Pg. 0. Abstract Pg. 1. Aims & Objectives Pg. 2. Time Plan Pg. 3. Resources Pg. 4. Research Pg Storyboard (S7) Pg. 11. Practical Pg.

Transcription

1 FMP Report Josh Williams

2 Contents Abstract Pg. 1 Aims & Objectives Pg. 2 Time Plan Pg. 3 Resources Pg. 4 Research Pg Storyboard (S7) Pg. 11 Practical Pg Dissertaion Proposal Pg Portfolio Plan (C6) Pg Work Based Plan Pg Year Business Plan (C5) Pg. 34 Evaluation Pg. 35 Conclusion Pg. 36 Pg. 0

3 Abstract For my project, I will be working with nine other members of my group, to create the design and a prototype portion of a game, including narrative, plot and visual design. My role within the team is art director and character artist. This will involve me visualising and designing many ideas and to create my own, uniform art style that will be followed by other artists and modellers. I will be utilizing much research and design knowledge to create a distinct style that follows and furthers the feel and attitude of the narrative. I will be utilizing many aspects of fundamental art and design to create interesting and original characters, locations and objects. I will also be overseeing the creation of assets and environments, to maintain the art style all the way through to the finished model. To maintain a coherent style, I will also be creating the requirements on models and assets, e.g what kind of maps to use, sorts of textures to be using, etc. This will involve much research and use of already acquired fundamental art knowledge. I will also be sculpting, modelling and texturing the characters for the project. This will involve correctly translating a 2d design into a 3d model, and will require much knowledge of anatomy, design, and technical aspects to modelling. I will need to successfully create characters to a complete professional standard, more so than anything else I have created, and I will be doing much study and practice to achieve this. Characters and environments will be stylised to a degree that is proportionally cartoonish and yet realistic in other aspects. I will be conducting lots of research into designs of this style and also be looking at a lot of animals and creatures to further designs of aliens in the game and the locations. Modelling the characters will require me to understand and successfully be able to create professional level current generation topology and design. I will also need to be able to bake a number of maps on to character models including normal maps, texture maps, specular maps, gloss maps, light maps and possible even coloured specular and emissive maps. In this project I will be doing all of this at a professional level for the possible funding and development of the game in the future. Being Lead Art director will also mean that I not only conceptualise physical objects and scenery, I will also be conceptualising ideas and creating a visual representation of said ideas, such as cinematic moments, or certain animated movements. As art director, I will also be contributing input on music, sound, and animation. While I won t be expressly making the content for these areas, I will be overseeing them in regards to making sure they fit to the designs and style of the rest of the game and its world. This is a very big project that I am equally passionate about, and will be working extensively practically and through research to achieve a professional quality product. Pg. 1

4 Aim/Objectives My aim in this project is to create a viable and creative art style and 3d characters for a video game. I will be showing that I can work to the standard of a current generation video game and design artist to display my professional ability and viability for employment. The main aim of this project is to develop and learn to create truly professional quality content. I will be researching and practicing much art and design development and through much work this year hope to achieve a quality that is of the highest quality and employable. The overall aim of this project is to have a top quality portfolio to show to clients, and a professional quality game sample, to acquire funding for. I will be doing this through a number of objectives. Firstly, I will be researching design fundamentals and looking at research into the art style. I will be looking at art styles that best express the story and world we want to make. This will involve looking at art styles used in the past, which ones told similar stories to ours, which were successful and not successful and then looking at research material to derive inspiration and reference from. This will be things such as animal reference, character reference, material and texture reference, etc. This solid research will help to assure that the overall design outcome is solid and achieves exactly what we want it to. Secondly, I will be conceptualising most aspects of the game. This includes, characters, environments, weapons, assets, scenes and conceptual ideas such as how the user interface could look, how a certain scene could play out and also creating any reference art material requested, this would be things such as front, side and back views for assets to help modellers properly match the concept. I will also be sculpting, modelling and texturing the characters for the game. This will involve following the concepts and properly translating them into 3d. I will need to keep progressing my anatomy knowledge to maintain a good quality character. I will also need to make sure my topology is perfect for animation and the poly count of my characters remains viable for a current generation game. This will also involve learning how to bake and generate a number of character maps, and creating them in a way that looks professional. Finally I will be creating visual renders or next gen renders of characters for use in my portfolio. This will involve experimenting with different software to get the best visual representation of my 3D characters. I will be looking into mainly using a real time rendering software called Marmoset, but I will also be looking at other possibilities such as Keyshot renderer, Mental Ray for Maya, or Vray for Maya. These four objectives collectively build together my intended outcome of being able to present current gen quality conceptual and 3d work and to develop my artistic skills to the maximum of my ability. Pg. 2

