Environment Design Rocks!

[Amit Dutta]

Nah that's all good U3, I promised crits and crits will be had!
Done all the crits for this week finally! last one is uploading now. They were way too long to be sustainable for future weeks even though I said what I needed to, so I am also going to have to learn how to get better at being concise and targeted with my crits! Great learning all around :)

[Bookend]

Nah that's all good U3, I promised crits and crits will be had!
Done all the crits for this week finally! last one is uploading now. They were way too long to be sustainable for future weeks even though I said what I needed to, so I am also going to have to learn how to get better at being concise and targeted with my crits! Great learning all around :)

Hey man, really appreciate your awesome crits!  It seems like you missed mine, though.  Sorry to bother you, I know that you're really busy with the mentorship as well as your own work. 

I can see mine under the submissions, but not the crits!

Thanks so much for the time.  You rock dude!

[keeny]

Hey Amit,

Thanks so much for the extensive critique! Wasn't expecting such a thorough video. You're obviously putting a lot of time into this course.

Looking forward to your feedback on the larger project now!

Thanks again,
Barry.

[Amit Dutta]

@Bookend: Sorry Book! Your crit is uploading now, should be ready in a bit.
@Keeny: All good mate! I'm looking forward to seeing people come up with some awesome stuff!

Also, I'm planning on doing a livestream today, 28th October at around 2pm NZST just going over the project stuff. Very basic stuff really. I will send out an email before I go online.

[TwilightExplode]

Awesome! I'll finally get to attend one of the livestreams! I won't be participating a whole lot because I'll be doing client work on the side, but I will be there.

[Xiaogabe]

@Bookend: Sorry Book! Your crit is uploading now, should be ready in a bit.
@Keeny: All good mate! I'm looking forward to seeing people come up with some awesome stuff!

Also, I'm planning on doing a livestream today, 28th October at around 2pm NZST just going over the project stuff. Very basic stuff really. I will send out an email before I go online.

Hey Amit, thank you so much for the crit! I have a good feeling on how to go on on these pieces. I'm very happy that the first one reminded you of Ghibli type works. They're a huge inspiration for me (Spirited Away was the movie that made me want to be an artist as a career). I pronounce it "G - blee" who knows who's right?! Hahaha. 

Anyway, Oga Kazuo is one of my favorite painters from Ghibli, and they have a wonderful documentary showing his work as well as his process: 
(It was a series of 3 videos, but 2 were removed for copyright claim...sad. Only the third one survived. If I ever come across all 3 again, I'll make sure to share it.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=od-T4ekmGtY


And here's a video of just him painting and explaining some of his process: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cihDjO3glG4


Thank you very much for your feedback, take your time on the assignments, and I look forward to your stream! 

Cheers!

[Amit Dutta]

@Bart: Check out your crit on the stream :)
@Xiaogabe, thanks for the link, I think I have seen the other two vids as well! Genius stuff.

Hey guys thanks for those who made it to the stream. Sorry for the lag, it was horrendous. I talk about the project on the week03 stream here: starting from 31:10.

Below is the text of the document I was referring to with more links and stuff.

What you complete in the following weeks will depend on what you can handle within the time frame. It may be one or more highly polished production illustrations, it may be a number of well presented, quick concept / mood sketches. It might be some detailed perspective line drawings. I may send you off on different directions to others based on what I see and what you want to do and what I believe will be best for your development at this time. Feel free to disagree with me!

Week 04: Ideation 
Deadline: Wednesday 04 November 9pm NZST


01. Everything starts with an idea.
02. Brainstorm / idea generators / your own IP / redesigns

• Come up with a short backstory. What is the history of the environment, and what is the current story of you as the “viewer”. Why are you or your characters there, what brought you there, what are you there to do? 
  
• You can use random generators:  http://crimsondaggers.com/forum/thread-1247.html
  
• Find environments you like and use it as inspiration to develop a story setting within it:  Go to http://www.mapcrunch.com/ or http://randomstreetview.com
  
• You could redesign/reimagine existing movie / book / game locations.   
  
