Games production: Professional Practice (Captains Table finalisation - week 10)

To finalise my captains table, I wanted to make sure I checked off things from the brief.
For example, I made a flythrough for the level, which was a way for me to not only demonstrate the layout of the assets on the desk, but also to get some clever shots in to the level.
Within the flythrough, I have added some deeper context, for example I did a match cut between the jade doll and the compass (in film a match cut is where you cut between 2 scenes with an object of similar sizes and positions.)
Here is an example of a match cut from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the bone is thrown in the air and then contrasts with the ship in space - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2hjlA1rEfM

Match cut example from flythrough

My next example is the Jade head, when it turns it ends on a Dutch Angle (In film a Dutch Angle is used in contrast to a straight shot, this angle is skewed to give a sense of danger, unease, etc.) But in combination with this angle, the head has an orange halo around the edge, as if it is facing towards the sun. Which in a deeper sub context relates to civilisation in Central American cultures like the Maya, Aztecs and in addition to the Incas (Southern America) where gods of the sun are prevalent. So the head looks like its facing upward toward the sun and this shot emphasises it by being skewed in an upward direction.

According to Britannica: 'In the pre-Columbian civilizations of Mexico and Peru, sun worship was a prominent feature. In Aztec religion extensive human sacrifice was demanded by the sun gods Huitzilopochtli and Tezcatlipoca. In both Mexican and Peruvian ancient religion, the Sun occupied an important place in myth and ritual.' - https://www.britannica.com/topic/sun-worship

Jade head from flythrough

As stated in previous weeks, this head is relevant to the Maya due to their language and script, so making jade carvings related to their culture, in the example of this head wouldn't have been uncommon.

Creating heads isn't new for Mesoamerica the Olmecs (A previous inhabitant of Central America) created head carvings/statues a full 800-1000 years before the Maya, knowing this, it is engrained into Mesoamerican culture, such as the Toltecs, Olmecs, Maya, Aztec, Inca etc.

Explorer with Olmec head statue

Timeline of Mesoamerica, denoting the Olmec and Mayan Time frame, roughly 800-1000 years apart.

Another cool feature I implemented into the scene to help, was parameter controls. I added sections such as Fresnel refraction to get subsurface controls, as well as clamping the darkness and highlights, among other things.

Changing the various settings attached to parameters

Master Material for above instance

I also wanted to fulfil the brief with some wireframes, here are some wireframe examples rendered out from Marmoset Toolbag.

The topology of the desk is connected at points, this was for optimisation purposes, for example, on the sides of the desk where the mesh is triangulated to the corner, I could have easily just looped this around the desk, but instead decided to weld the verts to the corner, which cut the tri count by ~1000 tris when applying this principle around the mesh.

It is always more difficult to optimise cylinders, especially when you were told to not make objects look faceted. In this case, I could have easily exceeded a necessary tri count for a prop of this scale, but I tried to texture it to the best of my ability, so it would help the object look more realised.

Here is an example of a Marmoset toolbag render of the lamp prop for my portfolio. Though it is in the scene, it is worth having the best prop renders as well, not only to pad out portfolio space, but to also give the viewer reassurance that the prop is believable, textured well and grounded in the project.

I thought as a method to get people to understand how the prop was constructed, I created a breakdown consisting of the different maps and UV unwrap, this way a potential employer, person viewing my portfolio or curious individual could see my methodology behind making an asset and how I like to go about sorting out textures, i.e.: how I pack my UVs and what order I channel pack my AO, Rough and Metal.

Another Marmoset render example.