It nearly killed me

You would not believe the amount of curse-words I have muttered over the past few days. If our friend Kaile is correct and there are indeed 3D Gods who 'give life and take it away' I'm almost certain that they spend the majority of their time pursuing the latter. That and I would bet that if we were to meet them in person, they would more closely resemble Satan than Jesus. They would have huge ugly grins, smurking purely as a way of mocking their victims (i.e. ME!) and would probably stroll about the place singing the 'cheeky girls' best-of collection, driving everyone who had the grave misfortune to encounter them deep into insanity.

After pretty much giving up on the cyclindrical mapping problem I was having with the bike, I figured I would instead try to rig up my soldier.

Boy was that the worst mistake I ever made.

Building the skeleton was simple, binding it to the skin just as easy, although it took AGES, I eventually mapped him out and textured him... and then we come to weighting the joints...

I probably started messing with Maya mid-afternoon yesterday and didn't go to sleep till 5am. Then I woke up at 12 today and it's taken me till round about 4pm to finally get it working. I would love to be the helpful colleague and explain exactly what I did, what went wrong and I how I resolved it so as to help out anyone else who may come up against a similar brick wall but the fact of the matter is I have absolutely no idea what happened, and why I ended up on suicide watch by this morning. I think I scrapped my efforts and started from scratch at least 3 or 4 times until Maya decided it wanted to play ball and actually do what I was telling it to. All's I can say is that my issue involved painting weights (*shudder*) and Maya's complete and utter lack of compliance...

After two whole days of tedious tweaking and relentless ball-ache I'm fairly sure I now know and could show someone exactly how you do it ...I think =S

But I'm not going to mope anymore. As I said, my issue WAS eventually resolved and thus I have fully rigged and 'animatable' soldier. Additionally through pure practice and experimentation, I've taught myself a lot about UV mapping, the shortcuts of placing pieces on top of each other and the effective method of attaching as many linked faces as possible in order to have nicely corresponding edges (if that makes sense?).

Obviously, this kind of map is pretty simple compared to anything with a significantly higher poly count so the detail is pretty minimal and I used a very basic 3 tone colour palette in order to convey highlights and shadows. I also changed the design slightly in order to make certain parts stand out more e.g the Red on the shoulder pads and back-pack. Hopefully this will make him look clearer and neater when he's displayed about 1cm in height on a PSP screen! =P

(Special thank you to Rhoda for showing me some awesome UV maps and low-poly models last Friday!)

So up to now, I've made the little guy move about and stuck him in a few different poses for the purposes of rendering. I've also stuck in a simple textured floor and added a couple of basic lights in order to get some neat shadows. Of the images shown, I'm definitely a fan of the slightly darker and more high contrast set-ups. I think they work well with the details on the armour and give a way more dramatic feel to the scene. Hopefully I can get my 'wheel' issue sorted tomorrow, texture the bike and then start putting together some proper scenarios for animation!

I shall finish off with another concept. A further attempt to convey the sheer size of the enemies in the game and give a feel of the ancient Japanese inspired landscape, open, misty and haunting.

In the shop, we've been previewing God of War III and having never played the first two (I know, I'm missing out!) I was completely unaware of the Titans. Apart from looking frikkin' awesome, they appear to be doing the same kind of thing I've been thinking about. As far as I can see, they as enemies (and allies?) provide both a landscape and target for the player. This mechanic is what I want this game to be all about so I intend to do further research into exactly how they make it work in GOW3.

...anyone got a PS3 I can borrow? =P

DEADSPACE

The facebook Deadspace page is holding a competition to design you're very own kill for Deadspace 2 here =)

1st prize is for the kill to be made and included in the finished game!

I threw together a quick idea and submitted it this evening. It can be done as images, video or simply in writing. You guys should do it too! XD

First steps into Maya and more!

I quickly formed a new soldier design based on the last concept. The elongated helmet and 'stilts' were created in an attempt to form a unique silhouette. I also started to think about how these guys would navigate the games terrain.

