Dave Blewett, Sumo Digital

We had a talk from the Art Manager at Sumo Digital, a majorly established independent game studio based in Sheffield. The talk felt very tailored for someone in my position, as Blewett had worked most roles in the game artist field. As he explained, 'Artist' in the game industry used to be an umbrella term for something with the full package (UI, Environmental Art, Modelling...).

The roles in the industry today are:

Concept Artist.
Environmental Artist (3D)
Character Artist (3D)
Animators
Motion Gaphics
User Interface Artist
Vehicle Artist
VFX
Technical Artist (rigging, hypershade)
Lead Artist (lots of planning on Microsoft Excel)
Art Manager (meetings and more Excel)
Art Director (monitors quality of art)

Blewett asked us some questions relating to how we see ourselves as practitioners:

How adaptable are you?
Can we pick up new skills quickly and help fill a hole where needed?

How realistic are you?
When time and budget run out will you be prepared to modify your approach?

Do you have the right team spirit?
When clutch time comes, will you be prepared to stay late and grind it out?

Are you a professional?
Can you be trusted to talk to the publishing staff.

Reflecting on these questions, firstly I feel I am quite adaptable, as I had to change my style to adapt to our final major project. I do feel quite able to let go of preciousness with my work, a point raised by Bewlett. When working in groups I am always open to feedback, making tweaks and even sometimes discarding pieces that don't quite work out. Also I feel that I have a team mentality. I like to think I'm quite a tactful and considerate person, and would feel confident with talking to publishing staff. I think the point Bewlett was making here, was that sometimes when publishes arise to criticise or discard work, some artists can reply with attitude. I am quite an easy going person and receive criticism well.

It was interesting to hear Dave Bewlett talk about the characteristics and attitudes of good artist in the game industry. I think the key message was that when developing games as an independent company, teamwork and flexibility is key. I will carry this mentality in to 'Zeppelin for Hire.'

Writing my CV

I have now completed the main body of my CV, but I have yet to write a concluding paragraph. I feel that this will likely be tailored for the jobs I apply to (I hope will consider me for the position of...) Hopefully, if Zeppelin 4 Hire is successful, I won't have to worry about sending CVs, but it is good to have one written incase I decide to apply for a concept art job. As I have already specified, I don't yet feel I have the skills for employment i the established games industry, but hopefully the indie game collaboration will be a nice springboard to develop my creative skills further.

Nostalzilla

Firstly pardon the terrible pun. As I saw the new Godzilla movie the other day, I thought I would share a review, focusing also on some of the design choices tying in with my area of practice.

Firstly, Gozilla has returned to the bottom heavy upright stature we were used to prior to the poorly received 1998 envisioning of the classic monster:

I think the key aspect as to why this approach was taken, is that firstly, we associate this more upright human-like Godzilla as a defender of the city. It moves away from the more arched dinosaure-like look of the Godzilla we saw in 1998. The enemy monsters (M.U.T.O) were more insect-like with dead expressionless faces:

Unfortunately there are no movie stills or concept drawings of the M.U.T.O on the net, but as you can see, the enemy creature lacks recognisability with its long limbs and crazy anatomy. Even the legs are horse-like, making the monster entirely un-relatable. Godzilla has more human features like arms and legs and expression filled eyes. The stubby, cartoon-like anatomy of 'Zilla with the tree trunk legs, makes him strangely cute as well as terrifying. He almost appears like a giant mean teddybear. I think the new design gives off similar effects to Peter Jackson's 'King Kong.' The giant ape is at times fierce and shiver-inducing, and then at moments adorable generating massive amounts of sympathy. 

I also liked the choice to set the first part of the movie in Japan, bringing back the oriental origins of the monster. Also, I believe the film does well in presenting 'Zilla as a force of nature. When he arrives in Hawaii, the sea retracts in preparation for a tsunami. The monster arrives within the tidal wave raging through the city of Waikiki. When the monsters fight in San Francisco, we mainly see glimpses of the action from the perspective of protagonists on the ground. I was expecting 'Pacific Rim,' but to my pleasure the action was more subtle, and I was reminded more of 'Cloverfield.' the way we only see parts of these monolithic monsters do battle, made it feel like there was a giant storm raging through the city, rather than a giant dino-boxing match with destructible skyscraper looking props. There was a particular scene where a military unit were parachuting into the scene, and we were treated to a helmet view from one of the soldiers as he descended past the colossal Godzilla. I feel these are points on framing and shot set-up.

