When Art and Tech Tell a Story

The Jarl's Home

"He sits by the peak of the mountain where some climb up to eat, drink, but mainly for his tomes and scrolls. He knows things, see? And there's a fire. In a place so cold as that, you want a fire."

The Jarl's Home was created as a project for the course of Applied Game Art. Research was done beforehand where modularity of assets was of key importance as well as storytelling. It was inspired by aspects of Skyrim and a like for Norse longhouses alongside the concept of a communal space where folks gather to feast, enjoy the warmth and in this case, study the lore of the places they go to. I won't lie: it is very inspirational when storytelling produces the environment. You find yourself making items that will tell that story, hopefully, on their own.

Created using: Substance Painter, Photoshop, Maya and Unreal Engine 4.

Music by Dervhengrym.

Hero Asset - Cooking Fire

Many assets were created for the effect of the main focus of the fireplace - some that are modular to be used elsewhere. The idea of course, was flexibility.

The Loremaster's Quarters

"Somewhere locked inside this castle lies a library of forbidden knowledge. Only the loremaster has a key - and it is referred to as his quarters."

The Loremaster's Quarters was conceived as a project for Applied Game Tech class at SCAD. Very in-depth research was done starting from still life works as inspiration and moving into our own concepts. These concepts would in turn be used for: 

- Material transitions: Particularly on the hero asset, the book and magnifying glass combo

- Creation of particles: The particles here - magical smoke, floating pages, fire and candle flame are all custom made and taken into blueprints with their own sound.

- Set Dressing - We were to use the concept to further fill in the beautiful corner and light it appropriately to tell a story.

Created using: Substance Painter, Photoshop, Maya and Unreal Engine 4.

Music by Adrian von Ziegler

The Loremaster's Quarters - Particles

When it comes to the particles, the idea of making my own customized fire was a fun one I admit. There are plenty of ways to do fire, but controlling it so that it so that it doesn't look as an inferno was a fun challenge as well as the making of the material itself. The assigment asked for three particles, but I had some extra time to work a fourth one and so a fireplace was inserted into the concept of the scene with a particle for fire in place.

Spellbook and Magnifying Glass

The first step of the project was to create the materials for their transition while having an idea too, of how we expected the main objects to look like. Both states of the spellbook and magnifying glass are shown above as state A and state B.

Material for Magnifying Glass

Material for Book Pages

By making the parameter "AnimateThis" we are able to make an instance of this material, apply the instance and manipulate it in a sequence allowing us to animate the transition in material - alongside those magical lines - with one value.

Blending Modes in Maya

Blending modes in Maya were used for the floating pages of the book in order to provide a more varied animation. These blends could in turn be animated back in Unreal's sequence.