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.
Tag: maya
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.
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.
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!