Project 1
— GAD174 —
Embedded Files
Table of contents
Pre-Production
Pre-Production
Overview
Overview
Asset production is often a more involved process than it may appear. Having determined that an asset is in fact required during testing, the asset moves from placeholder to first pass, or shippable quality. Depending on the style and requirements of the asset, this may take hours or months to complete and may require the application of many specialised skill sets.
In this project, I engage with the asset production pipeline to author a simple, untextured (but still using coloured materials) placeholder assets for a game (although this project isn't about making a game) and configure it in a game engine (I will be using the Unity engine) to allow for user interaction. I will also be setting up a user interface and implementing audio to go with this placeholder asset.
Image: Colt Single Action Army, from [1]
Sporky Memes (n.d.)
Brief Information Document
Brief Information Document
This is the brief information document for this project. This document allows me to keep all of the information for this project in one place so I don't have to go to multiple different sources such as the Unit Syllabus and Unit Site just to check and see if there's anything I'm missing for this project.
This document isn't essential to this project at all, but I find it handy to keep the information all in one place for organization purposes. It will also make it more clear what the actual objective of this project is, which is always important.
Production
Production
Links to Final Product
Links to Final Product
Project Files and Build
Project Files and Build
3D Models
3D Models
Milestone One: Planning
Milestone One: Planning
This is the document that I use to plan out my project... if it were an actual game. Obviously, some things are over-exaggerated, such as the existence of an inventory system and all of these intricate controls for the firearms. There are some other things, however, that will aid me in the creation of the models and this project.
In this document, I have sections providing a summary of what this game (keyword: "game", even though this project is creating a prototype) is about, as well as one explaining the interactions the player would be able to have in the game. Then, for planning, I lay out my workflow/pipeline for all three aspects of this project (3D models, audio and UI), before going into further detail about each aspect, providing reference images and links that will aid me in the creation of those aspects.
Asset Creation Workflows and Pipelines
Asset Creation Workflows and Pipelines
1. 3D Models + Materials Workflow
1. 3D Models + Materials Workflow
Research
For researching the models I'd be making of the Colt Single Action Army and bullet, I went out and got some reference photos for both real life counterparts. I was able to find some pretty good photos for not only the gun itself, but for the specific variant I'll be modelling, that being the Cavalry variant (with a 7.5 inch barrel), and the bullet that the Colt SAA uses, the .45 Colt.
I was able to get a pretty good idea of the overall look of the Colt Single Action Army and the bullet it uses, as well as the bullet's exact dimensions, which I will also be able to use to scale the gun model correctly (enough).
Image: Colt SAA with bullets, from [2]
Kindersley, D. (n.d.)
Image: Colt .45 bullet, from [3]
Henkelmann, H. (2010).
Workflow/Pipeline
(This applies to both the Colt SAA and .45 Colt model)
Image: Workflow table for the 3D models.
Design (Colt SAA)
For the design of my Colt Single Action Army, as mentioned before, I will be modelling the Cavalry variant with the 7.5 inch barrel. Even though the picture of the Colt SAA above shows the gun with an oil slick-type finish and a wooden grip, the Colt SAA has been seen with other finishes including a brighter chromed finish with a black grip.
The colours on my Colt SAA model will be the standard gun metal grey for the metal parts and brown for the grip (wooden). I chose this colour palette because it represents the standard wild west revolver colours, which is all I really need to go for here (this is a placeholder asset).
Image: Colour palette choices for the Colt SAA model.
Concept sketches/pictures (Colt SAA)
The gun was a bit tricky to do as I was unsure on how to go about breaking down the gun into simple shapes. When I read "break down into simple shapes", I didn't read that as "break down into just a few simple shapes" but rather, literally, "break down into simple shapes". It took a second go and some help from another classmate to get a truly simple concept picture.
I was able to break down the gun into six simple shapes: four rectangles for the barrel, body, hammer and grip, an arch for the cylinder and part of the body behind it, and a circle for the trigger guard.
Image: Process of breaking Colt SAA down into simple shapes.
Image: First attempt at breaking down gun. Definitely was not simple at all.
Image: Final sketch of Colt SAA as simple shapes.
Production (Colt SAA)
Picture 1: Creating the barrel assembly for the Colt SAA and using the bullet as reference for scale. I used a technique for creating a hollow cylinder by selecting the top edges, extruding inwards, then selecting those faces and extruding inwards to the other end of the cylinder.
Picture 2: Beginning to create the body for the Colt SAA by creating the piece of the body that connects with the ends of the barrel assembly, as well as their shrouds (no hollowing required).