STILTS

Apart from the aesthetic appeal, the stilts have a practical purpose, allowing the soldiers to sprint faster, jump higher and navigate dense forests, deep sand or swamps. They are extendable/hideable and may have to be earned through gameplay.

GUNS

The mountable rifle is also a mechanic in it's own right; the stock is attached to the armour on a hinge meaning that the weapon can be lifted and fired with only the right hand - leaving the left free to perform other duties such as climbing/holding, throwing grenades, using a sword/pistol, accessing equipment or opening doors/using machinery. Rather than collecting and carrying an armoury of weapons (classic shooter style) or being limited to only 2 (almost every game since Halo), you can obtain different weapon parts which can be mounted to the shoulder stock allowing for interesting combinations e.g. Assault rifle/grenade launcher, sniper rifle/grappling hook, gauss cannon/magnum etc.

OTHER WEAPONS

Since these aren't your standard kinds of soldiers, fighting your standard types of enemy, I figured I have the opportunity to create some original kinds of weapon. Although I don't have any showable images just yet, I'm thinking extendable spears/lances which could be used to impale the giant enemies or to vault deep ravines, drills/saws used to dig through armour, harpoons and various kinds of incendiaries/explosives.

POWER ARMOUR

The combat armour is also an important feature of gameplay. Made up of panels of some future metal alloy, it is packed with nano-technology which serves a multitude of purposes:

The surface is coated with thousands of micro solar panels allowing it to constantly keep charged (no worrying about charging the suit i.e. Half-life - although this could ensure interesting mechanics during long indoor areas/night-time).

On-board computers monitor brain activity and muscle co-ordination in order to follow the users movements and control an sturdy exoskeleton. This allows the user to move with absolute ease and assists in tasks such as lifting or running - easing fatigue and providing the wearer with near super-human strength (so no getting tired = unlimited sprinting(?) and super strength could allow the possibility of interesting interaction with the environment such as the ability to throw large rocks or vehicles as weapons).

Constant health monitoring means the suit is cooled or warmed accordingly, filters in the helmet provide sufficient oxygen at all times and injuries are dealt with automatically (the soldier will be able to explore areas of extreme heat/cold allowing for interesting environments and the 'filter' + onboard air supply will allow for underwater/gas/vacuum exploration. Also again noting back to the famous orange H.E.V suit, the player will be offered a bit of reasoning as to why he doesn't die immediately after falling off a massive cliff or whatever as the armour automatically administers pain-killers and a concentrated injection of nano-bots to aid the body in speedy healing of fractures/cuts etc. Maybe it might be IMPOSSIBLE to die - that's not really what the game's about after all, so why not? It may increase the feeling of puzzle solving rather than all-out war!).

Sensors in the attached weapon send feedback to the computer regarding such information as ammunition, target range, approximated target health and importantly - the direction in which the weapon is being aimed, negating the need for sights or a scope. All information is visible through the visor which also has built in magnification and a 'scan' function (similar to Metroid) where the player can scan an area or enemy and receive or store information about it on a database. For the player this would all be visible as the on-screen HUD.

Customisable webbing would give the player the opportunity to juggle how much stuff they want to carry and where abouts on their person it would be located. Possibly, the more you carry, the slower you might be and the easier to reach items are, the quicker you might be able to use them eg. grenades on the right hip would be ideal whereas, the left shoulder would just be stupid. Similarly, the pistol on the left thigh would make for a quicker draw than if it were kept on your back.

Smart camouflage (MGS4 OctoCamo? =P ) gathers visual information about the surrounding environment and replicates it on the surface of the armour at the users desire allowing for highly accurate representations and efficient hiding!

...I think I've covered everything there?... =P

So onto Maya!

After showing Josh my first designs, we talked about altering them when moving into 3D in order to make best use of the screen size that they would be showed on. Obviously if I were making a game that was going to be played on a 50-inch HDTV, I would be trying to make the models as accurate and close to the concept drawings as possible, but since they are going to be displayed on a 4 inch PSP screen I will have to adjust them accordingly to make the most important parts more visible.

