Brainstorming:

For this assignment we were given a Vertical Slice collaborative project with the Games Design Course, this has been a reoccurring assignment alongside the Animation course. I was sorted into Team F with my main role in Prop modelling and Texturing, and a secondary role as character modeller and finally animation at the bottom, if the team really needed it. The prompt given was Isolation>Connection.

After getting familiar and chatting with new team and discussing our favourite types of games, each group was divided into smaller groups to try and think of ideas for the game we were going to make with the prompt in mind. We all had really diverse ideas as well as some that were similar or could be combined really well. One of my favourite ideas I had was playing cupid and having single people connect with similar characteristics etc, The assets and style would have been cute and I thought it fit well with the theme. In the end after lots of discussion between 3 narrowed down ideas, we decided on Tim’s idea of a girl and a dragon completing a journey together. I really really liked this idea, I’m a big fan of fantasy and we wanted to do a Breath of the Wild type style as well which appealed to me.

 

 

After deciding on what idea we wanted to do, we all separately began to develop the idea in our own ways while attending weekly meetings in person on mondays as well as online meetings twice a week so everyone could join. We worked alongside the narrative designer, to see what sort of imagery and designs would be featured in the game, the level designers gave us some ideas on what props should be made etc.

Paulina (games course role: 3D props) and I went over in detail with a style reference sheet. We put all our images up on miro so that everyone could have easier access to it. I had mainly researched and referenced props and other video games that fit our design brief. We wanted unique stylised shapes, by introducing some bevelling, sculpting where possible to give it a smoother look and making a lot of props look organic and worn down due to the story having ruins etc. We wanted the world to feel it had been left for the wilderness to take over a little. If I had a bit more time I think I would have done more aged variations to some assets.

I recommended using these brushes for her to use while sculpting her ruins/rocks –

 

 

 

Dragon Tails narrative:

 

 

Our other two Ideas:

 

Concepts:

During our stage of settling on prop designs and art styles, I asked and was welcomed to doing some concepts for the characters. I really enjoy doing some concept work when we start a new assignment, It could potentially help with design choices and I personally feel like I get a better idea of the world and who inhabits it.

Tim Vogan’s first designs of Siz:

 

Dragon concepts: I had taken main inspo from Tim’s first iterations of his dragon and some specific creatures like butterflies, birds, fish cats and snakes.

 

 

 

 

 

Tim took some of my designs into consideration, and later as a team we voted on what we thought was the most suitable and cute design for Tim to develop!

The majority decided upon the butterfly/moth motif for the dragon for the final design.

 

Girl Concepts: We knew we wanted the character to be a younger female. I did some of my own and later did one taking inspiration from Josh Graham.

Josh’s Concept:

 

My concepts:

 

 

Asset Creation:

For this assignment I really wanted to put most of my focus on my main role: prop modeller & textures. Last semester it was a smaller group of students tasked to make an environment, but I felt I had time and opportunity to explore unreal and some extra techniques into asset creation. This semester I wanted to focus on developing my sculpting skills, I wanted to pick assets that were a bit more detailed but not too busy looking because of the style we had chosen. I also think by doing organics and hero props I could have a lot of opportunity to further my sculpting skills. For all my assets I followed the same pipeline I had last semester as it worked well. I block out in Maya (with a UE5 mannequin in the file for size reference), sculpted and added detail in Zbrush. If the model was complex I would Zremesh and UV Master (as a base to clean up after) in Zbrush and then bring it back to Maya to create a low poly version by using the quad draw tool. I did a mixture of baking the high onto the low poly in Marmoset or Substance. If an asset had some design specifics like the tree with grooves along the bark I would do it in Marmoset to gain specific maps like cavity etc. I texture in Substance Painter, always test in my assets within my own Unreal file and then share to the group.

 

 

Since Paulina hadn’t done modular sets before and I had done it with my floors and rubble last assignment it was fitting that she try the modular sets this time and I wanted to focus on hero assets and organics because I haven’t really tried before.

My pureref board:

 

 

 

Originally we had many assets between myself and Paulina (game design student). She had aimed for us to have around 30 props each at the beginning. I was apprehensive at first but wanted to work along with the team smoothly. I was asked if 3 assets a week would work and suggested that 2 would be better. With the efforts in research, blocking out, sculpting, retopo and texturing I felt that was a little more doable but still challenging. After a few weeks trying to keep style and quality consistent, I was struggling and getting burnt out frequently. Instead of 30 in the beginning we had managed to bring it down to 13 (for myself), I shared my concerns with lecturers and teammates. The other prop modeller felt the same as I did, so we had gradually adjusted our capability for the time and quality we wanted, and some game design students decided to remove some mechanics so that brought our number down too.

