Week 14 Summary
Art Test #2
Today we received our second out of three art tests this term. We had the choice between either a 3D, 2D or Design briefs. Since I am currently working towards becoming a 3D Environment Artist i choose the 3D Environment Asset creation.
The task we received was to create an Asset for a made up game sequel by our teachers. For this specific one we had to produce a Dresser asset for a Dear Esther sequel. This means we have to work with the same art style as Chinese Room/Frictional Games uses for their games which is an realistic art style.
The task specifications are the following:
Dresser Asset (3k tris limit)
Small Adorning Assets (2k tris limit)
Textures (2x 2048)
In-game Presentation Images
We have 2 weeks to produce this asset, although in the industry the norm is 1 week for an asset like this.
This is my current plan:
- Research
I will start off by researching the companies themselves and see how the assets get used inside their games and also study the art style so my asset would fit well.
- Creating the Dresser
Once the research is done and I have found a Dresser that I like the design of I will proceed with creating the high poly version of the desk to later create a Low Poly. I prefer to start off with the High Poly because it doesn't restrict me in the creative part and also with an asset like this i believe its the better workflow because i can then create the low poly as a shell on top of the high poly.
- Misc items
When the most important asset which is the dresser are done i will start working on the Misc objects that goes on top of the Dresser. What those objects are depends on what time period and type of dresser i choose.
Screenshot of Dear Esther
Research
The Chinese Room
The Chinese Room is a games company based in Britain that got founded 2007. They are best known for creating experimental first person experiences like Dear Esther and their recently released Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.
Dear Esther, which started of as an Half-Life mod to later be remade into a full standalone game were the first title to release from the studio. They got rewarded several prices such as Excellence in Visual Arts and Audio. After releasing Dear Esther the company started collaborating with Frictional Games to create the sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Decent. While developing the new Amnesia which went by the name of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs they at the same time started their development of their newest title Everybody's Gone to the Rapture which released 11th of August 2015.
Screenshot from Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Art Style
The art style of The Chinese Room's games are very realistic. I believe this is to fit their theme of immersion that they are trying to achieve with their titles. By going for a very realistic art style it is easier for the player to immerse him/herself to the world and because the games doesn't have many more game mechanics than walking around it is definitely essential that the graphics attracts the player to want to continue playing the game. This is why their titles are very graphically impressive and they use the latest tech to achieve this. In Everybody's Gone to the Rapture they choose to use CryEngine 3 as their graphics engine because it's high graphically fidelity.
Because the story telling is a main part of their titles it also translates to the art in the game. It is important for the objects to show a history in themselves and make the player able to figure out pieces of the story by just looking at your object.
Dresser Ideas
Since the brief said that we could set the game in any time period we want I was thinking about creating a sort of Victorian dresser because design wise they are among the most interesting to me. I started to look up Victorian dressers and found out that they actually are pretty common not only during Victorian times but they were used commonly throughout history because of their unique look and fancy design. Because of this I started thinking what if it's not set during the Victorian period but just the owner who happen to own it because he lives in a mansion after all. Because of the sort of puzzle type games that The Chinese Room are known for I thought that the character owning this desk could be an Detective, sort of like Sherlock Holmes. This could add some interesting objects on top of the Dresser such as enhancing glass, maybe a just smoked cigarette which still leaves a bit of smoke from it, Clues from a case and so on.
As for the setting i was thinking a sort of Noire type detective. Around the 1950's. So the objects on top of the Dresser would reflect this.
This was the Dresser that I choose as main reference. I choose this specific one because I realy like the wave like shape it has and also the decorations are there but not overwhelmingly so it shouldn't be too difficult to stay within the 3k polygon limit.
High Poly Version
I managed to finish the High Poly version this week, next week I will spend by creating the Low Poly version and then proceed to baking and texturing! I am very pleased with how the high poly version turned out. I brought it into University to get critique on it and the only thing I got critique on was that it looked too real and they thought the reference was my model but textured which I guess is a good thing!
