In this blog entry, you will find all of the pre-production paper work and discussions that were written and took place before the start of the Synoptic Project. Later on, I will include links to our Trello (Scrum) board if our group decides to switch from a traditional scrum board to a digital one instead.
What role will I play in the project?
In the first stages of our Synoptic Project, Sprints 1 and 2, I will act as our team’s concept artist, who will be incharge of creating the character concept art as well as the T-pose sketches for later 3D asset production. I have chosen to take on the role as a character concept artist because concept art is a role that I plan to specialise in and move onto study at university – hopefully in the future acquiring a job in this field. Later on during the project I will then being to generalise and help out my team wherever they need it, whether that be within Unreal Engine, 3D modeling, digital sculpting or and animating.
I was assigned the role of both group leader and art director on the account of the game pitch idea we settled with being mine. I believe that I can successfully manage my team and help them to produce quality work as well as guide them to meet the specifications of our Synoptic Project brief. During our last project, the Imagined Worlds Project, I acted as concept art supervisor and art director – this helped me to hone my leadership, communication and artistic skills so I am capable of handling the roles I have chosen to specialise in and have been given.
My team consists of 3 others: Richard Bloxham, Michel Oremosu and Olivia Christian. Richard will act as the overseer of 3D asset production, creating both character and environmental assets from concept art produced by me and Olivia. Michael will see to the Unreal Engine side of production, setting up blueprints and working within Unreal Engine is his speciality. Olivia will be our environmental concept artist and later on will generalise and help out wherever needed on the team.
Initial Discussions
Initially after me and my group sided with choosing my idea for a game concept and assigned me as team leader, the first step was to discuss what ideas we could integrate into our game from the others personal game ideas. This discussion took place to help the others feel engaged in the project and to ensure they have a say in how the game idea develops and grows throughout the project duration. I would also need to create the HCD (High Concept Document). A while after we started the discussion of idea implementation, we decided on taking the possession mechanic concept from Michael’s idea – me and my group found this idea to be extremely interesting and would love to experiment with it.
Research into Xiotek
Our Synoptic Project brief was given to us by a studio called Xiotek studios, founded by Byron Atkinson Jones in 2007. Our project involved taking inspiration from the newly released Untitled Goose Game, in which the player’s goal is to cause mischief whiles trying to achieve a goal in the process – we were meant to create mischief game with our won unique twists and ideas. The founder, Byron, has been working in the games industry since 1996 and has worked on a wide array of games during his time as a games developer ranging from Fifa to Survival Factor – covering a wider variety of gaming platforms, PC, PlayStation, IOS etc. During my research I found that Byron teaches “Get Into Games” for the NextGen Skills Academy, who aim to generate and develop next generation talent for the GAVFX (Games Animation and VFX) industries.
Links and files: pre production paperwork and Trello board
Trello Board: Get it here
Synoptic Project Contingency Plan:
Modelling List
Rigging List:
Below is the file for our pre-production rigging list for up and coming sprints that Michael prepared.
Texturing List:
Product Backlog:
Sprint 1 Goal Plan:
Time Estimation Document:
[All blog entries have been converted to posts from pages to include tags, dates may change/update due to this conversion]
Nathan May Game Animation And VFX 