skeksissquid

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2  -5-7-2021

     It’s been a wild yet lazy last month. Participating in Ludum Dare got some interesting and fun results, another map for TechnoTowers was added, I worked on some models for TechnoTowers, as well as doing some personal art, and it’s currently all a mess, really. So I’m going to try and recount everything that I can in a more simplified manner so that I’m not writing a book on everything that happened in extreme detail.

     Ludum Dare: So, Team Gomp decided that we wanted to join in on Ludum Dare this year and make an entry of our own in order to try and get some experience and games under our belt. The theme of it was “deeper and deeper”, and after that announcement was given, everyone was given 5 or so minutes to come up with ideas to share. Some of the ideas that people liked the most were infinite runners/fallers, and some sort of mechanic where attacking affected movement. Somehow from that, I ended up pitching the concept of the player being a rat that is falling through hell. The idea stuck, and Danger Rat was developed. I ended up working on some of the backgrounds for the parallax effect, designing enemies with Riley, as well as made some level segments that got scrapped because they were borderline impossible. https://studio-gomp.itch.io/danger-rat

     TechnoTowers: Using pixlr, and some feedback from Liam and Mabel, I ended up creating a crude version of the map that is currently being used as a level one map for TechnoTowers, and it has a single power core on Riley’s orders in order to make sure that it’s simple enough for newer players to be able to keep a track of everything, while also being engaging enough for players that know what they’re doing. Currently, it still needs to wave balancing, but all thing considered, I haven’t gotten too many complaints about the map from teammates outside of wave spawn stuff and collisions, which I hope means that the map is good. 

     Outside of this, coming up with enemy concepts that specifically boon enemies nearby them, as well as debuffing nearby towers was a design thing that I fiddled around with, and some of these ideas might make it in game since we need to start adding more enemies to the game soon so that we can balance everything in a decent manner.

     As for 3D art that I did, I ended up making a sprinkler-based model for an acid spraying turret, a sort of hose glob thing for another acid turret, an Urgot looking model for the cycling turret, a ranged enemy model, smog enemy concept model, and a sort of “shotgun tank” design for the scatter turret. 

Smog Enemy Concept

Cycling Turret

Scatter Turret

Acid Sprayer

Acid Turret

Ranged Enemy

     Personal Work: As for personal work, I mainly spent my time messing with composition, drawing a full person for once, adding hair via nanomesh to Bogle (gunna learn fibermesh to add that instead), some miscellaneous drawings, and modeling a human face.

Bogle: 

-What I learnt: How to use nanomesh to create hair effects, amongst other things

-What can be improved: I would like to modify the eyes so that they read better, use fibermesh, and make the feet not look as awkward

Jealousy:

-What I learnt: How to draw feet, how to use markers for coloring, and using different line quality

-What could be improved: Keeping the style more consistent, drawing the other hand, make the feet bigger, make the hair appear more 3 dimensional, learn how fabric works.

Elderly Lady:

-What I learnt: Namely how to better show use flaws to create interesting faces, and how to make wrinkles

-What could be improved: The topology is awful on this, so the main thing that can be improved is keeping that in mind when working with subdivision surfaces so that maybe I could add the rest of the body. Also learnt about zremesher, so that I can potentially work on that soon.

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 24 -4-6-2021

     I’m going to be honest, I’ve been slacking a lot when it comes to doing blogs, as you can probably tell. I don’t have an excuse, it was just me being lazy and forgetful with the other gamejam coming up in addition to a strange week before spring break. 

Post Mortem: 

    To start things off, let’s talk about the gamejam. The theme for that one was “strike”, and after a sleepness night, I didn’t have too many ideas as a designer that I can remember. What I do remember is that we agreed on it being a “story based game where you descend into a cave or mine.” From that point forward, I was honestly pretty lost compared to the visions that Savannah and Riley were proposing, while Eric just acted as a yes man without doing any work, really. I tried proposing ideas that incorporated a lot of the 2D artists on the team considering how many we had, but most of them got shot down because “we have enough 3D people”. In addition to this, there was a lot of conflict in terms of vision between designers, specifically Savannah and I, and I think it’s because I might be a bit stubborn, but it felt like they were really defensive of some ideas. Either way, after day two, I realize that I wasn’t being beneficial to design and just adding conflict, so I stepped away from it so that I could work on whatever 3D assets were needed for the game in addition to level design where I could. So when it came to making 3D assets, there was some miscommunication as to what was needed by designers, at least in terms of specifics with a ton of vague instructions that didn’t have much description, while Riley and I worked on making the models for cave using modifiers I haven’t touched before, so that was a nice learning experience. Outside of that, spent some time making models for the final room in the game, which would be a small dining room, so I made chairs, a table, paintings, a cabinet, and a bottle. Outside of this, I also spent time doing collisions for one of the caves, and I am thoroughly impressed by the fact that I have found something that can rival my feelings for UV mapping in terms of tedium. At least UV mapping can be relaxing to an extent though, with this being utterly frustrating.

