The Years Between
Context
For my first project, the introduction to 2D and 3D skills, I have to make a game environment for a sequel to the game "The Gardens Between" called "The Years Between".
The game must be set in either the 70s, 80s or 90s era and have at least 4 fully modelled objects in them from the chosen era. To do this I will need to use 3Ds Max, Photoshop and Unreal Engine.
What is "The Gardens Between"
The Gardens Between is an indie puzzle game developed by an Australian studio called "The Voxel Agents" on the Unity engine and released on 19th September 2018. It is available on platforms such as: Switch, Android, IOS, Windows and Linux.
The game is focused around the teenagers Arina and Frendt, a girl and boy who live next door to each other and have become close friends since Arina's family moved into the area. One rainy night, the two sneak out and hide in their treehouse, built on a small garden square next to both houses. In the midst of a rainstorm, they see a light sphere form in front of them, which suddenly causes the treehouse to fall into a vast dream ocean with small islands made up of their shared experiences.
The game has lots of fairly positive reviews, for example,
79% Metacritic
3/5 Eurogamer
8/10 Gamespot
4/5 The Guardian
9.5/10 Gaming Trend
As well as lots of positive feedback from its community.
The team consists of:
Henrik Pettersson - Game Director
Soft Science - Art Director
Matt Clark - Tech Director and Executive Producer
Josh Alan Bradbury - Designer and Animator
Brooke Maggs - Writer and Producer
Tim Shiel - Musician
Simon Joslin - Executive Producer and Level Designer
David Little - Programmer
Jessica Brett - 3D Modeller
Daniel Olsen - Audio Designer
Jackson Wood - Additional Programmer
Sam Wong - Additional Programmer
Maya Kerr - Additional Programmer
90s Decade Research
(Pop Culture, Technology, Fashion, Gaming Devices, etc.)
References:
(Interview)
Popular films and tv shows included things such as; Seinfeld, Rugrats, The Simpsons, Beavis & Butthead, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Forrest Gump, Star Wars: Episode 1 and The Titanic.
The handheld digital pet device "Tamagotchi" and the game called "Pogs" became especially popular games among children during the decade. Rollerblades were also popular among children and teenagers. Goosebumps debuted in the early 90s and The Harry Potter Book Franchise Debuted in the late 90s.
Doc Martens shoes became a popular fashionable item, heavily introduced by the "grunge" music scene, which in itself became popular in the 90s.
Hairstyles like "The Rachel", Hi-top fade and curtained haircuts increased in popularity due to media at the time. VHS tapes and Walkmen were also used throughout the 90s.
Video game consoles released in this decade included the SNES, Game Boy, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, The Original PlayStation, N64 and the Dreamcast.
Some of the most popular games of the 90s include: Super Mario World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong Country, Yoshi's Island, Mortal Kombat III, Pokémon Red and Blue, Pokémon Yellow, Pokémon Gold and Silver, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64 and The Legend of Zelda.
90s Culture Interview
During my interview, I asked more specifically about 90s pop culture and 'what makes the 90s, the 90s'; from there, I was told about popular shows and items that I could model for this project. As for shows, 'The Wombles' and 'Only Fools and Horses' we're the ones mentioned and, even though they weren't released in the 90s, they we're very popular around the time with Only Fools and Horses being noted as "The best comedy show to date".
As well as this, some items that were mentioned we're 'Platform Shoes', 'Troll dolls' and 'Dummy Necklaces'. Platform Shoes are shoes, boots, heels or sandals with a very thick sole (usually around 3-10cm. Troll dolls are small collectable plastic figures with tall, colourful, puffed-up hair depicting a troll. Dummy Necklaces was a 90s trend started by Robbie Williams, who had a metal dummy as a necklace; however, most people that copied the trend used plastic ones.
Everything else mentioned in the interview has already been stated in my personal research.
Mood Boards
90s Decade
Level Design
Planning and Concepts
Model/Scene ideas:
1) Titanic themed scene with models including: half the boat, lifeboats, broken funnels and an iceberg.
2) Fashion scene full of shoes, clothes and jewellery previously mentioned.
