Tunnels Moodboard, Research and Initial Ideas

Above is my moodboard, at first glance looks a bit random but it covers lighting references, VFX, style variations, materials and most importantly, tunnels and cave structures. So here's what I'm thinking for each...

Tunnel Structure

The first question I asked myself was, "How did these fictional Tunnels get here?" I believe they would have existed before any human, immortal or god walked in the Everneath. The Everneath trilogy is based around the Hades and Persephone myth, so looking in my Greek Mythology book at world creation I found this. Gaia is Earth and Tartarus means the Underworld. I imagine the Everneath would have appeared the same time as these did since it is a world between Earth and Hell, I also imagine it's location would be reflected in the world's design by being a blend of the natural Earth, and preternatural underworld. The tunnels wouldn't be an exception to that, even if it is the deepest, darkest, unnatural part.

Here's a map from the second book Everbound, the tunnels I think run underneath the world's centre like the underground tube system in Central London.

Because of its nature and purpose, I think it would look like an ethereal hellscape - an unholy divinity. I looked at several different types of caves and tunnels and decided the best one to base this piece on would be a lava tunnel especially after researching how they are formed. The walls in the books are described as coal, coal also looks like lava rock and both are used for burning.

VFX

The tunnels is a place of power and energy, a place of transfer so I will use VFX - more specifically animated materials in unreal engine to achieve this. My initial thought was to imitate electricity using a colour to reflect human souls, at first I thought blue, white or green, maybe even a mix in a chromatic aberration kind of way. Then I came across a tutorial on creating a cosmic material with a limited colour palette in different variations. I felt brought me closer to what I wanted even though I didn't know exactly what that was yet. The material used caustics, stars and what I'm calling a main vein. When someone dies some say a new star appears in the sky, including this subtly felt right. Now I was getting somewhere, however energy surges - I needed to add a pulse to make it come alive. With what I have, it needs more detail in the vein, it needs to look like there was something being carried inside the vein.

A iridescent colour like a bubble would be a perfect colour representation of souls, but now I'm going off track because it's not so much souls that are being drained, the Everneath isn't interested in souls - that's for Hell and Heaven. It's concerned with emotional energy, so how could I convey negative emotional energy and with which colours? I still believe iridescent is what I'm looking for because of how it changes colour when viewed at different angles so I'm going to experiment with making a dark iridescent material. On a final note, I will need to all the VFX I do look look embedded in the wall, not projected onto it, the light is coming from inside the wall.

Lighting

Lighting is going to be a challenge because it's underground - there is no light source. The VFX is what I intend on being the main light source. I know I want some fog and some shadows to create an unnerving sense for my audience - but what would give off a shadow? Well, the Everneath have inhabitants called shades, they're a floating figureless mounds of oil. Their sole purpose is to serve and protect the Everneath, they have access to hidden places and can go through materials - Everlivings become shades when they miss a feed. The game Torchlight II gave me the idea to include this.

When is comes to warm and cool coloured lighting, I struggled to make a decision because cool reflects the eeriness and goes with a coal colour and theme of death. However, warm lighting goes with the theme of hellscape and lava. After doing some research both can be done! So this is my intention.

Style

Art direction is hard to pin point exactly right now but I know it's NOT going to be super realistic or super stylised either. I'm thinking somewhere between realistic and over-exaggerated stylised as defined by this article: Realistic vs. Stylized: Technique Overview (80.lv)

Another great article I found was: Building Underground Environments With UE4 (80.lv)

Tunnels VFX Progress 1

Below is my first progress in experimenting with VFX in Unreal Engine. I have been focusing mainly on the emissive element. For now, I've made a quick place holder mesh in Blender (tutorial here) so I can see what it looks like on a tunnel shape and size. I also downloaded coal and dirt materials from megascans to act as placeholder textures.

To achieve the lighting above, I used a combination of the 3 tutorials below:

Making Cosmic Materials: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-cosmic-material-ue4-vismay-soni-1c/

Flowing Noise Tutorial:

Pulsing Light:

What I'm trying to achieve for now:

• A sense of energy, that this place is alive.
• A look of something unearthly - the ethereal element to 'hellscape ethereal'

Next steps for VFX:

• Working out some colour to represent negative emotional energy - dark iridescent.
• Make the veins look like it's carrying something inside them.
• Figure out a way to make the light look like its coming from inside the wall/travelling through the rocks.

Limit Break and A New Project... The Everneath Tunnels

Back in April, I signed up to Limit Break, a 6 month mentorship program aimed at underrepresented people working in the UK games industry. I was lucky enough to be paired with a lead environment artist. During our first meeting we agreed it would be best to drop the Panda Hut project and work on something more original as Panda Hut has been done by other people quite a few times. I also realised that I've never made a 3D space, I’ve only ever made 3D sets in front of digital cameras, which is why my goal for the end of this mentorship is to create a real-time interactable environment in Unreal Engine!

The Project...

