FMP Inspirations - Imperial Boy

http://tksn.sakura.ne.jp/

Probably the single biggest influence on my whole FMP is this guy; Imperial Boy. I think it's pretty obvious to see why he's been an influence, and some of his work is why I chose to do an isolated man-made island city. Hopefully you can draw both similarities and differences between my FMP and his work (apart from his obvious extreme attention to detail and masterful use of light and perspective).

Over Summer, before finalising my FMP, I started to look more at his work, and set about trying to do my own similar style of drawings to improve my three point perspective, when I realised I hadn't really seen anything like his work rendered in a interactive 3D world. Not on that level of detail and verticality anyway. So that's when I pretty much decided on doing it for my FMP, and went about starting to concept my own ideas for an island city.

His works definitely helped to inspire me to really master my three point perspective, as this is the most important aspect of his drawings I feel. While the lighting gives it the character and liveliness, it's the three point that just gives you that sense of scope and scale, which I can then use to construct in 3D and create my own lighting in CryEngine.

FMP Inspiration - Bravely Default, Eternal Sonata & Sonic Generations

So I'm gonna be talking about three different games today as while they're all still influential towards my FMP, it's only really certain aspects of them that are (whereas Remember Me was hugely inspirational, hence the longer post). First up is Bravely Default, a game that came out in December for the 3DS in Europe. While the game itself isn't really relevant, especially as it's style involves hand-drawn environments 'extruded' out into 3D traversable locations (which does look great in its own right, just not relevant to me), the locations themselves are relevant. Again, the fantasy setting isn't something I want to tread too heavily into, but (and this is a similar theme for the next two games) the very clustered and detailed city environments are fantastic.

These pics are taken from the art book, as I wanted to include some of the concept work too (the finished pieces are literally exactly how it looks in-game). The concepts still show a clear sense of scale and direction for the player, which gives me a good insight into how I should concept the streets of my city.

The next game is Eternal Sonata, a fairly old game now that I suddenly realised had some really nice colourful locations to draw inspiration from. If I didn't settle on going for a realistic look for my FMP I would have chosen a style similar to this, as it allows for such vivid colour palettes.

Not much to say here really as the images I hope speak for themselves. I suppose it can be a good example of how you can create very crammed and busy scenes with some fairly average modelling and texture work provided the concept has been worked into enough.

Finally, I took this purely for the dappled light on the path. I believe CryEngine's realtime lighting allows for stuff like this to be created naturally given the correct lighting and positioning, but a workaround, if I really wanted it, would be to create an alpha decal that gently moves about, as they do above, in game.

Finally, a rather odd choice; Sonic Generations (althought I believe above is Sonic Unleashed). I chose this purely for the levels Rooftop Run (which is also a re-imagining of a level in Sonic Unleashed) and City Escape (a re-imagining from Sonic Adventure 2). Again, the main theme here being complex city environments made relatively simple once the assets are made and well placed. 

These environments look extremely complex, despite being made from a handful of assets. While the scope of my city isn't nearly as large (and rightly so, I'm not making what is essentially a visual racetrack) it does prove, which is encouraging for me, that large environments can be made extremely quickly and almost effortlessly provided you make smart and well thought out modular pieces.

FMP Timeline

I've been procrastinating a little bit too much lately, so I figured I should kick start myself into this FMP with what I do best; organisation! I don't know how to use Excel at all but I remember how handy it was during the group project and seeing Anna and Shay's plans helped me to start preparing mine. As the FMP has only just begun, I imagine this'll change a fair bit when it comes to the production side of things. Even so, it's nice to see a general overview of how things will start progressing.
The asset list is currently very vague, things like 'Docks' will be broken down into things like 'Boat #1, Rope, Fish, etc.' in separate tables. I just thought considering I haven't ironed out all the details yet it would be best to keep it vague instead of going into too much detail straightaway (especially at the very start). Even just from doing this I can see the scope I've made for myself is pretty ambitious, but hopefully I'll be pretty smart about how I repeat assets and modular buildings. Also I've made a fair few more dynamic elements than I thought, so hopefully CryEngine is as easy to use as UDK when it comes to things like waving clothes and flickering neon signs.

For these first two weeks, I'm gonna be concepting, mainly traditionally and painting over some whiteboxing. I'm going to start with the key areas I want the player to visit, specifically the starting docks (obviously), a few tight alleyways, a tram ride, a large open area of shops and hopefully a garden area, though this may have to end up as extended scope. Then once these are concepted I'll work into how they'll be connected and in what order. I may have the tram be used to take you to multiple areas, but that can also be traversed on foot, it depends how hard setting up movement in CryEngine is.

