Tag: environment design

Children’s Book Adaptation: Developed Environments and Game Cover

April 24, 2017

With my initial sketches, I was then able to go into photoshop and add colour to show what the environment is actually like. For example, the drawing of the planets does not show what environment they are filled with, therefore I added the colour, for examples green for the forest planet, so that it was obvious what this planet was.

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It also allowed me to finalise my concepts and refine them so that the outcome was clear and gave a good visual for our game. One of my environment drawings was Emerald planet but this was not clear as it just looked like a modern city with skyscrapers, therefore by adding the emerald colour and the corruption from the witches castle I was able to make this apparent. I wanted the corruption part to look like it was bare land like a volcano, impossible for nature to grow or animals to survive and so I did this by using a dark grey to give the idea that ti is bare rock.

One of the galaxy layouts was perfect for the game logo and I decided that this would be good for a design of the game cover. In photoshop I wanted it to look like the book since our game is based off one, and then the logo would be a textured gold to represent the yellow brick road galaxy. This design is simple yet effect but before setting on this design I also took one of my environments and made that it into the game covers. To improve this further in the future I would like to take the Dorothy character design from my fellow team mates and insert her on the cover, but only slightly visible.

Game Cover design 1.png

After all of this, I then decided I wanted to create another environment concept this time focusing more on the witches tower as it would be a key environment in the game as this could possibly be the location of the final boss fight. I wanted to recreate what I did in my previous drawing in which it shows a castle on a mountain, however, i wanted this to be more detailed. I had the idea that this castle used to contain royalty or maybe used to be owned by Oz himself but because of the corruption of the witch it has deteriorated over time and crumbled. I used photoshop so that I could imitate this and make it appear like a dangerous sd environment rather than it just being a sketch. I am glad I decided to create this as it gives me a better visual of how the game would possibly look. It even shows me that the broken bridge in the drawing could be the final cutscene of the game as this is a hard to reach a place that the player has not seen before.

Witches Castle.png

Children’s Book Adaptation: Research

March 17, 2017

Since my role in our group is environment concepts I wanted to start by looking at work on the internet by other artists that are possibly related to the style we have chosen and can influence me in my work.

Dorje Bellbrook

Dorje Bellbrook is a video game concept artist for Bungie in Seattle that has worked on huge games such as destiny. The pieces below are examples of work she has done for this game. I found these pieces in particular as it gives me a lot of inspiration on different ideas and structures that could possibly be in my forest world. The bottom piece showing ancient structures and a portal gives me an idea that this world could contain man-made structures such buildings, bridges, and ships. However, these structures will have been abandoned and nature has taken over and grown across the structures making them barely visible.

The space concept is a great piece that helps me as I know for each environment in our project I want them to be different planets. However, I was unsure on how I would easily show what the planets contain. This concept is quite simple but does help me as the artist as simply shown the planets using different colours. Then when the player is closer to it the planet contains more detail such as clouds and possibly the larger structures that are key places on the planet. The final part of this concept that I like is the fact that more than one planet is visible in the shot. This firstly confirms that it is a sci-fi setting as no planets are that close to earth.  The planets are extremely close to each other which I feel is a good thing as it gives the player an idea of where they are likely to be heading off to next.

Agnes Staudt

Agnes Staudt is a an art director that has worked on games such as Tomb Raider and Crysis. When looking through her portfolio I tried to find pieces which will help me with different planets to my previous research. I managed to find pieces that show structures on unique islands surrounded by water. This helps me on how I can design the ocean planet. Since this planet will be the location the player starts when they are first transported it needs to have some resemblance to the munchkin village. This gives me the idea that the village could be more of a tribal town spread across multiple islands, then connected by hanging bridges. Since the planet is covered in water the island is surrounded by fishing boats as this would be there the only source of food. Since this is one of the starting locations of the game I feel like it needs to be bright and tropical so that it looks interesting to the player and makes them want to play more of the game. However on the flipside, I could use all of these pieces as inspiration and have it so that it starts off with stormy weather that cause the structures to appear run down, but as the player progresses through the game it starts to become clear, and the town becomes restored.

