Unreal Development Kit

Everything here was considered correct at the time; I may correct myself as I proceed through this Design Document

I am about to begin placing all my assets from the past year into engine. From what I have heard already this is a near impossible task.

What I will have to do

 

• Alter my assets so that they conform to UDK, this may include, changing, geometry, Unwrap and texture sheets.
• Alter texture sheets due to using the 3DS Max in house, spec and normal bump sliders.
• Rescale these assets
• Set to 0.00 on the grid
• Reset pivot
• Rest X-Form
• Import these assets
• Import their Texture sheets
• Get the texture sheets working. Alphas and tiling.
• Use light maps?
• Use collision maps? Boxes? Geometry???

• Do this for every asset.

To Do
 

•        Read all supplied, briefs and tutorials. Get a slightly better understanding of what I have to do.
• Youtube, google and ask friends untill the job is done.
 

“Following” the Tutorial (none of the below is in the tutorial)

In 3DS Max

• Do not prefix your mesh SM_. Don’t use a prefix.
• Do prefix the collision mesh UCX_ but give it the exact name as the main mesh.
• Do not export from 3DS Max in ASE format, Export in FBX
•  This completely changes the export menu that then comes up. Then only check smoothing groups, split per-vertex normal and preserve edge orientation.  Then go into the animation, cameras, lights and embed media tabs and uncheck the boxes in them, then you can export.

In UDK

When looking at the initial import panel, expand Static mesh, then click on advance and then make shore explicit normal is ticked.

Following the above points in conjunction with the tutorial has gotten the collision mesh working. But doing this seems to do something with the smoothing groups as apparently now there aren’t any, or so UDK warns. The problem here it suggests is ticking split per-vertex normal. Although the smoothing groups actually appear to be working.

Also the Alphas don’t work in engine. In the material Editor changing the Blend type, to Blend Translucent fixes that.  Hmmmmm this isn’t actually an alpha, this is simply making this hole material clear, which is what I wanted for the glass I’m working on, but for actual alphas this will not do.

Also in the material editor you have to tick 2-sided in order to see both sides of a plane.

I’ve gone through this hole process for the Telephone Box about a dozen times now. Every time I made a mistake I would close UDK, without saving and re open it. I’m trying to make this process second nature. I can now go through this without referring to the tutorial. 

Current Problems

• I still don’t know how to get alphas to work
•  My scaling is a bit off, I did briefly import the van and it was a bit small. Which is odd considering I actually typed in the exacts dimension of the van in Max. I don’t believe it currently sits at 1.97 meters high. The Telephone Box is slightly short also.
• Still don’t know what a light map is.
•  Still don’t know how to save a package.

Further Progress

You save by simply right clicking on a package and then selecting save. Where I have been going wrong is that I have been, trying to select a file type. If you just leave it blank UDK select the correct one for simply saving out into a folder. You can then reload this package via “open an external package”.

Although when I then drop the phone box into the environment I get this warning.

This seems to be happening because I’ve been saving my work, in a folder in my pictures (with everything from the whole year, organised to hell and back). UDK can only really understand things that are stored in its default contents folder, which is in its program files. Also if you have more than one version of UDK on your computer this can also confuse UDK even when you have saved into the correct contents folder. As I have downloaded the version of UDK with all the unreal Assets in it and the blank version. I am now going to have to delete both these versions of UDK and re download them.

I have done this, and re-made the telephone box, I can now save the Telephone Box out to the contents folder. Now that I have done this it seems that you don’t have to re-load this asset, it’s simply always there in the contents which is instantly accessible via the Contents Browser. Also when you first click on it here, it looks like it’s lost all of its content, but if you right click on it and then click fully load it brings up all the content within this package. 

Light Maps

This is the creation of a second UV layout in Max, Which then UDK uses to establish what surfaces are to be affected by light separately.

