production
Character Concepts
I wanted to try a few different designs, before narrowing down what the character is going to wear. The art style for the end product is going to be low poly, so the design of the clothing has to be fairly simple in order for it to translate well. Overall, I like different aspects of each design.
The idea of the goggles/headpiece would be useful to incorporate some form of menu/overlay for the skill trees, visual information and to communicate to the dogs with - allowing for the controls to be easily decipherable. The hood is also good for adding mystery/alluding to the perhaps illicit dealings the character will be dealing with. Most of the designs have a military aspect, with the belts, straps or boots. This armour will also provide the character protection in fights and could therefore be up-gradable. The purple theme throughout is down to the character's personality, and that it looks really great when it is neon. The first design is a lot softer and muter, not really fitting in with my current game but perhaps a winter/seasonal outfit could incorporate the cooler design.
The middle and last design are my favourites. The military aspect gives the player the indication that the world is not a safe place; it's normal for an average citizen to be dressed for a fight - or maybe that the character is more involved in combat than the story introduction shows. The legs of the middle design allow for padding and boots, which are all purpose for kicking, climbing and looking the part. The top of the last sketch reinforces the defence, armour, side of the character's design. The gloves of the blue character look interesting and also heavy hitting, while also remaining elegant on the character. My last design will have a reflection of all these ideas, adjusted as and when necessary.
One of the dogs will be a generic low poly dog, using pictures of my actual dog Oreo for reference. The cybernetic dog is also going to be based off of my late dog Lady; it will also feature key cyber designs. This also have to be quite simplistic, and easy shapes to reproduce low poly. The concept designs can be super intricate though, with the full blown aesthetic of recycled metal, crude shapes and militaristic themes. I like the idea of some sort of goggles/faceplate for the dog, as this will also require a holographic interface. The bandanna looks really cute around the neck; incorporated with the headpiece the dog would look really interesting. The legs will be broken down into their basic unit shapes, with some added flare, cogs and hydraulics to fit with the theme. I love the idea of the floating collar, and will also be putting it on Oreo's character model too.
I struggle with noses, lips, skin, hair and eyes; although I wanted to attempt this piece, I chose to cover up a couple of those assets, as it works well with the theme.
The inspiration for this piece was of Ada walking through a protest, the pieces of ash surrounding her as she walks through the street. I used the RGB colours in the background because it added a different setting to just smoke; in the city that I envision, being that it is set in a Cyberpunk universe, everything will have flashing lights, big screens, holograms; the whole nine yards. This means that all the places in the city are going to be bathed in different lights, hopefully making for some really nice atmosphere.
I chose to go for a more cartoony style for the concept pieces because it's a fun art style to draw in and through comic books themselves, it is the setting for a lot of imaginative worlds. There's always a certain crispness, and smooth finish with the solid black linework that appeals to me.
The Cyberpunk elements on her face are quite subtle compared to her headset, but gives a allusion to the fact she's not entirely human. Her pallor went through several changes, as at first I left it almost grey; hinting at the sort of android/mech theory. Then, I was trying out a new brush pack by Sylar113 and found this really nice cloudy effect brush. Her skin tone still looked a bit dead, though, so I added some saturation to exaggerate the soft yellows and reds I had set down earlier.
Hair and fur are two more aspects of drawing that I find particularly difficult. I have tried many different techniques for both and still I can never quite get it looking right. The above was done by the quickest and easiest method, where you lay down the desired base colour and by using a small brush for Dodge and Burn, slowly build up the layers of hair. You can then apply a blur filter if necessary/do any other adjustments. For the colour I put a pale purple on a new clipping mask, set to Overlay and did a final Dodge/Burn touch up for more general lighting direction.
Due to the artstlye of my final project, I have to keep in mind the designs can't be over complicated, which is why I chose for her to be wearing a textured black hoodie. Her backpack has the spikes on the straps, just to be a little bit edgy.
