CAGD 470 - Video Game Production

 

Sprint 6

This sprint was more productive for me. I had done more than what I was bargain for and I think that had to do a lot with the fact that I was mostly doing 2D assets this time. During the kickoff, I was gave a lot less than what I ended up with. I had to draw a lot of back grounds and do a 3D model, which was done very quickly.

To start with, I had to look for a font that would look good with the theme of the game. After a few options, I ended up with a font called "Sabre Shark" made by a creator named Iconian Fonts. Since I do not own this font, I made sure that this person is credit for it during the game credits.

The second thing I decided to do was the logo for the game. This is one of the most important parts for the rest of the other 2D drawings that I need it, since most of them need it a base to start with. I did something really simple that could look fitting for the game. I also used the font that I found to make it look more cohesive with the rest of the game. I think this was the most difficult one of all my cards, since I had to do a lot of color and background options for it to be approved, since a lot of it was looking weird or was hard to read. In the end, I was happy with the results and I think is really simple and may look good with the rest of the game.

The next thing that I did was the cover image for the game, which was really simple and had to only do a background with the logo of the game. I think this was one of the most easy of my cards, since I had a background already thanks to a previous card, and the logo was already done for it too.

To continue, I made the pause menu panes and background. I had a lot of fun coming with ideas for it, but I decided to balance the busy background with simple panels that would help the player to have a less annoying pause screen.

To follow the last card, I decided to focus on the background of the game. I decided to make this one more simple than the rest of my backgrounds to prevent any distractions for the player while they play. Is also gonna be an static background, unless my designer wants to change this for an animated one to make it more interesting.

The next step was to make a hud element for the inventory and health bar for the player. These were two different cards, but I decided to make them at the same time because of how the layout of it was. What I mean with this is that the hud would be down the health bar, so it would be more easy to simply made them together. I think I had the most fun doing this section because I had to think on the different parts and how they would be used by my other team members. I also like how the colors and the drawing look like together and that it goes along with the other panels that I had done.

Another thing I did was a sprite for the shield. This was also really fun to make, since I had to come up with an idea that look futuristic and also ancient Greece. In the end, I decided to do two types of shields together from Greece, one being the hard shell and the other one being a hologram. This way I was able to make it look ancient and futuristic at the same time.

The other thing I did was the leaderboard background for when the players finished playing to see their scores. This was cool to come up with because I wanted to implement the Greek architecture with the outer space experience. I come up with the idea to do a Greek temple that was a hologram, with a really closeup of one of the blackholes on the background. I was really happy on how this turned out in the end and was another one of my favorite pieces.

To give it a break of 2D work, I was task to do a bomb for one of the enemies. Because of the type of bomb (EMP bomb) I decided to give it a special shape and adorned it with geoglyphic to make it seem like it belongs to the specific type of enemy (the Sphinx). For this one, I took references from other bombs so I would not lose time on the concept art (and because I had never done arms so I did not know what I would have done otherwise).

And lastly but not least, I had to do the hud for the timer. I wanted to do something similar to the panels that I had done, but also make it more Greek like. I decided to do some frets from Greece to make it look more cohesive, but also make it look like is emitting light to make it look more futuristic.

This was a really big sprint for me, which I'm really proud of. I hope I can keep a really close pace like this one or focus on hunting bugs in the next sprint.

Sprint 5

This sprint was more of the same progress and new progress on other ambits of the game. The work flow for me is working so far at this pace, and I'm not sure if is gonna change in the future since we finished with most of the models so far and have to start with other aspects of the game like UI and 2D art. During the kickoff, we discussed what other projects we should get aside from 3D modeling, specially because we neglected the UI so far because of the 3D modeling.

To start with, one of the things I did was implement all of my models into Unity, so my teammates would be able to use it in the game. This was an easy task, I just had some difficulties with the sizes of the different ships, as well as how they were rotated when sent from maya into Unity. In the future, I'll make sure to be careful with this since it can cause problems to other team members.