5 Time Plan Pg. 3

6 Resources For this project I will require a number of resources at my disposal to create the best possible outcome. This involves not just hardware and software but also skills and people. This project is to make an entire demo for a game and as such, requires a whole team of people to create. My role in the team is Lead Art Director, Concept Artist, and Character modeller. This is only a small portion of what goes into making an entire game. As a result of this I require a number of people, such as an animator. The animator will take the models I have created, and then rig, pose, and create animations for these characters, this requires that I am able to make a high enough quality model with enough knowledge of topology for it to be efficient for animation purposes. I will also need Programmers to work with UDK Kismet and Script so that gameplay elements can be created and so that my characters can interact and be part of the world in a believable manner. As Art Director I will also need to work with sound specialists, to control the kind of music produced for the game and assure that it expresses the world in the intended fashion. I will also need to work with sound artists to assure characters dialogue matches the story of the design. I will also need to work with other more general asset and environment modellers. As Art director this is to maintain a coherent style throughout all aspects of the world. As a character artist, this is so the characters fit in to their surroundings appropriately and vice versa. I will also be working with artist specifically working on assets and machinery as a character artist. This is because machinery and mechanical parts need to feel like they could have been built by the characters and also some characters may have machinery and mechanical aspects to them, which may involve a collaboration of people on a single character. Software requirements are very important, as being hindered or limited by lacking software or hardware could drastically reduce the efficiency and speed at which this very large project can be produced. Most importantly, I require a current version of Zbrush. It is important to keep up with the industry, which is a rapidly moving one. This is especially true of Zbrush, as it is currently one of the biggest innovators of the industry s software developers. They are consistently changing character development for the better and as such should definitely be continued to be updated. I will be using Zbrush for sculpting and also some conceptualising of characters (these will use a combination of Zbrush and Photoshop). I will also need Autodesk Maya for low poly modelling, UV creation and baking. XNormals will also be used for map generation and baking. I will be using Photoshop to texture characters and to concept pieces for the game. I will also possibly be using Topogun or 3Dcoat for retopology purposes and Marmoset for real time rendering of characters. I will be using a PC for the creation of the project and require a graphics tablet for digital drawing, sculpting and painting. Pg. 4

7 Research This project will require a large amount of research on my part. I have and will be conducting lots of research for the purpose of assuring this project achieves its desired outcome. I will be studying many technical skills on how to create the models to a top quality standard. I will be following the teachings of professional artists within the industry and purchasing a large in depth collection of guides on creating optimal characters in detail from initial creation to texture baking and presentation. This research is vital to me as a character artist as I need to develop my abilities to as high a professional standard as is possible. It is important that I know the correct way to create all aspects of a character and model in general so that I can put everything into practice and become the best I can be in this field. I will also be extensively studying the fundamentals of conceptual character and environment work and how to tell story through design. This will involve vast areas of design and will be the substance of my dissertation. This is important research that is beyond just design. It includes the details of fundamental art, creativity and even psychology! Understanding this knowledge is what sets a professional conceptual artist above the rest and is vital knowledge that is quite frankly lacking in content across academia and the internet. Many amateurs trying to learn to be this kind of artist are hit by a barrier, as they do not understand the concept of this research as there is no content out there to help them do that. I feel that this is an important matter, and as I am passionate about the community of people learning to do this and passionate about educating others, I hope to use this knowledge to publish material on the internet to help our future artists understand this. As well as this, I will also be gathering much visual research for the art style of this game. This will include samples of similar art styles that we want to go for and reference inspiration for the alien characters and environments. For aliens I will be looking at artists with styles that I like, as well as animals and nature for reference and inspiration. I will also be looking at what sort of style best fits our story, and what styles in the past have been successful. This is vital to our work as we need a professional product that works harmoniously. The art style needs to reflect the narrative of the world, it needs to tell the player the story of the world without any words saying as such. This applies to all conceptual work whether it be characters, environments, or assets. Characters need to reflect their personalities, in a way that is naturally and immediately readable to the player. Pg. 5

