Assignment 1 – Vertical Slice Project – Pixel Works

Room Project

At the start of the project the groups were tasked with making a simple game to get used to working with each other and figuring out how the pipeline works in the game industry. My group created a classroom themed escape room game, I modeled and textured the key that world win the game.

We were also tasked with coming up with a team name and creating a logo. We settled on the name Pixel Works, and I created the team logo.

Main project

Antagonist Spider, Phobia

The concept for our game is a 2.5D platformer with puzzle elements. It is about a child called Robin who must face his fears of spiders. At the beginning of the project, I was tasked with creating concepts for the enemies in the game. The group created a Miro board and gathered references for the enemy types we wanted to add.

At the time of creating these concepts we were playing around with the idea of bats and spiders.

After further discussion with the group, we decided to go with just the spider as our main antagonist. To start I focused on shape language as I wanted the spider to read as threatening and scary compared to the rounder human protagonist that was designed by Alisa. I asked my group which designs or elements of the designs they liked and combined them into a final version of the spider, Phobia.

To make the design more interesting I added elements of the environments to her back, I tried crystals, candles, chains and eggs. The team suggested adding things that would glow so she would stand out and feel more ominous as you would see the glow before encountering her. The group and I agreed the eggs were the best idea, so I tried different ways of attaching them to her back.

Finally, I created colour pallets based on real spiders. The most liked by the group were the first, based on a black widow and the third, based on a yellow garden spider. After putting it up for a vote the group decided on the first colour pallet as it best suited the game.

I made a low poly version of the spider to make sure the shapes, proportions and style of the model would suit the style of the game.

After receiving feedback from the tutors and my team I upped the poly count, made the head smaller and the butt bigger to make her look less ant-like.

I then UV unwrapped the model, I moved the eggs onto a separate texture map as we wanted them to glow. In hindsight I should have unwrapped the three egg sizes and then placed them however, by the time I realised my mistake I had already finished placing the eggs.

Once the spider was unwrapped, I sent the file to Rachael to start rigging. I textured the Spider following my colour concept. However, the all black colour looked flat and boring so I talked with my group, and they suggested adding dark purple to the legs and back. I used the brush was ‘Artistic Heavy Sponge’, it created a soft blend and gave the model a hand painted look.

Once the rig was complete, I created a range of different animations that would be used in the game.

Animations

Idle

Walk

Getting hostile

Hostile loop

Hostile cool down

Stab

Pounce

Climb up loop

Landing on roof

Climb down loop

Landing on ground

Scared and retreat

Other Assets

Tools

I also created some assets to add to the environment. I researched low poly models of mining tools on Sketchfab, since my models would appear in the background, I did not want them to be too high poly as it could affect the performance of the game.

I modeled the shovel, pickaxe and sledgehammer using cylinders and cubes, I tried to keep the poly count down while still maintaining a smooth model.

I UV unwrapped and textured the tools. I used a smart mask to highlight the edges of the metal sections to make it look worn. For the wood I used the ‘wiggly stroke’ brush in a light brown colour. I also added roughness to the wood sections to make them appear matt.

Mushrooms

The next asset I created was some mushrooms, I made five different types so they could be applied randomly in game. These are the models I referenced

To create the mushrooms, I used a cylinder and extruded it to form the stem and cap of the mushroom. I repeated this process for all the variations. For the fifth mushroom I duplicated it and shrunk it to make the branches of smaller mushrooms.

For texturing I used different shades of blue and painted on a gradient using the ‘Artistic Heavy Sponge’. The glow was added by Eoin in Unreal Engine.

Projector

I created a projector that would create the light beam used to solve the puzzles, these are my references.

I modelled the projector legs using cubes, once one leg was created, I duplicated twice and tilted them to make the tripod. The sack of the projector was made using a cube, I added edge loops and selected every other loop, I then scaled the selected loops to create the zig zag shape. To make the sack look less stiff, I curved it to look like it was sagging in the middle.

For the texturing I used a leather smart material and adjusted the colour. I made the wood texture the same way as the tools, the ‘wiggly stroke’ brush in a light brown.

Eggs and Webs

I modelled clusters of hatched and unhatched eggs to add to Phobia’s lair and the background. The eggs are simply three different sized spheres clustered up into different sized mounds. The hatched eggs are the same, however I removed some of the faces and pushed the broken pieces outwards to look as if something broke out. For the texturing I painted a red gradient using the ‘Artistic Heavy Sponge’. I also used the water volume n cloth to create the webs over the eggs, the textures were added by Eoin.

Friendly Spider, Velvet

I also modeled a friendly spider to act as a helping hand to Robin however that idea was cut as it would have taken too long to rig and animate. I modeled this spider to be smaller, rounder and chunkier to appear friendly. I used cylinders to create the legs and the eyes and spheres to make the body.

I textured the friend spider using dark blues, I painted a gradient on the legs and back using the ‘Artistic Heavy Sponge’.

Dead Spider

I modelled a dead spider by using the body of the friend spider and the legs and eyes of Phobia.

For the texturing I used muted purples for the body and a desaturated red for the eyes to make it look dead.

The dead spider was then rigged and animated to twitch by Rachael.

All models can be found here:

Conclusion

Overall, I greatly enjoyed working on this project, my group worked really hard and I am very happy with the final game. If I were to do this again, I would fix how I unwrapped the eggs and try to lower Phobia’s poly count as it is quite high. Moreover, I am proud of the work I produced.