Another thing I worked on was the mast head for the sphinx enemy. This was an special difficult piece for me, since I had never done a lioness head before in Maya. But it was not just the head, I also had to do the head piece for it. Since this boat would be taking inspiration in a Egyptian boat, we decided to make the mast head that of the goddess Sekhmet (which is a lioness' headed goddess of war). The head piece was my favorite to make of this model, since it was fun to come up with ideas on how to represent such a complicated piece with plane images and old statutes of her.

To continue with the Sphynx enemy, I did the textures of it it. It was a little difficult for me to think of the what colors I should do for this model, specially for the masthead and the engines. Because of the references images that I found of Egyptian boats, I wasn't sure what to add on them to make them more identifiable. The pictures that I found were mostly made out of wood and did not really had mast heads on them, so it was more complicated for me to picture how it would look in the model. At the end, I decided to use precious metals and stones to decorate the masthead, since Egyptian gods were closely related to the Pharos at the time. Gold and rubies were the final colors I decided to use for them, which looks pretty similar to the original colors of Sekhmet. But the thing that was more difficult for me was to paint the lion face on her, since it looks a little out of place in any form I did it.

And lastly but not least, I did the menu screen for the game. Here is were we decided to change from the 3D to 2D aspects of the game. For what my lead designer wanted, I had to do a picture of a black hole that can represent the main mechanic of the game. During the process of this screen, I decided to do an animation for the light been suck into the blackhole and a little ship to represent the player. This was really fun and difficult to do. It was my first time diving into animation, so I had absolutely no idea of what I was suppose to do or how to do it in the first place. After watching a few videos and just messing around with the Procreate application, I was able to figure out how to use the animation feature to my advantage. Although I have to say it took me longer than expected, I was happy with the result in the end.

For next sprint, I'll keep working on the UI aspects of the game and try to dive more into the re-texturing of the player for multiplayer feature.

Sprint 4

This sprint was more of the same progress. I was able to keep with the amount of progress as the last sprint. I want to try and keep up this pace, or to get better at it in the future. During the kickoff, we stay with the same about of cards as last sprint, since most of the work takes time to finish or is a little more complicated to do.

To start with, one of the first things I did was to start with the Hydra 3D models. These ones were a little more complicated to do, since most of their shapes (head and body) were more organic than the last model I did, as well as having two different parts. I decided to start with the body, since it was going to be the most simple one, which was a complete misjudgment on my part. This one took me longer, in comparation with the head, because the tails and cabin. The designed make it look more stylize and evil looking. I'm really happy in how it turned out in the end.

The second part of this was the head. For this one, I wanted to try and make it look like a dragon head, since the Hydra is dragon-like. I think I was able to achieved this by the overall shape of the ship, as well as the decorations on the side that makes it look like horns. At first I thought it was going to be more complicated, but after working on the body first, I got a better idea on how to model this piece.

After that, I worked on the textures for both models. Because I wanted to give this character a more dragon feel, I decided to use scales as the main texture of this model. This gave it a more organic feel to it, so i decided to add textures that look more like the interior of a ship in the engine, that way it can look both dragon and machine. It was the same concept of the body textures for the textures of the head. Since it had to look like a dragon, I decided to do the decoration horns a different color and textures than the main body. I ended up finding a texture that added more organic shapes, but with some machine touches in them. I was really happy to see that both complemented each other and did not look too out of place.

Next one was the Sphinx. This enemy was suppose to look a lot more similar to the player, which I try by taking the same concept for of the main boat from the player, and implemented the changes necessary to make it different enough. In the end, I got to a point where I was happy. The boat is really different and I don't even recognize the base of the model (specially since both use different sails and mastheads).

