Apocalyptic horde survival vehicle- The bloody bun bun

 

For our first brief in digital this term we were tasked of designing and rendering an apocalyptic horde vehicle with the use of photo bashing to achieve an accurate and effective clear concept that could potentially be passed on to modelers. We have to create a front view and a back view which showcases a range of interesting modifications which would help defend against a horde of choice. This is my first full project creating a photo bashed piece of work and for our insect project I found it quite challenging to mesh the pieces together to look sharp and natural. I want to create a clear and effective concept which doesn't look uncanny and fits together well. The way I would like to go about this project would be to research a range of ideas in the form of mood boards and then start collecting images of possible assets that I could include in my design. I can then use these mood boards to bring forward a variety of ideas and iterations which I will then refine further to create an effective design idea. I would like to take some time into looking up some tips on photo bashing techniques so that I can use this skill to my benefit and create a professional piece of work. I think this brief lends itself really well to including a lot of different textures and noises such as rust or banged up metal. In my concept I would like to include a range of different surfaces so that I can experiment with different hand rendering and photoshopping techniques.

I began this project by collecting some reference images from online and putting them on a mood board so that I could gain an idea of what kind of theme and apocalypse I want to make my car for. Whilst doing this brief I want to keep in my why things are relevant and what can benefit the concept and make it clearer and more expressive to a player. I chose to look at images in a pink and cutesy theme. I really liked having the contrast between the dark goory elements and the cute pink soft ideas. this creates a sense of insanity which would be very relevant to an apocalyptical scenario. I think I would want my car to be driven by a group of teen girls who are going slightly insane from having to defend themselves against the hordes of the apocalypse. I particularly like the idea of having soft toys strapped onto the car like some truck drivers have as this would really push a twisted contrasting concept. Fur would also be an interesting texture to photo bash and adds in that mix of materials, rather than just having the whole thing made from metal. I want to push my photo bashing a lot in this project as previously I have found it challenging. I want to take forward the pastel ideas mixed with the darker metallic and bloody elements. I was also looking and benz as I think this type of car would lend itself well to the concept I was going for. I like the tacky looking Barbie like cars and I think a Benz would be an ideal choice for this. 

This week I decided to make a secondary mood board to help with my iterative process so that I could try adding a range of elements into my designs. I wanted to explore fair ground inspired assets a bit further such as the bright lit up signs and carousel horses in particular. This is something I would like to include possible on the back of my car. The girls who modded it could have ripped off these fairground assets from an abandoned theme park and screwed them onto the car.  I also decided to take some time to look at some existing apocalyptic vehicles and see if I could get any ideas from these existing concepts. Finally I looked at some cars from movies such as the purge and ghost busters to  further gave me an idea of how the car would function in this kind of situation. I would also like to include some barbed wire. As I was walking down a country path during the holidays I noticed some sheep fluff that was stuck to some barbed wire. I thought that I could make my concept undead stuffed animals as I thought the idea of having the plushies strapped to my car would add to this. The barbed wire would be an idea asset if this was the case as the fur would get caught on it. However I was struggling to finalize what type of car I was going to do and in retrospect I think I should have collected and developed more of a range of cars before choosing to iterate only a gwagon. This might have benefitted my future development of this piece. 

As I began iterating my ideas I used an edited picture of  a g wagon and then drew assets and values over it to establish some kind of silouettehe and some basic modifications I could have on it. I made these iterations quite detailed as as I was progressing through I was becoming more and more solidified on using certain ideas such as the vague shape of the g wagon and the fair ground and plushie idea. I was trying to use a range of tones and values as well as bold shapes in order to create visual interest and make it still stand out if the car was viewed from far away. I liked the idea of using curved shapes to give the vehicle a sense of direction. I feel like these iterations were more about aesthetic features rather than functional design. To make this process better I would have liked to of done some more iterations to show more of a broader variety of ideas such as using a different car as base. I was also planning on doing a lot more however because I had added in a lot of detail I ran out of time to continue doing them as I wanted to move on to the next stage of my project. I wanted to include a lot of shape langauge as my car would be a very prominent asset to an apocalyptical game, such as the car that the main character would drive around in and add mods to as the game progresses. 

