Final Year Project Portfolio - Creating Art for our Game Project

Narrative & Purpose

The Service Bot that we wished to include within our game is as such, a service bot that was built with the intention to assist scientists in the Science District of The Thinking City - at least in terms of narrative. They would assist with the movement of materials, the fetching of tools, and for free & quick navigation with as little risk of disturbance as possible. In the game as it exists conceptually, the City has been taken over by a malevolent force / entity that has overridden the City's services and robots' main function and made them hostile. So despite the Service Bot's less-than-terrifying design, we needed to ensure that its behavior looks out of the ordinary - probably through its animation & texture work.

Gameplay wise, the robot needed to be designed with the ability to patrol the environment in a sneaky manner, pose a physical threat to the player (scare factor), chase the player (vary its movement speed), articulate its limbs for attacking & reaching out to grab the player, as well as a light source in order to telegraph its presence to the player in a way consistent with its design. Originally, we wanted the robot to be able to attack by throwing conical flasks filled with a neurotoxin that would damage the player and disorient them, but during the play testing of the paper prototype as it existed at the time, we found that the use of long range attacks would be quite unfair. As a result we settles on melee attacks.

Reference Material

As a team we came up with a number of references of robots from games and elsewhere in order to create a moodboard for our robot design. We looked at games like Portal 2, the Ratchet & Clank series, Dishonored 1 & 2, the Bordelands games, and some others as we enjoyed the aesthetic of a threatening, but playful looking robot - one that was born with one purpose but was "corrupted" or changed in order to become more violent. I took down notes in the form of annotations on our moodboard, to highlight the design decisions & details that stood out.

Idea Sketches & Team Decision

From this point on I decided to begin sketching / drafting out some ideas. Originally, we played around with the idea that the robot would wear a lab coat and throw flasks of neurotoxin, but this later changed due to the potential balance issues this may have in game (and because we moved to VR development later on). Pursuing this direction I created the following trio of sketches. I wanted to experiment with designing a character with silhouettes - a technique explained incredibly well here. After creating a few forms, I decided to add colour to one in order to define some internal forms and then created two more variations as seen here:

Feedback from the rest of my team was positive, but we needed to explore a number of other movement methods and character forms. I spent some time considering a number of different ways something could move comfortably and quickly through a hallway environment (other than with legs), and came up with the following: With a Ball, Hovering with a large fan, and Levitating. I also wanted to play with different robot structures - smooth, with bellows, and something more anatomical / spinal. The three robot concepts can be seen below.

My team gave a lot of positive feedback regarding these sketches, and after some deliberation we all decided to use the one which moves using a rotating ball. I gave the chosen design a coat of colour to communicate what it may look like and solidified our decision to pursue this route. In hindsight it may have been wise to colour all 3 to allow for a more informed decision to be made. From here, I started to create a character sheet for our Service Bot.

Character Sheet

The Character sheet, as seen below, needed to incorporate the following: Character Poses, Colour Palette, Alternate Styles, A basic Model Sheet, as well as some supplementary details (object labels, descriptions for important details, etc.). I looked at a plethora of different 3D Model sheets for reference, and took from them the most important aspects from each. I reckoned that I would only need a front and side view, as the character has no special or significant detail on its back.

This model sheet was met with approval from my team, but with skepticism from some members of the lecturing panel. As time was tight and we needed to continue, I pledged to continue with the design into the modelling phase but concede the design in the case that the realized character wasn't suited to our game concept. From here I moved on to the modelling, animating, and texturing of the Service Bot, until I came up with the following:

Note: the above texturing work is not complete, as we halted work on this version of the game's Robot

A Call to Re-Think

After I had completed the modelling and animation of this Robot, we had it on display in our game for the lecturing panel to see. In short, we didn't manage to convince them, and results from our VR test deemed the scare factor of the robot to be too low for what we wanted to achieve. So we decided to go back to the drawing board and come up with few new designs, and then show them to a group of outsiders for them to rate the "scare factor" of each one and to choose their favorite. This meant that we had to put a stop to all character development for the time being, and invest time into exploring some other concepts.