 

 

Arrow:

The arrow was the first test asset, I picked it because it has hard surface as well as a little more organic shapes for the ice. I felt this was a good prop to choose as it represented what we needed to cover, the feedback I got for the arrow was to add a little more texturing onto the ice/arrow like frost. I definitely agreed with that feedback, and did some adjusting to correct it. I’m quite pleased with how it looks in the end. In the game there are a few variations of arrows, to save time and to help differ the arrows for their purpose I gave them all different arrow feathers. The arrow itself was mostly hard surface, for the elven engravings and battle scars of the head of the arrow I detailed in Zbrush.

 

 

Sword:

The sword was quite fun to model and sculpt. The narrative designer, Niall, had sent me images of a specific sword type (a falcata) he envisioned that the Spirit NPC character and antagonist kingdom would have wielded. I did some more reference researching and within Maya imported a image plane to use as reference, then used multicut on a plane to cut out the shape of the sword, then added an edge between the blade and handle, so that I could adjust thickness. Looking back I do think I could of afforded to make the blade thicker, especially for a stylised weapon.

I had followed a couple videos to help me with creating this asset:

 

 

 

Tree:

I have never really done organic assets before, so I was excited to try out the trees  (oh boy was I optimistic). The main inspiration for the trees was Silme Rancher 2, I really enjoyed the curved shape they had. I also felt this would be really interesting to mirror some of the aspects of the environment with the dragon is essentially the last source of magic in the world. So along with the Slime Rancher 2 concepts as inspiration, I used bonsai trees and snakes as reference especially how they can twist and wrap around itself. Sadly I didn’t get the chance to create foliage for the trees, but I am familiar with the method as I had made grass/seaweed. We are using an Unreal store foliage set instead within the game, which I believe is the only asset we did not create.

 

My first iteration I blocked out in Maya with the curve tool, then brought the mesh into Zbrush to push its shape and detail further. I tried to make sure that the tree was an interesting, readable shape from all angles so that the level designers could use it many times without it becoming too repetitive. The tree was the longest asset for me to figure out, taking 2 weeks and a little more to fully get to where I wanted it in the end.

 

One part of feedback I got about the tree during those weeks was the commitment to the references, and it would need to twist more on itself. So, in Zbrush I tried to use Zspheres and the Transpose Master tool, and manipulate my current mesh to twist on itself more. Another thing that was brought to my attention was creating believable balance in weight of the tree, this took going back to studying bonsai trees again and really seeing how they counterbalance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJKIOWMjB20&t=313s

The other piece of feedback I got was about the tree’s natural twisting grain. I had struggled trying to achieve it on a tree that was a complicated shape. I was advised by henry to look into Hogarth’s Line of Beauty.

 

A theory in aesthetics that described a curved S shaped line. This theory matched perfectly well into my thought process of connection between dragon character and environment. “According to this theory, S-shaped curved lines signify liveliness and activity and excite the attention of the viewer as contrasted with straight lines, parallel lines, or right-angled intersecting lines, which signify stasis, death, or inanimate objects.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_of_beauty

I decided to give the tree another go, I had remembered Henry had shown me briefly before how to twist a tree in Zbrush using . I kept in mind the weight distributed, the line of beauty and the shapes that bonsai’s that capture both of those aspects.

 

My new pipeline starts with a sphere and used the move brush to pull out a shape I liked then dynameshed it. I used Damstandard to cut in lines where I wanted the bark to dip in.

I then just used Clay Buildup with the soft circle alpha on the brush to sculpt in the bark a little. I just repeated the process with a smaller sphere to make a quick branch.

 

Then I duplicated it and used the gizmo tool called Bend Curve to make it an angle I liked. You can find this gizmo tool under the cog when you have the gizmo open. I used the Bend Curve gizmo tool to manipulate the trunk once I was happy with the level of detail I had sculpted on it.

You can see how I manipulated the tree here. Using the orange gizmo, I added and removed segments so I could make larger or smaller changes quickly and easily.

 

 

Adding Twist – You can add twists while using the Bend Curve Gizmo. With a point selected you can use the orange gizmo to add twist. After this it’s just spending more time shaping and thickening the tree trunk to how I desired. Then adding more branches.