At this point in my project I also decided to take a look at some existing apocalyptic games such as fallout to give me an idea of how this kind of concept is implemented into a popular game. I also looked at a lot of the color pallets which progresses me on to the next part of my project. 

I then did a final iteration brining in multiple ideas from concepts I liked. I really liked the giant bunny I had on the top as it added an eye-catching and interesting silhouette. I also liked the shape of the points at the front bumper of the car, not only does this add to the appeal it also weaponizes the vehicle thinking about this in more of a narrative way. There are several elements that could be taken from fairground rides also. 

Rather than using bright neon colour I wanted to use a more pastel colour pallet with muted tones as I think this reflects more of a wasteland type mood whereas I think neon colours give off more of a futuristic cyber look. Also the pastel theme works well with my concept as it is cute and adds an element of soft girliness to the car. Furthermore I think it will be a good contrast to any grunge such as rust or texture on the car along with blood stains, further pushing this idea of contrast. I didn't have much time to experiment with colour pallets so once I had my final concept idea i overlaid some gradient maps. I also decided to collect some further colour pallet references. I particularly liked the colour pallet for the pink barbarella cover. I like the rose pink colour especially and I think I will be taking this forward since the pink is a bit more muted than a true pink and reflects the mood better. 

Before I started fully rendering and photo bash my vehicle I collected some objects which I could heavily edit and photo bash in order to start building up my iteration sketch into a finished design. I also used some of my other iterations which I liked to influence the elements that I was choosing. I will be photobashing and rendering into this image of a G wagon as I found 2 really great angles. I was considering using a 3d workflow however I was keen to see how well I could photo bash in from scratch.

Here are some of the assets I collected and photobashed on the g wagon. I made sure to render into these a lot. I also overlayed a range of new textures on top of things since the actual material of the original object wasn't fitting my ideas perfectly. For example the old fashioned wooden sign I am going to add a stronger wood grain texture over it as I dont like the current washed out texture it has. I will also make sure to change a lot of the colours of these so that it all meshes together well. These are images I mainly collected from google however I did get some from Pinterest as there seems to be a lot of relevant images for my brief on there.   

I began my rendering process by drawing a perspective grid onto my g wagon so that I would be able to line all of the objects up with the perspective of the car. I also found some interesting pieces of corrigated metal which I added onto the sides of the vehicle for reinforcement. Currently the pieces to not mesh well together and look like they are supposed to be on the car since I don't have any light or shadows on there. I found this great arrow from a fairground which has a really eye-catching colour pallet. For my darker shades of pink I would like to tie in some colors from this. I tried to think about the functionality of the car and how effective it would be against defending against a horde of both people and zombified stuffed animals. I added the carousel horse on the back of the vehicle and I will fully photobash it when I come to doing my back view. The bunny I hand drew on using the perspective grid, I plan on photobashing a fur texture onto this along with using soft brushes to create the silhouette. I struggled a lot with the front portion of the vehicle to try and get the assets into perspective of each other, I am still not fully happy with this so I will try and correct it as I progress.

Here is anothe progress screenshot of my work. I have most of the main textures and assets in, its just a case of refining them further. As mentioned earlier I will be photo bashing a clearer wood texture onto the wooden portion on the top, along with rendering in some barbed wire. So far I am really pleased with my concept and design, I think it is lending itself well to the brief at hand since I have the opportunity to photo bash a lot of different objects. I added some smaller more narrative objects such as skulls, a bag and some more bear plushies tied onto the sides of the car. 

Final Outcome

Front

Back

Overall I am really pleased with the design and concept of my car. I am happy with the assets I chose to add on it nd the colour pallet I chose, however there are still some things that I think that I could have done better within this project. The main things being that I struggled a lot with combining photo bashing with rendering and in some areas it has ended up looking much too contrasty and overworked. I tried to correct this mistake when I was rendering the back of the car however it is only slightly better. I think it would have helped if I had used some more secondary refences of existing apolocalyptic vehicles to try a gage how the artists had pieced together the many different textures and made them look like one natural clean finish. I decided to write a bit of lore about my vehicle just to support the concept further and but it in context to the situation that I designed it to be in. Please see the image below to read the design lore of this. 

