Development - Environment

Here I will talk about developments I had when looking into creating an environment.

As I began to sculpt my statue (as seen later on in my production), I had a bit of a reconsideration. I decided that perhaps doing a complicated asset is not the best way to go, and instead decided to fully change gears and lean more into an aesthetically pleasing environment. I will explain more about my reasoning later on in this page.

The style I have decided to look into is clean, smooth roomscapes and simplistic colours.

Inspiration - Tran

The main reason I wanted to switch over to doing this instead of what I was planning initially is because I saw this incredible 3D modeller on Instagram called Tran, who creates these adorable roomscapes in blender.

I was inspired by the cute colours and shapes, similar to more of the childish aesthetics I looked into in my research,and began to create things like this in my own time. I quickly realized that not only is this kind of thing more fun than the tedious sculpting I had began to experiment with at this point, but also that it looked far better.

In this person's art, they use very round shapes, with solid textures that make it easier to see everything. I also love how the light bounces off everything, no doubt a shading technique which I am eager to learn and use.

I do understand, however, that switching up my game plan this late into the development process, when I've done heaps of research and concepting into my statue, is probably a bad idea. I think that a good way to mix these two ideas, however, is to have the head of my planned sculpture as a bust on a shelf or table, and keep it as my interactive piece of media. This will save me the trouble of having to sculpt the body, and also having to figure out how to make clouds in Unreal Engine.

I will note, at this point, that a large amount of my research is now slightly redundant (for example, the research I did into aesthetics and dreamcore are now mostly irrelevant), however I am still including them in this journal, to prove that I have still used the time given effectively.

Concepts

I went into photoshop to quickly sketch up some design ideas, created the template of a simple room, and created 3 different concepts. Of course this does not take the other two walls into consideration, however I think that it is a good point to start with.

The first one (furthest to the left) is probably my least favourite. The bookshelf and desk just look a little bit too close together, and unless I want to model an immense amount of books and trinkets to fill up the surface, there will be too much awkward blank space. As well as this, the carpet looks a little bit too out of place in the corner of the room, and the armchair is also awkwardly placed. The good parts of this design, I think, are how the window is placed with the desk and bookshelf; it creates a nice little pocket which works well with the rule of thirds. Other than that, the only thing which I think could save this room is a good colour scheme.

The second one (middle image) is much better, I think. I really like the fireplace, and the rug being circular definitely fits better. This design is going more for the Victorian style than the other two, and has a lot more items around the room - there's a lamp one side, and a desk the other. I think this adds more variety to the room, and gives it more of a homey feel. This design does have flaws, however; due to the fact there are more assets, there would definitely be more work - plus, it's all slightly more cramped. Other than that, this design is probably my favourite out of the three.

The last one (furthest to the right) is also pretty good. Certainly from a workload perspective, there's less to be done, since there are less complex assets. I also love the idea I had to make the back wall completely out of bricks (which you can see by the odd squares), as these could definitely be used as some kind of accent colour. Some downsides to this design are that it's a little bit sparse, and just generally does not look as engaging as the other two.

I think that I will probably end up mostly referencing the middle concept, with inspiration from the other two.

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