Character Project

Moodboard

This is the first summative where we will be creating a whole character from scratch.

I will be creating a medic with a jet-pack, with her space armour a fuse between that of a medic and a reaper.

Orthographic concept

Started modelling in Zbrush using the orthographic as reference:

GA2A01 - Weapon Summative

It's been a while since I've last made a new post, mostly due to laziness and procrastination, an evil habit I know...

This was our first modelling Summative for the year. We had 4 weeks to model and texture a weapon of our choice, only requirement for the weapon being it had to shoot in some way. I was ill for the first two weeks, once cold and once flu, managed to get a week extension to make up some lost time.

I chose to make a crossbow, because crossbows are cool.
Nothing more to be added.

References:

I decided to go with something Steampunk, but I would've also liked to make a Cyberpunk or Magical crossbow.

Concepts:

High Poly

I decided to jump straight into Zbrush without building a base mesh in Maya/Max to learn more on using the program, and as a way to push myself.

I started out with Shadowbox, using the concept image as my reference and loaded onto each orthographic view of the Shadowbox so I can "trace" the basic shape.

I used clip curve tool to clean up the edges, panel loop to create all the metal bits on each piece, alphas for the screws, and a custom curved brush for the tubes connecting the canisters to the crossbow.

Texturing

Getting my normals and ambient occlusion took a lot longer than I expected. I had 18 separate parts, and for each I made an envelope and baked it in xNormal. I should have asked for help more at this stage to see if there was a more efficient way of baking the weapon.

I decided to go with dDo for my diffuse and specular as I was running out of time. They turned out alright, but I would have preferred to have hand painted textures.

Unfortunately I only noticed at this stage there were a couple UVs that were completely messed up, so there are stretched textures on a few parts of the crossbow.

Final Renders

Issues:

• Edge lines showing. Had to do with the baking process I believe.
• Bowstring not double-faced.
• Stretched textures due to messed up UVs.

Unfinished Model Sheet - Nyssa Farajian

GA1A01 - Character Thumbnails and Backstory

Nyssa Farajian Thumbnails (drawn with mouse)

• Sex: Female
• Age: 34
• Job: Diplomat / ???
• Children: One Daughter
• Emotion: Calm initially, then becomes frantic in plane crash.
• Setting: Plane crash

Nyssa Farajian is a 34 year old woman of Armenian descent. Her physical attributes include: 174 cm in height, 62 KGs, long light brown hair, and generally perceived as physically attractive though not by model standards.

Nyssa was born in Yerevan, Armenia Soviet Socialist Republic, 1951. She grew up in a stable middle-class family and was the top of the class in all her schools. She travelled to Moscow and completed a university degree in International Relations and Japanese, and was offered the role of a Soviet Diplomat in Japan. 

From 1976, major political events had increasingly strained the relations between the Soviet Union and Japan. Nyssa was recalled to USSR in 1982 for a year. Without her knowledge, she was targeted and became a victim of an experimental procedure performed by the KGB (Committee for State Security in former USSR). Nyssa has no memories of what procedures were performed on her, and did not notice anything odd as she was redeployed to Japan in 1983.

She has worked as a diplomat in Japan for 12 years, and is fluent in Armenian, Russian, Japanese and English. She has a 5 year old daughter.

In Game

Nyssa Farajian is a foreign diplomat on board the Japan Airlines flight 123. 

She is briefed by KGB Agent Vladimir Putin before departing to Tokyo Japan. On her connecting flight, she becomes one of the passengers of the infamous Japan Airlines flight 123, in which the game will take place. Japan Airlines flight 123 was a real flight in August 1985 and the single most devastating airplane crash in history, resulting in death of 520 passengers who were on-board the aircraft. 

The crash did not happen immediately, as the total elapsed time from the first explosion to the final crash lasted around 32 minutes. Whether or not Nyssa becomes one of the survivors will depend on her (the player’s) choices made during the midst of this crash.

Her “true” role in the crash is not revealed until very late into the game’s storyline.