 

Leaf block outs:

 

Main Tree:

The main tree is intended to be the goal at the end of the game, it’s supposed to me grand and have a magical appearance with an opening to the middle for something to fit inside. I had researched many different real trees and virtual trees, and the one that was closest to how I imagined was the Lifeweaver Tree from Overwatch 2. It has those twisted trunks, same shape of canopy and opened middle. I didn’t want to completely copy and paste this design of course but it was a really strong piece of reference. The execution for this asset was similar to my other tree, but instead of using only one trunk there was multiple. I created one tree trunk, positioned it slanted and curving in and then duplicated it multiple times and positioned it so that it would create a whirlpool of trunks. I then used the deformeer tool to widen the base. I added roots using the curve tube brush, combined them and did the same treatment of using clay build brush.

 

 

While texturing I was trying to add streaks of magic running through the bark. I was struggling to make it look organic, although I found this brush in substance painter called Organic Spread a particle brush. This ended up looking like a type of bioluminescent mycelium which I thought looked great, the group also seemed to like this look a lot so I used it in the final version.

 

 

 

 

I had followed to understand more about the creation of a game ready tree asset:

 

Crystals:

Originally crystals were not on my list of assets, one of the level designers was expressing their worries about the lack of ambient lighting and being unsure how to light an environment with no organic source. I had suggested some crystals, since there is mining equipment, barrels and in the narrative there is magic they could manifest as you get closer to the magic tree or that naturally occurs in caves. I thought that big chunky crystals would be the most visually appealing to the game, I took inspo from Spyro 3’s Crystal Island level. These were very easy assets so I made a few of them of different sizes, as well as creating pre-made clusters so it would be easier and fast to use. There was also an issue with a tree being used as a puzzle piece, the level designer wanted the character to shoot a tree and for it to land so it could act as a bridge, this wasn’t communicated to prop modellers before. So there was disagreements of how the section could work and I suggested that the crystals I have put on my list could be done sooner for industry day, the crystals are magical and could be broken by an arrow. They would float and act as platforms for the character to jump across instead of a tree. The team like the idea and so I pushed this set ahead for industry day.

 

Barrel, Axe and Pickaxe:

These assets were a little easier than the rest. I had followed a Youtube video on how to do the barrel. I had learned a fun and useful trick from the video, duplicating the planks on a pivot so they would create the body of the barrel perfectly. I made two versions of the barrel, one that is sealed and another that has the body of the barrel and a lid separate so that there could be more variation of the use of the asset. I had watched through the long version, but there is also a short available to easily skim through!

 

 

Long version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy6b4cicSik&t=3015s

Short Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaIur8b1A_A

 

For the Pickaxe I had blocked out in Maya, then brought it in to Zbrush. I used the same method I did with the tree on the wooden handle of this asset. I had also reused the handle from this asset and slightly altered it for the axe handle to save time! I had also used the same method to create that tapered edge on the axe like how I did with the sword. To be efficient with having to create one or two assets a week, I made sure I was able to reuse parts or apply similar techniques to achieve assets.

 

I wanted to give the axe head a unique shape, to push a more stylised aesthetic. I created a cube, and brought it as close as I could to a point, leaving some thickness so that it could be sculpted with better ease. I played around with a bunch of the deformer tools, and felt that adding a curve using bend curve tool suited it best. I then cut out little chips to show its been used, as well as buffing out hard edges due to wear and tear which I also did with the pickaxe.

 

 

Bow:

The bow was a huge hurdle for me, I had done many different ideas and used many concepts but in the end forcing myself to do it. I had created my own concept using Tim’s ref sheet, and picked out what I felt was the most prominent aspects of his model. It was mainly making a bow shape and adding on aspects bit by bit, I tried making it much more chunky and detailed as it’s a hero asset. I liked how it turned out in the end!

Various ideas/tries:

 

 

Final:

 

 

Industry Feedback:

 

 

Reflection:

I really enjoyed this assignment; it was tough, but I did like the work I created, and I enjoyed working with new people. I do wish I had explored various roles like last semester but as I had mentioned before I wanted to stick to one role mainly and focus on developing my sculpting skills. I feel so much more comfortable in Zbrush than I had been at the start of the semester, I think it can be a tricky software to learn but persistence really is the key to becoming more proficient at it. Overall, I’m proud of my development in my development of my skill. If I could change a couple things if I had a chance to do it again, it would be to stand up a bit more for my opinion and knowledge I know I have. Also, that I could have spent the time aging some assets more, it’s something that was mentioned last semester and I haven’t applied it as much as I should have but I do recognise the lack of it this time around.

 

Videos I used for Retopo:

 

Others videos to make sure I following a good workflow: