###### tags: `uni work` `Games Art`
# 21333271_J5Z1020_Journal
https://hackmd.io/@Ethanjennings1/Skmw3fizi
> ### Character and Environment Art
> ### Games Art BA(HONS) L5
> ### Ethan Jennings

---

# Research
For my research I started to look at genres that could have a metropolis luditopian atmosphere, this would consist of games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Dying Light 2, these games create space within a built up city for the player to engage with enemies. I explored an array of different media such as Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Assassins Creed Valhalla. Evaluating these types of media allowed me to think about what worked for me and what didn't. This helped me to make a final decision on what I would want my final piece to be based on. These games and their art styles I am very familiar with, these games that I am exploring are 3D therefore is the main focal point of my research.


These are the types of game genres that I researched and are interested in.

## Cyberpunk


Cyberpunk is a genre set in a futuristic lawless society dominated by technology typically known to have "high tech low life" and follow a Japanese style. Buildings would have huge amounts of tech inbuilt into the structure and to be used, the environment is very vibrant . People in this city would wear futuristic clothes with inbuilt tech, people could have tech implanted in them or have tech replace body parts. Its like this because it is a representation of a future if large companies overtook society and there is a huge divide between rich and poor. If I was to pursue this style I would need to use bright colours and think about a futuristic Japanese style, I would look into games like Cyberpunk 2077, Bladerunner and Deus EX.

## Vikings


I was interested in looking at viking games as Assassins Creed Valhalla is one of my favorite games. Vikings where ruthless killers that believed in Norse gods, where farmers and raided other lands. Vikings lived in northern regions of Europe in the 9th to 11th century, they lived in Scandinavia which is now known as Norway, Sweden and parts of Denmark. Vikings would use wood as a primary source for buildings, they lived in clans so they would have walls around the village, there markets would be on the inside of the walls then closer to the center the blacksmiths and then the great halls would be in the middle where the clan leader would live. Drengr are vikings that would fight in raids, they would wear fur coats and thick clothes. They would use swords, shields and axes as weapons to kill. If I were to pursue this style I would use lots of browns as they used wood a lot to build with, I would look at Assassins Creed Valhalla, For Honor and Northguard or inspiration and art styles.

## Dark Medieval


Dark medieval genre is based on medieval Britain with a dark Gothic and fantastical twist it is normally set in the 11th to 15th century. Stone and wood would be the primary source for the buildings in this genre, stone would be used in the castles and more expensive buildings, wood is used in the markets and poor areas. Characters could vary depending on the wealth and status, all the characters will be very dark. This genre is in interpretation of medieval Britain if it was inhabited by mythical creatures, magic, corruption and ruin. If I were to use this style for my project I would need to use very dark colours with small amounts of bright contrasting colours for magic. I would look more in depth at games like Elden Ring, Dark Souls and The Witcher.

## Ancient Japan


This genre is based on Early Japan set between 50000BC - 710AD depending on the game, most games will be based on the time period 400AD - 710AD. The environment is very rich with life and buildings are usually made from wood on rare occasion stone as well. Lots of buildings will have red incorporated into the design. The characters in the games will usually be interpretations of samurai or ronins typically using katana, tachi, odachi, wakizashi, and tantō, which are types of blades used in early japan. If I were to use this style then I would use a diverse colour palette as there is lots of green, browns and reds, I would look more into games like Sekiro, Ghost of Tsushima and Trek to Yomi ans these are excellent examples of this genre.

## World Building

I decided to pursue the Cyberpunk theme the reason being that I want to challenge myself, as it was a genre that I have not delved into much. For this project I would like to apply a futuristic appearance as typically I would achieve a more medieval and fantastical art style.

My current idea is a 3v3 arena multiplayer game set in a cyberpunk world in 2154 where there will be 2 teams fighting for a point. There will be a roster of different characters with different abilities and weapons.

> Overwatch - 2016 | Cyberpunk Edgerunners - 2022 | Apex Legends - 2019 | Cyberpunk 2077 - 2020 | The ascent - 2021 | Ready Player One - 2018 | Ghostrunner - 2020

I looked at environments form games and media that had a cyberpunk and futuristic theme. I found out that most areas are extremely built up and overcrowded. Most environments have bright neon colours mixed with dark metals and dull lifeless colours.