• Find literary excerpts and descriptions. Example below: 
  

We were deep into summer and you could see the vines growing, winding around branches, sprouting bumps and barnacles and woody boils that would fester until they could stand it no more, then break out into red and purple. It was night and the Wild boys hooted in their shrubbery. They wore dirty cutoff jeans. They carried knives and BB guns and homemade bombs. I could smell their weird metallic sweat drifting on a breeze that rustled through the honeysuckle. The Wild boys had dug tunnels under the ground. They had filled the treetops with catwalks. They whirred from tree to tree on zip lines and hopped from attic windows out into the bustling night.

 
Once you have some ideas, fill in the following specifics, some examples given:
 

• Location: temple, swamp, airport
  
• Time of Day: midday, noon, night
  
• Mood /Emotion/Themes: examples - sombre, eerie, celebratory, fear, awe, joy.
  
• Weather: stormy, windy, sunny
  
• Genre: science-fiction, gothic, fantasy
  
• Period: stone-age, medieval, roman, future-times
  
• Obstacles / Objectives: chasm, towers, narrow path
  
• Focal Points:  in game design often are prominent landmarks. Also add visual impact to single illustrations. 
  
• Activities: loading ships, shopping, rebellion, cocktail party
  

03.      Reference Gathering
It might be useful to think of and split up reference gathering into the following areas:

• Specific location (architecture, landscape features, vegetation)
  
• Lighting + mood + palette 
  
• Set design + props
  
• Style reference 
  

Things to watch out for if picking reference for photo-bashing, photo texture use:

The best photos are those taken under ambient lighting (for example photos taken on overcast days).  Avoid over/underexposed photos. If using lit photos, try and make sure the lighting direction will suit your scene if you already have something in mind. 
Be be sure to look at interesting parts of images, not just images as a whole. You want to select interesting things out of what is there, not be tied to the photo as is.  Look for interesting, shapes, patterns, details that will suit your scene not just specific objects already made.


Assignment  Pick a mini-project to work on for the next 4 weeks. 


Create your mood board/s

www.pinterest.com is a good simple site to gather, collect and share reference quickly.
PureRef (www.pureref.com) is a great powerful lightweight free tool to arrange your reference quickly and easily
If you think you might want to explore more than one location within your world, create as many boards as you need for each one.
These will become your reference board as we develop your designs.

Ideation sketches  Ideation is visual brainstorming. 

Begin the ideation process and do sketches for one or more locations within the world of your project.  

Do as many notans / thumbnails / value sketches / colour thumbs as you can or need to. 

Anything goes. I don’t want to restrict your methods of ideation. You can use any of the techniques I have shown you or other techniques you prefer yourself. 

Here are some options to help you along the way: 

• Notan sketches 
  
• Value sketches
  
• Colour Thumbs
  
• Draw a top-down layout map of your scene and possible camera vantage points.
  
• Basic 3D modelling + lighting + shot renders.
  

In the process I want you to explore many more ideas/thumbnails/comps...dozens, even hundreds (!!)  until you are satisfied you have got your best ideas out. The goal is to come up with the best ideas/compositions you can.
At the end of it I would like to see your mood board, ideation sketches and present 4 of your best ideas taken to a level where I can tell what the general composition and values and mood design will be. Doesn't have to be detailed, but it should be clear. When you post your assignment please also post your moodboard, your setting details and any (short!) backstory or design details that you are aiming for and is pertinent to the environment setting.

Post any questions or troubles you are having along the way here, and I will endeavour to help out, time permitting.

ENJOY AND REMEMBER THIS IS THE FUN STUFF!!!!

[Bookend]

@Bookend: Sorry Book! Your crit is uploading now, should be ready in a bit.

Thanks so much, man-- You rock.  Loving how you're fixing me up and setting me on the path to greatness!  You are a continued inspiration, and I appreciate you ripping me apart and putting me back together again.  Thanks man.  AWESOME.

