Introduction To The Project
For this project, we are free to design anything we want as we have an open brief, which basically allows us to create our own design, set our own goals etc. It is similar to the briefs before, except we are creating them and not being set things to do. This will be a challenge for me personally as I hate having a lot of freedom to design things and rather prefer to design set things. But, this will allow me to improve my creativity and I should be able to bring a great design for this project as it is my last one, and I want to present my best work. For this project, I wanted to be more creative with my ideas and do something that I believe I will be able to complete before the deadline, but that is challenging and shows what I am capable of with both modelling and painting.
As we are free to do anything, I was thinking of modelling a scene again, as I did this for my last project but, focus on a smaller area and add in some things that are really complex but do-able into the scene. I want the scene to be my best modelling that I have done so far so I will bring in all my skills that I have learnt into this as well as some other skills that I will pick up along the way.
Project Overview
This is my Project Overview that I have made and I think it is an accurate depiction of how long I will be able to complete this project. I may have some delays due to errors happening when using the software but, that shouldn't cut me far back. I think that I will be able to finish this project in time with everything I have wanted to get included, included in the project.
Mind Maps
Here is a clearer list of the design ideas I am looking to do. These may change along the way depending on which design I do. I have taken these from my mind maps and narrowed it down to the design ideas that I like and the ones that I prefer to do as there was a lot. I have narrowed it down to a smaller amount as some of these I don't like or would not prefer to do.
Staff - A scene with a staff as the centre focal point and the background of the scene resembling either, the staff attribute ( Fire, Ice etc. ) or a scene of it against a wizards lair or something along the lines of that.
Halloween - A scene which resembles a deserted town, just after Halloween. There will be lots of candy and Jack-O-Lantern bags along the street. There will also be lights shining down on the houses, which have doors wide open and empty.
Halloween #2 - A scene where there is a lot of pumpkins surrounding an area, these pumpkins will have different faces on them.
Halloween #3 - A scene where it is a low lit street lamp, focusing on the candy bags abandoned on the floor.
Forest - A scene which has the inside of a wooden cabin, similar to hobbit houses, except this will have less naturalistic things like plants and more things like twigs. The house will again be abandoned.
Forest #2 - A miniature scene where there is an object in a sphere on the ground, the ground would be mud or glass. This scene will be similar to a glass bulb or snow globe.
Mask - A scene which will consist of a mask that is on the floor. The main vocal point of the scene will be the mask and it will have a mysterious look to it.
Mask #2 - A Wish Catcher type mask could be next to a bed or a wish catcher.
Design Ideas & Mood Boards
This is a mood board that I did on the Scream series, I had done some research on the masks used within the series. It did help a lot as it showed the structure of the mask, the colours used, which I will go into more detail in my Colour Theory that I will do. The mask uses two plain colours, black and white which are both opposite colours to each other. This is the same type of colour scheme used within checker boards and tiles. White is associated with goodness, purity, and light while black is associated with darkness, evil and even the fear of the unknown. These colours could be used for deception as the character wearing this mostly stands before his or her victims before attempting to attack them. This would make the victim believe that they won't do anything as they currently are not before they attack them. It could also be used to night and day, as in that would be the last they see of it before the killer attempts to attack them or life and death, the fact that they can control whether you live or die. These colours would heavily stand out in the real world as most things do not blend with them apart from the opposite colour.
I did some more research into the type of masks used by the Chinese culture. A majority of these masks are masks worn on the day of the New Year, by Chinese people who celebrate this event throughout the world. The other masks are Opera masks which have faces painted on them to show the traits and characteristics of the different roles that each actor is playing. They are made up of different materials such as stones, metals leather, cloth etc. If I go on to develop this idea, this would be very beneficial as it would help me to decide what type of material I could use to make the mask and would add a lot of references too. The masks for Chinese New Year are meant to depict good and bad spirits and deities. That can be inferred by the extreme facial expressions, that the masks have on them. The main colour used in the masks is red as it brings prosperity according to Chinese culture. It may also add connotations of strength and war as if they are meant to represent deities, this could be a way of showing power to the people. These masks would need to have a lot of thought put into them if I was to go on to do a complex shape, but I could also go by the Opera masks and use them as they would be easier to model.
These masks I have researched into and they are from the South American Culture. They were inspired from the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs as this can be inferred by one of the masks in the picture that has a crown on its head. Some of these masks are based upon death masks which were worn by Mayan who were of great importance that had died. These masks are also inspiring as they represent skulls or people, which along with the Chinese masks has the type of look that I am looking for in Masks. The colours used in them are of great variety and include a heavy usage of the primary colours. The colours used very block colours and there is little toning or shading used to create these masks.
This is the research I did on Native American masks. A lot of their masks are animal based, from bears to wolves and they are done very closely to the animal. These masks were used in ritual dances which were similar to a play, as they reenacted the journeys and adventures of their ancestors and spirits. These masks were passed down from generation to generation and were very sacred. The materials a majority of these masks are made out of wood, straw, hairs, feathers etc. Shamans hold a great link to these masks as they are made by shamans or under the supervision of one. The reason being that shamans act as a bridge between spiritual worlds and the real world. The shaman would travel to the spirit world and use the masks to help the to communicate to the different spirits. The animals on the masks are believed to be linked to a particular tribe which, would make sense as that way the Native Americans would be able to tell which tribes were allies or enemies. The colours used in the masks are block primary and secondary colours, the main colours used are red, green and blue. These colours could have different connotations such as red meaning war and a possible threat, green meaning peace and nature, finally blue meaning wisdom and confidence. They could have also worn the masks appropriate to their task such as a mask with predominately red, could be used for war.
Here is some primary research that I did into masks. I had a Scream Film mask at home and decided to take some photos with it along with the things that had come with the mask. The mask had a box full of cobwebs and spiders that came along with it, and also a heart which when pumped would make the mask get covered in blood. The mask also had a hood attached to it so, it wasn't a plain mask. This was great research as it has helped me to decide that this is one of the two ideas I plan to do for my final initial idea. I think that I will be able to get a mask done within the time limit and be able to get it to a good quality that showcases my abilities.
Halloween #1, #2 & #3
This was a mood board I looked into for the Halloween idea. I was looking at the pumpkins and their facial expressions. They are used predominately in the time of October during Halloween; pumpkins have evil looking faces carved into them and then a light put inside them, through the roof of the pumpkin. This turns them into a Jack-O'-Lantern, which was the term used because of a strange light flickering over peat bogs, also known a will-o'-the-wisp. Usually, a candle or a similar light source is used to empower the orange light and the carved out face. The colour dark orange along with the light from the Jack-O'-Lantern has connotations of deceit and distrust, which can be implied that this was of an origin of some sort of deceit. The history of them, however, is quite different, as they were used to ward off evil spirits or even represent the spirits themselves. I could use this along with some primary images as my reference to this idea if I was to go on to develop this idea further.
