#grey 2d boxes

[wally-b-feed]

[valeriianz]

Trinket Poll Game

this seems so fun :) tagged by @virgo-dream and @carnelianmeluha, thanks!

tag game: pick stuff from your room and have people vote on which one they want to take home.

have at it! haha i tag: @issylra @seiya-starsniper @dreeeam-diary @beatnikfreakiswriting @five-and-dimes @tj-dragonblade

[rjalker]

Well I drew the MOGAI-flag themed one first to demonstrate 3D vs 2D characters, then I was like "Well I may as well make a base while I listen to this audiobook" so then I made the base for a cube. Then I made the little gold and green one.

They both still need names and pronouns. I think it would be funny to call the first one Mo Guy. Yes. It's punny and I love puns.

Help me pick some pronouns and gender(s) for Mo Guy.

[ID: A digital drawing of a cube character who has a single round eye on a blue face, with a small smile under it. The character is shown from different angles, and unfolded showing both the outside, and inside. The inside is solid purple, with white where the eye and mouth are. The outside version shows the blue face, a yellow bottom, a purple and teal sides, a green top, and a brown back. On drawing in the upper corner shows the side transparent, with simple grey blobs inside showing the internal organs. End ID.]

[ID: A black and white drawing template showing a cube from two different angles, and then unfolded into six boxes connected at the sides. End ID.]

and this one still needs a name, pronouns, and gender(s).

[ID: The template drawing from above, now showing a cube character with alternating sides of orange, gold, and yellow-green. The character has two eyes, one gold and one green, on an orange face. On the upper part of the face is a white triangle mark that forms part of a three-pointed star birthmark. The character has four simple green legs, and a tail that is orange with white stripes, and ends in a flat rectangle shape. The character is drawn standing, lying with legs tucked under like a cat, and with the legs hanging limply down in the "unfolded" version. End ID.]

The template is free to use, I'll edit a link here when I've uploaded it, and these, to the Internet Archive :) both these characters are public domain :)

[underwhelmingalchemist]

'Tis it season to talk about last year's Christmas Shark Gift (and share a brief tutorial).

So I have a sibling who loves sharks. Like, they have like ten or so shark plushies in their bed alone.

Last year there was a trend on TikTok where someone showed the sharks they made out of old cardboard, and other people started posting theirs and tutorials on how to make them. They were usually wall-mounted and looked VERY cool.

I was doing handmade presents only last year, so naturally, this would be the perfect present for my sibling.

I started by taking a bunch of cardboard boxes from work. Then I found a 3D tiger shark model and got to work.

First up was the "skeleton". I drew a silhouette of the bottom of the shark onto a large piece of cardboard, then used a box cutter to cut it out. Then I cut another half-oval that would serve as a sort of spine that guided the shape of the shark, extending beyond the bottom of the shark into what would become the tail. The bottom of the second piece of cardboard was then hot-glued along the center of the first.

After that, I cut out the tail and fins, hot gluing them on in a similar manner. I then cut long, thin strips of cardboard and glued the bottom of each strip to the edge of the shark's silhouette, and then adjusted the length appropriately and glued the top of them to the top of the spine. I then glued on some going the opposite way for some additional structure.

At this point, the shark looked like this:

Next came the top fin, which was glued in place and then secured by a couple additional scraps of cardboard, followed by masking tape. Additional cardboard was added to make the fins slope into the shark slightly.

Then the taping (some of which you can see above) began.

I covered the entire shark in a layer of masking tape, using this to smooth it and secure it further, as well as provide a base for the paper mache that would come next.

Once the shark was covered, I started the paper mache. Using wood glue and the paper they sell for packing things, I covered the shark in a thick layer of paper mache.

Once that was dry, painting came next. Using the 3D model as reference, I began with a base of light grey and white paint.

Once that was dry, I started adding shading, marks, etc. In order to make the eyes feel less 2D, I used hot glue to make two dots, which I then painted black and attached to the shark.

When it was done, I had this shark:

It was then sealed with modge-podge.

