CHoW #286 - More Doodling

Yeah... That's a mechanical capuchin. What's it to you?

CHoW #286 - Doodling

I shouldn't be starting on this just yet, since my art history exam is tomorrow evening. But I couldn't help it. I was getting too stressed out from studying. It's the first CHoW I've participated in since October, so I'm a bit anxious. The brief is:

A Legend tells of a powerful enchantress who will tilt the fate of the world in either good or bad. Whichever side she chooses, will become the dominant force. However she is still young, and it yet to take one path or the other. As a completely neutral being, many have tried to sway her to their sides but have failed. Some have even tried to kill her, so that the legend never has the chance to come true for either good or evil. Because of this, she was given a mechanical guardian to protect her - a being that does not know good or evil itself, only that she must be protected at all costs.

Your challenge is to create a design for BOTH Aoife and her guardian. Remember, they are neither good or evil. Aoife does not have to be a child, but she should also not be an adult woman. The mechanical guardian cannot be a living thing, and can be powered by anything you like, magic, steam, electricity....

A few figures and a weird creature

Landscape Sketches

Used photographs as reference. A couple hours each.

The Peaceful Village of Doorcliff

It's been a while since I've been up this late just for the sake of painting. Unfortunately, tomorrow I have to start buckling down to study for my art history exam. ... We'll see if that actually happens. So today I was working on a vague concept I thought of while showering this morning - a giant door in a cliff, with a village built on top.

Study of Cynthia Sheppard's "Crossing the Gap"

Last night, I was snooping through Cynthia Sheppard's blog and found this absolutely gorgeous environment painting. The only way I can hope to describe the sensation of looking at this painting is to say that it fills up my soul.

So today I tried to study the painting - specifically Cynthia's use of colour. My palette still isn't nearly as vibrant and alive as hers, but I feel like the attempt was more than worth it in what I was able to absorb. Hopefully I will soon be able to apply what I've learned to a fantasy landscape of my own.

I'm a Clown

So start laughing.

Vague Environment Sketches

Usually I find it difficult to explore ideas - or to really form ideas at all. Most of all I experience this with environments, because the complex shapes and forms that go into architecture seems to overwhelm me at times. Below is an interesting progression of thought and clarity - I had a very rough idea of an ancient circle-thing that borders a pane of glass, aligned with the sun at a particular moment of a particular day, such that it would focus the rays. Or something like that.

The first sketch is nigh impossible to discern, but it allowed me to straighten things out in my mind. The second involved placing those objects in world space, still unsure of exactly what I wanted. The third finally captures a collection of elements with clear relation to one another, and repeated motifs. I'm afraid of leaning too far on the side of simplicity, or teetering towards over-complicating a scene. For the moment, I feel comfortable with this concept.

Sketchdump 20120415

Finally! A look at Carnival

So I'd been holding off on showing off screenshots of Carnival for a while. But now that the Senior Project Fair is over, I may as well show off where it stands. I was going to post a video as well, but I think I'll hold off on that for a bit. At least until I've got some rather major bugs sorted out and a few extra animations and particle effects thrown in.

Be sure to check out Marie's blog as well. She was responsible for all of the character, armour and weapon textures, and definitely bumped our overall visual quality up a couple notches.

 The two trainer screens - currently missing skill descriptions. The icon designs were done by Lee Pakkala, the UI elements and background by Marie Deslauriers, and the two trainers were illustrated by me. I also was responsible for adding the interactivity in Flash with Actionscript 2.0 and connecting it to the Unrealscript side of things.

The gear and abilities loadout screens, just before a player enters a server game. Currently missing weapon/armour descriptions, and more specific details. Icons are dragged across from the table on the right and dropped on slots on the left. Armour and weapons are equipped in real-time on the character preview. The player can also click and drag on the preview area to rotate the model. The armour and weapons were modeled by Lee Pakkala. The character mesh was modeled and textured by Marie Deslauriers, who was also responsible for painting the weapon and armour textures.

Some in-game screenshots. I tried taking these on my own, holding two controllers and hitting the screen capture button as quickly as I could. I would have liked to use our spectator camera to angle the shots more effectively, but unfortunately one of the major bugs we are currently experiencing made that impossible. The environment was modeled and textured by Nick Zou, although I retextured certain pieces (most notably the walls immediately surrounding the arena, and the structures into which the doors are set). Animations were posed by Hana Ameerah, Shahd AlFakhry and Nick Zou. I was responsible for taking those poses, tweaking them to ensure that they communicated their respective actions effectively enough, and also set their timings. Again, HUD UI was designed by Marie Deslauriers and the icons were the work of Lee Pakkala. All of the programming - game mechanics, HUD, networking, as well as the construction of levels, animation trees, particle effects, etc. were handled by me.

Hopefully if I am given the chance to work on a project like this again in the future, I will be able to disperse the programming and game-engine-related responsibilities across more team members, instead of taking them on myself. I would have also certainly liked to have worked on more of the art and asset creation, but unfortunately, I did not have the time.