Final Major Project Post Mortem: 'Memoirs of a Denzil'
P13214286@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
‘Conquest’
Summary:
For my final major project I chose to focus on the 16th century conquest of the Americas. This included creating 3 characters based from Aztec, Mayan and Medieval Spanish cultures.
These characters were:
Aztec Eagle
Crocodile Shaman
Spanish Conquistador
Initially I had a limited understanding of the people from these civilizations, but the FMP provided a great opportunity for me to learn about them.
I set a triangle count for each character at 30,000 triangles, in addition, I wanted my characters to be rendered at 4096x4096 texture sheets. I chose these specifications because I felt that this would demonstrate that I can create efficient video game characters.
To create these characters I used a number of software, including, 3ds max, Zbrush, Photoshop, marvellous designer, 3d coat and substance painter.
So why did I chose this kind of project and what did I learn from it?
Through all 3 characters I wanted to demonstrate my skills as a character artist by creating a variety of different materials and character types. Furthermore, I wanted to learn and improve on technical skills that would benefit my career, this included methods of sculpting the human anatomy, different software and work flows that are more time efficient.
I chose this topic for my Fmp, because I wanted to demonstrate my skills as a character artist, but also to show my enthusiasm for History. Moreover, as Creative Assembly is the video game company I aspire to work for (who are renowned for their historic real-time strategy games) I feel that this project is very much tailored towards my career aspiration.
As my characters were based on historical characters that once existed, the research and preparation for this project was crucial for the success of this project. To improve my understanding of what I was aiming to achieve, I put together a series of mood boards and pinterest boards to try think of what kinds of designs I was aiming to portray with this project.
I wanted these characters to be game ready so at the start of the project I made a note of the types of games
I could see my characters being played in, these included titles such as : ‘Nosgoth’, ‘Turok’ and Farcry.
Moreover, I read a number of books that provided insightful information of the traditions of the Aztec, Mayan and 16th century Spanish people. These included:
‘Aztecs’: by Matos Moctezuma, Eduardo
‘Living Maya’ by Walter Morris
‘Codex Mendosa’ by Kurt Ross
‘Moctezuma’ by Aztec ruler: Colin McEwan
Reading the Living Maya book was very useful, as it showed images of the facial features and clothing of Mayan natives existing today. This helped me when it came to sculpting the countenances of the Aztec Eagle Warrior and the Crocodile Shaman.
I took the researching phase of these civilizations further visiting museums and galleries in London such as; the Wallace Collection, the Aztec exhibition in the British Museum and the London Zoo.
I visited these places in order to gain a better understanding of the lifestyles and clothing of the characters I was trying to create in 3d. This was very useful stage that benefitted me greatly during the sculpting and texturing phases of my final major project.
In addition to visiting galleries, I also watched a number of educational documentaries based on Aztec, Mayan and the 16th century conquest of the Americas, as well as watching films like ‘Apocalypto 2006 and ‘The Fountain’ 2006.
Throughout the research and development phase I discussed my inspirations and ideas with my Mentor Del Walker and Kevin McDowell (art director at Creative Assembly) to get a more experienced opinion on how I could approach my project.
Pre-production:
Afterwards, I put together a plan sheet for the project. This was revisited a number of times throughout my fmp, nevertheless it highlighted what I needed to do in order to achieve my desired outcome.
When the planning was complete and I was confident with my timetable, I created the concept designs for my character. Through which, I played around with shape and colour in order to emphasize each character’s personality.
This phase of my project was very enjoyable especially, seeing the personalities of my characters come through in the designs. Most importantly however, the concepts were helpful in allowed me to understand what I needed to do in 3d, which would save me time down the production line.
As I wanted my 3d characters to be game ready, I made sure to include special abilities and character motion
concepts to show how they might play in a video game.
Production:
Not bad huh!
Marvellous Designer:
I used Marvellous Design frequently throughout my project. Creating the loincloth on the Eagle warrior and the crocodile shaman, was not easy, especially when it came to getting the types of folds right.
Creating the shirt and trousers for the conquistador as challenging. I found some great reference of what I was trying to create and even came across the pattern designs online. With this I knew exactly what I had to do in order to create the same clothing design in 3d.
Sculpts:
I modelled the base meshes for each character in 3ds max and when complete, I used Zbrush to sculpt the fine details into each of my characters. It was hard to keep to schedule as each was very unique and had different material surfaces which each took time to portray correctly.
Nonetheless, I was able to create these zbrush sculpts for my characters, they show great improvement from my previous characters. Through this process I was able to gain a better understanding of the tools in Zbrush and how I can utilize them in order to gain the best results on my characters. My favourite tool being ‘mask by alpha’, this can allow you to create some very interesting surface details, thought would be very time efficient to do by hand.
Unwrapping:
Retopologizing and unwrapping required a lot of attention with each of the 3 characters. The crocodile shaman, was perhaps the hardest to retopologize as she had very organic assets and these had very unique shapes so she took the longest.
