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.

Creative Studio - Synthesizing

For this task, we had to join 2 of the previous ideas together to create something that represented "society at its best".

I decided to grab the character task (abstracting), and join it with the memory task (embodied thinking) to create a character that I thought represented society at its best. I decided to focus on the children of society for this task.

The reason why I decided to focus on children was because of what I see around me so often now.

A lot of childhood memories personally revolved around me playing together with other children which consisted of a lot of outdoor activity. Whereas if you see children now, a lot of them have their heads tucked downwards towards a smartphone screen. (...WHY AT SUCH A YOUNG AGE)

The details I remembered were:
-the scent of fresh nature
-a lot of energy
-air flowing past

I decided to design a rather child-like tree character with vibrant colours and many outdoor activities "attached" to him. Nature was a big emphasis on this design as I feel that children really need to enjoy the time outside when they can because
1- it is a lot healthier
2- allows for more socializing
3- you don't get as much time outside when you're older

His tail is a slight lightning bolt shape (pikachu is that you) because it would be out of vision for the character the majority of the time. I wanted this to show his focus on outdoor activities over technology for entertainment.
I don't mean to say that "children shouldn't be using these devices for fun at all". I just think that children recently don't seem to appreciate nature as much as we did in the past because they are so absorbed in their handheld devices. 

Creative Studio - Abstracting

Because my second discipline is about music specifically for the piano, I thought it would make sense to make a music note as a little creature. Piano parts have been made into his hands(keys) and feet(pedals), but in a way that it (hopefully) isn't too noticeable unless someone actually knows about the character and only viewed the model. The dot on the head is a staccato symbol used in music for quicker and jumpy notes.  

The character has the ability to soothe the souls of those who hear its music and the change in colour scheme from the dull grey to a warmer pink and yellow was used to enhance the warmth resonating within the character as it soothes a soul. The staccato changes into a heart as well ><

Creative Studio - Modelling

Representing the Past, Present and Future

I thought an hourglass was a clear way to get the idea across because hourglasses are literally used to show passing of time. The top has been left open with sand flowing in to represent events that may happen in the future, and the middle section represents the present. The bottom portrays a variety of different events such as the creation of the world and historical events including the unfortunately, multiple conflicts which have occurred.
...In all honesty, this one was pretty hard because I didn't know a way to include EVERYTHING in history so I ended up simplifying it T_T;