3D Class – Week 2

This is my post for the 2^nd week of 3D class, featuring the three crates I did in class. I had planned to write this some weeks ago, but it has been very stressful with surprise assignments and other school work, so sadly these 3D blogposts had to wait.

Anyway, here are the descriptions of the themes and the crates that I made based on those themes:

Cartoony:
When I think of the theme cartoony, I immediately think about bright colours and clear organic shapes. The graphics are often pretty simple when it comes to details, and everything is more of a caricature than a “realistic” rendition. Most cartoony games are aimed at children and therefore the graphics needs to be non-threatening and cheerful. (Rounded and simple shapes are safe and soft, while complex geometric shapes feel threatening.)

Examples of cartoony games are Mario Kart (and most of the other Super Mario games) and the Katamari Damacy series:

Both games are very bright and colourful, but they have their differences as well.

The graphics of the Katamari games have a lot less detail compared to Mario Kart, and most of the colours seems to be a bit tinted and therefore not as bright (which gives it a pastel colour look).

You can see shadows and light clearly in the Mario Kart screenshot, while it’s not as easy in the Katamari screenshot. The shadows are merely hinted on some objects, and they don’t create any strong contrasts between light and shadow. So even though they are connected by the cartoony theme, the graphical style of games can vary a lot even within the same theme.

When I began working on my cartoony crate, I imagined it being a box containing some sort of power-up or item, which the player has to break in order to obtain that item. I wanted it to stand out, so I added the pointy details on the sides. I also divided the model up a bit so that I could choose different colours for the different parts. (It was mostly for fun and of no practical value.)

I was thinking about the Smash Bros. game series and Mario Kart while I was making this one, so perhaps this crate would fit in a game of any of those types?

Urban Contemporary:
I’m not really sure on this one, but if I were to describe what I think that the theme “urban contemporary” means, I would say that it’s a theme that focuses on the common, “ordinary” everyday life.

Games of this theme are usually about the lives of the characters, eventful or uneventful, and set in a city where the environments change depending on in what part of the city you’re in. The objects are things that you find in the city, such as: street lights, garbage bins, mailboxes etc. Everything is more or less created by humans, and unless there are parks or trees in the city, it’s a very geometric and inorganic environment.

The colour schemes tend to be a bit duller or at least feature a lot more greys (due to asphalt and concrete), but there are a good share of games with bright colour schemes as well.

Two examples of urban contemporary games are Heavy Rain and The Sims series:

In the game Heavy Rain, the player gets to explore many different city environments throughout the game. In general they’re very dark and dull when it comes to colour schemes, but it’s to support the feeling of the story. In the beginning of the game, the colours were a lot brighter, but due to a tragic event that turns the main character’s world upside down, the everyday life gets grey and depressing which is reflected in the environments.

The Sims games (The Sims 2 pictured above) features a lot of everyday objects both in town environments and neighbourhood environments since the game is about creating characters and a world to explore around them. The colours are a lot brighter compared to Heavy Rain, but it’s because it’s a game that’s aimed for a broader audience and also younger audience.
One of the reasons that I chose these two games as examples is because The Sims can be seen as simplified realism while Heavy Rain is conventional realism, and it shows that the games can vary a lot within the theme.

When I began thinking about creating a crate based on the theme, a certain type of garbage bin popped into my mind that’s common in bigger cities.

They’re usually a bit less decorated, and with more rounded edges and shapes, but I wanted to try and come up with a bit different design. I think that it could fit in either an old-fashioned town or in the “classy” parts of a city. I thought of it as an object for the Sims 2 while making it.

Medieval:
Medieval games are set in the middle ages, and are often in the style of conventional realism or simplified realism. It’s not unusual for a game to be a combination between fantasy and medieval.

The graphics often have very detailed textures to show the dirt and wear and tears on the objects, and to have an “earthy” colour scheme featuring a lot of browns and greens. There are seldom “clean” environments in medieval games, and most environments look dirty or affected by nature.

For this theme, I chose Zelda: Twilight Princess and Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles as examples. They’re the kinds of games that I think of as “medieval”, and were the ones that I had in mind while coming up for a crate for this theme.

They’re both in the style of simplified realism, but still have a lot of details and textures compared to the cartoony examples mentioned earlier, which makes them leans a bit towards conventional realism.

I choose to create a treasure chest for this theme, and even tried to make a keyhole for its lock. I thought a lot about the treasure chests from the Zelda games, but wanted to make it a slight bit broader than they usually are. Just as with the cartoony box I divided up the different parts to be able to change colour on them for fun.

Note: Since I’m writing this post a few weeks later than intended, I can say that this model went under a change for the following weeks because of some problems, but it will be discussed in one of the upcoming posts.

Conclusion:
I thought that this was a very good exercise since every student, pro or newbie at 3D, could decide for themselves how advanced or simple they wanted to create their crates. I haven’t been working in 3D that much at all before, and I had some troubles here and there when it came to some of the crates.

The problems were mostly because I wanted to try out something that was a bit too difficult for me to do, so I just had to lower my ambitions a bit and go for a simpler approach. I really learnt a lot about 3D with this exercise, but it will take some time before I can feel confident in the programs and the medium.

When it comes to improving as a game artist and thinking about the elements of art, visual styles and themes in games, I feel that it will probably take some time before I’ve grasped it all, but that the knowledge that I’ve learnt will be very useful in my work. I’ve thought about some of the elements of art in games before and recognized themes, but there’s still much that I need to learn to analyse in games.

About Rebecka Nyström

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