Catch-Up #3

Dev Diary #28

Whilst working on my Commercial Asset Production for Real Time module, I also began and finished my Design and Visual Research for Cinema and Game work. The assignment for DAVRC was to create two pieces of art (using both 3D and 2D elements) that portrayed different scenes of a classic nursery rhyme. The rhyme I chose for my project was Pussycat Pussycat due to my interest in depicting the story from two perspectives: the cat and the mouse (and also just because I love cats and wanted to draw them for my project :3 )

Whilst I still question whether my second final piece is too dark/ hard to see or not, overall I'm happy with the work I was able to produce, especially during such a busy time of trying to keep up with other module work (CASPR). This module also helped me to learn and understand Substance Painter a lot faster than in CASPR itself, so in completing DAVRC, it helped me to complete CASPR.

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the game I helped make for my team's submission for the Global Game Jam 2024. With the theme being 'make me laugh', my team decided to take the approach of making a game where you play as a cat determined to make your owner laugh in order to cheer him up. As the sole 3D artist on the team, I was responsible with creating all the character and environment assets needed.

Due to the limited time we had to create our game, some of the assets (the old man) were less than desirable. As well as this, I forgot to take into account that some of these assets would be animated and so some aspects, such as the cat's tail, didn't have the right topology and ended up looking janky in game. This is something important that I hope to remember and take with me into my self-placement year work! Overall though, me and my team were really proud of the game we had made and so we decided to take it further and continue to develop it outside of the game jam!

After multiple Discord calls and brainstorming, we made the decision to bring on a dedicated 2D artist - my friend studying illustration at Arts University Bournemouth - Alice! After briefing her on the project and our vision for developing it further, she began by redesigning and creating art references for me to remodel Bjorn (the old man).

Thanks to Alice's comprehensive art references, I immediately began remodeling Bjorn.

In order to get the flat shading effect on the model, I replaced the principled BSDF surface with just an emission layer and added the shading to the texture file itself. While this was effective at creating the desired effect, it wouldn't work in a game engine and so I'd need to find a new way to create 2D shading. I chose to take the easy way out and shade it how I did instead of figure out how I would do this in an engine because of the state of the game project overall. Unfortunately, due to all of our busy schedules, progress on our game has been halted indefinately but I didn't want the model (or Alice's work) to go to waste and instead finished it this way. Although the project's been halted, I hope to continue working on it again in future!

Now that I've caught up on what I've been up to over the past year, it's time for me to begin my self-placement year work! I'll be updating my blog frequently with my progress so stay tuned! :3