Thursday 28 March 2013
Just An Update
The character modelling book I am using requires Zbrush to follow its process. Whilst we have this on uni computers 1, the uni is currently shut for Easter, and 2, I like to be able to work from home when I need to. Therefore I decided to purchase the program for my own computer. However I am having to wait for the dowload therefore I will be using this time to get started on my weapon modelling instead.
Weapon designing
I found using the silhouettes for the character design pretty useful so I decided to do the same for weapon design. Part of my learning agreement was to create at least one weapon for my character. Another book that I am currently reading: "Maya Studio Projects- Game Environments and Props" covers a gun modelling module.
Here I can learn about high and low poly modelling, and also about some of the animation for the object. The object modeled is a hand gun whilst for obvious reason I do not wish to completely copy the process in the book, I wish for my own piece to look original, I would like it to have familiarity to the books example just so I can follow their process relatively easily. Therefore I will be modeling some variant of a one handed gun. My favourite guns in the fallout game are the mechanical ones as opposed to energy weapons (which fire laser beams etc.) therefor I have listed some of my favourite handguns that fall into this category.
10mm Pistol
Scopes
Revolver
Snub Nose
Sawn Off Shotgun
SMG
As with the characters I have made a page of different silhouettes that uses these sources as inspiration.
I have decided to go with the snub nose design (top left) I like its small size and practicality, furthermore its firing mechanism is the same as that in the book I am using as a guide which will make it easier to follow. I will now begin the modelling process.
Here I can learn about high and low poly modelling, and also about some of the animation for the object. The object modeled is a hand gun whilst for obvious reason I do not wish to completely copy the process in the book, I wish for my own piece to look original, I would like it to have familiarity to the books example just so I can follow their process relatively easily. Therefore I will be modeling some variant of a one handed gun. My favourite guns in the fallout game are the mechanical ones as opposed to energy weapons (which fire laser beams etc.) therefor I have listed some of my favourite handguns that fall into this category.
10mm Pistol
Scopes
Revolver
Snub Nose
Sawn Off Shotgun
SMG
As with the characters I have made a page of different silhouettes that uses these sources as inspiration.
I have decided to go with the snub nose design (top left) I like its small size and practicality, furthermore its firing mechanism is the same as that in the book I am using as a guide which will make it easier to follow. I will now begin the modelling process.
Thursday 21 March 2013
Character Design- Silhouettes
This week I have been focusing on what kind of character design I will be using for this project. A lot of people start the design phase by drawing characters in the silhouette form allowing them to focus on size shape and stance, without getting bogged down by the smaller details. For other projects I have always had a clear idea about what I wanted to create so this is not something I have approached before, however I decide that a project that was so centralised on character creation, and inspired by a game like "Fallout" that puts so much importance on characterisation, would definitely benefit from this practice.
Though it does not seem like a complicated process, I looked up several tutorials, such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mySsKfhBrlo , on character silhouettes just to see how people approach this. Google images also managed to give me many samples such as the one below.
At this point I have pretty much decided that I want my character to be able to fit into the fallout universe, however I want my model to be more realistic than from the current Fallout games, which are at this point reasonably old. As the guidance I am using for the project comes mostly from the book "ZBrush Studio Projects- Realistic Game Characters" this more realistic style will be appropriate based on the kind of methods eg. level of sculpting, I will be using. With this in mind my final character should look like it is a familiar part of the Fallout universe, but more visually familiar to a new release of the game, if such a thing currently existed.
In Fallout there are three types of human or humanoid characters. First regular humans, these are usually either from the vaults, nuclear fallout shelters that humans hid in during the nuclear war, and identifiable from their blue overalls. Or else they are committed to one of the many other factions of the wastelands, whether their motives be good or bad.
Then we have super mutants, these are genetically designed humans originally design to be a superior race, whilst physically dominating their opponents however, the majority are intellectually inferior and this shows....
Finally the ghouls. These are humans that have been exposed to extreme radiation that has led to necrosis across their bodies. Some are still in control of their faculties whilst others have been too severely affected and have become feral.
I knew I definitely wanted something resembling a human as my character model, but I had not decided which of the three I wanted to use. Therefore I decided the first three of my silhouettes should be based on deciding this.
I decided to go with a human character for several reasons. Firstly as this is my first character project I figured I would benefit from making a model that I could find real life references for. Secondly my book that I'm using as a guide shows the creation of a human character and seeing as its the only decent start to finish tutorial I've found, I feel like that is the way to go.
As I have decided on a human character there is more to decide. In the Fallout games, and particularly New Vegas, humans are normally attired based on their allegiance to various different factions, these often tend to look pretty distinctive from each other, some of different kinds of attire are listed below.
Power Armour
Tribal/Raider
Combat Armour
Pre War Attire
Vault Jumpsuit
When drawing my different silhouettes I tried to account for each of these different styles.
I have not yet fully decided what faction I might want my character to belong to however whichever it is I should bear in mind, when deciding the smaller details, where the character would have sourced the armour, how/when was it made etc? These are important details when making a character fit into the Fallout world.