3) A 90s concert theme with bright colourful backgrounds and darker/monochrome models.
4) A playground scene full of childhood trends from the time. (e.g. Dummy necklaces, Pogs, Troll Dolls, Tamagotchi)
5) A console themed island with models from the mario and pokemon games.
Playground Scene Models:
Slide
Pogs
Tamagotchi
Walkman
Game Boy
Final Island Design Models:
Game Boy
SNES Controller
Pacifier Necklace
Dr Martens
Island Drawn Concept Art
This is my concept art for my island., as you will see, most of how the island looks now will translate into my finished project, however, some things that have been changed include; a lack of flora and nature as a whole, the string of the pacifier necklace has been removed for a more desired scale, the wire of the SNES Controller is behind the island not in front and there are a lot more rocks surrounding the island, none of which with a ramp as depicted. Overall, this concept art was the basis of the model island to come.
3D Modelling and Texturing Theory
When 3D modelling, there are a few core principals that you need to model well. These include: vertexes, edges and polygons:
Vertexes are a point in 3D space, similar to a 'corner' - you need at least 3 to create a polygon.
An edge is the line that connects two vertexes together (the distance between two vertexes).
A polygon is a 'face' on a shape. It is the area of space in between vertexes on the same plane.
A border is a sequence of edges with polygons on only one side.
In this model I made a sword. I did this by starting with a cube (as the pommel). From this I selected the top edges and connected them together to make a smaller polygon face on the top of the cube. I extruded this smaller cube to make the handle then slightly extruded it a bit more to create edges between the end of the handle and the start of the guard. I extruded the sides of the top cube to make the width of the guard. To finalise the guard I selected the bottom edges at the end of the guard and moved them up to connect them with the top edges, to give it more of a point. To make the blade I extruded upwards from the original base of the guard until it was long enough. Finally, I selected the vertexes at the top of the blade and moved them inwards to make the blade look sharper.
Texture Types
These are a mix of textures from and my own images. We went around the college campus taking our own images of different surfaces to try and create our own textures at a level as professional as we could.
From taking pictures of random objects, there are a lot of problems that it creates. For example, an immediate problem is lighting since we can't manipulate the light to make it all even and objects around it casting shadows, including the phone to take the picture can easily ruin a good texture picture. Not only that but making a texture seamless from a photo can be basically impossible with certain materials that aren't uniform.
However, for a first attempt trying to take texture map photos, it is hard to tell the real textures from the fakes.
Crate Modelling And (unique/original) UVW Texturing Test
This was my first time texturing a model in 3Ds max. This method did not involve unwrapping but using colour, reflection, normal maps and assigning each to the side of an object. For an easy introduction we modelled a crate, using photoshop to make the design and exporting it as a map into 3Ds Max. We then rendered the crate using the 'Arnold' method.
90s Typography
90s Typography has a common theme of bold, capital text with bright, block colours. There is also excessive use of punctuation such as "...", "?" and "!".
The text is also not very organised and tends to be in multiple places around the sentence, every group of words having their own colour/font.
The text seems very 'relaxed' and has more of a laid back and social tone than a serious one.
90s Game Box Art Analysis
This box art is for the game 'Doom'.
It is a fps game where you shoot waves of demons. The box art shows the protagonist in the centre of the image, shooting back at demons crawling up to him. The protagonist is massively outnumbered which makes us root for them. This also portrays the demons as weak but numerous which might make it seem fun to defeat them.
The doomslayer standing above the demons is also symbolism for his actions be more morally correct than that of the demons.
The Years Between Game Logo
Using the previous research on 90s typography, the 90s, The Gardens Between and practise on the "Crimewave" templates, I created this for the game logo.
The logo has a clear palette of 'cool' yet flashy block colour that seems to shine from the top left. The font is chosen to give a sense of elegance and cleanliness.
At first it seemed quite plain with just text so i added the footsteps to be the 'p' in 'step' and fill the scene.
This is a concept poster I made using photoshop.
I got the lasso tool and made a box with an uneven top that covered the width of the canvas, I filled in the selection with a dark green and moved the top to near the bottom of the canvas.
