Context & Research

Mind Mapping Diorama Ideas

The reason that I made this mindmap is to discuss my initial ideas, and just to get my thoughts on paper. Before making this mindmap I already knew that I wanted to make a diorama so that part was already done, so instead of making a mindmap on what I should do for FMP as a whole, I decided to hone in on one section of it.

By making this Mindmap I rediscovered some thoughts for scenes that genuinely intrigue and inspire me. I got the idea for the Arcade and Lighthouse when I went to my grandparents and we revisited places that I used to go to when I was younger, the two main places were the Withernsea arcade and the Spurn Point lighthouse. Both scenes hold meaning to me, however, I ultimately chose the arcade, the lighthouse was a close second. Making this mindmap at the start of the topic has helped me start and stay on the right track as I have a clear understanding of what my end goal is.

ArtStation scenes

I didn't want to choose a scene that everyone thinks of like a Sci-fi corridor, or a Japanese sword, if done properly those scenes can look great, don't get me wrong, but, I feel like they're just overdone. After pondering for a while, I remembered an arcade that I went to when visiting family a few weeks back and it was instantly calling for me to model it. After searching through ArtStation, I found at least 100 arcade environments, but after searching for abandoned arcades, I found around 5 scenes. Seeing as there aren't many abandoned arcades on ArtStation, I decided to seize the opportunity and have my work stand out from the rest by choosing to make an abandoned arcade scene.

Shindy Leong

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Narrowing my search down to abandoned arcades, there were two scenes that stood out to me for various reasons. Shindy Leong's work stood out to me firstly because of how good it looks, but also the lighting. This style of lighting emits an aura of horror and almost triggers your fight or flight response. Shindy Leong hasn't written whether this scene was meant to be a horror scene or not, so it's left up to your imagination, which in some cases is even scarier. The assets and textures play a role in the fear factor, however, most of these emotions are coming from lighting which shows how well put together this scene is.

My only critique of this scene would be that I can tell that the dust isn't as realistic as the rest of the scene. I can see each group of particles, instead of it being one gathering of dust. This is a small issue as you have to look closely to even see it and the scene still looks good even if you notice the dust.

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Jack Tenda

This asset alone speaks for how well Jack Tenda is at texturing and modelling. If I didn't know any better, I could've mistaken this prop for a real-life arcade machine. Instead of randomly painting on the rust, Jack meticulously painted on the rust and grime around the edges, as if the rust has slowly built up within the weak points of the arcade machine. Currently, I'm not at a level to where I can create an asset at this standard, however, I'm definitely going to take the way Jake models and textures into consideration when I start texturing my assets for this project.

the assets shown in this picture above are closer to the level at which I'll be making my assets. From what I can see, the texturing isn't at that high of a level. This isn't to put his asset down, it still looks pretty good, however, adding some roughness variation, or imperfections throughout the assets can help give character and make the assets more interesting. If this were my scene, as I'm making an abandoned arcade, I would roughen up the assets and turn off the screen as there wouldn't be any power leading to the arcade machines. To exaggerate the theme of abandoned, I could add a crack going through the screen. Adding a layer of dust coating the tops of the arcade machines is a great indicator of how long the arcade has been sitting there. Even if I did end up making assets at that level, they'd be upgraded by adding lighting to the scene. I can guarantee that adding lighting to the scene above would upgrade the scene a few levels.

Art style research

Photorealism within video games relates to assets, textures, lighting, and graphics that mimic the appearance of real environments. Games over the last couple of years have slowly become more and more realistic, such as the Tomb Raider and Uncharted franchises respectively. Comparing the first Tomb Raider game to the current one, you can tell the difference.

The first Tomb Raider game was made in 1996, so it's no surprise that the graphics aren't as detailed as they are now, however, it's still interesting looking at the box covers for each game back to back. It's not a bad thing that there are more photorealistic games, I feel that there needs to be a mix-up of styles to keep the games new and fresh. Saying this, I am also planning to go with a photorealistic art style, as I want to challenge myself in this project, and I feel that photorealism is the key to a good challenge.