Also, I've got to keep the poly count down to a minimum and this has been my first real challenge using Maya. You would think it would be easier to make a simple blocky model but I personally found it instinctual to try and include ALL the detail and so ironing out all those curvy edges and protruding shapes has been quite a challenge. Since these guys are gonna be pretty tiny on the screen, I bulked them out a little and made sure both the back and the shoulders have quite large surface areas which I can draw detail into when I texture them. Other than that, it's been pretty much the standard arms, legs and head. Maybe when I move onto Zbrush I can think about modelling individual zips, scratches in the armour and dust on the visor =P

I also did a vehicle! XD

And if I'm honest, I designed it with the format at the front of my mind and as such it is a fairly simple shape. Although I'm yet to name it, this Tank/Bike is the personal one-man ride for these soldiers and would be used in game to cover huge open areas and reach lurking enemies. As mentioned in my last post, I still have this vision of being able to bring down such creatures with ropes ala Star Wars snow speeders.

As far as modelling was concerned I was lucky enough to have Kaile explain how to project my concepts onto flat surfaces and then build them to the exact specifications which really helped as this did actually turn out to be quite an odd shape to model. The main body is pretty much just a block, but I wanted the wheels to be able to rotate and the back legs to be hinged. Josh also suggested animating the 'ears' in order to enhance the feeling of speed while driving.

Here I had a quick go at an environmental texture. Very simple flat square with some nice painting and grass/sand texture overlays. I've photoshopped it onto a lovely picture of a PSP GO and stuck the render of the unfinished soldier in too, to give an idea of what I'm aiming to show in April. Hopefully I can get a couple of animated soldier and a Vehicle navigating one or two small terrains and possibly display them as videos on an actual PSP!

and finally ...HELP!

I have come to mapping the Bike today and got as far as Planar mapping all the flat surfaces, leaving the wheels till last. I thought it would be a simple case of Cylindrical mapping, but whenever I try, it's projecting on the wrong axis (as shown in the screenshot). I can't seem to be able to find out how to adjust this even though I'm sure it's insanely easy. If anyone can help explain what I'm doing wrong, it would be much appreciated (I have scoured the net too, to no avail!)

Also, The vehicle is actually made up of 9 separate objects which have been parented up and so far I have mapped them all to a single UV map. It has only just occurred to me that when I go to apply the textures, Maya might be expecting me to drop a separate map onto each object - is that right? or can I do it all on one? Gah!

I have begun the process of creating my soldiers skeleton and weighting all the joints but I will leave that for another day and we can all laugh at the no doubt mind-bending results! =S

...until next time...

The story unfolds...

So I haven't mentioned story AT ALL so far. And that was because, up until recently, the story I had in mind really sucked. If you're gonna make a war game, you want it to be EPIC. Because wars are huge and destructive and violent and (when simulated for gameplay purposes) fun! =P

I knew I wanted this squad of marines to battling some kind of 'Alien' enemy - something that was foreign and unusual and scary. Also I wanted to go with a pretty natural setting, rather than on board spaceships or dark industrial planets. In my opinion, one of the best things about designing a landscape would be to create something that was beautiful and totally awe inspiring.

....so, the original plot I had went a little something like this:

An alien species has landed on earth in the near future. It doesn't seem to be hostile and although the creatures show signs of great intelligence, they appear to be timid and all attempts at communication so far have failed. Gradually though, the aliens are multiplying and building homes (in the form of some kind of large impenetrable hive/cocoon). They are consuming our resources and covering great portions of land from one central point outwards. Eventually a decision has to be made between the united nations as to what we are going to do. They decide to send in the military (of course) to enter the 'hive' and try to somehow either reason with the creatures or destroy them. And that would be the hook of the game, that the enemies aren't really hostile unless attacked and upon encountering them or certain areas, the player would be presented with multiple options which either resulted in you bypassing the aliens, restraining them or killing them (which wouldn't be as easy as it sounds).

Now the Japanesey angle, somehow changed my whole perspective of this story. Suddenly, I imagined the world to be quiet and serene, misty like silent hill and I saw the enemies as having stronger individual characters. Maybe we are on a planet that resembles earth yet isn't? And what if the enemies are HUGE so that you really do have take advantage of this team dynamic to bring them down.

