The Art, Artists, and Artistry Behind the Game Tutorial
Posted March 24 2:43 AM by Kelly Murdock
The Art, Artists and Artistry Behind the Game tutorial was divided into a two segments. The morning segment was presented by Mark Hannah and included a basic overview of sketching techniques and visual communication. The afternoon segment featured Neville Page, who spoke about the concepts of good character design using examples from his personal portfolio. Neville also shared several Photoshop tips and showed a design example using ZBrush.
The Basics of Sketching Concept Art
Sketching is the process of developing form. Concept sketches should really be done in perspective using either 1, 2, or 3 point perspective. 1-point perspective is typically used just for the yourself to capture ideas. 2-point perspective is useful for yourself and for the designer since it correctly displays dimensions that are useful for modeling. 3-point perspective should only be used to covey emotion as the proportions are off, which make it difficult for modelers to use.
1-point Perspective sketches are created by first drawing a horizon line (which is drawn to show eye level) and selecting a single point on the horizon line. All depth lines should then be drawn to converge to this single point.
2-point perspective sketches have two points on the horizon line and all depth line breaking to the right should converge to one of these points and depth lines breaking to the left should converge to the other horizon point. An easy way to start sketching boxes in 2-point perspective is to draw a "Y" with each leg of the "Y" converging to opposite horizon points. All vertical lines in 2-point perspective remain vertical.
3-point perspective has two points on the horizon line and a third convergence point above or below the horizon. Vertical lines converge to this third point. This gives an interesting view of the sketch, but the proportions are off.
The best place to begin when learning to sketch is with the 4 basic primitive objects including the sphere, cube, cone and cylinder. Almost all objects can be broken down in to these basic primitives. Of these primitives, the sphere is always in perspective when drawn as a simple circle. All other primitives can be derived from a cube. For example, a cylinder may be created by circumscribing ellipses within either end of a perspective cube. After practicing drawing these primitive objects using converging lines, you should get comfortable with being able to draw the primitives by freehand without having to draw the horizon and converging lines.
When drawing cones and cylinders, it is always helpful to begin with a center axis line. Cylinders should always be drawn so that the bottom ellipse is wider and smaller than the top one. Cylinder ellipses should always be centered on the center axis and for cones be sure to keep the intersection between the vertical ascending lines and the ellipse round and not pointed. Pointed intersections are called “footballing.” Overall, the more correct your perspective is, the sloppier your drawing can be while still looking correct.
Line weights are used to make specific objects pop-out of the page. There are three different line widths used for sketching. #1 line widths are construction lines used to create the first rough drawing. They show the converging, axis and back lines of the objects. #2 line widths are thicker and used for form definition including the object edges and parting lines. #3 line widths are the thickest edges used to outline the profile of the object and any edges that you can put your hand behind such as holes in the object. Line widths are best drawn onto a sketch using markers of differing thickness.
Values are used to identify the areas based on their distance from the light source. The surface nearest to the light source has a value of 1, which is the brightest. The next nearest surface gets a value of 2, which is darker and the surface furthest from the light source gets a value of 3. For cubes, these values are spread equally across each polygon face, but for sphere, cylinder and cone primitives, the area that have a value of 3 is called the core. This core appears as a curved line across the surface of a sphere at the location where the surface points are 90 degrees from the light source. Adjacent to the value 3 core is a gradient that moves from higher 2 values through to a value of 1 where the surface point that is closest to the light source. A gradient also appears along the back side of the sphere where light is reflected back to the sphere from the surface that the object is resting on. The core on cylinder primitives is a straight vertical line extending down the center of the cylinder at the point where the surface is 90 degrees from the light source and gradients extend on either side of the core. The core for a cone primitive is similar to that for a cylinder, except it is thin at the top of the cone and gradually increases in width to the bottom of the cone. The tighter the curve, the tighter the core should be. Chalk is an easy way to draw in the core. You can then smear the chalk on either side of the core to create the gradients.
When adding shadows to a sketch, remember to identify the position and direction of your light source. Low shadows are dramatic and high shadows give your sketch an intense feel. Most shadows are drawn using the sun as your light source. Since the sun is at an infinite distance, all its light rays are parallel. In addition to the direction of the light source, you also need to identify the rate of ascent, which defines how long the shadows run. At early dusk, objects have long shadows, but at noon they have almost no shadows.