In the other hand, the Sphinx model was more difficult to achieve. Because of the type of sails and the mast head, I found myself taking more time in modeling these pieces. At the end, I had to ask for a different card for the masthead, since it became a really complicated piece. The main boat took inspiration from the player boat, since Greek and Egyptian boats look similar in some aspects. I was really happy with the final result of the boat.

For next sprint, I hope to be able to keep the pace and make it more easy for my teammates to use my models in Unity. Saying this, I would have to give more priority into implementing all the existing models into Unity, before starting with the mast head of the Sphinx.

Sprint 3

This sprint came with a lot of progress from my part in comparation to other sprints. I also feel proud with the model done on this sprint because of how it turn out. During the kickoff, we stay mostly with the same cards as before because most of them had long work sessions or took some time to finish them.

For the firs thing I did, was finish with the textures for the ship or player model. I had a lot of fine playing with the different textures that I could use to make it seem ci-fi and ancient at the same time. I decided to keep the main body of the boat as wood, to represent the normal ways boats were made at the time during the ancient Greeks. For the sails, I decided to make them more ci-fi, to make it seem like they would be able to fly on space. Also, most of the ship had emissions of light from the dome, sails and the laurel leaves to make it seem more futuristic or technological. The main colors of it are, blue, golden, brown and white, that could be associated with the main colors of Greece and good characters.

For the next project, I did the concept art for the Minotaur. I had a lot of fun with this design. I decided to take the shape of a bull for the main body of the ship, and add a engine on the back of it. I also made it so it could be possible for the horns to move, as well as the wings of the engine when this enemy would attack. It work really well because this enemy would charge against the player

Next, I model the Minotaur enemy. For the modeling, I change a few aspects of the design, specially because of how high poly it was getting with the cabin of the ship alone (which was the only part I changed). The model ended up looking really similar to the drawing, except for the cabin. The main shape stay the same as a bull skull, having some tubes connected to it like in the drawing. The horns stay as its own piece to make it more easy to animate them for when the bull attacks, the same goes for the wings on the engine. This is my favorite model so far and I hope to keep doing a better job in the future.

To continue with the Minotaur, I finish with its textures. Most of the details on the drawing were put on the texture sheets, since this could save up some topology or poly count from the actual model. For the horns, I used a texture that could be similar to ventilation racks, as well as some circuits going around it. For the main body, I decided to put some cybernetic-looking metal, to make it more apparent that is really high tech. The tubes around the ship stay a normal metal, to prevent too much attention being attract to it. As for the cabin, I just decided to put a murky glass that would prevent people to look inside, but that could give an irk sensation to the player. The main color for the minotaur is red, because of its ramping attacks and because the minotaur is usually associated with wrath.

And lastly but not least, I finished with the concept art for the Hydra. This one was a little complicated for me to come up with the idea. Because of the aspect of the hydra, it can be really complicated to translate that to a futuristic ship form. After too much thinking, I arrived to the idea of making it a single body and using it's ship companions as its heads. I am not too sure how may heads the hydra would have (since it can grow infinite heads), but the main idea is to have as many mini ships as heads for the hydra. The design itself for the main ship is to represent the body for the hydra. I really like how this one turn out, but I still prefer the minotaur.

For the next sprint, I hope I can keep up with this pace or make it even better in the future. I would also start working on the model of the Hydra as my first priority. 

Sprint 2

This sprint came up with a lot of changes on my original ideas, as well as challenges on the 3D modeling. During the kickoff, we assigned more cards, but we also stood with a lot of cards that were assigned already. After some consultation with other people, my lead designer asked me to make a few changes to the concept art of my boat. They were minimum, but it was a little complicated for me to visualize exactly how would they look. In the end, the changes were received positively and I was allow to continue with the modeling.

The next step was the modeling of the ship. I had the base for the boat done, but a lot of details were a little complicated to do. Some of the shapes and forms were more organic, which can be a challenge in Maya. I also had some complications during this sprint with Maya too, since it was giving me error and not allowing me to do some of the features that are normal to do (UVs get distorted and doesn't allowed me to export OBJ or FBX), which I'm still facing but found a solution for.

