More Nomad Models

At college today I created some more models for the game me and a peer are working on (his next gen blog). Check out previous posts about the game here, and here.

Here are the models that I have created today. These include a traffic cone, a street block (barrier) and two different versions of a road. These different versions of road are created so the game doesn’t look/feel repetitive, because then the game would look very tacky.

Here are some screenshots and gifs of what I have created:

Roadblock

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Manhole 1 (with cones)

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Manhole 2 (with cones)

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Manhole with Barriers

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Tracking in After Effects

Today was our first day back after half term break. We were learning about VFX in Mike’s lesson, so we continued it with Matty. We learned about tracking.

“Tracking or match moving, is a technique used in motion picture. It involves computer graphics into moving footage with correct position, scale , orientation and motion relative to the objects in the shot.” 

To track in after effects, the object you wish to track must be of high contrast. This is done so the software can track effectively with minimal input from the user. If you pick a low contrast object to track, then it will come out poor and all jumbled up. I was quite surprised how well my tracking turned out. I used a video of people walking the streets of New York as an example. This would turn out to be a good video to use as many people would wear contrasting colours, because of the environment and what is going on around them.

Here is the clip:

To begin the tracking we must find an object or part of an object with high contrast. In this instance we use the man’s chest hair. This may same weird, but black and yellow are a perfect combination.

This is the part where we had to place the track (what the software would try and follow). In this case it would be the hair.

We would be selecting the ‘track motion’ option, then dragging and dropping the selected area.

Sorry for the bad frames, this process is very RAM intensive.

It looks like the software has handled it quite well (which is quite rare). Now to have some fun with it and add in an image. This is the image I would be using:

I thought this was quite fitting as the place of the tracking is the man’s chest/neck area. Here is the finished product:

Art Fundamentals: Danger & Repurpose

Yesterday we had a series of tasks given to us, these included sketching, modelling, thumbnail images and more. First up was the sketching. We had 5 minutes to sketch some initial designs from a category we were given. This category was danger. This meant we had to think up ideas/objects associated with danger.  Here are some that I thought of:

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With these in mind, using what remained of the 5 minutes I had to quickly draw up some images of what I could focus on later. I only had time to do the tank, here is what I got.

As you can see it is not much. This is all we got time for on this topic. Now we moved onto a different topic, which we would further develop, the topic being “Repurpose”.

Our lecturer told us we were aloud to have fun with this one. So we could be creative and imaginative. Here are my initial sketches:

At first, I thought of recycling as it ties in very closely with the keyword. But then I remembered we were aloud to have fun, so that is when I came up with the idea of “Katana Hands” and “Pistol Feat”. This is the idea I would then develop.

We were then given 30 minutes to fully draw this idea. This is where I realised that pistol for feet wouldn’t actually work. So I turned to the next obvious solution, rocket launchers!

I decided to gather some reference images to make my drawing considerably easier. Here is what i got:

It is built up of pictures of rocket launchers, missiles and stilts. My pistol feet idea effectively turned into rocket launcher stilts.  This is when we were given the time to draw our finalized ideas. Here is the finished product:

All I am going to say is, I am not the best artist in the world. This is why I wish to improve. This exercise gave us insight onto the type of speeds industry artists work at, and that the first idea is not always the best, and almost always needs development.

 

Sketchfab

Sketchfab is a website used to display and share 3D content online with the world. The company behind Sketchfab was launched in France. It is today based in Paris and NYC. They provide a way to uniquely view 3D models and content on their website based on the WebGL technology that allows the 3D models to be displayed on almost any device, as well as virtual reality headsets.

The main product/service that Sketchfab offer is a 3D model viewer. It is used on the website and can be embedded into many different websites such as Facebook. Additionally, it functions as a community portal, where members of Sketchfab can browse, rate , download and give feedback on models that people have published.

Here is a screenshot of the website:

This is the most popular section. Where the models with the most favorites and up-votes are displayed.

Why am I using Sketchfab?

Sketchfab is where I am uploading all of the assets I have modeled for the game Nomad which I have previously mentioned. If you would like to view my previous models, and more. Visit my page on Sketchfab. Here.

You can upload files in almost any kind of 3D format. You can upload directly to the website or by using one of their exporters. Once your models are uploaded to the site, they can be shared and embedded onto different websites such as Facebook, WordPress, Behance, Tumblr and deviantART.

 

Nomad Modeling

As mentioned previously, me and a friend have been adopted by a small team of developers to help on a game called Nomad. This is a blog post related to all of the models I have done in 2 days since joining the project! There will be mostly pictures in this post, so count it as a mini-post !

Street Sign v1

Street Sign v2

 

Bricks 1

Bricks 2

Bricks 3

Desk 1

Thats all for the pictures. There is a few more I have completed but have no photos of.