In the 1998 envisioning, Godzilla was often seen arched over in full shot.

In the most recent adaptation, Godzilla stands taller, often mostly out of frame to emphasise his monolithic stature.

Overall, I preferred the way that Godzilla was presented in this 2014 instalment. He reflects much more of the classic Godzilla build, and arrives to restore natural balance after the M.U.T,O arrive, rather than needlessly terrorise mankind.

Super Speedpaint Funtimes

There was some recent controversy towards the 'Daily Spitpaint' group on Facebook. The admins were supposedly enforcing rules hard, banning people instantly who claimed to have gone a little over the time limit. There was also a post saying that photo stamp-like brushes (Tree stamps for example) were now also banned. For this reason, concept artist 'Espen Olsen Sætervik' created a more relaxed group.

'Super Speedpaint Funtimes' allows a 50 min time limit, allowing phototextures and any brushes. I don't think that this new group has the intention of sabotaging Spitpaint (which I am not adverse to still using despite its strict rules), but I think Espen has created something that more tailors concept artists, where we can work in our comfort zone, applying phototextures and a fast workflow as we please. I like this new groups approach. It has yet to loose touch with the idea that art is about having fun and being creative. As long is it doesn't plagiarise, we just be free to use any media to express ourselves.

I submitted this piece for the topic '500 years in the future:'

I chose to begin with this topic as it fell with out my distopian future Sci-fi comfort zone. I didn't use photo textures or reference in fact for this piece, as I was acting on impulse and being expressive. I will likely try more topics, but treating them like mini-briefs. I will gather reference and try and create an efficient workflow using phototexures and appropriate texture brushes.

Saturday Night Vengeance

Yesterday we began discussion on our first project. The working title (one that we are happy with and will most likey stick) is 'Saturday Night Vengeance.' We want to go for a very retro 80s tougue-in-cheek feel. There are few comical themes already emerging:

1. Over-the-top Violence:



One good example of this is indie game 'Broforce' which pokes fun at macho American 80s and 90s movie characters and satirises American patriotism. The player charges into a non-specified Vietnamese looking environment, blows up half the scenery, mercilessly kills the enemies in a firework display of gore, raises American flags, and on leaving hanging from the rope ladder of a helicopter, a banner reads 'Area Liberated.'



The game makes fun of America's superiority complex, by making fun of the oriental enemies 'shoddy third world construction.' I really like this flamboyant satire approach.

2. Obsolete Technology Predictions:

We're thinking old chunky computer monitors, Big analogue buttons and questionable fashion faux pas.

Classic revenge narrative:

Perhaps with a ridiculous motive. Something highly nonchalant and unspectacular, as oppose to the dramatic wedding massacre plot from 'Kill Bill.'

We have also been discussing presenting ourselves as a collaboration between artists, rather than a small indie games companies, for the purpose of networking. This way we can still present ourselves as individual practitioners before making the decision to tie ourselves down to a company as it were.

Zeppelin 4 Hire

Tim, Adam and I have begun some preparation for a small indie game company (Rhys is still unsure as to whether he will be able to contribute the time after the course has finished). Tim is eager to get things moving quickly, so has requesting a logo design so that he can build a website.

We had the idea of a man riding a small zeppelin in a rodeo fashion, much like the famous scene from 'Dr. Strangelove:'

When I present a visual idea, I usually like to present two or three similar ideas. The approach here was to try different angles and expressive poses. It's surprisingly challenging to get a nice cartoony exaggerated feel. On further discussion, we thought it would be funny to have a 'Fat Princess' style character riding the zeppelin. 

The design actually looks more like an old lady but still gives a similar comic effect. I have thus far worked with with rough sketches, but am planning on taking the lineart into Illustrator and creating a clean vector for the web. I will probably rework this line drawing, making the character look more like a young overweight princess, and it has been requested by Tim that I lengthen the zeppelin to make it more distinguishable.

We have began some early discussion on our first potential project, but Adam raised the interesting point of scale and scope for our first undertaking. We are going to discuss this tomorrow in the studio.

