Products of Teaching

After a trial and error period (always save your work kids) I got back into swing of things in Maya and roughed this room out. I set this up to talk to the students of a class I am co - teaching at LCAD about drawing over game geometry. Granted, this geo isn't from a game, I did think about how the player would approach the scene, and what action could be taking place. It could use a little more focus as to what all the bio hazard suit dudes are looking at. I'll come up with something cool a bit later.

Here are some stills of the scene done in Maya. These are just screen grabs. I think at this point its clear that the concept design industry is leaning towards this 2D/3D hybrid, or even all 3D. I highly recommend learning a 3D package (anything from google sketchup to maya) and by learn I mean be able to throw down geometry without thinking about it, similar to you don't always think about how your holding your pencil, or how to move your hand to make the shape of something your sketching, you just create. Lighting is also a good tool to add to your toolbox.


Below is a quick rough done in class.... so quick in fact its really just a box , and I didn't dig to much into the shape. At this point I think I decided to make the above rough.

 Notice it is literally a box.

I'd say that a large part of my time has been talking about gameplay related elements such as props. In this case, I took the overall design language from a painting Ralph Mcquarrie of a hanger bay on Tantooine. I pulled the face value elements such as angles and material break up patterns. In this case, it was for a "crouch cover" height piece. Since cover shooters are all the rage right now, and there is a Star Wars themed one coming out, why not go back through the trilogy and design cover props based on existing designs! Though I had envisioned this just being a solid object, the question of "what would this be in the universe" came up. I quickly noted how the sides could possibly slide out and open, revealing a tool chest sort of thing. Maybe it just has spare parts, or a secret item? Either way, having components like this in basic props extends their life in the game, and means they can be repeated more often with greater difference between instances. 

I'll update this post a bit later with more information on what and where I'm teaching.