This is some research that I had done into dark alleys and low light places. The reason I was looking at these type of pictures was because I wanted to see what type of lighting I could potentially use for my third design idea based around the Halloween theme. I was looking into how far the light is cast when focused on the ground, the surrounding area and what type of colours are used when this type of picture is taken. Some of the images have a black and white filter over them, creating a 60's type photograph. The colours of black and white used make the image look intimidating to go through, black brings connotations of death and mystery while white brings connotations of purity and light. This could be used to make the place look scary too as a lot of people would avoid areas lit like this. The surrounding area around the lamppost is quite dark, some pictures it is even pitch black, which is an interesting idea that I could use if I go on to develop this idea.
This was some extra research I did into abandoned buildings as I was going to have this down to my two final designs but later changed it to the staff.
These are two of the Halloween scene ideas I had, as again I wanted to put this idea into my final 2 design ideas but later changed it.
This is a quick sketch that I did of the Halloween scene. I was trying to get the point of how it would look and what I was talking about in my design idea. The town would be viewed from a perspective and gradually pan in. This design would have one vanishing point along the horizon. As it is from a perspective the buildings would gradually get smaller, along with the road up until the point that they vanish from the view. I could do this design with two vanishing points, with a house being in the centre as this would go wit perspectives. This design would push my limits but, I think that if I did go along with this then once I have done one house, I could just reuse the same model again, maybe changing some things such as windows and doors. The texturing would have to have at least 3-6 different textures and they could then again be reused or I could do this design but with a lot fewer houses and more zoomed in.
Staff #1 & #2
This is some research that I did into staffs and rods. I was looking at how some of them are made in various games and in various projects. Nearly all of them have a long thin cylinder as the base as then have the main part at the top of the staff. This is the basic structure and if I am to go on to do this as a design idea, I will make sure that I follow it correctly. The colour scheme is mainly dependent on what it is specialised for I'm guessing, as Maleficent's staff has green in the core and she was originally associated with nature. There is also a staff with a meteor on it which I'm guessing is mainly for fire based attacks. As red is associated with heat and fire, so that would make sense.
Final 2 Ideas
Out of my ideas that I have developed a bit from my initial mind maps I have decided to take either of these two to my final idea. The Staff with a Trunk or the Mask on the Floor idea.
Mask
This is the first idea I had for my mask scene. It was going to be a zoomed out view of the scene which had the mask on the floor, a photo and some other bits and pieces. The lamppost was going to have a light on the floor and it was going to shine over the mask and everything else on the floor. The background was going to be a forest or it was going to be lowly lit so you could only really see the mask on the floor. This was going to be done over the road and it was going to be related to Halloween as it would have hand candy or something related to the theme on the scene. The problem with this was that I had wanted the mask to be the main focus on the scene and with this idea, it was going to be mainly the light from the lamppost which was not what I had in mind. The viewer wouldn't be able to see the mask either as it would be too far out for them to see anything.
This was my next idea for the scene, it was going to have a more zoomed in perspective of the scene, and was going to be a lot more focused on the mask rather than the whole scene. With this way, it was much clearer to see what I had intended to be the main focus for the scene. It also has a photo which is linked to the backstory of the mask wearer, a jar and the base of the lamppost. The colours used for this was going to be dull and grungy colours, as I didn't want the scene to be in a positive mood. Red and green would bring connotations of danger and mystery while the grey would be a negative colour, therefore adding negative connotations to the scene and making it look a lot darker in general.
This was my second concept for a mask. It was going to be a dream catcher mask and resemble a dream catcher. This mask was going to be this design as it would capture the nightmares and then resemble them to the people who would look at the mask. It was going to have brighter colours than my other designs but, still have negative and deceptive colours. The eyes and the mouth were going to be the web spiral that is seen on a dream catcher while the feather was going to resemble where it came from ( Native Americans ).
This was going to be my third concept for a mask
Staff
This is a quick sketch I did of the scene I would do with the staff. I would be doing the nature staff, and it would have it leant up against a tree trunk. I could either do this scene in the day but the tree trunk is the only plant there, or in the night and add lights represented by Fireflies light up the scene. This scene wouldn't be from a perspective but, it would have the basic principles, such as if I was to include other objects further back in the scene they would then, appear further away from the view of the viewer. The colour usage for this was mainly brown and green, but I did add dark blue to it too. The dark blue would be used for the background if I did the scene as night. I would prefer the scene to be night as it would look better, in my opinion. I have chosen brown for the colour of the staff to show that the staff is wood, and I would give the trunk a darker wood to make it look contrasting.
Here is some research that I did, quite broadly on Nature. I was looking more to do with the colours that would be used within the images but also how the scenes are composed. A majority of the scenes have the centre of the screen as the main vocal point but others have different places for their vocal point. From my idea, if I went on to develop it, I was going to do the trunk and staff as the focal point, but as the trunk is bigger I would have to make the staff more detailed so people would focus on that more. I wouldn't make the staff bigger or the trunk smaller as it would look disproportionate to the whole scene.
Final Design Idea
For my final design idea, I have decided to do a mask on the floor, with a hood and a scarf as the final piece. I think that this would be very challenging for me to do as I would be modelling with nCloths in Maya, and creating fabric folds in Photoshop. This is an area that I haven't looked into that much but it doesn't mean that this will prevent me from doing this as my final design idea. I have also decided to include a Halloween theme into this idea. I could do this by making the mask, hood and scarf a Halloween costume and having some reference to the occasion.
Workflow
By the end of this project, I will need to have my finished piece rendered out and complete. In order to get to this goal, I will need to have a workflow and stay by it. I have to produce by the end of this project a concept piece, a promotional piece and a 3D Model which has all of it's UV's and textures done properly and be presentable.
To begin with, I would need to deeply research my project so that I can make an idea out of my research to then produce a concept piece. I will make sure that I have lots of ideas to be able to develop my concept piece, as I would need to show this in order to show how I have moved from one stage to the next one. I will use Photoshop for this as it is a painting software that I am familiar with.
Next, I will go onto making my promotional art based upon my research and my concept piece. I will be able to use Photoshop for this as I have used it before. I will make sure that my promotional art is a true reflection of my ability and that it includes all the skills that I have learnt.
After this, I will start modelling my 3D Model by using my concept art and promotional art as reference. I will then have to animate the hood of my design which will need me to know how to animate. For this, I will be using Maya as I am very familiar with this and have used it many times before. I will make sure that after I have done modelling all my assets, that I go on to UV'ing the model so it is ready to be textured and I will be doing this in Photoshop. I will then test the textures in Maya and edit them until I get the type of asset that I want to have.
Lastly, when I have finished this I will then move on to Unreal Engine 4, and import my scene from Maya into Unreal Engine to sort out my materials and rendering options. I will then render my scene out within this software.
I will make sure that I can follow this plan of action to my best ability and be able to produce my final assets properly.
Software
I will be using Photoshop, do the digital side of the work and, be able to paint different textures that I make during this project. I will also be able to present my 2D digital Promotional Art with this software and as I have had experience with it before, I will be capable of doing this well.
I will be using Maya, to be able to create a 3D model of my scene. I will be able to use the tools effectively, as I have done this before with this piece of software. I will be able to sort out my UV's and basic materials with this too.
I will be using Unreal Engine 4 potentially for this project. I have used Unreal Engine before so, I do know the basics but, I am not that experienced with it. I will use it to compose my final scene and bring together everything out of Maya into it to render if it is possible to do with my scene.
