Week 1
28/01/2021
My Chosen Brief
For this assignment I have chosen the character brief. This means I am to design and model my own original humanoid character in the style of Polygon Treehouse's new game called Röki. When designing this character I must make the character portray their own unique personality traits. This can be achieved using designed props and character clothing. When making this character I have to be aware of all the processes I will have to do in order to complete the asset. Processes such as:
Low poly geometry block, construction
UV layouts
Creation of normal maps and ambient occlusion passes
Shader setups
Texture passes
Collision geometry
Presentation techniques
Designers Influence
Polygon Treehouse was founded by Alex Kanaris-Sotirius and Tom Jones. Along with a small team they created Röki. The game is a 3D adventure game that is filled with exploration, puzzles and monsters. The game is based on Scandinavian folklore and the snowy wilderness of it all. The storyline is that Tove is on a mission to find her brother in whom was taken by Röki, the main monster in the game.
Röki is vibrant and very storybook-esque. It creates the illusion of having a modern day fairy tale that draws the players eye. The creators say that it was created because not only does it looks wonderful, but it is a way of providing a counterweight to a somewhat heavy natured story and themes. This vibrant art style allows the game to not have a dark and sombre world because the storyline along with the theme, was decided by the developers that it would make the game to heavy for the players. The style choice was to make the game feel like it is accessible and colourful as that is where the player would want to be as a safe zone. This gives the developers the opportunity to make the narrative slightly heavier without it becoming to overwhelming for the player. The character design compliments this as Tove is upbeat and can deal with these heavy emotions well.
The solution to limited team members, budget and resources, was to remove traditional texturing and traditional lighting. These two processes on big-budget projects are very time consuming henceforth the reason for the team to change their views on it. The studio as a whole decided to settle on the flat shading style of Röki. This game is an example of what can happen when creative ambition, industry experience, and resource limitations collide.