The Aim of the Project :
The development of Whittigers Tale can be justified in just two sentences.

Personal reasons. When someone gives you 12 weeks to work on whatever it is you want then it needs to be something you love. Point and click adventures are the main reason I am where I am today, in a sense they also indirectly effected who I am today. Though I've never explored it on a creative level until now. Playing and making are two very different things and the Final Major was the perfect time for me start making. Meaning one of my main goals was just to look back and say I'd finally tried a point a click adventure, exploring various art styles and attempting to work out why the change from 2D to 3D has been so poor for it. Thoughts would never be enough though, putting them into practise and seeing what I could do was essential, mainly for quenching a curiosity and developing a better understanding as to how I believe point and click adventures will progress.

The second aim of the project is portfolio for employability based, and I believe Whittigers Tale will make a nice portfolio piece amongst other works. Demonstrating commitment to an entire project rather than just multitudes of completely separate assets. It also demonstrates talents in the many stages of game art creation which is key to widening the employability scope. Variety in development skills is just as valuable as a variety of art styles. The two together of course, go hand in hand, which is why I have been working on other assets not related to the final major. If the goal of the project is to become employed, then the project must also include different art works to that of the final major.

Broadening Employability (New portfolio pieces to go alongside the final major):
After showing the development of Whittigers Tale to some game developers in London on the 5th of May, and speaking to them about what they look for in a junior artist, they have all said the same things. Variety, creativity and just flat out talent. An applicant must demonstrate a good level of art, in a variety of styles while still showing an innovative understanding. I already have a few other portfolio pieces but these past 12 weeks have not been all about the final major, variety is key and so I have been getting involved with a few other smaller projects during the developmet of Whittigers Tale.

First up is a work in progress of a Tank to be used in a fun little mini game

The tank model, when complete will be a nice addition to my portfolio, as I am somewhat lacking in vehicles. It is a design based off of one of the many sketches I had drawn for ideas sake. I have included just the one reference sketch to demonstrate the development of an idea before modelling. But it should be noted that the sketches were done prior to the final major.

My portfolio is also completely lacking in architectural type models, I wanted to do something quite quick that would never be viewed from too close, so an RTS (Real Time Strategy) game type of building found its way into my thoughts and I began working on it.

I believe I still have a fair bit of work ahead of me to be the proud owner of a respectable 3D Artists Portfolio.

The Art Style of Whittigers Tale is friendly, universal and yet not specific to a particular asset. Rather than focusing on highlighting a specific area, ie, characters, props, environment/level, etc Whittigers Tale tries to blend what you're seeing on screen together. This was achieved by never working on one asset from start to finish without working on another, by stopping at distinct points in development and moving onto another asset, it allowed all the assets to attain a similar level of detail and also provided time for reflection, going back to a piece after working on something else for a few days tends to open the mind a little and allow greater levels of self criticism. The downfall to this method is the timing, if everything you're working on is moving at the same level and one asset becomes snagged in progression, it tends to cause a gridlock or “traffic shockwave” effect with everything else.

We can take this comparison a step further, by examing something like Monkey Island 4 (featured in top image above), with Monkey Island 1, all the while bearing the initial comparisons with Whittigers Tale in mind.

Whilst the first monkey island (and all games of that time) clearly had large restrictions on the art they could put into a game due to the lack of efficient and affordabletechnology, it seems to have started a trend with point and clicks, in that it is now an un-official rule for environments to be so much more detailed than the characters. Such logic made sense back when an entire environment could be a single image, and a character had to be several (for animation purposes). But when you start entering the realm of 3D it's difficult to justify such a contrast and not appear as though you've made a mistake. Whittigers Tale was intended to keep a relatively neutral balance between the two, quite simply because it could.

Not to say equal balances have not been attempted before, during the production of Whittigers Tale a game called Jack Keane was released, said to be the new age answer to classic point and clicks. It was interesting to compare it to that of Whittigers Tale, they both have the same influences, they both appear to be balancing out the detail and they're both re-inventions of a dying genre.

Whittigers Tale is not without its flaws, but I was surprised to find a team of professionals working on something so similar who appear to have fallen into the same traps I have. A good 3D point and click adventure is not a long way off, we all just appear to be going in the wrong direction. Not to say Whittigers Tale was a waste, I have certainly learnt a lot more by trying it myself than reading about and playing a similar game that reached completion.

Independant Learning:
During the 12 weeks of final major, I took the opportunity to start learning different softwares. More specifically, a 3D Modelling application called Silo3D, and a third party UVW Unwrapping application called Headus UVLayout.

