Getting into 3D is something I've been looking forward to for a long time and I think I've done reasonably well with it. Last year I taught myself enough 3D to do a small project, and looking at the difference between this year's and last year's results I'm really proud of how far I've come in this area. The quality of my models is much higher as well as more efficient, and I feel I have a much better understanding of the 3D process than I did at the beginning of this unit. Even looking at my work from the initial weeks, I can see how much higher my skill level is, although I'm aware that I still have a long way to go before I can produce something AAA-standard.
2D is still something I want to focus on, but having seen what 3D can do and finding that I actually enjoy it, I think that whichever I choose to specialise in, I'll be keeping up the other in my own time. Having a better understanding of Zbrush is something that I think will be really useful in the long run even outside of 3D, for concepts, paintovers, etc. Maya also, as it's really quick to set up perfect perspective with a Maya scene to work from or over later.
As far as my overall thoughts, one of the things I've noticed a change in between this unit and BA1a is my time management skills. In the last unit I often found myself working up to the deadline and some of the work looks very unfinished, and I realised that this hadn't happened this term, or at least to nowhere near the same extent. In addition, I've found myself a lot more inclined to do additional work, I think because I've stopped segregating my projects into "personal/fun" and "school/forced" internally, and now view most of my projects as just "work," and I find it all rewarding. I still have 'personal' and 'work' projects, but I don't really approach them very differently. I've started doing a lot more work for the sake of improvement, like timed studies and practise pieces, instead of trying to make everything a finished, perfect piece.
Looking at my final pieces I can see areas where things could be more polished, like areas which could use more geometry to support my high-poly detail, or places where photo textures might have been useful, as well as at least a few other things to improve on in the future. This unit has shown me how to build on past projects to improve in the next, however, so I'm confident that if I can keep going with this I can get to a good standard. That said, I still want to try to learn new areas, like the rigging and animating that I started a little earlier in the unit, to widen my skill set further, and so that I can draw on that understanding even if I don't use it. I've found things like knowing how to build a 3D model are really useful when drawing 2D concepts, because I can consider how it would have to be built, what design elements are practical, and how much work building it would entail. Things like this are, I think, really important when trying to find a job in the industry, because it makes you a better part of the pipeline when you have a knowledge of how the other sections function and can be considerate of that.
Thursday, 21 April 2016
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
Ludonarrative Dissonance
Task: Read Hocking's analysis of Bioshock and write about a game with mechanics that compliment its story
Having read Hocking's article about Bioshock, I found the concept of ludonarrative dissonance very interesting, although Bioshock is probably not the game I would have chosen to exemplify it, rather maybe something like Fallout 4, which is an RPG in which the idea is for you to be able to roleplay any character you'd like, but one which forces you into a pre-existing role as a parent and partner, and to kill others in order to complete the game despite whatever our own inclinations may be. (One let's-player completed the game with a kill-count of 0, but had to use several exploits - such as forcing NPCs to kill each other - as well as a lot of patience and a lot of luck in order to do so, and still nearly broke the game.)
In any case, as for games that I believe are very ludonarratively consonant, Bloodborne is a game I finished recently which I believe fits this category. It helps in part that much of the narrative has to be gathered by inference, but unlike a lot of games with violent gameplay it is not at odds with the story. The constant cycle of death and rebirth as a mechanic is something ingrained into the narrative - you are cursed to hunt, unable to die, until you defeat the nightmare. If you fall in battle, you will be brought back again and again until you 'win,' Even beating the game, regardless of the ending, doesn't really end the cycle, as it launches you straight back to the beginning into a "New Game+," retaining most of your items and all your levels, but with stronger, scaled-up enemies, In addition, the "true" ending of the game is to kill the Moon Presence, the entity sustaining the nightmare, and in the process become an eldritch monster yourself, the ultimate progression of the "hunt beasts and use their power to become stronger" mentality that is at the core of the game. This even factors into the game's lore, as the original cause of the beast plague you're fighting was humans trying to use the power of the Great Ones, creatures such as the Moon Presence, to strengthen humanity.
The only aspect of the game that I would say is somewhat dissonant is the fact that no matter which ending you choose - walking away, being trapped in the dream forever as its supervisor, or the aforementioned 'true ending' - the game still immediately starts a New Game+ save, which is jarring seeing as none of the endings would entail events repeating themselves, unless we assume that this is a new hunter travelling the dream, in which case why do they look exactly like your previous one, with all the same items, weapons and armour? Given the series' opaque nature there may be an explanation for this in the lore somewhere (a fair amount of this discussion is on information not given in the game, only through meta-storytelling elements like acheivement titles and item descriptions), but it's not information that is readily available to players, and so this part of Bloodborne remains confusing. That said, the game at large is still very in-tune with its story, and so I would label it as ludonarratively consonant, for the most part.