Offering Work

I saw an add from 'Allusondrugs' seeing if any aspiring artists would be interested in contributing some poster art. I'm aware that free work is a sometimes controversial subject in the freelance business, but as I am a genuine fan of Allusondrugs' music I thought it could be a nice opportunity to get my work out there and produce some portfolio material:

I kept my opening message quite informal and chatty, as I felt this appropriate dealing with the band director and not a manager figure. I was complimentary towards their work, showing that I enjoy their material and will show enthusiasm towards any requests. 

It's been a few months since I got the reply now, so I am not sure if I will hear back from the band. On reflection however, the band now are really doing rather well, with a video aired on 'Kerrang' and an article in 'Q Magazine' to name just a couple. If the band had have taken up my offer, I could have ultimately benefitted through fans of the band seeing my work. It goes to show that there are plenty of opportunities to broadcast artwork, and I will continue to offer my services to projects I am genuinely enthused by.

Jobs in the Game Industry

A generic corporate powerpoint presentation style photograph of a frustrated businessman.

I have recently been looking at jobs in the industry within my region. There are quite a few developers in the Leeds area interestingly. Even in my hometown of Castleford there is the company 'Alternative Software.'

One thing I have found however with smaller developers, is that there seems to be big market in sports games. Also it is clear that other companies like 'Four Door Lemon' are established for offering coding services, an area obviously outside my depths within the gaming industry.

There are also excited developers 'Rockstar North,' 'Just Add Water,' and the small indie company 'Hypersloth' all based in West Yorkshire.

Reflecting realistically with where I am in terms of my abilities and possible jobs in the industry, I feel I am still clearly at a post graduate level, and perhaps still need more time to develop as an artist. Many of the successful concept artists who are vocal on Facebook like Titus Lunter and Mark Molnar work freelance under contracts from larger games companies like Ubisoft and LucasArts. They are also active within the external art community, for example, Molnar gives tutorials in ImagineFX magazine.

It's quite overwhelming really, to look at these art communities online and realise the sheer vastness of it all. There arse so many talented hopeful artists, and such a high benchmark for quality and professionalism within the dominating game industry.

Without sounding cynical, I frankly feel that my journey in the arts still has a long way to go. Perhaps it is self doubt that is holding me back, but I still feel intimidated at the prospect of approaching a games company and requesting a job as a concept artist.

There is always the sometimes controversial approach of trying to find an internship. Alteratively there is freelance work. This would have both its advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, I would likely need a supporting job as my client base would take a while to build. Secondly, this supporting job would likely take priority and it would be easy to get lazy with my development as an artist.

This looming self doubt is likely something worth discussing with tutors. It would be a shame for three years hard work to go unrewarded through slipping into a general unrelated job, as I do equally feel I have taken a lot of skills from my three years of study: even simply a broader understanding of the arts from a social and political standpoint with the Concept of Practice modules.

I want to make it clear at this stage when I refer to myself as not being ready, I am not criticising the structure of the course or support from tutors. Admittedly, the notion of networking and putting myself out there as a practitioner has intimidated me from day one. I resorted to the often used excuse that I was focusing on the module at hand. Although I feel that this last year I have managed to push my artwork further and develop technically, I am still something of an unknown entity to any potential employers, and again, feel that my technically abilities still fall short of the industry benchmark.

I do have an indie game venture lined up, which I will discuss further in a later post.

Frank Frazetta

I've been trying to draw influence from a wider range of artists as oppose to exclusively reflecting on modern digital artists. I like the painting style of Frank Frazetta, as they have a very tradition oil painted look, yet with often exciting over the top subject matter. One criticism I have however, which seems ever-present in modern entertainment design also, is some of the over-sexualised exploitative subject matter:

The women presented in many of his paintings often seem enslaved by the powerful male figures, often nude in a humiliating objectified manner. I imaging his work would appeal more to a male audience, as they seem aspirational and empowering toward the male gender, yet degrading toward female audiences. 

This got me thinking about me as an aspiring practitioner in the digital arts. Gaming is an enormous industry, so it is understandable that it relies heavily on exploitation and aspiration marketing. This is something I am a little bit disillusioned by: the objectification and exploitation of women in the media. Hopefully the industry will learn from 'The Last of Us' and move away from the delinquent flaunting of the female form.

