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.

Creative Studio - The brief collection + final brief

Along with the journal notes during the planning stages, short draft briefs were made to help me along the process. The first was when my second discipline was still how a piano makes sound, before the newer discipline. 

draft 1

draft 2

draft 3

final brief

Creative Studio - Exquisite Corpse Animation

As a class project, we all had to pitch in an image to use as a "frame" for animation. These would then be given to someone else, and they would have to animate a transformation from their frame, to the one given to them so the entire class could create an animation altogether when the animations were combined.



This...was a bit of a pain because I had to animate from 2D to 3D -.-;;; (mind you, it turned out easier than what I made it out to be when I first received the frame...SLIGHTLY easier)

Creative Studio - Journal Notes for Brief

Showing my thought process as I worked through this assignment OTL

Initial ideas for 2nd discipline ideas

Researching for initial idea: how a piano makes sound

Research towards the inside of a piano and the important parts that contribute towards making sound.

Problem solving to find the right discipline to use for my brief. I ran into a wall for my initial idea and ended up swapping it to "how people compose music for the piano".

Research + personal knowledge on what aspects are important to consider when composing music in general, and for piano.

Tried to do research on where composers found their inspiration but this was kinda...stupid to try and research because everyone is different in thought processes and these processes can change for people also.

Notes for answering questions from the brief.

Further notes about the questions on the brief.