More Stuff

I have been doing more thing during my work placement but also paintings and sketches and stuff in my fre time. here a dump of some of the stuff. I have also been practicing modelling more but ill talk about that later on in the year.

2016 Has Begun

Been ages since I posted last so update: I'm in Munich Germany on an Internship in BMW's Visualisation department. Realised I'm not making much use of my free time art wise and I'm going to change from trying to do large projects to just getting my fundamentals back on track.

Off the Map: Post Mortem

The Off the Map competition is held by the British Library every year and is a chance for students to create an interactive game based on certain themes available in their brief. This year Alice's adventures underground by Charles Dodgson was the main subject and here at DMU we were separated into groups to create our own games that would show off our skills and tackle the subject matter in a fun and creative way.

The group I was in, was originally composed of, Joel Phelps, Michael Ollerton, Lewis Jones, Josh McGahan and Beth Cox. I say originally because this number changed a couple of times throughout the project bringing with it it's own set of problems which I have learnt to deal with so next time I can be ready for those team problems. Early on Josh announced that he was leaving the group leaving us with a team of 5 for the majority of the project. I will go into these team dynamics later on and for now, focus on the project itself.

Team Two Days Slow (unfortunately true)

As a team we choose to create a side scroller Alice project that while under the sub theme of gardens was more like a playable adventure through the book with the key events being represented in the environment or some puzzles and meetings with the characters. We decided that we would all plan to have the game a fun journey for the player through wonderland meeting with the characters and having conversations with them, this would match up with the episodic nature of Alice adventures in the book where every chapter is Alice dealing with meeting a new character or adjusting her size in its own self contained section.

Playing with size and scale through the environment.

We started the concepts with moodboards to generate inspirations. We also lined up all the books illustrations to generate a timeline of what happens. We choose key event that we would like to replicate in our game and though about how we could incorporate this into the game. We thought the structure of the game could go something like this:

1. Alice in the rabbit hole
2. Alice falling
3. Room of doors
4. Key Puzzle
5. Caucus Race/ Beach
6. Forest (welcome to wonderland)
7. Rabbits house
8. Mushrooms
9. Caterpiller
10. Big small changes
11. Duchesses house
12. Cheshire cat
13. Tea party
14. Mock Turtle
15. Gardens
16. Court room
17. Credits

This was our original plan and we did have contingencies to cut a large chunk out which we eventually did. This really came in help because when we were behind in our schedule we could cut out those sections and not fret over any losses in the project. This shouldn't exclude the fact that we didn't reach the original goal it just means that we were prepared for the situation.

Joel then started working on blockouts for the level that could be used so we could make some plans but also start working on blueprints and the technical aspects of the gameplay. The engine file was passed between me a Joel throughout the project so we could tackle the blueprints together. He would build the majority of the technical blueprints. sorting out the dialogue with characters, the gravity volumes, the bounce volumes and the key puzzle. I would deal with the technical materials, lighting particle effects, post processing and camera side off things, thing like: the cameras swing and drag delay when moving, camera position change volumes, the camera tracking the player when in a fixed position blueprint, the animation and Alice blueprints for the character. I also placed the assets in engine and helped bring together the assets. Micheal Ollerton placed his assets for the mushroom section because he planned it or in before hand. I then made some additions for the hand in, but he had a major influence on that section. Originally Joel made a grow and shrink mechanic but we eventually changed that to having the environments change around Alice so we could really play with the scale of the objects.

Alice blueprints and animations

Camera sway and drag, camera view blend, matinee and camera track blueprints

Restart game blueprint, leaves and sparks burst volume blueprints

The hatter had a very simple animation blueprint

For the concepts and art style we decided that we would go for a nice fantastical colourful vision of wonderland. Looking for games like rayman origins, ori and trine 2 for examples. We wanted a nice enchanted forest for Alice to walk through and when small an overgrown section that felt like Alice was surrounded by vegetation. We wanted to completely exaggerate the fantastical nature of wonderland and while some of this could be done with the assets and post process we knew that to separate it from the rest we needed some contrast in the level to make certain sections pop. Lewis Jones and Micheal Ollerton were also working as concept artists during this project and I must say I couldn't have hoped for a better combination. Lewis excelled at producing polished initial and final concepts where Michael excelled and improving and iterating on them. He would work out if it work or if it didn't always doing paint overs so people could understand the vision and where the project could go.