     To be completely honest, I didn’t like that gamejam. A lot of people didn’t know what they were doing, people were stressing each other out, and some people didn’t have enough work, or straight up just didn’t do their work in one case. I felt like I could’ve done a lot more, a lot more efficiently, but that ship has sailed. The main problems that afflicted this team was that not many people, outside of when Savannah was directly telling them to, had any idea what to do, there was a lot of miscommunication, and the vague start started us off on the wrong foot, which I don’t think we recovered from. These are my personal opinions, so they will likely be biased and wrong, but I felt like Savannah was overbearing and stress inducing throughout the project, Eric did the bare minimum he could, and during the gamejam mentioned that instead of doing work, they were playing animal crossing, Siarra was pretty much only able to do work on the last couple days since she busted through work the first few, Huy tried, but didn’t have enough work going for them, Noam needs to learn photoshop a bit more cause it caused stress in Savannah, and then in turn, me, as a result, and I felt like I didn’t do anything and was antagonistic and stubborn for no good reason. I talked to my team members to ask what they thought of me during the project, and they had different opinions, but I still feel like I was like this.

     As for what happened during the week after, honestly, it was a lot of design work and trying to get some basic art assets out for TechnoTowers, wince we brought Drew onboard, and he immediately showed his capabilities as an artist, which pushed Riley to do better, so that leaves me either making basic props that are going to be replaced, or doing design work, where I fell I am much more useful. With design, we discussed some of the issues involving game progression, different tower types, pathing for enemies, and new relics, amongst other things. Starting off with game progression, the way we agreed to keep going about it was to have relics carry over, as we agreed earlier on, in addition to adding towers that affect other towers beneficially with them being able to affect other towers nearby without being able to do any damage themselves while also taking up a large amount of space. As for pathing with enemies, we discovered an issue where if the same path has part of it that clips off screen when the screen isn’t fully zoomed out, enemies will not spawn on that path, so we agreed that in future iterations of the map that there wont be paths bisected by the edge of the screen to prevent this issue moving forward. And last, but not least, relics. To start things off, Liam and I sat down and described what the player was in control of, what what they aren’t in control of. From there, we listed over everything the player has some control of, but not entirely, and discussed some possibilities for how these things the player controls could be used, or how we could potentially shift what the player doesn’t control in a pseudo control, or complete control.

     As for this week, we just got back into the swing of things, so not much is happening since a lot of design work needs to be done today, and yesterday was an art meeting. That being said, I quite enjoyed yesterday’s art meeting due to the content of it involving me thinking a lot about composition in both mine, and everyone else’s work. I tend to rush my drawings as soon as I have a basic idea for them done, and it shows due to some of the conflicts that result in what I draw. 

     I drew this over break, and got a lot of feedback that makes sense given the context and reasoning behind them. To start off, I drew a butter knife, which was me being not too aware of the reference I was using, and I didn’t realize it until it was brought up. Second, the fork is a bit too crooked, and the end of it looks too inconsistent for my likings. Third is that it’s a bit difficult to tell what is being carved into, with the main suggestion from Compton being that I add veins to the heart itself so that it’s more telling as to what it is, in addition to closing off the aorta and pulmonary artery and vein before it touches the edge of the drawing because it creates tension. Another issue that I personally had is that the ventricle doesn’t read well, so adding a bit of reflection along the length of that would hopefully do wonders. In addition to this, the thumb on the right hand doesn’t read right due to the tip of it not being entirely visible. Another issue with it is that the index finger on the right hand doesn’t look like it is applying pressure to the knife, which Compton suggested could be resolved by curving the tip and arching the rest of the finger. As for the left hand, it would look better if it was moved closer inwards to the knife, and with a bit of editing after the fact, it does look better. These small things build up, and with the suggestions mentioned, I definitely see the value in taking more time with my compositions moving forward.

     With a bit of choppy editing, It really shows how the small improvements help with the piece as a whole after, even with the small addition of accidently defining the atrium more helps immensely. The eye is much more drawn from the hands to the heart with the fork closer, and the ventricle reads better, but still could use those veins as Compton mentioned, and with the end of the aorta and pulmonary vein and artery being visible.

     Outside of this, Compton is suggesting that I look into more historical artists, and try to learn from them, so I am doing some research on the Pre-Raphaelites, Borsch, and Tintoretto, amongst many others, and how those style can be interpreted and changed by looking at artists that I know. 

tdlr; Design work is just a bunch of disagreements until something sticks, composition is important and I should slow down, and I really like drawing anatomy.

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 20-21 -2-23-2021

     Over the past two weeks, there has been a lot of design work done for Techno Towers. I haven’t done much art in general, which I want to change moving forward, with more drawings and zBrush models for myself in addition to the models needed for Techno Towers. To summarize in general what was worked on, Riley and I came to the resolution of having at least three levels (not counting the tutorial) in the final product of this game, with each level having their own bosses and mini bosses, with potentially different basic enemies in order to spruce up what the player is looking at from level to level. In terms of mechanics, we discuss having it so that each boss has a unique way for them to be dealt with, which will hopefully be interesting and create better gameplay for the player. In addition to this, we discussed more relics and synergies which could improve gameplay, and the big idea that Riley and I discussed was an acid status, where if an enemy is dealt damage while they have this effect, it is doubled. That being said, this effect would not last very long in order to hopefully balance it somewhat. Another idea discussed was that of relics that have downsides for powerful upsides, or adding relics that have a “lock and key” idea behind them where if the player accomplishes a specific task, they are rewarded in some way, typically lots of damage to enemies. In terms of art that I worked on, I finished the model for one of the bosses that it going to be implemented in addition to me currently working on one of the models for a mini boss that will be included in the game.

     If  I’m being honest, I don’t feel like I’m putting in nearly as much work as I should be for this team. It could just be that I’m not used to being a designer, and as a result, this kind of work doesn’t really feel like work, I guess. But either way I feel like what I’m doing isn’t really contributing much to the team outside of the models that I provide.

