Category: Concept

Painting a World full of color

After working on the original thumbnails, I switched over to going into more detail, and refining the color. It’s another fun process, figuring out which colors and ideas will work when blown up and enlarged. Some of the thumbnails, while fun, won’t work or are unreadable and so need a complete overhaul while still trying to keep the same feel. We mostly focused on the earlier levels since that is what we are working on right now, but I still worked on some of the ones I was more excited about. It may have slipped into more of my free time, but it’s great when you like what you’re working on so much you keep pushing it when you don’t have too.

Project Oriana
Project Oriana
Project Oriana
Project Oriana

I also left notes on some of these, so the programmers would know what I was imagining, or how certain things might move. Or just stupid little thoughts that made me laugh, so obviously I needed to share them.

 

Project Oriana
Project Oriana

This woods concept is one that did get an overhaul, originally the lightning was more of a dancer. While I still adore the idea, it wasn’t coming across clear, so we made it be less of the focus, more of a background element.

Project Oriana
Project Oriana
Project Oriana
Project Oriana

This sea one is probably my favorite of all of them. The color palette is  much more limited and somber than most of the other ones, but it is so chill. I tried to get a haunting feel, like are those just statues? Are they angels or guardians? Are they out to hurt us? Who knows! I wanted it to also come across a bit unsettling with the choppy waves an just the silhouettes.

 

 

3D Clothing Test

Thomas was charged with figuring out the best approach for tackling clothing in 3D.  We ended up settling on using nCloth due to our limited budget.  There were some mishaps along the way of course.  Here are some tests that were made as we tried to figure out how to properly work with nCloth and the toon lines.

Developing a Character, Part 6

Final_Turnaround_sheet

Well everyone, here she is!  This is the final concept of the Oriana you will come to know and love through this journey of design and production till the game releases.

We wanted her to be perfect for this moment which is why we have so many steps involved in her process.  But we are all really excited with how well she turned out and we can’t wait to start the spriting system!

This stage was primarily to fine tune the way her body is shaped and to double check all proportions and range of motion.  It was also the kick off of the 3D modeling team.  Their team received the side and front views of Ori so that they could shape the mesh exactly the way I have it laid out in the image.  The five way turn around, however, is for the 2D animation team.  It gives them the whole picture to figure out what goes where at any given time.  I guess you could say it’s for tracking purposes.

I really hope you love the way this has turned out.  It’s been a joy to work on!  Keep up with our weapon and color designs throughout the next few weeks!

The Color Process

 

ProjectOriana_Colors-1024x703

We wanted to lean heavily on color, with early levels being dark, mysterious, purple, haunting and creepy. Very spoopy, overall. And then as the game goes on it gets warmer and happier, Ori starts taking control of her world and molding it to her design. The last one is hard to read, and more a sketch note to myself than an actual color key or color plot.

I really thought the idea of the middle being monochromatic was striking. The way the lighting goes from dark, intense low key to warm and high key and victorious is fabulous, but I was digging the thought that all the color just faded away, all the saturation is gone. And then she starts building it back up, bit by bit. Some of my personal favorites are in the middle, I already love grey though so I may be a bit biased. Recently I’ve been making them bigger and pulling out details, which has been super fun. More on that later!

(Also how about 1989? Am I the only one jamming out to that on repeat? Just me? Okay…)

3d Living Line Test

One of the aesthetic features we’ve chosen for Project Oriana is what we call a “living line.”  As previously mentioned, we will be using a thick and uneven toon line around our characters and environment.  We will be using this line to help emphasize movement.  This can be seen in the video game, Okami, and the short film, Shanghai Batman.  These are some early line and streak tests that Kyle Murray conducted as we try and look at different possibilities on how to achieve this look.

Into the Forge, Part 1

weaponconcept1

Weapon concept; one of my favorite things to design.  We have decided that our character will be wielding three separate weapons throughout the game; great sword, shield, and long bow.  It was also decided that since she is just a little girl that the weapons would be the same size as they would be if wielded by a grown man.  So this will add a little bit of comedy into this more serious game.  But at the same time, it will add a greater sense of achievement by the time she reaches the end of the game.  Why?  Because she will struggle to wield these tools at the beginning, but by the end of the game they will be a dangerous extension of her body.

For a lot of my first designs I made wider bases and silhouettes because it gave a more massive feel.  But as things progressed, I started introducing less and less mass, and more detail.  By the end I realized what I was doing; making things really really difficult on us later when we start animating everything.  So I told myself that the next batch of designs would be more feasible.  And lets be honest… more practical as well.

See you next week!

 

3D Hair Test

Like with clothes, we also had to figure out how we were going to simulate hair in Maya.  WE are working on a tight budget, so purchasing 3rd party simulation software wasn’t really an option for us.  We found that because we were using a toon shader, nHair didn’t really offer us the ability to create matching hair for Oriana.  To remedy this, Thomas created meshes and used nCloth on them to create a more toon like look using blobs rather than hairs.  Above is a video of some early tests with this technique.

Developing a Character, Part 5

Collapsed Layers Version

Every cute little girl needs a cute little dress!  So I went into this with a basic idea to keep our dress design simple and flowy.  As a team we knew we liked ribbons, we knew we liked long, and we knew we liked trim.  On the flip side, we knew we hated ruffles (NIGHTMARE TO ANIMATE!!), we knew we hated extra amounts of cuts in the clothing, and we knew we hated pants (a burden on society if you ask me).

My very first design was the simplest I could make the dress; everything it had in the design was minimal.  From that point onward I was making new designs that added a little more complexity to the dress each iteration, and then waiting for Blake to slap my hand and rein in my more complex and crazy designs.  As you can see, in the beginning of my designs, I was still clinging to the poncho idea I had from the very beginning.  It can be hard sometimes to let go of a design you had once you fell in love with it.  But the reality is that you need to learn to let go as a designer and concept artist.  It does get easier the more often you do it though, so no worries!

As I progressed through the designs, I started relying heavily on high-low skirts and dresses.  They were suggested by Abi and the team really liked the direction that it could take our character.  That landmark was what got me moving faster in the designs because it threw me into a new direction I hadn’t gone before; ergo, more material to pull from.  Don’t get caught up in a narrow area.  And if it feels like you’ve exhausted everything you can do, talk to a buddy, or a mentor and pull some ideas from them, it does wonders for injecting a new line of creative thought into your mind.

By the end of my fashion exploration for Oriana, we had decided on *drum roll*………………… Eggplant costume Ori!  Just kidding!  We picked a dress that had a square base and a tied ribbon in the middle of her chest.  We all felt it had the right balance of flow and simplicity to get us to where we needed to be.

Dat Derpy Dino Though 🙂

 

project oriana clothing concept 2

3D Line Test

While our ambition is to have a fully 2D game in the end, we are currently using a 3D character model for our main character.  Kyle Murray and Thomas Edwards comprise our 3D team and have been hard at work doing render tests and preliminary modeling.  Above is an example render style that we have settled on for the 3D elements.  We will be using a toon shader.

We were inspired by the look of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, particularly the lines that were used in some of the concept art for the game.  This look and aesthetic will be key to the art that is incorporated into the game,a s well as the movement of objects.  As you can see from the above render test, the toon line is not consistent or straight but instead varies sporadically.

This is just a test model that we used to figure out what we want the 3D elements to look like.  There will be plenty more tests to come!