***Note: Originally, we had another robot character that would act as the game's boss (appearing after the player turns on the power). This character was cut, but the designs can be seen in the Warden section at the bottom of this page***

Starting the process of redesigning the service bot, my team and I met to go over some ideas for robot attributes that would suit our game concept a little more. Some of the things we thought would work were:

• Bipedal Design (humanoid?)
• Infested variant - experiment gone wrong OR corruption from rogue AI -> incorporate storytelling into the design
• Focus on purpose to the scientists who worked in the game environment - carrying objects, transportation, using tools, etc.
• Holographic head

With these in mind, I spent some time in January at the start of Pre-Production to come up with the following new designs.

Carrier

The carrier is what I imagined a robot designed with the purpose of material and package transportation in mind. The design features a tray-like object that is strapped to the robot's back, onto which the robot will place / remove objects for transportation by lifting them over its head OR having a scientist place it there. The robot's inherently hunched over to mitigate the risk of items falling, and could be magnetized to ensure magnetic metal objects don't fall off.

For this design I created a number of different variations. One such variation was a more damaged version, with a broken head that had been overridden to make a holographic eye takes its place. The idea behind this was to try and communicate that the robot had been hacked or "corrupted" by a rogue A.I. that manipulated the robot's internal mechanics to repair damage. The movement would be stunted as well due to the damage.

The other variant I made was the infested carrier. This robot's theme was that it had been corrupted / taken over by a biological entity, who's tendrils permeated into the robot's mechanics and had taken control. Similar to the previous variant, the robot's internal mechanics have been manipulated in an attempt to repair it - or at least make it functional for the entity. The epicenter of the entity would be seen on the character's tray, and significant damage to the character's extremities and build would be evident.

Carrier                                                                                                                  Infested Carrier

General Service Assistant

 The General Service Assistant (G.S.A.) was designed to be capable of doing any generic task, essentially with the base capabilities of any human but with some enhancements. The robot features mechanical advancements like digitigrade legs that are extendable using an intermediate piston, allowing the character to extend its height and reach higher places. It is a design that is helpful for the residents of the Thinking City - in both domestic and lab environments since it has the ability to replicate any human activity with pinpoint accuracy.

I made an infested variant of this design too, with the entity's tendrils permeating the robot's mechanics. I ensured to communicate how this looked in the design, with tentacles replacing broken / lost parts, wrapping around extremities, and bursting out of its insides. The below panel communicates some of the design decisions made for this robot.

General Service Assistant (G.S.A.)                                                                                                                      Tainted G.S.A.                    

 *Artist's note : I drew the legs at a weird perspective that caused some issues later on with modelling, so I've learned to pay more attention to drawing in a front-facing isometric perspective for character sheets going forward*

Choosing a Design from External Feedback

Internally, our team leaned pretty heavily towards the G.S.A. Tainted design, as it seemed the most effective at communicating story elements but also looked visually straightforward and easily understandable. Despite our own feelings, we decided to follow through with out promise to the lecturers and get feedback on the designs in order to educate our robot design choice.

Once we had these designs made we opened up a Google Forms survey, which we distributed to people close to us and outside of the project. It was fully anonymous, and was designed to receive just two things from each participant - to rate the perceived "scare factor" of each design, and then to denote their favorite of the selection. We presented to them the original robot design, as well as the new designs for the participants to give feedback on. At the end of the test period, we got 25 responses, from which the results can be seen below:

Here's a link to the original Google Form

From these results & our feelings internally, we chose to go the path of the General Service Assistant (G.S.A) - Tainted robot design. Apart from its popularity among those we tested, this outcome was due to the potential it had above all of the others to have story elements hinted at through its design, as well as its potential for unique sound & texture design. These results were communicated in our CA2 presentation.

