Creating Barrels and Crates

Over the holidays we had to make Barrels and Crates which are seen in almost every game.

We had to make a crate and barrel in medieval, industrial or sci-fi style.
I chose Medieval and Industrial.
For Medieval I looked at these,

Skyrim

Dragon Age



















Kingdoms of Amalur Reckoning








And here are the ones I made.

Next was the Industrial.

 Sadly the creator of this is unknown but it is definitely from a game engine. The subtle patterning on the barrel creates a real feeling of rust and the soft muted colours give a real sense of age.


















Fallout 3
This box is much sharper, and the colours though softer, are brighter creating a newer metallic look, but still with the touches of rust.










My versions.

As you can see I haven't got my colours soft enough here to create the realistic look I'm looking for. To do this I will use a filter in Photoshop.

"Joy" - Legend of Zelda Wind Waker

I first played this on the Nintendo Gamecube as a 9/11 year old and was a huge fan of the series. In fact   I'm still a great fan of Link and Zelda. This game is very long due to the fact of the area 'Great sea' but gives the gamer the chance to have fun exploring the 'world'. The story is different and exciting though  the were some areas which felt reminiscent of the Ocarina of Time. The game also took on a cell shaded approach which was a two edged sword which was a nice change, but they over did the 'cartoon' effect look which fans didn't like.

I personally still absolutely love the art in this game and it's style, but they could have added a bit more detail and used slightly less bold colours; However this simplicity gave it a fun/happy aura compared to the last games which were the Ocarina of Time(OoT) and Majora's Mask(MM) which are really good games but are quite dark really and have different moods indicated by the more subtle use of colour. These the last games, because of their realism and their portraying of dark-ish stories lack the fun of Wind Waker. Sadly Wind Waker was not a huge success because of contrast between OoT and the dark story of MM.  Lots of fans disliked it's "child like" simplicity, possibly it was targeted wrongly and should have been targeted at younger children. I enjoyed it but felt the "Great Sea" area was a bit too big which made that part of the adventure somewhat boring.

I'm planning for my work for using Windfall Island from Wind Waker as a reference because my theme - 'Joy' is a tricky one. I must get the mood perfect to create the emotion, both in my use of colour and of atmosphere. When playing this game i remember that the sensation created by being on the island was one of real fun and it felt a joyful place, which fits my scene.

Windfall island - The setting for this level is a peaceful thriving market town which lies on a island surrounded by the "Great sea". The most notable feature within the town is the ferris wheel which is also a lighthouse there are many shops including a potions shop and a bomb shop. There is also a school, a cafe, a jail house, and an auction house on the island.
I remember all the mini games on this island, one was to play 'hide and seek' with 5 children as a challenge, and bidding at the auction house was fun, along with the 'battleships' game and all the wacky characters included in the game. Consequently, I believe this is a good place to get inspiration for my level.

Anton a NPC (Non playable character) say's "Our windfall Island may be a cozy, sort of speak, but people from all over the world come here. The town's always lively."  This is a useful quote which concisely sums up what i want in my level.

"Joy" - Skyrim

Skyrim is a name of a game created by Bethesda. Within the game Skyrim is place in the north region of Tamriel set in the Elder Scrolls series. It's a great RPG (role playing game) and a good place to start after using  Unity game engine and the terrain tool because I felt I was ready to make my own version of Skyrim using different terrain types, tundra plains, forests, and Mountainous regions.

I love this game because of the amount of detail in the world and various tasks to preform, plus the self contained stories to experience, in addition to the main story.

Any good detective, or adventure story needs sub-plots to weave within the main story line to create a depth of interest which will hold the game players attention. In addition to this you need a visual "wow".   because of this"wow" factor the above picture shows really solid composition using an underlying cross shape with a strong base created by adding darker, almost black trees. The white light can be read as sunrise or sunset but also as infinity, leaving the viewer a sense of wonder.

in the picture I was looking at Skyrim's hard textures and hard edges. On a closer a look there are some  visual flaws e.g. when you walk up to a building it becomes grainy. While doing texturing myself, using Maya and Unity, I found that I can do textures similar to Skyrim but as yet cannot improve on this grainy problem. Obviously Skyrim is much bigger and more detailed than my present work but as it  looks amazing, it is ideal to use as a model.

I looked at small villages and cities to get more ideas for my Joyful area, Whiterun is the first city you come across in Skyrim (following main story) it is a small peaceful place which is full of life and interesting things to see with many shops in the "wind district" (lower half of the city) 

The picture above is the city, it has a Mod (modification) on it to make it look better and I thought it would be better to look at the modded versions of the city to see how they have been improved.  I will use these ideas in my level rather than the pre-set( before modded) version of Whiterun. Interestingly the cross composition has been used again in this "shot" of the city with the house at the back forming the centre of the cross this is done more subtlety then in the landscape but it creates a strong triangle for the shape of the road which leads you into the scene. I need to think about similar compositions in my level.

My Theme "Joy"

For this project we have to decide on a theme between Happiness, Joy, Fear, Disgust, and Awe. To me Happiness and Joy are internal emotions where as i feel Fear, Dis, And Awe tend to be emotions which are imposed upon you
I chose Joy, because it is a very strong emotion. I also felt not many people will chose it, therefore an unusual choice of title to make my level slightly more interesting.  The other emotions can be caused/shown or portrayed by lots of different things e.g. images of something vile or a view from atop of a hill. Joy can't, because it's an emotion which is personal and unique to every one. Festivals create Joy so i felt the best way to portray Joy to get my viewer to experience a festival.