Collaborative poster project

For the collaborative project i teamed up with Henry Gorick a fellow MA Games student whose focus is in 3d modelling and rigging.

Together we decided we'd like to focus on creating a pipeline for a continuous workflow that could potentially keep us both busy on a project through to completion. This is ideal for small indie based teams where individuals are required to be multi disciplined and always involved in every aspect of development.

We both had our own separate areas of research as well, Henry wanted to look into low poly modelling work flows whereas i wanted to look into shape theory and John K's ideas on Appeal. With all this we decided on creating a character and after a lengthy discussion we created the idea for Major Malfunction.

I would concept the character Henry would model it and from that point we would devise a work flow that would keep us both involved if we were to take the project further.

Before his ‘enhancements’, Major [redacted] [redacted] had a string of disciplinary hearings for his erratic and violent behavior both on and off the field of battle eventually earning him the title of Major Malfunction.

Cooked up in the minds of researchers Henry Gorick and Steven Turney at the institute of NUA, the project was an attempt to answer the question “can we create a video game character that reflects the current cultural climate whilst working in a 2 man continuous pipeline” After discussing the design they decided that an American man, draped in the countries flag and ranting about long obsolete ideals whilst waving a nuke on a stick would be reflective of current American tensions.

As the character designer, Steven looked in to shape theory and the psychology of shapes to inform his design as well as researching into John K’s theories on appealing designs. [1][2][3]

Henry’s researched led him to look into a low poly modeling process as well as disney’s method of staging and posing and finally basic pipeline design for 3d modeling. [4][5][6]

What they found was that creating a design based on blocky rectangular shapes implies the idea that the character is strict, strong and rigid in his personality. This is perfect for a military man whose life is based around discipline. They also found that low poly modeling can make it difficult in later stages of the pipeline such as posing. Together they created a useable pipeline that could be implemented into an ongoing collaborative process suitable for indie studio game development.

Concept > Modeling > sculpting > Rigging > Poly painting > Posing and Rendering

·       References

·       Brooke Eggleston Forge, (2016). Shape Language 1: Intro and Round Shapes. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbtoO6zFJ3o [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Christie, M. (2016). The psychology of logo shapes – a designer's guide. [online] Creative Bloq. Available at: http://www.creativebloq.com/logo-design/psychology-logo-shapes-8133918 [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       IdeaRocket. (2016). 12 Principles of Animation: Staging - IdeaRocket. [online] Available at: http://idearocketanimation.com/2523-principles-of-animation-staging/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Kricfalusi, J. (2016). Disney Principles 4 - Appeal 1 -. [online] Johnkstuff.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/disney-principles-appeal-1.html [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·       Taylor, J. (2016). Is it bad to model in a T-Pose for characters?. [online] METHOD: J. Available at: http://www.methodj.com/t-pose-for-characters/ [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].

·      Tironeac, G. (2016). The Pipeline Behind Modeling and Animating a Game Character in Zelgor. [online] Assist-software.net. Available at: https://assist-software.net/blog/pipeline-behind-modeling-and-animating-game-character-zelgor [Accessed 22 Nov. 2016].