The shark was about four feet long and took me somewhere around 20 hours of work. I literally finished it Christmas Eve.

This meant wrapping it somewhat last-minute. This presented an... interesting challenge.

I didn't have a big enough box to wrap it in (the box I had planned to use just barely didn't fit the tail), and since it was Christmas Eve, I didn't have time to find a bigger one.

So I had to get... creative.

Wrapping it took about 20 minutes, and carrying it into the living room raised a few questions. But with that, the Christmas Shark was ready to be presented to my shark-loving sibling.

They did not like it and it has been sitting in the living room corner all year. It has never once made it to their room

[skitterhop]

how i did the shadows in MAGIC SHOW

I thought it might be fun to write a little breakdown of how I made the shadows in my animation!

so a little bit of context about magic show: i made this animation very quickly! it was a gift for @xxacidnekoxx, and in total i worked on it for about 2 weeks.

there wasn't an animatic stage, and i drew all of the final frames as i went. i didn't even know it was going to have shadows at all until I finished coloring it and realized the whole thing looked a lot more flat than i had anticipated.

oops!

luckily, getting the animation from this to its shaded state only took a few hours.

so let's break it all down!

Part One: Some Basics

it's worth noting that the animation software I used for this is toon boom harmony. a lot of what i'll be talking about is harmony specific, although you could certainly apply similar techniques in other programs.

Masking

the idea is simple. you have three images. the first two images are the same image, but with different palettes. the third image, known as the mask, is grayscale, and defines which areas use which palette.

when combined, the black areas use the first palette, and the white areas use the second palette. grey areas mix between the two.

in harmony this is easily accomplished with just a few nodes.

the unlit background is layered on the bottom. the lit version is masked by the cutter, and layered on top of the unlit background.

this kind of setup will likely work for most cases. however...

by default, cutter nodes will only use the alpha channel of whatever is plugged into the matte to determine which areas to mask, ignoring the actual brightness values of our mask.

this causes some issues for us! our lighting has layers. we want our spotlight to make the background lighter, and we want our characters to cast shadows on top of the spotlight.

luckily, we can force harmony to use the matte input's brightness values to determine the mask instead by inserting a greyscale node before the cutter and ticking the "matte output" box.

(btw, if you need a layer or matte to become a solid color, you can plug it into a Matte Blur node and pick which color you want there. very handy in combination with the greyscale node's matte output!)

Color Overrides

the easiest way to make alternate palettes in toon boom is to right click on the palette in your palettes list, and click "Clone..."

this makes a copy of your palette where all of the colors are linked to their respective counterparts in the original palette.

with cloned palettes, harmony uses whatever palette is highest in the list (or whatever palette is currently selected) to determine which version of the palette it uses in the scene. you can override any layer's palette priorities by plugging it into a Colour Override node and adding the new palette you want as a whole palette override.

Apply Peg Transformations

the Apply Peg Transformation node is simple. normally peg transformations occur before the drawing node. this means every instance of the drawing will share the same transformations. but this node lets you apply them after the drawing node.

this allows you to insert multiple instances of your drawing, each with unique transformations!

perfect for our shadows!

that's the basic gist of it! combining these elements gets you most of the way there.

Part Two: Getting The Rest Of The Way There

unfortunately, our table looks like it is floating at the moment.

this technique is very efficient, but the results are far from perfect.

shadows are what happen when an object blocks light from hitting another object. generally these objects are "three dimensional" and have "volume", which, in combination with the position and angle of the light source, changes the shape of the shadows they project.

the truth is that reusing flattened 2d artwork of characters to create shadows can only get you so far. the effect looks better when the light source is coming from a similar position and angle to the camera, but looks worse when the difference is greater.

in our case, the light source is close enough to look convincing on the curtains, but the shadow doesn't line up with the table's feet on the floor, absolutely shattering the illusion.

so how do we fix this?