We were always interested in the John Tenniel illustrations and though that we could make some sections of the game out of plane with illustrated fine liner textures. We weren't sure how this would work so during the second week I whipped up some concepts and a matinee section in engine. I decided to make it a short credit section so if the idea worked it could be used in the actual game. this idea proved to work and the group agreed that we could create illustrated section. We decided that we would have the beginning and the end sections of the game illustrated with a transition into full color and 3d assets. This would be the tunnel, door room and key puzzle being illustrated with desaturated colors in the key puzzle room. The credits would also end the game with illustrated assets. These illustrated sections would pay homage to the John Tenniel illustrations and contrast the colorful and bright wonderland making it pop when the transition came. I ended up making all the illustrated fine liner sections to keep the drawings similar but also because I could quickly draw the assets required.

The style of the 3D assets was decided by looking at games like Bioshock infinite and dishonored with bright colorful textures, detailed but stylized models and painted textures to create the fantastical nature of wonderland. Even though at first we were agreed later on during texturing the assets we discovered we had drifted apart a little on our interpretation of the style and because Josh had rejoined the group by this point we needed to confirm a style guide that nobody can stray from. I spent a day taking screenshots and writing up a word document for everyone to follow also making sure everybody agreed. This was then read by, agreed and followed by the team, that is except for, as I learned later, Josh who never read the document even though I shared it on our facebook group and made it clear I was making one for everyone.

We wanted the gameplay to be simple and easy for the player especially because as it was a children's book we wanted it to be easily understood by a child. We had 2 very simple jump puzzles that could be easily solved, neither of which had a re-spawn system, we wanted the player to not die as that implied failure, so no matter what happens the player can jump out of that situation. This is prominent at the Cheshire cat scene where some bouncy mushrooms catapult Alice out of the ravine if things go wrong. This also influenced the caterpillars multiple choice dialogue with no matter which option is chosen it working out for the player in the end. The only part that could have been perceived as hard for the player was the key puzzle room because there are not enough hints to the player as to where to go. We couldn't add the prompts in time because the level blueprints would break when too many nodes where added.

For the game assets I made the trees, cliffs, sea pillars, some rocks, all the illustrated planes, the tunnel wall, the Alice head cliff, all the foliage and shrubs, the water planes and all the particle effects (excluding dialogue). I also made all the animations for Alice and the Hatter as well as rig Alice. I enjoyed modelling and texturing many of these assets and the range in each of them meant I could learn about different things as I went along. The fineliner illustrated assets textures would be made first, most were squares or rectangles so I made two plane meshes they could fit on. For the credits scene the Alice drawing had her own plane meshes because the arm sections needed their own unique pivot points if the animation was to work in the matinee. The trees were an assets that i made many iterations for but ultimately spent too long on. I learnt new tools during that time however, zbrush, 3D coat and xnormal were both programs I learnt during this project which aided me in making a lot of my assets this project.

grass material with realistic wind

lanscape material

an example of some of my foliage and small rocks

The cliff and rock assets would be sculpted in Zbrush before being retopologised in 3Dcoat, unwrapped in 3DSmax and baked in xnormal. For these assets I choose not to make 1 albedo but tillable textures that I could vertex paint individual textures onto the meshes in engine allowing me to use instances of the asset more often and not have it as noticeable. I made 5 tillable rock textures, and 5 terrain textures that could be used in many different combinations. The terrain textures would become a blend material and painted onto the landscape planes in the level.

vertex painting material

Water material

As I mentioned I also made the particle effects and water planes effects which was something I had a lot of fun with. The water plane being one of the more technical materials I made involved tiling two normal maps across each other which was refracted with a tillable mash texture. This meant the water had a soft edger as it was falling. In the engine this would also be combined with the falling water, water vapor and rainbow particle effects I made to bring it to life.

