Different Types of Assets
Organic Assets:
Organic assets are models of living things e.g. Animals, Humans, Trees etc, they are also used for animation.
Organic models are made up of quads. This means that all the polygons used to make the model are 4 sided, the shape isn’t important as long as the number of sides equals 4. This is important as “N-gons” (polygons with 5 or more sides) can act erratically when subdivided or animated. This is why its important to avoid them in all models but more importantly in organic objects. While it is possible to make organic objects in polygon modelling software, they are often brought into sculpting software for final details. Its easier to make wrinkles and skin folds in Zbrush or Mudbox than on a polygonal level.
Prop Assets:
Prop assets are models of generally non-living things like armour, weapons and architectural elements such as Buildings.
Modelling props could also be referred to as “Hard Surface” modelling. They are mostly static objects, but if animated it becomes organic, for example a gun is made as a static prop but when animated to fire it becomes organic. The type of polygons used are not important as long as the final model looks good. When modelling using hard surface, it is good to use reference images; same applies to organic modelling as well. For vehicles and buildings it’s good to get a hold of some blueprints that can be imported onto a plane in the 3D software, and then exclusively trace to get the best proportions possible.
Mechanical assets:
Mechanical assets are models such as cars, robots and machines. This is also a part of hard surface modelling as the objects are non-living and static.
They are made to look hard and rigid as they are meant to visualise mechanic objects, software like Substance Painter are good for texturing props like this as it can make a plain model look photo realistic. For example mechanical objects are usually made of steel or iron, so colours like silver, grey and black are common colours used to simulate a metal colour. depending on the prop some metals shine, so adding a gloss over the object makes the prop look more realistic.
Character Assets:
A Character asset or character model sheet is a document used to standardise the appearance, poses, and gestures of an animated character. It is usually us used as reference material so as to allow proper proportions in 3D modelling
A Character artist specialises in bringing a character to life, the artist is supervised by an art director and a lead character artist to create a conceptualisation of a character for in-game use or for marketing material such as “Pre-rendered” cutscenes or trailers. A concept artist creates 2D illustrations of potential characters for the video game, they initially start off as rough sketches and gradually develop into a fully polished design ready to be developed into either 3D rendered character by the modelling team or 2D rendered characters depending on the games art direction.
How does concept art differ from 3D character art?
They both differ based on their processes, they both have different workflows, concept art is the development process of a character through a series of 2D sketches. Whereas 3D character art is the process of creating a fully rendered models using software like “ZBrush” and “Maya” for the modeling process and “Substance Painter” for the texturing phase.
However as different they both are, they both work together in conjunction as one process leads to another, Concept artist develop a “character sheet” of potential character designs eventually making a final choice. Then the 3D artist takes the finalized design and begins the process of modeling and texturing the model ready for “Rigging” for animation. As an example the above pictures showcase a concept art from the video game “Red Dead Redemption 2” from a scene where the gang is celebrating, the image below shows the “In-game” finalized look of that concept artist visualization.
How are assets used to develop a full 3D environment?
Assets are crucial for developing a full 3D environment in a game, they create a believable world and atmosphere that is necessary for the game to be playable. When building an environment, the task of setting it up requires different art departments to co-operate with each other in order to successfully build an environment cable of being played in. These departments specialise individually in their own fields such as prop artist that create the various props and architecture to be placed in the environment e.g. Buildings, Barrels, lanterns, boxes, etc. Organic artist would create the landscape a long with various foliage e.g. Tress, grass, rocks, hills etc. Then the character artist would conceptualise characters first then send them to be fully modelled by 3D artist. Even though its all worked on separately, the different teams all come together to share and improve on the work so the end result comes out similar to the image above.
What is Iterative design?
Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a product or process. Based on the results of testing the most recent interation of a design, changes and refinements are made.
Analysing 4 Weapons
These are 4 weapons I’ve decided to research and draw using Digital Art. I am going to create one of these weapon designs using the 3D modelling software “Maya 2018”.
Out of the 4 weapons, I’ve decided to focus on the “Katana”. I personally like the design qualities of a Katana and would feel like the process of re-creating its design in Maya 2018 would prove as a suitable challenge.
What is Art Style?
