Diner Update // The Canyonrush Crew Update - Pic Dump

I've been super busy with University work lately, check out where I'm up to:

Diner in the Desert

It's been two weeks since my last update on my game's design honours project. I've been working hard on this project and it's steadily getting there.

Since my last update, I've modelled a lot more stuff including bar stools, plates and bowls, cutlery and light fittings. I've also worked on the car some more, updating the model and texture. I've worked on many of the other assets textures (such as the walls, floor and bar) too. Finally, I've also created a basic desert landscape.

The scene is starting to come together now and I'm beginning to get excited for how it will look when it's done.

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And now for an update on a project that I feel like I've slightly neglected on my blog...

"The Canyonrush Crew" is the game concept that I've come up with for my other Uni module. It's a 3rd person action adventure game set in the Wild West, featuring 5 different playable characters. The last post that I made about this project was in January, so naturally, I've done a lot of new work for it.

For this project, I'm creating a 2D concept art piece for each of the 5 characters. I'm also creating a 3D model that "belongs" to each character. I'm also creating an interactive presentation explaining the user interface and menu system of the game. Here's some pictures of the work I've been doing for this project.

More updates to come soon!

This Week at Uni - Character Designs!

Super busy week this week, the submission of our character design module, which at first seemed miles off, suddenly snuck up, so everyone was freaking out and smashing out character designs, including myself.

I've posted some pictures of one of my character designs in previous posts, this one is now done:

 

We also had two other projects. One of them was to create two characters, a tank and a soldier, who belonged to a "visual family", meaning that they look like they could belong in the same "universe"/game. This one took a hell of a lot of time and late nights and is probably my favourite piece that I produced for this project. It was partially inspired by the Pacific and Band of Brothers series with a pinch of post-apocalypse included.

Finally, I have a picture that is currently unfinished but I'm going to return to it and try and boost my mark at a later date. This one is of a "cannon fodder" character - generally the most common type of enemy, that you see (and kill) a lot of in a game. I went for a more comedic approach to this one, playing on the cannon fodder idea. It's a zombie being tricked into stepping on a land mine. It's far from finished but I thought I'd post it anyway.

 

This Week's Work

This week at Uni was spent working on a new project. This involves two out of three of our study modules and we've got six weeks to do it, so it's pretty big. Basically we have to pair up and use Maya and UDK to create a level, from scratch, that provides 6-9 minutes of gameplay. Eventually this will result in the most complete "game" we've made thus for on the course. We're also being paired with music students for this project to create a soundtrack which is going to be pretty exciting.

With that said, I don't actually have much to show for it yet because we're still in the idea generation and concept stages. I spent all of Thursday using UDK and learning how to script events. Here's a screencap that I took of a script in which the player has to activate 3 switches to make a door open to give an idea of how complicated this is.....

I also did a bit more work on my vampire hunter concept art that I've been posting for the past couple of weeks. Here's how it's looking now....

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Finally, I also did a bit of music. I've entered a competition to remix a track by Hans Zimmer. The prize is a job as a composer in America, which I don't expect to win of course but it was a lot of fun to do and I learned a bit about composing while I was it. It was originally an orchestral track and I took a few separate instruments from it and added some guitar to make it sound as unique as possible.

You can listen to it here: https://soundcloud.com/denimkid/from-afar-bleeding-fingers

This Week at Uni - Vampire Hunter development and Tile Texture

Not an awful lot to post this week as I've just been powering on through the projects that I mentioned in last week's post.

Firstly here's the latest version of my Vampire Hunter concept art for my character design module. I've cleaned up the character and reigned in the lines a bit to make it a bit neater. I've also started to further develop smaller areas, like weapons, accessories etc and started to develop lighting effects. A few more hours work and it should be done!

I've also finished the second of my high quality textures, which was pretty rushed but I'm fairly happy with how it's turned out.

That's all for this week!

This Week at Uni - Vampire Hunter concept art and Metal Texture

It's been a busy week at Uni this week with a few big projects kicking off.

The first is a character design project; we have to design a main character for a game and create a piece of concept art that can be used as a desktop wallpaper. My idea is an "Arctic Vampire Hunter" and I've gotten started on the picture in Photoshop. I'm experimenting with lighting and poses with this one. It's nowhere near done yet but here it is so far.

