Audience

Audience

When creating a game there is a lot a company needs to think about but the main point is to think who are your audience.Knowing your audience is a great importance for any artist no matter what field you work in,such knowledge can greatly affect the outcome of your work.to suit your desired audience/demographic.

Being aspiring game artists our current target audience are game companies and potential employers.Which one day we aim to be a part of.
To do this we need to get to know the companies and their thought process so we can create work in their style and workflow.
When companies look for new talent,they are also looking for people to create work in their style just with our creativity and originality.if they see your work fitting in their game then you're getting there.

Our aim for this project is to create a original concept but in the style of our favourite games/developers.

Starter Activity 

Create a poster on a game developer you both can agree on

Task 1

Find 6 developers that interest you.

My first developer will be Gearbox Software

I have chosen Gearbox Software first because they have created one of my favourite game series Borderlands

Borderlands 1 (2009)
Borderlands 2 (2012)
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (2014)
The main themes of the Borderlands game series would be
First person shooter,action role play.

Borderlands 2 is rated M for mature and is rated at 17+ although its not that bad because the gore is more comic than realistic..
The strong aspects of the style of Borderlands is that its unique as it is a form of cel shading but with greater detail also the style has been compared to a comic style.The main aspect of the Borderlands style is that it is well known and has been given the name The Borderlands Style and can easily be recognised.

One of the vehicles Gearbox created was the bandit technical which is used in Borderlands 2 and the form of the bandit technical is so unique compared to any other vehicle as it's asymmetrical because the crane is on the one side for a player to operate unlike most vehicles they are normally symmetrical.

Plot:

Handsome Jack, president of the Hyperion Corporation, wants to use the power contained in the Vault to rule Pandora with an iron fist. A new group of adventurers arrives on the frontier planet Pandora. They are assaulted by Handsome Jack, the most powerful merc on the planet.

Another strong aspect in their style is that its highly detailed considering its cel shading and looks highly impressive. 

This is a teapot simply cel shaded
Cel shading is a type of non photo-realistic rendering designed to make 3D computer graphics appear flat by using less shading colour instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades. The shadows and highlights of cel shading normally appear in blocks of colour instead of them being mixed in a smooth way.This type of shading has a black outline around the edges which makes it look comic or cartoon as if it was hand drawn then coloured..



 
This is the style of Borderlands cel shading but taken to the next level by using realistic shading which makes Borderlands have its own art style..


My next game developer will be Bethesda Who created another couple of my favourite games The Elder Scrolls V:Skyrim and Fallout 4 these are on my list of favourite games mainly because how much time I have put into the games and they still entertain me to this day.

Skyrim Came out in 2011
Fallout 4 was released in 2015

Skyrim's Plot

Dragons, long lost to the passages of the Elder Scrolls, have returned to Tamriel. ... The country of Skyrim is locked in a bloody civil war between the Imperial army serving the Empire of Tamriel, and the Nordic rebel army of Stormcloaks named after their leader Ulfric Stormcloak.

Rated M for Mature 17+

Fallout 4's Plot
a open-world role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios. In it, the player begins as a parent and spouse in the year 2077, but then must enter Vault 111 to survive the nuclear apocalypse.

Rated 18+




Strong elements of their style:
Their textures are highly realistic and add immersion to the game feeling as if you are inside the game playing as the character and can get quite addicting losing track of time.

The textures used for fallout 4 make the game look like its in the apocalypse by making the metal rusty and the wooden rotted.


My third game developer will be Bungie the creators of Halo and Destiny both great selling games and are invited into the list of my favourite games.

Destiny Story:2014

Humanity is on the brink of extinction in the future. An object called The Traveler that possess great knowledge and technology came shortly after the present day and humanity was in their golden age expanding throughout the solar system. The golden age lasted for hundreds of years. Until The Traveler's greatest enemy called The Darkness came to the solar system and wiped out most of humanity.

Halo Reach Plot:2010

The game takes place in the year 2552, where humanity is locked in a war with the alien Covenant. Players control Noble Six, a member of an elite supersoldier squad, when the human world known as Reach falls under Covenant attack.

Strong elements of Bungie:
Bungie are a great game developer and know how to please all sorts of Gamers especially with their textures being flawless and high quality suiting the situation.

Another good element is that In Destiny there are a variety of guns a player can use all coming with their own textures and attachments the rarest guns in the game are known as exotics come with "exotic" textures more complex and unique than the less rare "legendary" or "rare" and even "common and uncommon" guns.