8 Research Pg. 6

9 Research Pg. 7

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11 Research Pg.9

12 Research I will be researching through a variety of media. I will be reading books, watching videos, looking at articles, and looking at visual pieces to gain a wide range of knowledge and understanding of the subjects at hand. This is vital as the knowledge specifically on the subject of my work is hard to reach. This is research is more than just applying knowledge to this FMP or my work this year. This research is on knowledge I need to know and educate myself further in to extend and develop my abilities in a way that nurtures progressive growth in me as an individual and in my professional ability in the design and creation of art. This research is some of the building blocks into becoming the artist I desire to be, and without these foundations of knowledge, I cannot thrive. I have already looked into some areas of successful art styles within games that perform a similar outcome to ours. These are games such as the Fable franchise, Brink, and Dishonored. While not all of these games would be deemed successful in a financial perspective, these games were noted and revered for their fresh art style, and distinct appearance. Some aspects of this design itself is what sold some of these games, only proving further that the style of these sort of games is a good idea. I will also be looking for books and information on my dissertation and have found a book named Informed Character Pose and Proportion Design and some psychological studies into the subject matter. Another sample of research I will be looking at the least is an extensive guide on character development for current generation games called 3D Character Art for Games by Hai Phan. This collection of guides on absolutely everything there is to know on character development and creation currently reaches a total of 553 minutes of tutorial with more additions to come. I will be utilizing this research much more than I have done in the past and am taking it much more seriously. This research is beyond simply what I need to complete the project. This research should, with luck, advance my knowledge of design and application to the point in which I will feel confident enough to say my skill level is professional. This research is the beginning ground point of intellectual venture that will likely follow me for the rest of my life. This research will become the foundation of my knowledge and be ever expanded throughout my career to go above and beyond the rest and truly achieve my desired goals and level of skill. This makes the nature of my study this year much more important than those in the past. Pg. 10

13 Storyboard Here is a storyboard for a scene that did not make it into the game. I made sure to consider how this would be presented, what cameras, etc. Pg. 11

14 Practical I began this project working solely on conceptual ideas for the game. Originally, the idea for our game was a game involving space pirating and exploration. For this I made some initial, early sketches for characters, designs and a "mood" shot. The mood shot was a simple drawing that shows the atmospheric feel of the game. These were drawn in Photoshop using a graphics tablet. I would begin with a canvas at 1920x1080 pixel resolution. This is because this is true high definition resolution and so would be crisp and sharp on any screen size. I would also the canvas to be 300 pixels per inch, so that it could be printed well if the time ever arose, and also as it is a good habit to form, just in case. I would then use a rough, pencil like brush to sketch rough shapes. As these were very early in the design process, they were very rough and simple, to get mine and other people's ideas for the game out simply and efficiently. This helps the flow of the creative process, as it helps people to visualise the game together and make sure everyone is understanding the ideas properly and thinking in the same direction. It was very important throughout the entire creative process that I think of the feasibility and the purpose of any given design. I would always look back to my reference material and constantly be considering why something is there and what it is doing, it was important that everything in the design had a purpose, whether the purpose was its actual functionality in a real life situation, or in its presentation of the personality of a design. This is something I focused heavily upon during all conceptual work that is about to be displayed. Pg.12

15 Practical However, upon reflection of the timescale we had and the style, we decided to take a different direction in our game. This is where we moved to "Severance". The team decided they wanted a game that had a dark humour element, and a gritty, grungy art style. They also decided they wanted the game to be stylised, and artistic instead of realistic. I decided I wanted characters to greatly express their personalities and physically express the kind of person they were. I also knew I needed to exaggerate these features and their personalities to help push the stylised look. As Lead Art Director, I needed to create an art style that not only was enjoyable to the team, but also best represented the core ideas our game wanted to represent. We discussed a lot about how the style would be. We decided upon a sci-fi world, with slums build from old spaceships and any other metals, with a societal upper class living above in a tower. The core idea of the world was that everything ran on fuel. Any mechanical objects would have exhausts, spewing smoke into the air, all buildings and devices would include this, eventually causing a layer of fumes in the air, splitting the slums below, from the society above. We decided that the character was to have four arms, two human arms, two mechanical. And I began by visualising how that could look in a gameplay perspective. It was important when drawing this piece to purely get the "feel" of the idea across. It did not need to be a beautiful, detailed illustration. I understood at this point in development, that I needed to create quick, rough designs that could easily be changed, modified or scrapped entirely if they weren't quite right. This first piece was a very simple drawing using Photoshop. I used single point perspective as a reference for the depth of the piece. Starting on a neutral grey layer (as a bright white canvas on a computer can strain the eyes), I blocked in some silhouetted shapes to represent limbs, and weaponry. It was important in this design that the player had plenty of screen space, as many limbs could easily block visibility. I would use a combination of the brush tool and the eraser tool to draw and create the shapes desired, using a graphics tablet to simulate the drawing of a pencil on paper. Once I was happy with the shape, I added small details to the image, such as a health bar, crosshair, and fire. I finalized the image by adding a vignette to the piece. This draws focus to the centre of the game and helps to push the believability of the piece. I do this by using the Elliptical Marque tool to select and oval shape area in the centre of a blank layer across the entire piece. I then go into the selection options and feather my selection to something between 80 and 120 pixels depending on the piece. This gives me a feathered selection in the centre of my work. I then need to invert my selection by going in to the select options and clicking invert. Now I fill the new selection with a pure black using the paint bucket tool. This has the correct fading across the piece but is way too dark. To solve this, I then select the vignette's layer, and change its opacity until it is at a level I am satis- Pg.13

