Game Development - Final Post

Being in charge of the NPCs was definitely enjoyable, yet frustrating at the same time because of how I'm not as comfortable with 3D as much as 2D animating. I was supposed to also create a boar that rushes at the player as an enemy they had to dodge rather than jump on top of. I did do a few very simple, rough and playful concept sketches, but then ran out of time to actually create it for the game.

Rough initial sketches for an idea of what the boar could look like

I ended up taking a lot more time with the crab than what I had planned. ._.
Also, the crab death animation was no longer required so that was cut out too.

...To SORT OF make up for it, I did help with a few rocks and shells though? >.>;;;;;

Simple Shell which was later made into a pile

One of the few rocks

...No I'm still frustrated with myself just as much as I was when trying to get used to working with Maya again. T_T

Game Development - Shark

Our shark originally had simple concepts digitally drawn with a suit and tie just to get an idea of how it could look as a 2D asset within our 3D game. We then decided it would look more comedic if we had a random image of an actual shark with a tie instead. 

Levy, E. (Photographer). (2014). Great White Shark [Image]. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/elevy/14730723649/

Edited Shark by adding a Tie for a professional look ;3

Cropped jaw of the Shark for simple animation

A simple jaw animation was created through Adobe Animate after importing the two images as two separate symbols. This was then exported to Photoshop to convert into a sprite sheet.

Sprite sheet with the simple jaw animation.

My sprite sheet ended up a lot larger than what I expected in file size. Whoops >.>;

Game Development - Crab Animation

Once the concept was set, I began modelling the crab itself in Maya. 

I was lucky that the entire design was symmetrical, meaning I only had to model, rig and weight paint one side, and then save time by mirroring it to the other side.

I wanted a separation between the top and bottom of the crab shell, so ended up
creating two different objects and merging the edges together

Added the eyes as well as placing the area for the pincer

Design of the pincer. The bottom pincer has a more rugged shape for a more rough
feel

Modelling legs and merging to body.

Finished half of crab as well as checking how the legs would
fit the plane.

When I mirrored the geometry, we noticed the very...interesting topology which had to be
simplified. I initially thought that you had to extend everything back to the
center vertex which led to an overloaded number of edges to the "supposed to be" low poly model.

Went back to before I mirrored the geomtry to clean up the topology.

 

I realised I forgot to add the cross on the middle of his shell so after adding half of that,
I mirrored the geometry again for the final crab model

Using the Auto Unwrap UV tool, I also went and smoothed out the UVs so they had as little
distortion from the original model as possible. I decided to go with a red crab because it would stand out
from the overall environment along with the pirate. (Red also can signify danger! >w<)

Crabby finished with the UV textures! 

Also did the same half -> mirror for the joints as well to keep it consistent throughout the
entire model.

Jerwin actually told me about a multi-chain IK handle which would be
useful to moving my legs rather than having to move each individual joint. A normal
IK handle didn't really work because of the multiple joints within the leg instead of
one.

Joints finished along with the controls being added. Good thing there were tools
custom made by the college which helped with auto control. (Just had to make
sure the rotation axis was correct)

Weight painting process...

Final animation for walk cycle

I was supposed to also do a death animation for the crab where it flipped over onto its back and had one leg twitching but I ended up taking a lot longer just for the initial crab itself. Also, Ethan had a code already inputted into the Unity file which made the crab disappear after the player killed it. Ethan would have had to change the code for the death as well when we were all running low on time so we ended up cutting it out. T_T

Game Concepts - Crab Concepts

I was tasked with creating the NPCs and enemies of the game which included crab and boar enemies, and a shark npc at the end.

Beginning with the main enemy: the crab.

I first began by looking at different images of crabs as a moodboard.

From this, I created random concepts of different crabs which looked rather simplified yet very exaggerated for a playful theme.

The lower half of this page were final developments based off the designs group members liked. Many like the flat top crab, along with the crab stuck in a coconut shell. The design approved the most was the crab with a cross on top of its shell. The cross was initially added because I thought it could portray the message to the player that they had to jump on the crab to kill it. It as a relief that this idea got across well to the other members.