For this project our goal was to create a game asset in a specific game companies style, the company is of our choosing and our audience is the company we have chosen.
Research:
Vigil Games: vigil games is now a part of THQ Nordic and was the maker of: Darksiders I, II and their subsequent remasters. I ultimately decided to go with this company because I really like there style, the way there characters and scenes look in game and in concept art.
Darksiders: Mike Rodriguez
This area started off as a grey tube and this artist was told to go wild and fill it in. This is what he ended up with, The art style of darksiders and darksiders 2 is very stylised but realistic at the same time. giving the game a semi realistic feeling with an overbearing theme of fantasy brought through by the giant weaponry and beefy out of proportion characters. Though not much information was available for this particular artist, if i was to hazard a guess i'd say he uses ether 3ds max or maya and photoshop for his work.
Haydn Dalton
Sourced from google
This guy was the lead designer at THQ Nordic, he came up with majority of the designs of Darksiders, including chaos eater (War's sword) and character design such as War, the main protagonist in the first Darksiders game. again not much could be found on this individual. i'd probably say that he uses Photoshop, and Maya.
Brian King
He did character models for Darksiders, such character models include: Absolom, The Destroyer & Crowfather etc. He exclusively modelled those characters and assets associated with those characters. such as Abaddon's great axe and deaths lantern around the Crowfather's neck. Information was lacking on this artist. i think he uses 3ds max, Maya, Mudbox or even Z-Brush.
Han Randawa
This is the artist of Darksiders and he modelled death, i like deaths design because it isn't a conventional design for death. Usually death is depicted as a cloaked skeleton but in Darksiders he is humanoid and has a skull mask on his face. There was literally no information on this guy, I think he uses Photoshop.
Darksiders artists tend to go for a run down, overgrown kind of theme for there scenes, but if an earth environment is used it tends to look quite post apocalyptic with broken buildings and large craters and cracks in the ground revealing lava depths. the characters and enemies are bold and drawn giving the art style a borderlands type of aesthetic.
THQ Nordic are not only renown for the Darksiders series, they are also responsible for the Alan Wake series and Ori and the Blind Forest to name a few. both of these games have a very prominent theme of dark and light. this seems to be the theme of most of there adventure games
From Software: From software are the developers of the Souls series, Information is fairly thin on the company so the following is what i found.
Dark souls: Hidetaka Miyazaki
Hidetaka is the man behind the exceedingly large difficulty level of the dark souls titles. he also developed the story behind these games.
Makoto Sato is the lead artist behind the dark souls franchise, he did all of the concept art for the bosses. all of the crazy, demented amalgamations of flesh came from his head. I love the design of the bosses in dark souls as they are so intimidating.
Dark souls has a very dark and gloomy aesthetic to it, making it hard to make your way through the areas filled with enemies lurking around every corner. The art style is somewhat realistic, though dirty as though everything had been left for a long time, the bosses and creatures are filthy and always quite slimy and textured. just from the picture alone, you can pick up on the texture of the
scales and the sharpness of the teeth. the bosses are truly masterfully invented.
Left 4 Dead: (Created by Valve)
I drawn inspiration off a certain map and the original game called blood harvest, this particular map is set in a cornfield which will help me visualise how my scene will look, it will also help me figure out how foliage is modelled. The ideal of a cornfield came slightly later in my concept art because I didn't think of adding context for my asset until much later.
creating foliage seems to be a process that involves getting a flat plane and texturing the leaf onto it, then I would have to put a transparency map onto it getting rid of the excess space. I ultimately decided against using this method on my final asset, but i did use a similar method in the end.
I ended up using two 2d planes put together at ninety degree angles bisecting one another in the middle. making an X or cross with them. This made them look like a 3d model. this is a method that was used a long time ago by a company called id software when making "Ultimate Doom". some game developers (THQ Nordic/ Vigil included) use this method with assets that are out of the way and in the background so they will never be under any scrutiny in game, this is also less costly in the long run.