FMP Inspiration - FeiGiap

http://feigiap.deviantart.com/

For this FMP inspiration blog I'm gonna be talking about an artist that I actually only discovered about a month ago. Anna sent me a link to their deviantArt page, and I instantly fell in love with their style and use of perspective. One thing that bugs me which I'm going to get out of the way straight away is that some of his paintings are almost identical to what I planned with my FMP, and I'm just worried that people may think I'm stealing his themes or compositions, even though I planned this FMP back in summer, way before seeing his work. Hopefully my themes and ideas will be distinguishable and fresh enough to differentiate from his work. I have seen a lot of artists who portray similar themes, and my main inspiration that I'll post about soon is one of them, but it's a theme I've never really seen portrayed in a realtime 3D environment, which was a strong selling point for choosing it as my idea.

   

Some of his work, like above, is very similar to my FMP. The main differences are that my FMP will appear slightly less shanty, with less corrugated roofs and more traditional Asian architecture such as temples and bridges. His composition and use of colour is fantastic though, it perfectly captures that feeling of 'yeah, its a congested and claustrophobic city, but at the same time it looks peaceful and enjoyable to live in.

I also like how he posts breakdowns of his paintings, as I struggle with convincing perspective in digital media. I've always felt like using 3D programs to start with is almost cheating, but thinking about it, anything that helps you become a better artist over time can't be that bad can it?

  

Even though almost everything in this image is cubic, it still appears busy and not very gridlocked. being able to make a variety of modular buildings and assets that fit together convincingly, with the repetition and seams being unnoticeable will help me construct the largest parts of my city very quickly, allowing me to move onto polishing it with various assets and tweaks to the layout.

FMP Inspirations - Game Example: Remember Me

So in the weeks coming up to the beginnings of my FMP I figured I'd start doing posts where I look at what's specifically influenced me to do my idea, and how it's going to influence my FMP as a whole. It's mostly gonna be posts on games that inspire me, and artists who's style I adore or try to take knowledge from, but I may look at other stuff if its relevant enough.
First game up is Remember Me, a recent game by DONTNOD Entertainment. For their first game together as a studio, the result is incredible. While critics mainly attacked the linearity and dull combat (which I thought was actually pretty fresh and interesting), none of them criticized the graphics and art direction, which I personally believe is second to very few (Mirror's Edge is gonna hold best art direction for me for a long time). The game is probably the most beautiful game I've ever played, and the attention to detail is astounding. The reason it looks so gorgeous is not only because of the incredibly talented concept and game artists (go buy the artbook now, its amazing), but also the technical artists and the tweaked UDK Engine. DONTNOD used Physically Based Rendering (PBR), or Global Illumination, and as far as I know I think its one of the first, if not the first, to use it in a commercial game (could be completely wrong on this). Sébastien Lagarde did a fantastic article on this (below), that explains how they went about using it for Remember Me, and even though there's a lot I don't fully understand, its a great read about how their team works and how they used PBR to their best ability. While I don't intend to use PBR for my FMP (mainly because I don't have an engine that supports it at my disposal), it is something I should be taking note of, as PBR is going to become commonplace in games sooner or later, because of the graphical advances it offers.

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/game-environments-parta-remember-me-rendering/

Alongside this great use of PBR, the game fully utilizes a whole range of dynamic elements, something I want to be very evident in my FMP; smoke and steam, birds flying about, moving air conditioners, etc. I'm now going to dump a load of screenshots I took earlier that I feel are relevant to the sort of level of detail and contrasts in space that I want to create. The lighting & shadows are also occasionally similar to what I want to aim for. Obviously I won't be able to fully imitate the sheer level of detail and realism DONTNOD achieved, but I'm still going to try my hardest to do it anyway!

  

The mix of shops, adverts and history in this area is probably the most inspiring point in the game for me, as it does a fantastic job of making the city truly feel alive. This is only helped even more by the PBR.

I took this one as it shows how DONTNOD openly sealed off certain areas, allowing you to see further on, creating the illusion that the playable area is far larger than it actually is.

  

Interesting to note here that the hose in the lower right seems to have a teal coloured texture underneath. I thought this was a clever way of making it look like more assets if they flipped it and placed it elsewhere, but I saw a blue hose later on that was a completely different model, so I'm not sure what their intentions were here.

This shot nicely shows off the multiple assets used to break up the otherwise rectangular geometry, and dynamic elements such as the AC unit and smoke from it.

When I begin properly concepting, I may include interior sections similar to this, with shops and large glass roofs, which could create some nice dappled lighting.

    

A nice shot demonstrating the use of LODs and 3D objects used alongside matte painting (something I don't think I will need considering the packed, yet vertical nature of my city).

