Game Module| Bastion

Bastion is an action RPG game produced by independent developer Supegiant Games and published by Warner Bros. It was released in 2011 on Xbox arcade, Steam and iOS.

Bastion is set in fantasy world, where main character travels between dimensions and fights enemies. Game itself is beautifully crafted, colorful and bright. It is not only praised for art direction but also for narration, story and music.

Supergiant Games are currently working on Transistor game which is a sci- fi action RPG.
 

Storyboards | PPP

Few weeks ago I was asked by a 3rd year student called Billy for help with his end of year film project. He asked me to create a storyboards based on a 16th pages long script (written by him of course;)).

 

I've really enjoyed this project as it was a new challenge that pushed me outside of mine comfort zone. However, due to tight schedule and falling a bit sick, I had to make them in gray scale and leave quite rough (but still presentable). I could easily spent extra hour or two on each of those frames. Nevertheless, I'm proud of the end result and managing it through busy schedule. Hopefully I will get more those kind of tasks in the future.

PPP | Reflect | Idea Research

For this part of PPP module we have to create a short presentation summarizing ours experiences through out the academic year.

As I'm really interested in animation and concept art I thought of creating a sequence of images (possibly moving) that will support my presentation. It is stated in brief that it have to last between 5 to 10 minutes (as I will be talking through the animated presentation itself should be shorter) . In the ideal world I would love to make it in the form of motion comic book or moving images, somehow similar to below piece by Artur Sadlos.


Komiksofon 4 from Artur Sadlos on Vimeo.

I will need to design a character who will lead through the presentation. As it was suggested by Mike I should keep it fairly simple and be clever with re-using frames/bits of animation. I would also re-use the existing images to present my journey - e.g. concept art from the first module, storyboards from film module (+ storyboards I've done for Billy), models from animation module and concept art/modules from game art module. Another important thing I have to keep in mind is a time management - less than month left until deadline. And with game art module deadline coming up soon I really have to spent few hours a week on this task.

Game Module|Shell House Progress

From the start I've knew that modeling shell houses in Maya will be very hard, especially since my concept art was very detailed and complex.
I've had tried few different primitives first to get basic idea, helix and sphere seemed to be the best solutions. However, I found modelling helix into shell is extremely difficult. As mentioned earlier, the other right shape to use was sphere.

•  A very basic model made with 3 different spheres. Although is very simple it gave me a rough idea of how I can take advantage of this shape.

• Almost finished model of shell house. Still need a bit more work on it, but I like those results.

• Another house; since it's bigger it could belong to shaman of this water tribe village.

•  Due to nature of Unity I had to multiply my houses in order to create a proper, visible walls (Unity, unlike to Maya, wouldn't display polygons that shouldn't be visible in the first place). I got rid of spikes since only inside is important.

Next step is to create a UV map and texture it. I've got introduced to MudBox and might use it for this task.

Everything I can See From Here | Animation |PPP

Everything I Can See From Here from The Line on Vimeo.

Everything I Can See From Here is an animated short directed by Sam Taylor and Bjorn Aschim for The Line and produced by Fritzi Nicolaus. As it is stated in video description this lovely animation was made over the last two years in our evenings, weekends and days off. There is aso a massive list of other people involved in production process.

Sound & Music was done by Box of Toys Audio.

Everything I Can See From Here - brilliant, well-paced short. I really like hand painted backgrounds and stylised characters as well as nice 3D alien. Storyline, although quite simple and generic, seems very fresh - thanks to nice presentation. Music plays a very important part as it helps set the mood.

As a person very interested in animation, Everything I Can See From Here serves as the perfect example of work I would love to do in the future. Especially when it comes to painted background - beautiful, with subtle and visible brush strokes, great perspective. I've got another 2 more years to improve my drawing skills and try a bit more animation.

Game Modue|Props Modelling 01

After spending few hours battling with Maya and countless mistakes I've finally managed to create few of my basic props, fully textured and ready to be imported into Unity.

So here we've got pots, bowls, chair and table. I've tried to keep models fairly simple (also deleted uneccesary faces and edges) and colourful. Now I can make many variations of those designs by adding little details (or by changing colours slightly) to textures.

 Other objects I still need to model:

• signs ('hello', 'smile')
• 'firefly' lamps (animated particles to simulate fireflies)
• platforms
• shell houses (click here to see models)
• bridges and barriers
• boat
• animated fabric / flag

 Untextured signs and lamps:

Massive Black|PPP

Massive Black is a studio based in San Francisco, California. Founded in 2003 it became a leading company providing stunning visuals and amazing concepts.

Clients include companies like: Activision, Bungie, Hasbro, Konami and  Ubisoft (there is a full list on studio website and sure, it's massive!).
Massive Black fields are: illustration, concept art, animation, storyboards and many more, like a (kick-starter funded Zombie Playground.
It is a well known studio in the industry with many professional artists like Jason Chan.

As I'm very interested in concept art world, and share the love for drawing and designing, Massive Black is one of those dream companies I would love to work for in the future.

Game Module| Chrono Cross

Chrono Cross is a RPG game developed and publishes by Square (now Square Enix) in 2000 on Playstation.

