I started the first semester of honours with great excitement about spending a whole year on a single project. I had spent weeks prior to the first day back at university thinking about what I could do my project on, thinking I would have my idea pretty clear after a few weeks back. But I found that when given a completely open brief, with no direction but my own, I was a bit lost and unable to decide on a research topic or project artifact for quite a while. In my opinion it was a pretty bad way to start, as it demotivated and demoralised me to some extent, so that when i finally did come to the idea of working with Fraser, I took much longer to get into the swing of things than I would have liked. This delay certainly cost me valuable time in terms of both research and concept development, but I tried my best to catch up.
I did myself no favors when building up this motivation by trying to take on too much work, as Iain quite rightly pointed out in my pitch session. And in the end I put aside the Epic Games Competition, and later the Samsung Developer Challenge, in order to give myself more time for Honours, but a fair amount of time had already been spent pursuing those endeavors, which I now wish had been spent towards improving upon my concept development and pre-production for Honours.
As to the actual concepts, despite being happy with the final pieces, I cant help but feel my lack of sketching and doodling ideas in the early stages shows poorly for the development process. It is a fault of mine that I have never properly attained the habit of constantly sketching, prefering to fine-tune an idea in my head before dedicating it to paper or Photoshop. And it helps no-one for me to go back and try to recreate this thought process.
But in the end, I feel that despite not having completed as much visual representation of concept development as I had planned, the concept itself I still feel very strongly about. I spent a lot of time thinking of what I wanted to create in semester 2, and I have no doubt the concept will develop much further during the production period - My preferred process for concept development being to just start modelling something in Maya and working on it till I have something I like and feel proud of. With a solid idea behind me, and the production of the 3D models being the thing I most enjoy, I'm looking forward very much to semester 2 in terms of the project artefact.
In terms of the pre-production work, I'm very disappointed with the amount i got done in the end. Admittedly it did slip my mind for a long while that pre-production was its own seperate module, and not lumped together with concept development. However I did have opportunity to test the production pipeline from maya to UDK, as well as play around with some of the lighting tools in the engine, so I won't be going into the final project totally blind. As for the pre-production of assets, or lack there-of, I have no excuse but the fact I left concepting the environment till quite late, and by the time I had more detailed concepts out, I was unable to discuss them with Fraser to get his feedback on what he would want changed to fit his project. I may not like it but I feel this makes sense, there would be no point in me producing assets that could possibly be scrapped at the beginning of second semester when we meet back up to finalise our concept.
As for the research towards the dissertation, I'm quite confident that I have made a very good start, with lots of new knowledge gained. The more I read, the more immersed in the research I became, and I even found myself enjoying writing the proposal, which I was very happy with. One one silly referencing mishap robbed me of a B according to the feedback, but in general I was still happy with it after grading, feeling a C14 isn't the best, but is by no means a bad grade.
Showing posts with label Concept Development Portfolio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Concept Development Portfolio. Show all posts
Friday, 18 January 2013
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
A More Concise Description
It's come to my attention that my description of my project and what it is about could do with being clearer, as it has gotten a bit confusing with the changes scattered around different blog posts. So here goes.
Project Artifact Concept: A Mediterranean villa, with
environment consisting of garden, entrance/conservatory, living room, study,
bedroom, and bell tower. Each room will use colour and light to convey a different set of
emotions and feelings, carefully designed to create an emotionally
symbolic journey for the player through the environment. The current idea
is to symbolise the player characters journey through life, starting
in the garden, which will be full of life, tranquil, brightly coloured and well lit, inviting the player to explore further. The player then moves through each room, until reaching the bell-tower, which will be cold
and gloomy, lacking in much colour, with a view of the garden below.
It is intended that from the top down view, a message of sorts shall
be visible down in the garden for the player to see, where he would
be unable to see it anywhere else. This message will inform the
player to jump, and then the journey is complete. (The design of the
message will fall to Fraser, as it is more to do with level design
than concept)
Details of symbolic journey:
As stated the garden is meant to symbolise the birth of life, but also childhood innocence exploring a new world, before reaching the house, the entrance to which is representative of the cross-over to adulthood, of leaving behind playful exploration for bigger pursuits. Next comes the living room which will be a symbol of the player characters young adulthood, when he finds love, before moving on to the bedroom, in which unfortunately, portrays the death of his wife. Onwards the player goes, into the study, where it will hopefully become clear that the player character has chosen a life of quiet, depressed isolation and immersed himself in his work, but never happily. The final room is the bell tower, from which, as described before, the player will be prompted to jump, down into the garden below. This act undoubtedly means the death of the player character, but hopefully there will be some debate about whether death is the end, or if the act of going full circle is symbolic of reincarnation or the afterlife.