Target Audience
The target audience for this project is going to be 18+, as the content in the game is going to be mature and the genre is an adventure/horror type game, meaning it will not be suitable for young audiences.
The game is not going to be preferenced to either males or females even though the main character is a female.
Research
Project Proposal
Here is my project proposal, in it I have listed what I intend to aim by the end of this project. I have also said what I intend to do for the whole project and my goals that I wish to achieve.
Time Plan
Silhouettes
Initial Concept Art
Here are some basic sketches that I did for my hood. I wanted to see what type of hood I was going to go for and how I could draw out. I included a blank face so that, I could see how it would look if that was a mask in place of it. These two hood concepts that I have drawn, go from the hood to the neck so I may need to reconsider this as this would be hard for me to model, but the general shape does give me a strong idea of how I plan to do my hood.
My basic concept with me annotating it to see what I could add and take away. I also have put in what type of connotations my design gives off. This was orthographic for the front and back of my design.
Here is a more clearer drawing of the orthorgraphic that I will be using. I will go back to it a lot for refernce when doing my model.
This is my initial concept art piece that I had wanted to do. I wanted to have certain colours to give off the right connotations that I had in mind for my idea. I wanted to have the scarf as red to give it a dangerous type look, as red include
Artist Research
More Primary Research
This is some more primary research that I had done into my project. I had looked at another mask that I had at home and the structure of it. It had helped me to see what it would look like and how I would model it in Maya. I had taken a picture of some wood to see what it would look like and if I could use it within my scene. I would replicate the texture in Photoshop by hand painting it. I was going to include something related to Halloween pumpkins within my scene but, I decided not to and that is why it is here on the research page. I had also, took a picture of a Muriel that I have in my house as I had an idea of doing a tribal related mask which was similar to the ones that Native Americans wore. I got a model to wear a piece of material over their head in order to help me see how it would look like, with the help of my tutor. It had helped me greatly to see how I could do the fabric folds in my design as well as how it would look like if I had modelled it onto a person. I had taken a picture of some material that I had at home to see if that was the type of look I was going for with my hood.
Art Style
Cel Shading ( TellTale / Borderlands )
More Primary Research
This is some more primary research that I had done into my project. I had looked at another mask that I had at home and the structure of it. It had helped me to see what it would look like and how I would model it in Maya. I had taken a picture of some wood to see what it would look like and if I could use it within my scene. I would replicate the texture in Photoshop by hand painting it. I was going to include something related to Halloween pumpkins within my scene but, I decided not to and that is why it is here on the research page. I had also, took a picture of a Muriel that I have in my house as I had an idea of doing a tribal related mask which was similar to the ones that Native Americans wore. I got a model to wear a piece of material over their head in order to help me see how it would look like, with the help of my tutor. It had helped me greatly to see how I could do the fabric folds in my design as well as how it would look like if I had modelled it onto a person. I had taken a picture of some material that I had at home to see if that was the type of look I was going for with my hood.
Art Style
Here is an image of what I had used to get both the Cartoon and Cel shadings. It was made within Hypershade which, controls all of the different attributes of the materials that are created.
Cartoon Art Style
Here is a cartoon art style that I made on a block. It has very flat colours and looks like it was made for a comic. This would fit my genre-less in my opinion if, I decided to use it because the colours would be very flat. And it wouldn't have that much detail on the design which is what I want to be a strong point on my design.
This is Cel Shading and it is used a lot within many games. On of the is called TellTale Games. TellTale Games has made a game which is called The Walking Dead and is based on the comic, this game is a horror game and fits the genre very well. So, if I looked at this game more and how the cel shading is done then I could expand more on my design.
This is a pixel texture that I used which is a pixelated dirt block. This wouldn't fit my assets as mine are going to have some realism to them and I want them to have a lot of detail to them.
Photo-realistic Shading
This is an old texture that I had used for a previous project. I had taken an image of a Zebra throw over that I had, and made it into a material for use in Maya and Unreal Engine. I had not made it for a cube, and that is why the edges of the texture do not match up. This is a good way to design an asset but, not particularly for the two that I am making.
Colour Theory & Pallet
Colours can bring various emotions to a scene, depending on the way they are used. Bright colours such as the three primary colours are used in scenes to bring positive moods and emotions associated with the scene, whereas darker colours such as the secondary colours would bring mostly negative moods to the scene. For my scene, I plan to use a lot of dark colours to show that it is a negative scene. I plan to blend the colours well together and get the type of emotion I wanted to show across.
Here are some villains from different games that have colours to show their type of characteristics and their role from within that game. Usually, villains have dark colours to show that they are a villain. Black is predominantly used to show that the characters are a villain as it is a pure dark colour.
Here are some of the heroes I saw that had colours in them to show that they were good. I had realised that the colours were mainly bright colours, and even though there were some dark colours, the dark colours were not overused or to predominant over the bright colours. Blue is a typical hero colour and was used in some of the heroes, which would make the viewer automatically assume that the person was good.
Colour Scheme - Model
Lighting
This is a map in a game called Overwatch, the map is called Dorado and this is the starting area for it. This scene has a lot of light sources in it from candles to windows. The sky is dimly lit and creates a very light blue tint over all of the outdoor spaces. The light from the light sources is orange or yellow which are both warm colours and analogous colours. This scene helps me to see how I should compose the lighting in my scene. As I am considering having a lamppost within my scene I would need to think about how the lighting from lampposts is used in real life.
Lighting - Model
This is some experimentation I did with lighting after I had done my model. I had looked into the different lighting shaders in Maya and tested them out on my final scene. I had tried the circle headlight, and this had given it a light similar to car headlights. It had looked good on my scene and gave my scene more detail as opposed to other lighting shaders. Then, I had looked into the one light shader and this had looked light a base colour block out on my model. It was good to see what the initial colours would look like on my scene and did help me to see if I should go onto doing it with the same colours or changing them. After, I had done rim lighting which had caught the light on the tips and edges of the models. This had caught some of the edges that had detail on them such as the edges of the jar. Though it had not caught some like a majority of the lighting on the hood. The next one I had done, was the three light render which had got a lot of detail on the models. I had tried it out in different colours to see what they would look like and the lighting overall looked great with the detail. Finally, I had done two-tone lighting, which was a halfway point between one and three light rendering. It had some detail to it and did catch light on most of the indents on the shapes, but not all of it.
Composition
The composition of a scene is an important thing to include into this project as it helps to show the audience what the most important thing in the scene is or which area they should look towards.
Golden Ration (also known as Golden Section, Golden Mean, Divine Proportion or the Greek Letter Phi) is when a line is divided into two parts. The longer part divided by the smaller part is equal to a sum of the longer and smaller part added together, divided by the longer part. This is used a lot in natural compositions and organic compositions too. To work out the Golden Ratio you will need to have a rectangle which has 6 small squares in it. You will then have to draw from one corner to the next one in a certain order, though you don't draw a line, you have to draw an arch to get the spiral. This picture shows a couple of the many things that follow this rule.
In the image above, I have shown some examples of how the Golden Ratio is used within nature. I have also shown how it looks and as you can see in the image, it is a constant arch that goes from a corner to another one.