There are some techniques that I'll have to use to successfully create a photorealistic scene, which are, texturing, modelling, lighting, and even the placement of assets. On its own, texturing has to be the most important as even if the other aspects weren't added, with good textures, you could still tell that the asset or scene is photorealistic.

Of course, this isn't downplaying the importance of the other steps, as they are still very imperial to creating a convincing photorealistic scene. The placement of assets is indeed trumped in importance by texturing, modelling, and lighting, however, all of these skills are equally necessary as, without one of them, the scene crumbles.

Making my Ideas

As I had some spare time over half-term, I decided to make some mock-up versions of my four topics. These dioramas were made in MagicaVoxel which is a voxel (block) based 3D Modelling Software that I find fun to experiment with. It did take up a bit of my time over half-term; around 10-15 hours was used in making these dioramas, however, it will pay off in the long term as it has given me a solid template to follow. All I have to do now is make the assets, as I already have a world in mind that I simply need to copy in Maya.

I've ultimately decided on making the Arcade scene for my FMP. The arcade scene feels the most doable in the time frame as the other scenes have landscapes that I'd have to make which I haven't done before. As I'm more of a prop artist, the arcade seems to fit my skill set more than the other three ideas as they are leaning more toward an environment artist's job. The arcade scene shown below is subject to change since it is the first concept and I didn't put much thought into the placement of the assets. My main goal when making these mock-ups was to experiment with concepts and see which one 'speaks' to me.

SWOT Analysis

SWOT Summary

Writing a SWOT analysis helps me examine my strengths, acknowledge my weak points, and identify both opportunities and threats within this project. Knowing my current ability will allow me to grow in the aspects that I'm not as good at. Defining my limitations helps me set reasonable goals as it allows me to more accurately plan out how long I'll have to spend on each topic.

S

Strengths

I have a clear understanding of Autodesk Maya, Unreal Engine 5, MagicaVoxel, Substance Painter, and Photoshop; And have the work ethic to put this knowledge to good use. I also have the time management skills to apply these efficiently and effectively.

I can successfully work as a group and on my own which has been demonstrated in my multiple group projects in and outside of college. My research skills have developed tremendously over the last few years as a result of honing my skills and becoming more efficient.

W

Weaknesses

Being able to communicate my thoughts and ideas has for a long time been something that held me back, however, since coming to college, that has mostly changed as my communication skills have improved significantly and my public speaking has drastically gotten better.

My organisation has been something that has jeopardised me in the past as when you're not organised, it can slow your productivity down quite a bit. Also, if you ignore your organisation you're setting yourself up for failure as it's quite hard to organise everything halfway through the project.

O

Opportunities

I want to expand my software arsenal, and to do this I need to learn new software. Substance Painter (SP) is something that would help me out tremendously in this FMP and thought my Games Development career. SP is software used primarily for texturing assets and learning this software will level up my modelling and scene creation as I'll be able to give my scenes character and a backstory.

T

Threats

Burnout is something that you need to pay attention to as sometimes there is a thin line between getting work done and burning yourself out. Taking regular breaks or not doing too much of the same thing consecutively can help to prevent burnout. Finding a healthy balance between burnout and not doing enough work is key for most if not all work.

Project Proposal

Arcade History Research

When and why Arcades ran out of fashion

The late 1970s to mid-1980s was when arcade games got put on the map and were considered the Golden Age of arcade games. Arcade video game revenue in the US was $8 billion in 1981, however, that would be the peak for arcade games, as it dropped to $5 billion in 1983. Seemingly out of the blue, arcades had a comeback in 1991 with the release of Capcom's Street Fighter II, which popularized competitive fighting games and revived the arcade industry to a level of popularity not seen since the days of Pacman. By 2004 arcade revenues had dropped to $866 million, and that drop struck the end for arcades.