As stated the garden is meant to symbolise the birth of life, but also childhood innocence exploring a new world, before reaching the house, the entrance to which is representative of the cross-over to adulthood, of leaving behind playful exploration for bigger pursuits. Next comes the living room which will be a symbol of the player characters young adulthood, when he finds love, before moving on to the bedroom, in which unfortunately, portrays the death of his wife. Onwards the player goes, into the study, where it will hopefully become clear that the player character has chosen a life of quiet, depressed isolation and immersed himself in his work, but never happily. The final room is the bell tower, from which, as described before, the player will be prompted to jump, down into the garden below. This act undoubtedly means the death of the player character, but hopefully there will be some debate about whether death is the end, or if the act of going full circle is symbolic of reincarnation or the afterlife.
Sunday, 13 January 2013
More Concept Art and Media Tests
I also did some media tests in UDK recently, namely re-visiting god-rays (about time!) and trying out sky-domes. These were both surprisingly easy in UDK, god rays especially when compared to all the trouble I had trying to achieve the same effect in maya.
I took the time to get acquainted with the options for the light, and had a bit of a play around with changing the colour, increasing the intensity of the god rays, and the brightness of the illumination etc.
Obviously the above looks a little weird considering the sky texture used, but i certainly plan on having a warm glowing light like this in the garden at the beginning of my project.
Thursday, 10 January 2013
Concept improvement
The deadline is approaching fast and I'm still unfortunately getting back into the swing of things quite slowly. I'm hoping to get the study concept finished by the start of next week, and hopefully have enough time to do some more media tests and sketching. On a positive note, I can feel myself gaining more confidence in my photoshop ability, one of my personal goals for this year.
Monday, 7 January 2013
Post Holiday Panic
Well I had an amazing holiday, unfortunately i'm now regretting at least a portion of that fun because just as I feared I got very little work done in the last few weeks. I did however think of two more rooms to possibly add to the project artefact - A study and a bedroom - as well as how I can potentially use the colour and lighting of these rooms to expand upon the narrative of the environment. The "story" I described before was quite vague, just about the symbolism of a journey through life, from birth to death. Keeping that original thread going, I thought a good way to evoke emotion would be to add these two rooms, and make them representative of key events in the player characters life.
In all honesty the mise-en-scene will probably play a large part in conveying this particular bit of story, but I am still confident that the proper use of light and colour in these two rooms will be crucial to both drawing the players attention to the key elements of the scene, and achieving the correct mood in the rooms in order to attempt to give the rooms content the right emotional association.
This is a quick representation of the bedroom concept, very roughly modelled in Maya and painted over in photoshop.
I wanted the mood in this room to be quite sad, to represent the player characters loss of his wife. I've tried to use dull, muted blue-grays on the walls to suggest this sadness, I chose pink for the bed-sheets as pink is often associated with love. I used a thin sliver of light from the window to bring the colour to attention, as a way of showing the room was not always so sad.
The lack of light in the room is intended to emphasize the sadness, by dulling the colours, and what little light there is will be to focus attention to the bed and picture. Overall I want it to be a lot darker I think, as the room is meant to be representative of a dark memory
For the study room, I found the colour choices a bit more difficult, I wanted to create a sense of loneliness and depression, requiring lots of grays, but also dark green to symbolise wealth, hinting at the function of the room. The Pink bed sheets on the sofa are a call back to the bedroom, to try and indicate that the player character sleeps here now, and in his grief has immersed himself in work. The light in the room will come mainly from the window which will be close-curtained in gray opaque fabric. I'm toying with the idea of having another light source next to the sofa, bringing the pink to a more saturated colour, for a similar effect as the bedroom.
Originally I had planned the new room order as Garden > Entrance > Study > Bedroom > Bell - Tower, but upon reviewing the flow of the emotional atmospheres evoked, It seemed odd to have the study before the bedroom, as the loss of the characters wife is the reason for him moving into the study and immersing in work. However reversing the two rooms creates quite a dramatic contrast between the entrance and the bedroom, so I have begun thinking another room could be neccessary as an intermediary, possibly a living room with a more neutral quality to it.
While I feel these additions to the project are certainly worthwhile in terms of improving it, there is a part of me that worries the project is getting bigger than originally intended, and I do not want to sacrifice quality for quantity. However I feel I am up for the challenge, the proper modelling of the environment is the part I have been anticipating with excitement, and my best work seems to come out of setting myself big, challenging projects I really want to do.
