Develop Ideas & Tests

2.2 - Ideas & Test Pieces Dev Log

22/03/21

Begin Ideas generation, create sketches and blockouts for idea

Computer, Pinterest, Artstation, Photoshop, Maya, Internet, Drawing Tablet

29/03/21

Continued Ideas Generation, sketches, kit bashes and texture ideas

Computer, Pinterest, Artstation, Photoshop, Maya, Internet, Drawing Tablet, Substance Painter

EASTER BREAK

05/04/21

Finish all ideas generation for ideas on model and textures for environment scene, including concept 2D work (colour ideas and other)

Computer, Pinterest, Artstation, Photoshop, Maya, Internet, Drawing Tablet, Substance Painter

I started with plotting my scene with a sketch, looking over what I wanted in my scene and how I wanted it to be presented with things like the assets in it and the textures to make the ground. This sketch was a sort of overview of the diorama concept I wanted to go with as I already had a generally clear picture of what I wanted to create or include from all the research such as the game Ghost Of Tsushima and relatable artworks by the artists who worked on the game.

It started with this sketch in photoshop that instantly got me to recognize the main assets that would build the focus of my scene. The torii gate in the center of the land mass with a tree behind and a banner to each side (drawing the attention of the eye to the center). Then populating the scene with other items to either make it feel more lived in or more abandoned or war torn. In this particular sketch I had a mix of shrine stones and broken swords in the center by the tree to really sell the idea of the dead and have a more reflecting look at life over all. With thematics of death and life with the populating objects with blooming flowers vs swords and broken lamps.

I then took those more basic ideas and turned it into another sketch:

I now knew the bare minimum of my scene and the layout I wanted for it. Smaller details like the design of the gate or tree and the banners weren't 100% but I knew that this was the more realistic direction I wanted to go in.

These sketches are heavily inspired by this piece with the same sort of set dressing however I wanted to add more faded scenery and make the diorama look a lot less lived in. With no lit up lamps or a camp fire in the middle. However I want to use similar set dressing when it comes to the religious elements. With details like the shrine stones and a torii gate but I want mine more battered by war than weather and nature. As I really like this 3D diorama and how they created the assets in conjuncture with the scene as a whole, building the whole 3D scene from scratch and also having it animated on top of that. It really feels like a realistic environment - which is what I like most.

Here is another sketch test I did where I full populated the scene with items and assets and I quickly realised that it can get messy very fast when too much is going on. That the simpler version looked much better. So I worked on creating a tidier scene that I was more happy with using the same assets and diorama layout.

Which is where I then got this piece which I was really happy with as it had a good sense of that destruction and damage while keeping these religious elements. It was quite hard to find a composition that I was happy with to get the correct amount of contrast between life and death. I was also contemplating whether or not to take it more supernatural in composition with 2 sides of a gate, one dark and one light and having a separate sort of contrast from the evil of the real world and rather the evil of the supernatural.

Here I then decided to do some light colouring of the same sketch so I could just get a clearer look at a finished product, even if it was rough and the colours weren't 100% what I wanted:

This then created a much clearer outlook on what I wanted my final product to come out like and look as it was much clearer to see the different set pieces of the scene. I was really happy with the sketch and colour and it meant I could then start to develop the scene further and move to a 3D environment. Here is just the same thing with much deeper/richer colours so that It looked less water colour esc.

But just before I moved onto designing in 3D I created a photobash to get a more realistic look on my created scene.

In the end I was pretty happy with the photobash as it was the final conformation that I liked my current idea and layout and wanted to push it further. I really want to refine the set to work out the more finer details in colour and texture so the whole set comes together. I liked how the objects although look very out of place; at the same time look like they fit together and it really comes together as a piece (like that sort of awe or wow factor when I looked at my piece I got inspiration from). However it still lacked refinement in colour texture and fully fledging the scene out with assets to set dress it. The main thing I'm unsure about is the backdrop or skybox for the piece, however it can be easily adjustable.

So after fully photobashing the piece and knowing I was happy with my diorama layout with my idea I started working on blockouts for the 3D scene.

I started on the main focus of the scene: the Torii Gate. I wanted to look at different types and designs of the torii gates. For this I used different inspiration from my research such as these photos: and it shows in the design ideas.

These were the 1st few designs I made of a torii gate, they were very small and simple so they lacked detail. But that was what I was originally aiming for since it was just a blockout

But as I started looking at photos I developed the detail and it became a lot less blockout.

I played with whether I wanted round or cubic legs for the gate and then extended it into creating a much larger gate.

