Off the Map Report
P14127688_Christopher Anka
Team Quatro
Team Members:
Jade Silver
Jasdev Singh
Joel Wilkins
Tara Naz
Perrie Green
Project: The Tempest
Using the world built by Shakespeare as inspiration we built an exploration based project centred on the island in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. Using the terrain editor and our own produced assets we developed and populated an island scene with 3 distinct parts, each with their own styles and ideas. These parts include a realistic shipwreck scene.
The currently dubbed “pre-forest” which starts to escalate in the fantastical element our project.
Finally what we call the “Deep Forrest”. An area of the map inspired by surrealist paintings and styles which contrasts the earlier more grounded parts of our map against a whimsical and magical setting.
The main Idea behind this split was to contrast different areas of the map to suggest different territories belonging to different people. From our own reading of the play we found that the island used to belong to another inhabitant prior to the protagonist. Thus one idea we could experiment with is the idea of a lost civilisation adding a sense of discovery for the player’s journey.
Our pre-production process was what one may argue as “bumpy”. We as a group had a few conflicting ideas on how the map should initially look like. Some suggested a more realistic look to the overall tone whereas some suggested a stylised hand painted style similar to the game Sea Of Thieves.
Sea of Thieves (2015)
Problems posed by going for a stylised painted mood included varying skills of texturing levels among us as well as time constraints. Eventually we came at a compromise and decided that we would use photo realistic textures and however our colour palette and mood would be adjusted via post production filters. Games such as Firewatch and Far cry 4’s dream sequences severed as reference in terms of palette.
Firewatch (2016)
Far Cry 4 (2014)
Prior to establishing a consistent art style we went away and developed moodboards. I personally went on to conduct research on the plays plot, characters etc. to help inform the groups concepting decisions. From my research I started to find that Shakespeare builds a much more interesting world than the characters and plot of the play. With this it was relayed to the group and as a team we decided to loosely base our plot on the tempest focus on developing the world that Shakespeare gave us as a base.
Moodboard - Tara Naz
An excerpt of my notes
The sketch on the bottom right corner of the screenshot became the basis of our 3 territory concept as seen below.
Developed island concept – Jasdev Singh
Which eventually developed into the map below and the more condensed map in our final build of our project.
Final Island concept – Jade Silver
With the overall shape of the map and styles established, a few members and I went on to produce concepts for the more internal areas of the map. I focused on concepting areas such as the deep forest, the interior of the boatwreck, Prospero House as well as the outside of the island itself.
Moodboards and concepts
For the more surreal elements our main source of inspiration came from group member Jasdev’s initial concepts of the overall project which featured very conceptual based art images and set pieces which set the tone for the project overall.
Cat Fountain – Jasdev Singh
As established prior, my role in the group included producing concepts, research as well as specialising in character art and working with general asset creation, engine set dressing and admin roles such as managing group blogs, meetings and documenting the work produced at the end of the day via our Daily Yak system established by Jasdev Singh.
Screens of my role
As a follow up from the character project I attempted to use this project to refine my sculpting skills. I was assigned many humanoid based assets which allowed me to continue to push my skills towards my external goal of being a character artist. These sculpture based assets assisted my group in achieving the lost society and surrealist style of the map by conveying a sense of a culture inhabiting the island. Moreover my role in concepting helped determine the overall style and look of the deep forest area as evidenced via my sketches against a screenshot of the map.
Other areas I experimented with was producing particle effect system for the level to further push the fantastical element of our level. Although my knowledge of particle systems is basic at most this was an area of flexibility I needed to fill as we felt as if we needed to push the atmosphere of our level. I being one of few people with an understanding of particle systems applied for the role.
My role during the off the map project held me responsible for concepting, and modelling Prospero, Caliban and Sycorax. In addition I worked on several smaller assets such as rocks, row boats and other assets that could populate the scene as well as smaller sculpts such as the large hand seen in the deep forest.
Moreover I developed a few materials that are used in the scene itself some vertex paint ready as well as working on assets which will not be part of the hand in build of OTM but rather the competition ready build such as a surrealist table and Prospero’s Hut based off of Jasdev’s original concept.
Speaking of which a number of assets that I’ve produced sadly will not be featuring in the hand in build of the level. This was due to the very iterative process of project. These assets would’ve been featured in areas but said areas were later altered or scrapped such as Caliban’s cave. Said assets included a portrait painting of Prospero as well as a crucifix for Caliban’s Cave.
