Added Thursday, February 28th, 2013 @ 12:00 AM

Description:

  • Created 2D and 3D concept art for Grapple, post Vertical Slice
  • 2D
    • Sketched ideas for mining machinery and tools used around the city
  • 3D
  • Modeled proxy environment that made use of archways and large holes in walls
    • Archways would allow citizens to pass through thick rock faces and be adorned with jewels
    • Holes in walls could be used to allow mining carts on an elevated rail system to pass though thick rock faces
      • Amina could also be able to grapple nearby and fly through these holes in order to quickly move from one section of the city to another
    • Modeled and animated a concept for a fan/turbine
      • Would be exposed on the side of cliffs, gathering energy created from the wind moving through the mountains
      • Would gather wind from cliff face and blow out through floor vents
      • Would be used to power different objects in city as well as provide city-wide/personal ventilation systems

Added Tuesday, February 19th, 2013 @ 12:01 AM

Description:
  • Character rig for Grapple, pre Vertical Slice
  • Built skeleton, weighted, and built controllers for the Destrozar, Grapple’s main enemy/boss
    • Controllers include FK/IK (with blending switch) for legs, gear/cannon controllers, and an eye controller

Related Work:

Added Tuesday, February 19th, 2013 @ 12:00 AM

Description:

 Created rapid, low-poly, mock models for environment in Maya for Grapple, pre Vertical Slice

  • Each set piece is modular and was exported individually as well as in groups and/or assembled (good example is the tower)
    • Arches/I-beams
    • Fences/building trim
    • Flags
    • Tower
    • Walls with/without arches/entrances
    • Windows
    • Wire (to be optionally used with flags)
  • Created rocks in Maya and ZBrush

Related Work:

  • None

Added Saturday, February 16th, 2013 @ 12:02 AM

Description:

  • Wrote Python script to help in setting up the rig for the Destrozar in Grapple, pre Vertical Slice
  • Script automated the process I was using to create an IK/FK switch for each of Destrozar’s legs
  • The rig utilizes three legs for each one of Destrozar’s legs
    • FK leg, IK leg, and actual leg to be controlled by one or both of the previous two
  • Script creates a blender node, attaches the XYZ rotation of FK and IK joint to the RGB of the blender, and attaches the blender’s RGB output to the rotation of the actual leg
    • This allows the controlled leg to be influenced by one or both of the FK/IK legs depending on the value of the blend node

Related Work:

View/download the script here.

Added Saturday, February 16th, 2013 @ 12:00 AM

Description:

  • Created a Python script for helping the Grapple art team in Maya, pre Vertical Slice
  • Script duplicates the camera that the user is currently viewing through (the active camera viewport)
    • Allows user to save camera angles with the click of a button

Related Work:

  • Grapple Trailer Storyboard

View/download the script here.

Added Friday, February 15th, 2013 @ 12:00 AM

Description:
  • Model for Grapple, pre Vertical Slice
  • Low-poly model of the Destrozar, the game’s main boss enemy
    • 4,010 polys, 7,500 tris
    • Used in Grapple’s Vertical Slice demo
Related Work:

Added 2/8/13 @ 12:00 AM

Description:
  • Created a rig from scratch
    • Not used in game, but gave a good idea about the amount of time that would be spent animating the medium enemy using this method as opposed to the following method
  • To save time on rigging and animation, we decided to pull one of UDK’s default skeletons and its animations and apply it to the medium enemy model
    • Researched and used Umodel to rip the skeletons and animations from UDK
    • Moved medium enemy model’s geometry to fit the first frame of UDK’s run forward animation
    • Weighted the medium enemy model to the UDK skeleton
    • Once the model was weighted, new animations (from UDK that used the same UDK skeleton) could be dragged into Maya and the bound model correctly snapped into place
    • Some clean-up was required on an individual basis

Related Work:

  • Medium Enemy Animations

Proxy medium enemy model by James Diab.

