Forest Golem Project
Building Blocks General Idea
The game didn't end up making it past the concept stage however I still had strong ambitions for this character so I wanted to make it. Throughout the development process several things had changed to help develop this character's story. Its features were mainly designed around the sheer bulk and force combined with a cape (originally a forest green style but developed later into a contrast colour) to resemble belonging once to some sort of tribe or community. Its other feature was that of a series of wrist blades which it could use as a weapon, perhaps in combat or in hunting.
Building the base mesh:
After the character was initially grey-boxed I then decided that I wanted to optimise it for augmented reality. The story for the animation was shortly based off how I would want the viewer to play through the experience, but I also wanted to present his personality more and give a taste of what kind of things this creature does while in the forest. I decided to go for smashing a rock, as it was pretty simple and helped show off the immense strength of this golem. The best AR experiences are shown through quick and effective methods, so using this approach I developed the scene and character in accordance.
The environment consisted of several foliage assets of rocks and grass etc. As well as a place from which the character could "spawn" from. I started by building the standard shapes needed for the scene such as the rocks, that he will break in the animation as well the cave/hole from where he comes from - originally I wanted to make this a ancient temple but a square/block shape would not of worked for this concept especially if it was been viewed mainly top down. A 60-45 degree cave would work best, being that it is an AR experience. I started this process by importing the basic shaped into Z-Brush and sculpting away the shapes and cracks in the rocks, below is a render of the High-poly mesh. The next stage involved re-typologising over the high poly to make a low poly. Then using X-Normal I baked the high-poly detail onto the low.
Texturing:
The next stage brought me to the texture process and because this was an AR project that was going to be viewed via a mobile device I had to make sure all detail was optimised. For this I made sure that each object only had on texture per mesh. In this instance I created 5: for the Golem, his assets (cape, mask, claws), one for the golem's shadow rocks and cave, and scene. All textures are unlit shaders which means I created lighting and shadows within Maya.
Extra additions:
Final details that I added from the original model were a mask for the golem. He seemed to be a bit bare in design. I wanted to give it more design to resemble belonging once to some sort of tribe or community. This community may of used animal masks for rituals or in combat situations, also gave me a good excuse to include "glowy" eyes - who doesn't love glowy eyes eh? After all the finalising of the textures and scene I then decided to rig and animate the character to pose him in shots in which I could imagine what would bring the creature to life.
Execution:
The final result of the character was fully tracked and able to view via an AR code, image below provided. I have also included a link to the sketchfab version of the model to get a good look at the scene. Feel free to scan the image, using the Zappar App on the Android or App store to see the finished results! The process on creating this end product, meant having to spend some time learning the Zapworks Studio software which enabled me to create the content I wanted and view it in augmented space. I had a little help from an expert in the field to help speed this process along. I also had another friend who worked on the sound for the experience to help give this character even more life than before, the sounds help define the jungle/forest background in which this creature inhabits, along with a powerful roar that can be heard for up to 10 miles away (Note: in the universe not real life). I have learnt a lot from this project, mainly it was a practise, for understanding how to create such a story in such a small space, as well as learning more about AR and 3D in the process. One of the most difficult times I had on this was the Rigging stage mainly because of the anatomy of the creature was slightly a combination of human and creature. My most successful part I think, would be the scene as I believe I that I managed to capture the look I was going for with the lighting and the colours. I think if I was to re-create this scene I may think about making a night time version with more colourful and subtle lighting, it would be a big difference from this current day time scene and I believe would be more appealing from an entertaining perspective.
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoy.
Download the Zappar App to view this.
No comments:
Post a Comment