> Art found on pinterest from various artists

I looked at characters

> Art from Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Art Book 2020

I loved the art in this book as it shows perfectly the difference in the areas of the city and art styles of the Cyberpunk 2077.

## Cyberpunk 2077 Art Book
In the Cyberpunk 2077 art book they look into different art styles for their game, there are 4 designs that CD Projekt RED use in their game, these consist of; Kitsch, Entropism, Neomilitarism and Neokitsch. These are all represented in there game in different areas in the game.

### Kitsch

> Art from Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Art Book 2020

Kitsch is the art style that would be used in a busy city center, it defined by its vibrant colours and it's 'style over substance' outlook. Colourful and eye-catching, they must grab their potential buyers’ attention in the store and distinguish them from the crowd on the street. Function comes second in this style it's all about the looks.

### Entropism

> Art from Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Art Book 2020

Entropism is the style of poverty. Its defined by the idea of 'necessity over aesthetics'. In the game you would find this art style on the outskirts and neglected parts of the city, where the bottom rung of society has been left to its own devices. The products of Entropism are crude and ugly but durable and useful. The colours are very faded and gray, buildings are rundown and people are very roudy and aggressive.

### Neomilitarism

> Art from Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Art Book 2020

Neomilitarism adds a layer of deadly elegance and corporate, militaristic fashion. It is mostly encountered in the wealthier parts of the city, especially corporate zones and business districts. This style is shown as 'substance over style' meaning products should be forceful, functional and high-quality rather than flashy. Neomilitarism’s distinctive features are its cold, threatening elegance and formality, highlighted by the visible presence of militaristic accents.

### Neokitsch

> Art from Cyberpunk 2077 Digital Art Book 2020

Neokitsch is the style of celebrities, heirs to corporate fortunes and corporate CEOs the 0.1% percent of the wealthiest and most influential Citizens, those who have become bored of the chrome, black and graphite of their suits and armored vehicles. Surrounded in everyday life by the cold style of the corporate overclass, they abandon it for gold, silver and platinum, for the warmth of real wood, ivory and natural furs, rare and exclusive materials only they can afford. Neokitsch is, in a certain sense, a return to the roots of Kitsch, while also acting as a show of forceful luxury by people with so much money they don't care about the opinions of others. 'It is the style of demigods, the living legends of this world.'

For my project I wanted to look more into the style of Entropism and Kitsch. In my opinion Entropism and Kitsch are very interesting art styles and I would like to dive deeper into the mechanics of how society and people work within the cyberpunk environment and how this would affect and influence the products produced in this cyberpunk world.

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# Weekly reflection

## Week One

### Zbrush
In our first character art session we tried Zbrush for the first time. We looked at all the basic tools to sculpt basic models.


### Blocking Out
In the first session of Environment Art we looked at some of the concept art for the game last of us 2.
We then used one of the art pieces to block out, this is when you create a simplified 3D version of the art that you can see in front of you.


This was my first try at blocking out in this session

---

## Week Two

### Zbrush

This session we looked at more of the tools in Zbrush like masking, selecting certain polygons and alphas. We also looked at the anatomy of a nose and tried to make one, this was my first attempt.



I really liked how this turned out for a first attempt, in the future I think I would want to try to make the nose smaller and also practice making a more feminine nose.

### Maya


In this session we looked at how to create rough models for buildings in a short amount of time, this will help with making environments later on in the development stages. We started off with a cube then deleted faces so we had one face and one corner which allowed me to make simple buildings.

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## Week Three
Mouth Eyes


We looked into the anatomy of the eye in a Zbrush session where we tried to create male eyes.


In this session we also looked at the anatomy of the mouth and chin. I will use both of these tools in my final character design.

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## Week Four

Skull


We looked at the shape and bone structure of the skull in this session. We looked at the placement of major parts of the skull and how this would affect how the persons actual face would look when fleshed out. This was my first attempt at a skull.

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## Week Five
Body and bug First try person



This was our first look at Zspheres. This could be used for making rough objects very quickly before building upon them with more detail. I think I would use this later on to create hands for my character.



These where my first attempts of making basic body forms. In the first picture I used mainly the move tool to extrude and pull a body from a simple shape and kept on re-dynameshing the object so the polys where not stretched. The second one I used different shapes to create different body parts to make a rough torso and arms.