Brushing up on Colour Theory

A friend linked me to this helpful video:



Firstly, there are obviously these helpful colour bridges etc. but a key thing the video got me thinking about which is somehow overlooked in my work is controlling the saturation to manipulate the eyes:

This piece from my extended practice module is somewhat unsuccessful, as the colours are all bright and blown out, compromising depth. The bright cartoony colours are intentional, but it's hard to distinguish the figure in the bottom right corner from the cityscape.

This persona piece I feel is successful as generally cool low saturated colours are used, but in areas of importance like the explorer figures and the wrecked ship there are warm saturated reds and oranges. The saturated characters guide the eyes towards the red ship.

It is important to understand the importance of colour. I have become quite aware of the importance of value control, but colour theory has often been overlooked.

Inspiration.

I stumbled across a motivational video documenting the journey of a visual artist:



There seems to be a lot of videos like this around the internet, and they're very helpful and uplifting for aspiring artists like myself. The key message is that despite a common misconception, anyone can develop into a great artist with time and effort. Art isn't exclusive to those who are ultra talented, and at some point every professional artist has experienced self doubt and struggle.

The 'Level Up!' community on facebook is also a great place for motivational posts. Lots of artists post side-by-side images of there work from a few years ago next to a recent piece showcasing their development. The key thing I can take from this, is that if I am willing to put in the effort, I should undoubtedly develop as an artist.

Specular Mapping

We had already discussed the possibility of bringing in normal maps (specular, bump etc...). We have already established a flat cartoony style, and didn't really want to over do it with bump maps and make it look too gritty or realistic, but Annabeth did suggest that we could experiment with specular maps to distinguish matt surfaces from metallic ones. I applied this to a Weapon of SASS Destruction turnaround I had thrown together earlier in Unity. I found that you could only bring in separate normal maps to work out the bumpiness of a shader, for example specular bump. The flat diffuse specular applies shininess to the entire mesh unless otherwise influenced by an alpha channel within the material. This means again, similarly to when working out the transparency, I am using Targa files:

Here is the channel from the Targa file. The lighter areas indicate where the mesh will be more shiney and reflective, I really tried to put a cartoony exaggeration on the reflectivity on metallic objects like the guns and ammo belt:

Notice in Unity I knocked back the main colour to a light grey and upped the specular colour to full white to further the strong highlights. The gun and ammo belt in frame here are clearly much more sharp and reflective than the matt body of the mech. Again though, we are working with large Targa files, so in terms of efficiency we will probably have to keep the amount of objects with specular shaders to a minimum. I suggested we have the mechs and copper pipes the player passes through as reflective objects, and maybe the wrecked vehicles.

Transparency Issues

The issue I hit with transparency within both Maya and Unity was that when applying a PNG or Targa to the entire mesh of say the 'WoSD,' was that the faces from the back of the mesh like the ammo canisters could be seen through the front faces:

Here the ladders above the left gun are a single plane that require transparency for the gaps in the steps. The simple solution seemed to be to apply a separate transparent texture to only the ladders, using a .jpg for the rest of the body. However, this presented a strange white aliasing problem. Some research on the Unity forums brought me to the understanding that where values are semi transparent, Unity works out the values in between are white, as if the image is sitting on a white backdrop: this video explains it well:

I followed the instructions, downloading the plugin that allowed for the solidify function. The results were successful. The problem however, was that I was using Targa files to enable Unity to read the attatched alpha file, while preserving the bleed created by solidifying the images. Targa files are quite large, and considering I had an entire Targa image for say a spider mech wheel, this was going to be a highly inefficient approach:

Here is an example of the stain glass windows Targa file. As you can see there is a lot of wasted space on a file that is 16.9mb in size.

I had to find a more efficient way to include transparency into our game level. The first obvious approach to include all of the transparent game objects on one UV map. To do this I imported all of the FBX files with transparency into one scene, and arranged a new map with elements like wheels and vandalism:

This shot highlights the white aliasing issue to the right. For some reason, where on my mac book the PNG created the same white alias, here on the university's computers the PNG to left works.

Despite the PNG working okay, I decided I still wanted to use the Targa file format. As I am using also semi transparency, and not just full transparency in the empty spaces, I like to have the alpha channel so I can tweak and control transparency levels with for example the Nighthawks' windows:

There is still unused space on the UV, but having all of the transparent faces on one map is much more efficient. I didn't have the solidify plugin on the university computers, so did a simple method of bleeding out the colours by hand using a soft brush.

