A potential change in direction?

After several long discussions, we decided we wanted the space man to be able to grow things. Plant mushrooms, bring long dead flowers back to life, etc.

As we only have skeletal animation working in the engine, I had a bit of a play at animating a growing tree skeletally.

This is only a test, it likely will look a whole lot better in game, but the point is that it worked.

Stage 4 - Concept Art

This is a stage I felt was important as to clarify and sum up the groups characterization of the Spaceman, we wanted to convey his identity in a strong way to our audience. I wanted to communicate and underline some key features here. Design, Characterization, Humor and interaction. It was also a way for me to present to the group my ideas for the textures of the Spaceman's suit.

Stage 3 - Weapon Design

I spent a long time trying to really push this design.I felt that perhaps a simple door composed of a simple slab of metal would be boring to look at for hours on end. I also didn't want it to dominate the viewers viewpoint whilst steering the avatar. Obviously the bottom design here is a prime example of something I wanted to avoid, it was my first concept. The top 2 designs where best examples of my finished design. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how this weapon would interact with the avatar in animation. I set requirements for myself being:

1. It should be fairly compact as not to hinder viewer line of sight
2. Its width needs to be narrow enough that when the character runs, his elbows do not collide or conflict with the weapon.
3. It should be large enough to look like it could squish bugs with.
4. Large enough to give the character a sufficient attack radius.
5. Incorporate some way for this item to be used as a platform

Obviously I worked out fairly early that some of these design requirements conflicted with one another. Therefore I experimented with the idea of the bulkhead being able to animate. This way I could make sure that it would fit all these requirements.

My ideal finished design would have had the spaceman turn the handle of the bulkhead to expand the panels. This would make it larger in order to give him a larger attack radius and a bigger platform.

Stage 2 - Character Conception 3

I set to work on the 3rd round of character design, I really tried to stay true to the idea of an 'ipod' . I wanted to give this character some sort of identity so I experimented for sometime with different logos on the spaceman's suit, I thought that this would help characterize him as roguish imp with a very easily identifiable persona. The logo idea was since dropped. However I feel its something that I may try to introduce in the future, arm patches etc, I think this might give him a sort of untold back story.

Stage 2 - Character Conception 2

I spent quite a lot of time on different designs, experimenting with different designs for this character. 'Blue Fuzzy', as I refure to him, was a design I was really happy with however this did not meet the groups criteria. At the time I was also working on slides for the Design document, when my 'Blue Fuzzy' design was rejected, Scott picked out the simple silhouette from the document and referred me back to that. The design he envisioned was far simpler. The group would use words like 'ipod' and 'mac' in referral to the spaceman's design.

Stage 2 - Character Conception

When it came to the character design my initial concept started with a man in a suit with no predetermined features to give the group an idea of the proportions. The group was happy with this, so I wanted to push this design further . my thoughts where for a character a little like 'Rachet' from 'Rachet and Clank'. I wanted to create something that the player could instantly recognize as 'cute but mischievous' with almost a slightly menacing aura.

Stage 1 - Identity creation

To give our games group a degree of professionalism we decided to create a logo. I wanted this logo to reflect our groups fun and quirky mannerisms, I breifly covered a few options for the logo. Exploring with different images in the logos creation also set the way for our art direction in some ways. The cartoon like stylization carried though to the game itself.

Another bug!

Just doing some texturing in the break to keep my brain afloat; not 100% happy with this and will probably tweak it later on. His middle is all sorts of vague in my head.

I like his bum though, hehe.

Character Development: Part 04

As the main character had to be extensively animated, a comprehensive rig was required.



Animations produced for the character include; a walk cycle, idle cycle, jump, arm weapon, disarm weapon, and attack. The rig was updated to include an additional bone coming from the left wrist and a controller that manipulated the translations and rotations of this bone. Joints were added to the weapon in positions that could be anchored to the spaceman's wrist bone or backbone depending on weather the weapon was drawn.

Character Development: Part 03

Our characters primary mode of attack is using a makeshift weapon, specifically the very hatch that falls from his ship as it crashes.

High polygon versions of both the spaceman and bulkhead weapon meshes were created. From these, ambient occlusion maps were baked and used in texture creation.