This is done by adding another UV channel in Max. You then click move from the two options that then come up. This then brings up all your previous unwraps from the first channel which is your Diffuse, spec, and normal but for all of your multi-subs on one UVW template. On this template you then have to lay out every single plane. When doing this if you go back to the first channel, you then have to click abandon instead of move, when prompted. Once you have finished laying out all the UV’s you can then export this file just as before and open it up in UDK just as before. UDK by default uses the second UV channel for light map information.

When I first did this for the Telephone box due to a misleading tutorial I believed that the industry standard was to use light maps that were 32×32. And this is what I did. Now that I have done this and found it next to impossible.  I also I asked a question on DMUGA Technical, I now realise that this is not the way to do light maps and that it is fine to multiply up to a more reasonable size. Obviously as always try and be as efficient as possible.

Now that I have gone through all these processes I can now hopefully duplicate this for the remaining assets

Alphas in UDK-In the material Iditor, click on Material and then change Blend_Opaque to Blend_Masked

Scaling in UDK-Through repeatedly Exporting meshes from 3DS to UDK at different sizes I have worked out the character in UDK stands at about 270cm tall. This is with the mode set so that you are actually running about as a character, as if in game. This is not the default setting, the default point of view sits allot higher than this. You change to a more accurate in game height by selecting view, then world properties, and then changing the game mode to Death Match. I actually don’t have Death Match as an option, but selecting standard Game does give you the correct point of view. Standard Game though does not give you a weapon. Now that I know the height of my point of view in UDK I can now change the scale of all my meshes in 3DS prior to export. This is done by simply changing the unit setup to cm. You can then build a reference box that sits at 270cm tall. Then scale your assets to the required size. Then export. When this is then imported into UDK and dropped into the world it should be scaled correctly relatively to you and all your other assets if all scaled the same. 

I have currently placed all of my usable assets into UDK in separate organised Packages. They are all scaled, textured and the Collision meshes are working.

All accept the Gladiator, for some reason although I have gone through the same process with all my meshes with the same result the Gladiator has not worked. UDK is only recognising one Sub-Object ID. This means that only a single texture can be applied and that it covers the entire Mesh. Also when this abomination is dropped into the level, it isn’t visible.

I like to call him Carpet Man

I never worked out why he wasn’t visible this seemed to just fix it self, I fixed the issue with the Multi-Sub though. This was happening because both my Multi-Subs in 3DS were using Standard Material boxes with the same name. Even though they were named correctly within the Muti-Sub, and were two different Sub-Objects, UDK still recognised that they had the same name.

Also none of my light maps are working.

This is the light map for My Transit Van, as you can see, something has gone wrong. What’s strange here is that I have had many people study the way I am creating the light Maps in 3DS, Exporting the model, Importing the model and I have had no luck.

Also both of my flat mates have the exact problem, but not on all of their meshes, and we still can’t discern why.

There is one definite fix though, this is to export the mesh in ASE format, although I have been told that this format is obsolete, and FBX is more appropriate.

Everyone I know with this light maps issue is using FBX. This problem doesn’t seem to occur in ASE, so I could try using ASE, but this would not solve the issue of not knowing how to get light maps to work when using FBX.

Problem Solved

We have found a way of using FBX files that retain their light maps.  When exporting the file in FBX format from 3DS, under geometry un-tick Split Per-Vertex Normals. Now you have to change the type of FBX file, click on Advanced Options and then FBX File Format. Change the type to ASCII and the Version to FBX 2012.

Now import the mesh into UDK as normal, the light maps for me now work.

Current Problems

•  My Gladiator currently has a line running down his chest, when I initially imported him this was not an issue. Although I managed to help a mate solve this issue by changing the Compression settings when importing a Normal Map, here you change the Compression Setting from TC_Default to TC_Normalmap. Currently when I do this to mine this does not solve the problem.

• Although my light maps are currently importing correctly, there are many issues with them. I will need to go back into them, and rerere-check for over lapping faces, as the Select Overlapping Planes tool in the UV Editor is not to be trusted apparently.

