7.10.21. - 9.10.21

 Module AND222- Week 2
Mood board, Sketches and Concepts.

For AND222 we are tasked with creating a series of 3d models suitable for rigging and game development. This will include a character, environment and various interactable items. 

 The process is to be followed by short weekly tasks designed to streamline the pipeline process in an easy to follow step by step method.

The project is designed around the Maya software but Blender can also be used.

First thing I needed was to have an idea for the kind of game I wanted to make. Often the most interesting designs come from trying to design around a basic gameplay idea. 
Nintendo is a company well known for designing around gameplay has early has the first Mario bros with the brother's moustaches and have continued with method of design with both Splatoon and Arms.

So whilst I was on leaving the studio I remember saying something along the lines of "see you later, I am off to cause mischief" as a bit of a joke. But has was heading on my way to the bus stop trying to think of the few games I have played and enjoyed: Katamari Damacy, Scribblenauts, Minecraft, etc. I remembered a review off an old game that I saw that looked like a ton of fun to play called Under the Skin in which you play as alien trying to play cartoonish pranks on people and wondered what would happen if we merged that idea with the sort of turf war like gameplay as Splatoon or Jet Set Radio? 

Soon this idea that was very derivative started to form in to a basic idea that showed like fun. 
So I soon massaged this idea to my friends over the groups discord, since I myself I don't play videos games as often as they do so I asked for their option.

I got some pretty good feedback even though is wasn't a lot. I decided to go with the idea since I concept was simple enough at its core that I had to see where I could take it. 

So I copied and pasted what I wrote out in discord as well as  a more in-depth version into a word document as well has any of the ideas I had inside my head at the time.

In my mind the gameplay and controls are the same for both side but rather the models and animations would be different. Even if means more work for me it would mean that game is fair for everyone.

I also did some really rough sketches of some possible UI or gameplay mechanics though their is a chance a lot of ideas will not get developed since as soon is the project is picked up it was ultimately up to the developers for what they want to do with both gameplay and what types of assets they will need. 

Now I hade and idea I had to make multiple mood boards that would help convey the overall design and tone for them game. Most of these images where simple taken off Google images, I did try to keep to stock images but for the characters I really wanted to capture that late 90's turn of the millennium look, which online as been given the nickname of Y2K aesthetic  coined by the online artist Froyo Tam.

I must admit I took a lot of inspiration from all of my favourite things such as graphic design, alternative fashion, Japanese mascot culture, vinyl figures, cartoons and the look of the fifth and sixth generation of games. 

When I couldn't decide if the characters should be devils vs angels or aliens vs astronauts and decided to combine the two together to create some more interesting designs.

The angels are more directly influenced by the Y2K aesthetic with is retro futuristic look, shiny plastic and metal textures and a very clear idea on what the colour palette will look like with blues, white and sliver.

One the other hand the impish aliens lean more towards to alternative fashion (punk, goth, emo, scene, etc.) and 'Kawaii' characters. The large head and eyes of most aliens already resemble that of archetypical cute design. There is less of a clear colour palette in my chosen images with a range of blacks, purples, greens and reds so that will have to be something to work on. 

Next was to develop some props for game. While I have plenty of items for items I decided to pick 4 items that would best show the premise of the game. 
Two are items that could be items you could pick up from around the environment and another two that the player might not be able to pick up but still interact with. 

Again this is all can and will change during development has we have a limited time and budget. So complex ideas may have to be thrown to the wayside in favour of a more polished game. 

The first item I though up of was a gift box since I was thinking of giving gifts vs play pranks a possible feature and who's to say that its a actually a jack in the box in disguise? Gift boxes also be decorated in a variety of ribbons and wrapping paper which can help distinguish between the prank gifts and the real gifts.

The next prop was a simple plant pot. Why? because it's the example I have used the idea of a flower bed to explain my premise for a while now. 

You're running around a level and you see empty flower pot. If your are playing as the angelic astronaut interacting with flower pot will cause flowers to grow out from it but playing as the impish alien you might break the plant pot or growth a monstrous man-eating fly trap. 

it's the whole game premise boiled down to something simple to understand to the point that if you were make a tutorial level you probably have something like this as the first thing you see. 