16 Practical Then, I began some concept design on an alien race we planned to have in the game, but did not have time to implement. The idea was to create a native race of people, that live and feed on the rocky, desolate environment of the game. They were to be gruff, tough and "stone-like" in their personality as well as their appearance. After looking at my visual research, and the research that is shown in my dissertation, I was ready to design the natives. I began the same way as before, with a neutral grey canvas and began to silhouette some designs. This would be done in one of two ways; I would either have an idea already and start to shape it out, or I would create random shapes on the page in hopes to inspire new ideas. I tend to want to have at least three rough ideas for the client/team to discuss and talk about which ones they like and what parts of each they like. I created four for this project and then chose two to take further on from silhouettes. I only need to paint two, as the first two will in hopes express the lighting and details that is present on the others. I began the drawing of the two designs by first considering where lighting would be placed upon the character and where there would be details and shapes. For the purposes of quick, rough designs I went for a simple main light, side light and back light. The main light is the one that controls the angle of light, shadows, and brightness on the character, the side light is there to slightly illuminate dark areas, and prevent detail being lost from shadows being too black and the back light is there to create a rim light, this highlights the edge of a character and enhances the detail. Then, using the brush tool and my graphics tablet, I would then paint lighter areas on the character where the light would hit. the graphics tablet helps me to control strength, size and opacity of a brush stroke using a tablet pen like a real pencil on paper. I then blend the lights and darks using the colour picker to pick out some in-between shades, and paint the object till the lights and darks are blended appropriately. It was very important to consider the anatomy when creating details on skin and muscles, and also important to consider the space and where things were, further forward or back and how this affects the details and shapes. Once I was happy with this rough shaping, I created a new layer and added a bright rim light to the edge of the character. Highlighting the overall silhouette and design. Instead of giving a vignette to this piece, I lighten areas of the background and add shadows under the feet of the characters. I do this by creating a new layer, above the background layer and below the drawings. I then use a very soft brush to create blended lighter areas on the background, and soft shadows beneath. This adds a sense of weight and presence to a character that would otherwise feel like it was "floating. The lighter areas on the background imply a space behind the character, and the shadows imply a floor. Pg.14

17 Practical This was then presented to the team for constructive feedback and improvements so that I could then move on to the next stage of the design. They fed back with the parts they wanted from each of the four shapes. It was chosen that the head and arms of design two, and the body and legs from design one. Now that I knew the shape and personality of the character, I could finalise some facial designs before finally completing the design. For the face designs, I did line art, instead of shading. I began by drawing a simple, front view head, and then duplicated it multiple times to try different things onto it. I did this by duplicating the head layer multiple times and moving them across from each other on the canvas. Once the team had decided which kind of head they preferred, I did one final head drawing implementing those ideas. I used a watercolour style brush to add some simple shadows on the characters, below the layer with the heads on. This helps make the concepts more readable. Once this was complete, I could create a final conceptual drawing for the creature. I took the head from the last drawing and put it onto a new canvas. There I began to draw a body out continuing from the head, using all the design traits specified in the previous feedback and criticism. Once I had the basic line art, I then created a new layer and used a soft, round brush to create some simple lighting and form on the character, this was done below the line art as to not obstruct it. Using techniques from before, I then lightened the background, added some shadows, and gave the picture a feint vignette. This is my usual technique for designing a character or creature, using an iterative process to have the best design possible as an end result. As Lead Artist and Designer, it was my job to make sure everyone got a feel of the art design and that everyone could understand and relate to it. I had so far shown the player view as an artistic idea and a character. Now I decided to create some buildings and environment designs to help the environment and asset modellers create objects for the game. Pg.15

18 Practical Since we knew exactly what we wanted from the building designs (Metal sheets stuck together, slum like, stacked on top of each other, engines, exhausts), I went straight to a single concept design for a building. This was done with the same technique as the previous one, with line art highlighted with a layer below. However, this time instead of using a soft, round brush to highlight I used a rough, square brush. This is due to the building being metallic instead of organic and I had to best represent that in a quick manner. Another thing I did differently on this piece was add some colour. I did this by creating a new layer on top of the canvas, I then set the layer type to "overlay". This meant when I applied a colour to the layer, the colour would be overlaid onto the detail already on the canvas. This meant I could easily change the colours if I didn't like them at any time and could control the brightness and vibrancy without affecting the rest of the detail on the building. Since everyone was happy with this design I could begin doing some real accurate designs instead of rougher ones. The first building design requested was a gun shop. This was done in an isometric drawing style, Using the same techniques in all older conceptual work. Firstly however I drew a rough out block shape for the building as an initial shape, to check if it looked correct, felt correct, ect. I then set the rough line art layer to 50% opacity to use as a reference for a more refined, accurate line art layer. Once I had the final line art, that was much sharper, and cleaner, I could hide the rough line are layer. For this piece however I also had some neon design effects and some engine fumes. To create the neon effect I chose a solid, coloured brush for the neon light itself, and then overlaid a second layer with a soft, round glow of the same colour. This simulates the "glowing" effect seen in neon lights. The smoke was created using a rough, grey brush and then highlighting the initial release of the smoke with a glowing, fire colour. This sharper, more illustrated drawing was important to help asset artists truly visualise all the details and materials on the models they will be creating. This helped as it would mean I could make rough, quick sketches out for ideas and then the modellers could go out and make them using the concept as a guideline, and their knowledge of the art style to create the piece. Pg.16

