My Slightly Twee FMP Inspiration

My current main idea for my FMP first came to me while working on the group project at the end of last term. I was listening through some songs by my favourite musician that I hadn’t heard in a long time as I worked, and I found myself really inspired by one particular track. I had a very vivid picture in my head of what the song depicted and I really wanted to create that scene. Naturally there was a problem in that I was busy with the group project and didn’t have the time to commit to a large side project just for fun. So I put aside the idea for the FMP.

During the summer holidays I revisited the idea to keep it fresh in my mind. I created a Pinterest board to collect some visual examples.

The main idea was some kind of treehouse research base in the middle of the rainforest, overlooking a huge vista of trees stretching off into the distance. The base would be mostly constructed out of scrappy-looking materials such as tarpaulin and wire meshes on a base of wood. The strongest part of this idea I feel was how the humidity of the rainforest could bring out the colours in all the different materials. However the rest was very wishy-washy and hard to elaborate on, so I knew I’d have to rethink it.

More recently however I have had another brainwave that I think simplifies the idea yet makes it far more interesting. It would be pointless to constrain myself to keeping things exactly like my original vision when I could build off that base and make something better. I think it would be really interesting to actually have the inside of the treehouse be very modern, possibly even futuristic. This would both provide a more solid theme with greater contrast between interior and exterior, and also allow me to model a wider variety of assets. Modern design has the added bonus of still looking good with fewer assets so it is harder to mess up.

I’ve yet to pin down the interior design to the same extent as the rainforest outside but I think at least the theme is very clear. Amplifying the contrast between the interior and exterior should create a very comfortable atmosphere.

Technical constraints I would need to consider might include Unreal Engine 4’s ability to render glass convincingly and my own skills in creating a realistic humid or rainy scene. I’ve also been having issues with doing lightmaps on two-sided materials in my current project, and not having them on foliage in a scene with so much of it could cause serious performance issues so I need to find a solution to that problem soon.

Side-Scroller Project

I am currently working on a project along with the entire year group to create a short side-scrolling platformer game. We have been split into six sub-groups, with four groups making a level for the game, one making characters and a final comprised of two engine artists. The group I am in is working on the level to be described as “Scary”. The tutors are taking the roles of art directors.

We have been in the asset-making stage for a few days now and I am quite confident that we are going to get a great end result. Each level team is comprised of three environment artists and one concept artist- as one of the environment artists I feel that at this stage I am finally coming into my element.

The first stage of the project was of course idea gathering, and we did this by using Pinterest to gather pictures and create moodboards. This lasted for quite a while, and I was often worried that we were wasting time by not moving on sooner but I know it was good that we explored a lot of ideas quite deeply before pinning things down.

The next stage involved designing the level, then concepting and whiteboxing assets. I found this stage quite difficult, as most of the assets I had been asked to design were either heavily reliant on other assets and the style guide (which had not been completed at this time) or required little actual design work. Add to that my lack of drawing skill in comparison to the group’s concept artist and I was left feeling pretty useless for quite a while, which was at times pretty demoralising. However we passed the whiteboxing stage without much issue, and could finally move on to asset creation.

To keep everyone in the loop we like to have a lot of meetings. As the project has moved along we have gone from quite long but infrequent meetings during the idea development phases to shorter daily “scrums” now that we know what we’re doing. Recently we have been discussing things like sharing assets between levels to save time and keep the style consistent.

As things are now, I have modelled and textured some crystals to act as hazards in our level, though I need to go back and rearrange them into clusters before I send them to the engine artists. I have also been sculpting a medium sized statue. That's what I should be continuing with today.

King of the Dead Group Project

Third year has begun, and we have finally been blessed with Unreal Engine 4. Physically Based Rendering is beautiful, and it truly is exciting seeing the tools we have at our disposal advance along with the industry. What was technically our first assignment involved creation of materials in UE4, however we did no actual designing or modelling for it. It’s nice to be back to asset creation (though saying that implies I haven’t been practicing over summer!) So this was our first proper project, a group assignment to create a small scene involving a throne, a character, and a backdrop. A scene that would have to fit the title- “King of the Dead”.

We had two weeks for the whole project, which turned out to not be too restrictive in the end. Of course in the early days of the project I was constantly thinking we needed to speed up. The initial brainstorm didn’t take long… But gathering reference material sure did though. We used a Pinterest board to gather mood board images so we’d have something visual to base the idea around, but the problem was that we would of course stumble upon images that were inspiring, but would take us in a completely different direction. Expanding ideas is great, but not on the third or fourth day when we really need stick with something and start concepting!

I started sketching ideas fairly early on, which did help reign things back in in the end. It was an odd experience though, as at first I felt I was just killing time by jotting down rough ideas. They were all based on this concept one of the other group members had thought up involving a king frozen in a cryogenic chamber, though some involved incorporation of another idea of a parasitic entity. This rough sketching went on for a fair while and I was starting to feel really demoralised because I felt no feeling of direction, but I was surprised when we finally got together to share our ideas and everyone decided we should develop our design based on several of my ideas. It’s really easy to forget that concept art really isn’t about the quality of the drawings.

After this I made a few quick whiteboxes and everyone had a shot at doing paintovers. When things seemed to be coming together we began modelling. Since the design was constructed of various different shapes it could be broken down easily and people could choose to make whichever parts they wanted. I chose to start on the spider leg-like structures that adorned the throne, and since the other team member working on the throne was also doing most of the engine work I ended up making the entire throne apart from the central cryo pod itself.

I was a little unsure of whether my textures were interesting and convincing enough but I was reassured by the rest of the team that they were perfectly adequate. However this was only a little over half way through the second week, so I still had a couple of days to spare. Because of this I decided I would make a rock, one that could be subtly duplicated so that it could be used in various places around the scene to break up all the solid lines and make things a little more interesting. It was nice to be able to do some sculpting, since the rest of my work had been made in Max only. It was a bit of a reminder of my lack of knowledge though- My teammates pointed out several things in ZBrush that would’ve made things much faster for me… Unfortunately each time it was too late to execute them. I have noted them down for the future.

And now, the assets have been assembled in engine and the end result has come out really quite successfully. I think maybe the final scene could’ve done with a bit more There were a few hiccups, such as everyone forgetting to make light maps, forgetting to scale down textures, lack of collision (it wasn’t in the brief?)… But for the first proper project of the third year it went really quite well. Especially considering it was a group project, if it went as badly as my first group project experience I don’t know what I would’ve done!

…And I’ve just now noticed that some details I added to the model aren’t in the final render… see I knew things couldn’t possibly have gone that well. Group work eh.