My reasoning for learning Silo was just to broaden my 3D horizons a bit further, I had heard about it on an online forum I visit frequently and decided to check it out myself due to the price of it being exceptionally lower than that of my current software, 3ds Max. I did not have high hopes for it, but in terms of what it does (strictly 3D Modelling), I believe it to far superior than that of 3ds Max. As a bonus it also has a scultping feature built in, naturally it doesn't hold a candle to the likes of ZBrush or Mudbox, but it holds its own well enough, and in comparison to 3ds Max, which has no sculpting features... it comes out on top:

Silos modelling tools are generally better than that of 3ds Max, since the application is modelling specific, the creators have really been putting in some intuitive methods, almost everything is just a single keyboard press away. The ability to select either a Face, Vert or Edge without switching tools is extremely efficient. I used it in production for my final major after less than a day of spending some time with it. The model created using Silo is the Lantern prop which can be found in either the Development or Gallery sections.

An example of Silos workflow demonstrating the basic selection tool, quick ring, connect, one touch extrudes, bevels and finally subdividng the mesh can be found below:

It should be noted that while 3ds Max has similar functions, it's not nearly as fast in production. It seems as though a lot of applications are going for this minimalistic interface and keyboard presses and/or mouse gestures to perform tasks. Takes a little getting used to at first, but once handled well increases productivity ten fold. Headus UVLayout is a perfect example of this, you can operate the entire program to perform your desired function without pressing a single button on a user interface.

Headus UVLayout found its way into my pipeline in a similar fashion to the Silo, I had been reading about it for months before I eventually went researching into it, and it is just mind blowingly outstanding at its job. Below are two video screen recordings of me performing the basic task of unwrapping a hand mesh. One uses Headus and its Unwrapping Algorithm, the other uses the 3ds Max Pelt mapping algorithm. I don't mean to spoil the ending for you, but the 3ds Max video stops at 1 minute 57 seconds after completely unacceptable results. The same procedure is then replicated in Headus, with an almost flawless perfection, and minimal human input. In less than half the time.

In 3ds Max' defense, it has a few other mapping procedures that would have been able to unwrap the hand just fine. Not in 47 seconds though, no way near. It should also be noted that the example of Headus I am using its most basic functions, which I suppose makes it even more impressive.

General Reflection and Learning :
The two largest area of reflection are to do with a stable mesh for rigging and the overall use of the game engine Odis.

I had the opportunity to speak to a lead artist at Blitz Studios sometime in March, it was around this time that the modelling of my protagonist character was near final and I sought advice on the mesh flow of the shoulder and how to best rig it, both of the artists laughed and one said, in a humerous manner "don't ask me about shoulders". Point being... even industry professionals hate the shoulder rig.

My first thought was to build a relatively simple system whereby I could independantly control areas of the shoulder/armpit after it had been positioned from the Inverse Kinematic, This is all seperate from the clavicle, my issue was solely with the twisting of the shoulders. I tested this fully as briefly seen below:

The idea behind it was that those 3 circle controllers would effect the mesh of that area slightly. But I soon learned that I was just making things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. I took a gigantic step back and just re-worked the mesh with duplicates of the same basic IK rig until it deformed nicely.

I believe the decision to use Odis engine was a healthy one, I really wanted something interactive to show off at the end of it all. The decision cost me a fair bit of time that could have been spent on developing the art further, and while it may be the art that will get me hired I do not regret my decision because of the personal goal as stated in the aim of the project.

I found learning Odis relatively difficult in the sense that I had greatly under-estimated the educational materials provided. As a result, almost every single problem I encountered meant that I had to seek out my lecturer for advice on how to fix it. I did not like doing this as the answers to my problems were usually relatively simple to fix, but not so simple to discover how to fix. As an example, a line from the Odis Commands List (intended to be a user reference guide) reads as:

I know from past experience that the above command will not work on its own. Though there are no written materials stating that events require trips I assume it must be tripped by something and then that is when my thought process runs out, as I have nothing else to go on. There are numerous trip commands, but it becomes complete guess work. The "How To" demos sometimes help, but that is not learning, that is simply ripping code out of something that works and applying it to your own work, without fully understanding the why. As far as I am aware, there is no form of written tutorial on how Odis works, or at-least I was not directed to any, It becomes nearly impossible to learn how events are triggered, when to use Trip "X" with an Event, how to use Blitz3d material settings accordingly etc. And this slowed a lot of things down for me, and I wasn't even doing anything overly complicated. On the topic of materials it was complete trial and error, exporting, viewing, changing, and repeating until it worked the way I wanted it to. There were lectures on it in the second year, from which I still have my notes, but again these are all just specific somethings, with no greater understanding behind it

All in all not a nice experience, some educational documentation or some type of help index would have gone a long way as I'm not one for requesting help on a regular basis, I'd rather be provided with something I could learn. This is a personal flaw, and does not reflect the teaching of Adam Barton, it is up to me to fix my problems, and if asking for a lesson in Odis is what I needed, i'm sure that could have been arranged.