I was lucky to get my 3D printing outcomes today, after 2-3 weeks of waiting I can finally collect my project.

I was satisfied with my end result, as the final product is in the correct size and fine quality.

This is my second time using Zbrush for coursework, I have developed some new skills during the practice on my own.

I’m designing a doll’s head, that I expected to design a face with a next-generation quality mod, which I have reached this level quality with a high-poly mod.

And this head is designed in a traditional Ball-jointed-doll (BJD) style, inside of the head should be empty for eyeball replacing purpose.

By using the Boolean system in Zbrush enable me to cut a hole inside the head and the eyes.

To resize the model for 3D printing, I have two approaches for it:

1.  Zbrush has its own plug-in for sizing the model under the Zplugin toolbar > 3D print Exporter.
2. The way I prefer is to use the official software Ultimaker Cura from Ultimaker 3D printer. By using this tool you have more adjustment option for your project.

I have chosen this project as one of my development projects, as I’m enjoying the working process and be able to work on something in real life.

For further development, I would like to make other parts of the doll and then print it out using the different material & printer. (I used SLS printer for this head, I would like to try SLA printer with resin.)

 

[Project post]

I will talk about the use of colour and the theory behind it as a reflection of my practical project;  technical wizardry. This post contains my working methodology and some digital painting technique that I discovered.

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 Brightness

Brightness is one of the most important elements that define the composition in a piece of drawing, the object’s layout, light&shadow and the geometry relationship. So we often start a painting from a grayscale sketch. this technique is called Grisaille, has been widespread in the 19th century.

In my case, I also recommend using this method as the start of the painting. AS in the early stage, the most important things is to get the composition and the relationship between light&dark correctly.

In this painting, I have placed the character in a backlight position.

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Colour constancy & environmental light

To make your painting interesting, you need to learn how to dealing with the colour constancy. Everybody has the common sense of “The sky is blue, the roses are red”, and this stereotype is the main cause of the boring colour combinations. To solve this problem, the only ways is to observe the natural world, an example:  the skylight is the main factor that affects the colour that you observe, but you might not notice that during early morning the skylight (sunlight) is yellow, during the daytime is blue, and in the evening is red/orange.

Thanks for modern technology, we don’t have to work out what colour that you see is under which type of skylight (think about the Gold or Blue Dress Quiz, it can be very confusing).

Adobe Photoshop can complete the process for us, just by adding one layer of “skylight” colour with the [multiply] blend mode. (layer>layer style>blending option)

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Colour Wheel and HSB colour system

The colour wheel has been first introduced by Issac Newton in his book “Opticks” in 1704, he rolled the spectrum around in a circle, to make the relationship between each colour more straightforward. Base on this colour theory, people have invented many different colour systems (e.g. Lab, RBG, CMYK) but I like the HSB system the most.

Give a better example in actual software:

For some recommend drawing technique on drawing highlight and shadow by using this colour system:

• Always adjust the Hue value a little bit, rather than only adjusting the Brightness value to create the light and shadow effect.

 

you can see the difference between only adjusting the Brightness value and adjusting both B and H value.

I have done two drawings using the above methods for the same character, I hope you can feel the difference.

(Only adjust the brightness value)

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(Adjust the hue and brightness value)

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Reference:

[1]Newton, I., 1730. Opticks:: Or, A Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light. 1st ed. Oxford University: William Innys at the West-End of St. Paul’s.,

 

 

Back to my old playground, 2D concept art. As my usual working pipeline, I started with analysis the colour combination that I’m using, the reason of starting with the colour is in many games especially in MMORPG, the new skin /costume updating every season are expecting to have the same theme, usually can be identified with colour & style. The colour is an easier way to start with as it creates the mood.

Some of my previous work of character costume design has more detail, contains front and back, also the section that allows players to edit ( e.g. the clothes dying system in-game.)

(my previous work on character design)

  When I decide the theme of colour and what clothing style I’m going for, I was trying to look deeper into music. I would like to design something more than music but has another layer of connection with music, the inspiration I found is from the musical and opera.

In MMORPG and other games, character costume design is very popular to borrow the characters’ image from famous fiction/story and adapted in the game character as an alternative version. For example, the Overwatch Roadhog Halloween skin has used the Frankenstein as an inspiration.

For some further development, I will add more details to my design, including the front&back look of the costume, detailed character hair design, their approximate height and many more.

