COMPANY AUDIENCE

For this project i have been tasked to create an asset in the style unique to a certain studio in the games industry by researching thoroughly

.Time plan

Week 1-initial research and project planning 

Week 2-sketch up a couple initial ideas and more research even testing the studios methods and gather some primary research 
   

Week 3-project proposal start and research into uvs, modelling and a quick reminder of unreal engine 
 

Week 4-Christmas breaks (finish up research and continue the project proposal)  

Week 5-Christmas breaks (finish up the project and fully update the blog fully and annotate)

Week 6-teacher training day (use free time to check all my research)

Week 7-start work on the asset which will become my final piece

Week 8-finish the model and start uving and keep documenting  

Week 9- Continue uving and keep the blog updated

Week 10- Finish uving and move onto creating the material maps for the model.

Week 11- finish the maps and get the model and all maps finished and write up the evaluation 

week 1-2 research
For this week my goal is simple and laid back and is just to research a handful of games companies and isolate which one i want to do primarily and further into the company only if i get everything done so far.    
games companies 

 First we had to look at games companies and the games they have created and there style I already knew which company I was going to go with for this project so I left them out of this research and they are going to have there own presentation.

The first company i decided to look at after already picking my company was irrational due to it been my next choice after arkane studios since there universes and styles in there games are quite similar in design both olden day time period but with creations and aspects that are so ahead of us from drinks that allow you to cast fire to a city underwater.

Images consist of Bioshock and Bioshock infinite.

I looked at eidos Montreal cause they can do a sci-fi futuristic game right and i have enjoyed both games they have released deus-ex and its sequel. The music the colour the feel and theme,everything is so well fit it beg you to play it.  

Images here consist of images of deus-ex human revolution and deus-ex mankind divided.





My company choice 
This is the company i am going to researching fully into and adapting there style and creating something in that style i have picked arkane studios.I am a massive fan of there game dishonoured and feel the style they used for it is unique and would benefit what this project asks from me. I looked into the company the style dishonoured uses and there two big games.

Arkane studios have not developed a lot of games only a small handful. But was worth noting down.

The style of dishonoured is one of my favourite aspects of the gamesit uses multiple from the ingame art to the tutorial messages

I spoke a bit about the games to show that i am very familiar with them and what they are.

concept art 

concept art and art used in game

Game-play screenshots

game-play screenshots

Through this i have created a couple mood boards of different from dishonored such as concept art and in game screenshots to help give me an idea of what styles this game holds.

week 3-5 further research and artist research
The main goal of these two weeks is to further research into my chosen company and learn there insides out and look at there artists as well because that is where i will find the majority of my help with this project. 

Influences for dishonoured 
I looked at different artists and art in the industrial revolution and the 1900 periods since the games are set in that period and just from looking at the art and images of back then you can see a link.

I found while researching that 100 years ago artists came together to imagine what we would be like in the future during this i could see the influences that these had to dishonoured from the whale bus to the whaling ships seen in the game. you can see influences for the carriages and the hulking masses of machinery the tallboys which heavily armoured soldiers on giant mechanical stilts powered by whale oil and used to influence terror against the player  

The artists 

 Yannick is and always be a goldmine for me while i was researching the artists of arkane studios he is an environment artist for arkane and he did the modelling and the texturing for a majority of the assets and areas. During looking at his work i found the software he uses to create the models.

These simple laid out images of his assets and models are useful in that i show you the dimensions of his models and the sizes of his different maps.                                                                                                                                                                                  

Looking at his model of the hounds pit pub interior i can see a lot of duplication and once you see it these models are very simple models.You can see where he has used zbrush in his models and then Photoshop with his texture maps for the materials.

I researched more of the different artists that work at arkane and there different styles. Even though only concept art you can see how the artists use a very dark palette to colour and design there work. In Nicolas work you can a very simple palette of black white and greys sticking with tone of just dark and miserable although when they was designing dishonoured 2 they started using more brighter colour due to the setting of the game been a summer coastal city not by much though the game still used a lot of dark palettes.

Cedric peyraverney  

Nicolas petrimaux

sergey kolesov

The software

looking at the artists of arkane studios i learnt the programmes they use and if i have access to these programmes when completing this project.

 I do not have access to zbrush but from research and opinions of other people i would like to try zbrush it sounds simpler than Maya.

 Ihave access to Maya  during the project it the main 3D programme we use.  

Photoshop is are main 2d software we use and is at my access whenever i need i will be using it to craft my textures and material maps and too craft my proposal in the form of a detailed image.

I also spoke a bit about the overall tone,mood and emotions.I spoke about how the game is built.

