Sci-fi crate

When creating this crate I drew reference from the visual style of movies like Oblivion and the design of the cubes in the game, Portal. The references are mostly based on a general notion of these styles, I did not use any direct image reference.

The most important element in my view for this kind of sci-fi is clean and symmetrical shapes, which give a sterile impression. The atmosphere I am going for with that is that it should appear as though this crate is a product of an advanced civilization that are beyond dirt and rust and organic smudge. This is probably the motto for Apple’s design department. The references I mentioned have those clean elements that I was looking for.  While I am still new to working in 3D, I tried to keep it simple and learn the basics with the first crate, I mostly used the bevel function.

Medieval crate

Making this crate I started to play a bit more with the tools, turns out that 3D modelling is really fun! With this crate I went for a sort of simplified realistic approach, making an archetypical type of treasure chest found in the olden times. As with the others, I had an immediate design in mind when starting to work on the theme, so did not use any direct image reference. I started out with creating the silhouette that I had in mind, the bulging lid was the most characteristic visual element in my view to begin with. The framing on the sides I added mostly to add some life and give the chest a bit more of a luxury vibe. What I had in mind was something like the chests from Skyrim, however I do not have the skill level required to perform such results. So I mostly adapted the shape as I remembered it from the game.

I chose that reference because it felt like more fun to take a more elaborate medieval style from a fantasy game than doing a completely realistic imitation.

I think that the key characteristics for the theme are working with the materials available at the time, like iron and wood. There are of course several sub-styles in the medieval theme, but for the one I chose I wanted to go with the more simplified, crude style of medieval roughness. Choosing that style was also a bit forgiving of my so far crude 3D skills, so that I could use simplified shapes and patterns.

Post apocalypse crate

By the time I started with this one I was really enjoying myself! I also tried to challenge myself to use as few polygons as I could without compromising the end result. The most important artistic element of this theme is making things look scrappy and disorderly, the objects in a post apocalypse world should always bear witness to the destruction or event that was the “apocalypse” I chose to make a metal locker because the material is very rewarding for illustrating age and neglect. Metal rusts and bends and gets buckles, all of which are fun to texturize. I was aiming for a higher level of detail with the locker at first, I wanted there to be arrays of air slots like in classical high school lockers. However I found that at the level I am at right now, I would only screw up my model.

What I had in mind as far as games of the genre, “the last of us” and “Rage” are titles of games that I find to be very good examples of a classical post apocalypse art style.

Summary and Conclusions

A positive thing about this assignment is that it makes the uses of different visual elements very concrete, the reasons for choosing the effects and styles that you do are accounted for. There is also a lot to be gained by studying the way other artists solves the design issues of a certain theme, and how they use the elements at hand, especially when you later have to make the same decisions in your own way.

If there is a negative side to studying the work of others too much, it is that you as an artist can get cradled in to following the normative visual language established by previous games. Because it is too comfortable to remain within the stereotypes that an audience will buy into without any further reflection.

The visual style and theme of a game is what sets the players actions and the plot of the game within a frame of legitimate context. The plot can tell the player that he/she is in a dark and brawly town in a steampunk world, but it will not be legitimate if the surroundings are high key symmetrical and smooth objects. The reality is of course seldom this obvious, but even the details of minor elements goes a long way towards helping the player to accept the illusion and become immersed in the story.