CAGD 495 - Dive Time

 Dive Time

Sprint 3

Steampunk, low-scifi. Heavy themes of machinery and flesh fusion.

3D side-scrolling underwater low sci-fi diving & fishing & mild thriller/horror. (Underwater ide-scroller diving/fishing/rouge-lite)

Swim, catch, sell, upgrade, and don’t drown.

Dive into the water, catch fish, avoid danger with your abilities, return to the surface and sell the fish, upgrade your equipment, then dive again.

This sprint, I worked on the Shark, Eel, and Sailfish models and includes their corresponding UVs.

Majority of this sprint, I spent my time modeling the Mutated Bull Shark model. The references provided were described similar to a Helicoprion, a extinct shark type with a buzzsaw like mouth and teeth that caused it to form into itself like a spiral.

This was the hardest fish I have had to model so far because of its size and complexity. Along with this mutated shark model, I was to model it similar to our concept art we made for it, which included pipes and other addons.

My approach was to start with a plane and scale it to the size of my reference image. I added edge loops along the way to shape the body along with a new plane for each limb like the fins and tail. The hardest part during this was getting the mouth right. I asked around my team on how they would approach this, and my rigger/animators said I should model the mouth straight and let them curl it. After sorting that out, I extruded each part and centered the fins and tail.

I then started touching up the main body like smoothing out the outlines. Then I started messing with the vertexes and edge loops to plump and mold the shark for its proportions. I felt I was focusing too much on the body and started working more toward the accessory add-ons.  

The first accessory I focused on was this metal latch that was shown to look like it was attached to the shark. I started out with a cube and extruded each side to make a plus shape. From here I made a circular shape in the center and messed around with it until I liked it. 

I originally thought that shaping it and molding it onto the body would be easy. I planned to use a bend tool to curve it enough to look like it wrapped on, but learned no matter how I positioned the bend tool, my latch would more so stretch, rather than slightly curve.

Because of this issue, I tried my best to manually take each group of the section and move it downwards and rotate it just enough to look like it dug into the skin. Although, once I was done messing with each group of vertexes, there was still some clipping, and if I adjusted anymore, there would be overlapping faces and tearing.

Next, was the part I thought would be easy but after the process, was one of the hardest parts, the pipes. I assumed this would be easy because I would use the curve tool to make the pipe line then revolve around that line into a cone. After spending an hour going through tutorials, trying to figure out why this wasn't working, I asked a friend for help.

We ended up adjusting the faces on a cylinder and stretched it out along the reference image and added edge loops throughout it to mimic when the pipes would curve. This would all be done in the side view, then go back into 3D to manually space out and adjust around the shark. Although a simple process, I spent a lot of time rotating and adjust the edge loops because they would end up folding into itself and tearing.

The next part I worked on were the teeth. I talked with my designer about the teeth because if I modeled each tooth, the faces would add up since the concept of this shark has so many teeth. We decided on keeping them as just planes since the fish will wont be seen head-on. I was also advised to keep the teeth as squares rather than triangles by moving them close together, just enough that that the vertexes do not overlap.

The last few details I added were small spikes on the top of the body and on the side, the 3 eyes, and a back oxygen like tank towards the end of the body. Overall, I am very proud of myself for completing this fish as it was definitely a challenge which taught me a lot about tools I have barely or never used. I almost spent too much time that I started crashing out over it, and had some help and take over the UVing part of the shark.

The next fish model was the Giant Moray Eel. It's key feature is its armor like head surrounding like another layer. A reference to this was the metal exoskeleton head plates on the Dunkleosteus fish.

Starting off with the plane outlining the body, I separated the fish into 2 parts, the body and the long fin surrounding it.

Then I worked on the frill that was originally going to look like the end of the helmet, since I assumed that the helmet would be textured on as a different color of the head to the body. Looking back, I am not sure why I was so adamant about this frill, but I still think it came out nice.

I also added some rigid spikes around the head to relate back towards the concept art of a cliff like edges. Some feedback I got was to make the exoskeleton more obvious and adjust the head to be less smooth.