I should have spent more time on the headset and its screen, as I feel the simplicity of the tools used to create them really shows. The nose I couldn't rescue, and settled for what you see after too many wasted attempts. The angle of the headset and nose still seem slightly off to me, which detracts from the final product. I should have also created some kind of geometric neon pattern to be emblazoned on the jacket to add some interest to it.
This is an early iteration for what the cybernetic dog, Lady, could look like. There are a mix match of colours, because the parts had to be found from several different places and then fixed up - like if Frankenstein had made a dog instead of a guy.
The dimensions are for a generic middle sized dog, with long legs which would be used in game to perform jumps/combat. The tail was a late addition, as if it truly was the future, the designs of robot dog would surly have been streamlined. However, I prefer my dogs with tails. I knew a lady who deliberately brought (years ago) a Jack Russel puppy who's tail had been docked. It's cruel and disgusting and if I make it to the point where I call the shots on things, dogs get the tails they were born with. No cutting off tails for me, even in a distant imaginary future.
The collar has the purple glow, linking it back to the main character; showing the only thing that she could affix to make the dog her own again was the collar. It was difficult to give it the illusion that it is floating around the dogs neck, so it will be interesting to see how it comes out in the 3D version.
The main design was taken from several different references; I preferred the front legs of one design, the back legs of another etc. The dogs chest reminded me of that of a radiator grill in a car, which makes sense with the backstory that this dog is just made up of whatever she could find. Also, the idea of a radiator replacing the chest cavity sort of makes sense, as the radiator removes heat from the core. It's almost enough to be passable as crazy sci-fi science/technology, and that's important for establishing a sense of realism for the city.
I was torn between having the outlines for L4dy on or off, as it looks infinitely cooler and more abstract without them. The design is supposed to be dystopian-modern, where there are some of the sharp lines of the human creation, mixed with the forward thinking idea that we could make materials that are flexible and strong; the designs of modern prosthetics helped me to visualise how the back legs might move.
I found a really nice brush pack which gives it all the sort of textures while adding the colour, minimising the work. In the end, it was better to remain consistent with the player's concept piece, which also had the comic style black outline.
I wanted there to be a sort of group visual concept. The main character trusts her dogs, she knows that there isn't any danger from behind, because Lady is walking there. Oreo is a howler, and is a nervous wreck most of the time (hence the defence theme for the character in-game), so her pose had to reflect that.
There's a little bit of fun with the headsets on both Lady and Ada, as there can be many fun little references that can be thrown into the game through the displays. I went for heart eyes on Ada, because she's with her dogs. Lady's is a joke really, the glasses from a meme that's so old now it's not really funny. Lady's ears are also set back, which indicates she's listening out on the surroundings; working in the background, never letting their guard down. The most important take away for people should be that this is a unit, a family; it's got a bunch of random parts but they make it work.
It hit me that it was quite pretentious to literally base the character's dogs on my own; for the character to have two, as well, will increase the workload in development. It's a homage to Lady, and all the ways I wished I lived in a dimension where a) I could save her (despite the ramifications in the storyline, and the importance of saving Lady here when the character has clearly lost someone close to them - why couldn't they save them? How did they save Lady, etc.) and b) everything was as cool as the Cyberpunk set worlds.
Little time was spent on the background, as I only really needed it to serve as context for where the characters are set. There's nothing fancy about the buildings, simply because I didn't want them to be the focus. A much softer brush was used for all the background parts, to draw a greater focus to the characters in the centre. The side panels are to indicate advertisements, bright and even more in your face than today. It's raining because rain often sets a mood; although many are not fond of it, rain, thunder and lightning are my favourite types of weather. The grid that is just visible gives the illusion to there being more to the city, perhaps a force field or a giant hologram used for connectivity. It feels a little bit Spy Kids 3 looking at it now, a tacky stereotype that I used to add a little more interest to the background.
As mentioned above, the lines on the jacket were added in this piece and I think it really sets off the dark clothing, again matching with the other accessories on the player. A more innovative idea than links should have been used for the collars, and will be changed in the next design.
