Off the map project Visual design

As one of the two Environment artists in our team, I worked alongside Becky to develop the look and atmosphere of our mid summers night dream level, using visual representations with concepts, environment art and paint overs. I wanted to achieve a variety of environment art to capture the four different level areas we wanted. For example the first clearing, connecting paths to areas, Titanias area and Oberons caves.

 

This helped to design the look of the level and help my team with the layout of the levels. I also created very quick paint overs of the white boxed level to further help the team with the layout and look of the scene.

After finishing with the concepting side of the project, I moved onto creating assets for the level, including rocks, foliage, stool, stump, giant mother tree, reeds, plate, wine bottle, roots, fairy windows and doors. Towards the end of the project I also created a vista tree background and the Enter button for the level.

To begin the project I started developing initial environment art of the four areas we wanted to incorporate in the level, starting with the first opening clearing of the forest, then Titanias water area, with Oberons cave afterwards. Using the reference image and mood board myself and group had collected, I started sketching ideas in my book, which I then transferred to photoshop to start painting over with colours. I created sketches thinking about the layout and level design of the game, for example in most of the areas, I sketched rocky banks so that the player cannot exit the level and move where they should. I also thought about the type of trees, as it is supposed to be a fairy forest I thought curved arched trees, with twisted roots would fit the theme of an enchanted forest rather than straight up trees.

. In this Environment art piece with the waterfall the in the centre, inspired from ‘Midsummer Night’s dream’ by P. D. white, I created this piece for Titanias area using photobashing and painting over with lots of layers, I then played around with colour iterations for different atmospheres and used more vibrant colours to enhance the fantasy theme.

Game Art Week Twenty Nine

This week I continued with the off the map project, this week was mostly fixing models for engine after encountering problems and dressing the scene of the level. Although now that I have finished modelling all my assets I was left with nothing else to do, so I was given that task of making the vista for background trees, it had to be fairly heavy on shadows. I used renders of trees models for the level, then edited them in photoshop with painting over.

Afterwards I started creating the enter button for the game, so far I have finished the wooden part and the roots need working on, with the image cleaning up when its finished.

Game Art Week Twenty Four

This week I continued making the rocks for the off the map project, using the clay brush and slash to carve into the rock shape. At this point we had the terrain and some white box trees put into the level, so I used this to take screen shots and do very quick paintovers, which I thought would help the group visualize the layout and look of the level more. As we decided at the beginning of the project we were going to have puck as a character guide the player through the game, I helped out by getting my fiancee to record to sound bytes to show the group and see if it was suitable for the character.

This week we also had our summative pitch presentations, this time I felt a little more confident presenting my work, I improved my presentation with better layout on the sildes, added a background and presented each piece of work better, which I added a gradient background and made each image larger to fit the page so it would be more visible to my audience. I also finished my dichotomous poster, I decided to use a composition that would portray the relationship of both characters the best, which the protector character at the back large and overlooking the smaller protected character at the front. I used my zbrush sculpt of the smaller character and photobashing to develop a realistic representation.

Game Art Week Twenty two

This week I continued with the off the map project, which I continued producing environment concepts for the different areas of the level, for example the first clearing, the pathways, titanias area and oberons cave.

This week we also had our formative pitch presentations of the dichotomous character project. This was to receive feedback from tutors, to improve our presentations for the final summative presentations. I feel my presentation had lots of relevant points to talk about my characters and I decided to present my work from the start in order, to show how I developed my characters and discussed the choices I made. My feedback was fairly good, however they picked up that I didn't feel confident in my work and it showed in my presenting skills, to improve this I want to practice my presentation more and I decided next time I would wear my kimono costume, as it relates to my characters and might make me feel more confident presenting. I also need to remove most of the text from my slide and focus more on my work, rather than talking about audiences and similar games. Now I have the feedback from this presentation I can start working on improving for my second presentation, I aim to add a background to my slides to make the presentation look more interesting and visually pleasing, but to make sure its not too distracting from my work. I want to do paintovers on my low poly model to show what my character would look like with more time and improvements. I also will have finished making the poster for the two characters to present next week.

Game Art week Twenty one

This week I continued with the off the map project. After last week we focused on planning and worked on gant charts and asset lists. This week I began concepting environment art for a forest, from the reference images and mood boards my group had collected, I sketched ideas in my book then scanned them in to paint over them with colour. Working as a team along side becky as both environment artists, I used the colour palettes to change the lighting and atmosphere of my concepts to match each part of the level. We decided to have a time cycle, which it would start at sunset and as the player progressed through the level would gradually change to midnight.

Dichotomy Character Project, Visual Design