Major Project: Wandering

22.04.24 - 09.08.24 (Week 1 - Week 16)
Chai Yi Xuan / 0346645 / B' Creative Media
Major Project
Wandering

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INSTRUCTIONS

Week 1

For the first week, we are gathered in class for a briefing of our assignment. Mr Asrizal and Mr Kannan gave us some insight and guidelines for what we should do for our major project. After the briefing, I tried to come up with some potential ideas. My ideas leaned towards concept art for games, as it was the area I was interested in.

 

Week 3

After meeting with Mr Kannan about my ideation, he gave a few more suggestions for me to ponder about. In the end, I managed to pick an idea for my major project.

Week 4

I proceed to build up my ideas while concepting the characters for the game. Initially, my plan was to go for a 3D open-world game. But after some deliberation, I changed the concept to a 2D side-scroller platform game. Unfortunately, that meant my earlier drafts are rendered insignificant, especially when they didn't fit the theme and style of the new game concept.

Figure 1.3: Early character draft - Protagonist

Figure 1.4: Early character draft - Companion

Week 5

Designing the characters became a challenge when I changed the game concept. Side-scroller platform game characters usually have minimal details, mostly to help stand out and easier on the eyes. The irony is I picked a culture with a love for batik, which can get very complicated. It was definitely a challenge to translate Hmong fashion onto a simple character design.

Figure 1.5: Protagonist - Draft 1

Figure 1.6: Protagonist - Draft 2

The companion character was easier to redesign, though I did need to fix the anatomy a few times to get it right and fit for the style.

Figure 1.7: Companion - Draft 1

Figure 1.8: Companion - Draft 2

Week 6

The antagonist took a while to be designed, since I had the most trouble in determining his body type and anatomy. His design had the most variation as I had no clear preference over the other.

Figure 1.9: Antagonist - Draft 1

Figure 1.10: Antagonist - Draft 2

I also worked on the colour palettes for the characters, arguably the easiest work to do so far.

Figure 1.11: Colour variation - Protagonist

Figure 1.12: Colour variation - Companion

Figure 1.13: Colour variation - Antagonist

Week 8

I started drafting out the environment for game. I spent most of the week planning out the type of environment I wanted to create, and made a draft world map for easy visualisation.

Figure 1.14: World map - draft

In the meantime, I was breaking down the characters into assets to create an asset sheet. I focused more on the protagonist and companion as they would be the main characters of the game.

Figure 1.15: Character asset - Ia

Figure 1.15: Character asset - PanHu

Week 9

I made sketches for the environment based on the drafted map I had. Initially, I drew them the way I did for Environment Design class, but it was hard to visualise and translate it into parallax— which is the standard for most 2D platform games. Eventually I just decided to draw the level design itself, which would help save up some time.

Figure 1.16: Mt YuHuan - sketch v.1

Figure 1.17: Mt YuHuan - sketch v.2

Figure 1.18: Mt YuHuan - sketch v.3

Figure 1.19: Bamboo Hills - sketch v.1

Figure 1.20: Bamboo Hills - sketch v.2

Figure 1.21: Bamboo Hills - sketch v.3

Figure 1.22: Dark Peak - sketch v.1

Figure 1.23: Dark Peak - sketch v.2

Figure 1.24: Dark Peak - sketch v.3

Week 11

We were expected to present our progression by this week, so I prepared the slides (which has been collecting dust) for it.

Figure 1.25: Major Project - proposal and progression

After the presentation, I started developing the environment design, starting with Mt YuHuan. The results came out a little disappointing, and I was stuck on what to do to improve it.

Figure 1.25: Mt YuHuan - early render

A feedback session with Mr Kannan was enough to guide me to the right direction, and I managed to refine it way better than it used to be.

Figure 1.26: Mt YuHuan, refined

With my confidence rebuilt after that failure, I moved on to developing Dark Peak, which is arguably more easier due to terrain and the nature of the environment.

Figure 1.27: Dark Peak, refined

Week 13

Nearing the end of the semester, I started panicking. There was little time and too many to do. My initial plan was to also develop Bamboo Hills as well, but I'm starting to feel the burnout and I don't want to be unmotivated at such a crucial time. Instead, I switched gears and developed the world map instead, which was significantly easier.

Figure 1.28: World map, refined

I also created the asset sheet for the level designs I made so far.

Figure 1.29: Environment assets, Mt YuHuan

Figure 1.30: Environment assets, Dark Peak

Week 14

I changed my focus back to my characters, which is to make a key art for each of them. I decided to print them out as collateral as well, so I designed them with a frame in mind.

Figure 1.31: Key art - Ia

Figure 1.32: Key art - PanHu

Figure 1.33: Key art - Tong

Week 15

I was running out of time, so instead of working on the environment design for Bamboo Hills, I decided to create art bible as it takes time to print it at the shop. There wasn't a lot of content as there were a lot of things I couldn't get done, regrettably.

Figure 1.34: Wandering - Concept Art Bible

Final Submission

Figure 1.14: Final presentation slides - Wandering

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REFLECTIONS

Major project was a lot, as I would expect and more. Ideally, the project would have an extensive set (character sheet, all three environment designs + assets, mini enemies, UI, etc.) but I could only manage half of the things I'd like on the list. Seeing this is my final year project, I had to prioritise my quality (which takes a long time) over my quantity. Coupled with my position as the design team of the exhibition, my attention had to be split. Being part of the exhibition was definitely good for experience, but definitely not something I want to do any time soon.

In the end, though, I was happy to hear others mentioning they liked my work. I have my doubts, and sometimes I did wondered if I'm not doing as well as everybody else. I had grand plans but no steps or schedule to get there, which left me feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work I had in mind. I took more breaks than I'd like in between just to step away from the stress and pressure before I spiral from anxiety. It was thanks to my friends and family support that I had the strength to make a decent FYP.

Aside from the challenges, I did gain some valuable experience. It's not much different from Game Art class, but there was definitely more things to consider and plan for, especially starting the concept from scratch. Mr Kannan's feedback also made me learned more about the process of concepting for a game project, which will be helpful when I go into the industry in the future.