Picture 3: Creating the cylinder with a rod in the middle to connect it to the body, and creating a roof for the cylinder and also to connect the front half of the body with the back half.
Picture 4: Creating the back end of the body, including the base for the cylinder. I did this by getting a sphere and using the multi-cut tool to cut the sphere in half, then getting a polygon disc to cover the opening.
Picture 5: Creating the trigger guard first by getting a cylinder and hollowing it like so, and then putting it underneath the body with only half protruding, and then dragging the edges that touch the body outwards to give a melded look. Then, creating the trigger with two cubes.
Picture 6: Creating the grip of the gun using a cube, and then extruding the outward face of the cube, tilting it downwards to create that curve and then pulling the edges outwards after a few extrusions.
Picture 7: Creating two new Standard Surface materials, assigning the pre-determined colours from the learning journal page onto those materials and then assigning the materials onto the correct parts of the model.
Picture 8: Implementing into Unity. Final result is model after a few tweaks to correct implementation errors.
Design (.45 Colt)
For the design of my .45 Colt bullet, it'll obviously be a lot more simple than the Colt SAA model. In fact, I only really need to use three shapes maximum: a half cone for the bullet itself, a long cylinder for the casing and a flat cylinder for the case rim.
For the colours, just like with the Colt SAA, there only really needs to be two colours maximum: one to represent the casing (which can be a gold colour) and one to represent the bullet itself (which can be a bronze colour).
Image: Colour palette choices for the .45 Colt model.
Concept sketches/pictures (.45 Colt)
I was easily able to break down the .45 Colt in this reference picture down to only two simple shapes: a rectangle for the bullet casing, and a trapezoid for the bullet itself.
I then drew it on a piece of paper as a final sketch for this model.
Image: Process of breaking bullet down into simple shapes.
Image: Final sketch of bullet as simple shapes.
Production (.45 Colt)
Picture 1: Creating the bullet using three different cylinders, all at the sizes specified in the planning document. The bullet itself is turned into a half-cone shape by grabbing the top surrounding edges and scaling inwards.
Picture 2: Creating two new Standard Surface materials, assigning the pre-determined colours from the learning journal page onto those materials and then assigning the materials onto the correct parts of the model.
Picture 3: Implementing into Unity, alongside Colt SAA model.
Final Result
With everything combined, this is what the final scene looks like. I also created a grid pattern in Paint.NET to add some perception of depth to the scene and separate it from the walls behind.
Image: Scene set up in Unity with both models successfully imported.
2. UI Workflow
2. UI Workflow
Research
For researching the UI for this project, I looked at a few games that have also used western themes and looked how they have done their UI. I found a few examples of UI in games, two of which I will point out with images to the right. The first one being Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, which has a popup of information styled to be playing cards whenever you pick up specific items. Next, Red Dead Redemption, which has these black paintbrush stroke styles for UI text elements such as the saving notice and objective.
I will be creating a simple UI in my project that shows the objective, as well as an information popup that details what the firearm is and its history, which can be accessed by the press of a button.
Image: Info cards, by Techland (2013) [6]
Image: RDR saving UI, by [7]
Rockstar Games (2010)
Image: RDR objective UI, by [7]
Rockstar Games (2010)
Workflow/Pipeline
Image: Workflow table for the UI.
Design
For the colour style of the UI, I went with a warmer colour set, which you can see to the right. I chose this because this is typically what you would see on an old playing card or something of the sort, and I thought it would fit quite well. The UI will also be entirely non-diagetic.
For the font choices, I decided to go with two choices for two different contexts. For emphasized text, such as the header text on the main playing card, I chose the Reward font, and for standard text, such as the text on the secondary playing card and any other UI element (e.g. buttons), I chose the Rabento font.
Image: Rabento font preview.
Image: Reward font preview.
Image: Colour palette choices for the project UI.
UI Wireframe
This is the wireframe for both situations of the UI, one with the normal view and one while viewing the playing cards. The full details are shown in the Brief 1 Planning Document above.
Image: UI Wireframe for normal view.
Image: UI Wireframe for viewing the playing cards.
Production (Playing Cards)
The first part was to make the cards.
Now, let me just start by saying, screw these lying stock image websites that say that their blank playing card images are "free" and "royalty free", because what they actually mean is "free with a subscription", if that at all and if they're not just flat out lying.
Anyway, I made my own blank playing cards—two of them, in fact. One of them is the main playing card, which is meant to display a header and image, which I will use to display the name of the firearm and a picture of the firearm, and the other is the secondary playing card, meant to display plain text, which I will use to have a quick summary of the firearm. These took like 10 minutes to make, so it wasn't a massive hit on time either.