The game company I chose is THQ Nordic. They made Darksiders I & II, There style is semi realistic with a touch of comic aspect. I usually get a fantasy element from their games, the comic style also adds to this.
Software research;
I knew that I would need to research how plants are modelled in games and also what software the people who made those plants used, turns out the people I researched used mainly 3ds max, Z-Brush, and Photoshop. I will have to replace 3ds max with Maya and Z-Brush with Mudbox. Though Mudbox may not even be used. Photoshop will obviously be a core piece of software.
2D Concept art process:
I started this with quite a few ideas floating around in my head, so I made a moodboard to condense the ideas into a finite design. After this phase, I had a clear idea in my head on what I wanted to do.
I decided I would go for the scythe because I felt that there was more I could do with it. although it was technically a weapon or at the very least, you could use it as one. so I decided I needed to add some context. The scenery for the games are always in a place that resembles earth, in the first games case it was actually set on earth. so i eventually put the scythe in a cornfield as an experiment and it looked good
This is my initial concept piece, it is an ancient scythe dug into the snowy ground. I tried to replicate the comic book style that Darksiders uses for there concept art. as seen below. I'm quite happy with how this turned out because it tells me exactly what I need to model for the 3d side and it rings true to the source which is Darksiders.
Another source of inspiration was Children of the Corn. This is an american horror story by Stephen King, it inspired me because of the front cover, I liked the black silhouetted hand scythe on a read background with the looming black cornfield creeping up the cover of the book. So I adapted my boring scythe in a wasteland concept for a more busy scythe in a cornfield scene.
I will be making a scythe is a cornfield for my final piece, it will be presented in a diorama and be textured in a similar way to the assets used in the company of my choosing (THQ Nordic/ Vigil games) I am confident about this project because I think I am fairly decent at the texturing side of making a model though when it comes to the actual modelling side off things, depending on what i'm making I find it difficult
I then decided to change the concept because the scythe was a weapon and therefore not acceptable. So I incorporated a cornfield layer onto my foreground due to my research, this context means that it is to be used as an extravagant gardening implement rather than a weapon used to kill. I think that the combination of corner stains and corn fill the concept piece and makes it look considerably better. I settled on the orange/ yellow hue for my concept piece because it looks like a dusty sunset.
Haydn Dalton
Sourced from google
This guy was the lead designer at THQ Nordic, he came up with majority of the designs of Darksiders, including chaos eater (War's sword) and character design such as War, the main protagonist in the first Darksiders game. again not much could be found on this individual. i'd probably say that he uses Photoshop, and Maya.
Brian King
Sourced from google
He did character models for Darksiders, such character models include: Absolom, The Destroyer & Crowfather etc. He exclusively modelled those characters and assets associated with those characters. such as Abaddon's great axe and deaths lantern around the Crowfather's neck. Information was lacking on this artist. i think he uses 3ds max, Maya, Mudbox or even Z-Brush.
Han Randawa
Sourced from google
This is the artist of Darksiders and he modelled death, i like deaths design because it isn't a conventional design for death. Usually death is depicted as a cloaked skeleton but in Darksiders he is humanoid and has a skull mask on his face. There was literally no information on this guy, I think he uses Photoshop.
Darksiders artists tend to go for a run down, overgrown kind of theme for there scenes, but if an earth environment is used it tends to look quite post apocalyptic with broken buildings and large craters and cracks in the ground revealing lava depths. the characters and enemies are bold and drawn giving the art style a borderlands type of aesthetic.
THQ Nordic are not only renown for the Darksiders series, they are also responsible for the Alan Wake series and Ori and the Blind Forest to name a few. both of these games have a very prominent theme of dark and light. this seems to be the theme of most of there adventure games
From Software: From software are the developers of the Souls series, Information is fairly thin on the company so the following is what i found.
Dark souls: Hidetaka Miyazaki
Sourced from google
Hidetaka is the man behind the exceedingly large difficulty level of the dark souls titles. he also developed the story behind these games.