Another part of the project that I produced was the lighting in the engine. As well as placing the normal point lights and directional sunlight, I also made light function materials that could be applied to spot lights. These light function materials mask off how the light  and can be used to create dappled light effects such as how light can move through foliage. This allowed me to fake beams of light coming through the trees in the forest and set the scene. I also used an animated light function to represent the light coming through the water fall. Having a to water textures mask the light as they panned created the effect of light moving through water.

dappled lights in the woodlands (the section was mainly made of my assets)

dappled lights in the woodlands (the section was mainly made of my assets, those beutiful logs were made by Michael Ollerton)

In the engine there are a number of matinees which me and Joel both worked on together. For most he would create the simple blockout 1 frame is the start the last the end position and I would then take this and improve it adding loops and spins, or fades or extra objects moving around, this was a good system and I enjoyed collaborating on the engine file with Joel.

Examples of some matinees

the credits matinee was made entirely by me

The groups dynamic and how we worked together was something that changed throughout the project because of the changes in the members. As I said Josh left early on in this project and made it clear on the first day that he left to pursue his own style. We were fine with this because he mad it clear and we could carry on full steam ahead. The next trouble we had though was that Beth never communicated and did little to no work. There were a number of personal reasons for this which we found out later on which culminated in the loss of her from the group. This issue engulfed a lot of the teams time by worrying about where she was and why she wasn't responding. We ultimately didn't act fast enough with Beth partly down to our lack of experience in how to solve this problem. We went to the faculty and it eventually got sorted out but not before the damage had been done. Our focus on Beth distracted us from worrying about how we were already falling behind on the project and meant the last two weeks were chock full with work. Josh eventually rejoined the project again due to personal reasons later on and we set him to work on assets. At first this was going well he was producing what we want quickly, but as time went on he communicated with us less and less and started randomly working on props that wouldn't suit the project and that didn't follow the style guide we had made it was clear for him (he never bothered to read it we found out later). This culminated in on the last day Josh unloading many assets on me that weren't fully textured and didn't suit the level. This was because he drifted away from us and even though we would ask him questions and try to stay in touch he wasn't responsive.If we had been more direct with him we might have got more of the results we wanted.

Joel, Michael, Lewis and I however worked very well as a team constantly communicating and all knowing where we were at in our project. Lewis would often work in the cintiq room limiting our communication but always check in for a hour or two everyday to make sure we all knew what was going on. I think we were really a core group of 4 because of the changing circumstances of the others.

In the end I think that we were too passive as a group. Joel and Michael stated towards the end of the project but I never took up that position in my mind. During the film room project I was direct and trying to ensure everything got done and with this I wanted to step back. I think this was a mistake I think if I was more direct and embraced how I get involved in a project and push for a hard work ethic we would have done better. This would have helped with both Beth and josh who need direct communication that made it clear they were struggling. I t also could have helped with the speed because it would have got us quickly sorting through assets rather then taking weeks on them.

In the end I really enjoyed this project and I think that there were good points and bad points. I'm not sure how after some of the troubles we had but I think the level is fairly successful. In the end I was happy with my technical improvement during this project and was very happy with the new processes I learnt. I think that the crucial thing I have learnt however is improving my group and people skills. I was faced with legitimate group problems for the first time and learnt to recognize how these issues can arise how to spot them and that quick decisive action can fix the issue before damage is done (a stitch in time saves nine). These people skill improvements will prove valuable during my placement in Germany and stay with me for along time to come.

My action plan for the future is going to have two parts. Firstly my personal improvements will be me doing personal projects over the summer to increase my foundation knowledge of modelling and texturing as well as preparing for my placement aboard. For the Off the Map project I am going to add sound add new assets fix the tree foliage textures and make reminders and extra dialogue for the player as they explore wonderland. I'm also going to make the ending less abrupt.

This project was a fantastic experience and I think I learnt many things that I can take forward for my next year and final year of my degree.