Color Overrides Again

the Colour Override node also lets you non-destructively remove specified colors from a layer.

here i've "deleted" the table's shadow by using a Colour Override node to replace all of the table's colors with 0 alpha colors.

this is a very efficient method of removing objects from a lot of frames at once!

cutter nodes can be used to further mask away any remaining parts of a shadow that you don't want. example:

Manually Adding The Shadow Back In

no node fuckery here. i simply made a new layer and drew the table's shadow by hand for each frame and included it in my shadow composite.

this little bit of manual shadow animation really ties everything together and sells the effect in my opinion.

Part Three: Finishing Touches

these aren't necessary, but they add a little bit of polish

Mesh Warping To Add Form

the shadows subtly wrap around the curtains as if they were a little bit round. just gotta run the shadows through an Apply Peg Transformation node connected to a Mesh Warp node. be warned that the bezier handles on this thing are a lot more finicky than the other bezier handles in harmony and sometimes they bite you.

Blurring Spotlight Edges

in the real world, shadows get blurrier the further away they are from the object that's casting them. it probably would've been a lil more realistic if i slightly blurred the shadows that the characters cast on the curtains as well, but i thought they looked better sharp here. realism doesn't actually matter just do whatever looks Good Enough.

Floor Reflection

i used an Apply Peg Transformation node along with a simple peg to layer a flipped instance of the curtain's Lit shading on top of the floor. blur it (more vertically than horizontally,) set the blending mode to add, and lower the opacity. done!

that's about all i can think of right now. thanks for reading if you got this far!

as a bonus here is what the whole node tree for this animation looks like. most of the shadow & background stuff is happening over in the upper right cluster.

[britneyparallax]

When I was just a wee goblin pup, the box art of the Game of the Year Edition of Homeworld (1999) caught my eye in the electronics aisle of the local Walmart. The yellow and red striped Taiidan Heavy Cruiser on the cover was probably the first space ship I'd ever seen that wasn't a boring military grey. I bought the game and fell in love with it's music, it's lonely atmosphere, and it's inspired art direction. I later learned that the striped look of it's enemy faction was inspired by the prolific sci-fi covers of Chris Foss, and I spent my teen years collecting many coffee table books that show cased his art. As I attempt my dream of indie game dev, it naturally made sense to allow myself to be inspired by these titans of imagination. To make my art of space ships and backgrounds fit in with my cute and toony Goblin girls, I use 2D art programs to paint over my blender models. First I start with the completed model.

Then, with the help of the Freestyle Add-on, I use it's Free Style Edgemarks to set up the desired patterns.

Render, while also exporting to .SVG thanks to another Blender add on.

Then I use the recent new breakthrough in later editions of Inkscape, it's excellent Shape Builder tool, to mark out the various areas with basic colors.

Then it's into Clip Studio Paint for final colors, gradients, and if needed, the application of textures.

Which gives us a nice 2D image great for use with cartoon goblins. And furry, dog-earred toon Barghests in the future.

[theliterarywolf]

Remember when the Sonic movie redid the Sonic design because it looked so horrifyingly bad and horrific that people just kept commenting on how bad it was? I feel like Disney should at least show 2 ounces of the same mind when it comes to their "Live action" movies... Hell, get the 2D animators and do a Rodger rabbit, I feel like even that would be more exciting and interesting that Anti-Animal Ariel.

Yes, but you have to understand that Disney is that tier of mega-conglomerate that never feel like they have to address anything wrong they've done (outside of superficial cosmetics).

So, even if you point out the dozens of routes they could have taken to make some of these 'grey-makes' more palatable, they already know they're going to make millions due to a combination of Disney adults, people who belittle animation at every turn, and the Chinese box office. So why should they have to fix anything?

It's also another reason why I feel so... Not great about rooting for Disney's lawyers to take DeSantis out to the cleaners because it's like 'you guys ain't shit, and I'm still not letting go of the 'Homosexual Fast-Dancing' stunt... But the other guy is a literal pillar of nuclear excrement that's ruining the image of my birth-state, so... Go, mouse, go!'