19 Practical I was then asked to draw another shot of a building like the first one, but with some perspective and depth. To do this, I decided I would use two point perspective. I created a horizon line on my canvas and placed two points on each side of the canvas. I then used these points as reference for the angle and depth of where edges and angles would be. I roughed out a simple box shape and drew over the box to create the simple house. I was also asked to design some more buildings, that could be placed above the others. For this I had the idea of shanty buildings on pillars over the top of the slums below, based upon tree huts seen in real life and in films such as star wars. I designed these with air and sky in mind, using parts from aeronautical machinery instead of the metal used in the slums below, this included the roof being made with turbine propellers, with buildings being round from using silos and turbine engines. These were placed on rickety pillars with gangways linking them together. I also did a top down view to show the rough aperture like design of the propellers on the roof. Pg.17

20 Practical Using all these techniques, I did a number of concepts for weapons, buildings and scenes. Pg.18

21 Practical At this point I needed to conceptualise the human characters present in the game. However, instead of traditional 2d concept work, I decided to use Zbrush to concept sculpt. This is much more useful for heads and faces, as I can shape, tweak and morph them very easily like clay, instead of manually redrawing a face multiple times, which can be a time consuming and difficult challenge. Conceptual sculpture is very different to sculpture for a game. The topology does not matter so much, and the only important thing is to present the idea. For these conceptual pieces, I started with a sphere. I then use the move brush to pull out the sphere into the shape I desire. In this case; a head bust. Once I have a basic head, ears and neck, I would then use the dynamesh function to evenly remesh the polygons across the mesh. This is important, as although the resulting topology is not important, the spread of them across the object for sculpting is. pushing and pulling around the mesh can leave places with polygons all close together and other places with them too stretched out, making it difficult to sculpt upon. Once I had tweaked and modified the dynamesh function till I was satisfied, I would then subdivide the mesh, dividing each polygon into four smaller ones, quadrupling the polycount and allowing me to sculpt onto the mesh. I then proceeded to use the 'clay build up' tool, to sculpt details onto the mesh such as cheekbones, jaw lines and brow, eye sockets. During this phase I would hold shift to switch my brush into the 'Smooth' brush, so that I could smooth out any rough areas and shapes. This gives a very rough form, however, the mesh is too low poly to make finer details and the 'clay build up' brush is too big. The next step is to subdivide the mesh a second time, and switch to a combination of the clay build up brush and the 'Damien Standard brush', aka Dam_Standard. All brushes in Zbrush are not a one function brush, however. Holding 'Alt' will cause a brush to do the opposite of its current function. For example, the clay build up brush will add large, square lines to a mesh whereas holding the Alt key and using the clay build up brush will cause it to dig into the mesh. This is a very important feature when sculpting, simulating the process of adding clay to a model and carving some away. Unlike the clay build up brush, the Dam_Standard brush creates sharp, fine cuts into the mesh, for details and lines such as wrinkles and creases. This is used to help form the general area of the eyes and lips, nostrils and ear details. During this time it is absolutely important I always consider the anatomy of the piece and how the human structure is built. I would then go to the subtool palette, and append a new sphere to the scene. I would then move this sphere into the eye socket, ready to use as an eye. I then use a plug in for Zbrush known as 'Subtool Master' to mirror and duplicate the eye across to the other eye socket. Once this was complete, I would make a final subdivision and use only the Dam Standard for final details and the smooth brush if I cut into the mesh too hard. I then created eye lids, wrinkles, lip wrinkles, nostrils and other small details, completing the form of the mesh. Pg.19