You might be asking "Mitchel, why on Earth would you make your own when you can just go online and get them?" Well, my dear hypothetical inquisitor, that would be because THERE ARE NONE FOR FREE! That's right, that's capitalism at its finest.
Image: Main playing card that I made, meant to display a header and image.
Image: Secondary playing card I made, meant to display plain text.
Image: The process of creating the image. I made both of these images in Paint.NET (you can see the secondary playing card at the top as well).
Production (Menu Toolbar)
Next, I created the toolbar that I will be using to give the user access to the information popup, and also a quit button (which is the power icon on the end) just for convenience and to have an extra button on the menu toolbar (I know, I'm such a genius).
This uses the same colour palette as shown above in the playing cards, minus the near-black colour.
Image: Finished menu toolbar.
Image: The process of creating the menu toolbar.
Final Result
With everything combined, this is what the final scene looks like with the UI included.
Image: Normal scene view with UI.
Image: Information popup with playing cards.
GIF: Both buttons are clickable, information button functionality shown.
3. Audio Workflow
3. Audio Workflow
Design
For the design aspect of the project, I wanted to keep the sound effects to the time period as well, with the correct sounds for the Colt SAA and .45 Colt for interactivity with the models, as well as a sound similar to an old typewriter. I chose this to add a sense of further interactivity with the buttons and models, and to give the person a reason to not take off their headphones.
Image: Old vintage typewriter, by Amazon US (n.d.) [8]
Workflow/Pipeline
Image: Workflow table for the audio.
Production
All of the audio assets I used were borrowed from a game that I have been playing for a while called Receiver 2, by Wolfire Games (2020) [9]. Because that game has some good sounds for the Colt Single Action Army (and it's relatively easy to record them with silence in the background), I decided to record these sounds and borrow them for my project.
I have three sounds for the Colt Single Action Army: one for the trigger, one for the hammer and one for the cylinder. I also have a sound for the .45 Colt bullets and another sound for the buttons.
The button sound effect was taken from a pre-SAE project of mine instead of being recorded directly from the game.
Image: Selecting the SAA hammer pull sound effect.
Image: Selecting the SAA dry fire sound effect.
Image: Selecting the .45 Colt pickup sound effect.
Image: Selecting the SAA loading gate sound effect (used for the cylinder).
Post-Production
Post-Production
Mid-Project Reflection for Project 1
Mid-Project Reflection for Project 1
How's it going so far?
So I just want to start off by saying that this project is pretty cool, but I've still been having some problems during the production of this project, which I'll go over in my final reflection. Let's go over three main points first.
Now, to talk about my proficiency in this project—I have done some 3D modelling before I came to SAE using Blender, so I do have the basic fundamentals of how to make an object, how to shape and manipulate it, how to extrude it, etc. Maya was a new learning experience for me as I have never used it before, and it is quite a bit different from Blender in terms of the controls, layout, etc., but I've been able to get used to using Maya, and I've even written down some tips for how to use some aspects of Maya in my week 2 page for this class, such as how to insert an edge loop and how to manipulate the scene camera.
I did also learn how to create a pipe in Maya using a cylinder and the extrusion tool from my classmate and friend Luka and also a user on the Maya Forums by the name of ceruloplasminsandprussia (funky name indeed). I also learnt how to slice a mesh in half by from the Autodesk Knowledge Network. It said that this can be done using the Multi-Cut tool in Maya (Autodesk Help, 2015) [4], which was a really big help in not only saving on polys, but also made things look a lot cleaner.
Now, about the process so far—I tried to keep my process of working on this project in order, using the brief 1 template page on the Unit Site, but there were some setbacks. The first big setback was the simplified concept design for the revolver model, which I could not figure out, so I asked my classmate Luka for help, and in the meantime, I moved on to the bullet model.
Aside from the setbacks, I learnt through this project the typical game asset production workflow by both doing it according to the brief 1 template page, and from this post I found online about game asset creation workflows, which is basically made up of the following: concept (illustrating the design for the asset), sculpting (creating and shaping the asset in a modelling software such as Maya), UV mapping (texturing the asset correctly so it looks good), baking and texturing (transferring details to a more low-poly model and texturing it to make it look as good), and lighting and editing (importing into the game engine where it is then given lighting effects and final touches) (Perforce, 2022) [5]. For this project, I only really used concept and sculpting, but it did give me a good idea with what I was doing with the models and how I was doing it.