This is an image of the Rule Of Third. What this is, is a composition which has two vertical lines and two horizontal lines equally spread apart. The important parts of the scene are placed along the lines to create a composition and to guide the viewer of what is in each part. Also, it can be where the four parts of the scene link to the centre square.This is more aesthetically pleasing than other pieces of art that have no composition in them.
This is a photograph that uses the rule of thirds very well. It has used the rule of thirds as a composition and has the different body parts of the Cheetah as the three important parts of the scene. The first row is the head, the second row is the body and the third is the lower part of the Cheetah along with the grass of the scene.
I will try to incorporate any one of these composition techniques into my final promotional art piece as I would like to make my art guide the viewer's attention to certain areas of the art first and also make it look more aesthetically pleasing to the viewers too.
Design Mods
Game Context
The mask will be a Halloween mask which contains the spirit of an Ancient Chinese Warrior, while the hood will be a
The hood was made for the main character by her parents. She wasn’t from a rich family at the time so the hood wasn’t of the best material. The hood was given to the main character as part of her mask so that she had something to cover her head while she wore the mask as it was all for Halloween. Later, it is found out that the hood has a charm over it and has been passed down from generation to generation, originating from Cheng Tang. Her parents had given it her as they always prepare for the day of the dead by preparing for the worst. The hood was used to grant great power to the descendants of him but only if used correctly.
Game Backstory
The main game takes place on Halloween in a city called Zhengzhou within China. It is notable for it being from the Ancient Shang Dynasty. The game mainly takes place on the city outskirts but, goes to the place where King Jie was overthrown ( The battlefield ) and also the place where Tang of Shang's temple is believed to have been built. Some walls still stand in the city centre from the Shang Dynasty.
The backstory for the girl is that she is a young teenage girl. Her name is Shun Tang She is charismatic and is generally a good person to all people. She is a decedent of Tang of Shang but, doesn't know that she is. She is the enemy of the Ancient Chinese Warrior who stood by King Jie.
The backstory for the mask is that it was a mask worn by an Ancient Chinese Warrior thousands of years ago. The time period was around 1700BC, at the time of which the Xia Dynasty was still in power. Their imperial leader during the time was King Jie, and he was a tyrant. He was hated by many of his followers as he pleasured in sex, luxury and entertainment. He disregarded his followers and only cared about himself. The Chinese Warrior was under King Jie’s orders and followed his commands to the dot. Though the Chinese Warrior had seen that other people were starting to stray from King Jie, they were loyal to him. Coming towards the end of 1600BC, Tang of Shang had slowly raised in power. Tang of Shang had a kingdom called the Kingdom of Shang and this kingdom was under suzerain by the Kingdom of Jie. Shang had realised that King Jie had mistreated his people very badly and had convinced them to follow him, during his speeches to the people. Unbeknown to King Jie, he carried on conquering kingdoms and living life in luxury. The Ancient Warrior was suspicious of the Kingdom of Shang as they began to grow out and had realised that they were going to attempt to overthrow King Jie. The warrior had warned King Jie of this and King Jie had prepared to attack and slaughter the Kingdom of Shang. Eventually, a great war had broken out between the Kingdom of Jie and the Kingdom of Shang, the Kingdom of Jie may have had reign over a lot of kingdoms but, Shang had gained a lot of alliances over the past couple of years. The battle was won by Tang of Sang, and King Jie was eventually captured. During this time the Ancient Warrior had been battling Sang’s forces in order to try to win the fight. Though the warrior was the best in their ranks, they were still not able to succeed. After King Jie had been overthrown, the warrior had made a desperate attempt to overthrow King Sang but, had ultimately failed and was held as a prisoner. The warrior had felt like they failed King Jie and managed to kill themselves. Their spirit was then retained in the mask and they now possess it and whoever wears it. They had killed themselves on the day of Halloween but, it wasn't celebrated during the Xia Dynasty so it was irrelevant. The mask is then obtained by someone who sells Halloween costumes.
The game starts off with a girl coming out of a shop after just buying a mask from the shop. The time period is set in present day (2017). The mask is for a Halloween party held by her friend. Her name is Shun Tang and she lives with both of her parents. She is an only child and she doesn't have any other family apart from her parents. She is very excited about this and then the player goes on to control her. She is heading home to get ready as it is a couple of hours before the party. She is very tempted to put the mask on but, decided not to as she doesn't want to wear it until she had her full costume. When she arrives back she is surprised by her friends, she talks with them and gets ready to go out. Her mother had made a hood to cover her head and to also make her have a better Halloween costume. Before she heads out she get a picture of her, her friends and family and takes it with her, the mask in the background can be seen glowing. While heading out she decides to put the mask on as she has everything else but the mask on. As soon as she does her mask becomes attached to her face and she can't get it off. Panicked she tries to take it off with the aid of her friends but, cannot do so. The eyes on the mask start to glow green and she starts to lose control of her body. While not in control, she begins to walk towards an old temple, that is said to have an Ancient history linked to it. While at the temple, she kneels on the floor and grabs a jar in front of her and begins to recite the phrase on the paper from the jar. After doing this, she then cuts herself and lets the blood drip into the jar, as this is a summoning ritual. She faints, and as she does a portal opens up and great warriors can be seen walking through. Only warriors who were killed during the great battle are allowed to pass, so this excludes King Jie. Her friends managed to find and pull her away from where she had collapsed but couldn't get out of the temple as some of the warriors had started coming out of the portal. They had to hide within the temple but, only to witness the Ancient Warrior step through the portal. The Ancient Warrior orders all the great warriors to enslave the city of Zhengzhou and slay any who don't comply. The warrior's goal is to resurrect King Zie, through other means and to take over a majority of China as King Zie did during the Xia Dynasty They manage to get her stuff with them two including the mask. The final render I do will be of all of the stuff she had with her at the time on the floor next to a lamppost. This will be just after they have escaped from the temple. From then Shun and her friends try to work together to stop the Ancient Warriors from resurrecting King Zie.
The game would play out as an Adventure/Horror type game that includes a lot of elements from both genres. It would be playing in a 3rd person perspective and you would have control over Shun Tang. The reason it would include Horror elements in would be as the Warriors would be undead and wouldn't be easily defeated, they would be able to kill Shun Tang and don't always go out in the open. The player would have to use the environment to their advantage as well as stealth to not be spotted. The game will include a lot of jumps scares within it to keep the players on the edge of their seat. A more powerful Shun Tang would be able to defeat the Warriors but that is an aspect later in the game.
Additional Photoshop Work
This is some work I did in Photoshop, I was trying to do Chinese writing related to the game which would be on a scroll or paper. I tried to do my best in writing it and it probably reads wrong if someone who knew Chinese were to read it. The writing is meant to say "I, a descendant of Cheng Tang, grant passage for the living and the dead to meet." in English and "我是郑唐的后裔，为生与死人交配通行。" in Chinese. I decided to write it from right to left, top to bottom as Simplified Chinese can be written both horizontally and vertically. I wanted to try to follow this properly, as I wanted it to look right.
This is an idea I had for the scroll, it would have the writing I have done in Chinese and would look very old. I could possibly bring this into my Maya scene and have it on the floor.