Makoto Sato is the lead artist behind the dark souls franchise, he did all of the concept art for the bosses. all of the crazy, demented amalgamations of flesh came from his head. I love the design of the bosses in dark souls as they are so intimidating.
Dark souls has a very dark and gloomy aesthetic to it, making it hard to make your way through the areas filled with enemies lurking around every corner. The art style is somewhat realistic, though dirty as though everything had been left for a long time, the bosses and creatures are filthy and always quite slimy and textured. just from the picture alone, you can pick up on the texture of the
scales and the sharpness of the teeth. the bosses are truly masterfully invented.
Sourced from google
Left 4 Dead: (Created by Valve)
I drawn inspiration off a certain map and the original game called blood harvest, this particular map is set in a cornfield which will help me visualise how my scene will look, it will also help me figure out how foliage is modelled. The ideal of a cornfield came slightly later in my concept art because I didn't think of adding context for my asset until much later.
Sourced from google
creating foliage seems to be a process that involves getting a flat plane and texturing the leaf onto it, then I would have to put a transparency map onto it getting rid of the excess space. I ultimately decided against using this method on my final asset, but i did use a similar method in the end.
I ended up using two 2d planes put together at ninety degree angles bisecting one another in the middle. making an X or cross with them. This made them look like a 3d model. this is a method that was used a long time ago by a company called id software when making "Ultimate Doom". some game developers (THQ Nordic/ Vigil included) use this method with assets that are out of the way and in the background so they will never be under any scrutiny in game, this is also less costly in the long run.
The game company I chose is THQ Nordic. They made Darksiders I & II, There style is semi realistic with a touch of comic aspect. I usually get a fantasy element from their games, the comic style also adds to this.
Sourced from google
Software research;
I knew that I would need to research how plants are modelled in games and also what software the people who made those plants used, turns out the people I researched used mainly 3ds max, Z-Brush, and Photoshop. I will have to replace 3ds max with Maya and Z-Brush with Mudbox. Though Mudbox may not even be used. Photoshop will obviously be a core piece of software.
2D Concept art process:
I started this with quite a few ideas floating around in my head, so I made a moodboard to condense the ideas into a finite design. After this phase, I had a clear idea in my head on what I wanted to do.
This is my initial concept piece, it is an ancient scythe dug into the snowy ground. I tried to replicate the comic book style that Darksiders uses for there concept art. as seen below. I'm quite happy with how this turned out because it tells me exactly what I need to model for the 3d side and it rings true to the source which is Darksiders.
Another source of inspiration was Children of the Corn. This is an american horror story by Stephen King, it inspired me because of the front cover, I liked the black silhouetted hand scythe on a read background with the looming black cornfield creeping up the cover of the book. So I adapted my boring scythe in a wasteland concept for a more busy scythe in a cornfield scene.
I then decided to change the concept because the scythe was a weapon and therefore not acceptable. So I incorporated a cornfield layer onto my foreground due to my research, this context means that it is to be used as an extravagant gardening implement rather than a weapon used to kill. I think that the combination of corner stains and corn fill the concept piece and makes it look considerably better. I settled on the orange/ yellow hue for my concept piece because it looks like a dusty sunset.
Sourced from google
Modelling Process:
First I will start off with an asset list:
Scythe Head - 4 Hours
(Modelling - 3:30 hours)
(Texturing - 20 mins)
(UV - 10 mins)
Scythe Shaft - 3 Hour
(Modelling - 2:30 mins)
(Texturing - 20 mins)
(UV - 10 mins)
Corn planes - 30 mins per plane
(Modelling - 10 mins per plane)
(Texturing - 10 mins per plane)
(UV - 10 mins per plane)
Grass - 1 hour
(Modelling - 45 mins)
(Texturing - 5 mins)
(UV - 10 mins)
Estimated completion time: 8:30 hours (9:30 actual final completion time)
[Additional texturing of the base post finalisation]
(Modelling - 10 minutes)
(Texturing - 15 minutes)
(UV - 5 minutes)
After model creation my asset list estimation was fairly accurate to my finishing time
I may have been over by a factor of about 15 minutes or so, due to light and texture experiments etc.