  

These last two shots are taken from the next level, portraying the slums of Paris. While this grim and grungy style is not what I am aiming for, the imperfect building shapes and the way they are just built on top of each other is similar to the DIY style I want for certain areas of my city.

So that's the end of this post, I can now also refer back to this blog post to re-inspire myself, but not too much as I want to be more inspired by actual real-world locations as this would benefit me more, but the way DONTNOD has crafted such a believable futuristic Paris is something I am hugely inspired by for this FMP, hence this blog post (the screenshots really don't do the game justice, seeing all the dynamic elements and realtime reflections is equally as impressive as the design).

FMP Technical Specification

The Outline

To design and create an isolated, artificial island city of multiple Asian cultures, similar in theme to the works of the artist Imperial Boy and Studio Ghibli. The city will be structured fairly chaotically and mostly vertical, with a focus on contrast between large open spaces and tight twisting alleyways. The style will be realistic, with a strong focus on vivid colours and bold lighting.

Platform, Engine and Genre/Narrative

The environment will be modelled with current gen (PS3, 360, Mid-Range PCs) in mind, with a strong focus on realistic material definition and verisimilitude in relation to the setting. I will be using CryEngine 3 as the realtime lighting will benefit me greatly when creating bright clearings and dark alleys within the given time frame, alongside things such as dynamic elements like bobbing boats.

The genre will be akin to an RPG or MMORPG, with the city acting as one of the hubs for players, with areas that they can meet up, buy, sell & trade items, save progress, etc.

The narrative will be a fairly linear path to push the player from the starting docks/station up and through the city, culminating at a point that displays a vista of the city, and/or takes the player back to the start.

Technical Specifications (Rough Estimates)

Tri limit – Minimum 100,000 maximum 300,000 (not including instancing)

2500 Draw calls

Framerate ~30FPS

Texture size – Relative to one another; large important assets 1024x1024 or composed of tileables, population assets 512x512 or 256x256 depending on size and priority

Maps to use – Diffuse, Normal, [Colour] Specular, Gloss, Reflection, Glow

Scale & Extended Scope

The scale of the level will be of a believable city size, but only a portion of it available to walk around by the player. The ability to traverse multiple levels will increase the explorable aspect of the environment. For an extended scope I could add more layers to the city of various other cultures (such as Indian or Parisian).

  

List of Probable Assets

Modular buildings (temples, stackable apartments, shops, etc.)

Moss, Trees & Plants

Trams

Windows & shutters

Windmills

Watermills

Bicycles

Window boxes

Air conditioners

Clothes lines

Hanging Lights

Boats & Docks (or train station)

External wiring & Piping

Fire escapes

Aerials

Neon signs & Adverts

Bridges

Clutter (boxes, rubbish, bins etc.)

List of Dynamic Elements

Flying birds

Bobbing boats

Swaying wires & clothes lines

Interactive tram

Flickering signs & lights

Rotating mills & working air conditioners

Smoke & steam

Swaying plants & vines

Swaying cloth

Reflective pools of water

Dripping/Flowing pipes

Post Assessment Stuff

We had our assessments on Monday, in which we had to do a 5 minute formal presentation of everything we've done so far plus what we aim to do for our FMP. Didn't go too badly; I'm still very nervous when it comes to public speaking but this wasn't as bad as my mind kept telling me it would be. Overall a little disappointed with my feedback, I understand and fully agree with the negative feedback on my projects, it mainly came down to material definition and textures that I need to work on, but I would've liked a few more bits of good feedback to even it out. That being said I did only get a few negative points, and my tutor did say they only write down what was really lacking with the work, so hopefully that means everything that wasn't commented on (particularly my documentation, organisation, unwrapping and modelling) was up to standards. I just know now that I need to work on my texturing a lot more than I originally thought, mainly my understanding of how different materials are defined. Concepting is something that wasn't mentioned that I definitely need to improve though; these past few projects I've only done a few concepts, got a solid idea from them and then worked from it, which is fine, but I just feel my final concepts need a lot more polish.

I also need to start massively fleshing out my FMP idea. I have a strong idea in my head of where I need to take it, its just putting that onto paper and eventually into 3D; no point having a good 'idea' if no one can see it! At the moment, its becoming a sort of hub city for a game like an RPG or MMO where you would visit and travel up into to visit various shops to buy and sell items. I'll post up my initial FMP technical specifications after this so people can see the sort of scope I'm aiming for.

On a less formal note, I finally got round to completing Psychonauts the past few days. I finally get why everyone raves about how much of an under-appreciated gem it is. Fantastic and very ambitious art style, with good gameplay and platforming to complement it. It's one of those old(ish) games that makes you say 'wow, game developers have lost so much attention to detail lately', because of all the tiny things in the game you wouldn't have thought they'd have bothered with.