Work on the side: Quick Style-driven Concepts

Between trying to get the hang of ZBrush/Maya integration I decided to do some brief 2D work to remain of sane mind.

Focus on Proportion & Suggestion

The main challenge I've enjoyed through my 2D research has been in the suggestion of the line work. Less is more. I think this is something I started appreciating through the focus on the silhouette at the start of the semester.

As I stated in my PDP, I wanted experimentation with pose and proportion to be a big part of my practice, in the hope that this would make my designs far more interesting and varied. So far it would seem that it is leading my sketches to be much richer in character and appeal. At the moment however, it's unfortunate that my 2D work outweighs my 3D practice a great deal. After all, the justification for this project is the way they are captured in 3D, and how their appeal stands afterwards. So I really need to get a move on with 3D if I want to have something to evaluate. 

Cheers for now, 

Stylised Character (Adult)

I decided to spend some time yesterday taking my sketches into a final character design paint. It ended up being a lot more difficult than I expected. Originally I ran into a few problems regarding anatomy. 

The whole nature of the exercise was to create a detailed stylised character whom I had developed through preliminary sketches and studies. But I found it difficult not to pander too much to real anatomy when designing. It felt like a bit of a juggling act most of the time as I tried to play to realistic anatomy, while tuning it to fit the illustrative style I was going for and of course the personality of the character. 

This is one of the first character paintings where I have asked for, and received a fair amount of critique from classmates. Most of the critique I received understood what I was going for; some didn't. For example, a few people mentioned some of the characters' features were wrong, when really, they're just stylised. For example, the nose doesn't exactly look like a proper functioning nose, but it does at the same time; it fits a certain style. 

Features can be abstracted to help the character design.

I'm reasonably happy with how the final design turned out. I think this should provide an interesting platform to sculpt/model from. I'm not going to create a front/side/etc view because that would defeat the purpose of this exercise also. I want to sculpt something purely from the essence of this stylised concept. 

As for my personal critique, I think a few things stick out. I really need to get better at painting clothes and fabrics. I also think the hair looks off and the face could use some extra features to help make the character more memorable.

Thanks!

Thumbnail Exercise Cont. / On Style

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to take (what I felt was) my strongest environment thumbnail, and block it out quickly in Maya. After this, I would begin the process of lighting the scene in the most interesting and effective way. I'm still messing around with lighting, but I did block out the scene. Tomorrow I'll be testing different camera angles and lighting.

Quick thumbnail block-out for lighting tests. 

While reflecting on the 2D designs I'd been working on so far for the project, I became aware of the lack of stylised presence. The main point in the project is the development of stylised artwork and the effective translation into 3D. 

So I spent a lot of time looking at 2D artists who are really known for their distinctive style. I wanted to find inspiration in 2D work which wouldn't typically fall into the realm of concept art for 3D modelling, and really bring the stylised aspect straight back into the forefront of the pipeline. 

Rob Laro is an artist who I've admired for quite some time. Laro's illustrative style is very strong and recognisable - as you can see here. 

He is also a prominent 3D artist and some of his techniques are loosely explained throughout his blog. I also managed to find a time-lapse recording of him sculpting one of his 2D (stylised) characters in ZBrush. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5hSHllFfG0 

 I think I'm going to alter my PDP having seen this. I know I said I wouldn't, and that the intention would be to model in Maya, but I can't hold off the urge to attempt some awesome sculpts any longer. 

So my next step will be attempting to sculpt my character in ZBrush!

Also, because I didn't think my original concept art was stylised enough, i decided to do some more sketches of my adult character with bolder lines. You can ignore the top-left corner, that section was more an ease-into the style practice beforehand. Hopefully the Laro inspiration is strong with this one. 

Thanks,

On Gamification

Naturally, I've given a great deal of thought to the importance of potential gameplay within this project.

Last week I completed an informal case study which I made to compare the ways in which digital adaptations can be handled, and to hopefully better understand where they shine or perhaps fail to shine, and more importantly why.

The two adaptations I chose were The Story Mechanics' steam-available The 39 Steps, and EA's Alice: Madness Returns. 

The 39 Steps

It's seems to me that TSM are possibly testing the water with The 39 Steps. This adaptation is all about the original story. It is very much interactive, and there are gameplay elements scattered throughout, but ultimately there's a lot of respect paid to the original text. 

The 39 Steps is a digital story adaptation by The Story Mechanics

And that's cool. I like the idea of giving these classics a new filter. Especially if the artwork is strong and plays to the charms of the original prose.