Lizard model with bits of editing to show planned materials.

Lizard model with materials being assigned.

Frog Mini Boss WIP

Sky Kraken drawing WIP

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 18-19 -2-9-2021

     Over the last two weeks, there has been a very large amount of work going on due to two major projects happening. The first of which is that Mr. Compton challenged the artists, in a week, to make 50 unique monster concepts. Personally, I really enjoyed this challenge, and am very happy that I was able to create a solid 45 out of the 50 concepts. In addition to this, I didn’t really realize how much my stylization would improve, even on sketches. Originally I wanted to just get these out as fast as possible in order to work on the next because I thought that I wouldn’t have time. While this is somewhat true, I am much happier with the more detailed approach I took later on, that took only 20-30 minutes more if I was really focused on details. In addition to this, I realize that I want to get better at making designs on a whim, like Compton is able to, so I’m going to try to do this sort of sketching more often, because it was nice and refreshing for me mentally while helping me improve my skills. 

     As for the next major thing that happened, that would be gamejam. As soon as I heard that one was happening, all the way back in December, I made sure to steal a couple people that I felt were extremely capable for a team and would put in effort to get work done. After a bit, more people were recruited on the basis of practicality as well as how willing they would be to work on a project. I think the results of this process paid off incredibly well with the resulting team, and how we interacted, as well as worked during the competition. So when the theme of “robots” was announced, Riley and I immediately went into a call with everyone on the team and began brainstorming, and after we came up with “roguelite” and “tower defense”, out team hit the ground running. All of us put in a lot of good work. I personally feel like I didn’t, but everyone else says otherwise, and I’m notoriously my own worst critic anyways. But with that, I also worked on the models for almost all of the enemy robots, and half of the turrets as well in addition to figuring out the waves of enemies so that it would hopefully be fun for players while still being a bit difficult. With that being said, balancing is hard, and one of the main issues that we had was that there were a bit of communication issues in our team, but when we did communicate, progress was smooth like butter. I think that this could potentially be published in a semester, as well as Riley, so i think I’m going to be pointing my attention mainly here, though if Alfraid needs any help, I promised Savannah that I would do what is needed. All in all, I’m very proud of the product that our team made in that week, and the team all agreed that they’d like to work together again, so either this project is moving forward, or we’re starting Self Preservation, which is less likely. https://hexrin.itch.io/techno-towers

Day one:

Day two:

Day three:

Day five (four got skipped due to open house):

Day six:

Day seven:

What I learnt is that I want to get better at making monsters and drawings on a whim, use more human anatomy as well as animal anatomy in my pieces, and better shade by pieces to reflect said anatomy

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 16 -1-12-2021

     Over the break and last week, I got what what needed to the models for Alfraid done, and imported into the game, as well as working on more traditional pieces. In addition to this, I was gifted two books by George B. Bridgman over the break in order to help with my anatomy, so I’m still studying those, which has already helped some of my traditional work. 

     For model work, I finished stylizing the rabbit, rat, and mouse, which was needed for this deadline. I used a similar method to making the hair clumps on these models as I did for making Alfraid’s hair last month, This was done by using a larger snake hook brush, and pulling it slightly in the desired direction, then decreasing the brush size and changing the brush to dam standard, and using the inverted version of it to create edges on the protrusion and smoothing it out. While it doesn’t look like the concept art much, Siarra and Savannah said it still looked good, so I’m going with their judgment on this. As for the eyes, that’s pretty much just a sphere subtool that’s been scaled and rotated.

Rabbit head

Rat side view

Mouse head

     As for traditional art, I mainly have three pieces that show off what I was working on. The drawing of the hand was aided by referencing what Bridgman suggests in Constructive Anatomy for depicting structures and mass, and I think I did a good job with it. As for the seraphim drawing, I mainly made it for the art challenge, “eyes of kindness”, as well as an eventual test of patience due to how tedious it was to make due to the volume of feathers. The final piece is a small bit of fan art for a creature design for some trolls that I particularly enjoyed, and had me working on hair and the lighting of it. 

Hand sketch

What I learnt: I learnt about the line of action and inaction that Bridgman described when creating the wrist connected to the hand, and how that connects to the palm and the knuckles in order to create the base of the hand. In addition to this, I also learnt about how to visualize hands moving forward, namely that of masses and how they connect with each other, like how below the pinky is a mass of muscle, similar to the mass at the base of the thumb.

What could be improved: The value structure is fairly weak, with no major dark values being present.

Seraphim

What I learnt: This is my first attempt at drawing feathers, and throughout the process, I think I understand the structure enough to be somewhat comfortable working on them moving forward. I also attempted to use more Bridgman when creating the bottom half of the face visible in the piece. I also took time to try and show a reflection in the eyes shown.

What could be improved: One of the major issues that was pointed out during the art meeting and this piece was revealed was that there is no line of action in this piece, which detracts from the piece as a result. If I’m being honest, I skipped over this portion when reading Constructive Anatomy, and I should pay more attention to it moving forward. In addition to this, this piece is lacking in middle tones compared to the darks and lights that are much more present throughout the piece. One last thing that needs to be considered is that I need to improve my work with gestures and visualizing my pieces more before I work on them with detail so I have room to edit them so that they can look better.

Troll

What I learnt: This was the first time that I tried working on realistic hair properly with lighting. (I’ve also been told that this looks like Nina Tucker on 7 separate occasions.)

