Facial Topology

I thought wasting a day was bad, but ive wasted a week of precious 3ds max time, ironic just after watching 'In Time'

I thought it’d be best to get my act together and start work on the mortal engines self-portrait because there’s a hell of a lot to do in such a short amount of time. So over the past week ive put a lot of effort starting with  my head, modelling wasn’t to difficult but I put a lot of time into creating nice and clean geometry and I really wanted it to look like me.

 My efforts ending with this

It wasn’t ultil this Tuesday after alomost a whole days work at the labs when at 4 o’clock I found out that everything I had been doing was basically, wrong…

I was blissfully unaware of the rules in creating portraits.

Turns out every polygon has to have meaning and structure, geometry has to flow and circle around the head perfectly so it can be successfully rigged and animated.

From where I had got to the area around the eyes was solid, but from there down, everything had to go (except the nose, that can stay)

Rich suggested a good site from a previous student to aid in my second attempt at this project. I had to keep referring back to the pictures to see which line starts and finishes where, how many circles are needed in and out of the mouth etc, but eventually got a solid model which I hope is satisfactory (definitely need to check this with Heather !)

This has totally put me of character modelling for my final major project, and I haven’t even started to make the rest of the body yet, or rig it !

Looks like im gonna be spending a lot of my days at labs.

The worlds most fustrating puzzle...

And annoying, I forgot annoying.

The puzzle if you are wondering is punching packing UV’s into a texture sheet. It’s kinda like Tetris, but without the catchy music and fun. 

Seeing as we have to save texture space by making sure we use as much of the page as possible, I decided to go all out and literally cover the page with UVs. So I start to pack them only to realise my efforts have ended with many gaps and spaces.

So then I decided to make all of them bigger and try my luck squeezing them in. I went overboard, a little ambitious with how much I enlarged them, but no biggie ill work it out. 

I spent upmost of 45 minutes starring at green lines on a texture page (swear I could hear the tetris theme tune) But eventually after resorting/organising/scaling/spacing/prioritising/rotating, they all just slotted in !

Huzzah !

One thing I can be proud of, is that my UVs are MUCH denser packed than the computers effort.

1-0 to me ? computer cant even colour within in the lines ! 

Planning and Concepting

Compared to other courses, Game Art Design at DeMontfort has a heavy influence of 2d traditional artwork built into the course. The idea is that being a successful painter/sculptor will consequently make us a better Game Artist/modeller.

Also the guys at Blitz think having a strong traditional background is essential.

A games finished product is as result of a series of processes ultimately beginning with ideas and concepts. Concept art isn’t there to look pretty and make you go wooow it’s so beautiful, it serves a vital process in creating the overall feel and atmosphere of the game and ultimately, decides how well it sells

The important thing about concept art also is that we, as the consumers don’t get to see everything that is produced, just the finished painting. Despite how I (try too) digital paint, professional piartists spend a lot of time on planning things such as composition, subject and colour palet etc. so that they can create the best piece of work possible, everything is thought out.

Every brush stroke isn’t there by chance, it looks amazing because it’s been developed and fully planned out.

I think in the future ill have to start putting a little more thought into my digital paintings, I normally just go for it and hope for the best ! Probably not the greatest of ideas.

I guess it’s alright to do this as a digi paint for the scene we’ve been to in Visual Design, but when we have to create something from scratch ill have to do more research and development.

So what exactly is concept art ? well it’s defined as an idea, plan or an intention. It generally shapes the appearance of the game. Certain messages are conveyed in concept art through, use of colour and different tones used effectively convey an atmosphere or mood. For example you wouldn’t use bright primary colours if you wanted to create a post-apocalyptic landscape. Bit of an extreme example, but an example none the less.

viewpoints on the scene also depict and idea of what is happening. If something is needed to be portrayed as dominant & powerful then a low angle will be used. Looking up makes the viewer feel small compared to what is in front of them.

I think the concept art from Guild Wars 2 is stunning. LOOK AT IT, ITS SO BEAUTIFUL !!! I mean, from these images I can really tell that guild wars 2 will be really good ?

I really don’t know, never actually been a fan of the game, only heard good things though.

All the artwork carries a similar rolling theme. When immediately seeing a paint, the colour palet appears very simple, using just 2 colours accompanied with shadows and highlights.

Particularly in this piece where a strong sense of orange and blue are used. This also helps to separate up the image, using orange in the foreground and blue on the crane in the middle to identify different points of interest. 

One thing I noticed is that all of the painting has a strong light source, throughout the paintings there is always a strong contrast between light and dark .

Keeping the concept art in a similar theme and style helps to shape the game and ultimately giving it its unique appearance.

So yeah planning and concept art, its ruddy important !