct research into different areas of historical games, I chose Board games and Playing cards as a pair to research. At University we were given a 30 minute task to research into an area by gathering 2 books on each category and finding a quote that relates back to the history and context of subjects related to games. Here's what I found.

Book - 'Playing Cards' by Rob Beattie

Quote - "It's not the cards in your hand that count, it's how you play them."

Analysis - This links back to the structure of games, You can give the player rules and vary the difficulty, but then you sit back and watch these dynamics connect with one another. This area interests me as this is why each session of any game will be completely different in how it pans out. There are never usually two similar instances, and that's what makes games so exciting, the concept of unknown and the challenge of guessing the outcome. 

When you add a purpose to this, say for example you are using cards, but now they are in the form of Pokemon, you are transported into this world where your goal is to 'be the best Pokemon master in the world', thus giving the player a drive to compete.

Book - 'The Oxford History of Board games' by David Parlette

Quote - "The chances are that somewhere or other any board game that has ever existed is still played, though possibly in a more developed form."

Analysis - This brings me back to coherent world design, pretty much every idea has been done, they don't change with time because you don't fix something that isn't broken, but you can always make it look cool, this is what sells products, a laptop with powerful specs is a good laptop, but a laptop with good specs, a sleek looking case and a half eaten apple logo will scream out buy me because of it's design choices. Recycling is good for the environment, it's also good for entertainment as long as it is offering a new perspective on the rules and regulations of the game and the world that it exists in. 

Book - 'The Monopolists by Mary Pilon

Quote (Referring to the creator of monopoly) - "He began to draw a board game featuring Atlantic City streets and properties, if he couldn't support his family he could at least entertain with a game that would bring back memories of better days"

Analysis -  Monopoly was conceived during the depression, which i do not know much about. I can relate this directly to coherent world design too, but on a deeper level. By linking the game to personal memories of the players you can successfully create correlations between memories and emotional responses in the player, therefore forming ties between player and game. this could send the player into a form of fantasy Utopia (or Dystopia, depending on what game you're playing, and if you're winning or losing).

Book - ''Advanced Poker by Trevor Sippets

Quote - "Although the basic concepts are simple enough to grasp, playing it takes courage, cunning and skill"

Analysis -  This is another quote that relates to the core mechanics of games. It shows how these rules connect with each other, allowing a player to learn patterns that they can use to better their chances of winning.

From these quotes I have already considered a few ideas for the research report. First is chess, a game of strategy, you see this in a lot of games. An interesting genre that draws from chess would be Turn-based games, something such as Final Fantasy, or Total War, these games have different levels of strategy. 

The idea of monopoly also gave me another idea. When playing monopoly you are competing for imaginary space, the more you have the better you believe you are. Civilization 5 uses this a a core goal, rewarding the player with resources the more they utilise the land that they have.

Portfolio - 

This week I created a portfolio using Weebly to use as a temporary website while I get my own up and running. You can follow the link to see the website here: http://thomasbrussell.weebly.com/