Pumpkin asset

 

Our first project of this term was to create a pumpkin asset. I am really excited by this project as it is near to Halloween and the perfect season to be making something like this. I have a lot of ideas of what I would like to do however I will first collect some images from online to use as a reference. To get me back started into the swing of my uni project I will be refreshing my skills with a pbr workflow baking down a zbrush sculpt and texturing it in unreal.

Before I started sculpting I wanted to collect some references that I could use to give me some ideas of what I was going to do for my pumpkin asset. I saw these pumpkin carvings and thought they would be a really good way of pushing my sculpting skills on zbrush a bit. I really enjoy sculpting on zbursh too so i was very enthustaic to incorporate this into my design. I wanted to go about this project thinking of how I waas going to sculpt and retop into my texturing. From my research i also decided that I wanted to make a horror inspired pumpkin rather than a more typical cute one. I haven't done a horror concept before and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do something new. I was thinking of the narrative and I came up with this kind of man eating pumpkin monster type thing with arms made from stalks. I also want to include lots of blood on it to further push its concept towards the direction of horror.

I began by shaping a basic pumpkin on Zbrush by using a sphere shape and using masks to inflate the areas which would stick out. I also made a lid using a mask and appened a stalk sculpted from a simple cylinder shape. I used the move tool a lot during this sculpt as I wanted to add a more organic and less balanced feel to the shape. I made the pumpkin slightly uneven whilst also thinking about how big I wanted the carved face of the pumpkin to be. I actually started the base shape sculpt of the pumpkin much too high poly therefore it was really difficult for me to make large sweeping chnages. This is a mistake that I will correct later. On top of that I did have some inital issues with the actual topology of the sculpt being warped even after zremshing. I was however able to work around this.

As you can see there's some strange lines going on on the top of the pumpkin however this does not bother me too much since it is an organic form and I plan on making it disgusting looking. I used the extract tool for the shape of the lip and will retop a lip into my low poly in order to make the bake nicer.

I then used a Boolean to cute out holes from my pumpkin in zbrush and I then put a duplicate of pumpkin behind it so that I could start sculpting into that to make the faces. I decided to add 3 more Booleans either side as if the creature had 3 faces to it. I wanted to sculpt each one differently. I wanted to create very dynamic facial expressions on the monster and i was consistently thinking about how I was going to texture it. However I knew I wouldn't have enough budget to carve in details which effected the silouttete too much so I made sure that the face stayed lower than the outer pumpkin as I wanted to bake the face down onto a relatively flat surface. 

Once I had finished my sculpt in zbrush I decimated it and then brought it into 3Ds in order to retop it. However I realised when I was about half way through that I had done my retop way too high poly. It ended up being 6k tris when out budget was 3K it took me a long time to delete some of the loops and get it down to 3K. This is something I will think about next time I retop.

My finished retop looked ok however due to the mount of tris I had to delete I ended up loosing some of the loops and nice topology however I did try and keep it as nice as I could. Furthermore I also kept in mind how easy this would be for me to texture therefore I amde sure to keep any sections that would require different textures in separate loops to each other. Such as the faces I made sure to unwrap those separately to one another so that it would be easy for my to mask them out. 

The image above shows my final bake and texture on substance painter. I spent a long time on this using a mixture of masks layers and hand painting to achieve a natural dynamic texture. I hand painted in between the contours of the face to make them pop out a little bit. I think the blood really added a sense of horror to the pumpkin. I made these using an alpha brush and height. I wanted to make it look like the pumpkin monster had been ravaging something.

