Lilu Bevan

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To begin painting (in 3D substance painter) we had to bake the low poly and low poly together. I was really happy with the appearance of my high poly- it looks really organic but still holding its structural shape. Unfortunately, when baking the two, the two models were so different that the low poly’s hard edges show through. The only was to fix this would be to change my low poly to make it. My tutor ensured me just to work with what I have but I may go back and edit it at the end.

Pretty happy with the painting however the blockyness is still irritating me so I am going to go back into my low poly and make it more round then re-import and bake.

So much happier with it now!

Moving onto the modelling and UV mapping aspect of the unit, my partner and I decided to split the workload by working on an asset each. I had previous experience modelling characters, and he has experience modeling object, thus, to put us outside our comfort zones and to learn new skills, we each did the opposing.

It had been a while since I had used Maya, however after a hour of messing about, it started to come back to me. To begin I used the side pose to build the bulk of the asset. I had a strange issue with my object being stretched when I opened the file- no idea why but i fixed this by exporting the object and importing it in to a new file.

To create more detail I used the knife took to make a load more edges to give a more organic shape. I added cylinder to help create certail parts and tried to bevel a few parts, however sometimes it wasn’t working- I couldn’t figure out why. I am hoping to sculpt it in Zbrush and make the harsh edges more organic.

I started to UV Map however I struggled a lot with this and got very overwhelmed and confused. I had a lot of help from my tutor for this part.

Once modeled and UV Mapped, we exported the object as an OBJ and imported it into Zbrush. Zbrush didn’t like my topology very much so my tutor reconfigured it into squares. This made smoothing everything out in Zbrush much easier. I used these brushes: Trim dynamic, trim adaptive, flatten, damn standard and standard.

To begin the design phase, my Tutor showed us some sketching techniques through focusing on silhouettes. I loosely sketched some rough body and objects shaped inspires by my mood board. I then went in an added some finer detail, making the image more clear. Then to create the silhouette I added some rough grey patches, with darker areas to highlight form. Finally I went in and added a last bit of detail and experimented a little with colour.

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I then experimented with photo bashing, using photoshop to cut up images from my mood boards and create my character out of these images. This was super helpful when it came to textures and clothing.

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We combined aspects from each others design then created a final form for both assets.

Finally we added contour lines so we could better understand how to model it in Maya.

Arcane

Arcane: League of Legends, an animated action-adventure series created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, is Netflix’s highest-rated series and is praised for its animation, story, world building, emotional weight and voice acting. In a typical 3D production, every element from the characters to the background is modelled in three dimensions. On Arcane the backgrounds are digitally painted and the texture on the characters is crafted to get a graphical look that fits with the environment. They also use 2D animation for effects to reinforce the painted look- this is how they end up with something that looks like an illustration. They decided to only do keyframe animation as apposed to motion capture so they could control the acting performance and aesthetic. This creates a good balance between realism and ‘cartoon’ style.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing game developed and published by CD Projekt. The game was developed by using the REDengine 4 by a team of around 500. According to an article from GamesIndustry.biz reporting on CD Projekt Red’s April post-earnings call, the studio had budgeted $316 million for Cyberpunk 2077. It was also in development for roughly 9 years. Unlike Arcane, they did use motion capture, particularly with Keanu Reeves character Johnny Silverhand. CD Projekt used JALI, which is a suite of tools that result in the highest quality of facial performance of characters in video games. It’s automatically generated on a face, based on audio dialogue from voice actors. It does this by getting to the root of what is being expressed by the vocal performance and then puts that on a 3D character.

Comparison

Arcane: League of Legends and Cyberpunk 2077 share a lot of attributes when it comes to their common themes, settings, and character design. However, the overall art tyle is evidently different, with Cyberpunk aiming towards that hyper realistic game look and Arcane combining a ‘cartoony’ look with realistic features. Obviously, Cyberpunk is a game and Arcane is a TV series based off a game, so they are trying to achieve different things, as realism automatically makes a game more immersive. However, Arcane’s art style is so beautiful you can hardly take your eyes off it. They both have similar characters in terms of the steampunk, colourful designs used. From clunky machinery weapons to colourful hair and tattoos, they both create characters that give off a ‘badass’ personality. They also have similar themes which are connoted through their variety of settings. In Arcane there is Piltover, the wealthy city which has a very strong steam punk image. The under city of Zaun is dirty and dangerous and gives off a more cyberpunk, art nouvea and biopunk feel (the mutant body armour helps to create this). Yet both have the threat of technology. The visual identity of Cyberpunk is made up of four distinct eras: Entropism, Kitsch, Neo-Militarism, and Neo-Kitsch. Each is distinct and represents a slightly different way of life. Both Arcane and Cyberpunk display corporate domination and social inequality through their art style. This is something we want to imply within ours.

For this part of the Visual Narrative pathway we were tasked with creating a game ready asset/character that embodies your created narrative. In my team of 2, we chose the theme ‘Out of this World‘.

After discussions and mind mapping, we decided we were both drawn to an alien, robotic, steampunk character. At this point we still had yet to decide the second asset. We had, however, imagined the environment our assets would have been in. We pictured this dystopian, futuristic world in ruins from a war. Society is divided between the wealthy and the poor, and the unfortunate have been outcaste to live in a run-down society, whereas the wealthy live in riches. To help brainstorm character ideas, we created a Pinterest board of images.

Before moving forward, we decided to quickly draw some rough character sketches, to help get the ideas flowing and to create a rough image of what we wanted at least one of our assets to look like.

Then finally, to round up our ideas and grab some inspiration, we created 2 mood boards; one for the character and one for the asset. Both mood boards included real world references and imaginary world references.

Character Story – SciFi Dystopian Lefkoza

Our character is based in a sci-fi dystopian future where society is divided into rich and poor . The mainland is where the poor live and the outskirts are the rich . Only a small percentage of people live in the outskirts. The story starts with our main character getting kicked off from the outskirts into the mainland with no friends, no family and no currency to survive . Our character is filled with rage and anger ,for, the reasons he got kicked from the outskirts were never be known to him . He becomes an outlaw in the mainlands with his only aim, being,to demolish every and all existence in the outskirts . His aim is to build equilibrium in a new made-up society. Little does he know the probabilities of achieving his goals are near impossible without a team. The story starts with our character learning to adapt , survive and thrive in these new conditions he finds himself in . Slowly but surely he finds like-minded people that want to see his vision every step of the way . They make a team and start recruiting people
from all different backgrounds. They are looking for the minorities of the minorities, the punks of the punks. The mainland comes with its own set of troubles and our team of punks are looking to find a way to not only survive their day to day challenges but ,find themselves in a position of power . So , our main characters sets off on a journey to make the minority , the majority and eventually the majority everyone. Will our character see his vision all the way through? Are his feelings of anger and revenge enough to park up an entire society to rebel? Are minorities , minorities for a reason?