On one of my last life drawing sessions, we mixed things up a little bit with some very speedy studies, ranging from under 10 seconds to 30 seconds. At first I found this difficult, but as I adjusted to the speed, I began to feel the benifit and really enjoyed them.
I found it losened up my mind and helped me just see the form and quickly record it on the page. I only hope we do more of this next time.
For my "re imagining a book character" uni project, I chose to work from my two
favourite books to date, The King Killer Chronicles series by Patrick Roth fuss.
The
Character's name is Kvothe and the books follow the epic story of his
life, from boy to man, told through many different perspectives. They
are incredible so I highly recommend them! can't wait for part 3.
To begin with I did the usual idea generating because to put a face to Kvothe I found was very challenging. Because although I imagined him so clearly in my head while i read the books, It was never easy to focus on that image enough to draw straight from it. So I began researching, casting for the face of Kvothe or characteristics I could use to bring clarity to his face.
At first I was unsure at what I wanted to set my painting in the books time line. So initially I played around with painting Kvothe as a young street urchin from the first book; 'The Name of the wind'
I made a mood board to explore this idea.
However, it just didnt click with me and I decided that I would go forward in time a little to a point where, to me, Kvothe really began to come into his own as a young man. At the stage in the second book, 'The Wise Mans Fear', where Kvothe has settled somewhat at the university, lots of interesting action happens and Kvothe begins to gather some fame as stories evolve around him. I decided I would pick a scene from that time.
I made another mood board, again focusing on his face because that was the main thing that eluded me when I visualized him, I knew the bare bones of what he looked like, just not the finer details that sets everyone apart from one another.
Anyway, I wont talk about all the research or prep sketches. It amounted to me deciding to paint Kvothe playing his lute on the rooftops of Anker's as he so often did.
I was working to a strict deadline so It isn't as polished as I'd like, but its all I could fit in with the time I had, about 11 hours. Which for me wasnt too bad considering I'm very out of practice with digital painting and still consider myself to be very new to it. Here is a process compilation.
I consider this an original painting, done from how I imagined Kvothe to look in the
second book, soon after rescuing Fela from the fire in the fishery and
having been rewarded by her with a lovely green cloak. It took a fair
few evenings to get right, especially trying to find lighting I liked.
Final Image
I encountered some difficulties when it came to painting the lighting for the scene. I found it difficult to find reference that would help me and in the end I just went with my instinct, which doesn't mean its right... I knew that moonlight desaturated colors and the main struggle was to have moonlight but still show his key characteristic flaming red hair. I ended up losing some realism and instead opted for a more fantasy feel to the lighting. Overall I'm happy with it. :)
This was easy for me to imagine doing as I
have so many amazing scenes in my head that I'd love to paint, from
reading the two books. So hopefully I will get around to doing more! I
especially want to imagine Denna though a painting some time soon.
Before you read anything, I advise playing this kick ass soundtrack from of my all time favorite golden oldies, The Hobbit video game.
It true what a lot of people say that sound in games has been shifting more and more towards immersion and realism, rather than the Goldie oldies when it was just a unique catchy tune you may not have really payed too much attention to, but you would instantly recognize and identify that game with. These days, video gamers are learning to expect great things from the sounds of games, as more and more people tune in and appreciate the music on its own, as well as enjoying the gameplay.
"In games we predominantly use three of the five senses; sight, hearing
and touch. All three are integrated into the game to help immerse you
within the experience. We all take the sounds in games for granted but
if you think about them they complete the game." Matt Waite
Personally I totally agree with this, as I find it incredibly difficult to even play a game with the volume turned off, let alone enjoy it. If you think about how in recent years, there has been a obvious cry of nostalgia for old soundtracks to games, that originally didn't ship with distributing the soundtrack separately. It may just be me, but It seems more and more these days, old revived soundtracks are being dug up and people are paying money for them!