• I’ve also made a tillable road plane, but It’s extremely difficult to tile these in UDK due to the apparent lack of a Snap to Objects (or similar) movement tool in UDK. You can Tile these segments by eye but this just seems stupid, it takes time and is never truly perfect. There is always an angle where Z-Fighting is visible, even if it’s extremely slight, this just doesn’t seem like a professional way of doing this. There is a fix, although I have made a plane in 3DS-Max so I have created Geometry for this task, if I just drop the material alone into the world it textures the whole ground. If I then change the tile settings appropriately, the hole scene is now tiled. This is what I was planning to do but with a tillable plane, so the result is the same.

Trying to Solve the Problems

Road Surface

I thought that if I set the scale of the tile to that of the grid in UDK, then when using the Snap to Grid function, it might then tile correctly. I’ve read that UDK uses are 1:1 scaling system, 1cm is relative to 1 UDK unit, also that the Grid is using dimensions that sit at multiples of 2.  So setting the dimensions of the Tile to 512 might fix the problem. Nope, sill snap to grid leaves a gap between two tiles.

Gladiator

I’ve re-unrapped the light map. I’m hoping that the line down the Gladiators centre was caused by this being the edge of two different planes on a light map, bot showing slightly different information. So I’ve altered it so that the light map seams are now on the side of the Gladiator. This has not solved the problem.

Transit

I’ve also tidied up the light map for the Transit, hoping that this might sort out the blotchiness; I’ve also put the light map up to 2048 in UDK. The light map is better but there are still large patches of random dark shadow where there shouldn’t be.

I’ve unwrapped it again but this time with greater gaps between all the planes. Again this has not solved the issue.

Mean While

I have created some double yellow lines including a corner. They’re both from the same 3ds file save apart from one had a Bend Modifier applied to it and has a different name. The bend for some reason in UDK warns me that it doesn’t have a collision mesh, and the straight bity doesn’t, although they were both made the same and both don’t have collision meshes. I don’t think collision meshes are necessary for these because they will always be sat on top of a Road which will have a collision mesh. 

Here I think I accidently grabbed the Material instead of the mesh, when dropping it into the world.  As you can see I fixed it.

Doing a design document was not part of this project this is something which I have done for myself. During this project I had to learn a whole new program, this blog was used to straighten out every thought I was having during the process. This also served as a way of storing new information. During this project I recalled back to this document to remember how to do various tasks. This is just me leaning something, and then taking that information and reiterating it so that I will then hopefully remember it.

A Personal Gaming History

I personally almost see my-self as an out sider in this gaming community. Quite simply I have played very few games in my time. As a young kid growing up in Pembrokeshire and briefly in the south of France gaming wasn’t an option, although this is where the story begins. 

Cezanne-Mont Sainte-Victoire

One of my earliest memories is potentially my first gaming experience. The setting is a mates house who I remember was allot older than me, a rustic French seemingly dilapidated farm house, waffles (my only experience of homemade waffles) and an early computer game. I remember watching him play this game very briefly. In the game you played a survivor of a plane crash into what appeared to be a Himalayan style, dense tropical forest. You having survived the crash fined that you’re being hunted by a Gorilla with a taste for human flesh.

What struck me most about gaming was the sense that you felt the emotions of your character in game. In this scenario it was fear, being lost and being in constant peril never knowing when the Gorilla was going to emerge again as you made your way through the world.

The strangest thing about this memory is that I have never been able to identify the game, whilst righting this I spent some time trying to find and name the game. I’m beginning to think that this is actually a memory of a dream.

At least I know for certain that around this time I was introduced to Duke Nukem 3D by my cousin Sam. Duke Nukem 3D came out in 1996, which would make me four years old, I’m thinking I was a little older simply in order to remember this. 

A little later Yves and his daughter Gladys from the Farm we lived on got a Nintendo as did my cousins Sophie and Laura. But here there is a theme my house hold never had a games console. I had to go round people’s houses to have a go. The only Nintendo Games we had were Donkey Kong and a Super Mario Bros game.  We did have a Macintosh, but this doesn’t enter my memory until many years later.