 The artwork here really seals in the changing moods of the different acts and lends the whole experience a sort of torch lit under-the-bed covers reading atmosphere. That's the best way I can think to describe it. If you can't relate to that, well, your childhood sucked. 

Motion Graphics. 

I think I mentioned motion graphics in a previous post. Either way, I mentioned them in my presentation last week (which went fine) and how they're something that I didn't experiment with enough during honours, and as they work so effectively in The 39 Steps, would like to properly try out this year. 

Art Style(s).

This is something that I really didn't see coming. About 2-3 scenes in, there is a flashback/anecdote in the story. At this point the art style completely changes to a very simple, silhouette-based style. 

The way the shift in style plays to the literary technique here is very effective. It keeps the story fresh and emphasizes the flashback nicely. This is something that's been done in movies (and games) many times. I love the use of style shift here. 

Roles. 

The way this adaptation assigns itself is something to be noted also. In it, the player controls the narration, and other areas such as letters, locked doors, etc., and the characters' monologue and dialogue are subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

Alice: Madness Returns

Alice is an adaptation in the traditional sense of the word. I guess you could say The 39 Steps is a direct adaptation to a visual-interactive form. Alice takes the original story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and molds it to suit a desired audience and transports it into a fully realised game narrative and world. 

Alice: Madness Returns

Art Style.

(Aesthetically) The characters in The 39 Steps are (arguably) no more realised or fleshed out than the novel. And this is of course intended and relevant to what they wanted to achieve. I'm not trying to judge anything. I'm merely noting everything for my own practice. 

In Alice, the creators obviously wanted to create a solid 3D world and art-style synonymous with Madness Returns. The finished art style is very stylised and strongly expresses the psychological horror nature of the game. 

Concept Illustration - Joy Ang

In Game

Roles.

Nothing special here, you play as Alice throughout the entire game (as far as I'm aware). I still have to play the game. But from the articles I've read, the Art of book, and play-through videos, it would appear this is the case. 

I can illustrate a point; We have the technology.

Moving swiftly on

Gamification.

...Is totally a word - and a great word at that. 

I stumbled across this video this morning - and it sent me on a tangent. I've not really gotten all that far with the thought yet, but bear with me. 

In the video, Chris speaks about the need for gamification in certain games. At one point he mentions Super Mario 64, and explains that players often had the most fun just running around the colourful environment as Mario in 3D. 

The nostalgia is tangible with this one.

The way the game felt and played to your senses was enough. By taking simple elements we are all familiar with and juicing them in certain ways, the player could enjoy themselves. No score/points. Just inherent pleasure within the way the game felt. 

Sand. Fun for the whole family.

Just like the way Journey takes advantage of the players' imagination with sand. In Journey you slide elegantly down the sand dunes as you cross them. This isn't what happens in reality. But if you asked eight year old you what should happen, it would probably be a safe bet to assume something along the lines of the above. (Somewhat paraphrased from a Jenova Chen presentation)

Basically all I'm getting at with this is that because it's easy to take an idea, run it through a gamification machine and hey presto! you have a game, I want to take elements from the story which would sing through clever gameplay. Don't just go for the obvious in adaptation for interactivity. Films certainly don't; rather, play to the stengths and tease these everyday things like playing in the sand and let your imagination run wild.

Bye for now, 

New pipeline. Step 1: Thumbnails.

It's been a really long time since I last used thumbnails (Honours). So I really enjoyed working with them again. It's incredible how useful they can be for getting ideas down quickly and comparing them.

So in the above thumbnails I brainstormed scenarios for my warrior character (adult version).

This Guy

So as I mentioned in my previous post the reason behind these thumbnails was to take them into 3D software and block them in, including lighting, and then take into PS to create a final concept piece.

However, with the first few thumbnails I went a bit off-focus. You can clearly see in the first 2/3 I was more interested in scale/narrative/etc - basically focusing wayyyy too much on the details.

I realised this was becoming an issue during thumbnail 3. And so with thumbnail 4 I totally stripped back the styling, and only focused on values. However, I was still thinking pretty big in scale, and so with the final two I brought the scale right down, and ended up with two thumbnails I'm happy with.

Thumbnail 5: Has a nice sense of motion, and this streamlined valley could have some interesting lighting going on. However, the only materials in the picture are rocks - with a few structures in the distance. So this would probably be a very bland final composition.

Thumbnail 6. I think thumbnail 6 is the most successful of the thumbnails. It's fairly simple, ties in nicely to the character, and most of the image is in the foreground. There is also a broader range of objects/materials (grass, water, clouds, stairs, house, etc) which would make for a much more interesting rendered composition.