This was based off of the real life Itsukushima Shrine which is a Ryōbu-style torii gate. In real life it's pretty big/ stands tall while being intricately detailed with the extra legs as well. I then started playing around with the design of the gate and how it can repeat itself. Looking at a continuation of the round vs square legs.

Then using the extra parts of the gate, it becomes like a chain of gates:

Then I started messing around with the render and colour tools in maya, having my first time using the rendering and lights within maya.

Honestly the colour systems within maya are more useful than I first thought and were useful in creating a sense of contrast between things so that it wasn't just all grey and you cant see where one object starts and the other ends. The more detailed versions of the Torii gate as well wasn't hard to model at all and I was happy/suprised with how well they turned out for a first try at a more detailed gate and in the end I enjoyed the look of the cylindric legs for the gates rather than the cubic. However, compared to the modelling and colouring in engine the rendering was much more complex and new for me, leaving me with this dark and low res render of the coloured torii gates. But even though it didn't come out looking the best I still liked the over all look of the piece and it gave me the idea that a design like this*(below render) would be what I want.

Where there is the detailed Torii gate in the middle like planned, however I want to add to extra (almost) gates that lead towards the gate and create even more focus in the piece. I then started looking into other assets in my scene, creating a sketch/desing or 2 then trying to block them out to see how the sketch translates to the 3d model. The 1st other asset I worked on was my "war banner". I looked at some real ones to get reference then sketched one out while looking at what I can do in terms of damage as I wanted to look at variations where they are more or less damaged.

This was the image I based my design around so that It looked more realistic in it's design so It wasn't just like a floating sign however I took a different spin on it making it much taller/longer as I wanted it to be a steady banner in the ground. A real marking symbol of location and giving a sense of importance to where it's placed.

I then moved over to 3D to have a go at modelling out this design and seeing how I could adapt and change it with subtleties like size and shape.

Also while creating the 3D blockout I quickly realised that when it came to making holes within the banner's cloth it would be much easier and better to do it as a texture and create an opacity mask where areas I mark as holes would be see through and therefore it would have a hole in it.

In the end these were the 6* designs I came up with however the last 3 are just duplicates of the 1st 3 where I messed with the plane that makes the cloth part of the banner. Again I used the previous real life equivalent to get some real reference on top of the design from my photoshop sketches. I was quite happy with how quick and easy these were to get looking right and real. The slight discrepancies between them also create a great sense of variety. In the end my favourite design has to be the very far right due to it's simplicity and how closely it sticks to the real life equivalents.

I then moved onto looking at some of the assets I would be using to create some world building for my scene. Looking at worked within the scene and what didn't.

I thought about these sorts of simple things that don't exactly change the scene but fill it and make it a lot less baron, just filling the scene to give it life.

creating crates of various designs, although they don't look like much without a texture. So for now I gave them a small amount of colour, similar to what I did for the Torii gate to make it look more like an object than just a box.

Overall I wasn't the happiest with the look or design of the crates themselves but they weren't meant to be overtly flashy and were just meant to fill the scene and set dress it. So in the end I was satisfied with the look of the piece in the end.

I then moved onto creating a very basic block out of what I envisioned my entire scene to be as a whole, toning back the details so that I could slowly add the more detailed aspects and could see what it was missing. Slowing developing my entire scene as a whole from basic to a more in depth look. With sketches and working on individual elements like the boxes or banners above to add to the scene rather than clumping it all together.

I started with using a plane for the landscape then on top of the banner and torii gate used a bunch of other block out assets to develop the environmental storytelling. As I started modelling and blocking out the diorama I started to like my idea more and more. Originally I didn't have a clear vision to the design and layout of my 3D diorama but as I started modelling a design based off of my original sketches I found a layout that I was more than happy with and decided to continue this look rather than experiment with other designs. The design of the diorama went so well that I decided to start filling out the scene more with smaller details.

Here is used candles, swords and shrine stones to create a tone of death as each one of those objects has a sort of spiritual or physical correlation to death. This was me looking at the centre piece of my scene and probably the only section of the diorama I wasn't 100% settled on as a design

I then created my own grass asset by using a 2D plan and modelling it like a blade of grass, then duplicating and altering a bunch until it was clumped and usable for covering the whole scene. I then continued to duplicate and alter slightly until I was happy with the way it looked and covered the scene.

