Games Mechanics: Extreme Library

** If you require specific dates and more of a breakdown please take a look at Danielle's producer blog that  has been more regularly updated with the teams progress. **

Assigned Area // Team // Roles

The team i was assigned to consists of:
Sam Alton, Danielle Allum, Myself, Alex Collins and Adrian Uzor

The area we have been assigned is:
The Library and surrounding area

The role that i have been assigned is:
2D Art Lead

My role with consist of:
Art direction, Texturing (with help from others) and designing the 'Library Curtain'

Designing the curtain

The curtains are actually made up of 3 layers of draped cloth - my plan is to create 1 image that will be printed onto all 3 layers - when view from the front it will look as if it is one image.

The group are fond of the landscape concept artwork in my portfolio so we have agreed that we would play on my strengths and i shall paint a vertical landscape to be placed onto the curtains.

My initial inspiration is a piece by Noah Bradley:

A photo of the actual curtain from the library:

Here are some sketches to test out what type of landscape artwork i could create with the given ratio and to see what the rest of the team think about the approach:

I wanted to test out a matte painting technique to see if it would be a better approach to take. First i created a photo montage base from around 4 or 5 stock images taken from deviant art. And then i painted on top with a few adjustment layers to merge and add in new elements. I'm quite pleased with the results considering the time taken however the group is split on if they like it or not. Dani really likes the image however Alex thinks it may be a bit too detailed for this purpose. I also agree with Alex, so i may do a painted version also before making a final decision.

Grey Box
As a group we have visited the library to take reference photos of the inside and outside aswell as taking measurements of the building (measuring windows / panels and then using math to calculate the size of the outter walls) and using the floor plan Alex and Dani have assembled this greybox during the first week:

Alex and Dani have continued to refine our greybox in order to turn it into an interior and exterior that more accurately resembles the Library. As of November the 4th it now looks like this: 

Texturing

Whilst Dani and Alex have been working on updating the grey box i took it upon myself to learn how to UVW unwrap in Maya so that i could get ahead of the game to start texturing. Robin gave me a quick insight into the interface and the basic tools i should use and then through my own research i found interesting workflows to help me to understand the process better.

During the next 2 lessons i had unwrapped the Computer (PC) monitor, keyboard, mouse, CPU. The computer chair, Big square chair, computer table, Mac monitor and keyboard, bookshelf, books, toilet and placed basic textures onto them.

Now that the majority of the modelling has been completed (12th november) robin has given a quick texturing session and i have taught Alex how to work quicker with it. So now i have split up the unwrapping duties to the other members of the team.

Currently Alex is unwrapping and texturing the exterior of the building whilst i am doing the interior and finishing up the objects that i have already started. We have set Adrian and Sam the task to continue to model the rest of the objects that we need and to unwrap and texture them also - coming to us if they need help with any of these aspects.