Environment Concepts
The first key theme in Cyberpunk is bright, neon and futuristic. It's normally a futuristic dystopia because humans almost always screw themselves over.
The streets are full of advertisements, with space being developed on to the maximum. It's a blend of technology and mundane life, leaving a lot of possibilities to imagine how to make normal situations into the style of the game. The cars are sleeker and notably the wheels give the idea that we have adapted and improved on the current fuel system. The closeness of the streets, brightly lit from the advertisements and cars, gives a lovely contrast when creating these concepts.
The only advertisement I put detail on is (quickly done with no reference, so are not actual Chinese letters) in a modern form of Chinese. In this world, the
technology race accelerates, leading to the fall of the US economy and China becoming the main powerhouse of the world; thus the advertisements reflect the current economic situation. It's also a lot more multicultural, so in the actual game there would be all kind of adverts and products, with all forms of representation. It's a detail that doesn't really affect the gameplay at all, but are thoughts that I had during the design process. I want to create a city that is everything the world here can never be, with a little larceny/GTA/underworld thrown in.
The city will be full of lights and holograms, always painting the streets in a glow. People will stay out late at night, because the world will run at different hours to current times. Schools will have different teaching priorities, jobs will require different skills, the technology available vastly improves normal jobs and therefore people go to work at different times. It's a very nightlife scene, however I do hope to create a day/night cycle and weather systems so that it can be enjoyed in the same way Spider-Man or Read Dead Redemption can be.
The bottom left is a concept of the player's apartment; due to the lack of space (over-development) the flats are stacked high up together, and use the space to a maximum efficiency. The colours used here a muted, soft and dark - I wanted her personal space to reflect her as a person and be an obvious disparity to the city around her.
I started with the top left and the bottom right was the last one I drew at this time, and I feel like even within a few hours my technique improved. The concept art here is very basic, only blocking out shapes and tones; I stuck closely to the colour pallets of references I used.
These pieces are on a larger scale than the previous set, as there needed to be a balance of scale and purpose.
Mid way through creating these I thought it would be neat to pre-plan for the map and have different coloured districts. The purple and the red (top left and bottom left respectively) would be examples of the different zones. The purple is built up, a financial district perhaps, while the red is less crowded, perhaps governed by a different community or a residential area. The colour sections would be easily distinguishable while using a map, and certain key locations could be associated to the prospective colour.
I used varied colour keys throughout the pieces, electing instead to work with a variant of tones. For example, the purple district is met with mute tones,
whereas the red district, has complimentary browns and greens. This gives them each a different mood, and therefore makes them more interesting to explore.
The top right is a bar, with warm reds and purples, the bars will also be filled with advertisements, which is indicated with the glowing panels beside it. There are certain things that are present in every society, and a place to get drunk is one of them. Each district will have it's own thematically designed interactive places, such as bars; subways; garages.The buildings are a mixture of straight lines and curves; curved metal surfaces always look futuristic and it also supports the idea of leaning into nature to solve architectural problems.
It was hard to convey the idea of hovering on the carriage, as the way I envision things working is with electromagnets (or something similar). The subway system is designed to go fast, be completely autonomous and open compared to the drab current system we have. It's not quite teleporting, but it will be close enough. Again, colour is key here, as the panels of the compartments are screens, which indicate the destination and time of departure. People will have a devised system for entering and exiting, and an AI programs allows for them to be controlled without a human presence.
Enemy Concepts
The basic shape for the human form was the same for the enemies as I previously used for the main character. These will be parts of a set of enemies that attack based on location and mission - or a generic enemy. I had several different ideas in mind as to the powers or challenge each one possesses, and therefore how they look needed to reflect their threat.