Most recently I noticed Blizzard Entertainment posted on their Diablo III website they have launched a anniversary album of the first Diablo soundtrack which launched back in 1996. So if you are a die hard fan, and blue blood Blizzard supporter, you can buy the 17 track album for only $11.99... or just listen to it here :D
Now most people would agree that Diablo has a very unique and great soundtrack, but its been nearly two decades since it was released and the amount of digital soundtrack copies floating around makes it quite insulting to actual Diablo fans, so I read anyhow.
I have to I have always appreciated the sounds in the games I've played. For me its always been a massive element of what sells the experience, so much so that I've invested a lot of money in high end speakers and a headset to really take full advantage of that immersion. However, I don't consider myself as extreme an audiophile as the "game elite". This class usually applies to first person shooters, where gamers actually seek tactical advantage based on the quality of their sound. The ability to hear a persons footstep behind you or the exact direction and distance of gunfire can mean the difference between a win or a loss. Check this video out, I think its a little extreme but its talking about taking sound to another level entirely. Its called MyEars
I have played games in the past where the music was mediocre and sound effects bad, and it does really impact my ability to enjoy the experience. No matter how well the rest of the game is. Though I do remember back in the Xbox original days, my friends and I used to play our own music over the sounds of the game. Something that I think is quite rare these days...
Most games developers these days seem to invest quite a bit in the music for their games, and its become the norm to ship a game with the either a bundled copy of the soundtrack behind the game, or at least the option to purchase it for yourself, no waiting around.
Games like The Elder scrolls five: Skyrim had such big boots to fill, following on from its two incredibly successful predecessors, that the developers, Bethesda Softworks, really had to go all out to make sure the musics and sounds in the game lived up to hype and expectations. So writing and recording a fully orchestrated, original score? No problem, just hire Jeremy Soule again; award winning composer who worked on the previous two games.
Hey! they even went one further to one up the previous two titles, and out stage other competing titles, by inventing a written and spoken language from the ground up, and then incorporating it into their songs. I have nothing but respect for Bethesda... no fanboy or nuthin.. *cough*
But seriously, sound is so powerful in games these days, especially when you look at the horror genre. One game in particular that really stands out to me and, if I'm being honest made me shit bricks; was Amnesia: The Dark Decent. Personally horror doesn't do it for me, so I don't usually play games like this or watch films in that genre.
However, I heard a fair bit about this game and decided to take a bite out of it. I left feeling like it had taken a bite out of me.. the sound was so effective on surround sound and played in the dark, the teeth chattering insanity element was really got to my senses.
So for me there are some clear winners in the massive list of games I've played that earned a place in the sonic soundtracks on my own game history. I could link more but that might be overkill. Enjoy!
So here is a screenshot of the final line up of my assets that
made it into the level. Some were specifically designed to be
featured in the tavern, like the Longbows for example, however many
are designed to be not just used in the tavern courtyard but, spread
throughout the level.
Normal/ spec maps not applied here: Smallest to
tallest, its been challenging and fun, plus Ive learned a lot.
My main approach when it came to asset design, was first and
foremost, research research research. I believe that is one of our
main strengths as a group, that we have based our level and assets
off of historical references and documents. We really pushed the idea
of this being a Historical recreation, So that meant too much
creative license was a bad thing in our eyes...except for when it
came to things like the Bear tavern, which had only vague
descriptions and no obvious depictions, things like that required
smart concepting from the ground up.
I will leave individual renders for my design doc as there would
be too many to be practical right now. Overall I'm quite pleased with
them and its been exciting seeing each new object find a home in our
Southwarke remade.
I will note that its not been an easy ride, and there have been
many highs and lows, and many many late nights. But as a team we made
it in the end and I at least am still alive, that's what counts! Plus
everyone's work looks great and meshes really well together so I'm
very pleased.
Normal/ spec maps not applied here: Smallest to
tallest, its been challenging and fun, plus Ive learned a lot.
Here are some renders in 3ds max where I was attempting to
simulate the lighting we have in our level, but I was also
experimenting with idea's for my own personal presentation. I also
wanted to show the most recent assets I created. Those being the Oil
lamp, complete with particle Flame and the wooden tankard. Plus a
poster I made advertising the Bear tavern and its in house
musician for the night...