Having read Hocking's article about Bioshock, I found the concept of ludonarrative dissonance very interesting, although Bioshock is probably not the game I would have chosen to exemplify it, rather maybe something like Fallout 4, which is an RPG in which the idea is for you to be able to roleplay any character you'd like, but one which forces you into a pre-existing role as a parent and partner, and to kill others in order to complete the game despite whatever our own inclinations may be. (One let's-player completed the game with a kill-count of 0, but had to use several exploits - such as forcing NPCs to kill each other - as well as a lot of patience and a lot of luck in order to do so, and still nearly broke the game.)
In any case, as for games that I believe are very ludonarratively consonant, Bloodborne is a game I finished recently which I believe fits this category. It helps in part that much of the narrative has to be gathered by inference, but unlike a lot of games with violent gameplay it is not at odds with the story. The constant cycle of death and rebirth as a mechanic is something ingrained into the narrative - you are cursed to hunt, unable to die, until you defeat the nightmare. If you fall in battle, you will be brought back again and again until you 'win,' Even beating the game, regardless of the ending, doesn't really end the cycle, as it launches you straight back to the beginning into a "New Game+," retaining most of your items and all your levels, but with stronger, scaled-up enemies, In addition, the "true" ending of the game is to kill the Moon Presence, the entity sustaining the nightmare, and in the process become an eldritch monster yourself, the ultimate progression of the "hunt beasts and use their power to become stronger" mentality that is at the core of the game. This even factors into the game's lore, as the original cause of the beast plague you're fighting was humans trying to use the power of the Great Ones, creatures such as the Moon Presence, to strengthen humanity.
The only aspect of the game that I would say is somewhat dissonant is the fact that no matter which ending you choose - walking away, being trapped in the dream forever as its supervisor, or the aforementioned 'true ending' - the game still immediately starts a New Game+ save, which is jarring seeing as none of the endings would entail events repeating themselves, unless we assume that this is a new hunter travelling the dream, in which case why do they look exactly like your previous one, with all the same items, weapons and armour? Given the series' opaque nature there may be an explanation for this in the lore somewhere (a fair amount of this discussion is on information not given in the game, only through meta-storytelling elements like acheivement titles and item descriptions), but it's not information that is readily available to players, and so this part of Bloodborne remains confusing. That said, the game at large is still very in-tune with its story, and so I would label it as ludonarratively consonant, for the most part.
Week Summary - BA1b Week 13(+)
Time Machine
I finished all my UV maps and applied them to my model this week, meaning all I have left to do for the time machine at this point is put everything together for submission. I had some issues with my normal map that I couldn't identify the cause of, as each section was baked separately, so instead of trying to fix it during baking I just painted the problem areas flat in photoshop, and it seems to have fixed the problem.
I did realise that I hadn't made an ambient occlusion map for my tree pillar, and ran across the same problem again that I'd thought I'd fixed when baking the normal maps for it - xnormal would analyse the mesh forever without making any progress. After running through several troubleshooting solutions with a tutor, it started producing solid white occlusion maps among other issues, so I re-exported all my meshes, which was apparently enough to fix everything. There have been a few problems like these over the course of the project, which I think is to a certain extent a given in this area; I hope with experience I'll be able to start fixing more of them myself instead of relying on outside help but for now I'm fairly happy with the state of these projects and in seeing how far I've come in 3D.
I finished all my UV maps and applied them to my model this week, meaning all I have left to do for the time machine at this point is put everything together for submission. I had some issues with my normal map that I couldn't identify the cause of, as each section was baked separately, so instead of trying to fix it during baking I just painted the problem areas flat in photoshop, and it seems to have fixed the problem.
I also turned the edge padding down when baking to stop the overlap issues. Below is the finished normal map.
My other maps, in particular the albedo and emissive maps, were something of a trial-and-improvement process. I had a rough idea of what I wanted the colours to be, and as I was using fill layers and masks for the maps it was easy enough to quickly change the colours, make a new map and refresh marmoset to see the effect. This process could possibly have been made quicker by doing more detailed, colour concepts, but seeing it in front of me on the finished model was very reassuring and satisfying, and didn't take too much longer if at all. As for the other maps, seeing how my changes affected the model in close to real-time was a really helpful learning process, and again, didn't take too long. It offered me a very quick way to experiment with things like applying texture masks to my maps, and I think I learnt a lot from the process.
