Sumea Challenge #5 -3D- Aven

great concept.[?]

It is good to see that you can read as well as you can type. I will post it again just for you. I am currently in a competition with Happy Camper. This competition ends on the 10th of February. I am nearly done. I have two of three images completed, and I would like to finish the final image before I focus all of my attention on this comp. Therefore, I will not post any images until next week. I hope that this is a little clearer for you to understand.

No NO I can read, just gets to me place holder comp posts. I can't remember if it was the last comp or the Hi-res one but there were like 10 of these which didn't end up even doing a concept.

Yours didn't have a concept either brendan haha :D

Meet Joey. He is your average six year old. Well except that he is incredibly afraid of the dark. [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/joey.jpg[/img] The night ended like any other night. His mum sent him off to sleep with a tale of how there aren't monsters in the dark, and there is nothing to be afraid of. Like every other night, Joey fell asleep listening to his mother's words. That night though, Joey did not sleep well. He had terrible dreams all through the night. When he awoke, it was much worse than he could have imagined. He jumped down from his bed only to be met with a very odd feeling. His bed felt as though it was a lot higher. Come to think of it, so did every thing. He started to walk uneasily through the house, feeling a type of fear that he had never felt before. All the colours were off and shadows were darker and sharper than usual. He made his way down the oh so long hall way, all the way to his parent's bed room. Then he saw the unthinkable.... His parents weren't there. He walked into the kitchen, and that is when it started. An uneasy feeling came over Joey as he turned around to see a shadow jump right out at him. Scared, he flinched and closed his eyes. Hoping for the best. After what felt like ages, Joey opened his eyes to see that his shadow had come alive and grabbed the rouge shadow. His shadow -without much effort- ripped the rouge shadow to bits and turned and faced Joey. Joey was so amased that his shadow had saved him. Joey turned around to have a look at the kitchen and to make sure that nothing else was trying to hurt him. He turned back around to his shadow, and that is when he learnt a terrible lesson. His shadow was standing there holding a butcher's knife. Aimed at poor little Joey. His shadow only stopped the other shadow from killing Joey, so that he could have that pleasure. Joey now has to try to find out what is wrong with his world, try not to be killed by all the shadows in his house, and try to avoid his own shadow. Poor lil' guy. This is how his shadow starts out. It is just a very dark for of him, without any eyes. [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/shadow_01.jpg[/img] After progressing through the game, Joey starts to live with his shadow and is becoming less afraid of the dark. Well, the evil boss doesn't think much of that. With a wave of his all powerful hand, the boss makes Joey's shadow more scary. Joey's shadow is even more relentless chasing Joey around. [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/shadow_02.jpg[/img] Now the final form for Joey's shadow arrives when Joey finally comes to grips with his fear. How does he come to grips with fear? By learning that it is all in his head? By having a heart to heart with his shadow? Nah. He traps it's arse in a magical jar. His shadow also evolves into three gaseous forms that will swarm out of the jar and attack anything it sees. Joey can then call them back into the jar before it attacks him. [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/shadow_03.jpg[/img] All feedback is welcome :)

Sorry it took so long to get these pictures up. If anyone is interested, this is how Thunderdome7 ended up http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15180 Thanks again to Happy Camper. It was terrific fun man. Thanks for bringing me in on it :)

Reminds me somewhat of Kingdom Hearts Aven, nice work. Be interesting to see how you pull off the modeling of the shadows. Remember it is meant to be entertainment for kids, so don't make it too dark.

Wow, great idea Aven :)
How are you going to model this so they look like shadows? opacity maybe?
Not a big fan of the jar thing though, to e honest. Though I love the first two versions, especailly the glowing bits.
Great work :)

Thanks for the feedback. Wizenedoldman - I have never played Kingdom Hearts. My friend has it, but when I went to his house, he didn't have a memory card and didn't want to play it too much. My biggest inspiration was an old PC/PS game called 'Heart Of Darkness'. I had awesome animation :D I wanted to make the shadows scary enough to give little kids slight goosebumps. When they play it, they should come to grips with any fears of the darkness they may have. I will make sure that they aren't too scary though. Makk - Opacity all the way :) I am hoping that I can get the 3D models to look like they have been painted. I am still unsure of the third form as well. Any suggestions would be really welcome at the moment :) I wouldn't just leave it as a jar with a blook pool in it though, I would actually make the three shadow spectres that go in there. Some other ideas I had were to make a really big beefy shadow monster. Fortunately in the process of evolution, the shadow lost a bit of it's inteligence. It still wants to destroy all the other shadows attacking little Joey, but it can't remember why (ie, it wont attack Joey). I also thought of making it either a dark angel (gown, harp, halo), or some little shriveled, old shadow that floats around in a meditated state. I will start modelling the other forms, but will leave the final form for now.

Nice work, i love the topic youve got going there. It can be fun to make a sort of childs work in the dark if you know what i mean, its not new, its been done many times before but if done right it can still have the desired effect.

Not really a fan of the third one either, the whole idea seems to come to a abrubt holt there and it seems like it was a bit rushed or something... like the second one tho :D

COOL. I really like the extra mile you've gone with this.

I feel the jar is a bit of a copout... maybe the shadow can be shackled to something (or joey?). I like the idea as it is, but i just feel the shadow should be contained some other way.

I also find the graphic style of the first evolution interesting; at first glance, the accurate ribcage, pelvis and spine look quite graphic (inappropriate for youngens), but they are quite stylised.

All in all very cool. I love the style you've drawn them in.
cheers

great idea and story to go with it !!!!! alot better them mine !! :P
i like your drawing style the work you have done on that td7 comp is great your a great drawer i wish i could draw like that !

i also think you should reword the 3rd idea with the jar its just lacking compared to the others

great work
!