Lastly, for my person skills—this project did require some interacting with my classmates and also family members to help me get over some challenges I encountered. My classmate and friend Luka was a pretty good help in the 3D modelling part of this project as they allowed me to get an idea of what to do for the simple concept design and 3D model for my Colt SAA revolver. I also asked some of my family members for feedback on my placeholder assets and scene setup in the Unity engine, to which I received positive feedback, and I also had my friend on call with me while I was modelling the revolver and documenting it in my learning journal, who also said he liked it. My person skills in this project was better than previous projects as I actually engaged with others more for feedback and help on my project.
Final Reflection for Project 1
Final Reflection for Project 1
How did it go?
Well, final reflection. After two consecutive all-nighters, the project is finally done and ready to go. Hallelujah. I think I should probably talk about why it ended up this way and how things could have been a bit different, and of course also talk about what went well in the project.
Firstly, the appraisals for the project—overall, I think this project was a success. I think I did very well in the delivery of this project. I mean, if you look over this page, you can see I've sure as hell done a lot. There were some things that worked and didn't really work. One thing that didn't work very well was the first attempt at the simple concept design for the revolver, because I really didn't have an idea of how to do that, but thanks to my classmate Luka, I was able to solve that issue. One thing that did work well and made things a lot easier to manage was using Unity's Event System to handle all the buttons and interactions, because it was very simple to set up and get going and I didn't run into any issues with things not going as planned.
About the challenges I encountered—one massive challenge I faced was with the way I handled this project in terms of scope and time management. I've noticed that with not only this project, but a lot of other projects, I just care way too much about them and put way too much time and effort into them, which is where the problem of poor time management arises. I focus too much on making the project really good or really going into depth with it, which then brings into question my focus on scope for the project, which isn't very good. I tend to not take things into perspective and really see what my scope is for the project.
I also tend to go overboard with some things such as the concept picture for the Colt SAA model, the scrapped picture of which I've included and you can see how I've gone way overboard. This is because with some things, for me, the area between not doing enough and doing too much is a bit blurred, so I tend to go overboard so it doesn't seem like I just don't care about the project.
Finally, about the future goals I will set—I think for the next project, one skill I will need to work to improve on is scope management. I will need to know when and how to push my scope back to save myself the stress and time. One thing I will do next project is to not procrastinate over it, because that is exactly how I ended up here pulling two consecutive all-nighters just to be able to get this project done on time. One thing I will repeat, however, is my quality control in the project. I think I did very good in terms of making and delivering a project that was of good enough quality for my standards as well as the requirements for the brief.
References
References
[Header] Peakpx (n.d.). Old Western Gun, Map, Cowboy, Antique, Gun, HD wallpaper [Image]. https://w0.peakpx.com/wallpaper/693/948/HD-wallpaper-old-western-gun-map-cowboy-antique-gun.jpg
[1] Sporky Memes (n.d.). Colt Single Action Army Transparent, HD Png Download [Image]. PNGitem. https://www.pngitem.com/pimgs/m/447-4478727_colt-single-action-army-transparent-hd-png-download.png
[2] Kindersley, D. (n.d.). Colt Peacemaker and a handful of bullets [Image]. Alamy. https://h7.alamy.com/comp/PFD27B/colt-peacemaker-and-a-handful-of-bullets-PFD27B.jpg
[3] Henkelmann, H. (2010). .45 Colt cartridge featuring a jacketed hollow point bullet [Image]. Wikiwand. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/45_Colt.JPG/1208px-45_Colt.JPG
[4] Autodesk Help (2015). Slice a mesh with the Multi-Cut Tool. Autodesk Knowledge Network. Retrieved October 10, 2022 from https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya-lt/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2015/ENU/MayaLT/files/GUID-9E35F145-67E8-44A0-9EFB-E1959199010E-htm.html
[5] Perforce (2022). Game Asset Creation Workflow: Process, Tools, and Problems. Retrieved October 10, 2022 from https://www.perforce.com/blog/vcs/game-asset-creation-workflow
[6] Techland. (2013). Call of Juarez: Gunslinger (PC) [Video Game]. Ubisoft. https://store.steampowered.com/app/204450/Call_of_Juarez_Gunslinger/
[7] Rockstar San Diego, & Rockstar North. (2010). Red Dead Redemption (Console) [Video Game]. https://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption/
[8] Amazon US. (n.d.). JORSION Retro Vintage Typewriter Model,Handmade Props Model Retro Decoration,Home Decoration Ornaments [Image]. Amazon. https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/414ePgryCcL._AC_.jpg
[9] Wolfire Games. (2020). Receiver 2 [Video Game]. https://www.receiver2.com/
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