This is a shotgun which is exotic and is called the Universal Remote compared to a legendary shotgun its texture and form is a lot more unique which is why I really enjoyed playing the game because getting these guns was an achievement but then using them to battle foes was always a treat.

My next game developer will be Capcom the developers of dead rising and resident evil games

Dead Rising 2 was released in 2010. the game is rated 18+ which makes sense considering its based around the zombie apocalypse and bashing zombies with all sorts of weaponry.

Story Summary:

The game features Frank West, the main character from the first Dead Rising game, and serves as the Epilogue of Dead Rising 2, with Frank teaming up with Chuck to further investigate the link between Phenotrans and the Fortune City zombie outbreak, and find proof that clears Chuck of any wrongdoing.whilst providing zombrex for your daughter who was bitten needing to provide every 24 hours but you will have to fight to get it as its rare and you're not the only person out there looking for it.

Although this game is mainly based around the apocalypse it also has a lot of detective work inside of it as you try to prove your innocence to the military by finding clues that can prove who actually caused the outbreak and potentially the end of our world.

The Strong elements of Capcom:

In dead rising 2 you could combine any 2 objects considered as weapons to create a more powerful or unique weapon which can be fun to try and find and use them all against the hordes of zombies.

although Dead Rising 2 is based in the apocalypse  the town its based in is fairly intact because the apocalypse has just happened they show this by leaving a lot of the texture intact but where there has been a horde it may be less intact and more bloody especially after you've massacred some zombies.

Even though the textures and graphics are not the best in dead rising 2 being able to utilize anything as a weapon for a plant to a bench it can get addicting fast and trying to create all the weapon combos and have fun with them can take up a lot of time. 

My fifth game developer will be Rockstar Games one of the developers of Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V was released in 2013 and rated M for Mature.

Gta V Story:

Nine years after a failed robbery in the fictional town of Ludendorff, North Yankton, former bank robber Michael Townley and his family have relocated to Los Santos under a new identity. Michael is living a normal, but boring life, until he encounters Franklin Clinton, a gangster who seeks to elevate himself in the Los Santos underworld, and unexpectedly encounters Trevor Philips, the only other survivor of the bank robbery in Ludendorff. The three join forces to carry out a daring task to rob a depository and seize tens of millions of dollars worth of gold. However, the trio find themselves being taken advantage of by corrupt Feds using the three to carry out their own agenda, as well as numerous confrontations with rival gangs and other criminals. In addition, Trevor discovers that Michael is hiding a terrible secret from the Ludendorff robbery. Despite the challenges, will the trio succeed in pulling off one of the biggest robberies of all time?  
Strong Elements:
Their textures and models used for Gta V are highly realistic and very professional the cars look immaculate and are based around real cars but are not exactly the same adding originality to their designs.

When the game first came out it was only in third person allowing the player to get a good look at the character they were playing as but when they brought it out on next generation consoles they implemented a first person feature where you could cycle though the cameras and one would put the player in the perspective of the character.Doing this would of brought the company new challenges such as refining everything to be viewed up close and in more detail.I like having the option to change between first and third person using a single button and can change whenever I feel the need to. Them doing this gave me great appreciation for the company.

The final game developer I will choose is Infinity ward.

Complain all you like about Call of Duty’s unchanging ways: Its impact, and the people responsible for creating it, cannot be understated. Infinity Ward created a fresh, story-driven take on World War II before it burned out, stayed strong after the fact to help launch the Xbox 360, and reinvented online multiplayer with its Modern Warfare series. Developers the world over ape Infinity Ward’s cinematic style, spectacular set-pieces, and competitive design. What truer sign of accomplished creators could there be?

The game im going to focus on is Call Of Duty 4 Modern Warfare which was released in 2007 and because of its popularity still years after its release they remastered it for next generation consoles in 2016 with Raven Studios the creators of Call Of Duty Online helping Infinity Ward remaster it.

Story:

The story takes place in the year 2011, where a radical leader has executed the president of an unnamed country in the Middle East, and an ultranationalist movement ignites a civil war in Russia. The conflicts are seen from the perspectives of a U.S. Force Reconnaissance Marine and a British SAS commando, and are set in various locales, such as the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Ukraine.

The multiplayer portion of the game features various game modes, and contains a levelling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons, weapon attachments, and camouflage schemes as they advance.

The strong elements of their style is that its highly realistic and the weapons they use are real and exist.

My all time favourite aspect of infinity ward is their cinematic's they are flawless and are so fun and interesting to watch.