Presentation

 I came up with my project proposal i would show to my fellow students and see what they think and ask for any feedback or anything that can improve my piece before i start my initial sketches. Originally the proposal was going to be the painted Photoshop piece i believe that is still needed but no one in the class had started theirs yet.  

i showed off which company i am using and the game i am using the style of when creating my asset.

I gave a couple of examples of where in the world of dishonoured the items would be seen and the setting of them.

I then showed what i would be creating which is a lantern powered by the games resource whale oil used in powering most objects the game.
overall the feedback from peers and my tutor was positive and they the liked the lantern idea the next step is too start to sketch out my lamp and get it into Photoshop.

weeks 6-7 development and design 
For these two weeks i need to get the development sketches done so i van start to model and texture this will require me to do development sketches and do my Photoshop which is my proposal technically.    

Sketches 

i did a few sketches of lamps i already knew the design i wanted something really simple but fits in with the theme of dishonoured.

i came up with a final concept after a couple of different designs really simply i don't even feel like this will be the final design since alterations will be made throughout the production.

Photoshop

I took a lot of reference from the whale oil tanks that are located quite often throughout the areas in dishonoured.

This is my Photoshop piece as you can see i did make some alterations since the final sketch. while colouring the final piece i decided to have only a couple colours for it so the texturing phase would not be as tedious with multiple colours. I wanted to use a very similar style to the whale oil tanks in the game so it would fit in quite well.

week 8-10 modelling and uving 
in these three weeks i have given myself a good amount of time to model and uv my model ready for texturing this is part of the process which i always dread but this time i am confident i will do well hopefully giving me time to texture and get working in unreal


Modelling 

 After completing my Photoshop piece and getting the final design of the lantern. I imported the Photoshop piece into Maya as the reference image i would be using while modelling. I did not decide to create any orthographic images when modelling the lantern to save a bit of time so i could focus on modelling.

At first i had a small issue where i was worried about how to model the main body of the lantern but my tutor modelled this just by using extrude and edge loop tool.

After learning how to extrude and edge loop properly building the main body of it was very simple just a lot extruding. At one point i learnt if you extrude twice on the same area it can cause issues with the edges of the model and can cause many issues further down the line.

After completing the main body of the lantern i moved onto the handle and supports on the side of the lantern.The supports where easy all I had to do is model one then duplicate.

This is just a snap i took while building the base where the flame is lit from showing that most of the model was created through extruding previously mentioned.

Now i have completed the model i am now moving onto uving the parts of the model it will be quite simple hopefully due to it being very simple.

During the beginning of modelling my tutor informed me of the toolkit in Maya this is a really simply way for me personally now to select the tool i want to use.


UV 
I started on my uvs during the process of modelling just to test if i still knew how to do it.

My tutor helped me with most of the uving of the lantern by teaching me about the planar mapping,cylindrical mapping,spherical mapping.

Cylindrical mapping
cylindrical mapping is where uvs for a tube like items are created and wrapped around the object. it is used mostly for items that are tubes.
Planar mapping
planar mapping is used when uving an object you will see from one angle.
Spherical mapping
Spherical mapping is best used when of course making a spherical object such as a ball.

 The cylindrical tool useful when uving the lanterns body and honestly makes it easier and simpler and helps a lot.

Previously my tutor had shown me how to to use the extrude tool and its usefulness when modelling so there was still his example in the scene he had created I used this to try out uving an object and how uving is done.

during uving i had to make sure that everything fits nice and clean next to each other for each asset of the lantern.

during modelling when i came to duplicating parts of the handle i tried to move it and it would squash and wouldn't move. I looked at different viable options such as going to the Maya forums for help in the issue after trying the normal freezing the object.

after looking at the websites the issue i was having was been addressed but i did not find any help with the issue. I then went back to maya and was suggested opening up the outliner
and unparenting the the model.

when unparenting it i learned about the outliner tool which allowed me to unparent the supports that where not rotating the way i want them to and delete the transform that was causing the issue.

 Today i came to my model to find that my main body of the lantern had gone i tried to hide everything and show everything to see if the body was hidden but that did not work. i then asked my tutor he explained that the version i created the body on was a version of Maya that is not all the computers in the studio.

 

this is the version i should have made the body of the lantern on but i did not. To fix this i went back to the computer i had originally modelled my lantern on and imported it out of that version and into the new one.

After uving all of my lantern I then placed them in different places to fit the space then my tutor came over and redid them so they would have enough room and the key is to use all the space given in the uv editor.

week11
i will only give myself one week to texture and get those textures on my model and in unreal engine due to the last project before this was purely based on texturing and unreal.


textures

With the uv complete it was onto texturing i threw my uv into Photoshop to create my colour map and specular map i was a bit rusty after last project and have forgotten a lot about exporting maps and models from one software to another.