For example, the top left design is a 'heavy' character, this enemy's hits will do more damage than the standard enemy; he has a large weapon for dealing damage close up and a secondary for long range attacks. The second along would be involved in challenges, wherein you can get XP for competing; their cybernetic components making them tough competitors. The bottom left is the most dangerous type of enemy, who has telekinetic powers (sort of, explained through some form of technological advancement), gained from the pipes and their unusually dark face area. The bottom middle will be a series of hacking challenges/missions/cash opportunities; they will always appear in suits because they're all about that money. The last will be car/bike/futuristic racing, because everyone loves messing around in vehicles in games; his eye piece aids in driving and his large coat is all for show.
The top right is my personal favourite character. These I imagine to be rouges, bounty hunters within the city; depending on how you play the game, they will either provide you with bounties, or you will be the bounty. The design for this character was based on the idea of a branch of the police that have defected, so they're wicked smart and have all the firepower to back them up.
This is one of my favourite pieces that I've ever made. I was really happy with how the character turned out. I stuck closely to my initial design; the idea of the hollowed out arms matches with the technological theme of the game and adds a really nice dynamic structure to the character.
The lighting was the best part of the whole piece, the pop of the red on the diamond shaped piece (presumably an eye or lens allowing for the computer to intake visual information) against the dark street. I'm in love with creating light bounces off different surfaces, completely changing the effect of the piece - as you'll see in the next shot.
I couldn't decide at the end whether to keep the line work on or take it off. Looking at it now, I definitely prefer the no line version, as it makes the character look more a part of the scene. The background is very basic but it doesn't look completely inconceivable. The effect on the arms was created using the Colour Burn layer style, with several layers of highlights/shadows below. It worked really nicely in making the robot look metallic, and I loved the way the sharp contrasts worked against the soft background. Generally I struggle with composition and lighting, but I was pleasantly surprised with how this turned out.
The Cyberpunk aesthetic is the real reason I want to make a video game in this style. Cyberpunk 2077 is coming out this year and it looks amazing; it's so easy to make characters 100% more interesting by adding them to a Cyberpunk setting.
I love the neon lights, the colours, the merging of humans with technology. It's a dystopia for sure, but at least it wouldn't be a boring one. It gives the perfect setting for telling stories that can be emotional and intimate whilst also being fun and destructive. The balance between telling the story I want to tell, the amount the player wants to just enjoy the setting and myself getting
carried away with inputting more and more ideas.
The background is again basic but it allows for a really dramatic mood to the image. I chose the Anonymous mask and a cyber zombie for the graffiti because I want the art to reflect the mood of the people, while fitting in with the theme. It's hard to tell because I threw the colours over the top and decided I like it better, but the red of the mask and the yellow of the teeth/eye of the zombie were supposed to be glowing, showing that even the graffiti artists have adapted to create neon works of art.
The clothing is directly based on my character sheet, with the addition of the smoky overly coming in late into the drawing. Having a good brush pack makes all the difference - I'm still using the ones mentioned earlier - and experimenting with the various types of brushes brought me to this really interesting result. Black clothing is so difficult to make look right, so I added a texture and have used the colour overlay to highlight the subtler highlights. It almost has the vibe of something from a horror game, which is why I chose to pixelate the smoke in the blackness as this brings it forward 100 years to a modern era - conceivably, a little less terrifying.
Character Models
This was my first attempt at 3D modelling. I had previously loaded up Maya for about 10 minutes where I proceeded to make a cube and do all kinds of weird things to it without any progress. The tutorial I watched to make this dog left a lot to be desired, and I will be therefore making a second model to get a better finish.
I struggled to find my way around the UI and it was overall just confusing to do anything. Once I worked out to create new faces, I seemed to have hundreds of them, with too many points, inverted shaders and an inconsistent shape.
It was obvious to create one side, and simply mirror it but I couldn't seem to duplicate it correctly either. This is why there is a weird in bit on the dog's back, I ended up crudely filling it in with the faces of the two edged side.
It takes a lot of time to get used to working in a 3D space; I was also used to the hot keys I personally use in Photoshop, and often made mistakes due to a mis-click.
The fact that the shape even vaguely resembles a dog gives me hope for another attempt, although it is frustrating to waste so much time and not have been able to make it look any better.