Then we moved back to wales into a small cottage in Hook Village, Pembrokeshire. Here initially I don’t believe there was any gaming.

We out grew the cottage and moved to a larger house down the same road, with this move appeared a PlayStations. The Macintosh also found some games during this time we had Command and Conquer Red Alert and also a version of Maze War, Maze Wars is argued by some to be the first FPS. The first alliteration of Maze Wars came out in 1974.

With the PlayStations came many new worlds for me to disappear into, Crock, Spyro, Gran Turismo 2, Medal of Honour 1&2, Tomb Raider, Apocalypse, MediEvil, Duke Nukem: Time to Kill, Tony Hawks Po Skater 2 and many many more games.

All these games are extremely nostalgic to look back at. During this year I have returned to some of these to try and re-ignite my passion for gaming. I finished Apocalypse in its entirety; this is the game that has probably influenced my life the most. Though this game a world and its people are brought to life. Apocalypse is set in a dark, twisted, quite cheesy, Rock and Roll future, yes it’s very nineties and doesn’t actually make any sense, but when you’re shooting down helicopters to System of a Down in a Gotham style City, or Entering a Club via a cemetery to yet more New Metal the games going to be awesome. To be honest Apocalypse isn’t a very good game, it’s mess, but it is probably the coolest game ever made.

Then one Christmas morning I woke up to find an Xbox. Within a single gen we had gone from 

(Apocalypse)

To this

This was mind boggling, I remember spending hours just walking around scoping into everything, in amazement, YOU COULD SEA INDIVIDUL BLADES OF GRASS!!!

When Halo 1 and 2 happened I could not get enough of these games, I daren’t say how many hours I put into these. The vast endless landscapes, amazing art, vast world w

ith its own history and Mythology, a rich engaging, deep plot, it was a true golden moment in gaming. Halo is also successful enough to be vastly despised by the “gaming” community who will often see it as a simple FPS that was clunky and unchallenging which is actually true of the game. But I personally regard how much a game challenges me very low on my list of priorities. 

Another Game I hold in high regard is Need for Speed Underground. I’m obsessed with cars but fined racing games to be extremely boring. I loved Gran Turismo 2 but I was a kid back then I found it easy to project myself into the game and create my own plot and character. Playing Forza 5 recently, I felt I was simply a machine mindlessly unlocking stuff and gaining achievements, I didn’t care. Especially with the plague of racing games the option to have a racing line available, this negates all aspects of it being a racing game, now you’re not really aware of the car you’re in or your environment in game, you’re simply trying to keep a line central in your screen, and reacting to the colours.

Need for Speed underground had a plot and was in a convincing world. The plot is extremely simply as you would expect but it keeps you playing through the game. You get attached to your character and want him to succeed. Now using the visual upgrades and your choice of car you can project yourself into the game and personalise it.

Need for Speed at this point hadn’t quite lost touch with reality, the customisations and the choice of cars was realistic for the environment they were portraying, as was the racing. Because of this it was very easy to believe it was you in the driving seat, with real physics.

Tony Haws Underground was another huge success for the same reasons. Although it was allot further down the path to madness that games developers feel they need to follow to keep their audience interested. This was easily the last playable Tony Hawks Game. It’s hard to project yourself onto a character that’s doing million degree flips whilst leaving the atmosphere and spawning props to add to the spectacle.

A game that breaks this rule to some extent is Need for Speed Most Wanted, because it was just so much fun. Most Wanted reintroduced cop chases also so it didn’t feel like part of the Underground universe so you didn’t feel like it was sullying the world they had already created.

Need for Speed Underground 2 was good, but quite boring, I don’t know why as it did a lot of good things. The open world was good, being able to Race with cars you bumped into on your travels was also good, as was the introduction of raceway tournaments with obviously no traffic.