Sebastian Gromann

Sebastian Gromann is a concept artist from Germany and I stumbled across his artstation when I was trying to look for good research on different styles of farms. As the beginning of Wizard of Oz is set on a farm in Kansas. I thought it would be a good idea to keep with that where the beginning is still set on a farm on earth. I found the right image extremely inspirational as the farm looks to be futuristic due to its vast size as well as the platforms that act as bridges over the top of the farms, allowing the use of more room to be cropland. This gives me lots of ideas on how I could mix the futuristic aspect with the traditional elements of a farm such as barns, metal shelters, and tractors. The other image relates back to the ocean planet as it gives me ideas about parts of the island which could have possibly been flooded and caused it to become boggy yet still usable as a resource gathering area.

Aurelie Moine

The final artist that I looked at is Aurelie Moine. She is a freelance artist that has created some environment pieces but mainly concentrates on character design. I found the first piece interesting in relation to the ocean planet as it mixes the styles of sci-fi and fantasy. This is because it has traditional simple structures made out of wood and stone with mythical creatures surrounding it, however also has spaceships flying by and another planet positioned extremely close to this one, giving the element of a sci-fi atmosphere. The second image is the most inspirational piece that I found from this artist as it gives me an idea on how I can design my sleeping poppies planet. Since I already have a forest planet I wanted to stay away from that and this gives me the idea that it could possibly be the baron or covered by desert and instead of having sleeping poppies, have areas containing radiation or odd looking plants that release gas into the air. This also offers a good contrast to the other planets which I have designed so far as it gives a better range of environments for the player to explore to ensure that they don’t become bored.

 

 

 

 

Robot Concept: Design 3

November 15, 2016

After finishing both of the robots I decided to do a second texture variant of them which would change the theme of the robot. I decided to go for the grey texture to make it look more like a modern more armoured metal. To go with this I changed the colour of the eyes and cables to a bright green so that it appeared futuristic and as if the cables were acting more like tubing for fluid.

I felt like this design works well with the robot in making it look more lethal and armoured however it goes away from the fantasy ancient feel as if the robots has been there for centuries. This robot could be used in a future project or possibly even as a guard within the prison game as that has a sci-fi theme however the first concept works better for this project

robot-3

Robot Concept: Design 2

November 13, 2016

After the first concept was finished I then began to recreate the second design in Photoshop. I decided to use the same color palette with this design as I wanted it to look like armor, especially the head as if it had been made from an old helmet from the armory. To make this more apparent I decided to edit the design by adding the crest which is commonly seen on lots of ancient warrior helmets. In this design, I decided to make it bright blue as I felt like this would be the military color since they are guarding an underwater city. Since the backpack/battery pack will have to be the most armored part of the robot I used a gray color to show that it is made from a stronger metal.

I will also do an alternate design of this which will use different colors to achieve a more modern look while still paying homage to the ancient robots.

When looking back at this design I can see things which I could be improved and some things I am glad I changed such as having the crest rather than the antennas. If I were to redesign this robot I may make it have more detail such as exposed cables and damage that it has acquired from previous battles. Similar to the first design.

robot-2

Character Design: Robot Patrol Guard

November 10, 2016

For one of the main characters in my game, I wanted to create a patrol guard. This character may not be a character that has had dialogue or influence on the story but it affects the environment and will be a repeatable character that is seen everywhere.

I started off this design by creating silhouettes at random which formed multiple different characters. The reason I did this was because of the previous research that I did and I wanted to make sure the robots had iconic features which would be recognizable to the player. After this was done I then found two of the designs that I felt I could develop. I did this by drawing the designs in detail and of all four sides of the robot. I also thought about the functionality of the robot when designing this and made sure things such as cables and pistons could be seen.

The first design gained inspiration from the human skeleton in the shape of the head as it is very defined and a unique shape. I then used claptrap from the borderlands game as inspiration for the way that the robot would travel around, and this would be using a wheel. For the second design, I gained inspiration from multiple sources. The first is the initial shape and movement of the robot. This was based on the robot EVE from the movie Walle and the fact the robot floats around and because of this only has a torso. To appeal to the theme of the game I wanted the design to feel like it was ancient and survived for centuries and I did this by designing the head to appear more like ancient armor which had been modified with cables and antennas to work as the helmet.

Looking back at this work that I created I realize that another method I could have used to create the robot would have been Paradolia since this would give me unique shapes that have not be seen before.  My next step with these designs will be to take them into photoshop and create multiple different variants of the textured robots.