Art style is a distinctive way the artwork looks. Style is the manner in which an artist portrays his/her subject matter and how the artist expresses his or her vision. Style is determined by the characteristics that describe the artwork, such as the way the artist employs form, colour, and composition. Some examples of art styles include:
- Contemporary art
- Pop art
- Abstract expressionism
- Cubism
- Art Deco
- Art Nouveau
- Post-Impressionism
- Impressionism
- Realism
- Surrealism
Artworks that have certain features in common are considered to have the same style. Sometimes this means that they are part of the same movement, but not always. The concept of “movements” in art is usually linked to a specific time (and sometimes place) in history. For instance, there are painters today who still paint in an Impressionistic manner, embracing the concepts that first defined Impressionism in the 19th century. However, because they are contemporary artists who are inspired by the Impressionists, they are not really part of the original “Impressionist movement” as it exists in historical terms. Although art styles can be resurrected from the past, the movement itself is still anchored in its original position on the art history timeline.
In my case, when I drew concept designs of the 4 weapons I decided to go with a realistic representation. To make them realistic I added shading and lighting to areas of the weapons where light and dark contrasted so when I start to paint over it, the colour refines the shading and gives off a “Metallic” look, to make it even more realistic I removed the sketch lines so that it appears more three dimensional than flat. Realism was the suitable choice because a art style like “Pop Art” wont portray my weapon concepts faithfully due to the lack of being believable, therefore realism works best for drawing weapon concepts.
The Importance of Art style
Its important to develop an Art style as it opens many doors to jobs that require professional artist that can use different art styles. Jobs such as:
- Graphic Designer
- Fashion Designer
- Illustrator and technical illustrator
- Animator
- Art teacher
- Painter
However it is also very important to stick to an art style as mastering one prepares you for mastering other art styles. Finding the right art style can be tricky, but practising with muliple different styles leads you to finding that art style that you are good at and further develop until you’ve mastered it.
How do artist professionally display their work?
Online
One of the ways artist professionally display their work online is by having (or setting up) a social media page. Websites like Artstation, DeviantArt and Tumblr are all great social media websites where artist can post their artwork for free for anyone to come look at and share, or have “commissions” where people can pay money the the artist and request a specific art made for that person. Other websites like “Patreon” are also good websites for artist to make money online, people can pay monthly to the artist to receive special artwork and rewards for subscribing to them.
Games
In the gaming field, artist can display their through concept art. The concept art field requires professional artist from all spectrum’s to come together and produce a variety of sketches and designs for character, environment and prop designs in unique variations. The concept artist work is sent towards a 3D artist who then uses the concept piece as reference for modeling it in 3D. The job is generally a fulfilling one as artist can express themselves and experiment with different art styles and various tools such as digital art software’s like “Photoshop”, “Krita”, “PaintToolSAE” etc.
Animation
Artist in the animation field can display their work in a variety of ways as Animation isn’t restricted to one style, animation comes in a multitude of styles whether it be hand drawn, 3D, stop motion, motion graphics etc. Artist must understand the “12 principles of animation” in order to master animating successfully, big animation studios like Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks have been the leading animation studios for years and are only getting better as the technology improves and the influx of new animators comes in.
What is a professional 3D artist workflow?
Conceptualizing Assets
When conceptualizing an asset, its important to think about what it’s use would be in the game. For example if its a barrel it function is a prop for the background scenery, whereas a weapon like a pistol would play a key role in game because the player is constantly looking at it and using it with them throughout the game. So once it’s decided what is going to be modeled, you then collect references from existing sources to help structure how you would go about creating the model. in this example we’ll use this radio as a reference, we know that its going to play the role of a prop.
3D Modelling Process
Once the idea is set the modelling process begins, Autodesk Maya is a professional 3D modelling software that is commonly used in the game industry. The process of modeling can vary depending on the polycount which can affect game performance when loaded into a game, there are two types of models needed when modeling something. A low poly model is the rough model that is needed because games cannot run if a model has millions of polygons, so a low poly model is made to counter this issue by the use of baking a high poly model. A high poly model is the model with the many polycounts, it is baked onto a low poly model so that still maintains its detail but reduces polycount to a suitable number so it is able to run in a game.
UV Mapping
UV mapping is the process of deconstructing the model into separate parts so that its easy to texture when the time comes, the process is basically like unwrapping a cuboid. When UVing, its possible to see what a texture may look like by enabling the texture pattern that displays small black and white boxes around the model, this helps visualize where the texture would fit in the model. However “skewing” may occur in which the boxes appear stretched or distorted.
Texturing
Substance painter is one of the best texturing software’s used for 3D models, In this process you export the model in two parts, a low poly model and high poly model in the file format “.FBX” . When you open substance painter, you open the low poly model first then “Bake” the high poly model onto the low poly model. Some options will appear on how you want to modify the bake such as resolution (which you would want to be high like 1080p) then the high poly will begin baking onto the low poly and you should end up with a successfully baked model. There are a variety of tools to use in substance painter that can turn a plain model into a photo realistic model. Making a realistic model can be achieved by understanding what the real life counter part would look like, it can also be achieved by making a model look worn out or used.
