Francis Varley: Games Art 2024-25

Clothing Folds There are numerous types of clothing fold that can be seen when drawing clothes. The types of clothing fold seen in clothing are determined by the position that the clothing is held in, as well as what is underneath the clothing and what the material is made of. These come together to create points of tension, regions of the clothing that are put under pressure and which stretch areas around it. From these stretched areas, folds in fabric can be seen, the flowing direction of these folds determined by the qualities of the clothing and its position.  Capturing this flowing motion - which flows between folds, points of tension and areas of stretching - can be difficult and, as such, when studying these numerous fold types, I have used several different techniques to retain and enforce a flowing motion. Shown below are studies of three types of folds: pipe folds, formed by clothing material falling into cylindrical bunches, drop folds, formed when material is bunched to...

Further Model Development: After discussing the models I had created with the group, it was decided that the process of 3D Sculpting could be used to add detail and increase the fidelity of models. Though I had created previous assets in a low polygon style, and had shown them to my group as such, it was determined that they wanted more detail to be added to the models to make them appear more realistic. This would come with the addition of more geometry to the meshes of the larger models.  As such, I would hand these models over to Seb, who would utilise 3D Sculpting software ZBrush to create this detail. because of this, alterations had to be made to the models. With the fungal spore model I had to separate the shelf fungi from the central body mass, filling in the holes behind and cleaning up relevant topology in their wake. As such, this functionally created a separate model for the shelf fungi themselves. These could be sculpted upon individually and seperately from the centra...

Unreal Engine and importing Actors Unreal Engine is the game making software that we would create our game scene in: the levels, as well as enemy and tower assets, would be loaded and rendered within this software. As such, another weekly goal we decided upon was to get vaguely familiar with the software. There were a multitude of design decisions that we felt could be realised in Unreal Engine: the cel-shaded art style and outlines could both be rendered within the unreal engine software. In Unreal, everything in a scene - from characters to props to lights - is considered an "actor". Unreal allows you to place actors into a project from the Actor Window. When in the Actor window, multiple options are given as to the specific type of actor that can be placed in a scene. These include geometry, including basic forms such as cubes and cylinders. Geometry added in this manner can be transformed: moved, rotated and scaled in a manner comparable to that of Autodesk Maya. This geo...

IMM CURVES IMM Curves are specific IMM Brushes that allow for curved shapes to be drawn into a workspace atop a model. These IMM patterns follow a set curve, which is determined as the curve is drawn over the model. The IMM is then placed over this curve, following its length and orientation and placing multiple IMM instances along it. These instances join together to form one total mass. For example, chains, belt buckles or cables could be constructed from IMM curves. In the example of a chain, the individual chain links would follow the path of the curve and join together to form one swooping path. IMM Curves can be created by importing multiple Objects into ZBrush. To demonstrate this process, I modelled a charging cable in Maya, separating the model into three objects - a top, middle and bottom section, which had their vertices aligned yet which were not conjoined. This was an important step as it clearly showed ZBrush where the front, mid, and end sections of the model lie, which ...

Role Model Research: Brian Richmond and Soulmuppet: The production of tabletop games, particularly tabletop role playing games, is an area of the creative games industry that I seek to work within in the future, with the wants and needs of the sector being broad enough so that work within both large industry veterans and smaller independent companies is plausible. Freelance contract work for illustration sees part-time work integrated into the norm (Stonemaier Games 2021). This is due to the nature of the production pipeline in such projects, which do not require continuous art creation. Looking within the indie tabletop games industry, a publishing company local to the Nottingham area - Soulmuppet Publishing - serves to be an excellent example for my personal aspirations for the future. Soulmuppet Publishing acts as a company that "develops and publishes a range of roleplaying games by writers and artists from all around the world." (Soulmuppet Publishing 2024), bearing a la...

Market Research - Itch.io: As Itch.Io is the site we will publish our game on, I went about researching similar games the site hosts to determine market trends and target audience specificity. When searching on Itch.Io, filters can be used to show specific results: using this, I looked into the top sellers, top rated and most recent games published at the time. As I searched this, specific trends showed themselves. Top Sellers: A lot of dating games with anime art styles sometimes using anthropomorphic animals. Some are LGBT-oriented.  Top Rated: Similar to the Top Sellers, a lot of carry over from one list to the other. Other top rated games are free or play in the browser. Additionally, games that have bene out for longer are present here (Such as "Doki Doki Literature Club"). Most Recent: A lot of different art styles and themes that diverge from that seen in the most popular / sold lists. Some are similar, though I noted that two games (“In 13 hours the Sun will swallow...

Hands: I have been continuously practising in drawing hands. These elements of human anatomy are uniquely challenging and require constant practice; they contain many bone structures in the fingers that, though operating in similar fashions, are situated in different angles and positions from one another, able to move on the knuckle largely independent from the other masses in the hand. Hands also contain a great deal of overlapping muscles and regions of skin, seen between the fingers and thumb and in the creases that form in the hand when it clasps and grips. Foreshortening is also of importance in the hand, seen when fingers are positioned closer to the point of view. This forshortening is important, as it must still convey the length of the finger whilst not detracting from the differences in size that fingers have between them. As such, these different aspects of construction come together to create a difficult piece of anatomy to illustrate. As such, I have been routinely practis...