I repeated this process, filling it in with a more saturated green each time and making it slightly higher but on the layer behind. This created horizon lines.
After that I got the gradient tool and made an orange to white gradient going down for the backdrop, I then made an orange to green gradient and placed it on the top layer at a low opacity to add depth and lighting.
Finally I got a tree brush template and painted trees onto each of the horizons, getting smaller each time and copying the colour of the horizon line it was on.
Critical Analysis - Portal Franchise
Graphical Asset Research and Inspiration
These are posters and graphical assets from 'The Gardens Between' and other indie franchises. They all follow a similar art style and themes. With a more cartoony and less realistic style that doesn't take away from the game itself and is an easy and fun style to work in. They all have an atmosphere of mystery and darkness which works well with this style.
Production
Asset 1: Game Boy
This was the first asset I made, for this model I started with a plane with a texture of a game boy to get the proper scales and sizes of all the parts of a game boy. From there I got the sizes of all the pieces and modelled them to fit each other. Next, I duplicated all of the components on the base and used the scale tool and Boolean modifier to create holes in the base for the button to fit in. Finally I used photoshop to create the textures and extra details that the Game Boy would have.
Asset 2: SNES Controller
For the SNES controller I started with a cylinder and extruded part of it, the smoothed it out to create the base of the controller. Then, similar to the game boy, made all the buttons and components to go on, then used the scale tool and Boolean modifier to create holes in the base for the buttons to go in, then textured the smaller details onto the base and button outlines. While the method was similar to the game boy I think that the SNES Controller was a better model and, in my opinion, the best I made.
Asset 3: Doc Martens
For the Dr Martens shoe I started with a rectangle for the sole of the shoe and then extruded the top and adjusted the edges to create a shoe-like basic asset.. I then chamfered the entire shoe to make it less blocky. I then got another rectangle for the back of the shoe and extruded it around the sides to create the outer leather of the shoe. I then created and duplicated multiple tori to create the shoelaces... I then used 3 texture maps; one for the sole, one for the shoe and one for the laces. Overall, this is my least favourite model.
Asset 4: Pacifier Necklace
For the pacifier necklace model I got a sphere and extruded the top up and then out to create the handle barrier. I then got a torus and shaped it to create the handle. While creating the model is fairly simple the texturing is where the model becomes more complicated as I used a stained glass window texture at a lower opacity with glass maps for reflection, normal and displacement maps at a low opacity to create the 90s aesthetic that the pacifier necklaces had in my research.
Final Island Renders
These are the renders of my final island after everything has come together from 3 different perspectives. Overall, my favourite model to create was the SNES controller and my least favourite was the Dr Martens shoe. I like how the models and the island work together to create a playable environment. If I could improve something I would change the island to make it seem more in the style of the gardens between with less detail, more jagged edges and grass on the top.
Research Methods Evaluation
Evaluation
Context
When having to coming up with a final idea for my island I wanted to find a way to not only fit everything in the scene but create a playable environment in the process. I focused on how I could use the objects to traverse the scene, using them as ramps and obstacles and places to land; which is what I did with the Game Boy, SNES Controller and Pacifier. And after adding those the island looked very basic in shape so I used the last object (A Doc Martens Shoe) to give the island a more unique shape to hold it and everything just seemed to fit well. I was inspired by the 90s decade research of the games industry for the Game Boy and SNES Controller and for the pacifier necklace and Doc Martens I was inspired by the 90s interview I did, as it seemed to give the island more variety than just game development.
I think I stayed fairly true to my original concept art, only changing the string of the pacifier necklace as, with the scale I wanted, the string would be too long or too disproportionate to fit the scene effectively. Other than that I feel like I copied it as much as I could to the best of my ability.
Now that the project is complete, my understanding of the product I wanted to make is far better now I can picture it visually, it gave me a better understanding of what makes good level design and it would easily allow me to brainstorm more assets and levels for a sequel to The Gardens Between.
Research
When conducting my research of assets I could model from the 90s I wanted to focus on items from a variety of themes and ended up focusing on the games industry (as that only seemed fitting) and fashion, as that was a big part of what made the 90s, the 90s.
