Climb 1

I created my three ideas for my project and presented them.

Climb 2

I added created Backlog tasks for my project as well as scheduled out two weeks in advance. I also created the GDD and some initial character concept sketches.

Climb 3

This week, I decided on solidifying a character design, pose, which has also aided in pinpointing the overall art style of the game. I previously noted that I drew inspiration from games like Limbo, Silt, and Inside, however, I did not want my character to feel like a complete replica. Rather, I wanted to draw upon their styles to create, Liora, (the player character), who embodies this simplistic yet striking 2D, monochromatic, creepy character design. I also decided to give her an ethereal element as I posed her movement to be levitating in the air, further showcasing her mystical and powerful nature. I also came to the realization that I had some of the most fun playing a game when the character movement and design is so engaging, that I simply enjoy watching the character move or even stand in an idle position. I created two slight variations of Liora, each with different hair designs. One is more simplistic and round, which I think gives her a slightly more benevolent or youthful look, and the other displays locks of hair flowing behind her with each end of hair coming to a point. I also chose to pose her arms in a way that seems unnatural, further signifying her brilliance. I decided to go as far and as detailed as I can with this character design concept since I still have to create the environment and I want to give that ample time to develop as well. She still has a lot more refining to do, but I tried to progress as much as I can.

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As an update, this week I focused on completing the floor layer or asset of the environment. I tried to keep it subtle yet detailed and added cracks and line strokes of varying intensity and hue. Once I completed the floor, I moved on to creating a more intricate asset of the scene which is the midground pillars. I wanted the base of the pillars to appear almost root-like and then slowly grow into a towering pillar. I completed the first detail pass of half of the pillar assets. I also went in and finished adding more foreground rocks on the left side. The pillars are taking a little longer than expected, considering how intricate I am trying to get the design, but I believe I got through the toughest part of that specific design. I am going to keep going and finish these pillars and start working on the stairs. The image I uploaded combines my color-blocking layer as well as my more detailed passes.

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As of now, I have finished adding details to the background pillars and I am in the stage of going through and refining any parts in the scene. I was not satisfied with how the foreground rocks ended up looking in comparison to the other background elements. I feel like I honed in on the style I was going for the further I went in the piece. So, I decided to go back in and refine the rocks and give them a more stylized look. I have not finished refining them, completing most of the revision on the rocks on the right, and about halfway through the rocks on the left, you can actually see the cut-off of my revision and how it contrasts with the style I was going for. So far, I am still on track, I planned ahead for this period where the palace environment is complete and I need to go back in and make sure everything blends well together and feels cohesive.

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After careful consideration, I decided I needed to rework the character design of the princess. As previously stated, I felt as if I solidified the art style and found its niche the more I worked on it, even having to go back and rework some elements that I had created in the beginning. After trying to blend the character design into the environment, I felt as if it did not mesh well and decided to rework the princess with the new art style in mind. I took on extra hours this work week to try and get the final princess design done. I feel like this character design fits much better in the scene and I plan on adding more gameplay elements to showcase a more dynamic scene. Next week I also plan on beginning the integration into Blender for the 3D shadowbox. Overall, this was not much of a setback since I finished my environment much earlier than expected and had room for any changes made. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Climb 10

This week I focused on organizing all the layers of my concept art piece (and there were many). After I separated all the layers and had them in the correct order, I imported them into Maya as image planes and began working on adjusting their positioning. I still plan on adding one more layer which is the rock foreground layer separate from the floor foreground layer, which I will aim for next week as well as solidifying the scale of my scene and begin working on lighting. I was conflicted on how to properly separate or isolate the floor layer since the shadowbox showcases my 2D images, so I decided to split the floor in half so that the background portion of the floor appears behind or under the background elements and the foreground portion will render behind or underneath the rocks and Liora. So far adequate progress has been made now that a heavy chunk of organizing is out of the way.

Climb 11

For this week, I uploaded my finished shadow box into Sketchfab and finished adjusting the lighting, materials, and post-processing. I wanted the scene to feel very connected almost with little to no disconnect when transitioning from the box to the background environment. I also wanted the lighting from the windows in the background to glow through and appear that it was lighting the floor as well as Princess Liora, as that was my original intention in the concept art. I made adjustments to bloom, tone mapping, color balance, grain, sharpness, to name a few. Next week, I plan to work on my marketing package (including editing my Sketchfab page) as well as make further adjustments from any feedback given. Here is the link to my Sketchfab model: https://skfb.ly/oSBIq. 

Climb 12

Now, for this week’s progress on my project. I took into account Professor Heitzman’s feedback on adding rays or beams of light casting down on the scene to make it feel more alive and dimensional. So I went back into Maya created planes and shaped them into various sizes to match the feel of light rays casting down on the scene. At first, I had trouble getting the rays to look natural and fit in the scene, but to fix this, I decided to add a white curved plane above to match the feeling of the scene being lit from a bright sky above rather than the rays casting down out of a black plane. I am still not settled on the placement and layout of the rays and have multiple versions saved as I am not sure if I should stagger them more or make them positioned on the same line.

I also began working on the marketing package for my game. I created the final Behance page and started formulating the design and feel of the page. I also began development on my promotional video. I sourced screenshots I took during development and will also work on recording audio and adding text to get my video to a more professional standard. As of now, will continue to work on my marketing package and I will continue to make tweaks to my Sketchfab model as I receive feedback on these new additions.

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