In the end, I was able to figure out what shapes would look better on the ship. For this one, I did the decorations on the stern, which is a snake head, a leaf, and a stick. Some Greek boats that I used as reference had this decorations, specially those used for war, which I found really befitting with the theme of the game.

The next challenges I encounter was the wings in the port and starboard of the boat. Because of the intricated shape, I found it hard at fist to figure out. In the end, I was able to figured them out and was easy after that. Those were the most complicated parts of the main boat, but not the most complicated of the whole model.

One piece that was really difficult and that need it it's own card was the masthead located on the bow. This one is suppose to be a ram head. I had never done animal heads in all my experience as a modeler, which represented a challenge. I also did not found any tutorial that was helpful or simple enough to go with the art style of the game (most of them where high poly and hyper-realistic). Because of how detail an animal head can be, I was struggling to keep the model in the lows polygon numbers.

After getting the basic shape of the head, the most challenging part of it was the horns. Their curved nature make it hard for me to make them look natural or that follow a realistic path. In the end, I was able to get to a point where they look natural and cohesive with the head. The last part was to add the canyon, which was the most easy piece to model.

Overall, I'm really happy with this sprint because of the challenges that I had to faced with the modeling. Although the problems that I'm having with Maya makes me work slower, I am glad that at least is not preventing me to work on the go.

For the next sprint, I'm finally going to finish the textures of the player and start on the next complicated model, which would be the Minotaur.

Sprint 1

This sprint was really normal or slow for me. This is similar to my other experiences regarding the first kickoff, especially since it is the first week which is one of the shorter ones. After we decided the game and what assets we needed on. In this case, the ship that would represent the player would be a priority so I started with a few designs for it. The theme of the game is Greek in space, which would add Sci-Fi elements to old Greek mythology aspects. Because of the theme of the game and the type of aesthetic that we are going to include, this represented a little bit of a challenge for me. I had never done boats before (which is the main focus of the player), even less futuristic types of boats that could go out of space.

First Attempt

I started with concept art of how the boat would look. I looked for references of Greek boats and saw the common denominators between each other. At first I wasn’t sure exactly what a Greek boat from space would look like, but I ended up with a basic design and expanded with more ideas from there. For the Sci-Fi element on the boat, I based myself mostly on the movie “Treasure Planet.” This movie gave me ideas of having normal boats with motors and really cool looking sails on the sides and on top. At first it was more normal looking with some motors on the back. But after a few changes on the boat, and ideas to use mostly on texture, the final decision for the model ended up looking more futuristic and appropriate to the theme.

Final Attempt

I also started modeling the boat, which presented a challenge for me since I had never done boats before. Looking at other people's boats, as well as tutorials on the internet, I was able to arrive at a way of modeling this object without too many complications. This is also possible since the art style of the game would be a little more stylized than realistic, giving me more options to improvise. Although I was not able to finish the boat this sprint, I was able to come up with the basic shape, which is sometimes the most difficult part of modeling.

Boat in progress

But not everything has been smooth while working. The major problem that I came up with was with Maya. When I started to model the ship, Maya started to not accept my access key and was causing me troubles to export or import anything, as well as having low resolution while modeling. This problem came from some issues that Autodesk was having with my license, but in the end they were able to solve it. However, this took a lot of productivity on my side and didn’t allow me to work at a normal pace in this and many other classes.

For the next sprint, I’ll keep working on the and finish the main elements of it, as well as doing their respective UVs and textures. The mast of the boat would also be started to be modeled, since this is going to be a more complicated part. I am not completely happy with the amount of work I have done, but I feel happy to have a great development on something I had no experience with before, which is the boat. I want to see the end result and how it will come along. In the future, I hope I can have a better pace of workflow on my end, and try to make better models for the game, since a lot of them would be a challenge on my side for their aspect.