Week 2 - The Environment & its Inhabitants Part One

 Modelling the Trees

The first iteration of creating environmental models using Poly Art Style was to model Trees for Haven.  Conor began this process by researching images online of poly art style models in current games and he also found some useful tutorials explaining step by step the process of modelling in this particular art style.  The tutorials mentioned are not made the 3dsMax modeling pipeline, However, 3dsMax offers the same tools in its package to make these tutorials adaptable.

Below are research images that Conor used as a reference when creating my own variation.  Researching is beneficial by generating the idea of what we wanted to achieve in Haven before aimlessly creating random models.

Research:

http://www.awwwards.com/low-poly-illustration-what-s-the-secret.html http://www.awwwards.com/low-poly-illustration-what-s-the-secret.html

Tutorials:

http://gamedevelopment.tutsplus.com/articles/go-beyond-retro-pixel-art-with-flat-shaded-3d-in-unity--gamedev-12259 http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/secrets-to-creating-low-poly-illustrations-in-blender--cg-31770
As a team we discussed what trees were needed to achieve the atmosphere we wanted in the game.  Our first idea was to create Palm Trees as the scene is set on a tropical island.  We also wanted to populate the island with variation of trees so we therefore decided to also add Deciduous Trees.  Using designs create by Nicola to show what we wanted to achieve with our models, Conor modeled the desired trees.  The design was used as an aid to Conor to show the poly flow of the trees. Conor also modeled an Evergreen Tree on his own initiative, which was then reviewed and approved by the team.

To create these models, in 3dsMax a 6 sided Cylinder was created and the "Smooth" option was unchecked to keep to the box like appearance of Poly Art Style.  Then after changing the object to an "Editable Poly",  the extrude option was used to make branches for the trees.  Then approximately 5-10 segmented spheres were placed on top of the branches to finish off a Deciduous Tree.

For Palm Trees there were no branches but more emphasis on the overall shape of the trunk.  Then with the completed trunk, leaves could then be added.  This was achieved by creating a 5 segmented sphere and it was scaled down on the x-axis and scaled up on the y-axis.  This left a leaf looking object.  After some final polishing all objects were attached.
Below are image of the variation of tree created for Haven including Deciduous Trees, Palm Trees and Evergreen Trees.

Deciduous Tree:

Palm Trees:

Evergreen Trees:

Milo the Creature

We continued to develop the creature for the game which was essential to Haven's therapeutic game mechanics. Based on previous designs, the creature was modeled in the same poly art style as the rest of our game. We didn't want him to look out of place, so we decided to keep him in line with the art style of the rest of our game.