This is my idea for a texture for the mask. The reason it is going to look like this is that it is going to be after the portal for the Warriors to entered is going to be open through the mask
This is a better map that I might use for the texture of my mask. I have used colours of Orange and Red to connote fear, war and danger within the mask. This is because the backstory to the mask is that it has opened a portal up and brought warriors. I will use the same colour scheme as I used on this one as I
Fabric Folding Experimentation
This is some of the work I produced during week 4, I had done some experimentation on fabric folding as I was going to have a hood as one of my final assets. I also wanted to see how I would draw the hood for the Promotional Concept Art, and the scarf too. I had looked at some YouTube videos and had also, received some fabric from my tutor for me to use as a reference when drawing. I thought that in doing this, it would help me a lot to see how I should do the hood on my final concept art, as just starting out using a reference wouldn't have helped me to see how I should have done this. Breaking it down, starting with the simplest pieces of folding, developing it each time to see what I did well when doing this and how I could have improved further.
Promotional Concept Art
This is my final stage in my promotional concept art.
Concept Breakdown
Mask - For the mask, I intend to do this first. I will start by modelling it out of a sphere, as a sphere shape is similar to a mask. I will have to cut the sphere in half and extrude the remaining edges inwards. I will do the UV'ing for this by making it so that it is a front facing view, as the back of the mask will not be seen.
Hood - I will model the hood second and this will take the most time to complete out of all of my assets. First, I will have to change it into an nCloth and change another object, most likely the mask, into a passive collider. I will model it with a plane and then have to animate and rig it with the various animation tools. After completely doing the animation to my model, I will have to turn it back into a polygon otherwise it would still act as an nCloth.
Potion - I will make this by looking at online references and seeing how I could model this to match my design. I will make this from a cylinder and potions have the same type of structure to a cylinder.
Photo - This will be very easy to make, as I will just need to get a plane and shape it to how a photograph would look like. This would be more reliant on the texturing rather than the modelling.
Flooring - This will be made from a plane, and I would want to make it look like the pavement, I may also add a curb to it to look like it is on the edge of the road. This too will be more reliant on the texturing rather than the modelling as this would not be that hard to do.
Broach - I will do this using a flat cylinder and begin to shape it to how I would want it. It would look like a circle with an indent than the main circle. This would not be that hard to model as it is a very minor asset and fairly small.
Lamppost - This will be the last thing that I model, and I will have to use various shapes to model this. I will only be using the base of the lamppost for my scene, but I will model the whole thing as I would want to use it for reference with my scene lighting, and also on how I could structure my base better.
Scroll - Real Life
Maya Modelling Practice
Here are some photos of some experimenting I did in Maya. I was trying to see how I could make my hood and this took around a 3 - 4 hours to work out and do. My tutor had shown me how I could make modelling the hood easier rather than modelling it the way I was. I had found some useful things about how my hood could look and how I should go about modelling it. I also had changed my initial design idea based on this as it seemed to complex to do as for the hood I wanted it to either have a tail or not and when I had modelled this, I found that it would be better if I model it without one.
This was an experiment that I did with my model. What I had done was a block out of the mask and I had got a plane and began to animate it to make it look like a hood. I had started modelling out the mask from a sphere and began to move around the vertex until it had the general shape of the mask. I had then smoothed it and made it look like a mask would look like. After doing this I then got a blank plane and added in a lot of divisions so that it was able to be animated. I had cut a hole in the middle of it so that the hood had a hole, for the mask to be visible. I had animated it by turning it into an nCloth and began dropping it onto the mask while changing the material. Next, I had begun to shape the hole so it was more rounded and then I had looked at it to see if it was what I had planned. This helped loads, as it helped me to see where I was going wrong with what I had, had planned and also gave me a view of what it was going to look like in the end.
Block Out - Model
Here is my initial block out for my scene. I want it to have a lamppost, jar, mask, hood and photo on the floor. The photo is invisible as it is the same texture as the floor. The photo would be related to the backstory of the game. The mask and hood would be the main focus of the scene and would be near the lamppost. I would refer back to this for the proportions of the mask and hood.
Here is my initial block out for my scene. I want it to have a lamppost, jar, mask, hood and photo on the floor. The photo is invisible as it is the same texture as the floor. The photo would be related to the backstory of the game. The mask and hood would be the main focus of the scene and would be near the lamppost. I would refer back to this for the proportions of the mask and hood.
Maya Modelling Work
Mask And Hood
I had got to this with my mask as I had started off with a sphere. I had cut the sphere in half and then extruded the edges in. This would have created a semi-circle, I then pulled the faces in to create a dip inside the mask. After doing this I removed two faces on the front face to create holes and then began to manipulate more faces and edges on the mask to create this shape.
I had modelled the hood by starting off with a plane. Next, I made the plane an nCloth and made the mask a collider, this had meant that if the hood was to touch the mask, the hood will wrap around the mask depending on its settings. I had tested out a lot of materials and began to do this for a couple of hours. After I had got the right shape, I took my hood and began doing the same thing but, with a 6-foot model. This meant that the shape was more realistic to a human head shape rather than a semi-circle shape. I had wanted the hood to have a lot of creases in it to look like how something made out of cloth would look like. Finally, I changed the hood back into a polygon and it was finished.
Scroll
This is the first step I did to modelling the scroll. I had gotten a blank plane and added around 30 divisions. I did this because I had wanted the plane to be able to bend without having very sharp edges.
Then, I had gone to deform and added a bend to the plane so I was able to curve it. I had to rotate the curve so, it was able to bend in the right direction.
After, I had increased the curvature to see if I had done this right. I did as it shows in the image. I then went on to change some of the attributes so that it would curve on one side. I had seen that I was able to do this but only one roll would come out of doing this so, I had duplicated it that it was able to get multiple rolls. Once I had gotten the model I had wanted, I deleted the curve and so that the plane was no longer affected by the bend deformer.
This is the final model for the scroll that I had got. I had removed the extra divisions and placed it into the scene.
Jar
I had begun modelling with a cylinder as I wanted to create a jar with the similar shape of one. I had looked back constantly at my reference so that I could see what I had needed to do in order to follow it.
I had added edges into the cylinder so that I could make an indent into the middle of the jar. This is what jars would normally have as they would need a lip for the lid to go on.
I had then extruded the faces in the middle of the jar to create the inside of it. I had used the x-ray tool so that I could see what I was doing on the inside.
After, I had added bevels to the edges and refined them to create a more rounded model. I had made sure that the faces were all equal and that the base of the model was flat. I had then added more polygons to it so that I could make it more smooth then, smoothed the mesh by turning it from a polygon mesh to a smooth mesh.
This is the material for my jar, I wanted to show that I have changed the jars specular attribute as the jar wasn't becoming translucent like glass. I had made it a lot more reflective so that in the render it shows up.
I had begun modelling with a cylinder as I wanted to create a jar with the similar shape of one. I had looked back constantly at my reference so that I could see what I had needed to do in order to follow it.
I had added edges into the cylinder so that I could make an indent into the middle of the jar. This is what jars would normally have as they would need a lip for the lid to go on.