Prospero Portrait
The decision to have two versions of hand in was decided as a group. We feel handing in the shack version now would leave the level incomplete so for the time being we are using another asset as placeholder. We believed that the current now placeholder asset wasn’t up to scratch however it was too far down the pipeline for us to scrap it now.
For the Heroic assets my process started with concepting. This would start with rough sketches on the back of notes, sketchbooks and on my phone sketchbook app.
These concepts and ideas were informed firstly from my research into the play and secondly inspired by artwork by Lucien Stanculescu and 70’s high concept films such as Zardoz and The Holy Mountain. From my research it seems that it is one of the few texts in which Shakespeare establishes magic as a central part of the plotline. As a result of this my main goal for the projects outlook particularly the deep forest area was to communicate a sense of surrealism similar to these references. I felt that these references had the right balance of a cold and sinister atmosphere but still retained an approachable sense of wonderment to them.
Simply put psychedelic but not scary. With my research, sketches and a goal established I went on to develop these ideas in Photoshop. Photoshop allowed me to iterate with ease making many duplicates of a base version of a concept and then adding or subtracting from the image depending on what I feel works or not.
From here concepts would be reviewed by the group then taken to be sculpted and retoped in Z brush, baked In Max, textured in unreal and the various Substance programs. Prospero in particular needed his clothing rendered in Marvelous designer. This required me research renaissance clothing patterns to achieve a similar look to the costume I had concepted for.
Personally I found that the character modelling process was the most extensive, iterative and time consuming part of the project. This was because technically I was not as proficient as I have become as a result of this project. Technical errors that I learnt to overcome included bakes not being as strong and crisp as they could be as well as well texture quality issues and general topology problems. These issues were resolved with the help of working closely with a group member who educated me in more efficient processes as well as explaining to me how to best grasp the concept of baking. If I were to go back now and take on these assets I feel that not only would they have taken a shorter time for me to produce, I would have been able to take on more assets with the extra time I would’ve had, alas this was not the case. Most of my process involved re -unwrapping, baking and texturing these character assets in order to get them project ready.
“Normals are basically the colour to the art in a colouring book”
General assets were modelled in Max. If need be one would produce a normal bake in Z brush to add unique details such as distress to sell the idea of object being worn out. This will hopefully illustrate the idea that the player was not the only presence on the island.
When discussing the organisation of the group, in the early days of production there was a clear sense of a lack of communication among us. Some of us perceived that we are working stylised whereas some were working with realism. To resolve these problems we held team meetings in labs and group discussions which were hosted on Facebook. In conjunction to organising myself and sometimes these group meetings I was left in charge of the Daily Yak system which include creating a thread in which members post the work they produced during the day. I would then compile and re-upload them for the group blog. Usually these Yak threads were accompanied by an informal illustration to catch the attention of members and separate these threads against our query and Q A threads.
Although these systems were set up there was still much to be desired in terms of organisation. I know that I myself was too concerned about my own progression and models. I did not communicate ideas as frequently as I should have to other members of the group this resulted in inconsistency of styles and conflict of ideas at times which were needed to be solved constantly in our group meetings.
When discussing the success of my role in the group I would say it was very flawed as a group member but as an individual I provided my fair share of assets and ideas that contributed to the level sometimes significantly however there is so much to be desired. In comparison to another member of the group I barely produced that much of a contribution. Although my research and ideas helped shape the outlook of the project greatly because of the amount of time I spent refining my character models I could not aid my team as much as I should have. Moreover my communication skills could have been improved. Although I worked very closely with one specific member of the group I found that said member became my only source of contact with the group. At times it felt as if I was in a two man group rather than a team of 6. Admittedly the rest of the team were fairly hard to communicate with due to their lack of a presence in labs. However it was still my responsibility to attempt to make contact but on reflection it seems a lot of my energy was spent working on my own assets as well as providing the illustrations for the daily yaks to communicate the rest of the team. This too was a bad divergence of time and energy. Later as the project progressed I started to use these illustrations as a platform to practise my 2d art skills which I should have been doing more in my spare time rather than course time. Other than this there were positives I do feel that although this was not a project that I wanted to work with I was in fact dedicated out of respect for the team and project. I attended every possible day I could and worked until the premises were closed. I also worked very closely with a member which allowed me to bounce ideas, give and receive feedback and ultimately learn a lot. Overall I feel like I played a role which is evident in the project look and style but because of the time I spent towards non project things I ultimately allowed a group member to take on a workload which I could have easily have helped out with if I wasn't so caught up in workflows and personal problems with this project.
Other Supportive images
