Wednesday, 24 October 2012

Detailing Practice

Once I finish detailing with one of the previous Silhouettes, I will begin experimenting with Colour Theory within characters.

1. Red - anger, evil, love, hatred, blood, hot, active, emotional
2.Orange - warm, danger
3.Yellow - excited, happy, light
4. Green - organic, rich, digital, gross, sickly, money
5. Blue - friendly, sad, diffused, calm
6. Indigo - royal
7. Black - evil, fear, cool, empty
8. White - Heroism, holy, cleanliness

Abstraction of Shapes

I have been reading the Abstraction of Shapes in Characters from "Character design from Life Drawing" by Mike Mattesi. I have been looking at emotional ties with certain shapes...

Triangle: Athletic. Dynamism. Precariousness. Solidity. Dynamic. Force
Circle: Friendly, Soft, Safe.
Square: Strength. Solid.

I have also been looking at the law of thirds. "Our minds want to create symmetry and the irony is that this causes disinterest in art. Contrast creates interest."




"The law of thirds can also pertain to the dynamic shape of the triangle. The number three is a powerful number. In general, you want to stay away from even numbers because they have a tendency to create symmetry. The number one does also. Between the forceful triangle and the rules of thirds, you should be able to create dynamic designs if you so desire."




I have attempted to use these techniques on a new set of silhouettes. By creating a varied set of silhouettes using abstract and forceful shapes within the silhouette, I have tried to evoke certain emotions within the shapes of the characters. 

Friday, 19 October 2012

Écorché Study

Why am I doing this?

  -To improve my sense of human anatomy.
  -To create reference material for project
  -To act as a base for modelling different character builds

Using the mudbox default human mesh, I have been sculpting from it to create a muscular reference for future projects. It is only around 1/4 complete at this stage.


Current Progress

- Proportions need to be fixed
- Forearms, calves, hands, feet and head still need sculpted
- Muscles need to be better defined


Semester 1 Pitch Week

Just adding some content from pitch week which I probably should have put up a lot sooner...

The Project

Domain: 3D art and Design / Games
Topic: Character Design for games

Identifying a characters team is significant when it comes to games that include different factions. This is vital in combat games where the player must make split second decisions. Identifying whether  or not a character, player or AI controlled, is friend or foe contributes highly to the players chance of winning.
Furthermore, it is essential that this element is not overlooked as the information they read from a character will contribute highly to the players decision making. This is crucial in competitive online multiplayer games. 


Designing a character to fit a stereotype…
I will be looking at how different stereotypes are often linked with various physical attributes. 
Games often use archetypes as it allows the player to determine a characters abilities based on what they already know, and how mixing them up may create interesting results. Character Personality also plays a large roll in games as it determines the players relation with the character.

-What are the differences in 2 dimensional, and complex character personalities and their effect on a player?

-In what way can the characters personality be shown through its design


Team Fortress 2 - An example of a team with varied and interesting archetypes

What I need to Improve on...

- 2D concept art creation
-Texturing
-Hair/Fur
-Shaders
-Rendering

-Anatomy



Pitch Week Reflection

Feedback about the overall progress of the project was fairly positive. It was suggested that I not only look into games for reference, but also cultural identity, military squads and sports teams. Looking at real life examples would greatly improve my research. I should also continue to make many more, varied and interesting silhouettes and experiment with different themes. One of the main issues that came up was that my plan to rig the character models for the final project was not justified so I will need to show reason to why I am doing it.

Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Character Archetypes

I've recently taken interest in the hl2 mod NeoTokyo on the PC. The design of the characters and environment really interests me. Taking elements from Ghost in the Shell, it paints a very beautiful futuristic setting. Being an online multiplayer game, the design of the character classes needs to be very well thought out. The player's team is clearly shown through the color schemes for both factions and class is identified through a verity of different archetypes. Characters with more health are shown as larger characters outfitted with amour to show that they are slow and strong, whilst faster, weaker characters are often smaller and carry less to show maneuverability.

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

The Importance of Silhouettes


Practicing Character Silhouettes 
In competitive multiplayer games, it is sometimes important to be able to identify other players against the scenery quickly. It is essential for, some types of games, that information such as player team, class, weapon, and rank must be quickly identified for the player to make quick decisions.  
When designing characters, certain design elements must be prioritized in an order in which the player reads them.The silhouette of a character is the predominant element when identifying a character at range. Through the use of unique and contrasting outlines, the player can extract much information from the character.



I created my own character silhouettes today, trying my best to create unique and varying styles of character, and linking them with similar design elements. The top three have robotic elements to them which make them seem like they belong together. The bottom two, however, did not feel as if they belonged with the rest as they felt too human and chunky which is why I separated them from the rest. Overall, I am pretty happy with the results but there is still a lot of room for improvement.