ESCAPE - Monsters - mtthwcmpbll

mtthwcmpbll

Hey folks, I'm just setting up my thread here to get things rolling. This is my first contest (and my first real interaction) here at polycount. I'm a programmer at my day job and like to play at making games as a hobby outside of work, but I don't have a lot of experience doing any of the stuff that people post here on a daily basis. That said though, I'm treating this as a long-form game jam where I can ignore all the gamey parts and get some experience on the things I never seem to get much time to do, like modeling and rigging and environments. I'm also hoping to get to play with shaders, lighting, and rendering effects if it's appropriate (if they're in-engine, do these break the "no postprocessing" rule?) We'll see how I do, but I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's work and getting inspired to sit down and make something.

I'm going to be noncommittal on my entry for the moment - it looks like a lot of folks are going more metaphorical with the theme and I'm having trouble settling on a picture in my head that I love. I'll post some sketches and concept art soon.

tanakornxl

I having trouble setting on a picture in my head too. Maybe setting it simple will help. Looking forward to see your work. Good luck.

mtthwcmpbll

I've been sketching around a bit on my iPad this evening trying to flesh out a scene. The general idea is a boy in his bedroom escaping a monster under his bed. The bed is one of those fun themed beds in the shape of a pirate ship, and the monster doubles as a sea monster attacking the ship as well. Sort of an homage to the wild imagination of a kid that age. The kid was the last bit and looked more like a dog or a polar bear, so I put some pajamas on him and called it a night. I'll have to play with some different angles and compositions, but this is enough to get my brain working on the idea anyways.

alphajayel

nice!

Julia

I am in LOVE with this idea.
I can not wait to see how it comes out!

Hang10

Awesome!

I think 90% of people immediately thought of a more fantasy escape, but a kids super-imaginative mind, that's a great concept.

mtthwcmpbll

Thanks for the encouragement folks Here's some concept work on the kid and the monster, this time with pencil and paper:



I'm leaning towards the plain old bear pajamas since it's what has been in my head since the beginning, but I'm torn over the fact that this doesn't really have any thematic relation to the pirate theme going on with the bed and the sea monster. I can't think of any equally adorable/scrappy bed clothes that stay closer to the theme though. The panda is pretty great but I think it's even more out of place If you have a preference or any other ideas, let me know.

Some general thoughts and details:

I want to push myself, but as a solo entry without a lot of experience with the tools and techniques I'll be using I need to budget in a bunch of time to learn (not to mention make things that don't look good over and over before getting somewhere decent). I don't want to go super stylized to the point that I don't learn how to replicate any sort of realism, but I can't afford to aim for photorealistic models either. Instead, I'm going to try to get a Pixar-like vibe, which has a nice balance between the two I think.

Things I Want to Learn:
- I've done a (really) basic human rig. Once. A few years ago. So I'll be rigging up the boy and the monster as if I was planning to animate them in-game.
- I'd really like to try out some sculpting, so I'm planning on dedicating some time to playing with Blender's sculpting capabilities.
- I'd like to learn how to do shader programming, so I'm planning on spending some time in Unity writing some shaders to play around with art styles and rendering effects.

Tools I'll Be Using:
- Blender for pretty much all the modeling
- Photoshop and Painter for my textures
- Unity as my target game engine

I'll be spending a little more time on concept stuff since it gives me a good excuse to draw more, and then hopefully I'll start blocking out my scene this weekend.

Julia

I feel like everything in the concept is very pirate-y. Maybe we should go with some sort of pirate-y pj's. Or maybe something that inhabits the sea. lol. Like a shark. =3 Just my 2 cents.