---

## Week Six
Torso



This session we looked at the anatomy of the torso and made a torso which I thought went really well and I was happy with the outcome.

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# Character Design
This is my ideas and process through creating my character for this project. Doing this I used Adobe Photoshop for my 2D work, Zbrush for my 3D sculpting and Adobe Substance Painter for my texturing. I look at different characters and artists and show how i use there ideas to influence my own design.

Pinterest Board - https://pin.it/24XLIYX

## Initial Ideas


These where a couple quick ideas I had inspired by the purge and Cyberpunk 2077 but I didn't want to further them as they looked too boring and basic.

> Breach - Valorant | Reinhardt - Overwatch | Doomfist - Overwatch

I started looking at characters from other games and media that I liked and would like to take reference from. I really liked the Arms of Breach from Valorant and the idea of having a big weapon and a shield like Reinhardt from Overwatch.


I liked the idea of the character being a make-shift blacksmith that would make weapons out of scraps for the people in his town. So I tried to combine these characters to make a stocky and large character with a shield and axe, as I wanted the character to have weapons that looked like he had made them himself.

## Weapon Design
### Primary Weapon
I started off my character design process by looking at the weapons as I was still undecided as to if I wanted the character to have an axe or not.


I started looking at different types of axes from games and other artists, dying light was a big inspiration as most of the weapons are melee and have a rustic make-shift style.


I looked into a character from Overwatch as this new character was very similar to the kind of character I wanted to create, doing so made me look at the shotgun that she had and I thought that a shotgun would be more well suited to the games theme and character design as a shotgun is commonly perceived as roudy and uncivilised.


These are some quick drawings that I did to get some ideas down. I wanted to experiment with different shapes for the axes and different styles for the shotgun but i really liked the idea of the shotgun having a blade on the bottom so the character could have a slashing ability.



I looked at different weapons within the cyberpunk genre on pinterest to take references from. Common points that seemed to be used a lot is; worn down metals with dull lifeless looking colours, weapons mostly looked like they where made from numerous parts, so they looked cluttered and there are lots of exposed wires.


These are some initial sketches and recolours of the design I would like to push forward showing different colours and materials I would like to try.


This is my final 2D design, really liked the modified stop sign on the bottom of the gun, to me it gives a rustic harsh look to the gun.



I created a base model for my shotgun that I would be happy to texture. I added some wires on the side and some other details to flesh out the gun to try to make it fit the cyberpunk theme as the weapons tend to have lots of components.

### Shield

I researched into types of shields and how they are used in games. There are mostly different sizes of shields, team guarding shields, personal shields and weaponized shields. Team guarding shields are big and cover a large area allowing your team to hide behind and use it as well. Personal shields will be smaller and only cover the area for one person. Weaponized shields will have built in weapons or are able to be used as an offensive tool as well.



I liked the idea of a personal shield for the character but I also wanted him to have the ability to shield and protect his team mates. I decided to give him the ability to extend his shield with a force field that wont let any damage through for a certain amount of time then it will close.


This is a 3D model of how I would want the shield to look.

## Character Design


These are quick sketches to see how my character would look with both the weapons.


This is a rough sketch of how the final character will look, I needed a reference for the 3D model of the character that I would be making.


This was the start of the character I wanted to make. I used the torso I made previously to make the rest of the body. I pulled out the legs, arms and neck using the move tool and then added the head and feet as spheres. I used the clay build up tool to add more details.


I slightly refined the body using the clay build up and smooth tools, I then added shorts using the extraction tool. I also started making the head and face.


I refined the face a bit more making it more realistic using the basic tools again. I added shoes using the extraction tool and also added some texture to the shorts using the fabric tools.


I created the hands using Zspheres to make the base model then used the clay buildup, smooth and dam standard tools to add more details.


I added more details to the model. I extruded the forearms to create robotic arms and added details to make it look more mechanical. I did the same with the legs using the dam standard and pinch tools to create grooves and details.


I UV unwrapped my character in Zbrush which allowed me to import it into Adobe 3D substance painter and texture the model.



This is the final character sheet for ruin, I textured the character in 3D substance painter and rendered it in maya using cameras, lighting and arnold. I think this final outcome has lots of room for improvement, the base model could have been improved by making the face look more realistic. I think the eyes are too big and other facial features are too simple so it doesn't look very realistic. I am although happy with the outcome of the body and hands of the character I think the anatomy is very accurate. The texturing has room for improvement, some of the textures like the arms and legs don't look realistic, I would change the roughness and metallicness to help with this. I do think the skin looks very accurate and realistic.

