###### tags: 'Uni work' 'Games art'
# <21309613>_J5Z1020_Journal
https://hackmd.io/@aowkmhvjTIKtVgwVLG36cg/SyS856qfs
### Character and Environment Art (J5Z1020)
### Games Art BA (Hons) L5
### Keira Steele

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### Week 1
In week one we were introduced to our thematic for the unit Metropolitan ludotopias. Metropolitan meaning a large city and ludotopias meaning playable area which was interpretated as a playable city scape. After being introduced to the thematic, I began my research into the character and environment art I wanted for my game. I collected images and creating spider diagrams to show this.

When starting to create my game I will follow the industry standard work flow. By first researching and finding inspiration for my game concept to then come up with concept designs. Starting with inital sketches and then developing more complex sketches resulting in presenting the final art. When this is completed the next stage is sculpting an asset from the final outcome which, will then be uv mapped, textured and rigged to create a production ready asset. To the best of my ability I will be following this structure throughout the next 11 weeks.

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#### Game Concept

My game concept is essentially a parkor game that is based around my main character who is an exorsist in the modern day/futuristic world whos goal is to fight and exorcise demons. He is from a long line of exorsists and was born into this profession, becoming one of the best exorsists they have to date. He is in his mid 30s and has no family except for his father who was once also an exorsist but is now retired. When roaming around the open world, jumping from roof top to roof top and through windows, there will be writing writen all over the map which will glow once the character starts getting closer to it. Once in range, the writing will be a name of a demon which will be needed in order to exorsice it, as you can not banish a demon without knowing its real name. After finding a name there will then be clues as to where you can find this demon. The aim of the game is to find a specific demon, "head demon", and once you exorcise this demon it turns out to be a corrupt polition whos trying to corrupt the whole country. The environment of the world will be set in a greek style city scape, in that there will be a lot of flat and domed roof tops along with a lot of white arcutecture. As the game play will mostly take place on the roof tops there will be a lot of varied obsticales placed around so the player can interact with them by either leaping, climbing or slidding underneath to create for a more emersive, fun and interesting game play. The interactive objects will have a certain colour painted upon them to make it easier for players to see them.

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### Inspiration

#### Assasin Creed

Assasins creed is one of the main inspirations for my game concept. This is because the main pillar of my game is that its supposed to be a parkor game and assain creed shows this aspect really well through out their franchise as in the game you have the ability to run from roof top to roof top, maneuvering over obstilcales and even jumping from great hights into hay bales. I would really like to impliment the maneuverbility into the environment of my game by looking at the objects and analysinig the the interactivity of them to then try and design objects for my game which would have the same fluidity.

#### Dying Light

Dying Light is primarly a roof top based parkor zombie game. The zombie aspect of this game is similar to the demons in my game, as the zombies are always roaming around and there are differnt types, with some of them being stronger than the others. However, the demons in my game are only visible to specific people (the exorsists) and are all over the world lurking over humans and trying to attack them from within.

#### Watch Dog

Watch Dog has futuristic eliments that I would like to include in my game, as assains creed and Dying Light are are the most similar to my game. However, my game world is more modern like Watch Dog excluding the drones and other technology that flys around.

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### week 2

This week we continued learning to use zbrush to learn how to make human anatomy and this week we created a nose by inserting a cube and using the clay buildup tool while looking at reference images to sculpt the nose.


I created a mind map this week exploring different ideas for my character and environment for my game, juggling with the ideas of what my character would look like, what type of humanoid it would be, and what weapon it would possess. I also thought about what city I would base the environment around and what style I would create it in.


#### Pureref
I created a pureref of the style of character I wanted. I decided I wanted my character to be wearing some type of street wear so I researched and came across these images which inspired me the most. The more I looked the more I liked the idea of my character having a kind of cape over simple everyday steet wear as it would make him look more inconspicuous when roaming the roof tops. Furthermore, I decided the clothing should be a beige colour, or any colour with muted tones to again make him blend in. Although I looked into different masks for my character I decided against one as it wouldnt add anything to his appearance and wouldnt have any functionality.


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### week 3

This week we created an eye in zbrush, however the screen shot of my work didnt save properly so I am unable to add an image here. However I learned many new techniques within zbrush and was able to use new brushes in the application such as the inflate tool, move tool and how to insert a new subtool. Learning all the different tools within zbrush is vital for when working within industry as I will need to be flexible in being able to use many diffferent engines to produce production ready sculpts/assets. This week I also created a pureref for the environment for my game. I wanted my game to be set in a greek esk lanscape. These images helped to inspire the composition I wanted within my game.


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### week 4

#### Blockout Environment




In week 4 I created a blockout for my environment. I put the camera in the posion I wanted and then inported cubes adjusting there sizes and placed them in different positions untill I found as layout which I preferred. Throughout this processes I realised that rather than having more domed shapes and curved edges, which you would have for a more greek styled environment, I would have more clean cut angles which you would see in cities like London and New York. This caused me to rethink on my idea of what I wanted my environment to look like. After creating my scene I had some issues with setting up the lighting, but after further research I found that I needed to raise the intensity of the light. However, when rendering the scene the light created a lot of noise so I tried changing the light around and lowering the intensity slightly this lessend the noise as much as I could but it is still visible. If I had researched further into this I would have been able to fix it, however I was prioritising my time by making more time for my concept art to create industry standard deliverables. After further research I created an pureref which shows the new concept for my environment. I have decided that the environment is gonna be more big city based so its going to look busier as I thought within the game it would create more opertunity for a bigger open world with more space to roam around.