 

Game Mechanics: Achievements

November 1, 2016

This game mechanic is used to reward the player and commonly happens outside of the game. Commonly used to level up the player’s profile. Steam and Xbox use achievements for every game on their systems that level up the player’s profile showing other players the skill of that player.

Telltale Batman uses this mechanic as a way to show the player their progress into the game. When the player reaches a certain part of the game they will receive an achievement that appears on the screen.

DC Universe Online has an in-game achievement system, unlike most games that reward the character of that player with unique items. The achievements are gained for completing all different task such as completing certain parts of the story or for performing a combo such as defeat 5 enemies within 10 seconds.

In my game, I would make it so that the achievements affected the player in the game. If the player earned the achievement they would receive awards that benefited their character or vehicle.

Game Mechanics: Bonuses

November 1, 2016

This mechanic is fairly straightforward as it is used to give the player extra rewards that will benefit them further in the game or simply make them feel better about themselves. Sometimes bonuses can be received if the player has completed a hard task, other times it can happen no matter what so that the player enjoys the game more.

A good example of a game that uses this mechanic is Super Mario Bros. After completing a certain amount of stages the player will load into a bonus stage. This will be in the form of a stage that is filled with coins that the player can collect to increase their score.

Similarly, too before this is also done in Crash Bandicoot, however, the player is timed. The player runs through the course collect as many apples as possible but can not go back if they miss any. This benefits the player in the same way as the other example as it increased the player’s score.

If I were to use this mechanic in my own game I would make it so that it works alongside the combo mechanic. If the player is able to complete a combo or a shortcut that the game did not tell them about then they will receive a bonus award.

 

Prison Simulator:Concept Art

October 31, 2016

Similarly to what I did in my other projects, I decided to create a piece of concept art for the Prison Simulator. I wanted to show off one of the larger rooms in the prison that would have two floors and be surrounded by cells.

I did the usual process of creating a 3D model in SketchUp. This model was based on the sketches that I drew, which I showed in the previous post. This model was fairly easy to create as it mainly containing cell bars and the cell themselves were exactly the same.

I took the model into photoshop and used mainly grey colours as the research I did show that the colours and design are very simple. I Also used some dark browns fro the railings and the tables so that they appeared rusted. This was emphasised when I started to use the dodge and burn tool to show the light coming down from the ceiling as well as the age of the building.

jail

Prison Sketches

October 31, 2016

After the research was complete I started to look at images of prisons and sketch up some rough ideas of what we could include in our prison. The first image I created will be the most recognizable and repeated part of the environment which is the cell bars. These will be fairly simple either being straight or crossed bars with a door in the middle. I then created another door which would be for the more extreme inmates. This was a solid door that had a small latch that could be opened and closed to view the prisoner inside. The inspiration for this was gained from suicide squad as every member of the team is like behind one of these doors. Finally, I created a rough Idea for one of the major rooms. IT consists of two floors which were filled with cells. The second-floor cells are pushed back making a large walkway in front as well as a railing. Finally, I also made it so that the room had a large space in the middle which could be used for tables or a social zone.

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Prison Research

October 30, 2016

Since the game we have been tasked with making is going to be a prison simulator I decided to do some research into what prisons look like and what life is like within them.

I started by looking at TV shows that are based are prisons. This included Orange Is The New Black, and Prison Break. In terms of design, it was clear to see that the building is very simple mainly having corridors and repeated rooms as the cells. IN terms of texturing the colours seen are very dull mainly being grey but they also use bright colours to show specific areas of the prison. This would be a stripe the follow the corridor to the destination. The could be a good design to adapt into our video game as it would make it clearly visible to the player about the different locations. The television shows also showed the different social groups in prison and what the overall atmosphere is like. The groups within the prison are split up into where the person is from and is extremely old fashioned as the race would also be a cause for the groups. The people in the groups seem to get along well with each other however are very hostile to the other group and even have rival groups. This could be a good adaptation where the player has to join one of the groups and then disrupt the work that the other group does.

Finally, illegal things still happen in these television shows such as drugs being smuggled and people being stabbed. This could be missions that the player receives where they have to find the hidden drugs and even attack a member of another group.

Alcatraz Island Federal Penitentiary Jail Cells