Coob Dools Graphics Update

I Recently made some changes and added a lot of new graphic for new features of Coob Dools, including: guns, players, outer platforms and hazards.

These tiles make up a Coob Dools level and i thought i should update the and put them on here as i spend a lot of time trying to make graphics that look good enough. I like to make them all be very distinct from each other but try to keep the same sort of style which is difficult to do like the flame thrower for example looks a bit out of place as it doesn’t have the harsh black outlines to make it eye catching to the player and so they know its an intractable.

I also added some new backgrounds for the level as the older one made everything feel very flat but these give a bit more depth and work really well with the debris and dust particle effects giving the game a bit more life they use a minimalist art style of a few tones of grey just so it isn’t too eye catching but blends with the platforms nicely.

South Park Animation Practise

Today i tried to re-create the style of South Park using Adobe Animate. It’s a very quick clip of a simple character i drew my self in Photoshop, having some different expressions then running away in fear. It wasn’t too difficult to make as South Park is known for a less than fluent and detailed animation.

This was just a little side project idea i had after watching some of the new game and some older season episodes to reference as basic as it was. I think it looks close to South Park style animation and also the art style as well.

Head Design Research

I was asked to research head positions and angles to have reference when drawing a final design.

These are the images I chose, I tried to get heads from different angles whilst having images of people I know.  Also I was asked to gather images of people with defining art styles to have as inspiration for the final design. I wanted styles that were dark and cartoon like whilst having splashes of colour.

The first is a painting from dishonoured. Then the hunter style ninja from Klei’s mark of the ninja. Then are some characters from Chris Bourassa, the artist from Red Hooks darkest dungeon. Then again Klei’s game don’t starve. Negan from the walking dead comics and the psycho from borderlands. All these (except from borderlands which is more colourful) are dark games with grim undertones, but like to throw in splashes of bright colour to create a nice contrast.

This is the sort of character design I want a steampunk grey cartoony type character.

Pixels And Zelda

I recently played the original Zelda, and could instantly see why it’s descried as one of the greatest games ever. I personally loved everything about it. Going in not knowing anything about it made it feel very adventurous and mysterious.

I also played Undertale for the first time another high acclaimed game with the sort of graphics like Zelda. This made me want to refine my own style of pixel graphics. I made some furniture and stuff, this wasn’t for a game or anything (it could but i wasn’t planning on it). It was just practise, the biggest difficulty with pixel graphics is conveying what something is, with little detail.

I also just like to make sprite sheets. A way i found to get in more detail is to not use black outlines all the time. but to make a much darker shade of the colour you’re outlining.

Pixel Animation in Photoshop

Today i tried to make my first pixel animation that wasn’t just a slight bob up and down. Actually used different sprites and some principles. I decided to use the sprite from the mushroom and make a jumping animation. I used a sprite sheet template i made to keep things in proportion and get the timing right.

After creating all the sprites i made a new file and copied each sprite in individually and placed them over one another. This made animating a bit quicker. I had to edit some sprites and add some in to make it smoother. This is the end result. I tried to incorporate some squash and stretch which really gave it some character.

Because of Gifcam the timing is a bit off but for my first pixel animation t looks quite good. This also taught me how to do some simple animation in Photoshop, something i didn’t even know you could do. I thought it would be a little bit tedious, but it’s really effective and useful especially for this type of animating.

Dystopian Utopian Vehicle Update 1

Our first art assignment is to make dystopian  utopian vehicle. Something like from mad max or fallout. Using these as inspiration to design our own, I’ve decided to make mine in Maya.

I looked at dead rising 3 for reference, more specifically its motorbikes.

Dead rising’s motorbikes are just normal bikes but changed in some aspect like changing the brakes to machine guns or the front tire to a steam roller. But i wanted mine to be less for slaughtering zombies and more for mobility in a desolate wasteland while still using the conventional motorbike pieces.

So i made a quick sketch of the bike, which i thought looked good. 

But after looking at it again i realised it didn’t look too good and didn’t really look like well, anything. So i tried again but this time removing the the bottom of the legs which were supposed to be for hovering and replaced then with wheels and tried to get a more motorbike shape.

And instead of over complicating i made it in side view instead of a 3D view. i was a lot more happy with this because i think it conveys the idea well and will be good reference when modelling.

Turtle and Mudbox

Today we used some new features and programs to better the textures and renders of our models. We used Photoshop firstly using techniques to make the textures look nicer and give them more detail. Like adding blood, dents, scratches etc. So the object tells a story.

We then took the textured mesh into Mudbox,  a program I’ve never used or heard of but it is used for applying textures directly to a model. It allows you to directly paint onto a model it is situational so you can take a screenshot and apply a texture in Photoshop and import it back into Mudbox with that texture already on.

We also used a different renderer in Maya, turtle. The render setting were changed to give a much better result.

Coob Dools Update 1

I’ve began to make a new small game called Coob Dools. Coob Dools is a 2D PvP plat former  where cubes need to shoot each other. Sort a homage to duck game. this is the sprite sheet with most of the graphics used.

I went for a theme of dull colour with splashes of red and blue around to give a bit of contrast. And i just made very basic shapes for the environment.

So far there are two player basic movement, pistol shooting and a health system.

I’ve learned a lot from making this game so far, such as instantiate, for-loops and other little things to help with coding. I also tried using the particle system more to give some feedback to the bullets. At the moment it’s sort of a place holder but the most interesting part for me to do was the UI. i used a new thing called an array, which is used to store a list of objects. And then using the for-loop knock off a heart everytime a player is hit.

I want to get some gun variations to make combat more interesting, making each gun have it’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Robot Design

We were asked to design a robot using preexisting designs, for mine i used r2 d2, a loader manufactured by hyperion from borderlands and Claptrap from borderlands too.

 

This is what i drew, a sort of heavy duty worker bot. This helped to further the skills of solid drawing and giving a drawing a weight. I think this is one of the better drawing i’ve done, it has a cool shape with quirky body parts.

The arm on the right obviously isn’t close to the same length as the other, i could say it gives character but that would be a lie. Certain body parts i struggled to make look proportional and just not bad like the right arms fingers  and the small feet like parts on the legs.