Unit 69 : Assignment 1 - Drawing Concept Art for Computer Games

Unit 69 : Assignment 1 - Drawing Concept Art for Computer Games

The procedure of concept art, involves one starting with the core idea to something within the game that is being worked on. It can be anything, ranging from any scale. It acts as the nexus for the design aspect of characters, levels, items, environments/settings. Once a sketch has been drawn out, it can be manipulated and altered to gradually build a final version that is the most suitable for the game. The artist is given free will to try and express what they want to bring to the mood with the designs, and experimenting with vary stages of the design. For example, drawing a piece of armour, and gradually showing the decaying process it goes through as you go through the game and become more "battle-torn".

Gaius - The 3rd Colossi (Concept)

Often, many pieces of concept art are scrapped in favour of other designs, or just by the sheer quantity of sketches being too overwhelming for the games capabilities.

To the left is an example of concept art from the game, Shadow of the Colossus, where there are a total of 16 main enemies, which are all bosses. Each brings it's own unique design and attributes. As you can see, the sketch eventually transferred into the real game, and became a walking titan.

Scrapped Colossi Concepts

The second piece of concept art is from the same game, but all these ideas were scrapped in favour of the current content we got. Each piece though shares the same amount of care and diversity that every design got, which can make the field of concept to be quite disheartening at times, to see a project you spent so many hours on not make it into the final game. It's also a factor that can spur some backlash from the fanbase, as there are many cases of cut content/scrapped ideas causing fans to question the thought process and claim the game would've been much better if it was included. Typically, an artist will start with a rough sketch, then either roughly colour the sketch to check that they work well, and begin to add a more tuned line work and paint job/shading to improve that final version. However, you can just finish with the initial sketch.

Progression towards the design piece is a fascinating process, as the design can drastically alter from the original "beta" sketch. Here we can see just how far the character Ragna the Bloodedge (BlazBlue), went from skin-tight clothing, brown hair, and a medium sized sword, to having exaggerated, yet distinctive white hair, buster sword and a red coat. This leaves a more lasting impression of the character, and colour theory must also be taken into account, as you'll want to make colour combinations compliment one another. You don't want a character with colours that don't go together and appear "ugly" and unattractive just based off their clothing. Red is typically considered to be a protagonist colour, especially within the fighting game realm, so someone familiar with the series will most likely see this character as that without even knowing who they are, and the more exotic design displays a sense of relevance as well, I mean, who would need a sword that big? The main character, that's who.

Ragna the Bloodedge Concept Art progression

Here is Haku-men from the same game as previously shown, BlazBlue. We get a really great close up of his armour, and how it moves with him, as the size and unique style may cause some curiosity. The upper torso is broken down into sections that demonstrate how his swords sheathe is attached to his back, how the neck piece breaks into sections as he looks upwards, shoulder leveling, and wast twisting. It's also common to find a front and profile shot, to get a better look at the proportions of the head/body type. The style of his armour brings a familiar flare to that of a samurai, due to the pony tail and Japanese Hakama styled legwear, but with the games own unique flavours sprinkled in to make the character fit into the universe. Breaking down the characters this ways allows you to appreciate more aspects of the design you may not have noticed before, such as the red eyes planted around his armour, or just how the pieces flex and bump against one another.

Haku-men Concept Art (BlazBlue)

Another style is that of illustrations, as well as key-frames. This is commonly used as a way to sketch out important shots from a scene or to further demonstrate a characters abilities, and to give a "skeleton" to it, so for example, you would have a character attacking as a key frame, and then the standby phase of the conflict, then draw in what goes in between to make that scene be complete. Although often times, illustrations are primarily used as "stills" to show the story with powerful art and allowing the sound design to immerse the player within the scene. Think of it like a graphic novel, but with an audiobook backing it.

Captain Hazama Concept Art (BlazBlue)

Key-framing works very similarly, but is more focused on breaking down animation steps, like the mouth movement, body alterations and so on. Each step is a key in the timeline, and once more frames are filled in to join all the key-frames together, you end up with a fluent animation to come to fruition. This can apply to 3D model animations, and 2D drawn animations.

Below is a piece of environment concept art is from Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition, as shown in a gorgeous panoramic shot. It evokes the feeling of an isolated ruin, long past its time, slowly but already engulfed in plantation, but the openness of the arena brings a gladiator feel to it, where two must battle to the death in a heart-stopping intense duel. The boss itself is on display, but cast in dark, incomprehensible shadow, hunched over as if it's being drained from the weight of darkness, as a ray of light casts down upon him. Which could lead to interpretation that the Knight must seek enlightenment or just light itself to free himself from the dark that shackles him, whilst barely being able to lift his sword. This is all given for the viewer to dissect and interpret their own meaning behind the artwork, and take a look at what the artist wanted to show through their vision of this level/world. As well as this, the style, mood, character, and symbolism all coincide with the theme of Dark Souls, not feeling out of place or easily mistakable for another game. This game is dark, brooding, lifeless, but also, displays a shimmer of hope, as seen from the light being cast down on this ruined battleground.

