"The Gallery" Development Blog

Sprint 1:

During the first sprint, we tried to narrow down and decide upon what type of game we wanted to make for this assignment. We knew that we had to go with a 3D game this term in order to provide diversity to our portfolios as most of the games we had previously worked on have been 2D. It helps that this term we had a full team of 8 people to work on this game as compared to the previous teams of 4, however, with our cohort still having no designated programmer a lot of the coding responsibilities fell upon Nico and Nigel again. Instead of using Trello this term we switched to using AAA industry used software such as Jira and Confluence to prioritise and list all of our tasks. Also providing easily accessible information for the whole team regarding any issues that block our work from being completed. By applying our knowledge of agile methodology into our game development process through a scrum board, this helps the whole team stay on track and up to date with one another.

Our art leader and project leader was Amber and she decided that with 4 artists working on this game, in order for us to work productively in the short time span we had available, we needed to split the art as equally as possible between us. I agreed to take on the environment art as I felt that I would be able to manage that amount of work on top of my art assignment. By taking on the environment art it also gave me a break from drawing character art which I am constantly doing for my art assignment. By keeping the work I need to complete varied, my artistic burnout shouldn't be as severe. Taking on environment art this term also provides me with the knowledge of creating 3D environment art in Maya and Substance. This knowledge will be useful for the 3rd year if I decide to do environmental art for my final art project.

The initial tasks I was assigned were to draw up some art concepts for the main rooms. Which were the circus room, rain room, main gallery and final portrait room. The priority room to design was the circus room due to Amber designing the clown enemy design first so I began the concept art for this room to match up with the work the rest of the team was working on. I also had the task of discussing how I was going to create the environment art in Maya with Ronnie. I had no experience with creating and implementing 3D environment art from Maya into Unity so I wasn't quite sure where to start. Ronnie suggested that I should ask our programmers to grey box out the level so I could then build off of the scale they decide upon in Unity.

Overall I'm happy that the team eventually came up with a rough idea of what core elements we wanted to include in our game, however, everyone was not on the same page regarding the voice acting element of our game. Some of our team members thought that we were sourcing our voice actors internally within the team rather than commissioning external voice actors. To improve as a team in preparation for the next sprint we need to improve our frequency and channel of communication. Currently Whatsapp is the main channel of communication for the team, however, responses are slow and general discussion on any issues that arrive in regards to the assignment is minimal. To improve as an individual for Sprint 2, I need to communicate with Ronnie and make use of the optional Thursday session to get the support I need with the 3D environment art. I also need to find a way to balance both of the assignments I need to work on this term from sprint to sprint but also stick to the Jira roadmap as best as I can.

Sprint 2:

During this sprint I completed the concept art for the circus room, I discussed this with the art team and specifically Amber just so I had a rough idea on what aesthetic and colour scheme we were aiming for and I uploaded this to Confluence. Daisy was also working on some concept art for the rain room so I decided rather than duplicate the work I would go off of her colour palette when texturing the Rain room. I discussed what look Nico and Amber wanted for the upstairs Painted Lady floor and the downstairs art gallery itself. Upstairs Nico wanted the area to feel like an area that an artist would use as a studio. This included paint splatter on the walls and a warmer aesthetic to the floor, making the space feel smaller and more compact as compared to the colder and more open space of the art gallery downstairs. For the downstairs gallery Nico and Amber agreed with my idea of having a marble floor with a carpet running throughout and plain walls like they have in most art galleries so the walls don't distract from the paintings.

I also began modelling the gallery during this sprint. Once I got the grey boxed level back from Nico I knew exactly what scale he wanted to level to be built and textured in. By having the grey box in Maya before I started to model the building this made the whole process a lot easier as there was a direct form of vision and communication from the design team on what they wanted rather than leaving it up to artistic interpretation and then changing the model in later sprints. I had to model the walls and floors first before I could begin the details such as the skirting boards which would make the whole building feel more realistic and would be more visually interesting for the player. I plan to have the entire base gallery model completed before the next sprint so I can spend that sprint modelling the finer details before texturing.

Overall during this sprint, I'm happy with the work I have been able to complete as the tasks I have been set are something that are completely new to me. I know that once I get into texturing and implementing these textures onto the model I'm going to need a lot of support from Ronnie in the Thursday sessions if I come across any technical issues. As a team certain areas within the game such as the programming and the art, are making a lot of steady progress from what I can tell from our weekly stand ups. All the work I have seen displayed in these stand-ups match up with Jira and it looks like we're on track so far to complete the game by the end of this project in sprint 5. To improve individually for the next sprint I need to make sure I continue to keep on track with what I've set myself on Jira as well as work on my other art assignment and the theory sections of this assignment such as the essay.

Sprint 3:

During this sprint, I managed to completely finish modelling the gallery. I completed the base for all 5 rooms as well as the main gallery and the art studios upstairs. My main focus for this sprint is to model all the skirting boards that would be in the gallery. Every room and section of the gallery would have skirting boards apart from the stars. I had to hide individual walls when working on each room so that I could make sure that the skirting board touched the corners of the walls all the way round. I also did this to make the modelling itself easier so I didn't have to constantly change the camera angle to see that area of skirting board I was working on. An issue I ran into with the skirting board was that the building itself wasn't one hundred percent symmetrical so I couldn't just complete one side of each floor, duplicate and then rotate the skirting board to complete the entire floor. I had to make every section on the building skirting board individually which took up a lot more time than I anticipated.