At the time I was a bit confused so I experimented with adding some stone like scales around the head for height but ultimately duplicated the body and deleted everything but the head. Then I deleted faces for where the eyes would go and filled some empty space within the mouth area.

While I was getting help with the UVs, one of my teammates helped me adjust the helmet I made for the exoskeleton. We deleted some of the faces towards the frill and made it more carved. I think this really put it all together and made it stand out more. 

 

My last fish for this sprint was the Sailfish, which is similar to a Marlin or also known as a sword fish. This fish I had to ask a lot about compared to other fishes in a few aspects specifically the top fin and the bottom belly fins. 

The concept art for the top fin made it look like 2 seperate parts but also combined, so I wasn't sure if I should separate them or if it wouldn't matter and my rigger said it wouldn't matter but if they were separated, it would be easier on them, which I ended up separating.

The next confusing part for me were the belly fins. In the realistic concept art, some of them had these fins which looks like they split in 2, so I wasn't sure if there were 4 fins or if they branched from the body. After modeling and rechecking in, I was informed that there were just 2 rather than 4 on the belly

Another part I got help with was the mouth. While I was modeling it, because it was such a long line, I worried about it stretching and where to cut to have the mouth open if it did. I also asked how the animation would work, which would depend if I kept the mouth closed as 1 or split it as the beak/tip and under lip.

I was proud of the final product, and learned a lot in the process, specifically about how to UV. My Texture artist helped me out where I should be cutting to make texturing much easier, specifically doing the butterfly cut technique and cutting as little as possible.  

Overall, I am proud with how my models came out this sprint, although I didn't meet my producers expectations, I feel I am getting what I can done and isn't causing anyone else to be blocked. Depending on the future fishes and their abstractness, I hope to still strive to get more than 3 fishes done each sprint.

Dive Time

Sprint 2

Steampunk, low-scifi. Heavy themes of machinery and flesh fusion.

3D side-scrolling underwater low sci-fi diving & fishing & mild thriller/horror. (Underwater ide-scroller diving/fishing/rouge-lite)

Swim, catch, sell, upgrade, and don’t drown.

Dive into the water, catch fish, avoid danger with your abilities, return to the surface and sell the fish, upgrade your equipment, then dive again.

As the 3D modeler, I worked on the fishes, which I learned I will be in charge of for the whole project. Specifically, this sprint I worked on the Sardine, Ghost Crab, and Barracuda.

At the beginning of the sprint, I worked on the Sardine which meant I had to gather references. Majority of the references I was given from the design documents were 2D, so I started looking at the anatomy of the fish to understand the width, size, and whatever is going on on the other side of the fish.

After settling on an image, I brought it into Maya with an image plane. My idea was to outline the fish and line up vertexes for its silhouette. Once adjusted to my liking, I extruded everything a little since the Sardine is one of the smallest fishes in this game and is overall tiny in width. I then used the smooth tool to round it out while deleting unnecessary edge loops to keep low poly. To top it all off I verified with our rigger if there were any edge loops what were needed and if so where, and asking if any existing edge loops were unneeded.

The next fish I worked on was the Ghost Crab. So far this was definitely the hardest fish I modeled even though we're only 2 sprints in. Again I found a diagram and did some research on this crab. Compared to other crabs, their eyes stick out of their shell and have a wonky eyelash at the top of them. I also noted that one of their claws are bigger than the other. While I was modeling It was brought to my attention that the note on this crab by my designer specifically said they didn't want it to have the large claw which I ended up deleting.

The legs gave me the most difficulty because when I modeled them, I traced the reference image but once extruded, it came out really flat. I tried to fix this a few ways, the first being to smooth it, since everything smoothed has come out looking nice which I tested on 2 of the crab legs. Next I tried beveling the edges of the legs on the bottom and had my designer give me their opinion. We ended up settling on the beveled version because the smoothed one looked too much like tubes.

