Mutualistic relationships

Mutualistic relationships:

(Riddick 3 Concept Art)

I want to use the example of a domesticated animal like a human to a dog rather than a relationship like clown fish and coral as it is far more likely to be the kind of relationship design that would occur in games.

In video game animal accomplices often take many forms, they are a character like any other npc that the player interacts with. giving a steed or pet in a game its own distinct personality or mood is an important part of creating the connection or bond between the player and the npc, visuals play a strong role in this, as well as perceived shared experience.
some examples of the roles that "creatures" play in games, other than enemies:

Familiars:
These are a concept taken from european folklore, ther were believed to be a spirrit in the guise of an animal that practicers of "witchcraft" used to assist in their practice.

These can take various forms, though there are the obvious ones, like a witches cat:

or rat...

steeds- can be animals that the player often develops a bond to/ connection with

Legend of Zelda (Link and Epona)

Shadow of the Colossus (Wander and Agro)

Um... no. Bad example

pets

servants/ minions:

The rats are a fitting animal to use to the character of Dishonored because they suit the feel/mood of the game's environment.

Learning Agreement

Learning Agreement:
Here is a not so brief overview of the work i plan to complete for this project. i split it into a what, why and how to better cover everything i need to do. pending a discussion with tutors, i hope to include work from an extra curricular project (a side scrolling platformer game that i am involved in making) called "The Wanderer: Tears of Irigo", as i am putting in allot of time into the creation of this game, and it has become a large part of my learning path towards the career that i am aiming for. My overall objective is to build an indie game studio using this game as a starting point.

What?

For Ba6, I intend to produce a series of concept art for a primary video game character, and an accompanying creature. This will be submitted in the form of character sheets and supporting artwork. I will back up this work, by producing a 3d model of the character, that has been diffuse, normal, and occlusion mapped. By creating environmental concept and mood paintings, I will give context to the character artwork and model I will produce, I will need to develop a greater understanding of artistic fundamentals, use of colour, light, form, and line.  I do not intend to import my character to a game engine, as it will lack the relevant rigging and animation that would make it a “playable” character; I will present the model in a turntable video reel.

 I will put particular emphasis on working to a video game industry production pipeline, to do this, I will write myself a design brief, in a similar style and depth that an in house artist would get. My work will be based around the theme of “Symbiosis”,

My character and creature will be appropriate to a fantasy setting. However, I will do research into genre and sub-genre, and other elements that contribute to aesthetics, to make sure that my work is appropriate.

Example: (Final character sheet; Marcus Phoenix) i want to do a main character because they tend to be more interesting to design than an NPC (non player character), the model of the character would also have a higher allotted poly-budget than an npc (npc's usually having around 6000 polys and principle characters being more in the region of 10000, dependent on on the type of title and publisher ect.

Why? 

My reason for designing two beings is that I will be able experiment with visual coherence of my work, between the environment, character, and creature. I find the idea of symbiosis particularly interesting as it allows me to visually explore a close relationship between game characters and their surroundings, including other creatures. I feel this is particularly important for an inherently interactive medium like video games. It is important to look at how, as an artist, I can achieve coherent designs that show the player that they belong in the same world, what gives visual cues to the player so that I know not only what to do to achieve this, but also why I should do it.

I also want to create designs that are purposeful and reflective of the character, rather than purely to produce an appealing aesthetic. It is important that my work express said characters personality, and history, through visual means. I will only be turning one of my designs into a 3d model so that I can polish that one to a high standard.

My personal focus as an artist is experimentation, of both design and means.

Food for thought...

(Winslow Homer "Hound and Hunter")

or...

(Jon Howe "The Dark Tower" - a potential direction for a rider and steed concept, the title can be open, and leave allot of interpretation. The designs in this painting are an excellent example of visual coherence. 

How? 

I will define an open sub theme, or title within the idea of “symbiosis” (such as “hunter and hound” or “rider and steed”), this will give my art more of a direction, and help me to narrow down my design choices.

The model I will create will be largely to show me that that the design that the design I have created works when translated into a 3d character. Any changes I have to make in the transition from 2 to 3d will help me to assess the areas of my concept art and design I will need to work on in order to produce designs that will work as game characters.

I will look at symbiotic relationships in nature, how they work, their effects, and their reason for coexistence, as well as the benefits that symbiotic organisms receive or give. I will then look at how this translates into visual coherence or difference.

I will find examples of industry pipelines and work flow to direct the appropriate procedure and technique, (silhouettes or thumbnails ect) I will need to use to design my character, develop, and refine it to make it ready, and viable as a 3d model. I will use a variety of different, appropriate tools and programs, depending on the piece of work in question.

I will present and submit my 2d design process in a chronological document, ending with a character sheet as I would produce it if it were being handed on to a separate 3d modeller, as well as my final character sheets

Schedule of work:

I will complete this work alongside my work for the Brainchild project (the game i mentioned earlier). For said project I will be working on creating a tech demo for a side scrolling 3d platformer that I am making in a group with 9 other GAD students.  My role in the project is “Lead Artist”, I am taking on a directorial role, guiding the visual style/ mood of the game (mostly in accordance with my own vision for the game), managing the design and production of concept art and mood paintings, as well as 3d assets and textures. I produce concept artwork for every area of the game; I also create and design assets for the game. This is why it’ useful for me to maintain and practise broad skill set, in Ba6.