[Project post]

To be honest, this project is the most simple project for this semester so far. That we have been given a guide on how to do it and we don’t have to work on our pre-existing knowledge.

The lighting tutorial has been given during the lecture by Mark (our tutor), and the sample template can be downloaded from the Unreal 4 official website. I haven’t experienced any difficulty during my working process, and I’m happy with my final outcome.

This is the second time that I work with Unreal 4, with a better understanding of this software I have been able to combine different lighting system in one map without disturb between each lighting.

For further development, I would like to create my own environment and set up the lighting. However, there is not enough time for this week and I have to stop there.

Also, remember the importance of light map and UV can affect the lighting as well in Unreal 4, but I have to learn more about 3D modelling & material before I can start to learn about unwarp UV and UV layout.

[Project post]

This is one of my favourite projects, in this project we have been asked to working about our childhood memories. There are a lot of things that we can work with (e.g. environment, level designing), but I would like to try something different with last week. I start to think about what means the most to me during my childhood, a place? a game with my friends? a TV program I have watched? And finally, I have decided to make a “Childhood land” with my favourite toy —— Miss Bunny.

I also want to try some new software and a new working method for this time. Again I would like to work with 3D because this is my weakness and I have to practice it. ( actually, my other colleagues are working with 3D, as a 2D concept artist I felt very odd in my class)

The software I’m using is Maya, I had some experience in using the 3D software Metasequoia ( it’s working like a simpler version of Maya.). I began with simple shapes, but there is one thing I should notice when I work with Maya, the number of columns is better to stay in an even number, that makes the process easier after (cut in half, and mirror it).

Another technique which good to use in Maya is: start as simple as possible.

For example:

Always thinking about the extrusion probability for faces & line rather than adding more 3D objects. And if the object you working with is an axisymmetric object, you can just delete a half of it then duplicate — mirror transform in the end.

I also found a new technique to working on more details in a model, as we know if we keep the model in low-poly, we are unable to add very fine detail to it. The solution is to import this object into Zbrush and adding details by using different Zbrush brushes.

I have added her eyes&nose, palms and seam line in Zbrush.

In the end, I want to introduce the Zbrush poly paint tool, which can help the user colouring their model quickly.

[Project post]

Part 2 of the project I decided to try something new, I have looked at many video games and MMORPGs which has sculptures as a part of their environment art.

( The art of Alice madness return. page 79)

(Revelation online: The Sulan City)

I would like to start from the basic —— sculpting a head in Zbrush, this is my first time using Zbrush as I’m usually working with Photoshop and other 2D software. I found an essential training lesson in Lynda.com, and understand the basic Zbrush workflow.

Once I have understood the basic technique of Zbrush, I can start the sculpting. I know the human facial structure very well so to make a start is not a problem for me.

(my first head sculpt)

Due to the time consuming, I do not have time for adding texture but I don’t want to leave this model at this stage. Then I realise I can use the gradient map tool in Photoshop, then I took a screenshot and use the same technique in part [1] to add some colour & texture for this screenshot. (it is no longer a 3D model but still a piece of good illustration.

[Project post]

Reference:

[1] Lynda.com – from LinkedIn. 2018. ZBrush 2018 Essential Training. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.lynda.com/ZBrush-tutorials/ZBrush-2018-Essential-Training/441596-2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3azbrush%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2. [Accessed 16 Oct 2018].

[2] Berg, R., 2011. The Art of Alice: Madness Returns. Dark Horse Comics.

[3] NetEase,. 2015. Revelation Online. avaliable at:  https://ro.my.com/en/about

 

This project I have worked with 2 different approaches because I really want to explore the new technique and learn new software.

The first approach is art/illustration, as drawing is something that I familiar with. But for this project, I have tried some different working method.

My usual working method is:

1. for environmental art / illustration I usually start with swatches, this helps me to decide what kind of mood I’m going to illustrate. (I looked at Hiroshi Senju’s work as inspiration.)
   (my swatches for the environment illustration)
2.   Once I decide the swatches and the mood, I will try to add more colour between them. What I like to do is picking the colour by using the colour wheel, usually use the colour next to my chosen colour, clockwise or anti-clockwise.
3. But for the last painting (the oyster), I used a different approach. I started by only sketch the shape and shadow with black & white.
4.   In photoshop there is a tool called “Gradient map” which is an alternative way to adding colours into the black & white image, during my working process I had look at electorillusion’s work, I liked her way of using iridescent colour is more creative and active compare with Hiroshi.
5. In this illustration, I found a very unusual material for my colour reference: cross section of iron under the microscope, I took this photo from the physics lab during my BSc degree.
6. The end result：

[Project Post]

Reference:

[1]exhibit-e.com. 2018. Hiroshi Senju Studio. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.hiroshisenju.com/. [Accessed 09 Oct 2018].