Once the light source and the angle of ascent are identified, draw construction lines that are parallel to the light source and the angle of ascent that extend through the scene off of each corner point. The intersection of these two construction lines marks the end point for the shadow, but the shape of the shadow needs to follow the shape of the object. Spherical objects have elliptical shadows. When drawing shadows, the darkest values should be nearest to the object casting a shadow and the shadow should be a gradient extending outward. Watch for areas where shadows are cast on to the surface of a surrounding object. Cross-hatching is one method for drawing shadows. To cross-hatch just draw a series of parallel lines with a dense concentration of lines where the shadow is the darkest and the lines are more spread out as the area is lighter.
Character Design
Neville began his presentation by addressing the importance of putting intelligence behind the design of characters. He emphasized that the story should come first. The movie Shrek is a good example of this. The design of the Shrek character isn’t necessarily beautiful or technically astute, but because of the good narrative, the audience relates to the character and his relationships and the movie succeeds. The design of the Power Rangers, on the other hand, are technically good, but the aesthetics of their design is very bad.
Neville then proceeded to show examples of very poor design using characters taken from b-movies in the early 50’s and 60’s. A good barometer for these designs is to ask, “Can nature produce this?” As humans, we are conditioned to not accept characters that aren’t natural, such as monster with a large sword blade for a head.
Several elements mark good character design. The first of these is plausibility. A good character must be a character that we buy into. This can be accomplished by good writing, performance and storyline as is shown in the characters found in the movie, The Incredibles. Although the characters are stylized to have a cartoony look, the performance of the characters, such as the scene where Mr. and Mrs. Incredible are arguing, is such a good performance, that it invites the audience to relate to the characters.
Another good character design element is doing something new. A good example of this element is Gieger’s work on the Alien character from the Alien movie. Although this character was typical in its proportions, the surfacing made the character feel new and evolutionary.
Good characters also have an emotional connection such as E.T. This is also another good performance example. Humor is yet another element of good character design providing, like a roller coaster, a ride that goes up and down. Humor can also settle the tension of a movie in order to setup a thrilling reaction. Good character designs enhance the suspension of disbelief.
To achieve good character designs, you should strive to endow you characters with physical and visual plausibility. To design a good physical plausibility, your character should communicate an anatomy, which can only be done by understanding anatomy. Avoid characters that convey a bogus design. If the anatomy of the character isn’t realistic, the audience will detect this.
Designs also need to address the aspect of visual plausibility. To do this, you need to understand how materials work. An elephant hide can’t be applied to any old character, but to a character that lives in a dry climate. Lights are another place where designers fail on visual plausibility. When adding shading from lights to a design, it isn’t enough to know the direction of a light, but you should know the type of light bulb, the time a day and time of year, the atmospheric conditions, and all the details that affect the lighting.
To understand all the aspects of anatomy and lighting, you need to do the research to fill your mental library. For example, if you working on eyes, get pictures of all sorts of eyes and study all the details. Follow the 3 R’s leading into a design; Research, Retain, and Respond. Research can be retained by drawing what you see. You need to read and study this information so you can sound intelligent concerning the details when talking about the design to the client. Remember to design first and to sell second. If possible, obtain the actual skeleton that is similar to the type of character you’re designing. Use a digital camera to build a library of hides, materials and textures. Be sure to label each texture and to identify what area of the animal it was taken from. The underside of an elephant’s hide is much different than to side. It is helpful to study books on the “Golden Mean” as this pattern is repeated in nature over and over again. Another good book is the “Power of Limits.” This book sums up the nature of things and explains proportions well.
Neville then showed some specific Photoshop techniques for creating certain materials. During this demo, he made several points. A perfect chrome material doesn’t hold a cast shadow. Black reflections on glass are transparent. A ball with crisp highlights should have clean shadow lines, but a blurred shadow will have a diffused highlight.
When creating a reflective sphere drawing, add a full color to a circular shape, then paint in the shadow core using a darker color. The bounced light from the floor beneath the sphere should be colored using a less saturated color. Then add a bright highlight where the light touches the sphere. Add a drop shadow to make the sphere float above the ground and brighten the boundary of the sphere to recreate the angle of incidence reflectivity. For transparent objects, the opaqueness is thicker around the edge of the object.
Neville concluded his presentation with a demo using ZBrush to create a detailed horse head. When starting a character design, sketch and explore several different silhouettes. The silhouette of a character is important to nail down. As you decide on a character design, try to figure out why the character exists. It is helpful to give the character a soul and a motivation. Then ask yourself, “what can you do different?”
Conclusion
Although both sessions of this tutorial were unrelated, each introduced some important concepts and techniques. Mark’s session was geared more towards beginners and Neville’s session showed the thought process behind an excellent character design.
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