Added 2/3/13 @ 12:00 AM

Description:

  • The mood board was designed as a way for us (the Grapple artists) to take daily screenshots (or some other quick documentation) of the work we did each day, pre Vertical Slice
  • We didn’t quite keep up every day, but we did manage to document a few things here and there

Related Work:

Added 1/31/13 @ 12:00 AM

Class:
Technical Art

Assignment:

-Make a tool in Maya that queries texture file information from a specified folder.
-Tool MUST have a drop down menu to select between texture files
-Tool must have a button that applies texture from drop down menu to a selected mesh in the scene.
-Tool must have error handling.
-Code must be commented in such a way that someone who did not work on it could follow what you are doing.

Bonus Points:
Extra points will be awarded for extra or exemplary functionality added into the tool (that makes sense in the context of the tool).
Neat and organized tool UI will also net you a few extra points.

Description:

This was my first real Python script.  I had done a few small ones before for our other classes, but nothing like this, and nothing involving Maya’s GUI.  As such, there are certainly some parts that could be nicer, but I got all of the functionality that I wanted in there :D.  I pretty much went all out on this one.  As I said, this was my first big Python script, so I wanted to get my hands as dirty as I could.

The script allows users to select a folder (and optionally subfolders), and it displays images/movies that Maya can use as textures.  Users can select those files via a drop down, and preview them (and their image/video size) in the tool.  Users can then select objects in the scene, click a button that displays all of the materials applied to the selected objects, and choose which of those materials to apply the current texture to.  It’s very similar to the functionality already built in to Maya, but it has a few different features in there, and it was a fun exercise to introduce to Python 😀

You can download the tool here.

Added 1/28/13 @ 12:00 AM

Overall Description:
  • Created UI/GUI elements for Grapple, pre Vertical Slice
  • The only piece I created from scratch was the grapple target reticle (which itself was based off of several concept icons by Nathan Strickland)
    • All other pieces were created from art by others on the team (see Credits below)
Icons:
Description:
  • Images used as icons for various Grapple-related things such as scripts, .exe’s, shortcuts, etc.
Related Work:
Description:
  • The UI (target reticle) that appears over grapple-able areas in-game
Related Work:
  • None

Loading Screen:

Description:
  • Collected concept art and put them together in a movie to be used as a loading screen
  • Different formats and dimensions were tried in order to get the movie to display correctly in-game
Related Work:
  • None

Outro:

Description:
  • The screen that displays after the demo’s final sequence
Related Work:
  • None
Splash Screen:
Description:
  • Splash screen created from concept art
  • Displays whenever the game launches
Related Work:
  • None

Title Screen:

Description:
  • Title screen that displays when the game launches
Related Work:
  • None

Credits:

  • Loading Screen:
    • James Diab – environment concept, medium enemy model and render
    • Karen McCarthy – Amina backpack concept
    • Ryoma Tazi – Amina, Destrozar, medium enemy, and environment concepts
  • Amina, Destrozar, and environment concepts by Ryoma Tazi

Added 1/27/13 @ 12:00 AM

Description:

  • Wrote Python scripts and .bat files to help in launching the UDK editor with the most recent scripts, pre Vertical Slice
  • Rebuild Scripts Script
    • Script makes UDK scripts writable (they start read-only due to Perforce), deletes the scripts, then runs the Grapple UDK editor which, upon detecting that the newest scripts are not present, rebuilds the scripts (which are pulled from Perforce on the spot)
    • When programmers ran the game, their scripts automatically recompiled, meaning they automatically used the latest and greatest scripts whenever they ran the game
    • When producers and artists ran the game, their scripts did not automatically recompile, meaning that the game was often times “broken” for them
    • This script forced the UDK scripts to be rebuilt for producers and artists
    • Producers and artists ran this script (preceding the grappleEditor script) in order to run the Grapple UDK editor
  • Grapple Editor Script
    • Script makes UDK scripts read-only (a.k.a. Perforce-friendly) and runs the Grapple UDK editor
    • This script is run after rebuildScripts is done running
      • Like rebuildScripts, grappleEditor was used by producers and artists as part of the script rebuilding process
  • Created shortcuts to .bat files that ran each of the above scripts
  • .bat files ran the scripts that were located in Perforce directory (same path on all users’ computers)

Related Works:

View/download the scripts here.  Note that they will no longer work.  They were written specifically for developing Grapple.

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