This actually turned into the reward of my third attempt. There are surprisingly few low poly dog tutorials, and I had to glean bits and pieces from several different people.
In the making of this model I learned the key points that will make the rest of my characters much easier to make. Properly extruding and bevelling faces and edges; mirroring the character on the axis; merging vertices.
The first, was just from watching a better tutorial. The more time I spent in Maya the more comfortable I became with manoeuvring the camera and what the tools did. I understand now why the reviews for Maya say it is easy to pick up, it's definitely just a matter of understanding a few basic concepts and then building from there.
Mirroring the character shouldn't have been hard to do, however I had created my character off the axis in a previous attempt, and got confused between duplicate and several other similar sounding tools.
The ability to merge vertices helped me to minimise the wildly out of control and unconnected faces of my first attempt. By this point I could more reliably navigate 3D space and this also aided in my discovery.
This was also my first time exploring how to colour/texture a character. Oreo's colour is basic to match with the low poly theme, which I think works really well.
Lady's character model is an example of how as my understanding grew, the designs got a bit bolder.
This combines several objects, connecting points and experimentation with the different materials. It also meant learning to use the Multi-Cut tool and moving through more of the tabs Maya offers - to a certain extent I almost felt like I knew what I was doing.
I started with Oreo's model in order to save time, and from there cut pieces out, scaled them down and adjusted them as I went. Considering Oreo was the starting point and this is how Lady turned out, I was very happy with the unique look Lady ended up having.
The original concept also translated nicely into a 3D model, with the different textures and materials coming together to make the dog look ultimately quite futuristic. It also leans into the fact I wanted to portray that the dog's body has been made up of scraps, and completed to the best of the main character's desperate ability.
Generally, I think the colours came out how I envisioned; the back section could have done with a few more hatches or points of interest so it wouldn't look as flat. The colour for the head is slightly tacky to look at, and will likely not age well.
This model shows a shift in the way I wanted to present the mental health within the game. Instead of having it as a physical element on the character's model, I think it would work better as a passive effect in the HUD.
Feeling confident from my form with both Oreo and more-so Lady, where there were things I wouldn't have dreamed of doing straight after my first try, the human form wasn't too difficult to produce. In the same way I did for Oreo, I created one side and simply mirrored it.
The details of the form aren't important as the character will always be in clothing, and the design is supposed to be low poly, which saved a lot of time in the process. The face (as with the dogs) was my greatest challenge, as I have yet to get a head/face in anything I draw to look correct. The black dead eyes were a last minute addition, after I remembered I had given Oreo eyes - it didn't look right at all without it, as there were too many faces to get the angular nature of a husky which looked incomplete.
I didn't think creating clothing would be as easy as it was, but I do enjoy when a solution to a problem is logical and seems so simple once you watch it. I extruded the torso and arm sections for the jacket, and copied the gloves in from another document.
Adding texture to the character was a more complicated and completely different story. I couldn't get anything other than Lambert, Blinn and Phong to work for Lady and Oreo, so I was determined to try again for the jacket. It still didn't work, maybe because of the resolution of the fabric I wanted to use, or the disproportionate faces of the character. It looks unique enough that it still works with the Cyberpunk theme, so I didn't try to fix it and potentially ruin this effect I'd created.
Object Models
Working on something a lot smaller was simultaneously easier and much more complicated. There was less to make, but that meant that the details were important.
Due to the fact that I have previous experience with drawing hands in particular, I found this the easiest of the objects to make. It is, of course, a thousand times more difficult in Maya.
The base of the hand was created first, and it was again hard to extrude them in the most logical way, to make the shape and minimise the number of faces/vertices to do with. The fingers didn't turn out too bad, but I do think the thumb is still off. Overall, if it was going to be an object that was taken off the character often, I would have made the object hollow. However, as it is supposed to be mechanical, it seems fitting that it will remain on the character and it therefore doesn't matter.
The Cyberpunk theme also gives me a bit of leeway in the rigidity of the objects that I've made. There's been no smoothing or anything, in order to keep the crisp low poly lines.