I've decided to talk a bit more about it since it's one of my favourite games. The story is very interesting, set in two different dimensions of fantasy world. As in any RPG game, player recruit a party of characters to complete quests and move story foward, gain more experience and skills.

In spite of the fact that Chrono Cross is 13 years old game, still have it's charm and beauty. Scenery is rich in details and very colorful. Design of towns, caves, villages is very memorable and stunning. Style of a game is cartoony and bright, with cute game props and funny characters.
Chrono Cross have some water village type levels which somehow impacts development of my current project.

Game Module|Rayman: Origins

Rayman: Origins is a 2D side-scrolling platformer game, developed by Ubisoft, and released back in 2011. The plot of the game is very simple, but in the same time very funny and interesting to play. Even though it may seems simple at first, the level design varies though the game and stays fresh.

It is a very colourful and vivid game, background are very rich, detailed and adorable. Also the drawing style is very characteristic and cute.

 

Some of the design ideas I might use in my level, especially when it comes to patterns and colours. 

It is a game definately worth playing for it stunning graphics and extreme humor. The down side is that the difficulty goes very quickly through the leves as well as overall beauty can be distracting ;).

Game Module| Concept Artists

In this blog post I'm going to present few more concept artists that somehow influence my work.

• Kekai Kotaki is probably the most well known from his work for Guild Wars (and GW2).

• What I really like about his work is the mood of those paintings. Very detailed, with great composition, perspective and interesting story.

• Daniel Dociu also worked on Guild Wars
• Clever use of textures, shapes and colour.
• I really like the scale in this painting, dragon - mountain taking almost the whole canvas.

• Feng Zhu - I've been watching Design Cinema episodes for quite a bit time and always learnt something new.
•  Impressive amount of landscape paintings as well as character/vehicle/creature designs
• Use of perspective and colors to present enviroments.
• Use of default brushes proving that you don;t need a fancy custom brushes to create something unique and amazing.

• Colours; interesting concept

Game Module| Crates

Finished models and textures of 2 crates (fantasy and futuristic).

I've used hand-drawn textures on both crates since it's something that I might use in my project (also I found those hand made textures are more unique and interesting). Bump maps and glow added.
Model of fantasy crate is matching my world fantasy theme and could be reused - with just a slight changes in textures.

A little progress shot showing the difference between model with and without bump map and glow.

Game Module| Level Props

As the shell houses are going to be open for player to explore I had to design additional props - chairs, tables, sofas, pottery, lamps.

I've tried to create many different designs - leaving my 'imaginary client' with enough options to choose from. Also kept those sketches quite clean and organized (little explanations of materials, layers named and grouped) - can be presented anytime.
I've picked few different ideas and decided to detail them a bit more.

Pretty happy with the outcome, especially since was trying to deliver good designs in short amount of time (a day of work basically).
Next step is to create 3D models and UV textures.

Game Module|Crates and Barrels Research

Part of our brief was a task to create 2 barrels and 2 crates - futuristic/industrial and fantasy/historical one. As I'm going for more stylised look I've decided to look at 'cartoony' games (platformers) for inspiration.

• Spyro's Universe Skylanders

• Overall cartoony look of crates and barrels is match the look I want to achive in my game level; very simple shapes, bright colors.
• Fantasy/historical theme

• Croc
• Again very simple and colorful. 
• Fantasy/historical theme

 

 

• Ratchet and Clank
• More complex looking crates,  variety of designs (and use), crazy colours, lights.
• Perfect examples for futuristic crates and barrels

•  another example from Ratchet and Clank

• Jak and Daxter
• More complex, very colorful and a bit crazy looking. Connects with futuristic and fantasy themes.

 

Game Module|Sea Shell House Idea Origins

Before DFGA I did 2 years of evening access to HE. I've really enjoyed the given briefs and luckily I've got a ability now to use some of those ideas.
Second big brief (back in 2011) was about 'memory'. As memories from my childhood are strongly connected with trips to the seaside, shell theme was kinda obvious ;). During few months I did a lot of research (artists and architects), experimented with different mediums, from acrilics to sculpture and watercolours.

•  one of the sketches created right before the final image, prototype, trying out the techniques and colours; 
  media: coffee, watercolours, ecolines, sea salt, fineliners

 I was mostly inspired by Gaudi's amazing architecture as well as Michael Shapcott's great portraits.

• final image; going from little notebook size sketch to A2 is not always a good idea ;)

• some of the experiments, watercolours + seasalt as well as paper sculpture.

During that module the idea of 'seashell house' were born.

Even though the houses I'm designing now look different it is good idea to present those as a part of my research.

Game Module|Furniture

When browsing creativebloq.com I've came across interesting article full of cool furniture that somehow match the theme of my game level. The full article can be found here. As I'm currently working on props design this furniture feature gave me a big idea boost!

Shiner is a company specilising in eco-friendly, modern furniture. Theirs desings are very contemporary, organic and fresh. Chairs and beds designs are going to by my main inspiration for designing furniture. Mixture of steel and wood match the fantasy theme, closer to nature.

Richard Clarkson is a designer behind this amazing cradle chair

I really like the oval (egg like) shape of this chair as well as the materials used - again goes well with my game idea :). More photos and informations can be found here.