Another element I like about Infinity Ward is that in the majority of their games there are different camouflages a player can unlock and use on their favourite gun and some are harder to unlock than the others Gold camouflage or Diamond camouflage being the hardest to unlock taking a lot of time and can be frustrating but when a player unlocks it they can view and show it off in game and get a sense of achievement when unlocking them and there can be secret camouflages for getting every camouflage for a certain set of guns. 

Im going to create mood boards for each developer showing off their work.

Gearbox Software

Bethesda

Bungie

Capcom

Rockstar Games

Infinity Ward

Task 2

Out of my 6 developers that I have chosen I'm going to choose my most favourite 3 and find 2 individual assets,characters or vehicles that they have created an analyse them using the formal elements.

Gearbox Software

Borderlands 2 Bandit Technical (Vehicle)


Although this may look like a standard vehicle used in a game its better described as a work of art, the care Gearbox took when creating this has made it the most iconic vehicle in the game.To start off the vehicle has a crane arm controlled by a second player in the operator seat this is unusual for a car to have,also it appears to be armoured which means it would be heavy.This vehicle has a supercharger which means this car needs more air cooling than your typical car this shows it uses a powerful engine to move therefore must be heavier than your average vehicle.

This vehicle also has no windscreen possibly because glass was rare or completely unavailable or the glass could of been broken and not replaced.To access the driver seat you need to climb a short ladder which shows off its tremendous scale also there is a place in the back where people can sit and provide gunfire at their enemies making the vehicle even bigger and heavier.The texturing on this vehicle is cel shading which can be shown by the outlines.Although this is cel shading the actual shading is realistic which is unusual for cel shading to be realistic and it is a good look.


Borderlands The Pre Sequel Stingray (Vehicle)

This is another vehicle created by Gearbox but for their most recent Borderlands game, set on Elpis the Moon of Pandora.The overall form of this vehicle is astonishing it resembles a motorcycle but has no wheels.At the back its got a set of thrusters allowing it to jump up into the sky and with a set of wings at the front this allows the vehicle to slowly glide down to the ground safely.This bike also comes with a mounted turret the rider can aim and shoot which can be used to defend the rider from scavengers.

The scale of this vehicle is very small and it is light most likely so it can glide down.This vehicle is textured using cel shading which is the common Borderlands style.They have used line to border the edges with black this makes it look as if it was hand drawn.

Bungie




Halo Warthog (Vehicle)














This is one of the most iconic vehicle in the Halo franchise. This vehicle has a lot of unusual designs to it that a normal vehicle or car wouldn't have such as mounted gun at the back which can be operated  by a separate player to protect the squad.Also the tires are huge and make this vehicle good on road and off road.The warthog also has no doors which is a weird design for a protective vehicle to have.This vehicle is huge because the driver needs steps to get into the driver seat this expresses the sheer size and ground clearance of this vehicle.

Destiny Oryx The Taken King (Character)












Oryx the taken king is no usual character,no mere mortal this can be shown by the fact he has huge wings that allow flight and his head shape is fearsome with sharp edges. In this image the guardian is in the foreground but Oryx still overpowers the guardian in size.

Capcom


Monster Hunter World Barroth (Character)


This fearsome beast is one you will encounter whilst out hunting in the WildSpire Wastes.From first glance you could easily mistake it for a rock because of it's armour appears rock like. This monster completely outsizes the hunter. The main threat the hunter should watch out for is it's rock hard head which it can slam into the player causing devastating damage.

The Barroth have very similar features to the Tyrannosaurus Rex,standing on two legs with small arms.Due to it having rock armor all over it makes dealing high damage hard, the only few places unprotected by armor or it's weak points are it's sever able tail and it's small arms. If a hunter aims for these weak points their attacks will be a lot more devastating.


Monster Hunter World Xeno Jiiva (Character)


An unknown elder dragon thats been baking in bio-energy created from fallen elder dragons.When first seeing this I was amazed and frightened that I had to fight this thing.In this image the pose puts me in a stance of awe. The shape of it's head would help it fly because it looks streamlined. also attached to the head are a pair of horns that appear to have orange glands that look like eyes.

The most prominent feature to this elder dragon is the huge wing span it has the size of its wings increase the menacing factor to it's pose. This monster completely overpowers the hunter in size. Because Xeno Jiiva has been baking in elder dragon energy it has absorbed so much it glows. This monsters weak points are the weakest in the game allowing the hunter to put of loads of damage but at the risk of receiving a lot as well.
Task 3

For task 3 we have to choose 2 real life objects and digitally paint as if it was to be used in a games developers game so painting it in their art style.

