Character Concept and Changes

          Over the last few days I have been gathering reference to help with my character concepts. I've spent time looking at Norse/Viking era clothing, armour and weapons to produce something that would work with the environment.

Norse clothing references gathered

From this I used a base 3D model of a male human and made renders of it. From that I sketched over the renders as it helped to understand how all the amour and clothing would fit together. 

Norse character concept

After showing it to David and gaining feedback I went ahead and started blocking out the armour, beginning with the helmet. I did this in Maya and used one of their tools called quad drawing which made it move along fairly quickly.

Helmet Blockout

After this I gained some feedback from my lecturer, who rightly pointed out that this is far too organic to be a statue. After talking about what I could possibly do we came to a conclusion that I would be better off simplifying the model, making it more angular and more stone-like. With that being said here is my new set of references to give an idea of what I now intend to model:

Statue References

You can see from the latest set of references that I am now aiming to make the statue angular, even more so than the statues in the image, with strong lines. There are also weapons and a shield reference there which I want to add to the character, possibly dual wielding two hand axes, or just one large axe like that statue reference is in the top left.

New 'statue' concept

Planning Stage

          This post will cover my planning stage of the module, detailing the changes that will be made that aren't found in the concept art in order to incorporate my role as character and animation artist. I will also explain my plan for actually producing the art, including reference work, mood boards and the block out ideas we have for the cinematic.

Concept Art Adaptations

          The piece of concept art that we are working from shows no humanoid sculptures. For me to carry out my role in the group, David and I spoke about the changes that would need to be made from the concept art. We decided that instead of having the large body of water in the concept art that goes underground, we would instead have a pool of water that surrounds a base that a sculpture of a Norse-like human would stand on. This sculpture will either come to life or will crumble to reveal a character that would then attack the camera. The water would have come from a broken piece of wall nearby that would have otherwise held it in. There are also a few more alterations that will be made by David to enhance his work in regards to making the scene adhere to the module assignment. These changes include increasing the size of the environment so that it could host a player moving around in it, adding more detail to the wall, and removing the ceiling of the scene to give way to better lighting.

Fig.1 In game version of the concept art. (Derek Jenson)

Plan of Action

          In order to create a sculpture/character that is suited to the environment I will produce a mood board to represent what I think the environment is showing. Reference is also key to creating a character, and looking into Norse characteristics and art will help me do so.

The plans for the cinematic are fairly loose at the moment, with David and I discussing camera movements that will both show off the detail and important elements in his environment work as well as show off the character animation. Making sure that these two work well with each other and flow from one to the other seamlessly is important. As of now we think the camera should start by coming through the door and archway, moving around the scene in a yet unspecified manner and then the door possibly slamming shut, with the sculpture then coming to life. This plan will no doubt be more detailed and changed throughout my posts as we gain a better understanding on how to make our two roles work together.

          To create the character I plan to use ZBrush, possibly focusing on hard-surface modelling for the sculpture, and soft-surface modelling if there is to be a character within the sculpture.

I am predominately an animator, it is what I am specialising in and have not spent a great deal of time on character art or rigging. As mentioned in an earlier post, one of the key parts to this module assignment is that we use techniques and/or technology that we have not used before. Therefore character modelling and rigging will fill this role for me, especially as I have never used hard-surface sculpting in ZBrush and never made beyond a basic rig.

Broken down into the simplest form, my plans for this module are to:

• Gather references and create a mood board.
• Create character concepts.
• Research ZBrush for what I am using it for (hard surface sculpting, etc.)
• Model character through use of ZBrush and Maya, including textures.
• Research rigging methodology, focusing on rigs for games.
• Rig character using Maya
• Storyboard animation/camera/cinematic
• Composite team work for final product

These points are not necessarily in a specific order, as I will no doubt need to revisit some areas. All of this will be done with constant feedback and collaboration with David for the best possible results.

Bibliography

Derek Jenson. Tomb Raider Underworld. Available: http://www.derekjenson.com/tomb-raider-underworld.html. Last accessed 21st January 2014.

Module Introduction

          For this module we are required to build a 3D scene using a piece of concept art. The scene has to be built in such a way that it could be played and therefore must take into consideration how a character would move around and interact with the environment, however the module itself does not require it to be literally playable. The concept art has not been given any restrictions, meaning we can use any form of media from film and TV, to books and game art. We have been given the choice of working in a team of two or on ourselves. I will be working with David Keymer, whereby my role in the team is the character and animation artist, and David's role is the environment artist.

As some people in my course are focusing on roles other than environment art, myself included, we were given the option to do rigging and animation under the condition that we also do the character art. 

This module requires that we incorporate techniques and technology that we have not used before, thereby encouraging us to learn different methods that could better our understanding of the roles we are specialising in.

The final piece does not have to be the exact replica of the concept art, as we have been told that we can deviate from the original concept but only as to add to the scene in a way that compliments it, i.e. we should not deviate from it so much that it is unrecognisable, or have elements that could not be artistically justified in working with the original concept. This final piece will be a 30 to 60 seconds long cinematic.

          David had already been looking into and blocking out a piece of concept art that was used for Tomb Raider: Underworld (Figure 1).

Fig.1

After conversing with him about how I could contribute to the piece using character art and animation we came to a rough conclusion about what we plan to do, which I will detail in my planning post. I was happy to work with David and I think the concept art he found has a lot of potential for both of us to produce some great work.