So now...

Humans have arrived on a new planet which has an ecosystem very similar to Earths. It is widely populated by various 'animals' but there doesn't appear to be any intelligent life (picture Earth how it might be if we had never existed and nature had run rampant)... shortly after we land however, and humans have just begun to settle in, these huge "colossal" (guess the inspiration) creatures start appearing and tearing down our factories and destroying our diggers. Once again we choose to send in the military and that's where the player takes over.

One thing that really struck me about Shadow of the Colossus was the moral ambiguity of killing these creatures that are apparently doing no harm to anyone. It would be made clear in this game that although the creatures are causing a bit of a scuffle, they are yet to actually harm any person. So I thought about SotC and how you were forced to kill the 'bad guys' to complete the game but what if you didn't? As in my initial story idea, I thought it would be great if there was the possibility of simply subduing each of the creatures rather than murdering them. You are after all, part of the military and have access to top technologies. It might be interesting if it wasn't made initially obvious that this was even a possibility. Then it would really test the players morality, willingness to explore and perhaps even their ideas of this genre of game.

Like SotC, each creature would be a huge puzzle in and of itself. First you would have to figure out a way of getting close to it - perhaps you might drive to its feet and then climb it's legs, land a helicopter on it's back or even parachute down onto it from the sky. Once aboard, a member of your squad could be sent to 'analyse' it in order to determine it's strengths/weaknesses etc. and then you would be presented with a variety of suggested options to either kill it, subdue it, or simply guide it away/convince it to leave you alone. A few ideas I have included collecting plants to create a serum which could be injected into/fed to the creature to put it to sleep or make it docile (like tranquilizers?), tying it down snow-speeder style using harpoons from vehicles, or identifying weaknesses and planting explosives to systematically bring to the ground. The rifle could be upgraded to fire ammunition that can penetrate certain kinds of skin/armour or converted into a harpoon gun in order to aid in climbing the creature.

This idea has set me on the path for a very clear set of enemy concepts, which will have to convey the way each one might work as a game mechanic. Additionally, I can start basing weapon/vehicle/armour designs accordingly.

Below are a couple of unfinished sketches/ideas I've been tossing around as I've been formulating the idea.

This simply shows a couple of soldiers doing a good old bit of recon while squad transports fly overhead.
Here I was attempting to convey the scope of the enemies. (ignore the 1st person pistol bit - twas just an idea =P ) As the player(s) stand on the edge of a giant cliff in a deep jungle, a group of military fighters are attacking a huge Cat-Like creature in the distance...
For some reason, this pic kinda reminded me of Cloverfield. Maybe this guy has surfaced from a dark mountain valley and troops are 'boarding' him for surveillance.

Dilemma

Okay! So here's the finished concept for the playable soldiers. This guy is mean, he's dressed all in black, sporting a blood-red visor and the awesome customisable rifle shown in my last post - all in all, I was pretty happy with him. And then Halo came to bite me in the ass once more. I swear, while I've been doing these drawings, that I haven't been playing and/or thinking about Halo!

...but that guy I just 'designed' - he's pretty much just an ODST isn't he?
In a feverish panic I went online and grabbed a tonne of reference images to make some comparisons (yes, that should have been the first thing I did on this project but I've only just got internet back so forgive me!). In terms of ego, it's definitely never a good idea to place your work side by side with that of the pro's, but in this case, I'm looking at style and subject rather than skill. As you can see, my design could easily be a concept for a soldier in Halo. Saying that, it could probably quite easily be a concept for a soldier in Killzone. At a push, it could be a grunt in GOW (if I bulked him up a little). But I wouldn't consider any of the three games mentioned to be carbon copies of one another. Each one has something stylistic which makes it stand out from the pack. I'm worried my design is just incredibly generic - that it could fit into any slot, definitely aint a good thing!

Thinking about this then, I figured I need an angle. A source of inspiration which I can use as the main focus of research.
So without really thinking, I blasted out the above image as a sketch and all of a sudden, ancient Japan swooped into my brain and took over. I changed the brush I was using on PS (haha - but it does make a difference!), altered the colour palette slightly and grabbed a background from online.