Dark Souls Prepare to Die 

Concept art can come in many forms, and is widely sought out by fans that want to examine and take apart each design to full appreciate the effort that goes into the design aspect of games. Artbooks are extremely popular with granting this desire, and are sold are high prices or often included with special edition purchases of the game. It can act as a way to inspire and drive artists to seek out a career within the games industry so that they too can add their own creative mind to a project to bring something imaginative to the game.

I've also drawn up my own concepts for my game, that are still in early development. The way I do this is with a program known as PaintTool SAI, with a Wacom Grahpics tablet. I sketch out a rough concept, then gradually go inter further depth with the shading and lineawork. So far I've drawn a brief beta design for the Main Character and some variations of clown enemies.

Understand theory and applications of 3D

Tom Estill

Understand theory and applications of 3D

• Various Uses

The use of 3-D has grown more prominent and is practically implemented among almost all of the media today, from Films, TV, Cartoons and games. A good example of the use is in Hollywood films, by the creation of special effects and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery), environments can be crafted that are not physically in the real world that the actors can interact with these interact with these generated effects. 

Architecture is often developed and made with 3D models so the designers can see exactly how it'll look and how it can be adjusted before the final project is constructed, as well as cars that are constructed for testing and presenting before further development. It is a key factor in making efficient products in the long run and being able alter and change the design within the 3-D realm instantly with the fully rendered model. Scientist and Geologists can even create 3-D models to simulate various elements, like the human body, natural occurrences and other various models to manipulate and learn from. 

Action figures as well can be constructed within a 3-D modelling software, which will then be used as a mold. 3-D printing works very similar to this, as a way to create a 3-D model in the real world to fiddle with.

• Polygonal Improvement 

Video games are constantly evolving, coming from 2-D pixelated sprites, to full 3-D polygonal models, from the sharp, low poly models from the 64 bit era such as Super Mario 64, to his new high definition model featured in his more recent titles. This is a show of progression with what can be rendered in 3-D, disregarding the fact that Mario is in fact a model that doesn't demand much, due to the cartoonish look. 

Compare that to most photo-realistic games that come out today. 

This can be shown in great comparison with an more older game like Final Fantasy 7, over the years there have been more additions to the this particular games (CG movies, Remake), and each have shown a mass increase in production and technological enhancements, such as a higher defined models, showing a drastic detail and polygon increase, further demonstrating the improved technology.

Films and animated features often tend to implement computer generated imagery, take for instance the first full feature length 3-D movie, Toy Story. Released in 1995, became a classic among the film industry for revolutionising the art of Animated films, and while the software is very outdated, the results were still a landmark for its time. Handling lower polygonal models than what we have now, the film definitely holds up, yet the new additions to the series have shown much improvement to polygons, lighting, fluent animation and textures.

Below is a good example of how a scene of animation looks without rendered lighting (left side), and comparing it to the final product with all the assets enabled. (right side)

• Mesh and Animation

Often, when creating a mesh of a 3-D model, you'll draw up a sketch concept art of the model, and then import it into the software that renders your models. Programs like Maya allow this with importing an image into the image plane. Allowing you to generally create a mold which you can then adjust the smoothness of the faces and alter how you choose. Among this, many professional business like Disney will create molds of the characters which the creative staff can hold and even manipulate to alter the appearance if need be. To us as more of a reference. The geometrical theory of 3-D modelling is with determining the how your base shapes and mesh is constructed, using vertice, the point of the shapes corners. Edge, the line marking the perimeter of the shape, and the face, the surface of the shape. For bodies, the polygonal faces are often set in quads, while more detailed faces are triangular with more emphasis on polygons and smoother edges. 

Animating your models typical has you rigging bone-joints to your model, which will then allow you to perform movements with their limbs similar to that of an action figure. When it comes to actual animation, you'll need to start using frames of animation, and using Key frames to pin point specific poses and acts of the animation. For example, setting a key frame after each step of a walking animation.

(Examples of modelling shown below)

• Constraits

While modelling is very handy for creating and rendering models and environments, the resources for the software can be pricey, as well as that, requiring a fairly high end computer to handle all of the polygons if the model you're creating gets a bit too demanding, and as well as this, having enough space and RAM to contain all of the files you'll be holding. The process of also making the models can sometimes be wasteful and a strain on time if you keep having to make them and adjust the mold.