The next step is to begin blocking out the scene in Maya. Hopefully I'll remember to screencap this, because I want to not only work on my time, but watch it back and maybe pick up on any dumb things I did. I'm no 3D expert.

Cheers,

Mentor Advice.

I've heard back from two of my mentors this week: Mike (Traveller's Tales), and Alex (2000AD).

Both have provided great insights into their professional practice, and as such I now have a few experiments I want to try out over the next few days.

I won't go into the detail of the e-mails for obvious reasons, but Alex did explain his production methodologies. He explained his process at the beginning of a project, and went on to describe inspirations, and general practice.

All this can be seen across on his blog.

So from his advice I decided I would explore the 3D side of early design benefits. In my PDP action points I addressed an interest in "Designing through 3D" and so I hope this will help me in that part.

From Alex's advice I think I'm going to attempt this pipeline:

Thumbnails > 3D staging & lighting > Final paint.

This is something I've never tried before, and so I'm really excited to see how it turns out. It probably won't be great, but I'm sure it'll benefit my research.

Mike also gave incredibly useful advice. He referred all his practice to the famous LEGO series. His perspective is from the role of Technical Animator, so this actually ended up being a great help to further connect my project for this with my animation module.

Action points for the next week

- Thumbnails for my character.
- Select thumbnail to mock up in 3D with an emphasis on speed. No point sketching in 3D if it takes all day.
- Create effective lighting in scene.
- paint over and replicate lighting in Photoshop.
- Analyse work.

Play Test (Alpha)

Yesterday was a cool day.

After weeks of working on our own games, we all went around and playtested each others'.

One thing that really stood out was the diversity of the games. The fact that I could go from game-to-game-to-game and not see one pirate or zombie, or whatever, was such a delight. So I really hope the feedback I gave to the few games I actually managed to play will be helpful.

As for Role, I was happy that, although the game was praised, the other developers were being critical and clearly wanted to help make our game better.

Critical/Negative Feedback.

- How did I get the points?
- Was stuck at the dominoes for a while. Although that's not really a complaint
- Not much gameplay
- Didn't quite understand why I failed at the house/elevator part.
- The final part of the level drags on.

Things to note.
- Over-tapping often.
- Focus on the moon means people don't notice the lanterns which lay in the grass.

So I'll just quickly address these points.

- How did I get the points?

This is an obvious problem straight away when you start the (alpha) game. This all comes down to the polish of the player reward system. The placement of the lanterns is another reason. At the moment the lantern positions are very punishing in the way that you either get no points if you don't understand what's going on, 10 points occasionally, 20 points if you're a natural, and, well, I've had 30/30 points twice.

We're currently adding in new lanterns, and polishing the reward system. At the moment the score system works (which is all we really needed for alpha) and so we just need to make it clearer than some small number in the top corner. We're certain that after these improvements have been implemented the objectives will become much clearer.

- I Was stuck at the dominoes for a while.

This was something I loved watching. One of the developers tried and tried to get past the windmill launch part, and kept falling short because they were out of sync with the windmill blades. After about 4-5 tries he clicked going up the elevator and realised he could time the collision. This was a total thrill to watch, as he managed it first time upon realising this. Because time is supposed to be a crucial element in this game, it was just great to see someone understand this and go on to complete the challenge.

- Not much gameplay & The final part of the level drags on.

With great game design, comes great gameplay. This one came as no surprise, although it was less frequently mentioned than I had predicted. We're going to cut out the long rolling sequence towards the end of the level very soon. Because this section leads up to the (likely) drop into the ditch, which is already horseplay, it's like a double whammy of "Seriously..?" It also comes straight after the difficult lantern/catapult section which people can miss first play through. So this awkward gap in gameplay becomes overt. Although I think it should be noted that I don't think this would be an issue if the moon was say a character you controlled. There are many long running sequences in Limbo which totally fit with the whole exploration side of the game. But the input makes it acceptable. Because our moon rolls independently it's a drag.

- Didn't quite understand why I failed at the house/elevator part.

Same issue at the dominoes one above.

In summary, I'm optimistic about the currently trajectory of the game, and looking forward to addressing the issues my fellow devs had. At the same time though, we don't want to make the game too obvious or patronising; and so we won't pander too much to the players' first few tries - great games rarely do; and we can hopefully make something that stands out by remembering this.

(Some of the) Positive feedback. 

- Awesome art style. (I can sleep easy)
- Paces well. 
- Music & atmosphere immersed me in the experience

I guess I don't have too much to say about this. I love that people are getting into the game, and enjoying it for the reasons we are aiming for. For now we'll just keep our heads down.

Cheers for now,