Great idea mate, incredibly original can't wait to see the models.

Moonunit - Thanks. I just wanted to do something a little different from what other people were doing. Saves having to look at the same thing 20 times over. Smeg - The third form was always going to be one of two things. A bigger, better version -or- some bizarre reverse evolution cop out. I guess I should have done the first :) I will have to be really careful when modelling the second character, so that it isn't too detailed. I just hope that people here will let me know if it is looking a little too intense. Thank you for the comment about the painting style. I was trying to be really loose and free. So that it would look like a kids painting :) Doyle - Thanks man. I am still trying with my drawing. I hope that I can still continue to further myself. I have worked on the third form a little, so I hope that it isn't quite so weak. Bullet21 - Thanks. I will hopefully start having some WIPs of the models out in a few days. I expect lots of crits in return :)

Now for the updated third form... [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/Shadow_03_02.jpg[/img] Seeing that Joey is still coming to grips with his fear of the dark, the 'Master Evil Type Guy' tries to evolve Joey's shadow once more. Instead of trying to scare Joey even more, he decides to just evolve him into something that will have a better chance of beating the crap out of him. It isn't how you use it, it's how big it is. Unfortunately for him, something went a little wrong during the evolution. All the bulk that exsisted in the shadow's mind, was pushed into it's body. The shadow still realises that it should stop all the bad shadows from hurting little Joey... but why again? Please let me know if this is a little better, or if I need to go back to the drawing board (er... Wacom).

If I can play devils advocate for a bit:

I really like the idea and I like your artwork on a technical level, but to me, it looks like art that you'd see in a childrens storybook, with the lack of detail etc. I don't say it in a bad way - it's got flava, but I wonder if there's a reason why Poke/Digimon use the black outlines thing that seems to be so popular?

The idea of the shadow is very cool - but perhaps a bit of tweaking could be in order. Maybe turning into different forms? I'm not sure what to suggest -- it's a tough idea to make work. I'll be interested to see how you approach the 3d aspect of it.

Um, you are a little unclear there Jonothan. I will try to make a response, but it is kind of difficult :) The reason why a lot of kids fads are done with black outlines is because they are based on cartoons. It is just easier for them to have black outlines filled with colour. There are a few (very few) cartoons that will change the colour of the outlines. Why, I am not too sure. Since this is for a game, we have the freedom of not being bound to what is done in traditional animation (both good and bad). I know that getting a painted look in 3D will be very difficult (more so on a texturing level than a modelling one). That is why i wanted to know if ramp shaders are allowed to be used. If not, that is cool. I have thought about it quite a bit (another reason why it took so long for art to be posted), and as Joel said, there is always inverse mesh methods to achieve it :evil grin: The final comment is a little confusing. Could you please expand on that at all? There was a game released in PS2 a little while ago called 'Herdy Gerdy'. Very few people have even heard of it (I have never played it). The cartoon effect in that is awesome. It looks more like 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' as opposed to 'Pokemon'. It has this really amasing charm that I would like to achieve. [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/herdygerdy_02.jpg[/img] [img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/SumeaComp_05/herdygerdy_04.jpg[/img] It doesn't have lines at all, yet it still looks like a really well made cartoon :)

I see. Herdy Gerdy does have some great style. TBH - I'm not even sure what ramp shaders are (!). Getting lots of technical questions in the other thread - I assumed alphas would be mainly used for opacities or whatever although, Malus' reply to Doords comment (hinting at normal maps) are probably not what I was hoping for. I was mainly referring to opacity but the more technical minded guys seem to be hinting at all sorts of shit I know bugger all about. So if you're reading this Doord - no normal maps please (to keep everyone on roughly the same footing). Is everyone cool with that?

To extrapolate on previous comments: I love the idea you've got, but Im not really a fan of the first two forms. The first shadow and second shadow seem... bland. I like the third one tho - but maybe have things like a big hammer for a hand etc. They saw that you can tell a great character by it's silhouette -- perhaps try to expand the shadow concept in some way? Devil May Cry and Ico for PS2 had good shadow enemies.

Basically a ramp shader (Falloff shader in Max) is a type of shader that works with the angle of a face and it's orientation to an object (ie, the camera) to change how the material will look. This is used to get a variety of cool shader effects from X-Ray shaders, to adding in Fresnel Reflections (great for glass and Car Paint), softer materials (silk, velvet), and of course, Cell Shading. I am not too sure if ramp shaders are used for real time rendering, or if it is through another technique. It is generally how it is achieved through pre-rendered scenes though. I noticed that Doyle has some renders up that use cell shading, so I was just wondering. Cool, that's what I thought you were saying. I just wanted to check :) The first shadow is meant to be very basic as it is based around the character. I didn't want to fool around with the design for that too much, as it would make very little sense to have a 'sidekick' that is based on the hero if it doesn't look even remotely like him. DMC did have some sweet enemies full stop, but they would look slightly out of place in a game aimed for 10 year olds right? It seems like I am treading very thinly at the moment between kiddy and adult. I really don't want to push that too much further. I have only seen very few shots of Ico, and from what I can understand, they do the game no justice at all. I didn't want to add in weapons as such (like the hammer hand you suggested), as there is no point for it. They are fighting shadows, so a hammer would hardly do much to them :) Thanks for the advice, it did make me sit down and think about the characters a little more. At this stage though, I am quite happy with it :)

Sweet idea aven, i really wanna see more of your work [:)] i demand the models!!! [:D]

Sorry to everyone. I was unable to complete this for two reasons. 1. Computer troubles. My system has been dicking up a bit recently. I just upgraded my Mobo and HDDs yesterday and am currently setting it all up. 2. Plain out procrastination. Hey. At least I am honest :) I do forfeit, but I will continue to work on them in my own time.