BGP Week 5 – Character Skinning and Texturing

For week 5 of 7 in this project, my main focus was on the character, working on skinning, UV-mapping and texturing. Rigging and quick skinning had already been done, and since we use APEX Cloth for a big portion of the character, the primary area that needed work was the face. Mainly opening the eyes and mouth were prioritized.

 
Although a bit difficult to see, here is the facial rig I made. It’s rather simple, since we wouldn’t have time […]

BGP Week 4 – Soar Currents

One of the main features of Clouds Below, is the ability to unfold your wings, and soar on the wind. Initially it was intended that this could be used anywhere, but due to its game breaking ability, allowing the player to go anywhere, we decided that it had to be restricted in some way. Since the vertical slice is a linear puzzle platforming experience, where we want the player to go to specific places, in a specific order, we decided […]

BGP – Week 3 – New Character

During the first weeks, since we didn’t want to use Unreals standard blue character but wanted to get the feel in rather quickly, we used a character I had previously made for class. With Alpha coming up however, it was time to switch it out for the actual character, which, obviously, meant creating it. Me and our Creative Director (Alex Untoro), sat down and had a thorough discussion on exactly how we wanted this character to look. Probably the biggest, […]

BGP Week 2 – Camera

So, this is going to be a rather short blog post, since most of the stuff I did was “chore” programming. Things that needed to be done, but aren’t really food for an interesting blog post..
One thing which importance is often forgotten in 3D games is that of the camera. It is, by far *the* most vital thing, that could easily, and completely, break the experience. And it’s no wonder either.. When designing a game, you go to great lengths […]

BGP Week 1 – the adventure begins

So, here we are, finally. The last course of my studies at GAME, “Big Game Project”, or BGP for short; during which me and 4 other aspiring game designers, artists and programmers, spend 7 weeks to develop a “vertical slice” of a game that could eventually turn into a complete, sellable product.
One week has passed since our concept, currently called “Exploring Wind”, got greenlit, and we started producing. We decided early on that we wanted to *start off* by crunching, […]

Anatomy studies

One thing that is very important when doing characters or creatures that abide by our natural laws, is that of anatomy. Knowing how and where muscles are in different parts of the body and how these work is vital for creating believable models; at least if you are going for a realistic style. It is however, something that a lot of people overlook, me included; at least partially. On some level I have a general idea and feeling for how […]

3D I – Facial scanning and polygonal reconstruction

This week (really a few weeks ago, I’m late with this), we had the opportunity to do something rather nifty. Everyone that wanted, could have their own face photographed, to later use these images and create a 3D scan of it! Me, not being one to turn down a new experience in the 3D field, was very interested in this!
We all went to the MoCap-studio here on the island (which really was just next door from where we were), had […]

3D-I Assignment 3; Part 2

A few weeks have passed and it’s time for another update on the current character modeling assignment. Since it’s been a while since the last update, I’ve done quite a lot. So here’s a summary.

As I find the head and face the most important and noteworthy about this model, this is where I started. The rest was so simplistic that I felt that could come later on. The way I like to model faces is that I start by […]

3D-I Assignment 3; Part 1

So, like mentioned in the last post, we switched concepts with someone else. Or rather we were employed by someone else to make a model of their concept. As such, so was I too by another student. This is the concept I was given:

All rights reserved by it’s creator Ben Ellebracht

 
According to my “employer”, this character is a shaman, nicknamed Hito. The tribe Hito lives in is a peaceful people that respect nature and lives alongside the giant eagles of the […]

3D-I Week 6; Major Plot Twist

Last week, we were told by our teacher, to bring concepts of a character to class on Wednesday. We could either find concepts online, with action pose and turnaround, or create these ourselves. I, who like to practice all things related to the subject, chose to make my own character. This is what I came up with after about two days work:

This is Ehta; a member of the only existing tribe of the species of O’juh.  O’juhs are not […]

Advanced Assignment 3D-I Week 4 & 5

No blogpost last week, and no excuse for it other than me being lazy.. So I thought I’d sum up both this week and the last in one post.
Once pre-production was done, I immediately started with the model. Now, being restless, I actually started modeling a bit before going through the pre-production, mapping out the general shapes of the model to make sure that I got the proportions right at the beginning. Everything done here is strictly based on what […]

Game System Analysis 2 – SmallWorld: Underground

So, one week had passed and and it’s time for another board game analysis. This time, we’re taking a look at a RISK like game called Smallworld, our rather a sequel of it called “underground”.
What is Smallworld Underground, and how does it work?
Smallworld Underground is actually rather similar to the last game, DUST. Your main objective is to conquer regions, and get score accordingly.
You begin by choosing a race; Spiderines, Mummies, Lizardmen, Gnomes etc. Then, you also choose a special […]