[fragileizywriting]

"the reason why you're so let down by your own art is because you have expectations for it," my ceramics teacher told me, senior year of highschool, where i was trying to make something and i was getting frustrated because i didn't have the skills to build it. with that, she'd essentially made me stop crying on the spot— i was sobbing, because i wasn't sure about anything in my future, and we were nearing the end of the year and i couldn't even make one stupid ceramic piece.

at the time, contextually, life was getting hard.

i was practicing 5 hours a day for solo-ensemble; 2 hours during school and 3 hours after, while trying to pass my graduate-required classes, unmedicated with terrible ADHD. i was exhausted. i'd lost a friend group because they didn't like that i was putting music before them, because i wouldn't see them in the mornings because i was busy in the practice rooms with the pianist working on beethoven, of all things, showing up nearly an hour before school opened for classes because i was so unsatisfied...

and idk. the weight just kind of got to me. i won't lie, being 17-18 was hard. it's too much. and i was just having such a bad time, trying to make something in the one class that actually felt like fun, as opposed to singing that had taken over quite literally my whole life. (it dominated. i couldn't do anything. prospects of going professional; of going to a school specifically for music, because i've done it my whole life, played so many instruments and sang for so long, i even had a dream for three months of becoming an opera singer, because there was a local school that practically everyone who was in this section of my hs got shipped off to after they graduated.) so when i couldn't make a simple rectangular prism out of clay, i just started sobbing. full on tears. i couldn't even breathe.

i think i was having a panic attack.

i remember my ceramics teacher so well, how she was one of those old women who drank green and blue smoothies for breakfast and had expressive, abstract acrylic earrings. her art room was a mess, and it was always made worse by just how she lost everything all the time. you couldn't tell if it was grey hair or clay. she had the smallest, narrowest glasses you've ever seen, full of clay on them, too. all she wore was denim overalls, or flightsuits, and it looked nice on her. i think they fit her really well, and hid that she was skinnier than a normal spine.

she just sat me down—- i don't know how she saw me over the stack of massive sketchbooks on her table, the ones that she was grading them for her 2d drawing class—- and told me that.

"the reason why you're so let down by your own art is because you have expectations for it."

god, i was so embarrassed, crying in the middle of class. it was horrible. humiliating. i couldn't stop myself from crying from embarrassment.

i remember asking her, "isn't that the point?" because this was for a grade, i needed points, i needed all As in my classes because that was the only way in to get to the college that i wanted.

"you're being graded on intention, not the actual box. and you're having too much expectation of yourself to make a perfect box and it's hurting you. it doesn't need to be a perfect box. who are you making?"

she was so smart. she'd clocked immediately that i wasn't just making a random box, but rather a way-too-specific design. i told her that i was creating a character of mine.

"he doesn't need to be perfect. i hope he isn't perfect." she kept repeating that over and over again while i broke down in tears again. with one look at my sketchbook, she went: "oh. you don't even need to make a box. if the box isn't working, try making a hotpocket shape. show me that you're having fun. don't spend so much time trying to fix it."

i still have the ceramic i made. i've been digging through my drawers today looking for a notepad when i found him and i got shotblasted back into the past. it's not bad. it's a little broken, because there was always a girl who loved making things to break in the kiln, so some pieces are missing. my box can't even stand on it's own, either, because it tips forward from the weight (and causes it to break more).

i'm glad i made him, anyway. he's really important to me.

[spooksicl-e]

As both a 3D animator with a 2D Artist brother (meaning "Man who looks at Everything with High Scrutiny for Anatomy") and a Christian, (not like,,, vehemently, I am still mentally ill and cringe 👍) I do not put this lightly when I say I took one look at one of your art pieces and AUDIBLY went "My god..." under my breath. Your art is enchanting in a way that very few could put into words, an impossible task that I will now do:

The lighting accomplished by your shading breathes a certain life into the characters as if I can SEE the blood flowing through their skin with every beat of their hearts. Little details like the Corduroy pants of,,, fuck that could be watson OR sherlock,,, (please tell me who the greying one is, he's very pretty) or the little work of the tendons in his hands. Though artistic it makes them distinctly human, like I could peel their skin off and find a fully-drawn set of bone and muscles underneath aswell.