22 Practical The final steps to a conceptual sculpt are to add colour, and adjust the material for presentation. To colour the mesh, I would select the standard brush. The standard brush adds a soft, round line to the mesh. However, I want the brush to add colour detail, not sculptural detail. This means I had to change the brush settings. All brushes are defaulted to the 'Zadd' function. This means they are 'adding' to the mesh in some way, like the clay build up brush. There is also the 'Zsub' function, which provides the same function as holding the 'Alt' key on the keyboard. In this instance, I must change the brush form 'Zadd' to 'Rbg', changing its functionality from object to colour. I would then fill the object with a blank white, as a base, by going to colour, fill object. Using the standard brush I would then proceed to colour the face, using the Rgb's intensity slider to control how strong/harsh a colour is applied to the mesh. Finally, I needed to change the material to a skin like material for the head, and a shiny, reflective material for the eye. To do this I select my skin material, change my brush mode to 'Mat' instead of 'Rbg' and go to the colour menu, then fill object again. This gave everything in the scene my skin material, which was no good for the eyes. To solve this, I select the eyes individually in the subtool palette, and do the same thing for them. I did this multiple times for a number of heads. Pg.20

23 Practical Now, as I had to create multiple game ready characters and not a lot of time for it. I knew I needed a base mesh. Characters most importantly require a topology suitable for animation. The topology of a mesh is referring to the flow of polygons across a mesh and their frequency. For example, faces require a very specific poly flow to be able to move and react appropriately, and a high amount of polygons. However, feet do not scrunch and stretch and express like a face, and do not need many polygons, or a solid edge flow. A mesh for in game also needs a good UV structure, using as much space on a UV square as possible, and to utilise that space appropriately. Again going back to the face vs. feet example, The face would need more space on the UV, as it will have more details in its textures, and be the focus of attention, the feet however have very few details, and are not likely to be seen much at all. These things can be extremely time consuming, and to solve this, many developers will have a base mesh to go off. Not only with this have the correct topology and UV's, it will also mean a lot of the initial shaping is already there, as it will already be anatomically correct and have all features such as limbs/fingers etc, which can be difficult to sculpt out from a sphere or time consuming to model in Maya. It is also important that a base mesh is as average and as neutral as possible, so that it can be used for a character of any shape and size. Pg.21

24 Practical To begin this base mesh, I began the same way as the conceptual sculpts from before, except this time, instead of going to painting the mesh when I completed the head, I appended a second sphere to sculpt with. Then, using the move brush, dynamesh feature and the brushes mentioned earlier, I created a torso, using multiple references of anatomy and my own knowledge from studies in the past. As I had made all pieces of the base mesh individually, I needed to merge them into one, solid mesh. To do this, I merged all meshes into one subtool. This does not physically merge the pieces however, it only puts them on one layer. To merge the entire shape into one, seamless mesh, I had to dynemesh the now merged subtools, creating one, even topology of the entire model, not as pieces. After a lot of anatomical tweaking, it was time to create the correct topology for this mesh. In the past, I have retopologized a mesh by importing it into a software called Topogun. This involves using the high poly mesh as a reference, and placing vertices where desired upon the mesh, linking them up to edges and faces afterwards. This can be extremely time consuming, so instead I learned a newer, quicker technique for retopology; the Zremesher feature of the new edition of Zbrush. Zremesher is a function that calculates and creates a good topological flow controlled by user input on where to have edges, where to increase and lower polycount, etc. This had the potential to turn a job that could take one month into a job that could take one hour. I played and tested with the feature until eventually I got a result I was almost happy with. However, there were a number of problems. Firstly, the edge loop of the arms and legs spiralled down as one large edge loop instead of being in rings. This is very problematic for animation, UVing and all aspects of character making. The second issue is that the eyes and mouth were sealed shut and needed to be opened. To solve both of these issues, I imported the model into maya, and tweaked the topology. Once I was satisfied with my topology, I could then begin UVing the mesh. Pg.22

25 Practical To UV the mesh, I imported it into Maya and used the Cas_UV plug in to create a UV quickly and efficiently. This program allows me to select exactly where I require the seams to be, what UV shells the will become, and automatically flattens and unwraps them. Once this was complete, I proceeded to create some teeth, tongue and eyes using the same methods, and was ready to create characters using this base mesh. Pg.23

26 Practical Using all the techniques I had practiced in earlier work, I began to create characters. I will notify the unique things I did for each mesh, instead of repeating the same tasks I already have. To create clothing on the mesh in Zbrush, I would mask select the area I desired the clothing and extract the selection. This extrudes out a shape separate from the base and still holds the same shape as where it was extruded from. This becomes a good base for a piece of clothing, such as trousers. Then, these pieces of clothing are sculpted with the standard brush, to rough in the shapes of folds and creases in the material. Once satisfied with this, I then would finalise and sharpen these folds with the Dam_Standard brush. As these clothes would be covering parts of the body, any body part completely covered by these parts would be deleted, as to lower the poly count for use in game, and to free space on the UV shell for the new parts. The clothing would finally be put through the Zremesher function, touched up and then UVed in maya. For detailing on clothes, such as the lines in a vest. I used the surface noise tool in Zbrush. This allowes a repeating, tilable pattern to be adjusted, modified and then placed onto a mesh. For skin pores. I would import a skin pattern alpha to the brush pallet. Doing this modifies the shape of the brush to the selected alpha map. I then changed my brush to drag, instead of stroke, meaning that I would manually drag a small portion of skin pores onto the mesh individually, instead of a brush stroke across. For objects such as shoes. I would use the clip curve brush to flatten an area of the mesh completely. This was used for the sole of the boot to create the flat bottom. A combination of all these techniques and the ones used in the conceptual sculpting were used to create a number of characters. The final step for these characters was to create and bake the texture maps. Pg.24

