WEEK 11 – POST-MORTEM

Last week I did not contribute very much to the project since the art production has been finished. I pushed all the changes to the master file, such as the textures of paintings and adding magnets and stickers to the scene . In addition, Ning and I are also responsible for taking screenshots in the game, so Anna can use it in the final presentations.

• Meeting ( 1 hour )
• Taking screenshots ( 1.5 hour )

POSITIVE

Thanks to our programmer Joe, now we have a functional game and the networking is working fine. On the visual side, the GUI looks cartoony and cute, which matches perfectly with the story of our game. So overall it has been a great experience for me and I’ve learnt a lot from all of the rest team mates.

NEGATIVE

I think what is missing in our team is a concept artist who can help design the basic looks of our game, including the environments. So everything in the game could be consistent visually.

WHAT DID I LEARNED FROM THE EXPERIENCE?

The first thing I learned from this experience is the ways of modeling in games. Honestly speaking, it’s my second group project of making a game. When I’m modeling for animations, I usually model those assets as more detailed as possible. While in games, when assets do not have to be that high-poly, there are some cheating methods that I can use to model objects. For example, instead of modeling the individual stitching on baseballs, I can just use a texture and a normal map.  By doing that, I can speed up producing the assets.  SCRUM is another thing I learned from this experience, which I’ve never heard before. But it turns out to be really useful in a group project. By SCRUMing, we can get everyone on the same page, and communicate better  as a group.

WEEK 10 – POLISHING AND TITLE SCREEN

The production has come to the finals, and most of the art works have been done. So basically I don’t have so many tasks to do in the last week. Ning and I are responsible to bring some liveness to the environments. So I modeled and textured some magnets on the fridge, in order to add some personalities. In addition, I re-textured the paintings because we thought that some paintings in the old version are not appropriate for the environment. So Anna found some pictures, and I re-sized them in photoshop in order to fit the paintings’ UV. On the other hand, I also designed the title screen background. But it still needs to be verified by the other group members.

• Model and texture the magnet and stickers ( 40 minutes )
• Re-textured the paintings  ( 10 minutes )
• Screenshot and design the title screen ( 1 hour)
• Weekly meeting ( 2 hours )

POSITIVE

The game is getting better and better now, and it looks good aesthetically.

NEGATIVE

None.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

We may find some other people play test our game now to get this game better.

Week 09 – Texturing and Mosquito Modeling and Animating

It seems that our art team has finished almost all the art works in the last week. For me, I spent most of my time UVing and texturing some furnitures and some assets that the sleepy guy can interactive with. The cartoony wood texture and the reference of the bed texture is provided by Anna. In addition, I also modeled and animated Mr. mosquito. Basically the mosquito is made up of some spheres and columns. So it didn’t take me very long to get it modeled. As for the wing animation, I added two joints to the mosquito’s wings, and rotate the y-axis mainly through expressions in Maya. I think the flying animaiton turns out to be fine. But it still needs to be verified by Anna or Kai-lin.

• UV and texture samurai sword ( 3 hours )
• UV and texture bed (30 minutes)
• UV and texture bowling ball (20 minutes)
• UV and texture kitchen island ( 2.5 hours )
• UV and texture painting ( 40 minutes)
• Model the mosquito ( 30 minutes )
• Animate the mosquito’s wings ( 30 minutes)

POSITIVE

Finally we have completed almost all the art works in the past week, and it feels better that out game is getting prettier than before.

NEGATIVE

There are not so many tasks left in the art team. So I don’t know what’s next for me to do.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I can help animate the sleepy guy if it is needed. And I can also polish the assets and textures in the next week.

WEEK 08 – MODELING, MODELING, MODELING

Last week, my main work is to model all the objects left on the “Master Asset List”. Overall I spent one and a half days and one night just modeling those assets. So luckily I have finished almost all the assets in time. But unfortunately, continuous modeling makes me feel sick and I didn’t want to do it ever again by the end of that day. Then I uploaded all the assets to Google Drive for Anna to verify.

• Kitchen Island ( 5 hours )
• Door ( 30minutes )
• Window ( 30 minutes )
• Ceiling Light and bulb ( 30 minutes )
• Radio ( 1 hour )
• Remote ( 40 minutes )
• Sword ( 2 hours )
• Dining Chair ( 1 hour )
• Jar & Lid ( 30 minutes )
• Bedroom Lamp (10 minutes )
• Bowling Ball ( 30 minutes )
• Pan ( 1 hour )
• Pot ( 1 hour )

POSITIVE

The positive aspect of last week is that I finally finished modeling all the assets and now I can move to the texturing.  On the other side, Anna proposed a SCRUM meeting every Saturday, and I think it’s a good idea that we can know better about the situations beside the weekly Tuesday meeting.

NEGATIVE

I don’t have much to say about the negative part since I think we are good now.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

Next week, I will move to the texturing team. I agree with Anna that we should post the reference for review first, then make the textures. It can absolutely speed up the overall development.