This guy looks different right? I mean there's obviously more work to be done, but I think I've found a better direction. What if all the military hardware is based upon or has connotations with ancient Japanese culture. Samurai's and Ninjas ALWAYS look cool =P And it something different for me. A new area which may help me to improve as an artist while hopefully creating something which is more original and unique.

...here's hoping anyway!...
Finally, this is the (unfinished) concept for one of the vehicles I've been working on, sourced from the early drafts I did in Jan. I'm pretty happy with the shape and form so as soon as I've settled on the texture and colour, I think it will be the first thing I will properly build in Maya. It has no real moving parts so in order to animate it, alls I need do is have it move from one side of the screen to the other. Can't be too difficult?...

Developments

Some further conceptual developments. Still moving in the same direction, I was aiming to flesh out some of the designs I had produced earlier.

As mentioned in previous posts, I really wanted to spend some time looking at the helmets. I remember seeing an interview with some of the guys at Bungie who said that the silhouettes of both Master Chiefs Helmet and battle rifle were two elements that became incredibly important in forming a unique identity for the Halo franchise. They set it apart form all the other sci-fi shooters out there. Once again, there are bits I like, and bits which just look horrible...
Here, I was experimenting with different ideas for webbing and the placement of it on the soldiers body. Additionally, I sketched in some of the rough weapon designs and where they too might be carried on the person.
For the first time, I mocked up how some of the outfits might look plus helmets. A couple of them I worry, look more like space-men than soldiers...
Sketch illustrating the 'on-screen' feedback that the soldier and possibly also the player will use to see important information about the environment and their own health/ammo/crosshair/missions etc.
A final design for the rifle, showing the shoulder support and side-loading magazine. I plan to create a diagrammatic drawing explaining all it's functions as a multi-purpose weapon and how it can be customised in game.

A bit about Maya...

Well I have started learning how to use Maya and bring my boring old 2D drawings into the realm of the real. Now all Kaile's late night rants from last semester are starting to make a funny kind of sense. It really is a completely different way of thinking and one that I still haven't quite got used to. Luckily Josh's Friday afternoon tutorials are bringing me on quicker than I ever thought I would learn and by all accounts, us newcomers are doing quite well (so far!).

Due to technological difficulties (= Maya 8.5 being a dick), I'd been having trouble transporting my work from Uni to home meaning that everytime I started something, I couldn't then continue it. Annoyingly, this has meant that I haven't managed to do as much as I perhaps would have liked to. The head you see above is probably the best looking model I've made. It was simply a sphere and I manipulated the UV's to create the shape and then used one cylindrical map to texture it. I did the eyes closed when Steph pointed out that eyeballs are usually created as separate objects so that they can be moved about within the head. When I first created it, I wasn't quite savvy enough to start making individual objects. Now however, Josh has taught me about parenting and more recently, creating a skeleton for you models with which to animate them (though I am yet to try out this daunting procedure!).

With regard to the 'Tin Toy' project, mine has been on a bit of a hiatus after a made a model I was quite happy with and mapped it out only to find that the file wouldn't open once I brought it home. I do plan on building a new one from scratch at home, that I'll hopefully get rendered and in a presentable state within the next week or so.

I should probably point out here that through discussing the concepts I've painted with Josh, we have decided on a way for me to incorporate 3D in my main work this semester. Being that I'm a a Maya n00b, he suggested I try to build a set of low poly models representative of those seen in DS/PSP games. I intend to make a soldier (which I can duplicate to create a squad), at least one vehicle and an enemy or two plus some very basic terrain that I can then render as 'screenshots' and if possible display them on a PSP screen as a slideshow in April. If was to go the whole hog, I could attempt also to animate them and create short video clips too - Josh has shown us how to do so and it didn't look THAT difficult, though it is all dependant on time!

The conceptual designs are just about coming to a stage where I am happy with them and I have attempted to make a low poly 'man', although the joints will need to be adjusted before he can be animated. My next few posts will summarise the next stages of development...