And DON'T get me started on the HAIR! It's like looking at someones scalped wig that got cranked through a cartoon machine, an insane amount of detail baked into a cartoony little simplified outline. And even the crinkles in the clothes, perfect and understandable in a lovely manner; breaks and folds in just the right areas that just compliment the natural "Reality Turned Hydraulic-Press Into Cartoon"

BEYOND speechless at this-

i’ve been trying to figure out how to reply for the past two days, and i think you’ve properly gagged me by waxing three paragraphs of poetic in my ask box

i suppose i can only offer a massive thank you and hope you understand just how grateful i am for your VERY high praise- it was certainly a memorable notification to wake up to!

[osbob-the-existent]

Because the excuse to infodump about storytelling is the best thing in the world.....

Here's your excuse to infodump anything and everything, or something really specific and small, about your story :)

Excellent, thank you so much!

I have several, but the most OC-centric one is Artopia. It's a world largely comprised of craft materials, with various different groups coexisting mostly by not paying attention to each other. The idea actually started off as an in-universe kids show for one of my other worlds, but it just sorta... expanded beyond that, heh

Most of the central action takes place in Artopia, which is full of paint- and ink-based designs- Inknatius and his partner Paintricia, Al Crylic, and the Elders (a pair of watercolour paint pucks) are all local to the area. Additionally, there is Pascel the Pastel, who doesn't talk much and is from a different kingdom (and is also frequently the subject of the main character's whirlwind of chaos), and Pencelope, who is more talkative but also from elsewhere

The neighbouring kingdom is the Shadelands, a grey place largely empty of life as the Artopians know it. Nonetheless, it thrives in its own way- Coalette is one of its few inhabitants, tending to the plants on the far side of the kingdom. At the nearer edge is Monochromopolis, home to Lord Blanq- the former antagonist, current in-the-midst-of-a-rewrite-agonist of the show. He erected the Chroma Dome around the city, in an attempt to keep it relatively undisturbed, but our main characters (as children's show protagonists) keep winding him up and causing havoc.

To that end, and his former villainous role, we have his three henchmen - Commander Scrubb, and Turp & Tine. Scrubb is the competent one of the three, but always gets reamed out for taking things too far; Turp & Tune, meanwhile, always end up accidentally foiling Scrubb's plans through their own hijinks

These aren't the only folks in the world, though- Flatpack Box Canyon house the Kardbolds, small 2d stickpin creatures with a fondness for self-decorating; the Sonorous Seas have the Sondifex, a species of living sounds wrapped in cartoony bodies, and Clutter Keep has all kinds of strange and unusual folks. But, the show being as it was these would be short visit locations, likely for an episode or two. Now that I'm re-evaluating it all, though, they can be more fleshed out!

Thanks again for sending this ask- in the process of writing this I came up with several more ideas! This was really helpful!

[artleaguemdcnorth]

2D Color Theory - Assignment for today 5/22/23 . post 2/2

First assignment begins after the lecture. Lecture is at 9:30 am Monday. 

You will be working with acrylic paints beginning today through next week.

All work to be done today in class and for Homework, will be done in your sketchbook. 

Assignments  for tomorrow will be done on the Bristol pad.

1) COLOR THEORY CHARTS - MONDAY ��( 05 /22/23 )

Students will work color theory charts as follows:

a) Color Studies

b) This will be done in your sketchbook

c) Using 2.5 inch squares with a 1 inch inserts create color combinations using various color schemes discussed in class lecture.

student examples above and below

Create color combinations side by side .

For Example:

1) Red square with blue insert , blue square with red insert.

2) Yellow square with purple insert , purple square with

yellow insert.

3) Orange square with green insert , green square with orange insert.

As you can see , I am combining colors as seen in the color wheel starting with Primaries and so on.

Primary Secondary Tertiary

How does it change when we put blue inside red vs. red inside blue?

Students will do about 24 color combinations in the sketchbook.

