Development blog 6 – five blogs in one v2
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Good morning all. As one of the artist in group Zombie. I am excited to present you my final development blog- 5 blogs in one! This time, I will conclude everything I have learned during the development of our Exploration game – Umibozu. First, let me describe what work I have done. I have created animation for 3 different interactable game object. I have also created 4 different cutscenes to narrate the story. In the game design phrase, I have given my opinions about the art style to the group constantly. However, as an artist, I was rarely involved in designing levels and game mechanics. I spent most of my time to design the art in Umibozu. How did I create art in Umibozu? I experimented different art styles and painting techniques during the making of Umibozu. For example, I drew cutscenes with grey scale – a technique to draw value before hue. Some other cutscenes were drawn with filter drawing – a technique to color and shade colors with different filters and layers. In drawing the enemies, I simply drew everything on the same layer and paint light and shadow with layer-masks. I have learned about the pros and cons of these techniques. Greyscale is a great way to produce concept arts, it helped me to narrate story more easily because I could better describe the aesthetic with value. Filter drawing was a really good way to use under abnormal light sources because it was really easy for me to adjust incoming light and temperature shifts of an object. Drawing on the same layer was simple, but it was also difficult to animate/modify so I will avoid using this technique in the future. To work with my team was also a big challenge for me. Making Umibozu taught me to work with people patiently and communicate with my group mates when I am not certain of something. Scrum was particularly useful. I have learned how to use daily meeting and sprint plan efficiently. Scrum gave me opportunities to appeal when I am facing troubles. When my group demanded changes in my works, I was always informed timely which saved me a lot of time if they changed my works after they were finished. Our game turned out great despite the fact that some of the features and art assets weren’t implemented due to the limited time constraint. Arts in our game looked great except for game objects that were made by the one-layer painting technique. As I have described before, single layer technique wasn’t appropriate to animate because a change in frame required me to redrew the art piece from scratch. Liquify tool was used to shape the single layer art assets. I squashed and stretched images of the original one in order to animate death explosion for enemies. It managed to work since squash and stretch was one of the fundamental principles of animation so the end result looked better than I imagined(though not as good as the other arts). Other than that, I cannot reflect much more because other assets I made were good! Filter drawing and grey scale drawing both worked and the cutscenes looked really nice! I will improve on these two techniques in the future and possibly combine them to create my style of drawing. In the end, for the last time, thank you for following the development of Umibozu.  |