Throughout this phase, I learned from my mentor Del about the importance of optimization, where it is best to concentrate most of your tri’s. Furthermore, I learned from him the importance of keeping your UV unwraps straight on the texture sheet in order to get the best texture bake outcome possible.
Texturing:
Texturing was a phase of the project that I feel I struggled with the most. It had been a while since I had textured a character in PBR and so I had lost confidence in my abilities to create realistic textures for my characters. Furthermore, it took some time to get used to using Substance painter to create realistic textures.
Due to this , I made a number of texture reference boards throughout the texturing phase.
In addition, I had to make a number of texture concept iterations before settling on the character’s textures.
Nonetheless, I was able to learn how to go about texturing my character from watching many algorithmic tutorials and experimenting with the various smart materials in Substance Painter.
I struggled mostly with skin and finer details, this is certainly an area I need to continue to practice
throughout my character career.
Final characters:
Eventually, I was able to rig and pose these characters in marmoset. There are still corrections I need to make to the characters which I will be working on till Degree show.
Nevertheless, I am pleased with the final outcome of this project. These characters demonstrate the skills that I initially wanted to portray and each have their own originality. I was certainly able to learn a unique lesson from each character. Most importantly, I am glad that the characters have realistic proportions and have real-world attributes.
The armour textures on the conquistador and the Shaman’s crocodile pelt has certainly exceeded my expectations and I am glad that I was able to learn a lot about organic and hard surface texturing.
I think the originality of this project certainly showed through in the characters, I am glad that my characters reflect the historical characters that they were based on but they also have unique designs.
What didn’t go so well:
Of course, I ran through a number of issues throughout the final major project, I feel that my initial uncertainty of my project during the starting period was one of the biggest issues for me. It meant that I wasted a lot of time trying deciding whether I wanted to work on this project or change the topic.
As a result of this uncertainly I wasted a lot of precious time, this had a knock on effect on the rest of the production phase of my project. This meant that I had to rush the texturing and polishing weeks. If I had been more certain of my project I could avoided this issue and as result had a better outcome. Many times throughout my fmp, I did not meet my weekly targets and this rolled onto the next week meaning I would have to rush for the hand in.
The Aztec Eagle character is the best eagle of this, I feel that the textures need improvement, especially the necklace piece.
I do feel that the texturing phase of my fmp did not go as well, many elements on my characters look rushed
and not thought through properly. I certainly need to improve my understanding of PBR for texturing skin and organic surfaces as I feel that this is my weak area.
I will certainly be practising this in my spare time:
This rushing meant that I made a lot of silly mistakes along the way, which I now need to go back and correct in time for the degree show. Time management has always been an issue for me, and I do not feel that I demonstrated proper time management with this project.
I feel that this is due to my uncertainty of what I was trying to achieve with the project, so for future projects I will practice being more confident in my ideas from the initial phases of the project.
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, I do feel as though the lack confidence in my skills was the greatest hindrance of my project. For future projects, I will stop doubting my abilities and continue to adapt my plans so that I can achieve all of my goals.
What did I learn
Despite these issues, I learned a lot throughout this project. With the help of my mentor Del, I was able to improve my knowledge of human anatomy and ability to portray this in a 3d format.
Furthermore, I learned how to make a character stand out: through silhouette colour and detail. Of the latter, I found out about the 3 types of detail on a character: silhouette, large forms and finer detail. This was very helpful when sculpting the crocodile shaman and the conquistador. If I had known this when sculpting
the Eagle warrior I may have had better results.
Upon further reflection of my FMP, it is clear to see that it has taught me just as much of what ‘not’ to as it has informed me of what to do. I am fortunate that the fmp has not only taught me technical skills but also mental skills that I will be able to truly utilize with future projects throughout my career.
Getting through the adversity when I was behind on my fmp and struggling to get my textures to a certain standard, has taught me of the importance of adapting your plans to fit different scenarios and how to stay time efficient. Furthermore, it has taught me of the importance of staying resilient through challenging hurdles.
Overall, I do feel proud with the project, I met all the goals that I wanted to achieve from this project and I learnt a lot of useful skills and lessons. There were certainly moments on the project where I couldn’t see it being successful, nonetheless I was able to overcome these moments and demonstrate the best of my abilities.
To answer my question stated previously, I chose this project because I felt it could really push me out of my comfort zone and allow me to gain a greater understanding of character art. Throughout the project I learned about fascinating cultures and traditions and implementing what I learnt in my designs.
This FMP has provided a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate my character art skills and also pointed out my strengths and weakness within character art. Perhaps I did not attain the results that I wanted with this project, if I continue to work on the lessons I‘ve learned from this experience i.e. time management, PBR texturing and belief in my abilities, I am confident that I will be able to achieve my aspirations of becoming a character artist.
Thank you for reading!