WEEK 07 – MODELING, MODELING, MODELING

Last week, my primary work is still modeling. So after Tuesday’s meeting, now I’m responsible for modeling all the rest of interactive objects. But first of all, according to Anna, my priority work is to finish the kitchen counter and island.

• Baseballs (2.5 hours)
• Baseball Bat (40 minutes)
• Keytar (1.5 hours)
• Painting (5 minutes)
• Kitchen counter and cabinet (2 hours)
• Group meeting (1.5 hours)

POSITIVE

Things are getting together now since we’re all producing the assets fast this week. I think the furnitures without textures are almost done and I will finish the rest objects as soon as possible in the next week.

NEGATIVE

I might spend too much time on unnecessary objects such as the baseball.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

I will work faster to finish all the rest of the assets in the next week so we can finish building the home as soon as possible. In addition, I can also help with the UV and texturing after finishing the modeling.

Week 06 – Furniture Modeling

After last week’s meeting, we decided to choose all the furnitures from IKEA categories in order to create a consistent environment. So as an art team, Anna took the responsibility to find all the references from IKEA, and Josh, Ning and I started to model the assets. And for me, I modeled the Hemnes Nightstand, Hemnes TV bench, Malm bed, Fejka plants and the digital clock. The furnitures and their wireframes are as shown in the pictures below. Among all the assets, TV bench and Malm bed have been verified by Anna, while the rest still needs to be verified.

• Hemnes TV bench with textures (1 hour)
• Malm bed frame, pillow and duvet with textures (2 hour)
• Hemnes Nightstand (40 minutes)
• Fejka plants (1 hour)
• Digital clock (5 minutes)
• Fix pillow (30 minutes)

POSITIVE

Finally we, as an art team, are producing something for the final games. Everything is well organized and I think we are working pretty professionally. For different modelers, even though we have different methods to create the assets, we are still on the same page and our producer, Anna, will verify each model individually to make sure that we are modeling  something appropriate for a game. For me, it’s my first time to model in “meters”, and honestly, at first there are some issues happening during the modeling, such as the deformation when rotating and so on. But finally, I gradually get used to this.

NEGATIVE

Nothing really. If I have to name some, it’s the modeling for games because the assets I usually build are for animations. So I don’t have to pay much attention to the number of poly faces. While modeling for games, I have to keep the number as few as possible. So when I model something with soft edges such as pillow and duvet, I need to smooth them at first and then reduce the faces again. After reducing the faces, I need to adjust the edges again, which are pretty time-consuming.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

It’s a suggestion about the master asset list. I think we can change the fill color if the asset is completed, so I can clearly find out what’s left in the list.

Week 05 – Bed modeling and texturing

This week, we, as an art team, are assigned to model three different style beds with different cartoony textures, in order for choosing the most appropriate art style for our entire game. In addition, we were also asked to put different lightings in the environment, which are normal lighting and night lighting, so that we could have a basic understanding about what the asset will look like under a blue night condition. So the pictures below show what I have built based on my own understanding. I want to add some of the character’s personalities to the textures based on Kai-lin’s description, that he likes playing games and reading comics. On the other hand, we also had an art team meeting on Tuesday. After running over all the nine different beds, we finally decided to use Ning’s loft bed, which can provide more space for the mosquito to hide.

• Find the bed reference and model 3 beds. (3.5 hours)
• Map the UVs and add the textures. (1.5 hour)
• Render the images with different lighting conditions. (0.5 hour)

POSITIVE

Since every one was assigned with different tasks, it turned to be pretty productive last week. Another advantage of modeling so many beds per person is that we can know what we are good in the production of making all the assets as an artist. So in the future, we can create all the assets more professionally as a team.

NEGATIVE

I think we have spent too much time just modeling beds. And I am still not sure what the game will look like. So perhaps what we are missing now is a designer who can draw the overall looks of the game.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

In order for future development, I think we need to discuss and have an overall color palette for the texturing. For the lighting, we also need to discuss how many light sources do we have in the game and where they are. Other than that, I think we are all heading to the right directions.

Week 4 – Furniture Modeling (test), Collect and Organize textures

This week, I tried my best to understand the mechanics of the game idea. We had a team meeting on Tuesday, and our producer came to the meeting really well-prepared. And we’ve decided that the art style of this game is pretty silly and crazy, trying to make the game fun. So after that, I modeled some furnitures in Maya. The shape of the furnitures is exaggerated in attempts to make them look interesting.

On the other side, I have a bunch of textures previously downloaded for other projects. So I re-organized all the textures, finding all the appropriate styles for the game, in order for our team to decide which to use

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POSITIVE

Thanks to our producer, everything is well-organized, and we now have several ways of communication, like slack, Trello and WordPress. I think we are all on the same page now, and in the right direction.

NEGATIVE

As everyone has said in other journals, we don’t have a solid art style now. Otherwise, I think everything is fine in this week.

SOLUTIONS & SUGGESTIONS

Perhaps our art team should also have a meeting every week in order to make everything on the same track.