Sprint 6
Hello my name is Mo and I am a 3D artist for the game Crop Undercover. For the sixth sprint, I worked on finishing up some of the smaller props and working on the sound manager for the game.
For the models, I finished up my UVs so that I could texture the barn asset. I worked on getting the textures done with a nice and white wood accents that help sell the barn, which the level designers can use.
I then went to work on getting a crate of tomatoes within the game. I modeled a very simple low poly crate, which consisted of a few weird planks and four corner pieces to connect them. I then uv and textured the crate.
For the low poly tomatoes, it was very simple as well in which I just took a sphere and lowered the poly count to give it the tomato shape all while not being super high poly. I then modeled the little stem on top. Before texturing, I wanted to make sure that my level designers would have an easier job so I created a bunch of tomatoes that look like they fit in the crate and saved that model out as well.
Finally on the art side, I also created a material that our level designers can use on terrain to create dirt patches alongside just dirt and in general. I worked on this material in Substance Sampler. It allowed me to create a great and importantly tillable texture that can be used on the ground. I used a lot of the assets in sampler as well as the stylization filter to make sure it fits our game. Afer creating the bottom texture, my designer and produced asked if I can create one that's way lighter in color like the top one.
For the sound manager, I created a script that houses a play function along with an input for sounds that I can put in. For the input, I put a prefab that holds all of the farmer sounds on it with audio sources. Then in the farmer scrips, I just call the sound manager. There ares still bugs, notably the walking is super scuffed in which it just plays infinitely all at once. And the crops when harvested, don't make a sound yet.
Sprint 5
Hello my name is Mo and I am a 3D Artist for the game Crop Undercover. For the fifth sprint, the main aspects of the game I worked on was creating various different props for the game.
After speaking with my producer, I was given various tasks on creating a lightpost, lamp, finishing up the metal and wooden fence gate, the escape hatch for the brick gate, crop fields, and a barn. I worked on finishing up the metal fence gate first and wanting to have that done in the game so our level designers can implement more than the generic fences we had.
I first looked for references and after confirming with my designer, I got started with making just the modular set for the metal fence gate. One way I wanted to make my life easier was to handle the metal chains within the model through alphas. I modeled the fence and the fence gate pretty easily and then had a separate plane in which I can slap on a texture to emulate the chain look. I believed this would give a good result for the final product.
After finishing up the models, I brought them into Substance Painter where I textured and worked on getting a stylized and jagged look on the plane. After working out the right look, I then transferred that texture/material over to the fence gate to make sure there is parity between the models.
I then worked on getting the brick gate escape point created and textured. I thankfully had a great reference provided so I got that worked on and textured.
Finally towards the end part of the sprint, I got working on a barn model to populate the scenes and for the next sprint I'm going to try and finalize the UV and texturing for it.
Sprint 4
Hello, my name is Mo and I am a 3D Artist for the game Crop Undercover. For the fourth sprint, the main aspects of the game I worked on was getting the gibs in a more jagged shape and starting the modeling process for other props in the game.
After verifying with my producer regarding the gibs, I was told that the gibs needed to be more jagged in nature. The pieces I originally made were more of just the pieces of the model broken up but not as sharp as he wanted. I got to work then breaking up the individual pieces and then UVing them. I wanted to keep the UVs as close to the original model layout as possible so we can just transfer the materials over. After getting each model set up and UVd, I then moved on to starting on the stun gun.
About halfway through the sprint, there was a producer hiccup in which there were cards that were basically at a standstill. No new cards were assigned and nothing was being verified. After a talk with our executive producers, we got one of our modelers, Hannah, to be a secondary producer. She was on top of things day one and helped organize a lot of the backlog and work that needed to be done.
Under the new process, I was given more environmental cards to model. This was seen as a little bit more of a priority so we can fill up our scene for the game. The models I was given were a metal fence to have the barbed wire on along with fishing rods, a barn, a metal fence just for barrier along with a crop field and a gate escape point. All these were given in a short time frame so unfortunately I wasn't able to make a lot of them but I did model a good amount and starting sprint 5, I will be UVing and texturing asap.