During this time I thought this was fine so I wanted to double check with my rigger so see if everything is ok to finalize but realized it was too flat, and realistically, crabs are not flat like that. So when turning it into it's proper view, the legs were an issue again because of their length and how they were bent.

I spent a good few hours messing with the vertexes to widen the legs for their joint proportions and how they would move. Again I checked in with my rigger and was given the green flag to UV it and submit it as finished.

My last model I did for this sprint was the Barracuda. As I was modeling the barracuda, I was told to remember the theme of steampunk and incorporate that into the fishes. I was told our concept artist made a sketch for the barracuda, so i referenced some parts into the fish.

After getting the outline then extruding, I started adding a metal almost like a metal neck brace around the fish. I spent a good while on this small detail because I didn't know if I wanted it to be 1 object or to break it down into 3 piece; left, middle, and right. I also tried to mess with the revolve tool which made more problems than making things easier because it created stacked faces and weird vertexes.

Once I was almost done, my designer came over and said they actually wanted this fish to be more realistic than steampunked, which was contradicting my producer. We had some clarification issues but ended up re-working that jaw part, into a can around its neck.

I lastly checked in with my rigger to see if the joints had enough edge loops to animate smoothly, and was given the greenlight after adding a few loops to the can and the end of the tail.

Overall, I am proud of the work I have done this sprint. I feel like I am getting better than modeling fishes which is a good feeling because I have never modeled anything breathing/alive. I am also proud of myself for doing 3 cards this sprint, which seems low and honestly is, but I am doing better than last sprint and hope to do just as many or if not more by next sprint.

 Dive Time

Sprint 1

Steampunk, low-scifi. Heavy themes of machinery and flesh fusion.

3D side-scrolling underwater low sci-fi diving & fishing & mild thriller/horror. (Underwater ide-scroller diving/fishing/rougelite)

Swim, catch, sell, upgrade, and don’t drown.

Dive into the water, catch fish, avoid danger with your abilities, return to the surface and sell the fish, upgrade your equipment, then dive again.

For this project, I take on the role as a 3D modeler. This type of project is new to me in many ways including; modeling of a living being, a bigger team with those who need my work to progress, and a much bigger scope.

Compared to previous projects and classes, we have only ever works in groups of 2-4 and each person was their own 'lead'. This also is the first time taking 495 which focuses on a detailed game in a large group of 10-12 people. Work is also more spread out for different roles yet more stressful. In the sense we are passing a bomb around where each person relies on the other so they can do their work.

Comparing being a modeler in previous classes, we were in charge of all models rather than splitting up the work with others. This is also important for organizations, naming conventions, and UVs.

This sprint, I worked on 2 fishes, the toy bomb fish and the lionfish. I'm not proud of my work/progress for this sprint due to being a hecktick start of the semester with classes and Game Jam. I was able to finish the bomb fish and uving it then sending it over to our animators/riggers and towards the end of the sprint, I started the lionfish model.

Before starting my bomb fish model, I did some research on what my designers vision was for this fish. I learned that this wasn't based on a real fish, but rather the early 2000s pool diving toy. I found this reference image that fits our mechanical/machinery vibe. I also kept its movement in mind like how it would swim; by moving is a squiggly way as its body clicked into place.

I was overwhelmed when I was told I was going to be modeling 3D fishes because in my whole 4 years in this major, they never taught us how to model living beings such as this fish. I also had to keep in mind low poly along with what would make my animator/rigger be able to successfully give it movement.

I started with implementing this as a reference image in Maya then using the curve tool to sculpt the fish part by part. I wanted to try to mimic Connors old video of using revolving tool for curves to mirror a circular, plump fish. A few issues arose from this, the first being once revolved around, it because inverted which needed to be flipped inside out. A second issue I noted later was that I tried to keep it all together rather than separating each body part and fins, make it impossible for the riggers to break the fish up to move each part. I had to create a hole in the fish and add a long pipe like body.

Lastly, i had to turn this fish into even lower poly, but keeping it recognizable was hard after taking so many edge loops away and avoid triangles.