Traditional - Blog topic 6

Edgar Degas' 'Bust of a Woman' is an example of cool and warm toned Impressionist art. Degas uses coloured pencils on warm toned paper. 

The model is lit from the right hand side, which is indicated by the lighter warmer tones used, particularly in the hair and face. He has also used the warm tones of the paper under a loose light blue pencil, to accentuate the light hitting the clothing. In the darker shadowed areas of high contrast, Degas has used a solid fill cool tone to send these areas into more depth and further away from the eye. This can best be seen with the shirt on the left hand side of the sketch, and at the back of the head. These dark contrasts add an element of depth and 3Dimension. 

The face features smooth transitions between tones, such as around the chin and under the eyes, which demonstrates the original soft texture of the skin well in this sketch. However, in contrast to this the hair is textured using more streaked mark making. In addition, the shirt is sketched using rougher and broader pencil strokes, defining the roughness of the fabric and breaking up the texture quality between the skin and the clothing. Similarly, the background is loosely textured albeit with a coarse shading method and the use of horizontal lines, which allows the model to stand out well but lets the background become part of the sketch as well.

Degas uses occasional strokes of bright red to accentuate tone in the face and the background. For example, his gentle use of red in the face creates a realistic colouring which is brought out better with the surrounding use of cooler grey and light blue tones. There is a slight curvature to the red markings, which creates a sense of rounded form of the cheeks. The light tones highlight the brightest planes of the face, along the right temple and cheek, as well as along the bridge of the nose. 

The blues and browns in this sketch are well balanced, and there is a general feeling of warmth and gesture to the piece. This can be seen well in the arm and the background blue around the face, indicating movement. 

I really like how well Degas has represented the youth and personality of the subject, through expression and surface quality of the face. the sketch is overall aesthetically appealing and interesting to look at as the eyes are drawn to the many different textures and tones of the piece.

'Bust of a Woman', c. 1880- c.1885, by Edgar Degas

Digital Reflection 21 - Final mini project hand in and post mortem document

I finished the mini project by placing all of my work into a presentation and handing it in for marking. I placed in some information in the first few slides regarding the project idea, gameplay, synopsis and a mini style guide. These slides were made by me and shared with the rest of my group for them to put into their presentations too, for the sake of continuity and clarity.

Title page, made by Cerys in my group

Shared slides, made by me 

I then placed in my own work, including my moodboards and my project pages. In the middle of the powerpoint, in the character section, I made a newer version of the character size comparison sheet, with everyones most up to date version of their character (and the train design). This helped to not only demonstrate the scale of each character and the vehicle, but it also demonstrated the shared style that we tried to follow as a team and the use of shape language and colours. The only issue with this is that not everyone's project was finished and so it doesn't share all the aspects of the style, such as the bright highlights on some of the characters.

Regardless, I was very happy with the outcome of my presentation, as I think it showed a strong effort to create continuity within the team's style and vision of the game concept.

Finally, I filled in the post mortem document for the project to see what went well and what I could improve for the future project. I also dictated what I wanted to feed forwards into the next project, such as keeping an asset management list and creating a strong style guide from the very beginning of the project.

3D reflection 12 - Choosing and developing our group project idea

We went through as series of ideas as a group, based on the theme of realistic contemporary. We started with a jail set during a riot, but decided to explore other elements of the theme, such as a modern day ruins of an ancient temple. However, we struggled to think of a good narrative and way to develop this environment, and so we explored other ideas. We strayed from the idea of a contemporary setting, and looked at ancient Egyptian palaces, in old royal society. We did not want to include fantasy elements as this would stray too far from our original prompt, but after talking about the idea in more detail we figured out a way to develop the rooms of the dungeon crawler according to a basic narrative: the game is set at the end of a conflict over an ancient Egyptian city. the protagonist is a messenger who has delivered a message far too late to the pharaoh about the raid on the city. Therefore he must traipse through a  palace that has been damaged on the outskirts, in the more communal areas (e.g. the holy area and the courtyard were mainly available for commoners to visit in ancient palaces), and move inwards towards a more pristine protected undamaged area, and finally end up in the pharaoh's room which is virtually untouched.

 Page from our group powerpoint

The move from poorer to richer and damaged to pristine is how our crawler will develop, along with different themed rooms, such as a statue room, a throne room, a tomb room, and others that we distributed amongst the group members. We made a plan of the characters and rooms that would be featured in a group powerpoint, before displaying our ideas to the tutors.

The feedback that we received was to distribute the rooms according to the level of damage and wealth they display in order to make a continuous development. From this, we split the rooms into three categories: damaged and poorer, medium wear and fairly wealthy, and finally very pristine and wealthy. we then re-distributed the rooms so that we would make our sections in the same categories. For example, I am now making the courtyard, a tomb and a corridor in the damaged and poor category early on in the dungeon crawler. I am also making the Pharaoh for my character.
Our main style guide is the art of Assassins Creed Origins, set in Ancient Egypt.

My page from the group powerpoint

The next stage, according to my plan, is to make the 3D blockout of my rooms over the holidays.

Old floor plan

Newest basic floor plan

3D - Blog topic 5

In order to stay organised for the group project, I did a personal plan for my rooms and character, based on the template from in class. I tailored the details to my project specifically, such as for the stretch goals I added dust particles in the tomb and sound effects of running water for the ponds in the courtyard garden area that I planned. 

I did not do the group section yet as I was going to wait until everyone had made a plan to fill this out, much like the asset management lists we used in other projects. 