It never hurts to have a back-up plan however, so I've been thinking that should this prove too much, I could cut some by changing the concept from symbolic of a journey through life, to just being the end of the characters life. Doing so I could keep the bell-tower, bedroom, and study as they are, remove the extra room (possibly living room) and the garden, and changing the lighting in the entrance to be more gloomy. But that is a change I hope I dont need to make, as I feel the current idea is much stronger, and as i said I still havent had a chance to catch up with Fraser since the holidays, so these ideas will be under discussion and could very well change.
But my first worry is to find the motivation to work again after such a long period of relaxation. With the deadline about a week and a half away, I'm quietly confident I will get a decent amount done, but most likely not as much as i had hoped when I thought I had a whole month to concept.
Saturday, 8 December 2012
Ideas Come When You Least Expect Them
Its interesting how ideas can suddenly spring to mind as soon as you stop thinking about something, first day into dedicating all my time on this research proposal and suddenly my mind starts coming up with some great thoughts on my project artifact. This will just be a short post with a bunch of the ideas that sprung to mind.
Keeping in with the symbolism of a journey through life, I could make the rooms gradually seem older as the player progresses through them, to show the passage of time. This one was sort-of unintentional, as I was simply thinking of how I envisage the rooms, and it struck me that the bell tower is very run down, which contrasts a lot with the elegance of the entrance hall. So why not simply create a gradual decline through the intermediate rooms.
Using chromatic adaptation to create a mood shift, or help Fraser trick visual perception in the end jump. This one came as I was reading over my notes on colour, it is a phenomenon whereby the brightness of the ambient light causes two different colours to reverse in brightness. I noticed an example within my flat, where my flatmate has a red Hell-Boy hand he made for a costume, sitting next to the white wood that makes up the window frame. During the day the white wood is clearly the brighter of the two, but come night time when the lights are off, the red stands out much more vividly. The opposite of this scenario is colour constancy, which is far more common. That is the way in which humans can perceive whether an object is all the same colour, despite things like shadows and coloured lights influencing it.
Keeping in with the symbolism of a journey through life, I could make the rooms gradually seem older as the player progresses through them, to show the passage of time. This one was sort-of unintentional, as I was simply thinking of how I envisage the rooms, and it struck me that the bell tower is very run down, which contrasts a lot with the elegance of the entrance hall. So why not simply create a gradual decline through the intermediate rooms.
Using chromatic adaptation to create a mood shift, or help Fraser trick visual perception in the end jump. This one came as I was reading over my notes on colour, it is a phenomenon whereby the brightness of the ambient light causes two different colours to reverse in brightness. I noticed an example within my flat, where my flatmate has a red Hell-Boy hand he made for a costume, sitting next to the white wood that makes up the window frame. During the day the white wood is clearly the brighter of the two, but come night time when the lights are off, the red stands out much more vividly. The opposite of this scenario is colour constancy, which is far more common. That is the way in which humans can perceive whether an object is all the same colour, despite things like shadows and coloured lights influencing it.
Wednesday, 28 November 2012
Colour and Pipeline Tests
Taking the first initial UDK mock-up, I started to paint over it in order to get a better representation of the colours and lights I imagine using. For the entrance as i stated before I wanted it to be open, inviting and natural, so I used lots of earthy colours like the yellow-browns for the walls and floor, as well as green plants. I also choose orange for the half-back sofa to help add some warmth. I feel like the colour is a bit too bright in this particular image, but it was a fairly quick test and I plan to take the concept further.
I also decided to test out the pipeline for importing models to UDK and adding collision meshes. I modelled a quick Cypress Tree and attempted to import it, and add a texture. Quite quickly I realised the benefits of doing this test before starting on making my project, as a number of problems arose due to my lack of practice. I had forgotten a number of little things such as not to use spaces when naming the exported model, and also that in order to apply a texture I first needed to create a new material. I found a tutorial almost immediately just to help me brush up on this pipeline, and things went smoothly from there.
Something else I had forgotten would need attention is the scaling factor between maya and UDK. A quick test showed a cubic meter in maya, is equivalent to only one unit of measurement in UDK, which is absolutely tiny for some reason. Online tutorials state that a character of about 2 meters is around 100 units in height, so 1 meter is around 50. This means that either in maya or UDK I must scale my models by an extra 50x. Past experience has taught me to be very glad I have sorted out this particular bit of information, as scaling troubles can certainly take a lot of time to figure out.
Saturday, 24 November 2012
Refining the Project Idea
I had an interesting thought about the overall "story" im trying to convey in the environment. It struck me that the beginning and the end could be interpreted as being symbolic of a journey through life, from birth to death. The symbolism of the garden is that of life, while the end jump is clearly death (Or is it? Things could get quite spiritual here, with returning to the garden making the level a full circle, and therefor broaching the possibility of reincarnation). I feel like this would be a good idea to incorporate into the rest of the design, probably coming up with specific events in the characters life to try and evoke the feelings of in the middle rooms.