Here is the alpha map. The white areas are fully visible, whereas the black areas cannot be seen. The grey areas are semitransparent. I have also just realised that I have missed the transparency and colour bleeding of the bottom stain glass window plane, something I will amend.

While I am on the subject of efficiently, Adam was in charge of UV unwrapping, and he sent me some really nice and efficient UVs. Occasionally however, I would unwrap simple block assets like walls and floors, and I feel I could have been much move efficient:

Again there is a lot of wasted space on this, and with simplicity of the designs, some of the faces could have shared the same planar projection. 

I was more efficient with this container UV, sharing the same projection for 3 of the 4 longer faces (apart from the one with the Nasti Moons emblem), and using using one projection for the square end faces.

Also, with smaller assets like this one, perhaps I could have taken the UV snapshots at a smaller resolution. Generally I projected at 2048x2048, sometimes 1024x1024 for smaller assets. Perhaps I could have used even smaller resolution projections for the smaller less detailed assets to further efficiency.

Building Textures

As mentioned earlier, the game level now takes place in a SOI city (Leeds) which has been overrun by Marauders. I wanted to nail down a general style for SOI architecture, so began by painting two generic buildings sent to me modelled and unwrapped by Adam:

We had already discussed that the Leeds Market building would be a good source of reference. It has an interesting old victorian feel, consisting of lots of iron arches and supports giving both an elegant yet industrial feel. We thought this style would suite the resourceful Sons of Iron quite well. I grabbed some images from google:

As you can see I have also included a brewery cask and a dramatic painting to bring in interesting and vibrant colours. I feel I went into quite some detail with these structures:

I included elements from the Leeds market hall, such as the blue supports and burgundy strip with gold decorations. This contrasting with the grimy weathered stone and dirty copper brewery casks bursting through, gives both elegant SOI and chaotic Marauder characteristics:

I also created a dirty water stain effect around the brewery casks using a soft muddy brown brush, and then applying the smudge tool:

With this subject matter, there is a constant struggle between vibrancy and grittiness. The marauders are an unsanitary beer guzzling faction, laying waste to once beautiful architecture. Despite the grizzly setting of a war torn land and the bleak industrial North, we actually want the aesthetics of the game world to be bright and fun to look at, very much like the 'Borderlands' game franchise. I actually feel that the strong blue iron girders and complimentary orange copper casks help maintain the balance and keep the style fun and vibrant. The details such as vomit coloured moss, dirty cracked stone and water stains gives us just enough to communicate bleak chaotic times without loosing the fun.

I believe also that the heavy black outlines help give an instant comic book effect, also making the forms seem more punchy and exaggerated:

I also decided to build some modular image planes which I dubbed 'Vandalism' parts, to further the level of Marauder impact on the regal SOI architecture. I mixed the colours of both clans, the 'Crimson Teeth' (red) and 'Nasti Moons' (yellow). I also included a fence spike piece to have abruptly jutting out the walls:

On another note, there was come confusion regarding the roof of the tall building. The original model didn't contain a roof and was hollow at the top, presenting issues obviously with backface culling. For this reason I quickly added a spire roof, but it turned out that the tops of the taller buildings would not be visible. Based on the camera distance from the the player character on the test levels, I assumed the buildings would be in full view, but it turns out the scale will be upped and the camera moved closer, which in my opinion is better. The added roof did come in handy however for a rendered out shot I did of the textured and vandalised buildings I produced to be used as a promotional image:

Backface culling was an issue when I turned on the backface culling shader in maya. For single planes like on the street lamps (which you will see in a moment) I duplicated the faces, reversed the normals and them combined them both.

With the the Sons of Iron being a religious faction, it was suggested that stain glass street lamp decorations could offer a splash of colour and interest:

Reference

With the street lamp decorations, I went for an industrial/ agricultural feel, as if the SOI faction are celebrating their technological advancements. I could have had the stain glass plates cracked and damage by the marauders, but I didn't want to loose the vibrancy and vividness of the designs.

After completion of these standard SOI buildings, I could efficiently apply the same style to others copying over the layers and using the clone stamp tool:

For this pub building I tried a slightly more traditional victorian style with the blue decorative trims, more like the 'Victorian Street' environment concept  piece I produced during the R&D phase.

