Economy

This is a shot showing how I reduced the polygon count (how economical the asset is) from 118 tris on the right, to 41 tris on the left. There is no noticeable difference in the rendered geometry, the shapes look almost exactly the same in-game, as it were.

Maya Viewport Shots

These are some screenshots from the Maya viewport, showing the wireframe and realtime process of constructing the environment.

Environment Renders

These are some renders of the work in progress on the final environment. As it is being constructed in a modular manner, there is more of an emphasis on creating good quality assets, then duplicating and changing them to flesh out the world.

3D Scene Development

Some screenshots documenting the development of 3D assets made for the final environment scene.

Colour Concepts

The first decent colour concept art for the environment along with moodboards, as requested at the Semester 2 pitch meeting. Concept art is not my strong point, but after some tutorials and practice, this is fairly presentable and definitely helps get across the ideas for the visuals of the final piece. Included is a moodboard for the Crystal Cave and Riot Street concepts, as well as a digital painting for each and an extra variant for the street, experimenting with lighting from a streetlamp.

Concept Sketches

Here is some of the concept art, sketches used to come up with the original ideas and to develop the final scene.

New Research Approach

Through discussion with tutors at the crit meeting on Thursday, a different approach to the research project will be taken. To me this is now a much more focused, relevant way to go about the project and will free me up to create a more interesting, engaging and effective environment.

My previous idea was exploring the decisions involved in choosing aesthetically different settings for a game. The wording was hard to understand and ambiguous, confusing the word 'themes' with other concepts and trying to remove narrative from consideration.

Though the wording for the refined project has yet to be finalised, the idea is to explore how game environments can be used to construct the theme visually, adding to the narrative of a piece. My final piece will still be very similar, but will now be more directed to giving the observer a sense of the theme of an environment using the visuals alone.

So by exploring the street, the player should pick up civil unrest as the theme and feel the tension and oppression without actually being told by characters, introductions, etc. The environment setting the theme and mood will be reinforced when the player moves into the crystal caves underneath and gets a completely different experience, finding that the natural geological formations will give a sense of discovery, wonder and optimism - in a strong contrast to the street metres away.

Project Pitch

Pitch Presentation

Project Aim