3D crates & playing around with themes!
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Hello! This week in the 3D-class we have been learning a lot more about 3D-modeling. Our task was to make crates with different themes. We had to choose three different themes out from sci-fi, urban contemporary, post-apocalyptic, medieval or cartoony and then create a crate-like object in that theme. I’d chose sci-fi, medieval and cartoony for my crates as they were the most different styles from each other and I wanted to try making as many different ones as possible! 😀 Sci-Fi First of is my sci-fi crate. When I think of sci-fi games, the first that comes to my mind is the Portal and Halo games (those are the ones I have played the most in the sci-fi genre) so of course my crate was made with those games and their visual styles in mind.
I think Halo defines pretty good what sci-fi is, as the whole game is a sci-fi story-based first-person-shooter game, and that it is taking place in a sci-fi universe were all the man-made objects in the world is associated with sci-fi. The same is for the portal series. They really have that high-end technology feeling to the assets in the game.
My sci-fi crate is a pretty undefined object. I’m not really sure of what it is my self but I created it with the companion cube from the Portal series in mind but instead of making a total copy I threw in those Spartan lines and shapes from the Halo series trying to give it more of a serious appearance. (I wanted to add glowing details but I don’t know how to do that so that will have to wait for now). Medieval The next one is my medieval crate. I haven’t played so many medieval themed games in my life so this one was a little bit harder for me. I have played some assassin’s creed, but the inspiration came more from movies I’ve seen during my childhood than a specific game. In the medieval genre I like the pirate stuff the most so of course it had to be some kind of pirate-like asset, and what is more pirate than a treasure chest?
Luckily there are some pirate games out there, and even greater, there is an assassin’s creed pirate game called Black flag (I haven’t played that one though). All the assassin’s creed games are set with a medieval theme with either knights, musketeers, pirates or other characters typical for the medieval genre, making the game great for inspiration for my medieval chest.
When creating my pirate treasure chest I was aiming for that typical one that everyone recognizes from any pirate-themed movie, book, game or anything ever. I tried to add that pirate touch to it by adding the skull details and such. Cartoon My last crate is an actual crate, but with a cartoony theme to it. For games with a cartoony style, my thoughts go directly too Team fortress 2. It’s one of the most played games of all time and has been around for several years now and is still a very popular game. It’s even so famous for the comical and cartoony look people tend to use the assets from the game to make short funny movie sketches.
The whole approach of Team fortress 2 is a very cartoony style with unrealistic assets and animation making it great as an inspiration source for my cartoon crate. Team fortress 2 is using unnatural and funky shapes already in their 3D-modeling phase which I can apply directly to the process of making my crate.
I designed it to look as cartoony as possible by using unregularly basic shapes, just like in team fortress 2. I did also add some details such as the huge nails on the top lid to add that funny/odd feeling to cartoon themed assets tend to have. Suumary from this week I think by doing this kind of task you will improve your modelling skills a lot. The basic modelling phase is a huge step of the whole 3D process that is very important and is one of the fundamentals for a successful finished 3D model render. The negative part though is that this isn’t a process you would normally go through when creating 3D assets for a game as you way more often “bake” your models (I’m not sure of the term “bake” but what I mean is a technique making your finished assets look more like high poly models than what they truly are using normal maps and texturing. But that is something we will learn in coming lessons of this class and something I really look forward too). If you want to reach the aesthetic goals for your games it’s very important to pay attention to how your assets are done and how you use the elements of art to provide the player with those through your models and/or objects. Same goes for the visual styles of your game. If you want your game to have a certain type of theme it’s important that all assets are done according to the same visual art style, otherwise the player won’t get the perception you intended for them. Well that’s it for this week, see you soon! -Lui  |