27 Practical Characters for in game require at minimum 3 maps. These are Diffuse maps (colour), Specular maps (reflectivity, light colour) and Normal maps (High Details, transferred from high poly mesh to low one). For this I also made a gloss map (controls the shine of the model). I would begin by creating two different versions of the characters. One high poly (fully subdivided, all details.) and one low poly (lowest subdivision, mesh that can be used in game). I would then use a program called Xnormals to bake the maps I required. This involved transferring details from the high poly mesh to the low poly uv's by rendering them to the low poly character. To create the diffuse map, I baked out a number of maps. I baked the vertex colour map, which is the flat colours that I have painted on to the high poly in zbrush, then the Ambient Occlusion map, this would render and calculate shadows on the mesh and finally the cavity map, which would darken all cavities on the high poly mesh. I would then proceed to take all of these into photoshop. Using the vertex colour map as my base, I would overlay the ambient occlusion map and the cavity map to the top of the diffuse, this adds a vast amount of detail to the colour texture. Then I would teak and add tiny details to the texture, such as scratches, dirt and blood, and the diffuse map was complete. One character also had some hair, that was textured onto some flat planes. However, I needed the hair to look like lots of tiny hair strands, without making a hairpiece too high poly for game. To solve this, I used an alpha map to hide areas of the planes I did not want. To do this, I created a layer in the channels of the texture, instead of in the regular layers tab. This creates and alpha channel. Then, I used the magic wand brush to carefully select all the blank areas I did not want visible, and painted them black. This tells the engine using the texture that certain parts of an image are to be invisible, and make that area of a mesh invisible. This meant I could have lots of high detail hair strands but still only use a few polygons. Pg.25

28 Practical Creating the diffuse map then meant I could go onto creating the specular. To create the specular I take the diffuse map and make it greyscale. I do this by creating a new Black & White adjustment layer. Then, I use the brightness/contrast layer to control its brightness. Finally, objects with a grey specular often do not look quite right. This is because the light ends up appearing to be the same colour as the diffuse, which we do not want, as light hitting the object should look white. This problem is most apparent on skin. To solve this, we must colour the specular to be the opposite of the skin, in this case, blue. This neutralises the pink of the skin and makes light appear white again. Normal maps are used to display high poly details and shapes on a low poly model. This is used to create models for games that have high or realistic detail. High poly models themselves are too big to be used in games, so the appearance of the high poly mesh is transferred on a map. I create the map by using Xnormal to bake the High poly detail to the low poly UV's. Finally, the gloss map is created using a solid grey or using a darkened, greyscale diffuse. When a character had all its maps and was complete, I exported the model as an.obj to give to the animator in our project, who would then proceed to animate the character and place him in the game. Pg.26

29 Practical The final step I took on character creation, was to render them in Marmoset Toolbag 2. Marmoset Toolbag is a program that allows a user to import a character and present it in real time display, simulating how it would look in a game engine. I set up a single scene for use in all my characters. This scene had a dark grey background, and I created three lights; a main light, a secondary light, and a back light. I tweaked their brightness, strength, direction and colour until I was satisfied. I then import my character mesh and link all my textures to the corresponding nodes in the marmoset engine. I then finish of the rendering process by adding small effects, such as a vignette. I also add depth blur in the camera settings and tweak its focal distance. Lastly, I tweak with the sharpness of the image, and then render out the scene for presentation. This is not only for presentation purposes however. Marmoset is a useful tool to check and modify your maps in real time, ready to be out into a real time engine. Pg.27

