Animation for the creative industries Vertical Slice

 

After our style guides and further talks, the group had somewhat of an idea of what we were doing. I wasn’t too confident with how things would progress as there wasn’t much communication between the games and animation people, but I tried to focus on my own areas. 

I originally had waited for some level design to be sent into the group discord to be planned but that never came so I decided to try modelling the whale that the player would be inside. 

 

The games people had told me the plan was to have it so you walk up to the whale then a short fade screen takes you inside the whale where you will clean up. This meant that there would be two separate models; a normal whale outside, and a fleshy environment you would walk around and clean.

I began working on a whale with this in mind, focusing on the outside first. When I was done with the whale, I then started working on the “Whale Wash”, something that the lectures mentioned would be something to add, they also mentioned to make the environment a little bit more industrial so I kept this in mind when modelling it. I took inspiration from car washes and sprinklers online to create a cage around the whale, along with a platform to hold the whale which I took inspiration from contraptions that transport whales. I sent in pictures to the Discord but only Joyce acknowledged it, I took this as a sign that there was nothing to change and moved onto the next task. 

 

-Mood Board of Referneces-

 

I started compiling references for other assets that needed to be created and began sketching out some ideas.

 

-insert sketches-

One reference that I found incredibly helpful was a post about how Nintendo created a better looking coin in Mario:Odyssey when compared to Super Mario Galaxy despite the lower poly count, They achieved this through their normal and roughness maps. I tried to replicate this effect with my own coin that I made using a normal map and the same poly count. 

 

Around two weeks later while in a planned group call for the team, Clio and Logan told me that the whale now had to be one big model with enough room for level design and that we were told to no longer go for an industrial style but instead a Hawaiian holiday vibe. I was rather annoyed at this as I had posted my completed model in the Discord several days prior but they never commented on this change of plans. I then had to scrap the two models and begin working on a new whale to fit with the new level and style.

I then decided to check out the Unreal Project to see if there was anything I could use as reference for the whale layout. I found that there was a massive rectangular whale shape that could be used. I was confused by this as I had been asking Clio and Logan if there had been any work done on level design and they had told me they hadn’t started anything yet there had been a dock and whale planned out. I then asked them if they could maybe message in when they’ve worked on it to keep everyone updated. 

I was racking my head a bit trying to think of a way to model a whale that looked like a whale, while still maintaining the level design Clio and Logan planned out. I asked Joyce if she could make a quick sketch that I could model off of and she came in clutch. Joyce made a couple whale designs with some redesigned level design included and posted them into the server for the rest of us to vote on. The one we all liked was this one pictured above. 

Now with a clear design and layout to work with I was able to get stuck in. I did find the process of modelling the inside of the whale quite frustrating because of the viewpoint but I managed to get it done without too much bother other than this. Once I had the body and inside done, I moved onto the teeth which I made two different versions of; one pair of cartoony pointy teeth, and a pair of realistic shaped molars. I asked Joyce and others which version they preferred more and they all said molars so I went with that. I found that it made the whale a bit unnerving but it definitely was better than my previous whale.

 

Playtest

Once the whale was finished, I wanted to import it into the Unreal Project for testing as we had a playtest in a few days. I found that the Unreal Project I had access to before wasn’t available anymore and there was a new one I needed to be invited to. I asked for invites over the course of a couple days and was told it would be done but was then told the day before the playtest that they couldn’t invite me because the owner of the project was someone who dropped out and only he could invite me. I managed to get in contact with him and thankfully was invited to the project.  However, due to the lateness of this invite I wasn’t able to upload my whale in time for the playtest.

During the playtest, I took notes from some of the playtesters and uploaded them into the group server, Since my whale wasn’t in the project there wasn’t any feedback on the environment. I did find one point interesting where people were getting confused due to the placeholder lights. Logan said this wasn’t an issue but I took a note of this when creating my lights.

 

Finishing up Assets

 

As I was falling behind on my assets thanks to health issues, I put my head down and started working on the rest of the assets. I had previously made an asset list at the start of the assignment that detailed which models I wanted to make. I made a few adjustments to this when I checked up on the Unreal Project as I would often see things not detailed within the asset list in the project. I wasn’t able to create all the assets they had used as placeholders but attempted as many as I could with the time I had. 

