The Summoning – Blog Post 3

Hello again!

I am Peo Johansson, a graphical artist and resident sound designer on team Ninja Slice. We’re working on the game concept The Summoning. 

I’ve already gone over the game concept itself in the previous blogs, so for this blog post I’ll just jump straight to the point. This time, I’ll write about a 3D model for a character in our game that I’ve worked on. To be specific, the second type of minion that the real time strategy side player control.

Unlike the minion type that I wrote about in an earlier blog post,  the appearance of this one came about a bit differently. When I first drew the concept art that was eventually going to be used for this minion, my goal was to make a design for the RTS player’s avatar. The idea was that at the end of the level, the human player would summon the demon player to fight them.

Already at the beginning of the project we knew that we probably wouldn’t have time to put this particular feature into the game. So me working on the design for the demon player was a prioritizing error on my part.

Our producer suggested that we could use this design for the so-called “Elite minion” instead, and I agreed.

The next step was then to refine the design and to produce a turnaround image to help with the 3D modelling process.

As this character model was to be much larger than the previous minion, it was important to get the edge flow right. Edge flow is, simply put, how the edges between polygons connect with each other. Good edge flow is absolutely crucial to be able to easily rig, skin, and animate a 3D character model without distortions, especially around areas like the shoulders, knees, crotch and so on. For this character I looked at a lot of references for good edge flow in humanoid characters, and tried my best to adapt them to the anatomy of this creature.

As a side effect of ensuring good edge flow, I ended up going past our internal triangle count with quite a bit. However, as there won’t be many of this character on the screen at once, we decided that this was okay in this particular case.

 

 

The Summoning – Blog Post 2

Hello again!

I’m Peo Johansson, a graphic artist and the lead sound designer on team Ninja Slice, currently working on the game The Summoning as a student project.

As you may remember, our game is a top-down perspective 3D asymmetrical multiplayer game, where one player controls a single human and the other player plays a demon and controls the game akin to an RTS. The game is inspired by east Asian mythology, particularly Japanese mythology such as Shintoism.

This time I’ll focus on a 3D model for one of the in-game buildings that I’ve worked on.

The building in question is a portal that the demon player can place on the map to spawn minions from. We had already decided that this portal would take the form of a torii gate, which in Shintoism is a symbol for a passageway between the mundane and spiritual. Traditionally torii gates are seen as a good and purifying thing, but as this particular torii gate is used by a demon, the appearance would have to reflect that.

My goal with the design was to clearly communicate that the portal is twisted and corrupted in comparison to normal torii gates. As showing this was important, I had to develop the design before starting work on the 3D model. The first step in this process was to sketch up a few thumbnail silhouettes.

With feedback from our producer, I decided on merging different elements from a few of the thumbnails. I also took a few pointers on how to better integrate the torii gate design with the game environment from our producer.

The gate is placed on a small hill, with raised parts of the earth surrounding it pointing inwards.  This is so that the eye should be led towards the center of the gate, and also to give the impression that the portal has sprung up from underneath the ground.

Ultimately the design of the ground portion of the 3D model turned out slightly different, due to me finding difficulties in properly modeling it.

I started the modelling process with making the portal by itself, and then adding surrounding parts of the modell afterwards. Even after I had started on the rest of the model, I made adjustments to the gate itself to maximize the aesthetics that we wanted it to have. That is, we wanted it to appear evil and imposing.

Again due to pointers from our producer, I made slight changes to the design at this stage, including the addition of fences to give the model a sense of structure and leading the eye towards the portal.

After I had finished the mesh itself, I UVW unwrapped the model. UVW unwrapping is, put shortly, done to make sure the 2D image textures  are distorted as little as possible and without visible seams when applied to the 3D object.

At this stage in development the model has yet to be textured, but it will be before the project wraps up. We also plan to make slight modifications to the model for when it’s both damaged and when it’s destroyed, as the human player is meant to be able to destroy the buildings that the demon player has placed.

Until next time!

The Summoning – Blog Post 1

Hello!
My name is Peo Johansson, and I am a graphical artist and the lead sound designer on the team Ninja Slice, developing the game concept The Summoning. 

So, what kind of game is The Summoning? Well, it’s a top-down perspective 3D game, that is centered around the concept of asymmetrical multiplayer. In order words, people compete against each other, but their goals and what they do are different.

One player plays the game similarly to an action adventure or hack-and-slash game, controlling one character fighting multiple enemies.
The other player plays The Summoning like a real time strategy game, controlling the above mentioned enemies like an army.

The Summoning takes place in a world inspired by Asian mythology, particularly Japanese Shintoism. The game also has an ink-and-paper visual aesthetic, inspired by classic Japanese arts.

Now that the introduction’s over, I’ll go over an artifact I’ve worked on during the early stages of the production process. Namely, one of the minion types controlled by the real time strategy side player.

The first thing I did was to research various Asian mythological creatures. The real time strategy side player plays the role of a Japanese demon, a so called Oni. As such, all the minions are supposed to be monsters as well.
Doing the proper research before starting to conceptualize was important, as the aesthetic of the game is focused on a culture none of us in the team has much experience with.

Various thumbnail sketches from early on in the process

After I had done my research, I started on conceptualizing the character. Even at this point, it was hard to let go of a western mindset when it came to the design and it took several iterations for it to feel right. Not only was it important for the design to fit with our theme, the silhouette of the character also had to be easily readable at a glance. This is because the high camera angle in the game doesn’t allow for a closer look at the character models.

Once I and the rest of the team had agreed upon a design, I produced a turnaround image. A turnaround shows a character from multiple angles, and is absolutely vital when working in 3D.

Turnaround along with concept sketch to the left

The turnaround proved difficult to draw for me, as it required the character to be anatomically consistent between the different angles, and all the details had to line up. This was one of my first experiences in drawing a turnaround image.

After this, I started working on the 3D model. I started with blocking out the shape of the torso, matching the silhouette up with the front and side views on the turnaround image. After the torso was mostly finished, I went on to work on the head, as well as the arms and legs.

Unfortunately, at this stage I realized that I had underestimated the amount of triangles that my level of detail took up. Our team’s internal triangle count limit for minions is 800. The reason for this is that triangles take up processing power, and as there are going to be a large number of these characters on the screen at the same time, we want to minimize the load on the computer.

At this point, I had to remove unnecessary details from the character models, prioritizing those that break the silhouette as those are the ones that stands out at a distance.

Eventually I was able to find an acceptable balance between detail and staying within the triangle budget. The finished result is what you see in the picture above.

There is still much work to be done on this character model before it is finished, but for now this is where I will wrap up this update.