3D week two!

Theme one:

I decided to pick cartoony for my first theme. The cartoon style is usually comprised of very simplified objects and shapes, often accompanied by a very happy and colorful color scheme. Objects in cartoon games are normally exaggerated in size, usually bigger than in real life. Cartoon styled games are often directed towards teenagers and children.

A game which I think fits into the cartoon category is Battlefield Heroes. Even though the object of the game is to run around and shoot other players in a Second World War environment. Sporting huge weapons and even bigger TNT barrels Battlefield Heroes comes across like a really friendly and light hearted game.

Kingdom hearts games are the first games that I think about when it comes to games with a cartoony style. I think that Kingdom Hearts definitely represents the cartoony style in a really good way, with it’s bright and vivid color scheme and exaggerated size. This is the game which I drew most inspiration from when I made my cartoon chest.

My Cartoon Style Crate

For my first crate/chest that I made I decided to go for a cartoon style. While looking though the reference pictures I spotted a chest that I thought looked like a perfect challenge for my first chest. I made the bottom of the chest smaller to create an angle on the side. I wanted the shape to be more reminiscent of a cartoon chest. I feel like I should have exaggerated it more. For it being the first real thing that I have made in 3D and in the time that I made it I’m pretty pleased with the outcome.

Theme two:

For my second theme I went with Post-Apocalyptic. Post-Apocalyptic is a science fiction sub-genre. These games are most of the time about the end of man-kind and human civilization. Post-Apocalyptic games are often set after a catastrophic event, such as a biological disaster (ZOMBIES!), or a nuclear attack. Normally not a lot of technology has survived and you need to scavenge to survive. The styles of these games are normally realistic, very dark, dirty, and often depressing. The games which first come to mind when talking about the Post-Apocalypse are Fallout 3 and The Last of us.

Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, 200 years after a resource war which ended in nuclear holocaust. The land looks very desolate. There is a lot of old broken and worn down infrastructure, crumbling bridges, buildings, and cars rusting away.

The Last of Us takes place in year ~2035. Much of civilization has been destroyed by a zombie virus infection. Nature has started reclaiming the cities. Trees and other vegetation are sprouting every, while cars are rusting, and buildings are crumbling away.

My Post-Apocalyptic crate

This is the second crate/chest that I made. I wanted to keep it very simple in it’s function, something that could survive without technology. I wanted to go for a basic and rustic style, at the same time I wanted to make it seem old and torn, broken. I tried to recreate this by making some wooden panels askew, and having some nails sticking out or straight up missing.

Theme three:

For my last theme I went for Urban Contemporary. The urban contemporary can, in my opinion, differentiate a lot. Often related to Cities, the objects are realistic in terms of proportions and size. Man-made, modern, every-day objects. Games which I associate with Urban Contemporary are The Sims, Watch Dogs, and Grand Theft Auto franchise.

My Urban Contemporary crate

I wanted to create a very typical looking crate for this theme. I made the crate in proportion, and in a realistic size. I decided to ‘rough’ the crate up a little bit, make it look a little bit used.

Summery

I thought that this was a really good exercise for both beginners and people who had done 3D modeling beforehand, since there was so much freedom when creating the crates. (It didn’t even have to be a crate!) The more experienced students could make a lot more advanced crates if they wanted, while the beginners could choose something easier. The different themes gave a lot of very good inspiration, and showed people new styles which maybe they hadn’t thought about earlier.

It was challenging, but you learn quickly. I liked that you had to plan a little bit ahead of time how you would go about creating the crate. What shapes you could start out with, and how many different shaped that you needed.