 

If everyone does end up having a similar move set then how do to go about getting  a leg up over the opponent? For me it would be from stunning the enemy with some sort of weapon or powerup. I am not sure who I feel about respawning has I feel that would just slow down the gameplay and I personally think this game should be fast paced an frantic. Think more like the items you would find in kart racers and less weapons found within first person shooters.

That's where the giant squeaky hammer comes into play. Its an idea for a weapon I have had for a while, long before having to design a game. It's based on a toy I own in real life of a toy hammer with a face on it. I always loved the idea of a snarky talking hammer, though I think it's for the best they stay silent in this game. 

When hit by the hammer is would stun the player for a brief moment like on the count down from three in which you are then able to move again. I think need to think of a way to stop people from just hitting each other. Maybe it could be a single use item or that it could be knocked out of the players hands? I'll let the programmers decide on that.

I imagine the weapon to be pretty big. It would have face for the centre piece and the two sides to be squeaky part. 

When hit by the hammer is would stun the player for a brief moment like on the count down from three in which you are then able to move again. I think need to think of a way to stop people from just hitting each other. Maybe it could be a single use item or that it could be knocked out of the players hands? I'll let the programmers decide on that, I am just an artist. 

I image the weapon to be pretty big. It would have face for the centre piece and the two sides to be squeaky part. 

Finally is my concept for the first level/map, the park. Again very simple but I  actually wanted to tell a story with this one. After all, why would they be a bunch of aliens running around amongst humans? 
Whilst running around you may find police tape wrapped around trees, smoke in the distance and perhaps even the reminds of an old space ship?

This first map will be designed for the player to get a feel for the premise with lots of various terrain to explore, a pond for either swimming or drowning and plenty of items to interact with. They might even be NPCs to mess up but I don't know if that would be too hard to program. 

I also looked up some pre-existing tree models of some assets stores as to get an idea of what styles I wanted to go for. I remember once hearing somewhere you can tell a lot about an artist based on how they draw trees so couldn't the same apply for the look of a video game? I am prefer to work with a more cartoony style as that what I am good at but I can do realism is need be.

Some quick sketches I did before making my silhouettes.

A sketched out a based pose to build my silhouettes off of. Tried to play with different styles a little bit but mostly kept to what I am good at for this project. 

a lot of them where made using the mirror tool so that the two characters would share similar proportions to each other which hopefully means that I can have them share a similar rig with only a few adjustments needed. 

A lot of the body types where also inspired by the vinyl toys I looked at. having these large feet to help weigh down the figure. If animation isn't a industry I want to continue working in for whatever reason I wouldn't mind designing toys and products, you would be amazed how all these skills overlap when working in the creative field. 

Finally I made my six lots of silhouettes, trying to add as many details in without sacrificing on clarity. I am pretty happy on how a lot of them turned out with maybe the expectation of no.3 which ended up looking more steampunk than I wanted but maybe the programmers might really prefer something more steampunk so it's hard to say.

I find silhouettes to be really useful has a designer just because it's all to easy to think about the finer details rather than look at the whole picture. Doing it this way is more like your painting or sculpting the character as you start but blocking things first and slowly start to add in details you more you work on the design.

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Finally I had to put everything to together into a PowerPoint for possible developers to see. But since I was already running behind I ended up staying awake until 6am in the morning. 

It wasn't great of course but it wasn't awful either since the night is often so quiet this was actually quite nice to just sit down and do my work with some instrumental music to break the silence. It was only when the dawn came I started to get tired .
Still won't recommend it unless you need to give your sleep cycle a hard reset. Sleep deprivation can actually cause some serious side effect, I would know I could never get to sleep as a child.  

When it came to the actual prestation I did struggle at the start and I did ramble on here and there but it really felt as if I was starting to get quite confident near the end. 

It's just a shame I forgot to add in a the slide for the first level because I really think there was some great environmental storytelling in that and there where some many idea for other level I had too. The premise is just so quite you really could have any scenario or any level like an office, supermarket, fairground, museum, beach party, etc. The sky is really the limit. 

Here's all the sides minus the beginning and end ones since those have my email on them.

I wanted to add more notes but I was worried that might have be taking too much control away from the developers since they're the ones that have to develop the game within this unit. 

That being said I am now having to wait and see if anyone will want to develop my idea. And even if I do believe this idea has legs it still can be worrying when others don't feel that way.
None of the other students seems to have gotten an email from any of programming students so it's pretty much a waiting game as right now. 

Wish me luck.