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### week 5

This week we were figuring our way around using Zsphere to create joints to which we could use when making our character models. We were also looking at the human anatomy and creating the basic head shape of a human which, helped me to understand the correct proportions needed to create the head of my character.



After changing the concept of my environment, I walked Around Manchester taking photos of all the different interesting buildings that I saw which inspired me and could help me to deisgn my environment concept.


These are my inital sketches of my environment where I messed around with perspective. As my game is primariy a roof top based game, the thumbnails I created are of scenes of the world in the third person view, imitating the character whos stood a top of a building looking out across the city. I particulary liked the top two thumbnails as the left one has an angled view that I think is very interesting and different to rest while having quite a few different levels that the character could potentially climb. The right thumbnail is the scene I decided to develop further as I felt that the style suited my concept better as it showed more room for maneuverability and the ropes going from buildings shows a different way to interact with the environment.


### week 6

Torso and back muscles



In week 6 we continued to develope our skills in Z brush while learning further about the human anatomy more specificallly the muscles in the human body. we researched images of the musclular system to then put it into practice creating a sculpture of the human torso which creates a great base to then build a character onto.


These are silhouettes I created of ideas for the main characted. I created these by first researching different character poses the ones that I founs interesting I then recreated and then added different shapes which made the silhouettes more interesting. These 3 being the end results.

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### week 7

I chose to pick this silhouette out of the 3 I created because it had everything I envisioned my character having when initally researching for inspiration for my character.I sketched into the silhouette to outline whats going on within the silhouette such as the detailing of the cape/shawl and the cargos. With that I then decided the colours I wanted to use which I decided on beige with hints of blue.


On my character I decided that he would have a gun strapped to his leg which is connected via a tube to a water tank thats strapped on his back containing holey water which can be shot at demons to kill them. When progressing through the game there will be chances to upgrade the guns to shoot faster and more powerful bursts of water. The character will also have a spear/staff which has a spell on it which warns off demons making him unable to be posessed while also be able to kill demons in close combat. I created different varients of the spear which the player would be able to pick at the start of the game each having different capabilities.


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### week 8

In week 8 I started to create the front and back view of my character. This is the half way point of my character development which is where I made the executive desicion to get rid of the shawl that I originally designed on my character. This is because when sculpting my model he has a small tank on his back. When adding the shawl it would cover up the tank and give him the illusion of a hunch back which I didnt think would look right when applied into the game.


I created a character sheet showing both the front and backview of my character while also displaying the face of the character, colour palette that was used and the range of different eye colours I designed. When creating the face of my character I wanted to make him look a bit older by adding forehead creases as he is supposed to be in his mid 30s. However, when I finished creating his face I realised that it didnt really fit the rest of his body as I added too much detail in his fase so I used a noise brush over his cloths to add more detail so he was presented more cohesively.


This an image of my character model when I started adding the cloths which I did by using the clay buildup tool which in hindsight I could have used the extract tool which, would have made the processes quicker to build up the surface and then use the clay tool to then mould it into the shape I needed. After building up the clothes I used the cloth tool to add the creases to the clothing. After deciding to scrap the shawl I thought the collar of the tshirt was quite plane so I used the collar of the shawl and addedit to the tshirt to make a more interesting neckline.


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### week 9

This week I had many issues with my model when sculpting him something went wrong which caused me to loose all the progress I made which meant I had to start it all over again. I found it quite hard to sculpt his face as the mouth looked like he was pouting and his eyes looked closed from a distance.


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### Week 10

This week I fixed my characters face as best as I could by using the inflate, move, claybuild up and smooth tool to fix his eyes and slightly altering the muscles on his face so he didnt look like he was pouting. Furthermore, I made his lips thinner aswell.


When creating the final design for my environment I picked quite bright colours which, I thought matched well however, I decided to change the colour theme as I didnt think It matched the concept of the game as I felt it needed to be darker. I also consulted with others and they agreed that the environment needed to be darker as when looking into demon games there is usually a dark ominous environment around them.


This is the final outcome for the environment of my game. The purple highlights the interactive parts of this scene and the writing are the names of the demons which when approached will lead to that specific demon. I feel the darker colours match my game a lot better and I like the light streaming out of the windows as it creates a false sense of calm.


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### Week 11

#### Final Sculpture

This is the final result of my character sculpture. I rendered it on Zbrush and this was the outcome. I had many issues with the materials on zbrush as when swapping between materials it would not show the material untill I used a different one. Then it would present what I had drawn on using the previous material. I tryed to research on how to fix this however couldn't find any helpful information. In the future I would like to find an answer to this and try again.




Zbrush file:

https://stummuac-my.sharepoint.com/:u:/g/personal/21309613_stu_mmu_ac_uk/EZj0tqJ6VKlIlCCyr7kFxr0BHd2QPxXbhNpH_9S9OMQFOw?e=uPctWw