After this decision had been made, I moved onto the modelling, texturing and animating process for the G.S.A. Tainted robot.

Reflection

On Art

Art-wise, I fell as if I could have explored many more ideas, particularly in terms of the different functions the robot could have been designed for (i.e. manufacturing, medical purposes, cleaning, etc) and also in humanizing the robot designs through expressions and different head designs. However, I needed to cut myself off thanks to time constraints of the college project and due to the redesign (3+ weeks of discarded work).

On Survey

In terms of the survey, it definitely could have been more extensive but due to the immediate need for feedback we needed a quick decision on which robot was the best. If I were to do this again, I would have communicated the purpose of the robots better in the survey, as well as an overview of the environment they'd reside, and ask for more feedback in the form of paragraphs regarding:

• Design clarity of purpose
• Aesthetic match to game environment
• Emotional response

Otherwise, I'm quite happy with how this turned out, as we did end up choosing a much more suitable and complex design for our game project.

One of the pieces of environment art that I wanted to make in order to explore and contextualize the atmosphere and tone of our game was the opening view the player has when entering our level - which I dub "The Foyer". This is a scene in which the player will get their objective, delivered through the dialogue of the character T.R.I.S.H. & through the A.I. character S.H.A.N.E. who exists as a hologram. This holographic image of S.H.A.N.E. becomes corrupted during his exposition, to be replaced with a malevolent eye that focuses in on the player. We hope to convey a number of things through this - unease, tension, and the sense of a cold, dark and musky space.

Prop Designs

One of the tasks I completed prior to the creation of environment art was the designing of props. I drafted up a series of objects with the purpose to define the environmental style. The emphasis was on ease of modelling for our small scale team as well as the object's presentation colour wise. We want an environment that has become dilapidated, yet somewhat futuristic. Some results of this process can be seen here:

Research

In order to prepare myself to delve into the concept art stage, I needed to look at how other artists have approached it. I spend a number of hours watching YouTube videos, looking at various game art examples (primarily from games that inspire the look and feel of our game - Half-Life 2, Portal 2, & Doom (2016)). I took away a few things from this: that concept art can be messy & can contain lines. The emphasis is on what the artist wishes to represent, and how it should be interpreted / translated into a game environment by the viewer. In order to educate myself on proper use of light within an environment, I began reading through James Gurney's "Colour and Light" Gurney (2010), particularly the chapters on Light and Form (Ch.3) & Surfaces and Effects (Ch.9). At the same time as this, I began compiling a moodboard from games relevant to the look I wished to achieve. I had created an annotated moodboard for when the game was of larger scope, but after we decided to lower the scope to just the lab environment, I needed to quickly gather a more focused set of references as seen below (the purple masks all irrelevant material).

Creating the Foyer

The first step in my process after nailing down a chosen thumbnail was creating a sketch of the intended scene with values applied to indicate how lit the scene will be. I wanted to experiment further with the greyscale painting approach (explained here), as I used it prior in another piece of environment art with mixed results but learned a lot. I annotated some things on the canvas in order to communicate them to my team, who then approved of the sketch.

After gaining the approval of my teammates, I iterated on the layout of the piece, changing proportions of objects within the scene and altering the 'camera's' field of view. I then deepened the darks in the scene, as the values in the sketch were much to conservative to portray what we as a team wanted to communicate. I talked with my team to figure out what the hologram should display. We decided on an Eye, a symbol that represents the malevolent force / entity that has taken over the city. I used a colour & value chart taken from google images to help inform me of the values I should use with colour in mind.