I brought this idea up with Fraser and he seems quite happy to let me follow it. We began to refine our ideas for the entrance room. Keeping with my symbolic appraoch, I now consider this room to be representative of entering adulthood. And Fraser's ideas for the architecture complimented this quite nicely in my opinion. For the entrance he wants the bottom half to be like Art Nouveau, with lots of plants and natural, flowing designs visible on the lower level, and then for it to stop after the stairs, in order to signify the end of the calm, inviting environment. This transition also seems like a good way to symbolise leaving behind childhood, so I was quick to agree on the idea.
I brought this idea up with Fraser and he seems quite happy to let me follow it. We began to refine our ideas for the entrance room. Keeping with my symbolic appraoch, I now consider this room to be representative of entering adulthood. And Fraser's ideas for the architecture complimented this quite nicely in my opinion. For the entrance he wants the bottom half to be like Art Nouveau, with lots of plants and natural, flowing designs visible on the lower level, and then for it to stop after the stairs, in order to signify the end of the calm, inviting environment. This transition also seems like a good way to symbolise leaving behind childhood, so I was quick to agree on the idea.
Friday, 23 November 2012
Concepts at last!
Over the course of the last few weeks, I've found that I've fallen into the trap of focusing too closely on the research aspect of honours, and less on the concept development. I think this is partly due to my still widening understanding of how to implement the lighting techniques, colour associations and such that I have been looking into, in order to achieve my aims, as well as more fundamentally to what mine and Fraser's project will actually look like. However I have been meeting a lot more regularly with Fraser since crit week to discuss the creative artifact and what we want in it. I have begun to feel quite happy that we have the foundations for a solid idea, and I finally began concepting some ideas!
In collaboration with Fraser we quickly created this environment in UDK using the BSP brushes and some default models/textures, in order to get a rough feel of the entrance room to the villa. His contribution was the purely that of the level design, whereas mine was aimed at the light (including window placement) and to an extent the colour, but using existing UDK textures for quickness limited this somewhat. (The image outside the windows was quickly added in photoshop just to avoid a black backdrop). Doing this gave me the importunity to see the lighting tools in UDK, which appear to consist of mainly just point lights, ambient light and directional light. I suppose this makes sense as light travels in all directions, so spotlights like those in maya are only logical if there is an actual model capable of creating such a light with its shape and a light placed inside.
It is a very rough representation, there is still a lot of work needed on the lighting (generally making the room appear brighter), as well as changing the colours to suit the mood (open, inviting, natural). I plan to take the image into photoshop to continue it from there, but this UDK scene should come in handy for a base to work from when implementing the models.
The next step is to do the same for each of the room ideas I have.
We also spent some time playing around with Speed-Tree in UDK, deciding that to save a lot of time we should probably use that to create the organic assets used in the garden. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a screenshot of any of our tests, because I'm silly at times.
In collaboration with Fraser we quickly created this environment in UDK using the BSP brushes and some default models/textures, in order to get a rough feel of the entrance room to the villa. His contribution was the purely that of the level design, whereas mine was aimed at the light (including window placement) and to an extent the colour, but using existing UDK textures for quickness limited this somewhat. (The image outside the windows was quickly added in photoshop just to avoid a black backdrop). Doing this gave me the importunity to see the lighting tools in UDK, which appear to consist of mainly just point lights, ambient light and directional light. I suppose this makes sense as light travels in all directions, so spotlights like those in maya are only logical if there is an actual model capable of creating such a light with its shape and a light placed inside.
The next step is to do the same for each of the room ideas I have.
We also spent some time playing around with Speed-Tree in UDK, deciding that to save a lot of time we should probably use that to create the organic assets used in the garden. Unfortunately I didn't think to take a screenshot of any of our tests, because I'm silly at times.
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Meeting with Fraser
I met up with Fraser this week so we could develop the ideas we had for our project artifact, and decide upon a solid idea to take forward. As previously stated on here our original idea for the environment was a tower consisting of different rooms the player travels through, moving up, before reaching the top where the player is made to jump. After some discussion, we still want that aspect in the design, but we've decided to change the environment to be more like a house/villa in a Mediterranean setting like the South of France or Italy, where there is quite a lot of similarity in the countryside housing styles. This idea suits me nicely as one of my original ideas was to recreate my Grandfathers house in the south of France, so the style is very well known to me, at least in terms of exterior, and surrounding countryside. The interiors can be just about any style however.