I loaded up unreal and imported my model of the lantern from maya into unreal it was quite simple with the import tool on Maya all i had to is save the file as a targa. In unreal creating material maps was quite simple but since last project i had become quite rusty at how to create them but after a bit of time looking through my old blog i understood. I attached the colour map to the new material and tested it on the model seemed good flat of course due to no other maps been attached.

When developing the specular map i made a lot of it shiny because i wanted my lantern to be a new  invention to the world and seen in the richer areas of dishonoured like manors and palaces. This was just one of my experiments when creating specular maps using white grey and black. white is very shiny and grey is little shin and black is none at all.

After experimenting with shininess on unreal i wanted the glass of the lantern to be see through like real glass but when trying to do that the parts of the original map that was grey was disappearing due to the glass also having to be grey. so i made the entire lantern shiny due to it being simpler for me to work with except the glass part.

 When putting the material maps together in unreal the opacity options would not appear when using colour metalness and specular which me and another tutor could not figure out at the point. I did some research to no avail no one seemed to have the issue i had or i would find guide that completely miss the issue i was having i managed to get opacity mask to appear when i fiddled with some of the options but sadly not the opacity.

when trying to work around the opacity issue my tutor told me about the minus one tool where it would basically reverse the effect of the map it is assigned to which was my shiny surface which was turned into a very mirror like surface.

Whatever i tried throughout tinkering around with the options the glass texture would would come up either black or see through but with jagged black splats all over the cylinder of glass. I then spoke with my tutor and learned that i had done the main process of the project which model UV and texture. But soon i will be making a post online to see if someone can solve this little issue.
 The evaluation

For this project we have been given the title audience and we are too develop a full model UV’d and textured.

The project is to research an audience which is a games company and their games and model an asset in the style of that company. My company was the French games developer Arkane studios creators of dishonoured.

I looked at the different assets in dishonoured and decided I wanted to create a lantern that has not been seen in the game before. I used the style of dishonoured for my asset which is heavily art nouvea and water painting style because through research I learnt arkane used this when developing assets and buildings for dishonoured . I used Photoshop, Maya and unreal for this project since they are the only software the pcs in my studio have on them that arkane use as well. I researched when arkane was created and how many games they had developed. My research aided in helping me develop the asset which I was building to relate to arkane studios style and themes of dishonoured.

During research I was required to look up the different artists who worked on dishonoured and the programmes they used to create the style. I was influenced by the different artists who worked on dishonoured and the dark style they worked in. During the design phase to keep things simple I went with the colour scheme of red and grey just like some assets already in the game. Making the colours of the lantern only two gave me less work when painting and developing my colour maps in Photoshop and fit in with the theme of dishonoured well.

Throughout the different stages of the project I had problems at different points such as when I tried to rotate a bit of the support of the lantern it would deform and not rotate. To solve it I looked online and no seemed to have the issue. But after some help I discovered opening the outliner and unparenting the support the issue had gone through this I learned that the outliner can help a lot when doing anything in Maya.  An issue that happened when I was developing my model in unreal the opacity would not appear in the options even when I messed with a few settings in the unreal material maker. I looked everywhere for people who had the same issue to no avail, I will be posting a message on the forums soon to see if anyone can help with this issue.

 I was happy with how much I got accomplished throughout this project. Because I was able to develop something related to something I really like and I was very passionate about this project. I really enjoyed the research phase of the project due to me being able to research my favourite game and all the aspects to do with it such as the art the development and the creation of its company. Some parts of the project I did not like were the 3d side of things, I have not been very good at it throughout my time but every time I use it in a project I become a lot more fluent to me. Also the small issues I had with some of the programmes I am already not that fluent in 3d modelling and UV’s so issues with those programmes really knock me out of the work flow.

I feel that with more time on this project I would be able to build more than just the lantern and add further detail to the lantern itself as well as work a lot more and the issues unreal.

I did not feel like I used my time that effectively I felt that I took a lot more time than it should have with the research and next project I wish to improve on how much I manage my time by making the time plan at the beginning and sticking to it.

I feel this project has been a good insight to a lot of the games industry for me I have learnt a lot about how games artists work through me following the same processes. I feel like I have learned a lot more about solving issues that I have with programmes such as asking people online whom have had the same issue and looking at guides. It has also given me more practises with unreal, Maya and Photoshop and then process such as materials and UV’s and I feel more comfortable using them.