I also was given the task to texture the brick wall and retexture the old pitchfork. I worked on those to finish those up quickly so my designer can implement them within the game asap
The model I did get to finish was the fishing rod. As this was just an environmental piece, I kept it simple with our lowpoly style. I just extruded a simple cylinder and added bolts along the stick. The string is a very simple curve that was sweep meshed to create the 3D look. I then UVd and textured the piece along with making different grip variants as requested.
Sprint 3
Hello, my name is Mo and I am a 3D Artist for the game Crop Undercover. For the third sprint, I felt like the kick off in regards to in class discussion was way better and very helpful in understanding what it is that the producer needs from me as well as my own wants this sprint.
For this sprint, the main models that I worked on was the touchpoint, shed, and the gibs for the different crop models. I first started off creating the touchpoint. This would be one of the main aspects that the players would be interacting with, so I made sure I wanted to create something that fits the lead designer's vision. I spoke with both my producer and designer on the concept they wanted. They wanted a kind of power switch box in which the players will be able to interact with it to turn it on.
I approached the modeling process by breaking the box down in different ways. With the reference, it actually wasn't a total hard model because I had something to look at. I first constructed the outside box that I made have a door that can be swung open. This door was its own object do in Unity, the designers can animate it opening and closing through code. I then created a small power lever and the backplate of it so that it also can be animated to show it being turned on or not.
As for texturing, I used the same process as before, utilizing different dark and light layers with grunge maps. I personally wasn't as happy with the actual metal texturing as well as the dirt layer on top but the designer was happy with the final result so I complied.
The next models I worked on was creating the shed asset. I again approached my producer and designer to understand what they wanted and I am really glad I did for this asset. I first assumed it was just a small shed that will be used as a background piece but I was told that this is a main level obstacle. Players will be able to go in and out of the shed so I needed to make essentially walls that level designers can place within the level.
I went about this in kind of a modular way to make the lives of the level designer easier and more efficient for our games. I modeled a bunch of different sized planks all alongside each other. I then UV'd these planks to make my job easier later when I had to texture them. I then duplicated it 3 times and worked on the other walls. I then got smaller planks of wood to make each section different from each other. One of the walls was more an entrance so I made two large wood planks and surrounded them with the skinnier white wood. I then made one with a window utilizing the same idea. Finally I just made 2 wood wall variants for differentiation.
Finally the last few models I worked on was creating gibs for the player characters. Gibs are flesh and body parts that can be thrown around when a body is exploded like in games like TF2. For this, I worked with Dalia, another 3D artist on our team, to utilize her awesome characters that she created. I took her characters and essentially chopped it up in different pieces, similar to like how a knife might chop a vegetable. I then gave the cut pieces geometry so that its not just planes flying around. I then UV'd the crops, trying to keep the original UVs as intact as possible, all while with the new UVs. The reason I wanted to keep the UVs as close because then the texture for the characters can for the most part just plug in with minimal adjustment.
Sprint 2
Hello, my name is Mo and I am a 3D Artist for the game Crop Undercover. For the second sprint, the kick off was a little bit more smooth and more organized on what we need to cover in this sprint. For this sprint, my focus was on creating more models for the game as well as creating some texturing.
I was assigned some texturing processes but after a while, all of the artists got together to lock down a final art style. We wanted some sort of parity between the our individual processes and get the confirmation from our designer and producer on if the art we are making is the vision that they intend for the game. After the meeting, we locked down what the art style is trying to look like and how we should approach the texturing.
For texturing and after having the meeting, I decided to change up the texturing look and process of the materials for our game. This new material look is more stylized and falls within the look that the designer wants from the game. I wrote a document for my fellow artists to have consistency on how we are going to texture our models. This new method was applied to the models I created this sprint and we all agreed that this is the new style. We achieve this look by using grunge maps as well as different values to highlight different aspects of the models.