Importing to a Game Engine
Once the model is fully textured, it can be exported into a game engine. For example the “Unreal Engine” is a very popular and useful 3D Game Engine to use even for beginners. Once the model is successfully uploaded the textures made will not be applied straight away, it needs to be brought together with a “master graph” which applies textures onto the 3D model, this process has to be done manually.
What will you model be developed for?
My Katana model will be developed as a key item for the player to use as a melee weapon. this is important to state because my model could also be used elsewhere, for example it could be developed as a background prop not used by the player. This would mean that the model would be significantly lower res as not much detail is needed in a background prop the player will not interact with a lot, where as a weapon like a sword or gun is in constant use by the player therefore has to have significantly more detail and resolution.
My Katana would be in games like “Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice” which is an action adventure game, The game is “PEGI 18” which means its targeted towards adults. A weapon like this would usually be seen in games like this due to the connotations with violence and killing that applies to it.
The reason I’ve decided to make my model a prop/mechanical object is because of my interest in weapon designs such as guns, and swords. They have piqued my interest based on the amount of variety and creativity that can go into these designs, prop/mechanical models aren’t limited to realism like organic models they can branch off into fictional designs. I also prefer making prop models instead of organic models as I feel like over the 2 years of 3D modeling I’ve gained an interest in prop modeling.
My Katana Process
Evaluation
Overall I am pleased with how simple the overall process was compared to my Remote model from last year, The Katana wasn’t extremely complicated compared to my Remote model. However, that could be due to how I basically made my Remote entirely High Poly and my Katana Low Poly, I did the reverse this time and started with a Low Poly model then created a High Poly later on. I prefer this way as It helps me understand what needs to be High Poly and what doesn’t. I am pleased with some aspects such as the blade as I was initially having trouble with the UVing process when it came to the blade due to how complicated it is the UV a slim blade, but it came out perfectly in the end in my opinion.
Although I am very pleased with how my model came out, I do believe there is room for improvement. Such as the lack of patterns on the katana guard and hilt, Katana’s were known for having unique patterns and clan emblems on them as a representation of status. I could have spent more time refining my model by including High Poly patterns. Also I wanted to add a worn texture on the Katana blade itself to show it’s combat use and to make it feel more realistic than brand new. Lastly I wanted to include a sheath which would have been simple to make along with the katana, however, due to time I opted out of making it. These are things I would like to improve for my final piece, I feel like I’ve learnt a lot through Maya and making 3D models and hope to continue this path of learning new methods and tools to successfully create complex 3D models in the future.
Bibliography
- Organic Assets Images – https://conceptartempire.com/hard-surface-organic-modeling/ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f03afit4inA
- Prop Assets Images – https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/free-max-model-pistol-games-weapons/273068 & http://nachocgi.com/fictizia.html
- Mechanical Assets Images – https://www.flatpyramid.com/3d-models/vehicles-3d-models/automobile/generic-sports-car/ & https://www.artstation.com/artwork/6RYKN
- Character Assets Images – https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/39195459236973140/?lp=true & https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/39195459236973140/?lp=true & https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2017/04/06/the-art-of-persona-5
- Concept Art Images – http://www.dorkly.com/post/79227/10-famous-videogame-characters-who-had-really-weird-concept-art & https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/red-dead-redemption-2-narrative-interview-1202992401/ & https://calculatedgaming.com/2019/02/01/red-dead-redemption-2-have-some-faith/
- 3D Environment Image – https://80.lv/articles/planning-the-key-to-environment-design/
- Iterative design Image – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/combining-agile-methodologies-business-architecture-daniel-lambert
- Art style Images – https://www.topteny.com/top-10-coolest-artists-familiar/ & http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/art_movements/art_movements.htm & https://www.tun.com/blog/12-jobs-for-art-majors/ & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8K2wVJg_GU
- 3D Artist Workflow – https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/asset-workflow-game-art-3d-modeling
- Model Reference Image – https://aminoapps.com/c/bioshockofficial/page/item/wrench/nx5E_n1SKIaXYW7M3qqa5KXdwKR35xgX5te & https://besttechtrade.com/15-tips-and-tricks-to-master-sekiro-shadows-die-twice-one-of-the-most-difficult-games-ever-made/ &https://hubpages.com/games-hobbies/Final-Fantasy-Which-Sword-Do-You-Wield
- Evaluation Images – https://www.amazon.ca/Makoto-Handmade-Japanese-Katana-Samurai/dp/B07413GTBD
Kimathi Mugambi Cov Games 