 

For the palm trees, I first looked up how many tree variations I should have as I felt it would look unnatural having the same tree duplicated over and over. I found a reddit thread on this very topic and the general consensus seemed to be that three was a good number to have seeing as you can scale and rotate the models to create a good variation. With this in mind I created my base palm tree model that I would then edit to create the other versions. I had remembered from my games development course at NRC that it’s best to use planes to model the leaves on trees as they are low poly and won’t miss out on any added detail from a higher poly option as you can make it as detailed as you want with a texture. The lower the tris, the better your game runs so for something like a tree that will be reused multiple times, it’s best to keep it as low as you can.

 

Joyce’s Sketch

Due to time constraints, I found myself not being able to explore designs for the bait and tackle shop as I was more focused on trying to get models done. I asked Joyce if she could create a sketch of the shop using some references I had gathered and I’m extremely grateful she agreed as I loved her sketch for the shop. I really loved how the sketched lines gave the shop certain shapes so I tried to exaggerate these in my 3D model. 

 

The dock was the prop I felt the least confident in. We had done something similar in class with Rachel but I feel that I can’t get the wood stylisation correct. I used some references to figure out where the places to add bevelled vertices and cuts would be and ended up with the final product. I made sure that the dock arrayed correctly as it would be used for the majority of the port.

I had noticed in the Unreal block-out that there were block-outs of scaffolding so I decided to add this to my asset list but edit it slightly to match with the theme I was told. Rather than being completely made out of metal, I would have the framing be metal but the flooring be wood. This meant that I could reuse the dock flooring and make the area a little less industrial .I made sure to keep poly count low on this asset as I felt that it would be reused a lot around the level.

I had originally broken down the boats into two sections; hulls and huts.I had planned for each of these to be interchangeable to have multiple variations of boats without having to create each unique boat. This was also the plan for the metal tops of the boats, the life-saver and the metal railing which could be used as blockades around the dock. While this could technically still be an option, due to time restraints I was only able to create one colour palette for each hull and huts, meaning I would only end up with three full boats rather than a handful of combinations. Despite this I think the boats turned out well and could still be used interchangeably if the colours don’t bother anyone. 

I hadn’t originally had lights on my asset list but I saw the game’s dev students adding quite a lot of placeholder lights around the whale so I figured that it would be a good idea to have an actual asset of one. I also had kept in mind feedback from the playtest where players were getting confused by the lights as it looked like you couldn’t walk past them due to the wires, I decided to model lights that were based on construction lights that didn’t require wire to avoid this and also tie in with the construction theme that was taking place within the whale.

Hi-fi Rush Using Flat Colours

For the overall textures for the assets, I wanted most of them to be flat colours as the shader in Unreal would be what gave them that pop. I had also looked at models from games like Hi-Fi rush that had a similar style and they mostly used flat colours unless they wanted to add a specific detail like writing on a watch.  I did add details to the windows, palm leaves and wooden pieces as I felt that it really elevated the overall look of the models.

 

Final game 

Above is footage of our final game. I’m disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to get my assets in game in time as it would have been cool to see the things I’ve modelled in action and utilising the shader Logan made. I was surprised to see metal parts around the whale as the game dev students told me that wasn’t what we were going for but it ended up being what we went with in the end, I wish they had mentioned something about it as I could have used my “whale-wash” that I had scrapped. 

 

Module Reflection

 

Overall the module had me incredibly stressed due to poor timing of health problems and lack of communication within my group. I was excited to work on a game with others as I am very interested in the game industry and make assets for games in my spare time so figured it would be a fun project to collaborate with others on. I am very thankful for Joyce as she tried to organise calls and communication. 

I do think I managed to capture the low poly style that I was aiming for and had an acceptable level of tris for each object.

An area that I am not really happy with is my texture work, I had planned for it to be rather basic so the shader could do most of the heavy lifting but without the shader the textures are extremely lacklustre and bring the overall quality of the models down.

If I was to redo this module over again, I would try to not stress out about what others are doing and focus on what’s in front of me. I also felt extremely overwhelmed due to how much work i missed out due to health issue but I am aiming to get solutions to my issues so I can work on this not being an issue on future modules.