We've also had a "next gen texture" brief which is basically about using normal maps to give a texture depth and specular maps to dictate how it reflects light. This has actually gone very well so far and I've finished one of the two that I need for the brief. Here's my final presentation sheet for the first texture!

More to come soon...

3D Modelling a Character - Uni Brief

Another week, another University assignment finished. In my last post, I wrote about a character design project in which I had to model and texture a character in the style of DOTA2. Today was deadline day and I managed to get the work done and handed in on time.

The project was to model a low poly character, some props, and a base for the character to stand on, all with low-res textures, that could be (hypothetically) used in a handheld version of DOTA2 (a game that I've never played and had barely heard of pre-brief). This of course involved some research into the art style and a load of work that I won't bore anyone with the details of this time around.

The final submission included an image of the concept pictures and character silhouettes, a presentation image, and an image with the model's technical details. Here they are in order.

Some work from my first month back at Uni

So, regular visitors to my blog (if such a thing exists?) may have noticed a lack of activity for the past few weeks. This is because I'm back at Uni now for my 2nd year as a Games Design student and the work has been coming in thick and fast. I've already noticed an increase in the work load from last year, which isn't all bad, it's good to have a steady flow of work and stuff that I can show off on this blog (when I get chance).

So far we've had 3 assignments, two of which are still under way. Here's a few pictures of stuff that I've produced so far this year.

Project 1 was about character texturing. We were given a choice of 3 pre-made, but untextured, 3D models to choose from and texture ourselves. There was an imp, a Sci-fi/cyborg girl and a guy who instantly reminded me of the heavy from Team Fortress 2, which gave me an idea. I chose to design a new character for TF2. I'd never textured a character before so it wasn't exactly to the standard that I'd hoped by the time deadline day came around, but I think the TF2 theme is still pretty clear. Either way, here's the outcome.

The second project, which is still in progress, is a group project consisting of the design of a complete board game. This has been a very demanding project so far. We've had to come up with the idea, produce a prototype, and rigorously play-test it. Our game is a turn based strategy game with a pirate theme. One of the many jobs I took on for this project was the design (using Photoshop) and production of some "bonus cards" for the game. I'm quite happy with how these designs turned out!

The 3rd project, which is also still in progress, is similar to the first, but this time we have to create the whole character from scratch, which includes the 3D model as well as the texture. The first step, however, was creating some concept art for the character using Photoshop. Here's the finished concept art that I produced for this project.

That's all for now!

Decade in Characters Part 1 - Digital Painting

This post marks the beginning of a brand new series of blog posts that I am calling "Decade in Characters!".

I've always been interested in 20th Century zeitgeist and culture, including anything from music and film to fashion and subcultures, and I often find this interest influencing my own creative projects including my character designs, so I've decided to do a series of themed posts of characters based around specific decades. This will give me a chance to look further into a subject that I am already interested in and will also help me to improve my digital painting skills.

I've decided to kick things off with the 1950's! I'm a fan of the style of the era, and many of my favourite works of fiction including games (Fallout series) and films (Back To The Future, Grease) are set in the 50's or influenced by 50's culture, so I've had plenty of things to draw inspiration from.

I've saved my personal favourite for last. This picture was a first for me because I've never been great at drawing female characters, but I worked at it on paper and digitally and finally produced something that I'm very happy with. This is my favourite digital painting that I've produced to date.

Look out for more Decade in Characters posts in the near future. I'm thinking of doing the 70's next.

Samurai - Uni Work

I'm now approaching the end of my first year as a Games Design student at UCLan and have been set a final group project for each of the two modules. For one of these projects, my group and I have been designing a game based around Japanese Samurais in the style of the company Team Ico (producers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus).

This of course means that we've all been drawing a hell of a lot of Samurais over the last couple of weeks. This has given me an opportunity to develop my drawings skills and move out of my comfort zone; I have been drawing full-body characters and movements/action poses.

I have also recently found a half-full sketchbook from last year, before I even started Uni! Looking back over the pictures in this sketchbook has opened my eyes to just how much I have developed in less than a year. I plan on making a more indepth post about this later on.

Meanwhile, here are a few of the pictures that I've produced during the current Samurai project.

 

 

I've still got quite a way to go, but I'm quite happy with how I'm progressing.

Drawing Practice: Faces

I've recently been doing quite a bit of practice drawing faces and character design, trying to develop my skills at getting scales right and use of shading amongst other things. Below are two quick drawings that I've produced recently.