Just one question:  Your chalk brush is amazing.  Is it just Krita default, or is it something special?  I've been finding that my biggest problem with my work right now is figuring out my tools (I had a great setup on Photoshop, but switched to Krita, messed up my brushes, and had horrible work for awhile)-- I had to restore all of Krita's defaults, and I'm finally making things that are satisfying to me again (So, hopefully this improvement will show in my work for this course as well!)

For everyone else, check it out guys!  An Idea Generator: http://folji.deviantart.com/art/Idea-Gen...-199684321

Also, reserving this spot to post #4.

[ZombieChinchilla]

Shoot, due November 4? Unfortunately I am going to be travelling all next week starting on Saturday, and unless I finish the assignment in two days then I won't be able to finish it (and sadly I have other class work I'm playing catch-up with, so I won't be able to). I think I'll have to push this off for just a bit, and hopefully have this finished in about two weeks from now after I'm back. Feel free to not give me a crit, Amit, but I'll try really hard to still keep track of this and work on it when I'm back, I'd hate to drop out of this completely!

[Amit Dutta]

@Book, GREAT. Hopefully I won't need to destroy you to build you up even more :) The brush tip came with Krita I think, and it may be a set from Gimp (Krita includes some Gimp brush sets). I custom tweak all the parameters for any brush I use to get it to do what I want. I haven't really looked into exporting brush tips and presets but I will at some point. I will share that one with you when I get a moment.

@Zombie no problem, you have to prioritise.

Just a reminder to all you digi-folk out there, you can do ideation sketching in a sketchbook with pencil or pen or whatever in almost any situation in a few spare minutes here and there. I used to do these during meetings at work when I was a trapped cubicle monkey.

The focus is idea and composition generation, not tools or technique!
If anyone else has issues with the deadline (too short?) I can push it back to the Friday so you get a couple of extra days.

[Amit Dutta]

@Book: Actually, that brush is from jamie Jones brushpack. Number 60. I made up my own preset since krita can import .abr brush tips but doesn't import the brush settings.
I made a brush bundle with just this tip and brush settings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VInmV...sp=sharing

You can import bundles by doing this:

Go into settings->manage resources->import bundle/resource.
Then set your filter to *.bundle. Then select the bundle.
You will not immediately see it, but when you restart the resource manager the pack will be active. Looking at your presets or tags should show you the new preset. Putting a bundle under deactivate will deinstall the presets.

This is a link to all of JJ's brushes.

http://digitalbrushes.tumblr.com/post/57...nload-link

[Bookend]

@Book: Actually, that brush is from jamie Jones brushpack. Number 60.  I made up my own preset since krita can import .abr brush tips but doesn't import the brush settings.
I made a brush bundle with just this tip and brush settings: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4VInmV...sp=sharing

You can import bundles by doing this:

Go into settings->manage resources->import bundle/resource.
Then set your filter to *.bundle. Then select the bundle.
You will not immediately see it, but when you restart the resource manager the pack will be active. Looking at your presets or tags should show you the new preset. Putting a bundle under deactivate will deinstall the presets.

This is a link to all of JJ's brushes.

http://digitalbrushes.tumblr.com/post/57...nload-link

Aah, thanks a lot man.  No wonder I was having issues.  It doesn't import brush settings. 

Thanks for the instructions too! 

How would you recommend fiddling with brush settings?  What's usually changed?  (It's okay if you don't know-- I can always look up tutorials).  :

All right, now my work can be masterful! 

Well... Maybe.  Hopefully.

[Amit Dutta]

The bundle I made includes my brush preset for krita. It's called "texture block" just search for it in the brush panel. should be setup already. it's nothing special, just an added textural element is about it.
When I get some time I will probably arrange my brushes in a more efficient way, create some custom icons to be able to find things easily, and then I can share the entire set.

[wasgodx]

Hey Amit, I have a question about the detail on the characters that appear on the environment sketches. Like, how detailed they should be and all.

I could do a stick man.. but sometimes for sci fi things is better to try something else. I feel that either way, everytime I try I mess it up.

Should it be simply a silhouette?