Digital Reflection 20 - Finishing the moodshot

I decided to use the 3D blockout method that I had practised previously for the landscape photobashing task in order to produced the moodshot. Using my building designs I made some simple block outs in 3Ds Max, and arranged them according to my thumbnail and street layout designs. I then set up a perspective camera, so that it matched the composition of the detailed thumbnail and took a series of render passes. I took a main fully lit render, Zdepth render, a clown map, and a lighting pass from the left and the right hand side so that the lighting in photoshop would be more accurate, and that it would set a stronger mood in advance before doing the rest of the moodshot.

Blocking out buildings in 3Ds Max

Creating a Camera

Camera View I chose

Using a HDRI for lighting

Rendering

Applying directional lights

Creating a clown map

I then used a combination of photobashing and handpainting to render the rest of the moodshot. I used a similar process to the landscape photobashing task that we practised previously as it was more efficient. 

I then played around with the raw camera filter to edit the photos, and played with the clarity, tinting and saturation setting. I wanted the moodshot to portray a sense of desert heat in the afternoon during a duel, but I also wanted there to be a sense of magic in the air, so I tried to achieve a balance of the more fantastical pink and the warm orange of the desert. I added several fantasy elements to the moodshot, including the magic windmill, water trough, the slight tint and finally the flying dragons in the sky to drive home the sense of a fantasy world mixed in with the wild west.

Finally I added stylistic effects similar to that of the character design, such as the bright highlights, and the silhouettes of different races based on the characters designed by the group. I think that the final moodshot represents how the 3D platformer would play quite well, and dictates the level of  fantasy and western elements in the style. To improve, I could have done some colour versions of the crowd silhouettes, and maybe made some signs for the building facades, such as shop names. Overall, I am pleased with the outcome.

Final moodshot

Digital Reflection 19 - Beginning the moodshot

I started by gathering my reference for the moodboard together, and doing another page focused on platform game screenshots for composition ideas. I based some my thumbnails off of these compositions to get a more distinct feel of a 3D platformer.

Using existing platformers for reference

I then chose my thumbnail to develop. I liked the idea of showcasing a stand-off scene in a town environment, as it matched my character's setting with her saloon.

Initial silhouettes

Detailed Thumbnail

I started developing by making building facade silhouettes to identify shape. I used similar shape language to the interior of the saloon and the character, as well as integrating shapes from other characters such as slanted sharp edges and wooden beams to match the fairy for example.

I also developed a modular building arrangement for the streets. I wanted a variety of heights and shapes, as well as colours. The camera perspective is represented by the pink arrows. The moodshot would be showing the back of the character. Then I made a page to explore street dressings in more detail. These were the areas that I was going to add a lot more fantasy to.

Digital Reflection 18 - adding extra details to the interior

I received feedback from my tutors about how I could further communicate textures to a 3D artist and to the rest of my group to solidify the style guide. I took a piece of furniture as an example, the bar from the saloon, and did a version of how it would look textured in game. I chose this piece as it allowed me to showcase two types of hand painted wood material, polished and dull.

I also did a quick sketch of how the outside of the saloon would look, as the tutors were unsure about the interior architectural structure of the building. Doing a sketch of the outside allowed me to convey my thought process when designing the interior.

I lastly put in a player pathway in the interior, as there is a clear path that could be used in the game. The player would enter through the saloon doors, go up to the stage area to perform an action, and then move upstairs along a platform-like balcony area and finally outside to the last door, where they could continue on to another part of the level.

Doing these extra details helped me to further flesh out my ideas and add clarity to my presentation.

3D Reflection 11 - Using Perforce Pt. 2

The next lesson we linked our levels using perforce again, and focused on adjusting the sky light in the master level and putting in spotlights to enhance areas of the buildings.

I tried making a dusk coloured sky light, using pinks, blues and yellows. I thought these colours matched the colour schemes of the buildings well. I then tried messing around with spot lights, adjusting the illumination level and the falloff. I made a line dancing area in my corner, and placed lights on the corners . At first the shadows cast by the lights were distracting so I switched them off, which resulted in a cleaner look. 

Finally, I messed around with the mannequins, placing lots on the line dancing area, changing their colours and playing with the physics options.

Overall I really enjoyed using Perforce for the first time, it made me feel coordinated and allowed me to simulate a working day in industry.

Adjusting the Skylight

Altering spot lights

Changing the mannequin settings

3D Reflection 10 - Using Perforce

We tried using Perforce for the first time in a team. Setting up a user and a connection was the first step, and although it was difficult to remember the stages, I found that it was straight forward once practising it a few times. In a team, we then took a screenshot of the Unreal western level provided from a birds-eye view and did a series of street plans. I had a corner to populate with buildings, and using perforce we linked our files by activating source control to check out each other's work. One of the most challenging things was making sure that I remembered to check out my level, as there were times that I lost my progress because I synced with an older version of the level. I also sometimes worked on the master level by accident, so I had to remember to check what level was active before working.

Setting up Perforce

Connecting Source Control

Checking out my level

Assembling my corner

The Master Level

Digital Reflection 17 - interior breakdown development and final

I developed the inside objects further, particularly by making orthographic sketches of the key objects and adding details to them. This would help me to set up my final construction drawing and to dictate how objects would look from different angles for a 3D designer.

Object details from different angles

First version of construction drawing

I produced a version of the final construction but I was not entirely satisfied with the colours. They looked too bright and friendly for a gang leader's HQ. Therefore I did some colour variations playing with brightness values and tones of blue, purple and brown. I was much more satisfied with the final.

Variations of colour - similar to character to match her aesthetic

Final Construction drawing 

My feedback form my tutor was to produce an example of how an object would look textured in the game and to share it with my team as part of the style guide.

My message to my team about feedback