I think my research, while covering in detail the things I wanted to, didn't have a lot of room for improvisation as I focused a lot on a single idea from the beginning but luckily the idea I focused on worked out very well in my opinion.
My research very heavily influenced most of my project as I only really had the idea of the Game Boy and general Island shape/texture beforehand. Having all the research open to me allowed me to pick the object that would synergise the best to create a good island scene under the specification.
The research allowed me to create a unique scene with a unique concept from scratch... from the rocks to the water to the assets themselves were all made through research of the decade, interviews, or modelling tutorials online.
Planning and Production
I ensured my planning was the best of my ability by using multiple methods of planning and spaced out the times I planned, this would ensure my plan covered all the bases I wanted without me forgetting it.
Overall I think that the drawn concept art of my island was the most useful tool that I used as it set the standard and basis of what would eventually become my island and there are clear similarities between the plan and the final render since when I modelling most of the assets, I had the plan clear in my head.
I think my planning was thorough enough for what I intended from the beginning, however - just like the research, it didn't leave a lot of room for improvisation if something went wrong or I changed my mind, luckily though, that didn't happen and everything turned out good, in my opinion.
Production went fairly smoothly however, in future projects, I would rather prepare for the worst or multiple outcomes than prepare very well for my original plan.
Problem Solving
This was the first time we used a lot of the programs we used for this unit including 3Ds Max, citethisforme.com, wix.com, Mudbox so not only did we have to create these models but we had to learn these programs too. Most of the problems came from the beginning when we had to learn how to navigate the UI and environment and after that initial hurdle the only other problems I seem to run into were server-side (software) problems or texturing problems which I was able to overcome fairly decently.
The only problem I couldn't overcome was a problem with my planning where the pacifier necklace had to be larger than I originally planned for meaning if I added the string that I planned for, the pacifier itself would be in the water or seem too big for the string so I ended up having to compromise and not include the string.
Through all the problems that came from texturing I was able to learn how to unwrap, texture and apply the texture to my models constructively and with success.
Practical Skills
Throughout this unit I have learned how to use programs such as 3Ds Max and Mudbox from scratch and I have thoroughly improved my photoshop skills. I have not only learnt how to model an object with decent complexity but also texture it and export it.
Creating models and textures will be a very important skill in upcoming units as you cant develop a game without something to develop and this unit has taught me how to create environments and props.
I was able to utilise tutorials and the programs given to us for free to create everything on this unit as well as certain websites like Poliigon that had free textures we could use.
Out of all of the skills this unit gave us, learning how to use 3Ds max was definitely the most valued and useful for future projects as it is the basis for everything else.
Presentation
when presenting the final render of my island, my focus was on lighting and camera angle. I wanted to choose the places that would show the most model and detail without obscuring something else, as well as the lighting not reflecting in a way that made certain aspects harder to see. in the end my two best views were simply a front view and plan view.
Overall I got good feedback of my wix and my models however, the island itself could use some additional materials and some more flora. I agree with the feedback I received completely and, from an outside perspective, would have given myself the same response.
The Final Product
In my final project I think that the two strongest sections are the water and the SNES controller, both assets have been modelled and textures will skill above the others as the water is a plane with a high noise modifier and a seamless water texture and the SNES model is a fairly complicated model with good texturing where required.
Comparing my final product to my plans, there are a few improvements/changes that took place, first of all the pacifier necklace no longer has a string and that is because the string made the pacifier look disproportionate to the string as it had to be shortened so it didn't sink in the water, overall I think this made the project better. Secondly, due to a time constraint there is no grass, no trees and no nature; I think this would've made the project look better and would definitely be added as an improvement, if I had the choice. Finally, there is no ground surrounding the rocky island and I think I prefer it this way as it allows the water to fully surround the model and make it look more like an island.
To conclude, I think this product is suitable for its intended audience as it is set in the 90s era and has 4 fully modelled objects in them from my chosen era; all of which are modelled and textured on a decent level that could be a playable environment in a sequel to 'The Gardens Between'. Not only that, it was created alongside a Logo based on 90s typography and poster based on Indie aesthetic - both of which pair well with the project as a whole.