The colour and textures for the glove were really fun to do, as I tried to learn which texture fit best as well as how to create a glowing effect for the back ring.
The simplest of the bunch to create was the floating collar. This effect would be far more impressive if seen in game or animated, as the static hold it has on Oreo doesn't carrying the idea across properly.
The design is based on the letter D, with a sleek futuristic shape. The sides light up with a purple glow, which the player should be able to change in game. In the same way that the machinery will work in this world, electromagnets play and important part on making these contraptions work. It's probably not entirely feasible science, but the beautiful of video games is to take certain liberties.
This was created from a cube, adding edge vertices and remodelling the shape. I then used Duplicate Special, working out the angle to rotate them at in order to create them in a circle. They had to be adjusted manually when added to Oreo's model, because Oreo's neck is not a perfect circle.
Matt textures are my favourite, which is why the majority of the surfaces have been created with the Lambert setting.
Exploded views are good ways to show a complex object and the design process that went into an idea.
Starting with the left hand side, I built the chassis based on VR headsets that we have around today. There is then the plastic casing and a thin sponge layer that help to pad out the design.
The next part is the main computer; this is where the visual information is overlaid with the AI software. The headset design overall is based on VR, but the magic behind the scenes that I want it to produce is entirely AR. AR, Augmented Reality, is possibly the most exciting technological advancement once it becomes commercially viable. The merging of human perception and the intelligence of a computer is fascinating to think about. Black Mirror did a great job of exploring the dangers of VR becoming too real; I think AR will be the next groundbreaking breakthrough.
The front panel is to protect the computer, and project the animated doodles on the screen. This is purely for sass in conversations and to keep the character lively looking.
Intro Animatic
The slightly tidied up version of the storyboard is satisfying to finally look at. I was worried, what with my inexperience with Maya, that I wouldn't have time to produce this. The scenes look better with some additional detail, and I feel like this more clearly communicates the ideas for the camera shots and feelings I wanted to put across.
The time lapse montage remains, despite my ignorance for the proper animation, and it flows well enough to give the audience an idea of the time scale that I left it in. The dog building montage is short, shorter than it should be and it would definitely need to be longer in the actual animation.
I was able to reuse my concept art piece for the outlines of the city, which was beneficial to speeding up my work flow. Envisioning how I want the camera to swoop was really difficult to reproduce in an animatic setting. I had trouble visualising it in my head and I think that it obvious in far from perfect boards.
Cutting out the emotional flashbacks the character was having in my initial storyboard was a tough decision. On the one hand, it was the main way to get people to empathise with her story, and therefore be interested to play. On the other, it ruins all the mystery; layers; depth that learning those tragic parts give you when you actually spend time with a character. I decided it was better instead to answer no questions and instead raise them; who is she, why is she building a dog, why is she sitting on a bridge crying with her dog, etc. This also means that the gameplay begins exactly as she discovers Lady is alive again, which will give plenty of time for explanations.
Due to the fact that this is only the animatic, I chose to just have Pink Floyd's Welcome To The Machine playing throughout the video without any mixing, as it generally gives enough of an idea of the tone that I want to go with.
I was going to have this intro made in Adobe Animate and therefore in 2D, in the style similar to that of TaleTale's The Walking Dead cutscenes. However, having used Maya now, I would definitely be interested in exploring how to 3D animate, rigging a player and setting up the scene.
Unity Assets
While creating my own assets has it's merits, it's simply not possible for me to do the coding, animation, 3D modelling and everything else all at once. Unity has a massive library of templates, tutorials and assets, and not using them would be foolish. This would allow me to create the city quicker, and focus more on making an entertaining title.
This is just one of the packs that particularly caught my eyes, as it ticks all the boxes for being low poly, bright and neon. Anything that I specifically want to be a part of my game I can make separately; it's easy to import assets from Maya.
I can also purchase character models and other templates, giving me another option when it comes to tackling development time and budget.