What could be improved: The lighting is a bit inconsistent as well as the perspective, since you can see the inside of the mouth at the angle shown, but the top of the head is supposed to be flat, but it does not read as such, so that could be improved or edited, moving forward.

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 15 -12-15-2020

     Over the last week, I don’t feel like I got a lot done. The most that I can say that I did was make a few more prop models, decimating the Alfraid model, and importing most of my model work into the unreal project so that it could be used. Outside of that, most of what I’ve been doing is focusing on traditional art.. I’ve been trying to figure out if I’ve been applying Golden Ratio to my work, since I’ve mainly been forgetting about it. I think my most recent piece does involve it though considering that its based off of a live animal, which tend to be subject to this ratio. In addition to this, I’ve been trying to figure out how to have a better value structure, which I’m happy to say that my latest piece has accomplished, according to Compton, so I’m fairly proud of it.

This piece is a concept for the tableau that I want to make using the Moby Dick model once it is completed. The main issue is that thee is no sense of scale as well as that there are no middle tones in the piece.

A drawing of my cat, Bob. I’ve never really drawn fur before, so I’m fairly proud of myself. While drawing this I also learnt that the angle the fur is at, compared to there the perspective is, will determine how dense the fur is, and therefore how dark while not worrying about lighting. 

     I think that I’m going to be focusing a bit more on my 2D art for a bit. It’s been helping me relax and I can just sort of pick it up and then put it down. I feel guilty though because I should be focusing more on 3D, but this appeals more at the moment. 

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 13 -11-18-2020

     Over the last week, I have accomplished two major things. the first thing was that I finished the hair model for Alfraid as well as edited some of the facial features, and is ready to be judged by Siarra and Savannah. The other thing that I did was editing my Moby Dick model some more. Unfortunately though, I misplaced the file in which I aligned all of the teeth in the jaw. In addition to this, I spent time doing the writing challenge for the design meeting, which was interesting, even though I had to miss the meeting last week. 

Alfraid (Front)

Alfraid (Side)

Alfraid Head (Front)

Alfraid Head (Side)

Moby Dick (Right)

Moby Dick (Left)

Moby Dick (Front)

Moby Dick (Fluke WIP)

Cat Plush 

What I hope to accomplish next week:

- Finishing as many prop models and I can for Alfraid

Problems that I might run into:

- Might need to redo some models

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 12 -11-10-2020

     Over the past week, there hasn’t been much progress on account of the fact that I have been fairly sick most of the last week, and have only gotten better as of Monday, so the only work I have to show is for yesterday and today. To add insult to injury, I do not have the screenshots for the work that I did on Monday. Let me start off with that. On Monday it was the art meet, and I worked on two car toy props for Alfraid since I had yet to go to the location where I can use zBrush. During the art meeting, one thing that was decided that I needed to work on was better use of perspective, shading, and aerial views with more definition on a piece that I sketched while sick. I am excited to see what I can do with a larger piece of paper too while working on this. As for today, I have finally regained access to the godsend of a software that is zBrush. I spent today adding to the model of Alfraid that I already had been working on so that I could work on hair for the model! To be honest, I’m not exactly confident in my abilities to model hair, since the stylization that the game is aiming towards is more cartoony than anything, so it was more working on it clumped together, kind of like it was wet. After working on them for a bit, Compton dropped by and gave me the advice of using damstandard, inverted or otherwise, a lot in order to add depth and sort of flow to the hair. Upon close examination, it doesn’t really look good to me, but when zoomed out, I can see why Compton recommended it. I have yet to do it with all of the hair since my main focus for today was to get the shape of the hair done, and either tonight or tomorrow finish texturing the hair. The cone that you see in the second image was added just for a reference since the character will be wearing a nightcap and to see how it looks with the hair around it. I am fairly happy though with the results of what I made though. this is my second time trying to make hair, with the first being for a creative jam, and I think it’s safe to say that I’ve improved. 

Alfraid hair (Front)

Alfraid hair (Side texturing visible)

What I hope to accomplish in the next week:

- Finish the Alfraid model as much as I can in zBrush before I learn Marvelous Designer

- Start working on the textures and stylization for the rest of the animals

- Work more on my Moby Dick model

- Work on more traditional art in my free time

Problems that I might run into:

- Might get assigned to work on something else (very unlikely)

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 11 -11-4-2020

     Considering the fact that the last update was less than a week ago, I don’t have much in terms of updates. The only things that I accomplished, really were work for the design meeting, doing drawings during the art meeting, and fixing that rat plush model this week. Starting off with the design meeting, that went well, I think I need to learn how to not put myself down when communicating ideas that I have moving forward to better enforce pitches that I make. In addition to this, there is a pending design challenge where I am supposed to come up with 4 rts games without any ‘strategic opposition”. So after the meeting, Riley, savannah and I hoped on a call and made a shared doc for ideas. Some of the ideas that I came up with aren’t exactly the greatest and I had a harder time coming up with stuff than I’m used to. It was only later today though that I found a paragon example of what Mr. Compton wanted, and it upset me. I did not know that Pikmin is an rts.

As for the art meeting, I think I need to keep focusing on value structures. 

Rat plush (side)

Rat plush front

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 10 -10-29-2020

      Before I start this weeks blog, I want to apologize for being inconsistent with posts. I don’t have an excuse for it. 