But the game did have one truly cataclysmic floor, which always puts me off returning to it. In the first Underground one of the best features was you had magazine covers taken of your car if you passed certain events. You could then view these covers at any point. In Underground Two these magazine shoots still existed and were much improved, you could now change camera angles, open doors, move hydraulics, show off your ICE (Interior Car Electronics), eject plumes of coloured gas and drive around to find a nice back drop.  But after all this the magazine cover you had painstakingly choreographed would never be seen again. So you could never look back at your journey through the game and re-visit previous designs and cars like you could in the first so easily.

Then the Gen changed again with the arrival of 360 and PS3. I missed the majority of this generation, it’s only within the past 3 years that I’ve bought a 360. I feel that this has severely screwed up my ability to game. During this time the art of making a game was honed, but along with the skills of the player. Players leant the language of games and could subconsciously complete tasks like reading an environment and understand which way to go, or simply react to a QTE, these are things I struggle with.

After a long hiatus from gaming I returned with Fall Out 3, Halo 3 and Halo ODST. I found Halo ODST to have truly amazing game play, but with very little or lack of any real plot. Halo 3 in my opinion is a mess; I found the environments and general tone of the game not compatible with enjoyment.

Fall out 3 I found to have a huge amount of potential, but never paid out on it. At huge moments during your characters development through the game, there is no development, and you don’t care about the huge plot points as they occur. When you find you dad your interaction don’t inspire any emotion, similar when he dies, and when you return to your home Vault. Not only don’t you care but the characters in game don’t care that you’ve returned.  But the plot could have been good, and the environments are beautiful, truly the best thing you can do in a Bethesda game is walk about and explore. But what you fined is normally a bit naff, and doesn’t actually make any sense.

The same can be said for Skyrim, but the environments here are so beautiful you almost didn’t care as long as you could explore the world via the plot. The plot though is lacking so you soon get bored and start just walking about, which in Skyrim is actually great. This though does make your character now a kind of deserter, Dragons are terrorising the region and you are Skyrims only saviour, and yet you’re doing nothing. So now you don’t like the character you’re playing, which is a problem, you are no longer a Hero.

This has become a very lengthy Personal game history blog. There are still a few a few games to go but I feel I should leave them for another time. This is a list of games which I felt I had something to say about, it is not every game I have ever played by any means. Although I have put down some negative points about many of these games, I own them and I continue to play them. This is just something which I do, I tare everything apart and try and fined every fault, I wonder what I would have done differently. I try not to let this ruin the great game that I started with. For example Skyrim is a game I’m very critical of although it’s probably the game I have put the largest amount of hours into, currently about 120.

Halo is another franchise I’m heavily critical of here this probably stems from the fact that I’m borderline obsessed with the universe that they have created, so I really want to love the games that reside within it.

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/6087/260767-954825156_00.jpeg

http://pembrokeshirecoastpath.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/day-9-sandy-haven-to-pembroke.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Paul_C%C3%A9zanne_107.jpg

http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/0/180/2471267-1205279262-Apoca.jpg

http://www.gameplaynation.nl/upload/images/halo1610.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/01/Apocalypse_shot.jpg

http://img.gamefaqs.net/box/2/3/6/53236_front.jpg

http://www.ffshrine.org/xbox-iso/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/needforspeedundergroundxd0.jpg

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Senior Character Artist?

Looking at future jobs is a daunting process. Because landing one of these jobs is what this is all about. Looking at them right now in first year is just an exercise, and the idea of actually getting a job in industry seams miles away……….right?

Nope

It isn't that far away at all. If the next two academic years go as fast as this one did (I’m shore they’ll go faster), well as far as what it felt like. I’m going to have to be landing a job in industry in about two metaphorical months.

Now that is scary, so it’s about time to start looking at these types of things and taking them seriously.

Now what type of job should I be looking for?

I’m more drawn to design, whether its characters, environments, or props I’m not shore which I favour right now. I think I lean slightly towards individual bits of design, so not whole landscapes, although this is where I feel I am weakest right now, so this thought might just stem from that. Although I have enjoyed many project which have had no design at all, e.g. the Transit project which I loved.