Notice here that I brought back some subtle art deco elements with the door and decorative small blocky structure directly above the door. It's fun how I am able to combine all these different architectural elements to try and create a unique aesthetic style for the SOI. I think the key with the SOI, being a conservative yet technologically advanced faction, is to try and achieve a new meets old look. The art deco seems suave and classy, against the old industrial iron girders.

That is not to say that we followed this set style for every piece. Adam sent me a building that he had dubbed 'Nighthawks' bar, along with the painting that inspired it:

I liked the mood of the pice, and thought the oranges might match some of the brewery elements, along with the greeny blue theme we already have, so I used these colours:

I painted the font by hand, using reference:

The petrol station below is titled 'Conch' as a humorous play on oil company 'Shell':

Notice how I used phototexture with the brick, taken from Tim's reference photographs taken at the Canal in Leeds. I introduced more phototextures later on, for reasons of both efficiency and also a more dynamic less flat style.

On another note, when rigging the Mechs, it was important that I maintained good practice (naming the conrols and joints conventionally, Locking off controls with the limit attributes function to prevent the rig from breaking...) so that I could pass the rigs on to Rhys for animation. With me being the sole texture artist, my approach was much looser. I used lots of unnamed layers, organised only in rough folders:

This was I okay for me, but I remember hearing artist Titus Lunter speaking about how he once did a job where an experienced artist who was new to digital art passed on a file convoluted with many tiny layers, and Titus spent half the time organise the work before he could paint over anything or make tweaks. This is definitely something to consider if ever I am producing images that could potentially be passed on to other artists.

Rigging Issues with the Spider Mech

On top of the main WoSD, I was also assigned with the task of rigging and texturing Adam's spider mech model. The original concept came from a painting produced by Adam in the R&D phase. With the deadline creeping up, we have accepted the strong likelihood that we will only be able to complete one playable level. The Spider Mech model was created early on, and Adam had the idea of including it as a SOI machine highjacked by the Marauders. This way the SOI lore is still present within the Marauder game level. The stolen Spider Mechs are owned by the 'Nasti Moon' clan,  who adopt a yellow colour scheme:

There is a conscious decision whenever a Marauder clan emblem is drawn to do it loosely freehand. It gives this quickly painted on look fitting the Marauder's chaotic character traits. The Marauder Spider Mech includes also a wooden beer cask, fitting with a new narrative where the Marauders have turned the city into a giant make shift brewery. On this barrel you see the Nasti Moon's clan emblem.

The rig itself for the spider mech was fairly straight forward, using single Ik handles with the standard three joint humanlike legs:

I hit trouble when painting out the influence of the legs on the body of the spider mech. I quickly discovered that I needed to physically hide the legs as to not paint out the influence on them when trying to get to the body. I had the leg meshes on a separate hidden layer originally. The major issue however was that Maya kept crashing when painting out the influence. I researched the issue online and made some attempts to put less strain on Maya when painting the mesh. Firstly I went into the preferences and deactivated the undo feature so that Maya was no longer trying to remember 50 stages while using the 'paint skin weights' tool. Secondly, I toggled off the 'construction history' feature:

Unfortunately this didn't resolve the issue, and I kept getting error messages. The only solution was to reduce the size of the brush and paint carefully, trying not to influence too many vertices at once, and to save very regularly. On reflection, we are working with very simple low poly models, so the weight painting shouldn't have really caused problems. Speaking with tutor Matt, he explained how others had reported similar struggles when weight painting in the Maya 2014, and that could be accredited to a bug. Unfortunately this glitch made the process much more drawn out than it had to be, causing me to have to boot up Maya and reload the scene repeatedly after a crash.

Matt also noticed an issue with the weight painting of the legs:

Notice how the influence from the knee joint is causing the end of the first leg mesh to bend up. I realised that I needed influence running down the leg mesh from the leg joint, and same with knee mesh and knee joint, as shown below:

The gradient mode also shows blue influence on other legs, and there was also some unwanted influence affecting the front of the body and the wheels. Rhys offered to complete the weightpainting before resuming his role as animator. This is where good practice and naming conventions were important with the rig enabling Rhys to navigate around the model and work efficiently.