# Environment
## First Ideas and research

This is my ideas and process through creating my environment for this project. Doing this I used Adobe Photoshop and traditional pencil and paper for my 2D work, Maya for my 3D modeling and Adobe Substance Painter for my texturing. I look at different characters and artists and show how I use there ideas to influence my own design.

Pinterest Board - https://pin.it/2P0Bxtd


I looked on Pinterest and cyberpunk 2077 for some art for cyberpunk environments to see the types of components and similar features that most of them share so I can use them in my environment. From my research I found out that there is a high population concentration and high pollution , therefore lots of buildings are tall and have a large amount of rooms to accommodate for this. This means lots of windows and extractor fans are seen on sides of buildings. As people are very poor in this environment lots of places are built from scraps and cheap materials hence the rusty worn down metals and brick. The environments tend to have high amounts of neon lights trying to attract customers to there stores.


These are ideas I had for some of the common components of a cyberpunk environment. I wanted to make them look like they where made from cheap and dirty materials. These types of objects seemed to be in most art pieces and found regularly in cyberpunk games.



I did some sketches of cyberpunk streets using 2 and 3 point perspective. I wanted to try and link the components that I have researched together in a scene. This helped me envision what I would want my final environment map to look like.



I then went on Photoshop to add some effects and lighting.


I wanted to create a 3D model for the drawing I did to practice blocking out and see how I could take a drawing and put it into Maya and create a 3D model.

## Sketch for map Layout

I wanted to make a rough sketch on Photoshop for my environment that I could take into Maya so I could start blocking out with a reference.


This was my first initial sketch to I could get an idea in my head for what I wanted to create. I wanted to use a rough 1st point perspective.


I finalised the sketch by adding details and components that I researched earlier. This helped me with the blocking out as I could see how the whole scene would look.


This was just to see how it would look with colours at night.

## 3D Environment
### Blocking out

Blocking out is a rough way to map out an environment or level using basic shapes and little to no detail, there shouldn't be any textures used in this process. You can use this to create a rough level that you might what to draw over for inspiration or it could be used to convert 2D art to 3D.

> Comparison of block out vs final art-pass for "Docks" in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) by Brian Baker
>

In the picture above the block out is a very basic rough design for a level

The goal of a block out is to create a prototype, test and adjust the foundation of the level or environment.

It is cheap and easy to create or rebuild drastic changes during blocking out, but could be very expensive and time consuming to rebuild a final product with textures and detailing.

A block out can also be play tested and used which you cant do with a 2D sketch or design.

To block out a design drawn in 2D:
- open Maya
- create new work space
- create camera
- insert your photo that you will be working off
- adjust the camera to align with the photo
- you can now start to create objects that would fill in big objects in your scene and placing them accordingly to the photo

I blocked out the basic environment map from the sketch







Theses are assets that I created in maya for my 3D environment.


This was a slightly built up version of my block out, I wanted to add assets to the block out to plan out how the final environment would look.


This is the final model for my 3D environment. I changed a few parts of the environment as a thought they didn't fit within the cyberpunk theme and added a few new assets to enhance the cyberpunk theme. As I looked more into cyberpunk environments, there is lots of fast food places to eat, so I decided to add a noodle bar.


This is a render for the model above, I wanted to find a camera angle that would show all the features of my environment and capture the essence of a cyberpunk world.





These are the final renders of the 3D cyberpunk environments. I'm really happy with how these came out and I think they really capture the essence of a cyberpunk world. I think the lighting is a very strong point of the environment, to do this I used area lights for the lamp posts and lights above doors, I also used the emission feature to make the signs and windows glow. Although I think lots of the textures look realistic and fit the cyberpunk theme, I think I could improve on some of them. As I was trying to make the environment look wet I think I made the ground too reflective and smooth. I would have liked to make it look more bumpy and rough.

As I was going through this project I learned how to utilize lights effectively in maya to create a scene that looks realistic but also ominous. I also learned about human anatomy and how to produce that in Zbrush effectively. As a whole I think there are parts that could be improved but I am happy with the outcomes of this project.