     With that being said, over the past two weeks, I did a lot more focus on value structures with my traditional art, trying to take inspiration from Sin City’s art style by Frank Miller with results that I can say that I’m pretty happy with. In addition to this, finally I have been assigned with doing prop models and I got the chance to start working on the model for Alfraid himself! So that has been a huge relief for me since I was starting to get worried about not being much of an asset on the team thus far. On top of that, I might have another idea worth pitching for a team to be made, . . .

     To start things off, I’m going to go over the traditional pieces that I was really proud of over the past two weeks. Namely the pieces for inktober on Dune and armor as well as my product for an art challenge Mr. Compton put out where we were supposed to make a piece using only shading. For the first portion of this challenge, I ended up struggling hard since I was trying to go for an angular style showing only parts of the outline of a gargoyle, but I ended up accidentally creating lines again while doing this, and it was too much of an effort to really continue with it so I ended up starting over. After trying to find some references for an art style, I looked at some of the references that Compton posted, and say one of Frank Miller’s pieces. I wasn’t accustomed to the style, but it looked like an interesting challenge, so I tried working around that in order to see if it’d work or not. To my surprise, it worked wonders! After doing the original shading in pencil, I decided to go over it using a sharpie, and it really turned into something cool then. Once I was finished with that, the style really appealed for whatever reason to me, so the following day, I tried to make another piece using a similar style, and I think it looked pretty good as well, even if it took a couple hours of using markers.

Inktober: Armor (Yes, I know there’s supposed to be pens or marker but I didn’t have any at the time)

Inktober: Dune

Gargoyle Original Sketch

Gargoyle Final Product

Personal Piece Using Just Sharpies

     As for prop work, I have been pumping out tons and tons of stuff since Alfraid needs at least 30 prop models by the deadline and I have been making multiple a day, UVs and all. (Please note that some of these models have variations that will not be shown for the sake of efficiency)

Bedframe

Mattress High Poly

Mattress Low poly

Hanging Bat Decoration

Broken Crayon

Cup

Jar

Desk lamp

Damaged Pencil

Shelf

This Abomination of a Rat Plush Toy That I Will Be Redoing

Alfraid Front (WIP)

Alfraid Side (WIP)

Alfraid Head (WIP)

     And finally, the design work that I’ve been doing. To put it bluntly, there’s a game idea that I came up with for a design meeting, and apparently it was a really good idea, and simple enough for it to be executed within this year.

Design Document:

Self Preservation:

Don’t hide your eyes! Fossilize!

PLEASE NOTE: THIS DESIGN IS INCOMPLETE CURRENTLY

Premise:

You are a dinosaur. See that asteroid? You got a minute to find the best place to fossilize in; the best fossil wins. What’s that? Someone else in your spot? You can fight them to push them out of your spot! Just don’t get hurt or it’ll affect your preservation.

Base Gameplay:

You are in a top down procedurally generated environment where you are trying to find the best place to be preserved, ie; swamps, marsh flats, caves, etcetera and be at that location as the minute clock for the end of the round (the asteroid hitting). But there’s a catch: this is a multiplayer game, and each other player is also trying to get into these well preserving places as much as you are. When other players block your path, you can attack them, pushing them away and damaging their fossil and their final score. 

At the end of each round, you gain points equal to where you oh so graciously died, as well as based on how much damage you took ( damage penalizes your score) with the goal of the game being having the highest points in the end. This game would most likely be a mobile game due to its simplicity and fast paced nature.

Additional Information:

Due to the somewhat grim nature of this game, the art style for this game will be kid friendly, and likely will be 2.5D.

Chances are that there will be a “class system” where you get to play as different prehistoric creatures (ex: T-rex, Triceratops, Pterodactyl, etcetera) and each of these classes would excel in certain things and flounder in others. For example, an Ankylosaurus would be very slow, but wouldn’t take much damage from being attacked and wouldn’t be pushed away by attacks, while something like a velociraptor would take a lot of damage from attacks, but they would be incredibly fast and be able to deal a lot of damage.

What I hope to Accomplish next week:

- Work on more props

- Maybe finish on the Alfraid model

Problems that I might run into:

- Zbrush license issues

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 8 -10-13-2020

     Over the last week, not much progress has been made. What I have worked on boils down to design meeting work, inktober stuff, and a portfolio piece that I’ve been working on. To start things off, as of the last design meeting, we’ve been tasked with creating 3 computer entertainment ideas, and then 8 game ideas. I have the computer entertainment ideas done, but I’ve been having trouble coming up with game ideas. As for art, a lot of the stuff that I’ve sketched for inktober is just small stuff, so it wont be posted here outside of two of the pieces that were done for yesterday and the day before. As for the personal piece, I’m going to try to make a version of Moby Dick and create a tableau with it. I need to spend more time working on things at home because I feel like I’m not getting anything done, which is on me, but still upsetting nonetheless. Also, I want to apologize for not getting some of my attendances in, I keep forgetting about it, but I try to attend as many meetings as possible, so Compton knows that I’m present. In additions, I’m starting to look at zmodeler for zBrush since it’ll be a useful tool for creating rigid models in zBrush. For tutorials on that I’ve been watching this channel, Michael Pavlovich. 

