Low poly forest assets

Here are some forest assets i did at the time to test out the low poly trianglated look we are going for. Most of these are just simple environmental assets based on my earlier concepts. Most of these will act as either platforms or just peices for the backgrounds.

At the moment all assets will be block colured with a quite saturated look, once we've got these peices in Unity,  we shall then really play around with how they look with lighting or screen filters.

- Large_Ruin_wall
- Small_Ruin_wall_01
- Small_Ruin_wall_02
- Fallen_Log
- Tree_Stump
- Ruin_Pillar
- Plant_Platform_01
- Plant_Platform_02
- Mushroom

Environmental art direction - Low poly look

As art director, i have decided that we need to finalize the visual art style. As we are under time constrains at the moment i have thought over what we can do, that is fast but we can still achieve a style that fits our game. Originally we were planning on doing chunky models and hand-painted textures, but i believe to really get nice looking hand painted textures, we would need to spend a lot of time on painting. We have changed our style to more of a deliberate low poly look. Here are some examples of what we would like to aim for.

After playing around with some tools in Maya, i have managed to create some rough prototypes of how we can go about achieving this style. 

Here is the step by step process;

Step 1: 

First, we need to give the model a more chunkier look, this is done with the transform component tool.

Select entire mesh in vertex mode. 

Edit Mesh > Transform Component 

(Tweak around with the settings for more of a random change in vertices)

Once you've applied the transform vertex, move either of the axis to move all the vertices in random directions. This give us the chunky geometry, lovely. 

Step 2:

Next, we need to triangulate the mesh. 

Mesh > Triangulate. 

This give us the tris we want to show through, therefore giving us the low poly look.

Step 3: 

Next we can use the reduce tool, to lower the poly count, this step isn't need but it's worth playing around with the settings to see what effect we can achieve.

Mesh > Reduce

Step 4:

Finally, so we can see the triangulated edges, select all faces and then all we need to do is harden the normals. 

Normals > Harden edge

All done! Using this method i believe we shall be using block colours, probably more desaturated but that is something we shall play around with once all the assets are in game. 

Game Dev update - main character.

Been a while since an update but i have been busy on the main character for our game. Using various new software and techniques i have gone through sculpting, texturing, rigging, skinning and next up is animation.

Here is progress report of various components that make up our main character. 

Here is the UV map that i unwrapped in Autodesk Maya, i feel more comfortable in unwrapping now as i got to grips with the various tools within maya. I am happy with the layout of the shells taking up as much empty space as possible. At the moment all maps are 2048x2048 this is to allow a bit of room to de-scale if needed but as this is the main character i believe it is important to have him as detailed as possible.

2048x2048 Ambient occulusion map, baked from maya. I have layered this map onto of the diffuse to help myself find the shadows and instantly give the diffuse more shape.

After the main model was finished, i took the mesh into zbrush to sculpt in the main details, i didn't want to go too overboard as i just wanted it as quite subtle detail. I believe i could make it come out a little better but this helped me get the idea of zbrush workflow. 

In Photoshop CS6 i painted the diffuse map at 2048x2048, we are aiming for a hand painted texture look and i am overal happy with the final look. I will like to go back to this for a final polish, the bag isn't quite done. I am still learning these techniques and need to become more comfortable in painting, i felt the only way for me to achieve this look was with a soft air brush but ideally i would of preferred a more hard edged hand painted look similar to games like team fortress 2.

Here is the low poly model, this is before i smoothed over the mesh. I did this after as i believe we have room to use a higher poly count as this is the main character. Overall high poly count is around 8k polys, this isn't too high for the fact we are aiming for pc platform release. I am happy with the overall topology and silhouette and learned a lot of different skills.

After struggling to get a decent look the hair, i decided to take it into zbrush to sculpt in some details. I wanted a over emphasize cartoon look and think i've achieved that quite well. Using this i baked off the normal map using zbrush, this is a very happy workflow that i will be using in the future.

same again but this time just the folds and creases in the clothes as i was struggling to get the desired result using a diffuse map alone.

Here ths is the almost finished model at the moment, he has the AO map baked into the diffuse and also normal map applied in maya. Hes looking great so far and have learned a lot on the character creation workflow and this will help alot in the future.

Trees & Tree Platforms

Here are some trees for the scenery of the game, after adding a texture to this model it proved to appear too blocky. although achieving the 'cartoony' style we are aiming for i feel its not quite right.

This tree, instead of using low poly spheres utilises painted textures with alpha channels applied to planes to make the leaves convincing but still stylised.

Throughout the forest level there will be trees with platforms on that instead of being part of the scenery are actually traversable.

Here an alpha channel has been used again to add vines and the texture of the stones/ dirt under the grass will be modified to look less jagged

Thorns & Brambles

For the small gaps you have to clear throughout the forest level/ section, we decided to hand paint thorns and apply the texture to a plane with an alpha channel to keep it simple and old school much like original platformers.

Here are some experiments

This one looks quite messy and i don't feel it is stylised enough. This model is also difficult to repeat.

This is the type of stylisation i envisaged but after trying to duplicate this plane several times the visible repeat was an issue

In the end this is the design I personally am going for because it is simple, clean and easy to repeat which i feel gives it a familiar feeling especially for use in the type of game we are attempting to create.

could try doing some with different colours just to add some variation 

Puzzles and Level Mechanics - Forest

After the grey box was complete and the puzzles had been laid out, I began scripting the mechanics required for the puzzles to become functional as well as the general level mechanics.

The first puzzle encountered in the game is design to teach the player how to use the mechanic to interact with objects and to solve problems that will appear within the game. The first puzzle is fairly simple. There is a gate blocking the player from progressing. To open the game the player needs to take control of the mechanic in order to to travel underneath the gate to access the gates control switch.

The second puzzle that I have scripted is also fairly simple. The player will reach a platform that is too high to jump onto. In order to reach the platform, first a switch must be pressed that will turn on a fan (or something similar), that will create an upwards stream of wind. The wind will carry the player above the platform allowing them to jump down to it.

The last puzzle in the forest section is slightly more complex than the previous ones. There is another gate preventing the player from progressing and as before there is a switch that the mechanic can interact with to open the gate. However in this case when the mechanic stops interacting with the switch the gate raises again. In order to stop the gate from rising there is an interactable object that will fall from its place to the platform below and roll down to where the switch is, triggering the switch and opening the gate.

Grey Boxing - Forest Section

Now that our dissertations have been handed in, I have been able to go back to our game and continue from where I left off.

After finishing the level design sketches I have now grey boxed the entire of the forest section of the game. This includes setting up all of the small mechanic puzzles. The grey box will also be used for our game colliders as we have decided not to use mesh colliders as they would be too expensive.