Journeyman 2021 Weekly Blog - V8114919

We're nearing the end now. So, since last week the creation of our Project's logo and team logo were completed by me. Going off of the concepts from James, I created the logo in blender, modelling shapes and text to make get the closest realisation of the concept as I could with some extra flair of my own volition. To add the wings in, I utilised a resource I have access to called ProductionCrate to import the wings from the "Dark Angel Wings" pack into the scene behind the main logo. I made use of custom materials entirely in Blender, with a free to use skull model from the BlenderKit addon to add some extra spice to the logo. Below you can see the final logo for the verticle slice. Additionally to the game logo, I had also created the logo for the team at the request of our Lead Designer, Matt. Below is the logo I created, I decided to keep it simple using only simple shapes and text.  Finally, I managed to rig the whip to the best of my ability, theres plenty of bo...

And with that, we are back. Good to see you again! This will be the next official blog post since before the Easter Break. Our Lead Designer, Matt, advised that we take a week off, and get back to work in week two of the break, as to not lose much momentum. Work was light of course since we were still on break, however I did manage to do some work with our Technical Artist James on creating a logo for the verticle slice, I figured it would be a nice change of pace to work on something in 3D that wasn't strictly prop design, something a little lighter. I also worked with James on creating a health bar for our HUD, below are the concepts he sketched up for me to reference in the creation of these assets. Alongside getting started on these UI assets, I had a crack at rigging the whip better, It's trial and error, rigging isn't exactly my speciality, however I've been watching some tutorials on what to do, so hopefully next week I'll have a finalised rig for the whip. ...

 Hi again! This weeks blog is going to be a bit brief unfortunately, as I had some setbacks in work progression due to being ill. Despite the setback, I managed to clutch up on the materials for the whip, finalising them in Substance Painter and exporting 1k and 2k versions of the texture set for the design team to choose which one they would like to implement. Below is a screenshot of the finalised textures in Blender, I should note as well that I incorperated a basic WIP rig to the whip to show that the energy portion of the asset would retract when not in use. Again, more parralels to Star Wars, but hey it's pretty difficult to make a tube with a glowing stick coming out of it not look like a Lightsaber, right? Before I go, this week the team also voted on a team name, as opposed to just "Team 12". By a margin of eight votes to six, "Belmont Industries" would be the group's name going forward, Belmont being in reference to the character from Castlevania,...

Hey there! Glad you could make it! Last week I had to stop working on the dagger and move onto the whip. Unfortunate I know, but I made big strides in working on the whip. By the time I'm writing this blog post, the UVing for the whip has almost been finalised, and I am now exploring materials I can use before moving into Substance Painter by utilising free, premade materials in Blender using an addon called BlenderKit. Using this tool has really allowed me to get an idea of what I want to do before actually going into the texturing process, it has been a real help. Below you can see an example of the concept materials. I also took time assisting the other artists in the creation of their assets alongside Shoo, most notably Riccardo with his modular environment system and his other environment assets. We gave feedback on the designs on certain assets and the way in which they would work within the game such as whether the doors should slide or swing open. We were down a man due to ...

Another week, another blog post. Wouldn’t be the same without ya. Coming off the last blog post, the team decided we should prioritise the creation of a whip for the player character, as that would be the primary item used. I was asked to put the dagger on hold so i could create the asset. I was given the direction to just go with what I felt looked good, so I took the general vibe I was going for with the Dagger, and tried to translate it into an "Energy Whip", one that would look more heavy duty and technological than a standard leather whip, but one with the elegance of good craftsmanship. As I progressed through the blockout stages I came to realise that the design heavily resembled that of a Lightsaber from the Star Wars franchise, however I didn't let that deter me from my goal, I decided to add a handguard that would be constructed out of metal, wrapping around an inner core made of wood. Below is a screenshot of the model prior to UVing. It's unfortunate that ...

Good to see you again! In week four, I started work on the dagger, gathering references and coming up with what kind of style I wanted to go for. I figured the best way to go about any weapon props I was making would be to give them all a consistent visual identity, which was a blend of wood, metals and energy. Something modern, classical and futuristic. Below is the moodboard filled with references of what I'm looking for. By the end of week 4, I had modelled the handle of the dagger, going for the modernistic, full metal grip as seen with the knife seen in the centre of the moodboard, with some holes that look a bit more gothic than just ovals. A button was added in to emphasise the "energy blade" vibe I was going for, with the blade extending when the button was pressed, like the Energy Sword from Halo.  Below is the WIP shots of the dagger, with the blade itself still in the blockout phase. Thats all for this weeks blog, see you next time! -Jake

And we're back! Since my last blog post, myself and Shoo got to work on organising and distributing tasks between the art team. Shoo created a Trello for us all to track the tasks that we had drawn up so we could assign them to all the artists. After some back and forth between the artists on who would do what, we had our first tasks assigned and we were ready to get going. Alongside this, I created an art document to guide the team on tri count limits and texture export settings in substance painter. This allows us all to be on a consistent across the board with our asset creation and material structure. The consistent material setups is also key to allow the design team to save time with setting up in engine materials as it means they wont have to set up unique materials for each asset. Below is the art doc I created, where you can see the guidelines set. The team also decided on the name for our project. With a bit of back and forth on what to go with, the team landed on "W...

Welcome back! Week two of the project starts out with Shoo assigning all of the artists an art test that would allow him and myself to get a better idea of the art team's skills, he provided a reference for a simple crate to model and texture. Along with this, our sole Technical Artist, James, created a logo to present his skillset instead of modelling a crate like the rest of us. This helped a lot as it allowed us to get a feel for his work in UI, which was his main focus for the project. Once all of us handed in the work for the art test, Shoo provided feedback and constructive criticism to guide us along for future tasks. Below is my offering for the test. Lastly, myself and the Leads of the project discussed the general design aesthetic of our player character. We came to the decision that they will be inspired by Julius Belmont, a character from the Castlevania series, and that he would be designed around a holy background.  Thats all for this blog entry, see you in in the nex...

Hello there! Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Jake, and I am the Junior Lead Artist for Team 12. I will be supporting Shoo, our Lead Artist in directing the rest of the art team in creating asset for the vertical slice we have to produce. To get started, we funnelled into the group's Discord server after our teams and roles were revealed. I started out by helping to organise the server with dedicated channels and roles for the team members. Each subsection of the team would get its own group of channels to work in, these being Leads, Game Art, Game Design and Game Programming, alongside a general section for everyone to converse in for group meetings etc.. Below is an example of how these channels were formatted. Moving on from this, we quickly gathered to work out what we were going to do for the project. We were given three different games to base our Verticle Slice on, these options being: House of the Dead, Castlevania and Metal Slug. As a team we voted on Castlevania b...