Day 11: Disgusting

Day 11 Redesign

Moby Dick WIP (side)

Moby Dick WIP (Front)

Moby Dick WIP (Top)

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 6 -9-29-2020

     So over the last week, to put things bluntly, I’ve mainly done some traditional art, decided I need to redo the base model for the mouse, and then design meeting work and research revolving around the beginning, middle, and end of a story. To start thins off, I’ve decided that I want to make a habit of trying to get one drawing done a day in order to bolster my skills in that field. As for pieces that I have done, I finished most of the shading and the work that I will be doing on the “hands of a villain” piece, and I’m fairly proud of it considering hat before then, I didn’t really do traditional work that often, so I was surprised with how it came out. That being said, knowing the anatomy of the hand does help wonders. The main criticisms towards it were that the nails were a bit small and that my value structure was off since I didn’t have dark enough shadows, which I edited before leaving it where it is. Outside of that, I made some sketches that are frankly unprofessional, so they won’t be shown here, but if Compton wants to see them, can ask. In addition, I worked on a self portrait that was a bit of an uncanny mess. According to Compton, the features individually were good, which was nice to hear, and that the main issue was that there wasn’t symmetry, which made sense, so I was recommended to start more with gesture work in order to better have that symmetry to start with. Another challenge that was assigned as of yesterday was “draw a fantasy creature with understandable biology, and I ended up creature a sort of nocturnal/diurnal small opportunistic scavenger that’d live in swamps, as a sort of creature that’d fill a similar niche to that of rats and kiwis. As someone who is zealous about biology and anatomy, this was a blessing of a challenge, as I started creating a creature with attributes of gulper eel, rat, and weasel, to create a monstrosity shown later. For learning about design, that was to learn about beginning, middle, and end, and rereading portions of Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick, helped me learn how to execute on the middle portions of a game. The primary example used was Star War: A New Hope, with how things happen to Luke in the story, and how reacts to them, and how that can be a template to write parts of a story: Conflict through obstacles, and reacting to obstacles. I’m still not comfortable with beginnings, but I think that might just be because I just need to write more. 

Hands of a Villain

Fantasy Creature Skulk (WIP)

Mouse Base Model Redo (Side WIP)

Mouse Base Model Redo (Front WIP)

So to summarize:

- Wednesday: Did more sketching with the hands, and start getting more of a value structure

- Thursday: More with the hands

- Friday: Design meeting on story structure

- Monday: Art meeting and critique, started working on the skulk

- Tuesday; Started to redo the mouse model after receiving updated concept art

What I hope to accomplish next week:

- Finish the mouse model

- Get more sketches of the skulk

- Do more work on figuring out the hair stylization

Problems that I might run into:

- There might be a revamp of Alfraid’s art style (Not sure about this one)

- Might get caught up in the details

- Might stop drawing, or get distracted

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 5 -9-22-2020

     Over the past week, I think it would be safe to say that  got a lot of progress done for base models, as well as starting to do design meetings and art meetings. To begin with, I was given 5 models to be completed by the 15th of October, a bat, rat, mouse, and beetle. Surprisingly, I got all of the base models, outside of the bat, done in the fir three days, which I find fairly impressive given how low I was, making models earlier on. That being said, I didn’t think that I could figure out the stylizations on the fur of the models in time to reach the deadline, so I discussed this issue with Siarra to get her opinion since she is the art director, and her response was to get the base models done, and try to get the stylizations down asap, but if it takes later than the deadline, it should be fine, and then the goal change was approved by Compton. On Friday, that was the design meeting day where we came up with game ideas within a ten minute window. Afterschool, I spent time messing around with zBrush and tried to see what I could make in 30 minutes, and I’m pretty proud of the results. My ideas were as follows:

- Walking home at night with an overactive imagination.

- Going on a fieldtrip to the Cretaceous as a tired teacher, trying to make sure none of the kids you’re watching die (because you obviously love the kids ad not for legal reasons).

- The mountains start walking, leaving wakes of destruction as they pass and are headed towards your village. You must stop this.

- A 15 vs. 3 game where 15 players are goblins who can set up traps and hide try to evade being captured by the other 3 players.

- Rat simulator where you have to survive against the fast-paced action of humans, rat traps, sewer alligators, and other rats all while getting as much food as possible.

- Play as a king who hates his country and tries to destroy it by making as many bad decisions as possible while trying to be subtle.

- You are a puppet who goes around and finds parts to make other puppets. These puppets in turn have personalities based around what objects where used to make them and it becomes a social simulator over time

     As for Monday and today, I spent most of yesterday at the art meeting where I was told I need to draw more, and I full heartedly agree, as well as had an art assignment alongside everyone else during that meeting. The resulting prompt was “draw the hands of a villain”, and so I have a work in progress for that meeting. As for today, I spent it trying to figure out what I would use to make differing plants models in Blender since Jasmine is still needing me for a project that she is working on.

Hands of a Villain (WIP)

Mouse Base (Front WIP)

Mouse Base (Side WIP)

Rat Base (Side WIP)

Rat Base (Front WIP)

Rabbit Base (Front WIP)

Rabbit Base (Side WIP)

Beetle Base (Front WIP)

Beetle Base (Side WIP)

Beetle Base (Top WIP)

Skull 30 min. Speedrun (Cool Angle)

Skull 30 min. Speedrun (Front)

Skull 30 min. Speedrun (Side)

Misc. Model

Misc. Model

What I want to accomplish next week: 

- Due to me not being at a location where I can use zBrush, next week is going to be more focused on traditional art as well as Blender work

- Find some videos or fin a way to make plants in Blender

Problems that I might run into:

- I might forget to draw, but to circumvent this, I’m going to try to allot a certain amount of time each day to do traditional art