We discussed more of the level design, and swapped bits of research that could be of interest to the other. For the environment design, we've been thinking it would be good to start in a nice, warm, open garden, with plenty of light - a very tranquil start to make the player feel like exploring. From there the plan is to move into a conservatory/entrance hall, which will look quite elegant, but not too ostentatious. As for lighting in this room I'm thinking it should be fairly well lit overall, shade instead of shadows, to evoke that sense of mystery and exploration described before. We want this room to feature a spiral staircase taking the player to the upper levels of the house, so i think focusing the direct light from the windows on this would be a good way of bringing the players focus in the correct direction.
From the entrance we want a couple more rooms, but are unsure about them just yet, other than they should slowly lead towards a darker, gloomier final room in an abandoned bell-tower, where the player will experience the jump. Strong contrasting light and shadow would be best used here I think, as it adds drama to the scene, so things like god rays poking through small windows in the sides of the tower. Im also thinking very de-saturated colours, with a lot more grays present.
We discussed more of the level design, and swapped bits of research that could be of interest to the other. For the environment design, we've been thinking it would be good to start in a nice, warm, open garden, with plenty of light - a very tranquil start to make the player feel like exploring. From there the plan is to move into a conservatory/entrance hall, which will look quite elegant, but not too ostentatious. As for lighting in this room I'm thinking it should be fairly well lit overall, shade instead of shadows, to evoke that sense of mystery and exploration described before. We want this room to feature a spiral staircase taking the player to the upper levels of the house, so i think focusing the direct light from the windows on this would be a good way of bringing the players focus in the correct direction.
From the entrance we want a couple more rooms, but are unsure about them just yet, other than they should slowly lead towards a darker, gloomier final room in an abandoned bell-tower, where the player will experience the jump. Strong contrasting light and shadow would be best used here I think, as it adds drama to the scene, so things like god rays poking through small windows in the sides of the tower. Im also thinking very de-saturated colours, with a lot more grays present.
Monday, 12 November 2012
Crit Week Review
Crit week has come and gone, and I think it went about as well as my pitch did, which is to say not bad, save for a bit of nervousness causing me to waffle and explain things in a weird way. Having to stop and ask for water half way because of an insanely dry throat certainly didn't help that. Generally the feedback was positive, but not without areas of concern. I tried to be honest about the fact that I'm still struggling with getting the momentum going with self-directed study, and that being Ill the last couple weeks hindered my motivation quite a bit. But I am confident I can break out of this slump when I start to get really into my project.
I also mentioned how I had let this blog slide for a little while now, but with this post I am taking action towards making more regular updates. This post will be a bit longer as I need to explain the new aspects of my project as well as the feedback recieved.
My latest iteration of the project aim is "Investigating how light within scenes can be used to influence environmental storytelling in an interactive 3D environment." I also wrote my objectives, and tried to make them as clear as possible:
- Conduct case studies of films and games, compare the use of realistic and stylised lighting approaches
- Critically analyse the works of other artists, identify and evaluate their use of lighting techniques
- Develop lighting tests to determine the effect of colour to influence player mood
- Create an interactive environment to demonstrate environmental storytelling through the use of lighting.
In terms of the idea development, I think something I did not fully understand during my pitch presentation, was Frasers intentions for the architectural style. We met up soon afterwards to discuss our project, and it became clear to me that he does not intend to pick one or two styles to use, but instead to study a variety, and the feelings and thoughts evoked by key elements of these, to then incorporate them into our design.
The overall environment idea is still generally the same, using light to guide a player through a level. The feedback was pretty positive for this part, everyone thought my objectives seemed fine at the moment.
As for the time setting of my artifact, I'm still unsure exactly when we want it to be set, but as Fraser wants to incorporate elements of Art Nouveau, I think late 1800's sounds like a reasonable estimate. This means electric lighting is out the picture but candle-light and gas-lamps should make for interesting atmospheres.
The main area of concern for me is that unfortunately I think I've spent too much of my time researching, and kind of left the concepting and pre-production stage till late. I plan to be meeting up with Fraser on a much more regular basis so we can discuss the actual content of our project, and what we want to make. Concepts will begin as soon as we decide more clearly on these aspects. The same goes for the pre-production, however I have attempted a few media tests, but with little success, I sort of forgot about the god-ray test, and when i found it again I still couldn't get it to work, but i did get some nice effects using global illumination in maya. The model is just a quick tower room with archer holes I threw together.
Another test Iv been working on is subsurface scattering
Though my attempts to apply it to a simple curtain model have so far been uneventful. I think this is another one I may need to bring into UDK to attempt properly.