A) Use a ruler to do your boxes.

B) Align color combination next to each other.

Example :  R+B next to B+R.

You are doing a scientific experiment to understand color in the spirit of Joseph Albers.

Look him up on google for reference, he’s one of the founding fathers of color theory.

You can also add some color combinations from the color schemes mentioned during the lecture.

Color Schemes:

1) Monochromatic 2) Analogous 3) Complementary 4) Split Complementary 5) Triadic 6) Cool 7) Warm

HOMEWORK MONDAY 05/22/23

Using  a ruler and acrylic paint , make a 6 “ square in your Sketchbook.

a) Now fill the square with small swatches of mixed color.

b) No color should be repeated.

c) Do Not use Black, Brown, Grey or White as color, these are known as neutrals and are not included in the color wheel.

student work above and below

Post all in class work by noon Monday (color charts).

All Homework by 8 pm Monday night .

Tuesday there will be a virtual meet  at 9:30 am to review the ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE WEEK. 

We need to be on task this week so we can be ready for the Midterm next week. 

There will be two assignments for tomorrow and  Weds. Please stay focused and on task.

[gameangliaindustrybrief]

Dev Day Two

So picking up from yesterday; I am going to be improving the movement, making a actual working camera and more grey boxing.

And thanks to all the random stuff installed with unity and the antivirus using 90% of my cpu (not exaggerating) on this computer, my project is now corrupted...

New project time.

After removing some of the random junk extensions that are very much unnecessary, I'm now going to get back to where I was.

So turns out after removing these packages, my original project now opens again.

Back to it, I improved the movement so that it now actually works. I usually work in 2D, so this was a bit challenging...

After that I think that a working camera would be nice, so I get on that. This was a little less challenging than the movement was; but it still took me a fair bit of time to figure out. Here it is:

So now all I need is a sprint for the player (I'm thinking of making them 1.4x faster) and the raycast.

Starting with the sprinting, it was just a matter of adding 3 new lines of code. Also I tried 1.4x speed and it wasn't that different so I went for 2x instead.

Now the raycast may or may not be a bit problematic as I'm never usually good with raycasting.

So I got the basics down for it where it will cast a ray from the camera, but I need it to be right in the middle of my screen rather than off in the corner.

So turns out that the position is screen based rather than world based so I'll need to work out how many pixels the middle of the screen is. At 200 it is off to the right (green line is the ray, red line is the middle).

So this was not the way to do this, I needed to use ViewportPointToRay not ScreenPointToRay as I can easily set the position to be 0.5, 0.5 (half and half / middle horizontally and middle vertically):

Now it works fine and that concludes that bit of the raycasting. For it to detect if the item is correct or not, I just need to add a simple if statement:

After that I replaced the walls with cubes so that they are no longer 2D planes and made the window look a little nicer.

I decided to size everything down so that it doesn't look like a hollowed out skyscraper anymore. I also added pillars in place of some shelves so that I don't have to fill those ones with items (plus they look nice).

While I'm on the topic of grey boxing, I'm gonna add the items and the spots for the desired items. There are going to be 5x2 per shelf; which I thought was a bit too little, then I remembered there are 20 aisles with 10 shelves each...

[em3dproject]

UV Mapping in Maya and Photoshop

To give our models custom textures, we need to use create and use a UV map. A UV map is a 2D layout of the 3D model and is used in Photoshop to create custom textures. We begin this process in Maya by selecting the UV Editor from the top bar.

In this editor, we want to select every face of the cube using shift click. This would normally be fully grey for an untextured model.

Next is exporting the UV map so that it can be edited in Photoshop. To do this use the camera icon in the top of the editor window.

A screen like this will pop up so that you can pick the location of the file. Select a suitable place to find the file for photoshop and apply it.

Name it appropriately as well so that it can be recognised later on.

Open the file in Photoshop and, if it doesn't have a background already, add a layer below and colour it in so that the UV map is easier to see.

Now we can paint on the texture we want on the model, make sure to remember which face is which so that it comes out correctly.

