Simone's Research and Stuff

Simone's concept research:

Concept art = Research on the job:

Concept art is the first step in the creation of a game. This stage is where the ideas and designs for the game are created in a visual form. We design and create worlds and the objects for a client to their vision, as well as creating content from basic description if the client isn’t sure what they want. Concept art are there to create new designs to make that game stand out from the rest. This will include; creating environments, props (weapons, furniture, jewellery, etc…), characters, vehicles, and so on. The artwork for the artist crosses over a lot of different areas such as marketing art, but their main job is to create work that can be used through out the pipeline in other departments. The artwork does not have to be an illustration, but detailed enough to convey the designs to the team.

There are many different artists that I look up to and also some that are up coming who’s art is still improving. My top three artists that inspire me are: Feng Zhu (http://www.artbyfeng.com/), Kekai kotaki (http://www.kekaiart.com/) and *Sandara (*deviant art name: http://sandara.deviantart.com/). Their work is very impressive to me and I aspire to be able to create work just as impressive in my future.

Feng Zhu has helped me so much in improving my concept art work, as he has been creating free online videos tutorials about different ways that he creates work and what he thinks about other subjects in this field. He explains different ways to create designs and techniques to render these designs to a more presentable level. He also goes over things like portfolios, how to create a better visual library and the difference between illustration and industrial design.

Listening to Feng Zhu, a highly regarded in the field and noted for his designs in Star Wars, Transformers and Dead Space (to name a few) makes the information that he is giving you even more valuable.

My role in this project:

My role within this project is to create designs for different game elements that will be within the game. I will be designing the environment of the level that will be played as well as creating characters and props that will be shown. These designs will be created through paintings (Photoshop) and sketches(Photoshop and hand drawn). At the later stages of this project, there maybe some time to create marketing art for this project, but that will be decided later on.  

I have created a backstory for our game (not the finished story, just my own idea of it) which can be seen within my own blog. 

So far this term, I have created designs for the entrance to the tunnel/mine and designs for the tunnels themselves. Below are the images of these designs.

Tunnel/mine Entrance

Tunnel Designs

Research into mines and tunnels

The game demo that we are planning to make is set within a mountain base for one of the factions that will be a main part of the game's story. The feel for the game is based within the science fiction genre which made it slightly more difficult than creating a game around modern day where I could reference the technology that created them and how they have been constructed.

I found many different images for mines as well as their entrances, but I was looking for something that could show similar lighting to what we were thinking for the actual game. We are looking for something dim, but lit enough for the player to see the environment around them. The main light will be coming from small lights spread in small intervals along the tunnels' lengths lighting the way to the different locations throughout the demo.

The images that I have collected all have a similar arch shape to their tunnels. This is something that I have taken into consideration when designing the tunnels for the demo. Some tunnels also have a straight cut ceiling which gives a more hardened man-made look to the tunnel compared to the arching shape, this may be due to that fact that many of the arch shaped tunnels have a jagged surface to them, breaking up the man-made look for a slightly more organic style.

The floor of the mine tunnels are mostly exposed rock with a set of rails running along them, though some do not have the rails but instead have a smooth surface or one that is covered with some kind of flooring. There is an image of a mine from the game ‘Dead Space’ which has been broken apart on one side and has a panelled floor.  This image gave me a good idea of different aspects that a dark sci-fi game could look like and elements that could be included while designing the tunnel/mine for our game.