Night of the Nocturne

This submission shows artwork which I created for a team project I was part of during my second year at university. I'm studying BA (Hons) Game Art at Falmouth University in the United Kingdom. The name of our team is Mothship Studios and we worked on the game called 'Night of the Nocturne' for a year. The elevator pitch for our game is as follows....

"Imagine you are a moth, you want to get to the light of the full Moon. You are stuck in a cabinet, and there are obstacles in your way, such as a giant spider."

During this project my primary role was as a Character Artist, but I also had the opportunity to work extensively creating and developing 3D environment assets for the team project. With this Rookies entry, I will be showcasing both the character and environment assets which I made for the game 'Night of the Nocturne'.

To introduce this entry for The Rookies, I'm posting a short cinematic I made of the start of the game, and this cinematic was created using the sequencer in Unreal Engine. I really enjoyed becoming more familiar with the Unreal sequencer and it was a lot of fun finding out further information about the types of cameras and lenses which are available in the engine.

The first individual 3D asset on display is of a retro alarm clock I made for our game. The number which our team was designated for the second year module is 2.17, and this is why you will see this particular number reoccurring in the 3D assets designed for the game.

To take things back to the very beginning of this team project, the group started off rapid prototyping ideas for what the game might be. Eventually the ideas were narrowed down to two, with one being a ship racing game based on Viking culture, and the other being based on the concept of a trapped moth trying to get to the light.

These renders seen here are of an environment asset I created of a Viking boat mast, made to develop the concepts for the Viking boat game. These renders were made using Substance Painter, and the design of this Viking ship mast was based on a real Viking boat mast at the British Museum in London. I post this example of environment art to show the very early stages of prototyping for our team project.

This explains why our team called itself Mothship Studios, due to one prototype being about a moth, and another being about a Viking ship.

As one of the Character Artists for our team project, I had a whole host of insect characters I needed to make for the game. Our team also only had one Environment Artist too, so I created a lot of environment art as well for the game.

The initial design for the moth was based on a Cecropia Moth, with the colour palette being mainly orange, red, and yellow. The second iteration of the moth design mainly had a colour palette of green, pink, and purple, with the design being based on the Luna Moth.

I would say that the aspect of this team project which I enjoyed the most was hand painting textures for the moth in Substance Painter. This group work has really made me think that perhaps I should specialise in hand painting textures as an Artist.

Another main character I had to create for the team game was a giant spider. To begin the design process, I worked with real life 3D sculpting techniques to develop a prototype for the spider. Below you can see some of the early designs for the spider, including a real life papier mache sculpt, and a ZBrush sculpt.

The spider was the main villain in our game called 'Night of the Nocturne', and the idea was to make this evil character look as gnarly and gruesome as possible. We gave the giant spider glowing eyes to make it look more menacing, and we put together a number of PureRef boards to research different spiders from nature. This research process was useful to investigate how real life spiders are coloured, especially the venomous ones.

The third and final character I made for our team project was a cockroach. As a team we were thinking of making the cockroach another villain in the game, but in the end we decided to keep the cockroach as a more neutral character, included in the game to make the scene look more engaging and interesting.

Once again, working on the cockroach design was an excellent way to improve my hand painting skills in Substance Painter. This cockroach design was largely based on how cockroaches look in real life, and I made a PureRef board to research the possible looks a cockroach may have, depending on the type of cockroach.

Now that I have covered the character art I made for the game 'Night of the Nocturne', I'll be moving on to show more of the 3D environment art assets I have made for the game. Below are renders of a detailed asset I created of a retro record player. With the overall look of our game, things slowly morphed into a retro aesthetic, which I feel worked well for the cohesive style of the assets.

As the team project developed and progressed, ideas and concepts for the game changed too. Working alongside the team Game Designer, some assets were created, but then later discarded from the gameplay. The following dino toy is a good example of an asset which I developed, but then it wasn't needed for the game.  We were originally considering having one of the levels consisting of mainly toys, but when this level design idea was rejected, so was the dinosaur toy which I made. This ZBrush sculpt is of a Styracosaurus.

For 'Night of the Nocturne', 3D environment assets needed to be made for inside of the cupboard which the moth navigates through, but also in the kitchen area outside of the cupboard. The kitchen area can be seen by the player from the perspective of the moth, and for the kitchen I created both a cooker and a fridge. In keeping with the retro style of the scene, I made the cooker and the fridge look as if they were from the 1950's.

Before I move on to talking about other environment art assets, I wanted to mention the spider eggs which I created for the team project. These spider eggs would be considered as environment art assets, but they are also closely linked to the character art as well. These spider eggs were placed throughout the cupboard level, and the design was based on a combination of the alien eggs designed by H. R. Giger in the movie 'Alien' (1979), and the spider eggs seen in the game 'Skyrim'. These spider eggs are also loosely based upon the alien plant in the 1986 musical film 'Little Shop of Horrors'.

The usual process I have been applying to create 3D assets has been to either work in Maya or ZBrush to develop the 3D mesh, then make the UVs in Maya, and after that I apply textures with Substance Painter.

Below are renders of a moth cocoon and chrysalis I made for the game, which appears at the start of the gameplay. I created the high poly 3D mesh for the moth cocoon and chrysalis using ZBrush.

I'm now going to post a series of 3D environment art assets which I created for the game 'Night of the Nocturne'. As you can see, I made a variety of environment art assets for the game.

I would say that really useful knowledge I learned during this team project was how to make a material have opacity in Substance Painter and Unreal Engine. This can be seen in the lighter asset below which I made.

To finish up this entry, I wanted to post a series of renders of a moth display case, which I feel is the most successful 3D art asset which I made for the game. When our team has had feedback from people who have playtested the game, they have often said that the moth display case is their favourite 3D art asset in the game.