Example of photoshop file structures
I applied a very high-contrast rust texture to my metalness map to add some character to the spinning top section. There are some grey sections on the map, but I raised the contrast to make it largely black or white.
 |
| Finished model |
Monday, 11 April 2016
Week Summary - BA1b Week 12
Time Machine
I finished off my high and low poly models and UV unwrapped this week, and started baking my normal maps. Below are some progress shots of the model.
Above is the finished model from zbrush, just adding some detail to the grip and string sections and some damage and texture to the model as a whole. I actually used the lag in the programme to my advantage here, as it had a stabilising effect on my tablet strokes.
Fully UV mapped model. I wasn't sure how to go about unwrapping the helix shape I'd used for the string, so I asked my tutor for help and he showed me the best way to do it, using the unitize and move and sew functions. Depending on how the circular sections turn out, I may unwrap those again using this method.
I finished off my high and low poly models and UV unwrapped this week, and started baking my normal maps. Below are some progress shots of the model.
Finishing the handle.
Added a grip section to the handle and a pull string with grip, by extruding a cylinder along a curve. I think it adds some life to the model as well as being functional.
Again below is the finished model for zbrush, I added some smaller details like ridges to the spinning top section and centre circle.
Above is the finished model from zbrush, just adding some detail to the grip and string sections and some damage and texture to the model as a whole. I actually used the lag in the programme to my advantage here, as it had a stabilising effect on my tablet strokes.
Finished UV map incorporating all smaller maps for each object section.
Below is my first normal map attempt, there were some easily fixed issues with N-gons but my main concern is where areas appear to be overlapping, I think due to too much edge padding. I'm going to test out this map as is, and if it doesn't work I'll ask my tutor what the best course of action is; rearranging my UV map, putting in less edge padding or some other solution.
Sunday, 10 April 2016
Week Summary - BA1b Week 11
Time machine
I ran with my initial idea for this project, which was a modified spinning top. Initially I looked at old fashioned string tops for inspiration, but realised they weren't very user-friendly as they don't always spin properly and require a good technique to use. When I did some more research I found some designs similar to those below towards the right hand side, which use a handle and a wound string to launch the top consistently. The idea is that the length the string is wound determines the length of time travelled while the direction, clockwise or anti-clockwise, determines the direction backwards or forwards. The setting for it would be futuristic fantasy/sci-fi, using victorian-era designs but advanced technology. In addition, I thought of the device as being very personal, scrapped together by the user with no small amount of whimsy and a little worn and beaten up.
This is my initial low poly build, I think the handle part of the top is going to be quite hard to build because of its irregular shape, but most of the rest of the top I could build fairly easily from basic primitives. I'm not sure how many polygons my final model is going to be yet, but at the moment it looks like I'm going to be just around the limit, mainly due to the amount of curves in the design.
Wednesday, 6 April 2016
Phenomenology in games
Task: Write about a game that made you feel aware of your body as you played it
With the growing use of attached (infrared) cameras and accelerometers in game controllers there is a lot of scope for the use of motion in games now. Kinect-based games and controllers like the Wiimote or Playstation Move seem to be less prominent now than a few years ago, but there are still games making use of these features in interesting ways. Flower (2009) is a game I played recently that made me very aware of how I was moving my hands and arms as a result of its accelerometer-based control scheme, and the flow from my movements to the game made the experience feel very coherent and light, flying around sometimes wildly if I didn't consider my movements. Tilt-based games in general I have found tend to make me play more actively, sitting up and really concentrating on my actions as opposed to button-based games, which (once I have grasped the control scheme) have me concentrating on the game itself rather than my own movements. Games which use devices such as the Kinect strangely enough don't replicate this effect in my experience, I think because we usually have visual feedback of our actions on the screen in the form of some kind of avatar or camera display, and because they don't usually require the same kind of fine motor control required for tilt-based games.
With the growing use of attached (infrared) cameras and accelerometers in game controllers there is a lot of scope for the use of motion in games now. Kinect-based games and controllers like the Wiimote or Playstation Move seem to be less prominent now than a few years ago, but there are still games making use of these features in interesting ways. Flower (2009) is a game I played recently that made me very aware of how I was moving my hands and arms as a result of its accelerometer-based control scheme, and the flow from my movements to the game made the experience feel very coherent and light, flying around sometimes wildly if I didn't consider my movements. Tilt-based games in general I have found tend to make me play more actively, sitting up and really concentrating on my actions as opposed to button-based games, which (once I have grasped the control scheme) have me concentrating on the game itself rather than my own movements. Games which use devices such as the Kinect strangely enough don't replicate this effect in my experience, I think because we usually have visual feedback of our actions on the screen in the form of some kind of avatar or camera display, and because they don't usually require the same kind of fine motor control required for tilt-based games.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)