- I might have difficulties with Blender

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Weeks 3/4 -9-15-2020

     Over the last two weeks, a lot has happened. To put things bluntly, I messed up and didn’t turn in a form, so the fighting game will no longer be something that I work on. That being said, the project that I will be working on instead will be Alfraid. To summarize what I’ve been doing over the past two weeks, it mainly involves me working on a personal project, and working on an “art jam” piece that Mr. Compton said for the first week, and for last week, getting acclimated with my new team, starting to work on a mouse model, and then scrapping it because on Friday I ended up getting zBrush with a stylus that works. With that being said, I now know that if someone mentions a form, I need to remember effective immediately and try to find it. As for the mouse model, talking to the team’s art director, Siarra, she recommended using an art style for the hair that is stylized so that hair and fur would be shown as clumps. I’m not used to the style yet, but talking with Siarra, we both greed that if I can’t get it for a week or two, just make the rest of the required models by the 15th of October without the hair, and then figure it out from there and edit the models afterwards.

Personal project (body)

Personal project (head) 

Artjam Fire hydrant (full) [due to me not being at the computer that this was made on, I don’t have any images with this being textured]

Artjam Fire hydrant (top)

Artjam Fire hydrant (pipe)

Mouse (side)

Mouse (front)

     Due to the mouse being started literally yesterday, more work is going to go into it. It’s not as round as the concept art, and is a lot more rigid, which isn’t exactly what is wanted, so I will try to match this as close to the concept art as possible since that is closer to what is desired from this model.

What I want to accomplish over the next week:

- Finish the mouse model with or without fur added

- Have said model approved by Siarra

- Start working on the rabbit model

Problems that I might run into:

- Might have to work on the model longer ta anticipated

- Might get caught up in other school work

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 2 -9-1-2020

      To put it bluntly, the last week has pretty much been no art outside of me doing some architecture models for Jasmine’s game, and myself fiddling around with a low poly human in blender. Outside of that it’s just been more research on concepts that would work for the fighting game as well as trying to find potential art styles to have a reference for. On Thursday, I spent most of then trying to figure out more potential design space and art style for the game, but unfortunately I missed the meeting due to personal issues, so that was done primarily on my own. With a bit of digging around, I was given help by Mr. Compton in the form of being reminded how good cell shading looks in Unreal, so if it fits the rest of the art of the game, it’s going to be a likely choice for shaders. On top of this I did more research on weapons and different types of armor that the Greek would use. Particularly things like the Xiphos and the Linothorax in terms of weapons and armor (, for reasons stated later, I’m going to need to do more research on these). Friday was spent on a call with mainly Mr. Compton and Riley where different ideas were discussed, and I was given a bit of an artistic anatomy class by Mr. Compton; that lesson being on the rib cage and the pelvis, and how those are what need to be mainly focused on in the body and by defining them, the waist gets defined in turn, which makes sense, especially if you are trying to exaggerate some features on a character. In addition to all of this, I realized that I could be cutting myself short on inspiration if I look exclusively towards weapons and armor, so I decided to look into some other things Greek and Mycenaean, and wouldn’t you know it, but there was another, very distinct form of inspiration: pottery. 

(source: http://arthistoryresources.net/greek-art-archaeology-2016/mycenaean-pottery.html)

(source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/792703971887835739/)

(source: https://www.britannica.com/art/Greek-pottery)

(source: https://www.hellenic-art.com/black-figured-attic-amphora-en.html)

     I realize that upon telling Mr. Compton about the concept, I mentioned Mycenaean pottery specifically instead of both Mycenaean and Greek pottery, which would make sense about his concern with how stylized the game would be. But with this sort of epiphany, and then having character models being exaggerated akin to something like something in a Disney Renaissance movie and hoe rigid and angular Borderlands is, could lead to and interesting method of modeling that is more focused on features like the outline of a character in addition as well as exaggerated features, (most likely tings like the nose, shoulders, mouth, and eyes) especially if the characters have a similar color scheme to what is shown in these example of pottery. There is also the possibility that the textures are pretty much just straight brown or yellow, and then using an outline affect could help show the outline of the character, and in that same color, you could take another note off of Borderlands and have a sort of “drawn on” style for some of the features like the eyes, or waves in hair, or decoration and details in pieces of armor. Monday was mainly spent trying to pitch these new ideas to the rest of cohort a to mixed success, and a couple of ideas sprang up, mainly because I didn’t have any ideas for it, so the other people in meeting helped come up with some fairly interesting ideas to build off of. The main ideas being brought up were issues of how fun this game would be to replay as well as the base game being kind of boring without any gameplay outside of “I fight for 5 minutes and either win or lose”. So we came to the conclusion that having unlocks via things like new boons, which would act this this game’s version of signature moves for characters, different armor, and weapons would all be possibilities, each of which would affect gameplay in their own way. As for today, I pitched the game again, this time to cohort B, and came to same new conclusions and ideas being created, with those being that satire shouldn’t be undermined with this project and might want to lean into it. Maybe having “chorus sportscasters” being a fun idea as well as the question of how much this wants to be lent into. 

To summarize this week:

Thursday- Did research more into Greek armor and weaponry

Friday- Found Mycenaean and Greek pottery as an art reference and meetings

Monday- Developed on mechanics in a meeting

Tuesday- Developed the feel of the game a bit more

What I want to accomplish next week:

- Figure out who will be on this team if it moves forward

- Bug Siarra for concept art

- Start working on this!

