Monday, May 7, 2012

WPG: Dead End Approach and new Inspiration ...

16th MARCH

Dead End Approach



I had reached a point in development where I was unhappy with the art style and was not enjoying the work. I thought what I was producing was not at a standard I was happy with and looked dull and boring. The art style had no real Identity and looked like another 3d clone. I needed to find something that would ignite my passion.

The Backwater Gospel

slightly disheartened I wandered into class and had a meeting with Pete, Ben and Josh. They wernt to keen on the photo manipulated textures and rightly so they were not good. They still wanted a hand painted approach, but I was finding it hard to see how this visual style would work in the game. I knew Ether needed something with character, something that would help sell the narrative and immerse the player in a hand painted environment that felt personal to the experience. This was when Josh told me to take a look at The Backwater Gospel.


A selection of screen shots I took from Backwater

The Animation Workshop - The Backwater Gospel 2011.


The Backwater Gospel is an animation gem made by the Animation Workshop. The animation is about an undertaker coming to town and how the towns people turn on each other through the actions and influences of the church. It plays with religion and has a beautiful art style that I fell in love with instantly!

Here are a few links to development work:


The Backwater Gospel Blog: http://backwatergospel.blogspot.co.uk/

CGA Director Bo Mathrone's Vemo: http://vimeo.com/19954543

Lead Animator Arthur Gil Larsen's Vemo : http://vimeo.com/19740971 

Environment Artist Martin Holm-Grevy's Blog: http://holmgrevy.blogspot.co.uk/

Everything in the animation appealed to me and spoke to me as an artist. I realised that this visual style is something I could comfortably create, but in my own way. I didn't want to replicate it completely, but draw inspiration from it.


I managed to find a texture map created for the tramps jacket in the animation. The line work is what I want to use in Ether, but combine it with the loose painterly approach that I had developed in my early concepts.

The birth of a new style

I decided to make a test model to see if this would work, so I modelled and textured a boat. I decided to create a prop first as I feel you can inject more character into them:

Boat mesh with Checkerboard texture so I could judge if the Uv map worked.

 Initial texture pass blocking in key structural shapes.

Applied a wood grain overly texture with a low opacity to bring out some details.

Loosely applied more generous stokes of colour into the planks on the boat, working into the dark tonal areas and then applying the sketchy line work to bring out the shapes.


Worked in more colour values and added greens to suggest decay. Worked in the highlights and made the boat look like it had been painted white and worn away. One I was happy with the texture I used smart sharpen to help bring out the details.


I was happy with how the boat looked and felt that the approach had given a really nice illustrative look to the boat. With the use of line work running along structural lines in the geometry, it also gave the illusion of a cell-shaded object. This was something I had not intended but I was extremely pleased. At this point I sent images through to Pete and Ben who really liked the new style so I continued to work in this fashion.




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