[2] Tumblr. 2018. Tumblr-electroillusion. [ONLINE] Available at: http://electroillusion.tumblr.com/.[Accessed 09 Oct 2018].

 

 

 

After complete this project, my feedback from the class was positive, but my tutor also pointed out there are a few things I need to improve:

1. recreate the platform design: I spend the majority time on designing and creating characters. The simple music notes design looks too cheap.
2. redesign some of the Unreal blueprints, as I designed this game as a multiplayer game ( 2 characters can be controlled by WASD and ↑↓←→). But the default sample file from Unreal 4 is a single player game, to spawn 2 characters and have control to both of them, I actually took the idea from a 2D fighting game tutorial by Wazza Tuts. The result of that is my character are always facing each other.

To solve the above 2 problems, I might have to start the project from the beginning, because my blueprint already look a bit messy, and I need to understand how the blueprint works exactly, not just following the tutorial.

Also, in the end, there is a very interesting Devlog on YouTube by Resurrection 21 helps me with theme setup and adding more drama to my game in future development. I will definitely get back to this Devlog if I will choose this project as one of my development projects.

[Porject post]

ref:

WazzaTuts. 2017. Unreal Engine 4 2D Fighting Game Lesson. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzv4xVEImKE. [Accessed 5 Oct. 2018].

Resurrection 21. 2017. #1 Detailed devlog/tutorial – 2D Sidescroller – Unreal engine 4. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooEhCuPClww&t=1369s. [Accessed 5 Oct. 2018].

 

After I decide to make 2D scroller game in the Unreal 4 engine, I need to choose a style to start with.  First I have analysed my current style of illustration:

I think my style at this moment is good enough as an illustration but not suitable for making assets in games. Although it has a clear outline, however, it is still very difficult to adding animations on them. Therefore I need to keep my art style (pastel colour and cuteness) at the same time to develop make it suitable for games.

Again, I only have limited time for each project, I don’t have time to finish each of the characters I designed, I picked 2 of my favourite from team red and team blue. Shortly, I have found a solution for my 2 chosen characters about how to style them and adding animation to them.

I found a craft blogger named Tsuki, and her tutorial about making a movable paper doll. This gave me the idea about how to style my character.

For the further development, if there is enough time I would like to make my characters in more detail,  or I can even add few more pose for them ( now my character only have run & still pose, because I don’t have time to make more frames of animations ).

[Porject post]

Ref:

Tsuki. 2011. What I Made Wednesday: Paper Doll Tutorial + Template!. Wednesday, July 27, 2011. Little Gray Fox. [Online]. [accessed 20 Oct 2018]. Available from: http://littlegrayfox.blogspot.com/2011/07/what-i-made-wednesday-paper-doll.html

This is my first project for my course, which I’m expecting to learn something new from it. I have not done this course before, and I have no art related background knowledge, I know this is going to be even harder for me.

I always wanted to join an MMORPG team and creating an online game that everyone could make friend with each other.

But I’m not able to make the whole MMORPG by myself, so I decided to improve my strength, but at the same time know more about the industry and other fields of the game (programming, game engine and 3D, psychology and ethical issue in this industry) so I can cooperate with other team members better.

During this course, I would like to try everything and explore new working pipeline, then decide what will be suitable for me.

The best way to getting started is knowing my strength and weakness.

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My strength: 1, digital illustration. 2, storytelling and pole writing.
I need to improve: 1, 3D modelling skill. 2, learn about the game engine. 3, Basic VFX, animation and rigging.

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The reason that I choose the Unreal 4 as my engine to work with, because it is a very common engine in the game industry, also its blueprint interface is friendly to the user without a programming background like me.  ( I also looked up some Unity tutorials, but I realise that you need to learn C#)

I found the essential tutorial in Lynda is very useful for me (the tutorial I mentioned in the week 1 project blog post.) I learned some basic navigations in the Unreal 4 engine, but here comes another problem, I’m having a problem with 3D modelling, I’m unable to make the assets in 3D and use them in the Unreal4.

The solution for that is I need to take a step back, and starts from a simple 2D scroller game.

[Porject post]