I am going to list some objects I would be interested in painting:
Baseball Bat
Motorcycle
Watch
Sword
Butterfly knife
Helmet
TV/Monitor
Desk
This is a short list of the items I could paint,some are harder than others so I may choose one simple one and then choose one that will test my abilities.

My challenge drawing will be to digitally paint a motorcycle in the art style of gearbox software and my bike will be inspired by the Borderlands franchise and it will be Hyperion themed.

Start of my motorcycle experiment with shapes and size

Forks, wheel,seat added.

Changed main frame to different shape.

Adding the engine and all its components.

Final Piece

I am very happy with my outcome it looks great and considering I'm not that confident with drawing or digital painting I am proud of it. The only issue with this design is that it is entirely cell shaded as if it was in a comic.but Gearbox uses a similar style but their shading is more realistic unlike blocks of colour which I have used in mine.

This took a lot of my time to create this however I am insanely proud of it.

Next I am going to create a baseball bat in the style of Capcom so it will need to be realistic but not to detailed

Outline for my bat

Instead of making it wood i decided to paint it as if it was metal.

Added shading to create realism

decided to name my bat ghost and add text to it.

I enjoyed creating this bat because I don't work with shading much and I think this shading makes it stand out and look 3D. If I was to spend more time on it I would make the edges smooth and spend more time on details and getting the shading perfect.


Task 4
My chosen developer will be Gearbox Software because they created and are still creating my all time favorite game franchise that being Borderlands.

I am going to sketch concepts of things I could 3D model.

I thought of a bench because they are an understated asset in games but I will not being
modelling it because it wouldn't take long and defiantly would not be a challenge.

This is a vault door which is a good concept but its very 2D and pretty
boring unless I could animate it to open and close.

I also like this concept because the screen could be turned on and have the ships status
and other things.I will not be creating this because I feel like with the time given I would finish
it early.

I created this concept because in Gearbox's Borderlands series each
character has their own action skill and I thought this could be one of them.

This is my favourite because Borderlands is themed around loot and picking up items
and these storage assets are never missed and always appreciated and I want to create my own.to hold ammo. This ammo cache will be small because I feel as small storage boxes are always ignored by gamers and they only go for the big loot. 

Task 5
For task 5 I am going to sketch how I would basic model some of my concepts and list what modifiers I would use and my starting point/shape.

Task 6

My final piece will be a ammo cache in the art style of the developers Gearbox Software the game I will be aiming at will be Borderlands 2 the only issue I can see creating this is when texturing my black outlines may not link up and I could look rough.

I am going to spend the rest of the project on this piece which is about 2 weeks.

Chamfered rectangular box 

Inset the top face and extrude it inwards.

Added 2 Connects to separate the bottom into 3 

Selected these edges and pushed them down 

Selected these vertices and pushed them down.

Selected the outside faces and beveled to add some shape to the box.

Created the hinge to allow the box to open and close

Copy the bottom of the box and mirror it and use that to create the
top of the box.  

Make the width of the top less and create a handle by extruding

Using a box I created the stands the ammo will sit on.

To finish off the box I added ribs to the side and a plaque that states there's ammo inside of it and then UV unwrap and texture my box.

The UV template for the top of the box.

The Final UV texture for the top of the box.

UV template for where the ammo will sit

Final texturing for where the ammo will sit

UV template for bottom part of the box

Texturing for the bottom part of the box.

 I am going to create some ammo for my box starting by making a box of shotgun shells.

UV template for the box the shotgun shells will be in.

UV texture for the shells box.

UV template for the shells.

UV texture for the shells.

I am going to render my box inside 3ds max and create a scene in a different software called Bryce and do a render inside of a scene.

This is the final render done inside 3ds max. I am really happy with how the box looks. I decided to create some realistic ammo to go with the borderlands style one. I love the texture colours and how they look.

There is one issue with the texturing because when I UV unwrapped I didn't see it the be a issue but there were seems around the box which split the texture up making obvious texture seems. To solve this I would remove the seems and add them myself but I did not have enough time to do this so I had to leave it how it is now.

Project Evaluation

This is the render inside of Bryce, the scene I created myself using Bryce's landscaping tools. I am proud of this piece of work even though the mess up with the texturing however its the first time UV unwrapping something of a difficult shape that I've made myself.

If I knew the seems would be an issue earlier I would of solved that problem by creating my own seems and I only have myself to blame for not unwrapping my box earlier and noticing the issue earlier. Also I have noticed the mental ray textures taken from max and put inside Bryce have just become base colors.