The arcade scene was filling with copies of popular games which diluted the number of good arcade games, leading to this sudden drop in revenue. Nowadays, almost all kids have some sort of game console that they can play games on, as these consoles are easily obtainable and kids can play them whenever they want, it takes the charm out of going to an arcade to play games. Another reason is that compared to today's graphics, the arcade graphics are a lot worse The western world has a severe shortage of arcades, however, the arcade scene in Japan is surprisingly still alive and well.

When looking for 1970s to 1980s arcade games, the three that stood out to me were Pacman, Space Invaders, and Asteroids. Pacman was made in 1980, Space Invaders was in 1978, and Asteroids was in 1979. So if I'm going to make this scene historically realistic, my scene should be anywhere from 1980 to now. If I'm going to use these three games in my scene, I'll have to partially change the names and designs to not run into any legal issues. For example not only will I have to change the name Pacman, but also the design. I could rename Pacman to "Wakman" for this scene, and maybe change his colour scheme or have him as a different shape to his characteristic circle.

Pitch presentation

Introduction

For my pitch, I made this PowerPoint to present my ideas. The reason why I have to pitch my idea is to verify whether I know what I'm going to do for my FMP. It is also to make sure I'm not planning to make something that I won't be able to complete in the time frame.

Reflection

I pitched my idea on the 18th of March, unlike the last FMP, we got to do our pitches in a proper presentation room. There were 7 of us and we all presented that day. Before standing up in front of everyone I was a bit scared, but I feel like everyone was at least a little bit nervous, however, Surprisingly, I wasn't that scared when standing up and pitching my idea. Overall, the pitch went quite well, and I didn't mess up any words. As I was only presenting in front of seven people, I shouldn't have been that nervous, however, instead of presenting in our usual classroom like we did last year, we moved into a proper presentation room.

Looking back on my pitch, I feel that I could've added more topics and if I allocated more time to making the pitch then it would've ended out better, however, I'm still happy with my outcome. I managed to get my idea across, however, that was thanks to my classmates asking questions at the end, as I don't think I had enough information on my presentation. From this pitch, I learned that I definitely need to allocate more time to topics that I may not understand or know what to do, and also I need to make a plan for subjects like these as in the long run, it's a massive time saver to make a plan that you can follow instead of winging it.

Areas to consider

From the feedback that I got given, the three main topics that got brought up were timescale, age rating, and a backup plan. I'd say the backup plan is the most important of the three, as it ensures that if I for whatever reason, I run out of time or change my mind throughout the production process, I have a fallback plan that I can change to. There's quite a high chance that I won't ever have to fall back on a backup plan, however, if I don't make one, and I do end up having to use one, then it would be a massive time consumer coming up with an idea and then making it.

Timescale is a close second in priority, as they are both similarly important, however, creating a backup plan takes longer and you have to come up with an idea, test to see if it's plausible and fit it into the remaining time you have left. Compared to creating a timescale which only takes around an hour or so. Lastly, age rating can be thought about close to the end of the project as it doesn't change much, as long as you weren't looking to make, for example, a family-friendly game, which turned out to have blood and gore.

Surveys & Responses

Changes

I was originally planning on making my scene in a realistic art style, however, considering the survey results, I may want to change that. As of right now, there are only a few responses, but despite that, the art style question is leaning heavily towards stylised instead of my initial idea of Photorealistic. I'll have to take these survey results so far with a grain of salt as I would need a larger sample size for a more accurate result, and to eliminate any anomalies within the result. I will come back to the survey results at a later date.

Coming back a week later, the results have increased in number, however, the results have mainly stayed the same. As I've started my practical work, it's best to know the answers to the survey above so I can make changes to my initial idea if I need to. Question 3, 4, and 6 have been solidified and going off these results, my scene will be based in 2022, I'm intending to have my art style as photorealistic, however, if that plan doesn't work out, my backup will be a stylised art style, it will definitely be presented with a high-resolution screenshot and if I have time I will also present in a 3D turntable animation.