I had then extruded the faces in the middle of the jar to create the inside of it. I had used the x-ray tool so that I could see what I was doing on the inside.
After, I had added bevels to the edges and refined them to create a more rounded model. I had made sure that the faces were all equal and that the base of the model was flat. I had then added more polygons to it so that I could make it more smooth then, smoothed the mesh by turning it from a polygon mesh to a smooth mesh.
This is the material for my jar, I wanted to show that I have changed the jars specular attribute as the jar wasn't becoming translucent like glass. I had made it a lot more reflective so that in the render it shows up.
Scroll
Similar to the jar, I had started out with a cylinder, as I wanted the same shape. I had made the curve in a shape which was wrapped around the jar.
I had then, made a curve out of the EP curve tool. This had made it so that I could then extrude the cylinders front face to the curve. I had done this then added divisions so that the cylinder was perfectly wrapped around the curve. After doing this, I removed the curve that I had made by deleting the history of the cylinder and then deleting the curve.
This is the final look of the rope, and I am impressed as it took me little to no time to do this.
Block Out - Ambient Occlusion Render
This is a quick block out I did of how I want my final scene. I had done a quick model of each asset using Maya and shown how I would compose my final scene. I had made the hood out of a cylinder as I wanted it to be a block out, otherwise, I would have had to animate it and this would then cause it to look more realistic rather than a plan.
Block Out - Photoshop Paint-Over
nCloth Experimentation
These were some experimentation that I did on nCloths. The reason I did experimentation on nCloths was that they hood that I am going to be modelling, is going to be an nCloth. This will make it a lot easier to rig and make it look like a hood. In the end, I went with the nCloth Silk as this had suited the type of look that I was going for with my design. Although, I did mix in some of the other materials into my design to get the right shape of it.
Unused Models
Police Banner
This was going to be a Police Banner that I was going to use for my scene. I removed it as I had changed the game backstory from being a crime scene of a disappearance too, one related the mythology of China. I was going to texture this to have do not cross on the sign and it was going to be placed across the scene.
Potion Bottle
Old Broach
Ambient Occlusion Misc.
Here is an ambient occlusion of my first design idea that I had in mind for my scene. As you can see it doesn't look like the mask is the main centre of focus. It looks more like the lamppost is, and that was not the intention. It has a composition in but, again if you put the rule of thirds into this it makes it look like the lamppost is the main focus. I wanted to include this so, I can see how it would have looked if I did go on to do this design and also, so it can help me to organise my final idea properly for rendering in Maya.
In this image, I have drawn the Rule Of Thirds grid onto the scene. It doesn't have the right composition as in the lower half of the scene it has the mask when the mask should be in the centre if it was meant to be the main focus. Even though it follows the Rule Of Thirds, I had wanted it to be on the mask and not the lamppost.
Here is an image of the same design but, with the right-hand side of the scene stretching out rather than ending abruptly. I think that this looks better than the image above as it has more space, but if I did do this idea I would have had to make sure that I fill out the scene a bit more rather than having it empty. I could add bins in or pieces of papers to fill it out.
Final Model
This is my final scene on Maya. I have added all of the texture maps to the scene in order to give the scene some life. I think that this perspective of the scene is from a good view and on my ambient occlusion, I have shown the composition off my scene from the rule of thirds.
This is the wireframe from my scene, but it is with triangulation on rather than polygons.
Final Model - Ambient Occlusion
This is an ambient occlusion render of my final scene. I have positioned everything to look right and how I want it but, the zoom seems a little bit too far out as the scene is empty. I may want to zoom it in so that it looks more focused on the scene. Looking at this shows me a massive contrast to what I had originally planned, as I didn't think I would be able to do this. I was originally going to have the hood looking flat on the floor, but it would look weird, and it had taken up a massive amount of time so I wouldn't have liked to have just made it flat. I was also going to have a scarf with the hood, but looking at this scene, I don't think it would have made this scene look better as it may have just looked like too much clothing pieces.
I decided to take out the chains as I didn't think that they matched the whole theme of the game.
This is a render I did with my scene, it had an ambient occlusion on it and I have applied the rule of thirds to the scene. This was the zoomed out version and the rule of thirds doesn't seem to focus directly onto the mask. I will try this over the zoomed version and see if the rule of thirds works over the scene.
This is another render I did with my scene. It was the zoomed in version and I wanted to see if it looked any better with the rule of thirds over it rather than the zoomed out version. It looks a lot better in this version as, the mask is the centre of the attention, then it goes towards the hood and the jar.
In this image I had replaced the photo with a scroll, and taken out the chains. This is the final ambient occlusion render that I have done.
Final Model - Paint-Over
This is my paint over of my final ambient occlusion, I did this with how I wanted the scene to look. I had tried to create lighting in the scene but, the layers were not merging together while still having the painting composed so I had to leave it out.
UV Layout
These are the old UV maps that I had done. The photo had changed from a photo to a scroll so, I had to re-do the UV map as it wasn't for the right model. The broach was UV'ed very poorly and the shape of the broach had changed as I didn't see the need for a cylinder down the middle of it. The cylinder was also on the UV and because of the way that I had done it, it had gone over the UV for the base of the broach. The hood had also been poorly UV'ed as I didn't know how to UV it properly, the way I had done it before was by UV'ing it from a planar UV in the Y axis. This meant that the inside of the hood couldn't be done properly as it would overlap the outside of the hood.
These were my new UV's that I had done as the ones before were not right. I had to change them again as I felt that I didn't use the space very well for me to have two UV maps rather than one. I had changed them so that it was all onto one map apart from the flooring which I think is a lot better than both of the previous maps.
Texture Maps
Unreal Engine
Main Scene
Flooring
Unreal Engine
This was the material for my flooring. I had added a normal to it to make it look bitsy on the pavement, similar to how real ones look like.
This was the material for my jar. I had found out how to make the jar look like glass as I didn't want it to look like how it did in Maya. In my opinion, it turned out great and actually looks like glass.
This was the map for my broach and lamppost. I wanted them to have a similar look to metal so, I made them have their metallic option on,
This was my map for most of the materials. I just wanted to have the diffuse map on it and the specular so that it could have different lighting effects come off of it.
This was the material I had made for the scroll. I wanted to include the normal on it to show the writing above the scroll. Also, to make it look like dust was on the scroll too.
Final Maya Render
Unreal Engine Render
Weekly Reviews
Week 1
It is now a couple of days into my project. I have gotten down some initial ideas on a couple of mind maps. I am now going through each design idea and adding/subtracting different things that I like and dislike about the ideas. I have also gotten some initial ideas and sketches for some of the ideas that I would like to put forward to my final initial design idea. I plan to stick to my time plan and do more research and start getting ready to finalise my final design idea.
Week 2
It is the second week into my project and I have done a lot more research than I had planned to. This is very good as it will help me to define my idea more specifically. I have now also, finalised my design idea and stuck with the mask design. I think that this design will be hard for me to do, but I will be able to complete it within the deadline. For next week, I plan to start working on my concept art and be able to get a good design done.