Ryan gave an approving nod when i said that I no longer planned to take part in the Epic Games UDK Competition, as it was going to take far too much time out of Honours. For now our team has decided to focus only on the Samsung Developer Challenge and Honours, though theres rumblings in the group suggesting we may drop out of the competition to complete our game independently at a later date. I'm a bit torn as to which I would prefer, as I would like to continue it, but Honours is a big undertaking and I want to create the best environment piece I can.
I also mentioned how I had let this blog slide for a little while now, but with this post I am taking action towards making more regular updates. This post will be a bit longer as I need to explain the new aspects of my project as well as the feedback recieved.
My latest iteration of the project aim is "Investigating how light within scenes can be used to influence environmental storytelling in an interactive 3D environment." I also wrote my objectives, and tried to make them as clear as possible:
- Conduct case studies of films and games, compare the use of realistic and stylised lighting approaches
- Critically analyse the works of other artists, identify and evaluate their use of lighting techniques
- Develop lighting tests to determine the effect of colour to influence player mood
- Create an interactive environment to demonstrate environmental storytelling through the use of lighting.
In terms of the idea development, I think something I did not fully understand during my pitch presentation, was Frasers intentions for the architectural style. We met up soon afterwards to discuss our project, and it became clear to me that he does not intend to pick one or two styles to use, but instead to study a variety, and the feelings and thoughts evoked by key elements of these, to then incorporate them into our design.
The overall environment idea is still generally the same, using light to guide a player through a level. The feedback was pretty positive for this part, everyone thought my objectives seemed fine at the moment.
As for the time setting of my artifact, I'm still unsure exactly when we want it to be set, but as Fraser wants to incorporate elements of Art Nouveau, I think late 1800's sounds like a reasonable estimate. This means electric lighting is out the picture but candle-light and gas-lamps should make for interesting atmospheres.
The main area of concern for me is that unfortunately I think I've spent too much of my time researching, and kind of left the concepting and pre-production stage till late. I plan to be meeting up with Fraser on a much more regular basis so we can discuss the actual content of our project, and what we want to make. Concepts will begin as soon as we decide more clearly on these aspects. The same goes for the pre-production, however I have attempted a few media tests, but with little success, I sort of forgot about the god-ray test, and when i found it again I still couldn't get it to work, but i did get some nice effects using global illumination in maya. The model is just a quick tower room with archer holes I threw together.
Though my attempts to apply it to a simple curtain model have so far been uneventful. I think this is another one I may need to bring into UDK to attempt properly.
Ryan gave an approving nod when i said that I no longer planned to take part in the Epic Games UDK Competition, as it was going to take far too much time out of Honours. For now our team has decided to focus only on the Samsung Developer Challenge and Honours, though theres rumblings in the group suggesting we may drop out of the competition to complete our game independently at a later date. I'm a bit torn as to which I would prefer, as I would like to continue it, but Honours is a big undertaking and I want to create the best environment piece I can.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Project Changes
Well, my project idea has undergone quite a bit of change since my last post. I am now in the process of working out the logistics of doing a group project with Fraser, a GDPM (Game Design Production Management) student I have worked with previously. We both met up with Robin separately to discuss our project, and he gave us the go ahead, and seems quite keen to see what we can accomplish.
My plan is to still focus on environmental lighting, and Robin gave me a few ideas of things to research and test out (to be posted up here very soon hopefully). One of these I have already begun to examine is the film Barry Lyndon by Stanley Kubrick, in which Kubrick's main goal was to achieve as realistic a lighting set-up as possible, quite often using only candlelight.
Our current idea for the project is an environment which will attempt to make the player feel a range of emotions as they progress up a tower seperated into rooms. Each emotion will be specific to the room, and created with a combination of Frasers research into architecture and mine on lighting. I threw together a new mood board since the previous ones were no longer relatable.
We're thinking quite run down and abandoned, overgrown with plants. We want an air of mystery to it, so lots of shade, rather than dark shadows, in order to make the player explore further. As to a time period we're still undecided - The content would make it easy enough to simply keep it old, possibly medieval, but It could just as easily be set in the present/future, with some nice modern lighting effects next to traditional fire-light. Another aspect of the idea is more Fraser's design than my own, where he wants to use perspective tricks from the top of the tower to create a message that can only be seen by looking down at the start location, telling the player to jump. I really like the idea, and I'm pretty sure i can come up with some ways to use lighting to help this along. The idea is still in its early infancy, so there is a lot that me and Fraser need to discuss over the next few weeks to refine it into something good.
We're now into pitch week, so iv been preparing my presentation and working on some media tests in maya. Unfortunately my attempts to render god rays have been unsuccessful for some reason, I either end up with a black render image, or it fails to render entirely. Worst case scenario, I wont have a render to show for the presentation, but I do have a nice amount of progress I think for it to be a fairly minor issue.