Also to be honest I come from a background of doing some pretty mundane jobs (quality checking food products going past you on a conveyer belt for up to 60 hours a week), so I feel I would thrive on simply having an awesome engaging job let alone the perfect one. Which is what the original question seems to be asking for. It’s all good aiming for the stars, but if you miss but still land somewhere awesome, it’s important to not get hung up on missing and to simply be happy with the amazing place you are.

So to get an idea of the level I would need to eventually compete with in this job market I looked through the EA website reading many of their job vacancies. I chose EA simply because they are a massive company so they would have a vast list to choose from.

Analysis

In the first and second paragraphs BioWare are selling themselves. The function of this sheet is to get the best possible employee, so as well as putting off the weaker artist they also want to draw in the really good ones. Here BioWare are trying to get you excited at the prospect of working for such a varied and successful company.

The third paragraph is still doing much the same by stating how important you are to them. It’s also brings in the idea that you will be working as part of a large team, so soft skills are necessary.

Up to this point this Job description could still be for many jobs, and BioWare potentially begin many of their vacancies with these exact paragraphs.

Now with paragraph four we get into the nit and gritty of this particular job.  Its important when reading about what you will be doing within this job, to realise that you will have to prove through your portfolio and interview that you can already do these tasks.

During this paragraph and paragraph five there are certain words which are used to make the less confident applicants question whether they are fit for this role. These are words that illustrate the importance of the job you will be doing and the extreme quality they are expecting of you, words like, vital, photo realistic, highly complex, skilled, responsible and saying regardless of style. These words apply pressure on you as an applicant, and might put you off, only the best will remain. You will have to prove that you meet up to these phrases some of them via portfolio, like skilled and regardless of style. But demonstrating an ability to be responsible for your own work might be more difficult. You try and cover soft skills like these during your interview, with your cover note and your reference. How you will ascertain these skills is down to life choices, previous job experience, a placement, by successfully completing projects throughout your degree and how you conduct your self during team projects.

Paragraph six is a list of hard traditional art skills that you require. You can’t just be a digital artist and modeller.  It also real’s off a list of soft skills.

Paragraph seven and the list below is a description of the portfolio you should provide them with. You know that it must be a demo real, and contain pieces that exhibit an excellent understanding of  the listed criteria. The higher up the list the greater the importance. The first few points are of extremely high importance if your portfolio can’t demonstrate these points don’t even try and apply. Some of the lower points can probably be slightly lacking. But as with any job application, always assume there’s somebody out there who is better that you. So trying to cover all the points might be vital.

Conclusion

As I sit right now obviously I am in no way shape or form ready for this job. But after two years I think I could probably cover most of the hard skills, but I would probably have to specialise quite early on so that my character design and modelling skills are high enough.  Also this is a senior role so they probably wouldn’t consider you without experience, so a placement would be vital, at very least. Most senior roles ask for around three years of professional experience in their required field.

I think with a job like this specialising is key, you would have to demonstrate that you are a passionate natural character modeller. If during this course I did this, if also I had industry experience through a placement and maybe another years’ experience I don’t think applying for this job would be unreasonable.

I need to understand that this course is an opportunity to become truly amazing at something, to use this mastery and confidence to get a job, and then enjoy living in a creative and engaging environment.

http://careersearch.ea.com/ca/edmonton/art/jobid4915574-senior-character-artist-jobs

Never has such a fuss been made over a 3 minute presentation

A 3 minute presentation on its own is fine. But then give us the strict specification of 10, 18 second slides and we all react like it would have been less daunting had the presentations been an hour long.

But after bringing myself back down to earth it is still only 3 minutes. Which is nothing right?

Getting Started

Gangmaskin

I had recently come across an artist called Simon Stalenhag and really loved his work. So with the excitement of having found this new artist still fresh, I decided to use this presentation to briefly try and explain why I like his work.