Week 3
It is the third week into the project I managed to get some experimentation done with regards to my hood. I was shown how I could make modelling the hood simpler than how I was initially trying to do it. I was trying to make the hood from a cube, and this was becoming really hard for me as I wasn't getting the type of look that I had intended to do. My tutor had shown me that I can simplify this by using a sphere instead of a cube. This proved to be a lot easier as the shape was more spherical and matching more to a hood. This had helped me a lot to see how I should go about making my hood when I start modelling my final piece. In the next week, I plan to start my concept art as I was not able to start it though, this will be extremely helpful to me when doing my promotional art.
Week 4
It is now four weeks into my project and I'm going to reference my time plan to show how far I have progressed. For my time plan, I had down for my first week that I was going to get my initial research done and some concept art and initial sketches done to back up my idea. I had done this within the first two days of the project and have been using them quite a lot throughout my work. My second week was supposed to be a week where I could do more research into my project and also, add more initial sketches to help me get an idea of what type of final look I was going for. I had done this too, as I had made sure that I had got enough research to then help me work more into my design. For week three, I had down that I was going to begin working on my concept art, which I didn't get round to at first but, towards the end of the week I had started to work on my concept art. I think this was due to my time management which was a bit all over the place for that week. This week I had to work on my concept art, which I did do. I was able to start it but not able to complete it. For next week I plan to get it done or at least near to the end of its completion and start getting ideas for the promotional art.
Week 5
It is my fifth week into my project and I am doing well with regards to my time plan. I have gotten both my concept and promotional art done which is more than I had expected to do for this week. This meant that I am back on track with my time plan as last week, I hadn't done my concept art which needed to be done in order to start my promotional art. I had done my promotional art based off both of my concept art and my initial ideas. I had done some experimentation in order to help me get the fabric folds that I had wanted to include into my design. For next week, I plan to stick to start my modelling as that is the only thing that I didn't get to do this week. I think that I should be able to get a good amount of work done during next this week.
Week 6
It is now the sixth week into the project. As last week I had planned to start my modelling, I have done that this week. I have nearly done my hood and got nearly all of the animating side to my hood done. I need to start my mask next week as the hood and the mask is both priorities in doing as they are the main assets. I also plan to get the UV'ing done for my hood when I finish it next week as this will be long to do.
Week 7
This is my seventh week into the project. I have finished the UV for my hood and I had to redo it as the way I had originally done it was completely wrong. I have started my mask and I am finding it easy to model, as I was expecting it to be difficult. Next week I plan to stick to my time plan and carry on doing my modelling. As it is half term, I will have to do a lot of work in order to get my project done in time. I think I will be able to get some modelling done next week as I won't be doing anything else until I have it done.
Week 8
This was my eighth week into the project, and it was the first week of my half term. I had planned to do modelling for this week and managed to get some of the assets done for my scene. I had to change some of the assets that I had got done last week, which has led me to take longer on doing my modelling. For next week, I plan to get most if not all of my modelling done, giving me enough time to see if I can UV my other assets.
Week 9
This was my ninth week into the project. It was the second week of my half term and even though I was on my break I had managed to get some work done for the project. On my time plan, I had planned to get modelling and UV'ing done in order to stay on track to my deadline. I have finished the UV'ing of the two main assets for this project and have got nearly all of the models that I have done so far finished with their UV's. I am still doing my modelling but, it is for other items that are not my two main assets. For next week I plan to, get my UV'ing done and my modelling near completion or done, I also start to plan for my texturing to be started.
Week 10
This week, I was absent from college and so had to do what work I could from my home. I managed to get some Maya work done and finish modelling my mask and hood. My time plan had stated that I should be moving on to texturing which, I am not. I think for the time plan I could have given myself a little bit more time as it has taken me longer than expected. This was due to me just considering the mask and the hood as now, I have decided to add more elements to it rather than just the two assets. I have got my UV'ing done for what I have made this week. For next week I plan to get my modelling finished and start to move on to getting my texturing done too.
Week 11
During this week I have managed to finish doing nearly all my modelling and have also managed to get some textures done. I also managed to get an ambient occlusion done to and I am moving on to painting it in Photoshop. I plan to get all my texturing done next week and UV'ing so I can move on to sorting out my scene and rendering it all out. I have also, followed my guide as I have managed to do my promotional art this week, which is what I had planned to do.
Week 12
I had realised that my area in research on this project wasn't strong in my own opinion so, I went back and managed to add a lot more to it as well as uploading things that I had forgotten to upload to the blog. I have managed to do most of my texturing and will carry that and UV'ing on next week. I am around a week or two late on my texturing but, for this week I had said in my time plan that I would finish where I had left off and revise over everything that I had done which I did manage to do, to some extent. I plan for next week for me to get all my texturing UV'ing done, by the first two days, leaving me with a lot of time to sort out my final scene. As well as this, I plan to get my evaluation done, but this should only take an hour for me to be able to complete.
Final Week
This is my final week, I have done all of my work and have handed it in. I had to do my evaluation, final rendering and clearing up my blog in general. I have managed to follow my plan to the best of my ability even though, there were some minor setbacks. I think I have done well for this project and have managed to do what I have outlined in my time plan and project proposal. I did manage to get my renders done, though they did take a while to get done especially on Maya.
Evaluation
This is the amount of time that it had taken to do my final scene. It seems that I had done it in a shorter amount of time than my time plan, as my time plan states that I would have taken 19 Hours compared to this which is 14 hours. In Maya, the render time had taken x hours to render, and the Unreal scene had taken 4 hours to compose and render the scene. It had taken me around 3 Hours to get the materials working in the scene and 2 Hours to compose the scene with the lighting, camera perspective and composition. I was close to the amount of time it had taken me to do the Maya scene which I think, shows that I was able to do it in time.
For the duration of this project, I have been focusing on modelling two main assets, a mask and a hood. I have tried to do this to the best of my ability with all the different techniques that I have learnt over the years on my course. The assets were for a game that I had created the backstory too, it was about a Chinese teenager who would go on to realise her potential. The mask was associated with the main antagonist of the game while the hood is associated with the protagonist. I wanted to do a realistic art style with my work as this really pushed my limits and also because I like the realistic art styles that games being made now are having. I was able to complete my project in Maya 2017 and was able to produce work that I thought, showed my ability. I did try to stick to the time plan that I had made as it had helped me to make my workflow a lot more practical.
I had started to make my initial concept art after I had concluded all my research. I had used my research as a reference to decide what I was going to have as my concept art. I had come up with a couple of ideas, but I decided to mix my sketches together to make a final design. My design was a Chinese opera mask as the structure but, the design on it was a galaxy as this relates to my backstory. Initially, it was going to have a Chinese related design, but I went with the galaxy as I felt I could do it to a better standard than the Chinese design. The development that I had done had helped me to come up with the final design that I had made as I was able to see what worked and what didn’t work as well with the designs. I had used a composition technique called the rule of thirds to help me see what the composition of my concept art was like and if it was correct. It did work well as all four centre corners of my design intersected to show the mask as well as the rest of the hood. I did change my final promotional art from my final scene as I had taken out the scarf. This was because it looked like too much to have a hood, mask and a scarf. I had then gone onto developing the hood so it suited more rather than leaving it out. I am extremely happy with my final concept art as it had turned out the way I had wanted it to.