Another major asset I worked on was the woodpile barrier. Within the game, we have barriers to stop players from escaping and obstacles. I was assigned the task of creating a modular set of a wood pile that the level designers can place within the game whether its a barrier or an obstacle within the playing area. I decided that to get the look of a piled wood I wanted to use the MASH system within Maya. I went ahead and created 4 wooden pieces from one log, to imitate the chopped wood look. I then took the MASH system and dropped the wood to have them scatter and land naturally. I then duplicated a bunch of random seeds and combined them.
For texturing the wood, I wanted to make a distinction between the "outside" and "inside" of the wood so I split them up with a simple lambert in Maya. This then led me to approach the texturing that's uniform for all the modular parts so there is only one material for all the modular parts rather than creating a bunch of materials for each. I then textured the well with the new style and I think it looks really actually cool as this is my first time working in the stylized style.
Sprint 1
Hello, my name is Mo and I am a 3D Artist for the game Crop Undercover. This is the first sprint for the game and I think it went well after a choppy first start. At the start, the kickoff was a little mismanaged from the producer end but I understand the struggles as I was a producer in previous projects. After getting an idea of a general idea of what we needed within our game for the day, I started from my end.
Before starting my work, I made sure I worked with my fellow modelers on establishing certain housekeeping items in order to maintain consistency between everyone. We established our scale and references for how certain items should be modeled. This was a very helpful talk because it very much futureproofs us and allows us to have minimal mistakes coming up.
After getting the talk done, we individually went to work on our respective jobs. My tasks were to create low poly beta models for early prototyping and playtesting for the game. These aren't the final in game models but a representation on what they can look like. I was to create the farmer's crop harvesting tool, a stun gun, and various scrap. I first got started with the crop harvesting tool. After speaking with my producer, who spoke with the designer, I was given two ideas on making the harvesting tool. One was to be similar to shears and one was a pitchfork like design.
I first started off with the shears. I went to look for references online and found one that really caught my eye and wanted to go with that. As this was meant to be a low poly/ beta model, it didn't need to be the most advanced or complete model, but needed a shape that still was close. I first started to model the blades and then moved on to the holder of the shears. During modeling, I noticed that the shears were in a way mirrored so I decided to just model one side of the shears and then duplicated it and rotated it 180 degrees. This saved me time in the UVs as well because rather than UVing two different blades, I just UVed one and duplicated the model. I fixed the duplicated model's UVs and I finished.
I then started on the pitchfork, which was a little more challenging. I didn't want to go so detailed because this was again meant to be a version one per se of these models but I still needed them to look great. I first looked for reference and found some that I liked. I then started the modeling process. I first started with the base of the pitchfork. which was the large wood piece. I then modeled the metal spikes along with a piece in the middle that gives the illusion of the metal and wood being held together.
The last thing I modeled was an early rendition of a stun gun. I was thankfully given a reference by our concept artists to help me visualize what an early look of this should look like. I used the reference to create a small stun gun, which was my first time tackling something like this. As an FPS fan, I always wanted to learn how to model weapons and this was my first try. I believe that I can improve as this wasn't my finest work.
Along with the work with modeling, I also then started on early texturing. This process was a little more difficult as I was thought and knew how to texture more realistic materials. The materials for the game needed to be more of a stylized/hand painted look and this was something that I would need to learn and improve. After explaining this to my producer, I started with texturing the shears to get an understanding of what I need to do.
I first started with just a base color layer of the metal. I then used various different generators inside of Substance Painter to generate different patterns and such to add depth to the actual texture. Generators like a dirt generator to get a darker color on the actual metal to having highlights on the edges of the blades themselves. The one filter I used a lot was the blur slope filter. What this filter does is make textures you have more blotchy and blurred, perfect for a stylized and "painted" look. I then carried this process to both the shears and the pitchfork.
