Desk and Kitchen sketches [WEEK 17]

 Kitchen -

I had an idea of using Maya to help me block out the environments much quicker and more accurately then drawing on top of my screenshots to add in additional details. I tried this first with the kitchen scene, wanting to make a very standard student kitchen just made a bit more homely and detailed with elements reflecting the personalities of both the main character and the room mate. I added a lot of sun and nature decals to all of these scenes whilst still making it seem believable that students live here with messy worktops and full sinks. This method of planning out the scenes in maya first really helped to not only ensure everything stayed in scale, but i can also move around the scene meaning if we needed a shot from a different angle yet still in the same room, things would stay consistent and more believable. As our director is quite proficient at 3D modelling too, i proposed that this could be something he could work on if he felt there were few jobs for him left to do in the pipeline. He could take the concepts either Pantelis or I create, make them in Maya, then i can draw on top of them to make them fit in with the style of our game. Not all backgrounds would require this as you will see in the next set of thumbnails. Of these four thumbnails i like the third and second one best, i think they feel very realistic for a student accommodation with the messy worktops and full cupboards, and i also like the little details of the magnets on the extractor fan and the stuffed sun sitting on the shelf.

Feedback -

Asking for some feedback most people agreed with me on design 3 being the best of the bunch, the only thing i was given in terms of advice/feedback is that the small tiling as a backsplash is not entirely realistic for student accommodation. I agree with this and i think i might replace it with just a larger tiling behind the hob area. This information was given to me by Nathan who is on my team.

Sasha - "i like 4 bcuz it matches my own taste in how id decorate a kitchen with a lot of things but 3 and 2 are the most easy to digest with my eyes. the tiles in the back and food on the hobs are my favourite part of 3 and 4"

Francis - "3, i feel it has the most character :)"

Nat - "i kinda like desk 2 and kitchen 3"

Desk -

The desk scene is found right in the very beginning of our game during the unpacking scene, with this in mind i wanted these thumbnails to show all of the belongings the main character brought with them, that is supposed to be the focus of the scene as the main character is not actually seen at all until the kitchen scene [potentially]. Of these sketches i really liked desk 3 and 4, i kept most of the items the same on the desk, preferring the laptop over the PC as it just looks a little neater.

Feedback -

In the feedback i got a lot of mixed opinions on which ones are the favourite. A deciding factor on which design i want to go with came from Nathan again who discussed in class in terms of storytelling and scene layout that desk 3 would work best in terms of showing everything the main character has unpacked, the little details are nice in showing their personality and this composition really puts the most emphasis on all the objects. I absolutely agree and with this piece of information in mind to consider, I don't really see any other of my designs working as well as this one.

Nathan - "I like the left two quite a bit. Depending on what I could do with the ui the bottom left seems like a good choice"

Katie - "I like the bottom right because I love fairy lights and it has rule of thirds with the posters(?) on the wall. The lights also create leading lines, leading your eyes to the right then left"

Rose - "I love one for the perspective!! And the bottom right because it shows most of the desk and the fairy lights are so cute!!!"

Francis - " i like the fourth one the best, i think it feels the most open and inviting"

Now that i have two designs selected to carry on with, my next step is to draw these up in the style of our game. I will have to work using advice from the character artist on how i should use colour, lighting, linework and saturation in these scenes to ensure our game stays consistent in style. As we don't have any finalized sprites yet, i am going to move on to making more thumbnails for the wardrobe, cafeteria and benji's room. As soon as the character artist has posted the sprites, i will immediately start finalizing these background assets.