30 Practical Pg.28

31 Dissertation For my dissertation, I propose to ask the question: What makes conceptual and character art good? How do we tell story through design?. I will be studying, in detail, the topic of what makes a character instantly recognisable through a single image. We are able to depict much from a single character; who they are, what they do, what they enjoy, their mood, their attitude, wealth, knowledge, age, experience, intellect and so much more. This is a very interesting topic to me, as this is very much a combination of the fundamental knowledge of art and that of psychology. These are both topics I feel should be more openly linked, as the importance of being able to achieve this in design is absolutely one of the most important abilities required in the conceptual field of art and I believe all art in general. This will be an extensive document in which I would like to cover many topics. My main topic of interest will be the purpose and use of proportion and anatomy in telling story. This is the subject of faces and bodies that represent the personalities of the characters themselves. This is something humanity does instinctively; we apply personality to everything. Upon seeing specific details upon faces or bodies, we make assumptions of personalities on the character, we even do this to inanimate objects. This is something done subconsciously by all people, but artists need to bring it out of subconscious and become aware of how this works and is applicable to their work. This will cover things such as the shapes of faces, expressions, bending and stretching anatomy, and posture. To further exaggerate characteristics in art, we often push them beyond realistic proportion to create fantastical caricatures that make a piece feel whimsical, and fantastical, as the art itself bends the truths of reality, and so should be expected from the game/media itself. This is not at all exclusive to character design. This is equally vital for environmental design, as these should be reflecting the world also, and sometimes even reflecting a character as an individual, for example, a sporadic and flustered character will not keep a tidy or organised room, representing their mental untidyness and lack of mental organisation. For animation, this is equally applicable. If an animator gets a character model, they need to read and now exactly how that sort of character is going to move. A muscular, confident character will make muscular, confident strides. Whereas a sneaky character will make much more subtle, quite steps. This is information that should come naturally to any professional artist. I will also be talking about use of colour and apparel. Colour is a very important topic to consider upon design, and has heavy subconscious connotations, not just in individual colours, but also in pairings and groups of colours. For example, giving a character red and white uniform, will mostly cause a player to instantly assume the character is a medic in the same way a character wearing all black will be considered dark or bad, and a character all in white the opposite. Apparel is something that should always be considered in design also. A character who travels far and often will carry a lot of supplies, a character who is a veteran may have scars and damage throughout their uniform, and perhaps trophies and medals of war. Pg. 29

32 Dissertation There will be many subjects of this nature I will be covering in this dissertation, perhaps even subjects I have not yet realised myself! I hope this to be an experience in which I solidify my current knowledge of this area and also manage to learn new and interesting information towards it. I hope to be able to explore a topic in a way that has yet to be properly looked into at this level and perhaps one day expand this into a full academic research paper or perhaps a resource of information for users across the internet. I will be looking at this from the perspective of giving people the fundamental knowledge and mentality of thought on this subject to be able to advance on the subject themselves. For example, I will not need to educate a person on what every individual differentiation in the face represents; once the concept of moving parts of the face around for different personalities becomes apparent to the learner, the specifics will all become obvious, and click into place naturally. This is because, as said earlier, this detection of personality is something we as humanity already do every day of our lives subconsciously. I hope to be able to correctly show that art, design and psychology are all heavily linked in a way that all people interested in the conceptual or developmental side of the game industry understand is vital to them and their progression as an artist. This subject is not something many artists look into at this level, and I feel that it is something that should be studied by any aspiring artist regardless of role. While content on this subject matter is limited I hope to be able to find a number of sources on this subject and hope that this will be something that helps me throughout the rest of my career as an artist. This is a dissertation that I hope can be the culmination of years of self study and research, and best show that I am at a level of understanding and reasoning that can be compared to the current professionals in the industry and perhaps more so than some. Pg. 30

33 Portfolio Plan For my portfolio, I have a very solid idea of what I hope to achieve. I have thought prior to this year on what I want out of my portfolio so that I can be sure of its purpose and usefulness to my future. I have looked at what professional game artist and game artist recruiters have said is important in creating a portfolio for myself and feel prepared enough to be certain of what I want. The biggest feature important to my portfolio is that it is immediately simple at gets straight to the portfolio of work. Industry professionals claim that when looking through portfolios, each one would be observed for no longer than around five minutes. This means that while complex and interesting home pages involving flash or animation may seem eye catching or interesting, they are inefficient and a recruiter or lead artist looking for people will not be interested in this. They want to be at the portfolio and contact information as soon as humanly possible. For this reason I plain for my pain page to contain my name, and other information at the top banner, and then portfolio work section on the main page. I want this to be two distinct buttons that take the centre of the page, reading 3D characters and 2d Conceptual art. This splits my art appropriately and makes it quick and easy to navigate for a client or recruiter to quickly and efficiently get to the appropriate area they are looking for. On each page, the centre of the page will consist of rows of medium sized thumbnails of the art pieces to be clicked and expanded into a lightbox that can be cycled through. If I choose to include videos, I will have these in a separate 3rd button area to keep loading times of pages minimal. I will also be hoping to have a method of quick and easy uploading of images to the website and appropriate sections that will put newest content at the top of the rows and perhaps maybe a highlighted area for some of my favourite works. I will be keeping this in uniform my with my personal and wrapper style. However, I will be update my wrapper style to better represent myself now, and to make changes that I now want to do. This should create an efficient, easy to use website that advertises my abilities to clients exactly as they would like to see it. Pg. 31

34 Portfolio Plan Pg. 32