Marek Okon is another Artist I keep going back to for inspiration. So I thought I would include him as well.

Art Direction (Re alliteration of Power Point Presentation)

TLOU Promo

Marek Okon is a massively skilled and successful artist and has worked on many triple A titles. He generally does promotional material, but has worked as concept artist for Crisis.

Shrapnel

This piece is called Shrapnel and was the cover for the third issue of a comic called Shrapnel:Aristeia Rising Published by Radical Comics.

This Piece uses a varying level of detail to draw you to the focal point of the image, which is her face. Surrounding forms are relatively out of focus, and painterly in texture. This technique is interesting because this is how our eyes work in real life. If you hold your arms out in front of you with your thumbs up and together, the space the tip of your thumbs takes up in your field of view is all that is in focus at anyone point in time. But yet you can briefly look out over a vast seen and understand it. This is because our brains fill in the gaps and assumes what is there.

When you initially look at this picture your eyes go straight to her face, and your peripheries see the rest of the figure and assume it’s all there and to a similar level of detail.

Colour & Mood

If you look at the colours on their own, they are fresh, clean and peaceful. Which is odd when you take into account the content of the image. It’s the aftermath of an epic close quarter battle, with the bodies and gore to go with it.

But if you take into account her body language, then the colours have real significance.  Now we understand this character is drained, the battle has been horrific; this has been a real gritty and tragic confrontation.

Looking further into the use of Colour

Colour has also been used to draw your eye to the focal point and then around the image.

In the image above I have exaggerated the colours. Here you can see that the whole piece is basically two colours, which envelope the whole piece. Then a third contrasting colour has been thrown in to draw your attention. This primarily sits behind her head, and then with the blood splatter your attention is drawn down the image.

Why I like Mareks Work

Rain

Hide and Seek

In a lot of Mareks work his characters express fear; they appear vulnerable and therefor human. They are normal people like you or me that have gotten stuck in an extraordinary situation.

They don’t appear to be supper human heroes, who love to kill, love a battle and think nothing of saving the world.

A World within an Image

Mareks Images contain a huge amount of narrative. Within a single frame there will be many questions which you will want to answer, thus drawing you in and making you interested in the world he has created.

Why is this woman being chased?

By who? What? Why?

Is that a new born baby? It appears to still have the wrist tag?

Where is she?

Is that some kind of nuclear/bio hazard type container?

Simon Stalenhag – Gaussfraktarna 1920 badge

This is the image I chose, by this artist. I love this scene. We have all stood in a car park like this before; this image is nostalgic. But yet this is a future concept. There are large flying freighter type craft in the distance.

All of Simon’s work has this quality, they are all believable, relatable, somewhat nostalgic and yet contain element that aren’t of this world.

Believable Future

Fokaltorn

Lakeviewdr

Percyswalk

I think he manages this by creating a scene we can perceive to exist within our world. He includes objects and characters which we can relate to in real life, like the cars and the everyday characters.  He understands that in the future normal people will be normal people, an old barn will still be an old barn and that future tech will itself become old tech.

Colour

Here again I have exaggerated the colour and found that Simon has used the same technique as Marek did for Shrapnel.

Here the image again is made up primarily of two colours, with a third colour frown in to draw attention. Here it is the pink in the bottom right, drawing you into the scene of the two girls and the car. The pink is then doted across the top of the Freighters to draw you off and into the distance.

Tone

Tone here has generally been used in the traditional lights are further away fashion. If you look at the image where I have removed all of the detail, you will find this generally works. But there is a discrepancy; the right side of the car park is actually extremely light. But this is also an area of high detail, and it’s highly textured, this helps further bring this area closer.

http://www.simonstalenhag.se/

http://www.okonart.com/#portfolio&illustrations&83

https://waypointprod.blob.core.windows.net/blogfilestore/legacycontent/crafts/emilemunny/emile_munny_halo_reach_by_georgedogface-d37i12t.jpg

http://raynfall.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/gowtroops.jpg