I've had an interest in Greek Mythology ever since I learned about it in primary school. During my secondary school years I discovered (and fixated on) a book called "Everneath" - a modern day retelling of the 'Hades and Persephone' underworld myth. The Everneath is a world between Earth and Hell where immortals called Everlivings live. Everlivings gain 100 years of life each time they drain the emotional energy of a forfeit - a human who has given up their life on Earth to unknowingly nourish an Everliving via a 6 month long feed. When the feed ends, the forfeits emerge as numb, elderly people with 6 months left to live on Earth. They spend this time regaining their emotional energy before the tunnels come for them in the form of a smokey whirlwind, they're then taken to the tunnels to spend eternity being a battery for the Everneath.

There's something about the tunnels that captures my imagination, the books' description leaves a lot to be imagined. It's described as being a long dark tunnel with walls of coal where hands stick out, some limp, some still, some waving frantically trying to grab something. It is a feared, forbidden place - no one has seen it but it’s existence is widely known throughout the Everneath. 

This trilogy has captivated my imagination for years, the morbidity of the tunnels in particular left a lasting impression on me and now, I finally feel I have the skills to visualise my interpretation with some help from my mentor.

When this project ends I might visualise the opposite of the tunnels next: The Elysian Fields, in other words: the heaven in Everneath, a place of only light and happiness.

Pineapple Studios - A New Adventure Begins!

Big news! I have landed myself a job with Pineapple Games Studios as a 3D Artist! I start tomorrow (Monday 26th April) and I am super excited to say the least! This also means I won't be posting on my blog so often due to the NDA, but I will be working on personal projects when I can.

Here's a couple images of games they've released! As you can see, they specialise in colourful, stylised art and I can't wait to see what I contribute in the coming months!

3D Self Portrait - Design and WIP 1

I'm on a mission once again to rebrand myself as the other one feels very out of date and I have a better understanding of good branding now. The talented Rachael Holyhead designed this portrait of me by mashing up a few styles I took a liking too on instagram.

Designed by Rachael Holyhead

Below are some of my first WIP pics of my progress over the weekend using ZBrush.

 

Also here's a webinar from Access VFX I watched a while ago about personal branding that I found very useful!

Happy Easter!

One of the many things I've been up to recently is making 3D printed Easter hanging decorations. I'm thinking of opening a 3D print shop full of designs people can customise and order, I've even got a name (subject to change) ...

PML Prints

Get Started with Games Design: The Prince's Trust in Partnership with NextGen Skills Academy and Sony

From the 15th - 19th March I took part in a week long Games Design course with the Prince's Trust in partnership with NextGen Skills Acadeny and SONY. This was such as great opportunity to learn about what goes into making games and how the pipeline differs to film (the area of animation my degree focused on). This was also a great opportunity to meet people who for years have and are still working in games.

DAY 1:

Monday we were given the brief to create a pitch for a simulation game for console and PC. A simulation game is any game that puts you in control of a certain role - i.e. Zoo Tycoon/Planet Zoo puts you in the role of owning and managing a zoo. We will be presenting our pitches to SONY at the end of the week on Friday. 

We also went over game ideation and what features and mechanics can be found in simulation games, i.e. time management, rewards, consequences, objectives, skills etc.

• A game feature is a distinctive trait / attribute. Such as an element in the game i.e. PVP or something visual like character customisation.
• A game mechanic is how the thing works / the rules around it and is something that effects gameplay. i.e. Re-spawn.

DAY 2:

Tuesday we went over what goes in a games design pitch and looked at different audience categories focusing on the group that simulation games appeal to most. 

We were later joined by a Games Designer from Playstation London who spoke about his journey into games and how he uses experiences outside of games to design.

In the afternoon, we were digitally put into groups to share and discuss our individual initial ideas. Some of us also began to fill out a few parts of the pitch, (X-Statements, moodboards, mechanics, features etc), ready to share with our group again on day 3.

DAY 3:

Wednesday we had a lecture about what goes into producing a game, lookin at game design documents, the production pipeline, alpha and beta testing and launching/marketing. 

We were then joined by an associate producer at Playstation who talked about her route into the industry and had great advice to share.

In the afternoon we went back into our groups to share our x-statements and to review where we are with our pitches, we were all given feedback to work on ready for day 4.

DAY 4:

Thursday morning we has a lecture about Marketing for games and everything that goes into it - also we were shown an example of a games pitch and what a more indepth one would look like if this course were longer than 5 days. We then had a few people practice their pitches with the group for feedback until lunch time.

In the afternoon, we were joined by a panel from Playstation who spoke about their career routes into the industry, interview advice, about some of the games they've worked on and what they love about working in the industry! The rest of the day was spent going through our pitches in our smaller groups.

DAY 5:

Friday was the final day of the course where we presented our pitches to a group from PlayStation! It went so well, not just for me but for everyone else too! Everyone seemed to love my idea which was a panda simulator game! (It’s basically a combination of Goat Simulator and “Never Say No To Panda Advert” series). Anyone who knows me shouldn’t be so surprised by this.

This entire week has been such a great experience and I’ve loved every minute of it! I’m so grateful to everyone involved.