Star Wars Project Episode I: The Fiean Menace

 The Goal: 

Create a 5-10 second in-game cinematic sequence in Unreal Engine 5.3 of a Walker from Star Wars marching down an alley in the outer rim.

Necessary Components for the Team:

Hard Surface Robotic Character Artist (Jessica Blask): To create a high poly and game ready, texutred model of an AT ST Walker (and provide additional set dressing support not covered by environment artist)

Environment Artist with a Hard Surface Preference (Justin Diaz): creates environment for the sequence; establishes and maintains scene scale and lighting

Prop Focused Hard Surface Artists: (Kirsten Futch and Haley Kroppman): create additional environmental loose props to populate set and establish scale

Hard Surface Focused Character Artist: (Eric Wiley): creates human stormtrooper character models; large focus on their uniform armor

Unreal 5.3 Animator (Paige Thorsen): Responsible for camera sequencer creation, animation of AT ST Walker, animation of marching troopers, all done in Unreal Engine

I'm also on point for most of Production Management, including the plan moving forward for a bi-weekly set of 6 Sprints

Why Star Wars:

    Several of our team's target studios make high value Star Wars games, for example: BioWare, Respawn, DICE, and EA. As hopeful entry level industry workers, we're seeking to analyze how a studio tackles a 3D interpretation of a large IP.

Episode 1: Schedule and References:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12V1pU1FQZHtQVUSFJ7CoHtqxB9tiQHxMiPlqFY-p890/edit#gid=0

    To plan the project and the necessary teammates required plus their spheres of influence, a Gantt Chart was created alongside the initial project pitch, which was then revised to accommodate portfolio worthy assignments for each team member along with their necessary spheres of influence. If you like looking at nice colorful spread sheets, take a look at the link above.

From there, the team moved into the Concept and Reference research:

The team collectively did research into the LucasFilm concepting team's process and how they achieve the Star Wars "Look" and how we can achieve similar styles.

From the "Art of Rogue One, Mandalorian, and the Force Awakens" books, the team selected an environment based on the marketplace/cantina in Jedha, a dusty outer rim planet.

From concept art, movie stills, and comic books, items were selected to act as inspiration for prop research and reference around the scene.

Loose Prop assets are being tracked in an Asset List: what doesn't get completed by the available prop artists will be sourced from asset packs to fill the scene and make it feel lived in, but the schedule allows for about 1-2 hero assets per prop artist and 5-6 background assets per prop artist, for a maximum total of 18 original props.

Animation references were pulled from scenes of troopers marching in Andor, Rogue One, and Disney Hollywood Studios

**Student actors were motion captured with walking cycles during a mo-cap workshop, video not shown here to protect actor privacy until they give consent to share video**

During the environmental research, the animator went through a rough proxy storyboard pass of a layout and sequence of action for our actors to go through:

2 storyboard layouts from the 2D Proxy Sequence

5 second animatic with one camera movement

10 second animatic with 2 camera shots

10 second animatic, slightly edited with suggestions from team and animation mentors

The animatic was then timed out in a test 3D proxy layout scene in Unreal

All proxy assets on display in engine

All proxy assets on display in engine, with preliminary environment and set dressing

Stay tuned for Episode II: Attack of the Cameras

Common Art 6: Composition

Compositional Piece inspired by the concept art of Syd Mead

Syd Mead was an inspirational concept artist and futurist responsible for the images of what cyberpunk looks like today; he worked on the visuals for several futuristic movies, including Bladerunner, Alien, and Tron. His work was meant to inspire a hedonistic and elegant approach to futurism as opposed to the gritty dystopian fantasy of futuristic apocalypses.

L shape composition lines overlayed on top of design

Reference Images of Syd Mead's compositions and art style

More information about Syd Mead

 

Common Art 5: Perspective Excersise

 The theme of this perspective exercise was "transport", so to keep with the other progressions of the common art exercises I designed a custom Mario Kart Wii Mach Bike for Samus so she can race with the other Nintendo characters.

I used a proxy 3D model to set up an accurate two point perspective in Maya with grids, and set up a camera with the focal length i wanted for both my composition and my perspective reference.

The Mach Bike was modeled after the 1972 Harley Davidson XRTT Road Racer, originally created to keep up with British racing motorcycles.

References

Common Art 4: Lighting Set-Up

 

Original Samus Silhouette by Anupama Narayan

Lighting and Color come from the value sheet from part 3 of this project.

Common Art: Value Blocking

The Goal of this Assignment was to create value blocking based on the original silhouettes chosen to move on from the silhouette step:

Original Ness Silhouette by Paige Thorsen

Original Samus Silhouette by Anapuma Narayan

Original Link Silhouette by Beste Unlu

Final Render with Gradient Overlay

Value Blocking

Line Art

Line Art Plus Values

Final Render

Common Art 02: Silhouettes

 

Week 2, I focused on the use of strong silhouette to characterize Ness from Earthbound.

    I wanted to make sure the silhouette could stand alone on itself before any character details come into the mix, and this includes both dynamic and stand alone poses that were visually interesting and illustrate the character's personality.

    I turned to the source material itself to gain a better understanding of Ness and his character, since I had no experience with Earthbound outside of Super Smash Bros. So this project turned out to be super fun, but I also discovered I love the style of Earthbound, and I'm hoping to continue the game in my free time! (if I have any free time, haha)

Common Art: Basic Shapes Re-design

Re-Design of Nintendo's Super Smash Brawl 64 Star Fox