Video Game Engines

Tom Estill

Video Game Engines

• Havok

The Havok engine is an open game engine that specialises in rendering physics in a three-dimension environment, which eventually grew to develop different modules that enhanced the graphical capabilities with various elements such as clothing physics and destruction. By dynamic simulation it is able to render virtual worlds and handles realistic physics and lighting, such as destroying boxes, each piece will realistically break apart and cast shading onto the environment.

The engine was most commonly used during the Seventh generation, for platforms such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The first version of the software development kit was released during 2000 (Version 1.0), and the current version currently stands at 2011.2, and is still being used in the most recent games such as Halo 5 on the Xbox One. Like many game engines, the Havok engine remains open to developers and the elements of the code are able to be fully customised through licensing the C/C++ development.

(Demonstration link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQnrll8H-z4

• RAGE (Rockstar Advanced Game Engine)

Rage is a closed gaming engine, meaning it is primarily used by a single company for creating games, which is Rockstar. Originally evolving from the Angel Game Engine, Rage has also seen third-party integrations such as the Euphoria engine, which is task with handling realistic ragdoll physics that react to props and environment collision and mimicking damage. 

Before the Rage engine, Rockstar also delved into Renderware, for the their Grand Theft Auto instalments that featured on the PlayStation 2. The later version of Rage grew to support DirectX 11 and stereoscope 3D rendering for the PC. 

(Demonstration link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87qdmuOesRs

• id Tech 5

  

Similar to the Rage engine, the id Tech 5 engine primarily belongs to game developer id Software, being a closed/proprietary engine. Released in 2011 for the game Rage, it was able to render textures with resolutions spanning 128,000 to 128,000 and was overall seen as a far superior version to id Tech 4. A factor in this was the way shadows were rendered, since Tech 4 featured volume-based shadows, meaning they were very sharply displayed, which were prominently used for DOOM 3 back in 2004 and following id Software games. id Tech 5 on the other hand managed to render more realistic shadows with softer edging, as well as many graphical improvements such as bloom, volumetric lighting and dynamic water surfaces. 

The A.I.'s coherent logic and believable animations was also greatly improved, and was a key achievement in the game Rage, where enemies would react very realistically to being shot, even trying to seek shelter or fight back when on their last legs with believable physics and ragolling. 

id Tech 5's engine also allowed for community creations and was bundled with a creation kit, and while the engine was mostly made for first person shooters which is what id Software is well known for, it does have the ability to surpass the genre.

(Demonstration link below)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRQFlK1MFd0

• Cry Engine

The Cry Engine was developed and created by Crytek, a developer in Germany. Their engine has most knowingly been used for the Crysis and Far Cry series, but isn't limited to just these. The engine has seen multiple updates since it was licensed back in 2006, such as Versions 1, 2, 3, 3.6/4 and the most recent addition Cry Engine V, which was announced back in March 2016, adding new features such as VR Support (Virtual Reality), and a "Pay what you want" model for access to the source code openly.

The engine is also designed to assist in making background environments easier to handle such as terrains, and the use of fake backdrops, to the illusion of a more "Open world" without the over use of assets. As well as this, it uses more advanced shaders, animation blending for more smoother animations key frames, and real time soft particles.

(Demonstration link below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcnrt1pX5XA

• Unreal Engine

The Unreal Engine is arguably the most popular, and as we as that one of the oldest engines still around, dating back to its first showing in 1998. It has been known for its use in the majority of games, and for many popular series that featured it such as Unreal Tournament, and Gears of War. It is also a very open engine, allowing anyone to use it free of charge, as Epic Games make their profit of the royalties. As of now there have been four versions of the engine, each bringing a better and more refined toolset. Unreal 1 focused on integrated rendering, collision detection, networking, and file system management. Unreal 2 included the Karma physics SDK module, which allowed for ragdoll physics and more stable running console releases. Unreal 3 on the other hand allowed for complete freedom with its shader system, and allowed fore realistic and smooth shading, HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows.

Unreal 4 is currently available for all to use, and it's a true engine to try out for its advanced features, yet user friendly design, such as the new "Blueprint" visual scripting system, which simplifies and breaks down code scripting which makes developing much more faster than using C++.

• My Thoughts

In my eyes, the best engine of them all is the Unreal Engine, due to its simplicity and accessibility, yet still provides an advanced arsenal of tools and assets. Not only that but it has been used in the majority of games as of recent years and with the free use it will build an even stronger community and will improve education within the games industry in general.