Sunday, 23 September 2012
The Steep Incline Up The Honours Mountain
After some thought on the matter, I have decided the sci-fi idea is the one to go for. It provides me a lot of creative freedom, both artistically and for the research question - I believe I can make it fit whichever path my research goes down, whereas the other ideas I had seemed to always be putting limitations in front of me (at least in my eyes). It's also a chance for me to expand my breadth of artistic styles, as I've never really gone down the futuristic route, and would really like to try it out. That is possibly a risky approach to take for my final year, but I seem to like my risky projects.
I began by watching the series of Firefly and its follow up film, Serenity, which has an interesting mix of a futuristic style with old western and Asian influences. In Serenity I made an interesting observation about the use of back-lighting, and how it can cause entirely different effects based on certain variables. In a previous project of mine, within the horror genre, I read into the use of back-lighting to create an unsettling mood, however in serenity, the same technique is used to provide an almost angelic aura around one character in a particular scene. I think some of the aspects which would alter this effect are the intensity of the light (affecting the general lighting in the rest of the scene), and the subject matter being silhouetted. For example, a flock of sheep back lit by the sun would be far less intimidating than a graveyard back-lit by moonlight. I plan to research further into back-lighting and silhouettes.
I had wanted to use this weekend to come up with a few concepts for the sci-fi idea, but almost immediately I stepped right into some artist's block, and my mind was drawing a blank on anything I tried. So instead it became a search for inspiration. After reading through some of my friends blogs it seems a good number of them are in a similar situation as myself, which is kind of reassuring.
I began a list of all the sci-fi work I love and that inspires me, which should be useful for the literature review I will need to undertake. But in the short term I hope re-visiting some of these will give me inspiration for concepts.
I began a list of all the sci-fi work I love and that inspires me, which should be useful for the literature review I will need to undertake. But in the short term I hope re-visiting some of these will give me inspiration for concepts.
I began by watching the series of Firefly and its follow up film, Serenity, which has an interesting mix of a futuristic style with old western and Asian influences. In Serenity I made an interesting observation about the use of back-lighting, and how it can cause entirely different effects based on certain variables. In a previous project of mine, within the horror genre, I read into the use of back-lighting to create an unsettling mood, however in serenity, the same technique is used to provide an almost angelic aura around one character in a particular scene. I think some of the aspects which would alter this effect are the intensity of the light (affecting the general lighting in the rest of the scene), and the subject matter being silhouetted. For example, a flock of sheep back lit by the sun would be far less intimidating than a graveyard back-lit by moonlight. I plan to research further into back-lighting and silhouettes.
Lighting definitely seems to be of great interest to me, however I feel like I could incorporate the environmental storytelling idea into it somehow(The different styles idea, not so much). Still finding it difficult to put these ideas into suitable question form...
How can light be used in a 3D game environment to influence the players actions?
How does lighting affect the mood of a 3D game environment, and how can this impact on the story of the surroundings?
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Let The Honours.... BEGIN!
Well this is it, I'm onto the final year of my university course - Honours Year!
So, for those who don't know, 3D environments is what I aspire to do for a living, it's my bread and butter, so it comes as no surprise that I would choose to do this for my Honours Project. However it's a very broad subject area, and narrowing down what I want to do is the first of many problems I must surpass in the coming year.
I've had a few weeks to think about this since my first meeting with Lynn to discuss honours, and in that time I've managed to identify a number of areas that interest me (and thought of projects to suit the research). So here are my current ideas of what to focus my research on:
Environmental Lighting
-Currently my main idea as it's the one I have had longest. It is something I have identified as one of my weaknesses when it comes to environment creation, purely for the reason I've rarely put enough time and effort into this part. But at the same time it is one of my favourite aspects in my 2D work and the work of others.
I have had 3 ideas for this so far:
1. A re-visiting of an old concept of mine, with a temple situated in some mountains, in the center of which is a garden illuminated by the sky outside.
2. A house in the south of France, specifically the house built by my grandfather which unfortunately no longer exists.
I am very keen on this idea, as it holds a place close to my heart, which I feel is something i can use to ensure that I put maximum effort into my project. It was a beautiful house, with much of my grandfathers ceramic artwork incorporated into the design. The drawback to this idea is that I'm not sure it would provide enough for aspects of the coursework such as concept development. Would painting various angles of the house from photographs count as development?
3. A sci-fi landscape. This is a genre I love, yet have never really explored. The idea came to mind when I was told to look toward the artists that inspire me for ideas. Coming at the very front of the list is Sparth (Nicolas Bouvier), a concept artist who does (among other things) stunning sci-fi paintings. All of which I find have amazing lighting.