[Amit Dutta]

No, definitely not just a silhouette, unless that is exactly what the environment conditions dictate or the piece really needs. Render them enough to show us what they are, but don't go into too much detail. Have a look at any environment concept or production pieces out there. In the good ones the people are rarely just afterthoughts, they are an integral part of setting the scene. Also, if you can I would really like you to try and stay away from the guy with a stick. Yeah it works, we've all done it, but it is really boring. Try and think of other ways characters could be interacting in your scenes if you can, if the setting requires people.

[vlada]

I'll just leave this here... http://sticksalesmanadventures.tumblr.com/

I am also wondering if I have tried to bite off more than I can chew :/a I have been developing a Final Fantasy-esque setting for a while now, and wanted my final piece to be a merchant square -- but I am wondering if I should scale it down to just a few stalls, and put the more complicated architectural design for later. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Also, should we keep research spam to a minimum in this thread? I burn through a LOT of sketchbook pages, and I don't feel comfortable spamming everyone with my ideation process-- unless that's the point!

[Amit Dutta]

Vlada, we have 4 weeks to finalise something. Should be enough time to do something quite complex. Up to you. I think being challenged is better than floating along in comfort zones. Also if you don't finish it during this time, you can always work on it until it is done, and I don't mind being sent final pieces after the time is up to get my final thoughts.

In terms of ideation if you want feedback from people then definitely post it. I don't mind people posting their ideation as they go along but I guess use your judgement on how large the changes are between posts, and perhaps compile more content into fewer posts.
If you aren't comfortable posting anything then don't post it! :)

[Adam Lina]

I wrote a brief story outline. Im trying to keep it as short as I can but have a a wide variety of environments to tool around with.

When the Queen is mysteriously cursed by dark magic, freezing her in time, a group of knights and priestesses of the moon are sent in search of an ancient relic. The relic is thought to have the power to cure her of the curse. The royal seer has visions of the relic within a monolithic stone tower in a remote mountainous region on the outskirts of the kingdom. Upon reaching the tower they find it surrounded by a raging storm and guarded by giant moving statues. After battling their way into the tower and traversing the labyrinth within they discover a portal. The portal transports them to the distant future. They find themselves in a dark neon lit cyberpunk city with flying cars, androids and cyborgs. Shocked by such a place they retreat back through the portal but instead find themselves in the distant past. Encountering prehistoric beasts they thought were stuff of legends. A race of shape shifting reptilians rule over and enslave the primitive ape men. They use their slaves to construct great temples and make sacrifices to their blood thirsty god.

Im thinking of doing an environment piece for the mountain region with the tower looming in the background, the labyrinth within the tower, the futuristic city and the reptilian temple. I already have a bit of reference for each but I'll post them when I have them more organized.

Any feed back is welcome.

[vlada]

Right on, Amit, thank you! I'll use discretion. :)

Adam, that's a really cool brief. It sounds like a really cool way to try a wide variety of environments!

I think my only concern in this case would be to make sure you have a definite story for *each* environment they travel through. What you have right now are "genres", and those do not make for interesting designs. Put thought into your core concepts and hooks, what is it about every single one of these environments that is engaging, intriguing?

Having these knights come into contact with such different environments could also be problematic, since without reading your story concept their presence in the environment would not read as clear. That said, I think the prehistoric setting sounds like it will be the most interesting! To think of a shape language and ecosystem for a whole civilization -- definitely strikes me as something fresh and worth pursuing. Go go go!

[wasgodx]

I am writing a script right now for a TV pilot so I'll probably use that for the notan and values. I have already done quite a bunch of 2 different environments, but I'm gonna do more, then select for value sketches and then selectt the value sketches I like the most.

Adam, amazing story! The variety of environments is very good, but it might break the sotry in itself? I mean, they have this objective and bang, suddenly they appear on a portal on a cyberpunk city in the future.. and then they go the past.. and they forget their objective :P

But I love it, though. I would do this:
Their time > Priests to the portal > Prehistoric > Find the cure > Return to the portal > Return to their time

On the first, you could show the palace, a city, etc.
On the last (which is on the same time as the first) you could show a more natural setting, with mountains, rivers, abandoned bridges..

On the preshistoric thing, well, as the tagline for a very known videogames company says.. History is our playground :)