Once done, select 'Export as' and turn the image into a JPG file so that Maya can use it.

Next is making the texture in Maya. This is done by holding right-click and selecting 'assign new material' and 'lambert'. We can then add the image by going onto the material and clicking the checkered box next to the colour.

Now, after adding the correct file, we have to check the checkered box called 'textured' for the texture to actually show up.

Now the cube is completed and can be added to Unreal.

To actually add the cube to Unreal, we need to export the cube as a FBX file. By selecting 'Export all' and changing the file to an FBX file at the bottom (as well as selecting a good location and name), we can export the cube in a way that can easily be imported into Unreal Engine.

To import the cube, just select import in the content drawer and find the FBX file.

After importing the cube in, we should have the cube mesh, the texture and the material. By selecting the material, we can change the colours of the cube. This is why the cube is in black and white as it makes it easier for Unreal to distinguish the two different areas that can be coloured. The code for this is pretty simple, with the colours wanted being put into a Lerp combined with the texture sample so that it keeps the same texture as before. The Lerp is then connected to the material itself (Lambert 2 is my material because it wasn't given a name) to give the material the desired colours and texture.

This is what the colours look like in Engine.

We can also use code to make certain areas of the cube glow by adding a couple multipliers. Multiplying the colour by the texture gives us a texture that is coloured by the the desired colour and then multiplying that outcome with a number causes it to glow (the higher the number the brighter the glow).

This is what a 25x glow looks like in engine.

[mi4012shizashaiyan]

SET BUILDING — PROPS & MATERIALS

Train:

A chocolate box fully duct taped, minus windows. Painted in 2 shades of blue along with yellow door railings and a striped door to replicate the selected scene props.

Platform:

Rigiform covered in white textures cloth and painted in grey, along with platform pillars made with grey colored hard a4 board with bbq sticks as the base pillar.

Bench:

Hardboard painted in brown, cut up into small pieces to the size of the bench.

Railway Tracks:

Popsicle sticks painted in brown and sharp cut sides, bought as a whole by the hot glue gun.

Gravel Base:

Stones, dust particles and sand, along with multibond to stick the gravel base onto the hardboard.

Nighttime Walls:

Hard Cardboard cut up according to the wall measurements and painted in a dark grey-ish black.

Daytime Walls:

Hard Cardboard cut up according to the wall measurements and painted in sky blue. Color shadings of grey and dark blue to add more realism to the sky. Cotton for the clouds, which were pulled out and flattened to give a close cloud effect.

Water tanks:

The water tanks drawn in soft cardboard and cut out by paper cutter and scissors to get the little see through details on the tanks. Thereafter painted in a mustard yellow effect and outlined in black.

Houses/Buildings:

The houses/buildings drawn in soft cardboard then covered up in masking tape to add in a textural effect to the 2d drawings.

Prop Images:

[angeliqueshelleyartist]

Live Brief with Playground Games

Developing Concepts #5

Interior & Colour Script

We had a team meeting about how to proceed with the concept work once Kal's storyboard was complete. Mica had been working on a blueprint for the interior but there was still a lot of design required for each shot and the placement of props, etc.. I pitched the idea of me creating the grey box block-out for the interior that would combine Mica's blue print as well as the elements required for the story board to work - such as the idea of levels, replacing the water with a garden because of the spiders, the placement of the pillars for the mural, and a platform for the Geisha to signify power imbalance, etc. This would also allow me to set up the cameras for each shot and lighting for the colour story. The 3D environment and Unreal artists could take my file and use it as a base for their 3D modelling and set dressing and use the camera settings as a guide for the focal length & field of view etc.

I created Arnold mesh lights and rendered a colour story of all of our shots using manikins from the content browser.

The colour journey was important for the narrative as it had to convey the moment when safety and familiarity became betrayal and danger. The colours were carefully balanced in the opening scene to still have a cyberpunk element, but also to appear inviting. This couldn't happen with either the absence of the greens or the reds as a monochromatic pallet would denote sickness on the green spectrum, or threat on the red, which we leaned into hard during the betrayal shots. The blue in the doorway also linked the exterior colour design to the interior. The main inspiration (supplied by Kal) the team used for the lighting was a series of stills from Cyberpunk 2077 when things took a dangerous turn after the death of a high profile character.