After doing this, I had started my promotional art and was doing it based on my mask and hood. It was these two assets on the table. I did this as I wanted to show the main point of my scene and also show my digital painting but, really well done. I did this by first doing a lot of experimentation on fabric folds and how I should go about painting them. This had helped a lot to help me to get the folds into the promotional art as I wanted to make it look realistic. I had decided on giving my promotional art dark colours as I wanted to make it have negative connotations with colours such as dark red. I am satisfied with how my Concept art had turned out as I had wanted it to have the look that I was going for. I had used a lot of techniques that I had learnt from my tutors, peers and online in the past. Some of them where blending, shading, tinting, tone, composition and more. I had used these to get the right look for my final promotional as I wanted it to look like a proper promotional art, similar to AAA games but, as I didn't have a very high skill level to do so, I did it to the best of my ability.
I had then moved on to starting to do my modelling. I had already done some practising in Maya, prior to starting it. It had helped me to see how I would start to model my assets as well as, how long it would take to do my whole scene. I had originally planned to do a Mask and Hood for my two main assets then later on decided to add a scarf as a secondary asset. I had changed this as I thought it would look like too much was concealing the mask, and instead planned out a whole scene which was the secondary assets. The scene had a pavement, a potion, a photo, rope and a lamppost but, later on, I removed the photo and potion and replaced them with a scroll and a jar. I wanted to make sure that the geometry of the shape was done right to avoid future problems, as this is a mistake from the past that I have learned from. I had incorporated various modelling techniques that I had learnt from the past such as, extruding, edge cutting, booleans and beveling. I had used these effectively to make my models, and I think that I did this successfully. There were some problems that I had encountered with the UV's of my model were, I did it so the faces were overlapping. This meant that when I had gone to texture the model, it would put the same painting in places that it wasn't meant to be. This had become a problem, so I went back and fixed this by redoing the models properly, rather than quickly. I had to improvise at some points as I had rotated the model so I couldn't just project a UV from the Y, X or Z axis and had to do this from my current camera angle. This has been one of the only times that my work hasn't crashed on Maya and led to me having to redo the last hour or two of work. I had modelled the hood by learning how to animate, and this was a tedious process of stopping the animation, moving and rigging the model, then carrying on. I was able to do this really well though, and I think it was worth the wait considering that this was my second time attempting to do animation in Maya.
As I had finished designing my mask and my hood faster than I expected, I went on to add more assets to my scene. I modelled a jar, scroll, lamppost, a broach, the pavement and road as well as my mask and hood. I have researched a lot into the different assets that I have made for this project and the different themes as I was doing a Halloween and Chinese theme for my project. A lot of research was done into the Chinese culture as this was heavily relied upon in my game backstory. I went back to my reference images as well as my concept art as I needed to look back on how I originally planned to do my design. I had modelled the Jar, Lamppost, and Broach a lot quicker than I had anticipated after doing my hood and mask, as I thought that it would have taken a very long time to do them. My scroll I had done last, and I had to improvise with the bend tool and extruding tool to get the rolls in the circle. The only problem that I had realised after doing this was that when I went into Unreal Engine with my scene imported into it, because I had put my scroll as a plane which has one side, it had become transparent. I could have fixed this by doing the scroll as a square, or even extruding it out as I had the same problem with my hood but, I had done this to do after modelling it. After modelling everything, I had done the Uv's again on the secondary assets as I wanted to add texture maps to them. The UV's didn't take that long to do as most of them were fine. The broach I had to do again, as I didn't UV it properly, but this wasn't a major problem. The maps were then made on Photoshop and generally made the scene look a lot better than what it did before. I had hand painted them, along with some other things such as using filters and layer modes to give the textures the right look. I wanted them to look realistic and change a lot of the material attributes in Maya and Unreal Engine. Overall, I am very happy with the textures, thought I had wanted an outline on the hood around the bottom, but I had put it on the outside of the hood rather than the inside of it.
I had tried to render my scene in Unreal Engine, to begin with, and I had problems especially with the jar not looking like glass. I had to change it so that it looked opaque and I had increased the reflectivity so that it was very reflective. It didn't look like glass in Maya but looked like a metal like a jar. In Unreal Engine, I had changed it easily so that the jar looked like glass. This had given me a lot of relief as I really wanted my jar to be glass. The next problem that I had was rendering, as I had set it to render and it didn't look right as the quality was set at medium. I had to then boost it to a high quality, which had caused it to take ridiculously long. I had left it for an hour to render and it didn't do anything at all, not long after it crashed. So, I had given it to my tutor to render. I didn't try to render it again as I didn't want to get the data corrupted or something to happen with the scene as in one of my previous projects I had rendered and it crashed. When I had come back to the scene, it had distorted some of the meshes of the models and the UVs were completely broken.
Finally, I had put my final scene into Unreal Engine as I had wanted to see what my scene would look like in a game. This was part of the brief to do this as well, so I did manage to get it into Unreal Engine. I had to change a lot of the materials in Unreal Engine to get them to look right such as the jar. This had taken up a bit of time as I had to look into what I would have needed to add. In the end, I had gotten the right type of look for my scene and had done the lighting well too.
Overall, I am extremely happy with this project as I feel that I have done all my work to the best of my ability as this was something that I had wanted to do. I think that the game backstory and context matches well to the scene and all of it makes sense. In the future, I will make sure that I stick to my time schedule more strictly to ensure that I meet the deadlines on time. I will also, want to have more creativity when doing my designs as it had taken me a while to come up with my initial sketches. I will try to finish my projects before my set or given deadlines, in order to give me more time to go over everything that I have done and make sure it is done to the best of my ability. I would also, like to learn more techniques to incorporate into my designs.
Bibliography
Websites
https://www.artstation.com/ - Artist Research
http://alexandrepa.com/ - Artist Research
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Zhengzhou,+Henan,+China/@34.746671,113.660775,3a,75y,119.74h,100.25t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1s-WpzER45TEqk%2FVgsigSVS9cI%2FAAAAAAAABMM%2FKko6R-hR_jkIRH5YoWAvVWANFB530APFwCJkC!2e4!3e11!6s%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-WpzER45TEqk%2FVgsigSVS9cI%2FAAAAAAAABMM%2FKko6R-hR_jkIRH5YoWAvVWANFB530APFwCJkC%2Fw203-h100-k-no-pi-2.9999962-ya94.499985-ro-0-fo100%2F!7i8192!8i4096!4m5!3m4!1s0x35d76594f09b6a9d:0x7932ee19f4cced2c!8m2!3d34.746611!4d113.625328 - Zhengzhou Location Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xia_dynasty - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_of_Shang - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasties_in_Chinese_history - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin_dynasty - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Guigu - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jie_of_Xia - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mingtiao - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_L%C3%BC - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China - Chinese Research
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instax - Chinese Research
www.native-languages.org/masks.htm - Native Mask Research
http://www.historyofmasks.net/mask-history/history-of-chinese-masks/ - Chinese Masks History
http://www.youtube.com/ - Tutorials
Museums/Galleries
Natural History Museum, London
The Tate, London
These two museums, I have visited recently which both have helped me to get an idea on what I should do my project on and also, painting techniques that will help me with my digital art.
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