Once I had completed the changes, and my team were happy with what I had made so far, I began doing a colour pass on the greyscale piece. I did this by applying colour on different layers, each with a low opacity in order for the underlying values to influence its apparent tone. I made sure for colours to be consistent with the object I had made earlier, but didn't stop myself from experimenting with alternate hues. I wanted to make the hologram look as it should - holographic. I read a small piece on how to create the effect, which can be found here. This technique turned out to be helpful, but needed to alter the extent of the process in places in order to achieve a desirable effect. One of the major details I needed to convey was how the light from the hologram lit up the environment. I did this by adding a 'soft light' layer and putting blue lights in areas around where the effective range of the hologram felt like it would be. I wanted to show that the hallways were just around the corner, so I allowed the red emergency lights seen in those areas to bleed into the background somewhat.

I iterated further, adding paint onto unpainted objects and adding more extreme touches to the hologram. I wanted to break it apart in places to look as if the hologram is broken or breaking, being project from an aged, damaged, or neglected piece of hardware. Once I had completed this, I played with shadow overlays in order to accentuate parts of the piece and to darken it in areas where it felt suitable. After this had been done, I talked with my team who approved of it once again. The finished piece can be seen below:

Reflection

On Process

From experimenting with the greyscale painting approach, I learned a lot about the importance of value in painting, and how to build up the illusion of depth on screen. It was something that I had never attempted before, so what you see above are my first attempts. I do feel that I have a lot of learning and experimenting to do with this technique in order to completely understand it, and I do feel as if I went about it in a strange or "incorrect" way at times - particularly in terms of applying colour. A lot of this stems from cold feet using a new technique, and with practice would likely diminish over time. Going forward I definitely need to do more research into the technique and look at how other artists apply this process.

On Art

Art-wise, I'm quite content with the tone that the above and subsequent art (seen in concept art section) communicates - that being a dark, dingy sci-fi environment. However, there's a number of things that I would critique myself on.

1.  Environments are quite bare, only really focusing on structure - I need to look into more complex environment design to create a broader, fully realized sense of space.
2.  Use of colour is patchy, the greyscale value seeps through the colours quite frequently - this stems from overly cautious use of colour and inexperience with the technique.
3. Overly reliant with outlines, maybe try to define edges with colour instead of inked lines.

Overall though, I'm glad I got to create some environment concepts thanks to this project, and learned a lot about digital art techniques and programs in doing so. Additionally, I've identified a number of aspects of my art that can be considered weak, and need to be improved on.

***Any and all pieces / drawings that I have made for this project can be seen in the below sections***

Originally, our game was set up without a protagonist in mind, but rather opting for a "blank canvas" type of entity for the player to take up. Allowing the player to play as "themselves" was a decision that we thought was good thanks to examples set by other games, plus it would save us time in the college environment so that we could focus on creating mechanics and learning to tool sets that we would eventually choose. This was beneficial for the majority of the project, giving us time to experiment with a number of things in and out of game. However, over time as we added certain mechanics to the game (Gravity Room, Watch UI, etc.) it became apparent that we needed some justification for how the player character interacted with things and their history prior to the beginning of this "vertical slice" of a game. Additionally, as T.R.I.S.H. began to get brought into the game, we received feedback that players & onlookers had no investment in their situation, and could not see any point to it given the lack of background knowledge and experience.

So, in my spare time mind you, I decided to reconsider the protagonist for our game. I thought about how they could look, why they look that way, and invented ways to explain game mechanics through their design.

This potential protagonist design is intended to communicate the mid-game state of the player character. I started with a character that entered the Thinking City in formal attire, as they had been given an ambiguous and prestigious invite into the secretive city. Through the trials they have gone through up until the point of our "vertical slice", their clothes have become torn, dirty, and have been replaced with clothing reclaimed from the environment. The design needed to feature reasons / justifications for in-game interactions as well as items seen in the game. The Watch can be seen on their left hand, which allows the player to access in-game UI and check their objective. The Gravity Boots allow the player to traverse zones with anomalous gravitational properties without being affected by them.

Gurney, J. (2010). Color and light : a guide for the realist painter. Kansas City, Missouri: Andrews McMeel Publishing.

Aaron's Deign Class YouTube Channel - published 5 December 2018 - "Silhouette Drawing Methods".  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGL878oEh9k