Problems I might run into:

- The project might not get picked up, but if that’s the case, I’m a-okay with that! There’s a lot of projects with potential this year!

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Year 2 Week 1 -8-26-2020

     Well, It’s been a while since I last posted here. The school year has just started as of the 23rd, and it’s been mainly getting back to work since that means new projects being pitched as well as new models to be made! Starting with Monday, that was mainly taking time to get acclimated with getting back into the swing of things, and started to think about what games I wanted to pitch, and who I will most likely be working alongside this year. On top of this, I spent the majority of the meeting trying to learn how to use references in Blender for creating low poly character models in said program. As for Tuesday, I spent majority of that day trying to come up with game ideas to pitch, and came to two conclusions: A CCG (collectible card game), and a fantasy adventure game. The main concept that I wanted to have wit the ccg was that it be a mix of chess and and the Pokemon card game. This would be done by having a 60 card deck, as well as a sort of “king piece” on a board similar to that of chess, as well as the opponent’s “king piece” on the opposite side. The goal of the game is to deal enough damage to the opponent’s king piece with creatures that you can summon and move around the board, while using different cards to shake up game play. As for the adventure game, that would be a game about trying to get to a mountain from a starting point while trying to stay warm from a fire that they have ad is slowly burning out. In order to survive, the players must try to go around and find pieces of driftwood or sticks to use in order to help bolster their fire. In order to create opposition and challenge though, there would be creatures that either hate the light or are trying to take it (moth themed creatures?) and so the players would have to try to avoid them, either by skulking around or having a dodge-based game. As for today, I spent it listening to Mr. Compton in a meeting whilst learning about things like portfolios and when to get those finished, all while modeling a sort of creature from a reference image in Blender and is low poly. Going back to portfolios, I’m fairly certain my parents are adamant on me going to a community college for the sake of a lower tuition and instate costs, so I might not be able to apply to a good art college yet, but I still want to be able to try to have something presentable to try and hone myself for working under pressure and strict deadlines. With that being said, I want to be able to work more on pieces that I will be proud of and demonstrate the skills that I have in order to hopefully be able to get into an internship if I can. If at all possible, I think the Deck Nine would be the best option given how prevalent the company is on top of it potentially helping me with future opportunities. The next best option that I can think of would be Serenity Forge, but the positions that they are looking more is leaning more towards knowledge on Maya as well as working on things like foliage, but it definitely be would be good to learn, even if I don’t know how to use Unity.

What I accomplished this week:

Monday: Getting acclimated with the new people in my cohort, doing a bit of Blender modelling

Tuesday: Design work for the ccg and adventure game

Wednesday: Going over portfolio work, Blender work

The model that I created on Wednesday

Image used as reference (A sort of parody of a Golbat)

What I hope to accomplish next week:

- Start working on more complex models

- Get more models portfolio

- Try to find a project that I want to work on. (The people are pitching a horror game, and I don’t think it’ll be helpful for me, nor do I want to work on another horror game again, unless it’s something really special)

Problems that I might run into:

- The groups might not use 3D

- I might not get zBrush by that time to work on better models

- I might get distracted with other classes

[skeksissquid]

Progress Blog: Week 27 -5-5-2020

     So for progress and work done this week, I got the plague doctor model finished, retopologized, UV mapped and sent of to Riley for him to begin rigging and animating. That took way longer than it should have been, and I think the main issue for me not getting as much work done is that I don’t set enough deadlines for myself, as well as getting distracted easily. On top of this, I started to continue working on the sphinx that I was working on from a couple weeks ago, but only made minor adjustments so far, with those being claws and shortening the paws so they look closer to that of a cat as well as extending the tail. I used a lion as part of the reference, and the length on said tails are very surprising. Anyways, on top of that, Mr. Compton asked us in the last designer meeting to think about balancing different things when developing a game, like mechanics on top of tone on top of art style, and other things on the like. Typically what I end up finding as agree with is that most games with an art style that is reduced to an extent like with Undertale, tend to have more narrative and gameplay elements that are less based around precision and as a result create tones where mainly the story is what you are focusing on instead of the art, most of the time, or gameplay, unless it ramps up to get you focused and attentive towards a fight. On the other side of things, a lot of more realistic games, from what I can think and remember tend to have a lot more precise mechanics and gamplay, like with Spider-Man, you tend to be drawn to the city and the spectacle and it immerses you in the world, and the precision of having to dodge away from enemies and use the environment to your advantage. Pretty much, if a game lacks in one element, chances are, it makes up for it in another portion, unless the game itself is entirely dedicated to one aspect of it, with the first example coming to mind being Goat Simulator. Goat Simulator goes all in on game play, the art isn’t that great and there is no story in sight, but it’s fun, because what it does have, emphasizes that game that the developers wanted to make: an open world where you are a goat who causes mayhem. From this, the way that I imagine going forward with this is that you want to incorporate enough of the right elements in your game to give the experience you want; not every game needs a saga’s length of lore added with it, and not every game needs stellar art, and some games don’t even have many mechanics. It mainly goes on what you want your players focusing on, and if it distracts from that focus, then you don’t need it, unless it to the experience in a way that makes the game more enjoyable as a result.

Doctor (High poly front)*  

Doctor (High poly side)

Doctor (Low poly front)

Doctor (Low poly side)

*I noticed that the arms are a bit long and the fingers long enough, I will probably fiddle around with that, especially if Riley comments on it.