• More bricks
• Another 2 desks
• A laptop
• A games console

 

 

So, Nomad. What is it?

So, Nomad. What is it?

Well,

“Nomad is a blocky sandbox zombie survival game. Hunt other players, craft items, kill zombies, build bases and last of all, survive!” – A quote from the game’s store page. 

What makes this game special? Why are you blogging about it?

Me and a friend (named Nathan), have been accepted to take part in redesigning the entire map. We will be focusing on models, as well as a few textures here and there. This is fantastic experience for me and Nathan. As well as the fact it will look brilliant on our CV when applying for future game development jobs, and it will give us the edge on other classmates and peers when it comes to knowing the business and industry.

Who is on this project?

Originally it was 2 people. Brother and sister. The two developers would like their name to be kept private right now, so I will simply refer to them as DEV1 and DEV2. It is unbelievable to believe that only two people made this game. It has so much content inside.

Now that me and Nathan have joined it will take a large weight off their shoulders as they will not have to spend as much time on modeling, we will.

How is this project organised?

Between me and Nathan, we have a shared spreadsheet that the developer will slowly add to. It is a list of assets that need to be modeled. Here is what it looks like.

As you can see, there is multiple sections of this spreadsheet. It is organised into a pipeline.

Work Level / Tier > Model Name > Modeler Name > Date Assigned To Self > State Of Completion > Screenshot > Uploaded Both .Max File And .FBX To Drive ? > Any Notes > Checked By Dev If They Are Suitable

I am going to be posting about the models I am making for this project in future posts. Make sure to watch out for them!

Here is Nathan’s blog! – https://nextgennathan.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading!

Visual Effects – Lightsaber

Today we continued our visual effects lessons with a tutorial on how to create a lightsaber in Adobe After Effects (find out what adobe after effects is here).

The lightsaber is an iconic weapon used in the StarWars franchise. It is used by the Jedi and Sith lords. It can cut through blast doors and enemies alike, aswell as blocking incoming fire. It is a true weapon for gods!

As we are all making our own VFX sequences, the lightsaber was included in one of them. This is why we were doing this tutorial. It taught us some good tools and equipment to use in After Effects. As well as teaching the team using the lightsaber how to actually fully develop it.

We had to pick one of the shots that their team had filmed to add the effects onto. I chose this one, also the actual clip is slowed down:

I chose this shot because I noticed that not meany other people were using this one. I thought it would be quite unique for me to use.

To start off, we had to import the clip. This is a simple drag and drop process. Next up is to create a new solid. This is just a shape. I used this to create the shape of the lightsaber with the pen tool.

To track the lightsaber, you can use it one of two ways. The easy way, and the hard way. We learned the hard way. You have to carefully move the solid in each keyframe to match the path of the lightsaber. It is a fairly simple concept but is quite tedious and hard to get used to.

After it had all been fully tracked, I needed to make sure my lightsaber had a colour. I chose purple.

Here is the finished product:

 

 

Global Game Jam! #GGJ2016

This weekend it was the annual global game jam.  We were invited into college at 5pm on Friday night. This is when the theme for the game jam is announced. In this case it was ‘ritual’.  Now this could be however you perceived it. You could have a very dark, satanic game for grown ups. Or it could be quite a simple but fun game involving potions (our game!).

On Friday evening we formed our groups and thought up ideas for our game. Ours involved different recipes and ingredients and you had to create a potion using your necronomicon. Sounds simple. Right?

It was a great concept. But these would require alot of texturing and modelling to create all of the assets and art needed for this game. This is where i spent most of my time during the game jam. Modelling and texturing assets. I will leave a full list of our team, and the roles at the end of the blog post.

On Saturday morning we all arrived and started jamming. It was time to go! We each had our own things to do, which we did rather well. Everything was good until one of our computers accidentally blue screened. This was fixed rather quickly. We all achieved most of which was meant to be done on Saturday. This involved modelling, programming and texturing.

Sunday was meant to be a brush up day. This means that we would fix anything that went wrong on the previous day.  But this was simply not the case. We had to model more assets and textures before we could start brushing up.  This was when the crunch began.

 

Everything was fast paced. All of the assets were being imported into the scene that one of our team had created. The scripts that had the game basically written out were being imported into the scene earlier. Looking back I wish we had done this earlier because it consumed alot of our time. When 4pm hit, this is when we had to stop. Everything was imported, ready to go. There was still some bugs but only minor issues that were not very noticeable.

We then reviewed and looked at every other group’s games. Alot of them had focused too much on graphics and had no actual content to show. Only graphics. This made us feel proud as we had the perfect balance between content and graphics.

As the end of the post is near. I am going to show you some of the models i created.

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Here is the roles of the team:

Thank you for reading my blog about the game jam!