One of the things I was very keen on since the beginning was to
have immersive audio playing from the tavern to draw the player to it
and add interest because it is our key assets. Liam and I both worked
together gathering appropriate sound files to use in our level. While
I focused on the tavern area, music and animal sounds, Liam gathered
ambient environmental sounds and anything else needed then worked his
magic getting it all synced and working in game. I have to say it was
a real halleluiah moment for us because we knew the sounds would add
that extra level of depth to our level and they have turned out
great!
Floating lights will have lanterns housing them.
The bear tavern sign I painted
In some of my earlier research I used examples of lighting found
in Skyrim and that has definitely influenced my goals for the
lighting in our level, Especially the Tavern, because it needed to
feel warm and welcoming like a public house would. And Skyrim pulled
this off really well, for example:
This must be a similar time of day to our level and It looks
really nice, the only problem is it is very shadowy and much of the
saturation has left the textures, so in order to showcase our hard
work, we opted for a slightly warmer, brighter night, and used many
artificial light sources like lanters and braziers. Both of which we
found to be historical accurate, with room for some debate of
course...
Ill finish up with another two early renders in Max where I was
testing lighting, arranging some of my assets into the courtyard and
making sure all the texture maps worked correctly. I've decided I
love orange glow! 0.0
Since the last post, there has been a lot of progress made with my
assets, The Bear Tavern in particular. The model was finished and
textured, and loaded into the Cry engine among the first to make it in,
so it was very exciting seeing it in real time along side the other
buildings as the level progressed. I have been making ongoing tweaks and
changes but really the last thing left to do is to get the lod in and
working and fill up the courtyard with my other assets in production,
some of which will be spread throughout the our map.
We have really begun to nail the composition and lighting too a point
where I feel happy we are achieving the mood and atmosphere that we set
out for, but perhaps most importantly I believe we are on the right
track to achieving that realism element which was so fundamental to our
idea.
So I just like to illustrate the progress that has been made over the
past few weeks on the tavern specifically, along with other aspects of
the level.
- At this point my textures were nearly complete and the main design of the Tavern was constructed.
I wanted to take that opportunity before we were able to import and try
out our models in Cry engine, to experiment with lighting inside of 3ds
Max. Since we conceived our project plans, one of my main idea's as
co-art director was to set the mood and atmosphere of the map with night
lighting.
- Using the moon and artificial light sources like lanterns and fires to
bring it to life and create some really striking and beautiful
atmosphere. Mystery and immersion I felt would be a huge selling point
if we could pull it off.
- Plus it would also add some believability and realism to our scene.
Early on we soon identified that adding any characters would be too much
to undertake, but I felt that would leave us with a ghost town effect
if we followed the other groups directions to make there scene hit the
daylight timezone.
I added staircase
and balcony/ walkway - Used for viewing archery or lingering. should be
interesting to explore and five an added vantage point.
At this stage the Bear Tavern was In cry engine now, the level was
taking shape thanks to Laim, and we had some lighting to test maps were
working correctly. For a while the night time lighting that I spoke of
earlier was dropped due to it being difficult to achieve, it was
replaced for early morning/ sunrise, and there was some disagreement in
the group as to whether changing to daylight was better or worse.
Ultimately daytime just seemed to conflict with realism having lanterns
everywhere, and empty streets but no natural explanation as to why,
which is the advantage night gave us.
With some technical help from some of the third years, Jimi and I were
able to find a basic night setting that mirrored what I was after
originally. With the positive feedback it received from the rest of the
our group and other peers, it has now been adopted and we are decided on
moonlit night which Liam has been enhancing. I think we are all really
pleased about and it has given us an extra boost of morale for the
finish line!
View from the main street looking directly at the Bear and the Gatehouse
View looking down into the entrance area of the tavern courtyard.
We still have some things to figure out but all the last assets from
everyone are being created and added to the scene, including particle
affects and decals. Its all coming together - Not long now!