I started off with making the blade of the Scythe, The shape itself wasn't that complex.
Then I made the arm which was fairly difficult but once I found a good place to start it got easier
I then made a small parcel of processed corn leaning on the blade of the scythe to add more to the scene.
I modelled the actual corn plant then worked on the piece of corn on the top. I got a flat shape and used a transfer map. I then proceeded to bend the shape into a cylinder using the deform tool. This process added a little texture to the corn and generally made it look nicer.
Then to add more to the scene I added harvested grass on the floor, I used a transfer map to make the grass I had previously modelled flat because modelling it all was unnecessary.
Plant experiment: I had an idea on how to make the plant in a really easy way, by getting a front and side plane of the plant and putting them together,
Texture Stage.
These are the textures I used in my final model: wood, steel and
dirt. (The dirt is for the base the model will be on, though adding this is not a necessity, and was implemented after finishing my model)
All of them are hand painted in Photoshop, though i used render/fibres to help fill out both the steel and wood. but all of them were painted prior to adding filters.
Final Textured model.
I'm not particularly pleased with my final model but as time and software was my enemy I had to settle with it. I think I could have done the textures a lot better, same for the models.
Evaluation
For
this project I made a gardening scythe on a cornfield diorama in the style of
THQ’s Darksiders I & II as part of my unit twelve. The aim of this project
was to make a model and some concept art of an asset from game of our choosing,
Evidenced by the introduction, I was influenced by THQ Nordic and there Darksiders
series and decided I wanted to do an interpretation of death’s scythe as my finished
piece. The first hurdle I had to clear was the fact I wasn’t allowed to create
a weapon, my way around this was to add a little context. I constructed a
cornfield around the scythe so it looks as if it could possibly be used as a rather
ornate gardening implement.
I
came up with my scythe idea by raking through reams and reams of Darksiders images
and a substantial amount of them were donned with a scythe; that was my
introduction, I first started experimenting with how I could make the scythe
look in the concept art, I started by trying to go for a traditional coloured
concept piece and I didn’t like the way it looked, so I did a little research
into the concept art of Darksiders and found they presented theirs in the dark,
grungy silhouetted pieces as seen in the Darksiders comic books. I made mine in
this style and it looked better but it was still missing something, it looked
too bare so I added the cornfield to it and I was very happy with the result. I
then adapted the look of it using the filters that Photoshop provided me with.
In
terms of my research I couldn’t find much on the artist’s work flow nor could I
find anything on what software they used but I gathered a vague understanding
of how they did it and what they used to make them, Out of the programmes that
are available to me I decided to use: Photoshop, Maya and Unreal to finish it.
I
wanted my concept art to look as if it was an official piece of work so I looked
into their pieces rather heavily and worked out there method of work as they have
never officially shown off their work flow, a combination of thick scruffy lines
and dark and dingy background colours such as a deep sunset orange or blood red
etc. A particular piece that inspired me was the four horsemen on horseback
charging ahead weapons drawn, it’s a simple piece but as is mine. That was the
kind of style I was going for.
My
modelling phase turned out to be quite the predicament. As my diorama was
fairly dense with models, the cornfield was crippling Maya as the sheer number
of plants was making it crash at the most inopportune moments, I had to sacrifice
my plant models for a more affordable 2d plane trick, the same for the grass on
the ground. I feel I could have done better on this part of the project but
time was my enemy at this point.
To
conclude I was fairly happy with the outcome of my project, the concept art was
my favourite part of the project because it looked the best and it was fun
making it. I was particularly disappointed with my model because I feel I could
have done more with it if I had more time. The research part was quite lack lustre
also as most of that stage was me explaining what I couldn’t find as none of
the artists mention anything on there work.
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