Final results in Unreal

Overall I am really pleased with how my pumpkin looked in unreal. I was messing about with emissive masks on the faces however I found that it was blurring out of the details I had put into the face too much and I wanted to maintain the details of it. I also tried out sub surface scattering with a thickness map however I also wasn't happy with the results of this. therefore in order to create the illusion of the faces glowing I lit the scene to make it look like they were using point lights. If I had a bit more time on this project I would have liked to have further explored sub surface scattering and see if I could get some better results which worked with my project.

Week 2- Shape and pattern

This weeks task for my traditional module was all about focusing on shape and pattern and how to convey them in a convincing and accurate way. For this task we used a still life set up consisting of shells, foliage glass and a decorative jug with a prominent pattern on it. Since a lot of these assets had clear elements of shape and pattern to them such as the interesting natural form of the shells, they would allow me to practise my skills during this weeks task. After watching the videos on blackboard and refreshing my memory about the importance and structure of drawing shape and pattern well. Since there was also a mixture of natural and man made textures this will be a challenge to convey these surfaces in a convincing way through shading and rendering. I was reminded that the importance of line and weight would still be a necessary aspect in creating an appealing piece. I will aim to utilise a mixture of skills and focus on being able to render convincing lighting and focus on how it would react with each type of surface- manmade and natural. 

As you can see from the image above I began by testing out some different compositions using thumbnail sketches and a grid. Using any mistakes from last task and my acquired knowledge on making an appealing composition. i wasn't quite sure if I was entirely happy with this first one however after some feedback on the placement of the glass and the shell in the foreground I was able to move them and make the overall composition look more appealing. This particular set up has fabric in the background and since i am very weak at drawing fabric I thought this would be a good set up to draw as it would push me out of my comfort zone and trying to get a good mixture of tonal values in combination with the background. 

I decided to follow my first thumbnail sketch with another using the second still life set up that had been provided for us. I wasn't as keen on this one however as I didn't like the placement of the walnuts or the placement of the jar. I found my first thumbnail sketch to be considerably more appealing. I felt like there was too much negative space and a lack of levels presented within this set up. Therefore I chose to go with the first thumbnail sketch I did. I also felt that I could really accentuate the range of tones within the items in the first piece since the shells in the foreground had such a contrasting tone to the rest of the items. 

I began by drawing the grid down on my page and using my thumbnail sketches in combination with the still life itself I began sketching out the assets. I tried to draw them as accurately as possible whilst also taking care to visualise their 3D forms. I struggled somewhat with the ellipses and perspective of the jug in the back of the composition as I drew some of the curved lines around the top in different directions which created a flat looking and confusing effect. After receiving some feedback on this mistake I was able to somewhat correct the ellipses to make the object look more tube like and convincing to look at. I still struggle with the use of ellipses in my work and will be pushing myself to practise this as the year progresses. 

As I began shading my piece I really wanted to focus on the interesting patterns that were on each object by using a mixture of line weight and a wide variation of tonal values. I made sure to emphasise which items had strongly different values to other by starting off with some of the darker values and then working my way up to the lighter ones so that I would not run out of values. The items at the front of the piece have a more strong line weight as to create a more 3 dimensional look. Shading the glass in particular was challenging I found that a having a higher contrast creates a more realistic outcomes therefore I made sure to emphasise any shadows or highlights on this object along with considering the refraction that could be occurring.

The image above is my piece before I had received any feedback. I found the pattern on the jar very challenging as not only was I trying to recreate the complicated pattered I had to consider how perspective would be effecting it to make the object look 3D. I was happy with the level of contrast and values I had achieved at this point however I found that my piece was overall looking very flat, especially the jar. I had tried to get a much darker shade on the jar however there was no drop shadows on it at this point which was making it look 2D. I was happy with the details on the shells and flowers however the fabric was also letting it down. From the feedback I then went and corrected the parts that were not looking as good such as the flatness and the unfinished looking fabric. I working into areas slightly more and then knocked back tones. Here is the finished piece after feedback...