I also ran into a technical issue when creating the skirting boards. The corners of the upstairs art studio skirting board were particularly difficult to model and I had to redo them several times. I'm still unsure what I broke when creating them but the base texture in Maya turned black on the corners. I tried googling what the issue was before I contacted Ronnie about the issue and I tried to reverse the normals of the corners, however, this didn't work. Ronnie tried to do the same thing when I asked him for help during a Thursday session and we couldn't fix this issue after several attempts. Ronnie suggested remodelling the faces of the corners but the black Maya texture didn't end up affecting the UV's of the skirting boards so this issue didn't really need to be fixed after all. I plan to have all the skirting boards completed by the end of this sprint so I can get onto creating my textures in Substance as soon as possible as the process is very time consuming and I have multiple textures to make.

Overall I'm happy with the progress we have made as a team and the progress I have made as an individual. This week I made an environment art materials list for Chika so that he would have a list of all the materials that he needed to create a walking sound effect for. Materials such as wooden flooring, marble and carpet. These sound differences will provide some realism and atmosphere within our game as well as reinforce to the player that they are in different areas of the map. To improve as a team I feel that communication could still be improved when discussing our work and our progress as some team members have been working from sprint to sprint but have not shown the work they have been completing to the rest of the team. To improve for the next sprint as an individual I need to brush up on my knowledge of using Substance, specifically the process of exporting the high and low models from Maya into Substance and knowing which texture maps I will need to bake from the high model onto the low model.

Sprint 4:

During this sprint my main goal was to have the textures complete and implemented into Unity by our final sprint which is sprint 5. I didn't really leave myself much room for error so I had to get them complete or at least near perfect by the end of this sprint. Otherwise we would be left with basic textures for the environment art and this would take away from the atmosphere and immersivity of our game. So I made myself a list of all the materials I would need to include in each section of the building and began modelling the rooms one by one. I started with the skirting boards on the bottom floor and chose a deep wooden texture for both the art gallery section as well as the circus room and the rain room in order to contrast the colours used in each room. The skirting boards were difficult to paint since you can't fill an object with a texture in Substance. You have to paint each section either on the model or paint the faces of that section on the UV map screen. So erasing and painting all the thin skirting boards was difficult and tedious, however, once the skirting boards were out of the way the rest of the floor became easier in comparison. All of my material layers had to be in the correct order so that I didn't paint over sections I had already completed. Luckily I had the skirting boards completed first so I kept the boards as the primary layer so that I wouldn't accidentally ruin them when painting other sections.

I took inspiration from many different places for the textures I created for our game such as real-life art galleries I had visited, tv shows as well as other horror games about art such as Layers Of Fear. I also based a lot of the colour palettes within the textures I created for the rooms on the concept art that was created by Daisy. Overall I knew that I wanted the general art gallery area on the lower floor to feel quite cold and empty. Which would provide a clear contrast with the cramped chaotic feel I wanted to create upstairs in the art studio area. I aimed to achieve this contrast by choosing my materials carefully when creating my textures. To give the room a colder feel downstairs I chose a cool-toned marble material. For a chaotic warmer feel upstairs I chose to create paint splatter on warmer toned wood, which I paired with gold skirting boards to make the upper floor feel more antique and to provide a divide between the floor and the walls which had the same texture. When creating the specific stylised rooms such as the circus room and the rain/swamp room I knew that I would have to make the textures recognisable but not too busy, otherwise the environment might become too distracting. So when designing the circus room I took inspiration from the tv show American horror story: Freak Show, specifically pairing the dark red tones of the circus tent with gold embellishment and a pale toned floor to mimic the colour of straw. In the rain/swamp room, I used Daisy’s concept art and took inspiration from real-life images of houses that have mould and damp. I managed to create a texture that made the walls look bubbled up and discoloured as if mould was growing under the paint and spreading across the room. I tried to create an aged and weathered look for this room to provide further contrast with how pristine and clean the art gallery outside would look.

Overall I'm extremely happy with the progress that I have made this week. I managed to get all of my textures completed and implemented into Unity which Nico and Amber then applied to the mechanics scene. As a team we are still struggling with knowing and viewing exactly what work has been completed by everyone. The Jira backlog is also quite concerning considering we don't have that long left on this project and there's 27 tasks still to be completed. My plan for the next sprint is to focus on my art assignment and my essay but I will be able to pick up on any last minute environment art task if needed.

Sprint 5:

During this sprint I completed my essay and have been working on my art assignment. I can't say I've done much artwork this week towards our game as I completed the Jira tasks I set for myself during the previous sprint. I did help to fix how my textures looked in Unity. I noticed that the areas I painted gold didn't quite look as shiny or reflective as they did when I was first creating my textures. After some discussion with Nico and Amber it turns out that we just needed to adjust some of the texture sliders such as roughness and glossiness in order to create the desired look. The rest of the team is completing all of their tasks this week ready for the hand in and we plan to have a meeting on Monday to ensure every member of the team has every part in the assignment brief required for the hand in on Tuesday. I'm on standby if Tshepi needs any help with creating textures for his props but other than that I'm pretty much finished in terms of the work I needed to complete for this assignment. In hindsight, to improve upon my work for this project I would have liked to have started creating the textures a week earlier to give myself some time to pace the work out and leave room for any error as I left it quite close to the hand in date. I would also have liked to work on this project without having to do another assignment at the same time as this one so that more time could have been spent solely dedicated to the artwork for this game and completed to a higher standard. Time management was quite a struggle for this project but I'm still happy with the work I managed to complete overall.