My ability to direct, with clarity but also with realistic expectations will be better if I have an understanding, and more importantly, experience of the entire process of production that I will be overseeing. However this is a large commitment to my time, and as such I do not want to

My schedule will depend on the pipeline I choose to work with; as such it is liable to change.

Symbiosis

Symbiosis: interaction between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically to the advantage of both.

When i had decided upon specialising as a character and creature artist i started to think what kind of work i could produce for my project and why...

I thought that the most interesting way to explore this concept would be by depicting a two different creatures (at least one of which should be human, or at the very least of humanoid shape) that were in some way linked. In deigning two creatures, it would be easy to create two random designs that that simply look interesting as separate entities, it would be harder, but much more interesting to explore the relationship between two different beings, as creatures that both inhabit the same space, and create characters designed to inhabit the same space. This brings in the concept of coherent design.

 (James Cameron's Avatar is an excellent contemporary example of coherent visual design) 

Creating coherent designs is an important part of the design of any world or space for anything like games or film. It helps to immerse the audience in the world they are being presented with, this is why it is particularly important (though by no means limited to ) fantasy worlds.

Carefully considered designing, that is appropriate to the space it inhabits is key to making an audience believe in the world they are being shown. It helps them to suspend their disbelief in fantastical worlds, if everything in that world loos like it belongs. When something looks out of place, it is easily spotted, and can take the audience out of the experience. For my project design coherence will be important, to make sure that both of my designs work together to convey a consistent, mood, style, shape ect, to the viewer. This is where symbiosis comes in. 

I am giving my specialism project the sub title of  "Symbiosis", this will shape the direction that my design will go in. I want to work using a game industry pipeline, "symbiosis" will be the title of the design brief that i  given myself. 

By designing two groups based on a symbiotic relationship, i can explore the effects that that relationship has on the two involved parties,and how i can use that to work aesthetic  coherence into my design

I think this will be an interesting way to look at character design, and by choosing it as a title i hope to look at:

- visual connections between my designs

- how i can show with visuals, the relationship between two groups and their effects on each other

- look at the relationship between the environment/setting and its inhabitants

- how the same environmental conditions could have similar, or different effects on each group.

- look at how certain visual connections indicate

- audiences perception of repetition (used to point out the importance of certain design aspects)

Symbiosis can come in many forms, mutualistic, commensalistic, and parasitic, as well as variations thereof. I will go into further detail on the different types of symbiotic relationships and try to find some examples, both real world and fantasy.

Here are just a few examples that immediately sprang to mind, some what you would conventionally see as symbiotic relationships, others well...

(Maybe not the most obvious example, but when you think about it, within the context of the game it holds up)

Ba6: Specialism

Ba6 is entitled "Specialism", this is where i can choose the direction i want to go in the games industry, based on my experiences inside and outside of my course from the past two years.

When i applied at NUA, my only interest and learning goal was become a concept artist. I wanted to improve my skills at 2D art, particularly digital art. I came from a traditional, fine art background. I had painted allot in oil, acrylic and various mixes of different mediums.

(an oil painting of mine using an impasto technique)

 I started to become interested in figurative works, i loved the fluidity of organic forms, and the human body in particular, i started to produce character concept art using hard outlines with an ink wash. my use of this technique was inspired by the art of illustrator Quentin Blake, who was a childhood hero of mine, and later by the concept art of James (Hawkprey) Hawkins, as well as the general use of line art in anime. 
It was this interest in figure that pulled my interest towards exploring those forms 3D. i felt like exploring these forms in 3d would be just an interesting direction to take my art. For my portfolio (as part of my application to NUA's ( then NUCA) Games Art and Design course i experimented with a couple of both clay and wire figure studies, as well as more character and creature concept artwork.

During my time on the course I have so far avoided working in the areas i feel most comfortable in so that i can push myself artistically and expand my skill-set, though i did work on creature concept art as part of my work for Ba4. I now feel that i am at a point  (and this has quite happily coincided with my specialism project) that i can push and develop in an area that i am really passionate about.

This is ultimately how i have come to choose to keep my "specialism" broad, in the sense that i don't want to limit myself to specialising in either 2D or 3D, i have chosen to embrace both. my specialism, for this project at least then will look at figurative art within game design. By this  mean that the subject of my work and my specialism, will be the form of either a human or animal. As apposed to specialising to become a landscape/ environment artist by designing  inanimate object or vehicles. 

Since i have started this course i have often considered my specialty to be character and creature design, though i haven't had the opportunity that i would have liked to show that. When it comes to 3D design, up until now i have been leaning the basics of 3D modelling, where it has been easier to learn the fundamentals with less organic shapes. It will be good to to tackle character and creature design as my specialty, even if i am still experimenting with 2D and 3D tools.

ba5- revisited

Time is a harsh mistress... 
Time management was defiantly my downfall for my last project, a clear area for improvement. In hindsight i would defiantly not... um, run out of time... so yeah.
My last couple of posts on here had to be left un-expanded upon, simply because i didn't have the time to write up my process and thoughts. 

Despite my best efforts to avoid it (i worked like a dog pretty much from week 1) i still ended up cramming a large percentage of my work into the last week. That's the last time i allow myself to do that, it really isn't fun, but now its time for ba6, and and era of work on time where calmer minds will be the only ones to prevail... so chill man. 

oclusion map

I managed to make an oclustion map onto my model, however i couldn't get the images to open in photoshop in order to set them as a multiply and apply them to my asset in maya

Studio: modelling process 1