Stills from Cyberpunk 2077.

We assigned different shots to the concept artists to better design lighting and character acting. I worked on the 2D rendering the shots that would inform the majority of the design for the interior.

Concept art I created of the interior using my block-out renders as an underlay. The sketched characters are from Kal's storyboard.

Image References:

Aprilflower. (2016). The clay roof of a Japanese temple gate. [Photograph]. [Online]. shutterstock.com. Available at: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/clay-roof-japanese-temple-gate-419536204 [Accessed 19 March 2024].

Architecture Art Designs. (n/d). 30 Magical Zen Gardens. [Photograph]. [Online]. Architecture Art Designs. Available at: https://www.architectureartdesigns.com/30-magical-zen-gardens/ [Accessed 19 March 2024].

CD Projekt Red. (2020). Cyberpunk 2077. [Online]. cyberpunk.net. Available at: https://www.cyberpunk.net/gb/en/ [Accessed 19 March 2024].

Greenwood Interdesign. (n/d). Fusuma & Shoji | Japanese Sliding Doors. [Photograph]. [Online]. greenwoodidsb.com. Available at: https://greenwoodidsb.com/products/custom-made-fusuma-shoji-sliding-doors [Accessed 19 March 2024].

[elgatofmp]

Past Projects

For my first game ever made called Ogre Adventure. I spent most of my time experimenting with new mechanics that I did not previously know how to utilize. I out branched and added more mechanics that we were not taught inside of class in order to make the 2d game more lively. I feel like my strengths during the process of making this game was my research as I noted every step that I had taken in making this and it allowed for me to spend more time working on the project rather than finishing the research at the end having to rush. One weakness for this game would for sure be the art style because I had to change it around 4 times when making this game along with the main character of the game being changed 3 times until I finally settled on one. I do not feel like the art style that I put together matched in terms of levels and so if I would ever redo this project I would definetely focus on getting better art style for it.

For my second game ever made called ToyBreak I spent most of my time doing the same thing that I did with my first which was experiment with features until I found something that I liked and put them together. One thing that I 100% spent too much time on was modeling objects. I really liked using MagicaVoxel for this project because I found it fun to utilize and so I spent more than half of the time I had on my project just to make furniture for a house and even then I spent 75% of that time on making a kitchen. One strong point I think I had with this project was also researching but I could have done better by researching more into game directions as one of my major weaknesses during this project was the fact that I left the player guessing as they had no way of knowing where they are actually meant to go and what to do besides some signs and some hints that basically meant nothing to someone who never played this as the map is quite large. If I could ever redo this project I would focus on directions and make the game more beginner friendly.

For my third ever game made Tech Runner I took a step away from researching everything and spent more time on mechanics. I first had an idea for this game which was to make a rail shooter game but I quickly realized that it would not workout since I had no idea how to work around with the sway system and there were not enough resources out there to help me with it on the internet and so decided to just outright change the entire idea of the game. The theme of an endless runner came across my mind when playing around on my phone and coming across a game that I used to play called Subway Surfers which was enjoyable and repeatable. I enjoyed making this project but I feel like I should have spent a little more time on the designing aspect of the game as I left it up to the last couple days of the project before I actually started to add a theme to it since until then it was just grey boxed and even when I added a theme all I had to mostly do was use the grid textures and make them fit more and be brighter. I feel like my weakness during the making of this game was relying too much on tutorials even though it helped me understand how some of the things that I previously had no idea how they worked function such as random generation.

Based on all of the previous games that I have made I think for my FMP I will focus on al my weak points from previous ones and avoid spending too much time on one singular aspect of the game by making up a planning board for things that I need to complete by the end of a period and therefore keep myself more organized and ensure I have enough time to fix and finish everything up or at least get close to it.