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.

Game Concepts - Environment Assets

Second submission! We each had to design environment assets to put in the game that would have elements of motion. Because our game is set in a rather tropical setting, trees were an emphasized asset that would be needed. Also, our game was set to be made with 3D models that were low poly.

Initial silhouette thumbnails

While focusing more on trees, I also tried to branch off into a few different assets such as flags and skulls that could be placed in the background. Rather that objects the player can interact with, I thought I would work on assets that the player would see in the environment around them. .....

More Assets - rough concepts

I chose three silhouettes to flesh out for the trees, and also added other concepts such as treasure chests and a rock with grass growing on it(...). For the treasure chest that opens outwards instead of the usual upwards, I had wanted to try a concept that would be different to the usual treasure chests.

Last page for rough concepts

Grabbed all the silhouettes and shaded them better + started looking at colours for the tree

Flag: looking at designs, shape and colour

I decided to develop the one of the trees and a flag stuck in the ground. To have a different aesthetic for the tree, we decided to develop the bending tree with the sign. However, Ethan suggested that we remove the sign hanging off the trunk because:

1. It would look out of place
2. The sign would look quite clunky and clustered.

My designs were made to be quite simple because of our game concept being low poly.

Developed drawing of tree

Developed drawing of flag 

After discussing different assets to animate between team members. I was tasked to model the tree. We also decided to add a coconut falling out of the tree to have it looping while also making the tree trunk + leaves swaying to add more motion as well as detail to the environment.

I first started by modelling the trunk by readjusting the vertices for a cylinder, and made coconuts by using spheres with subdivisions of 7. For leaves, we all agreed it would be fine to just model half a leaf, mirror it, and duplicate it multiple times while readjusting rotation and scale to make it look more natural altogether.

Trunk

Added leaves and coconuts

Animated movement

After modelling and animating the swaying movement of the trunk + leaves, along with the falling of the coconut, we ran into a problem: the tree trunk was frozen while the leaves and coconuts moved accordingly when we exported the file into unity. We were then told that unity doesn't support animation through vertices. 

Added joints, control, and IK handle

Animation with the new componenets

During the fixing process, we had to add joints to the tree trunk, and Hamish also came to help add an IK handle while also suggesting that parenting everything to the already animated leaves so that we wouldn't have to re-key the tree trunk, thus saving time. For a cleaner animation loop for the coconuts, we also keyed the falling coconut to be invisible early until it fell to the ground.

Game Concepts - Find the Booty!!!!

Our group first got together and decided to reskin the 3D game, but remove the z axis (depth) of the game, as we found it a problem from the original game provided. This would also cut down workload for us at the same time. 

Afterwards, we generated some ideas for the game as Michelle Zhen recorded them down on her book. We all agreed that our Pirate in search for his 'Booty' would be a fun idea: we all wanted to enjoy taking part of this project. I was also excited personally as it was a theme I never really drew my characters around often. 

Everyone searched up some images for various aspects such as environments, characters and colour schemes to use as mood boards. 

Colour Scheme for a tropical setting

Environment/Style Moodboard
Our group also thought that making the game have low-poly graphics would suit the simple puzzle-platformer genre, as well as cutting down time for us in the long run with the simple shapes.

Pirates
Looking at cliche pirate appearances to incorporate into our character. 

Style Moodboard
Exploring low polygon characters for our character. 

(Thank you Ethan for compiling the images into moodboards for everyone ><)

We all went ahead and sketched up some concept designs for characters and environments.

Early character and environment sketches. Also though of some simple obstacles the player would have to pass through. Ethan came up with the idea that having the player try to activate a cannon to destroy a boulder could be interesting.

Further environment sketches for the side slider style. We went for a rather tropical setting to fit with the light mood of the game with the bright environment colours. Also sketched some ways the gunpowder to activate the cannon could look as a resource.

More character concepts. Tried to incorporate stereotypical pirate aesthetics along with exploring different ages and personalities for the different concepts.

We thought the pirate's 'booty' could have been taken by a shark which would be the reason for the player's journey. (Lauren came up with Loan Shark...) = we gave the shark a suit to wear. I also sketched a few doubloon designs(that spelling though) if we decided to use it as a resource.

Few more designs for the loan shark. 

Production Interactive: Environment concepts

Are these even thumbnails now