At that point I realised I wasn't happy with the overall grass of the scene and looked into tutorials for creating grass in Maya 3D. The first thing I came across was using a tool called xgen to procedurally generate the grass using splines. After then adding a small amount of colour to the xgen grass (right) I quickly picked up and really like the look of it (this was after adding a basic grass like texture to the plane beneath the xgen grass and colouring + bump mapping it). This then created what looked like to me a really nice, semi real looking grass. Although it wasn't 100% there yet, it still felt a bit lackluster and the colours were definitely off. This tutorial was extremely helping for pushing my grass to just some weeds to have some decent looking procedural grass.

That's when I decided to colour my own modelled grass and add it together with the plane and xgen grass. This then was what I was looking for as the xgen alone looked a bit lack luster but adding in my own model created the basics of some variety in the foliage that I wanted so on the left where you can see the plane, grass, xgen and rocks all together. I was really pleased with how the combination of multiple assets come together to create a varied environment and it had the sort of set dressing I wanted. However in my final piece I still would like to add more. Slowly it moved towards to art direction and stylized set dressing of Ghost of Tsushima where the environment feels full of things and life but not overcrowded and claustrophobic.

sand:

this is where I explored the fact I wanted to also include sand into my diorama in the front and for it not to be just grassy.

At this point, there were only 2 main things left in my diorama that I still didn't have: A model of a tree and textures. For my final product I want to add more assets to liven things up and do small amounts of editing to the overall layout, changing moving or playing around with some assets with what and where they are but I had a good idea of my work from here as I was happy with the progress made so far.

sand and grass: I then combined the 2 planes and although their conjoin was done very crudely I was happy with the outcome and felt the piece slowly move towards the look of my initial sketches and what I pictured.

Here is a more polished version of the previous blockout work however it still lacked some elements to finalise the layout I was going for. Like I said before with having a tree and making slight edits. I want to add a tree at the back of the diorama behind the Torii gate but I was also thinking on the lines of smaller foliage like bushes and flowers and also assets like small lanterns up the path. I was also wondering along the path of creating more of a proper shrine or well rather than my current swords around stones as it depends If I want to make the piece more close to a spiritual style and more peaceful or more focused on the harsh reality of war vs the peaceful beliefs. In the end I do prefer the more raggedy look where you can see damage and marks through time and war as it's much more visceral and what I want to focus on. Here are some different views of the same diorama blockout so far.

I was also happy with some of my finer adjustments to colour in the grassy areas.

I then moved back into photoshop where I tried out some colour testing as well as finishing up the layout of the scene. Adding small things like lamps and adding the tree in the back.

I did a combo of photobashing and some colour sketching the piece come together and in the end I really like how it was started to all come together. It was still missing some small pieces or assets that I might add in the end but overall it looks like a finished piece. I was really happy with how it was looking and coming together as slowly the colours and layout starting to achieve the same feelings of immersion that I get from Ghost of Tsushima or the piece that I based my work on that was inspired from GoT. I does require now adding more 3D elements slowly but surely but also I need to start to look into and explore the texture side and elements of the diorama. But now I had my mind set on what the final piece might look like. One thing I looked at in this photoshop experiment was the sky. The sky/skybox is probably one of the main things in the scene that I'm still unsure/unhappy with and I need to look at different skies to see how it looks.

Here is the same thing with a different sky and slightly altered floor so It blends in a bit better. Again I really like the overall look and style of the diorama but I'm not sure on the sky. Also this version has started to make me think more on the tree that I want to create when I get round to 3D modelling one. I started to think over my previous real life photo research and how the different types and variation of tree affect the mood and scene overall. From colour, size and shape it really affects the overall look. Whether I want a bright and happy pink cherry blossom tree or something like a large thick old oak tree. It will really affect the look of the diorama as much as the sky.

I then started working on the next big thing in my scene - my tree. I had no experience in modelling trees so I decided to just try some stuff out and see where it went. This lead to to these blockouts: progressing left to right as I made slight alterations on the design. In full honestly I actually really like the way they looked, especially when it came to the stump/trunk of the tree however I didn't like the branches as the way I made them made them look very rectangular and too blocky - as well I realised the methods I used to make it (at least the branches) wouldn't work for the final model as the unwrap would be impossible.

When adding this tree to my scene and the rest of my assets I was really happy with how the overall look turned out even though I wasn't happy with the look of the tree model specifically and the scene still lacked leaves. The overall design and look to the diorama test was close to the design I was looking for in my original photobashes and I was happy with that.

But although over these iterations I liked the overall look and design of the tree I knew that it wasn't working model wise (this was before I even started working on any leaves). So I looked into tutorials that showed how to model a tree and found this one which although old helped me to develop my understand of how to make one. Including learning new techniques to make it. So rather than copying the technique 1 to 1 I adapted it and used to to learn how to make my own.