Week 1
28/01/2001
My Chosen Brief
Environmental / Prop Brief
For this project I have picked the prop brief. My job is to design, model and bring to life the different props around the environment. These props will be inspired by the style of Polygon Treehouse's new game called Röki. When creating these props I must take into consideration how they match up with the characters lifestyle and personality traits. To successfully create assets for this environment there are a number of features/tasks that I must learn how to complete:
UV layouts
Low poly geometry block outs and construction
Presentation techniques
Photoshop Texturing
Concept Art
Hard Surface / Organic Modelling
Reference gathering
Biographies of assets
Collision geometry
Roles and Idea Generation
In our group there are 2 different briefs so we have decided to split into either character or environment groups. Oran is following the character brief while Aaron and Samantha are working to complete the environment brief. I am doing the environment brief as well but we decided that I would take on the role of prop creation. This is mainly props for the environmental scene e.g. a bow and arrow, however, it also accounts for a small section of the character brief as I can create assets to make the character develop their own unique personality e.g. glasses to convey how the character is intelligent.
Our Ideas
Through discussion we decided on a elf like character with a Scandinavian theme that resonates with Roki. The props we are looking at are very detailed which compliment the theme and how the character is portrayed. The character props are to create a strong sense of personality for Froy. In this case we have added glasses to his pockets to symbolise his ability to read and to emphasise how knowledgeable he is. He will be seen with a chain around his neck with an arrow head on it and a sword. These two props will emphasise his skilled hunting abilities and the chain will appeal to the audience to hold sentimental value to Froy. All of these are props Froy will carry with him majority of the time while out hunting.
Week 2
04/02/2001
My First Prop Model On Maya
Being the groups prop designer, I first decided to start working on some props that would suit our groups character and his environment. Despite having no experience on maya with the help of a few YouTube tutorials I was able to make a cool sword that the character could hold as well as a few other props.
Props
At the moment this sword is very basic with little detail I added an image of a similar sword into maya through that was able to add points around that image and the combine them to make the middle and point of the sword. For the part above the handle I simply brought in a rectangle and scaled it which was quite simple. To make the handle i had to scaled the vertices downwards on one side and then scale it out which again was simple enough. Finally for the bottom I added a small cube, again not much detail to start off with but not bad for a first attempt.
Week 3
11/02/2001
Concept Art
This week I made some concept art designs for the props/assets that we would likely add to our environment scene. As shown by this picture I made a few unique thumbnails of each of these props just to see which would be most appropriate and looked the best in our unique environment. Here are a few sketches of plant pots, buckets as well as a chair and some weaponry that we are planning to add to our environment scene. Concept Art is a great way to get your ideas across whether its a rough sketch or a detailed drawing. Just by a rough drawing you can portray how you want certain props to look and you can implement detail to compliment the character and the environment for example, our character’s clothing will be designed to be naturalistic warm tones such as greens and browns to blend into the nature surrounding him giving a dark naturalism aesthetic to our character and also our environment scene.
Week 4
18/02/2001
Codecks
The focus of this week was to make some thumbnails or models of some of the props that would likely fit into the design of our environment whether this was chairs, lanterns or arrows with the help of Codecks. Using Codecks our group was able to make a list of important props and with it you can assign different props to yourself whether its maya models or concept art deisgns.
Week 5
25/02/2001
Presentations
This week was sharing our groups thoughts and ideas through a Powerpoint presentation to the CEO of Polygon Treehouse Alex Kanaris-Sotirou. This presentation was based off all of our ideas in our scene and we showcased our models, concepts and designs to Alex and in return received positive and constructive feedback on how make our models more detailed which would make props more natural and realistic. Sam and Aaron did some great work with presentation and conveying our ideas across, as well as this Oran made some great models to portray our character. My involvement was creating some assets which includes a sword, cutlery and a chain but overall i feel as though I could've helped out more.
Tom Jones
"As the style evolved we started adding in more detail and atmospheric effects to give better depth to the scenes. Originally we had a noise layer, but we dropped it in favour of a cleaner, crisper look. "
Week 6
04/03/2021
Modelling
After the presentation i used the feedback from Alex to try and create more props. First of all I started with some cutlery using Maya which actually that hard to make despite being quite of an amateur on Maya as I was able to duplicate extrude the rectangle in different places to create the knife, spoon and fork. This method saved time and was very efficient overall and I think they turned out well. Next i tried making a plant pot and i took on board Alex's advice on how to make props more detailed and i made it so that you could see soil and it definitely looks better than what id used to look like as without the detail it was more basic. The chain I made will be around Froy’s neck and also in the environmental scene to make it look less hostile and more warming with a trace of Froy’s personality in it. Also this week I worked on improving old models for example the sword to make it look more appealing through addition of detail. All the models were made to replicate Roki’s artistic style by all being as low poly as possible without losing any shape or important details to the props.