Overall I found this piece challenging as there were lots of elements to consider such as the complex design on the jar and also the natural forms and textures of the shells. I found the glass challenging to shade since there are a lot of aspects which contribute to making it look realistic such as light intensity and harsh contrasting lights and darks. Overall from this piece I gained a better knowledge and good practise on the shapes and patterns on elements and how to portray them in a convincing way. Throughout this piece I also considered the line and weight and made sure to apply that to the forms in this piece to make it look more 3d and dynamic. 

Week 1- Line and Weight

For my first weeks task there was a prominent focus on line and weight and how these can be used to create a sense of depth within a still life piece of work. After refreshing my knowledge of the general rules for using line and line weight to express not only shadow and light but also the position of objects I started a new still life piece. This piece was done using objects in front of me including a vase which had a complicated pattern design on it and filled with flowers along with a wicker basket and some peppers. These varying  textures created an interesting yet challenging composition which I would go on to attempt to express through line and weight. 

My process for this weeks task was to create some thumbnail sketches before I moved on to drawing my final sketch so that I could get a nice and interesting composition which would allow me to represent the placement of the objects in an appealing manner. Leading the viewers eye. I only ended up doing 1 thumbnail sketch as I was immediately happy with my composition as i ensured that the objects were being drawn for a range of distances and heights so that I could represent this weeks theme of line and weight in the most appealing and confident way. Please see below my thumbnail sketch for this weeks task. 

After I had finalised my thumbnail composition I drew a grid over the top as this would allow me to correctly reflect my composition onto a final study. Looking back at this however next time I might have moved the pepper on the right slightly up so that it wasn’t on the same level as the wicker basket. This would have created more of an expression of depth as it is not as appealing when multiple objects sit on the same line. The piece ends up looking more linear, flat and overall not natural. The thumbnail helped me develop my skills on how I was viewing objects and how I can alter a scene to make a more visually appealing piece. I also ensured to offset some items slightly as having central objects creates a sense of stiffness and is not visually appealing. I then began sketching out my final piece using the still life set up I front of me and also my thumbnail so that I could start adding the line and weight to express the items position and other important factors. 

Through this grid method I was able to convey the ideas from my thumbnail set up back onto my final piece. After receiving some feedback I made some changes to the sizing of some of the objects such as the pepper. I had got the sizes slightly wrong which was throwing the dynamic of the piece off and was making it look less convincing. One of my main goals from this task was to create a convincing piece with minimum details. After I was happy with the main sketch and placement of objects and correcting my mistakes from the feedback given I began rendering the peppers. However from the image below you will see that I misunderstood the task at first and was using the cross hatching and hatching technique.I was supposed to be representing the objects through line and pattern only to create a sense of 3D. 

After I realised this was incorrect I continued with the rest of the piece using the correct technique that we were supposed to use for this weeks task. Next time I will not make the same mistake. Also I started hatching the peppers quite dark and if I was to do the whole piece with this method I would have run out of tones. 

The flowers were definitely one of the most challenging aspects of this task as it was hard to try and create a sense of depth with such a complicated and layered asset. It was challengenging to convey that some of the flowers were behind others  whilst also keeping some of the key shapes and shadows. This was the most time consuming part of thr process of this piece. I wanted to add lots of detail to this part as I think it was a crucial aspect of the setup which would allow me to challenge my skills  of using line and weight to portray things being closer to the viewer. 

I was quite happy with I was able to portray the floral aspect of the piece as I really focused on observing the depth of this part and how I could create a convincing and 3D outcome. 

This is my final piece from this weeks study on the theme of line and weight to prefect depth of objects. I was really aiming to create an appealing and convincing set up. I’m happy with how I was able to portray the more natural forms however I think I need to work more on being able to show direction of light through this method as it will help me when I come to make fully rendered still life compositions. It was easy to just start using heavier lines for those far away so I needed to really focus on which objects were in front of what and therefor would the viewers eye would hit first. 

Contextual task

(Image shared by Square Enix for the announcement of Final Fantasy XV)

For my contextual analysis for this week I will be looking at one of my favourite pieces for the game Final Fantasy XV. This piece was posted on Square Enixs twitter to announce the release of XV. It received a high amount of praise because of its beautiful atmosphere and explosive dynamics.