I would love to create something along these lines but in 3D, and I feel this idea has the most potential for lighting and overall creative freedom.
Photo-Realism Vs Stylisation
This is my most recent idea, suggested by Brian after I told him I was torn between which to choose for my project. My thoughts are that perhaps I could create a group of similar environments, each with varying degrees of stylisation, going from photo-realistic, to something like toon-shaded (definitely not set in stone that part). I think a minimum of 3 styles would be nice, and I could talk about the merits of each, and the history behind the evolution of artistic styles.
This would probably be a great project for my showreel, as it shows a breadth of artistic styles, and if I can get the photo-realism good, that is apparently looked on extremely favourably by employers.
Environmental Storytelling (for games)
This is something I have always been interested in, and try to incorporate to some extent into all my models. I love to think about the stories behind environments, and specifically how they guide the player through the world you've created. This is probably my most interactive idea, as I would want to actually have a player navigating my environment. Doing what, or discovering what, is where my mind has so far drawn a blank, but perhaps some of the ideas above would be perfect for it
Of course most of these ideas could be altered to fit into whichever area I decide to focus on, which is great, and quite possibly could be called for.
So that's it for the introduction to my honours ideas, my next task is to do some concepts for these ideas, and try to find more potential areas of interest.
So, for those who don't know, 3D environments is what I aspire to do for a living, it's my bread and butter, so it comes as no surprise that I would choose to do this for my Honours Project. However it's a very broad subject area, and narrowing down what I want to do is the first of many problems I must surpass in the coming year.
I've had a few weeks to think about this since my first meeting with Lynn to discuss honours, and in that time I've managed to identify a number of areas that interest me (and thought of projects to suit the research). So here are my current ideas of what to focus my research on:
Environmental Lighting
-Currently my main idea as it's the one I have had longest. It is something I have identified as one of my weaknesses when it comes to environment creation, purely for the reason I've rarely put enough time and effort into this part. But at the same time it is one of my favourite aspects in my 2D work and the work of others.
I have had 3 ideas for this so far:
1. A re-visiting of an old concept of mine, with a temple situated in some mountains, in the center of which is a garden illuminated by the sky outside.
This particular aspect I didn't get a chance to model, as I had nowhere close to the skill needed at the time, which is why i would like to re-visit it. Organic modelling is crucial to the concept, another facet of environments I have yet to delve into, which i would like to explore as part of this year. With the light interacting with the plants i feel there is more than sufficient technical challenge as well as a lot to explore and talk about in terms of lighting, such as sub-surface scattering, and animated shadows
2. A house in the south of France, specifically the house built by my grandfather which unfortunately no longer exists.
I am very keen on this idea, as it holds a place close to my heart, which I feel is something i can use to ensure that I put maximum effort into my project. It was a beautiful house, with much of my grandfathers ceramic artwork incorporated into the design. The drawback to this idea is that I'm not sure it would provide enough for aspects of the coursework such as concept development. Would painting various angles of the house from photographs count as development?
3. A sci-fi landscape. This is a genre I love, yet have never really explored. The idea came to mind when I was told to look toward the artists that inspire me for ideas. Coming at the very front of the list is Sparth (Nicolas Bouvier), a concept artist who does (among other things) stunning sci-fi paintings. All of which I find have amazing lighting.
I would love to create something along these lines but in 3D, and I feel this idea has the most potential for lighting and overall creative freedom.
Photo-Realism Vs Stylisation
This is my most recent idea, suggested by Brian after I told him I was torn between which to choose for my project. My thoughts are that perhaps I could create a group of similar environments, each with varying degrees of stylisation, going from photo-realistic, to something like toon-shaded (definitely not set in stone that part). I think a minimum of 3 styles would be nice, and I could talk about the merits of each, and the history behind the evolution of artistic styles.
This would probably be a great project for my showreel, as it shows a breadth of artistic styles, and if I can get the photo-realism good, that is apparently looked on extremely favourably by employers.
Environmental Storytelling (for games)
This is something I have always been interested in, and try to incorporate to some extent into all my models. I love to think about the stories behind environments, and specifically how they guide the player through the world you've created. This is probably my most interactive idea, as I would want to actually have a player navigating my environment. Doing what, or discovering what, is where my mind has so far drawn a blank, but perhaps some of the ideas above would be perfect for it
Of course most of these ideas could be altered to fit into whichever area I decide to focus on, which is great, and quite possibly could be called for.
So that's it for the introduction to my honours ideas, my next task is to do some concepts for these ideas, and try to find more potential areas of interest.
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