Though it does not seem like a complicated process, I looked up several tutorials, such as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mySsKfhBrlo , on character silhouettes just to see how people approach this. Google images also managed to give me many samples such as the one below.
At this point I have pretty much decided that I want my character to be able to fit into the fallout universe, however I want my model to be more realistic than from the current Fallout games, which are at this point reasonably old. As the guidance I am using for the project comes mostly from the book "ZBrush Studio Projects- Realistic Game Characters" this more realistic style will be appropriate based on the kind of methods eg. level of sculpting, I will be using. With this in mind my final character should look like it is a familiar part of the Fallout universe, but more visually familiar to a new release of the game, if such a thing currently existed.
In Fallout there are three types of human or humanoid characters. First regular humans, these are usually either from the vaults, nuclear fallout shelters that humans hid in during the nuclear war, and identifiable from their blue overalls. Or else they are committed to one of the many other factions of the wastelands, whether their motives be good or bad.
Then we have super mutants, these are genetically designed humans originally design to be a superior race, whilst physically dominating their opponents however, the majority are intellectually inferior and this shows....
Finally the ghouls. These are humans that have been exposed to extreme radiation that has led to necrosis across their bodies. Some are still in control of their faculties whilst others have been too severely affected and have become feral.
I knew I definitely wanted something resembling a human as my character model, but I had not decided which of the three I wanted to use. Therefore I decided the first three of my silhouettes should be based on deciding this.
As I have decided on a human character there is more to decide. In the Fallout games, and particularly New Vegas, humans are normally attired based on their allegiance to various different factions, these often tend to look pretty distinctive from each other, some of different kinds of attire are listed below.
Power Armour
Tribal/Raider
Combat Armour
Pre War Attire
Vault Jumpsuit
When drawing my different silhouettes I tried to account for each of these different styles.
I have not yet fully decided what faction I might want my character to belong to however whichever it is I should bear in mind, when deciding the smaller details, where the character would have sourced the armour, how/when was it made etc? These are important details when making a character fit into the Fallout world.
Tuesday 19 March 2013
Fallout
I will need to start planning my character for this project however before I started I figured I would do a couple of sketches just to familiarise myself with with the type of characters armour and weaponry that exists in the Fallout universe.
This is just a little bit of a warm up to the project. The next thing I want to do now is to start making some character silhouettes to see what kind of style I like best.
Wednesday 13 March 2013
BA6 Begins
Last Monday we had a session with our tutor Nigel who will be head of out next project. One of the major things I learnt from the last project was that the best way to get past aspects of this course that I am nervous about is to work around it as a project. For this reason I intend to make character modelling a major feature of the next project.
Initially I was considering a character from our BA4 project to create however my attention has been diverted from this somewhat. I recently began replaying the game "Fallout 3" and "Fallout New Vegas". On top of this a group of friends and I also went to a fancy dress at the uni bar dressed as fallout characters. Further more I have also recently been watching the Mad Max films. All this post apocalyptic narrative has made me want to do a character based around this. Interestingly this idea of the world running out of resources and the future of humanity came up in an argument at the last family meal I went to. I found it fascinating listening to peoples future predictions and then comparing them to what I think the reality might be like. This can be seen with many films such as "Back to the Future 2" where the reality of the future is vastly different to the way it is portrayed in the film.
Initially I was considering a character from our BA4 project to create however my attention has been diverted from this somewhat. I recently began replaying the game "Fallout 3" and "Fallout New Vegas". On top of this a group of friends and I also went to a fancy dress at the uni bar dressed as fallout characters. Further more I have also recently been watching the Mad Max films. All this post apocalyptic narrative has made me want to do a character based around this. Interestingly this idea of the world running out of resources and the future of humanity came up in an argument at the last family meal I went to. I found it fascinating listening to peoples future predictions and then comparing them to what I think the reality might be like. This can be seen with many films such as "Back to the Future 2" where the reality of the future is vastly different to the way it is portrayed in the film.
Sunday 10 March 2013
Online Journal
Since the hand in for our last project I have been attending meetings to discuss the idea of our year creating an online journal based around our course. The idea is that with this we could build a large audience and then showcase our work to professionals within the industry. We had had visits from Helen McCarthy, who set us a project when she came to NUCA last year, and she has taken on the role of editorial adviser and took part in helping us discuss ideas for this journal. I have put myself forward for a place on the editorial board and to some sort of article within the journal but this is all provisional for the time being.
There are certain aspects about the journal that haven't been agreed upon yet, largely as to whether it should be used purely as a kind of gallery for our work, or whether we would actually be making a journal with various different articles etc. My level of input will be dependent on the result of some of these choices. One thing we have settled on as a group is the name Games AD (games art design). Logo designs are currently being submitted for approval and we will be attending a meeting tomorrow to make further decisions.
There are certain aspects about the journal that haven't been agreed upon yet, largely as to whether it should be used purely as a kind of gallery for our work, or whether we would actually be making a journal with various different articles etc. My level of input will be dependent on the result of some of these choices. One thing we have settled on as a group is the name Games AD (games art design). Logo designs are currently being submitted for approval and we will be attending a meeting tomorrow to make further decisions.
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