Elements of game design, part five: planning and concepting

So I really should crack on with tasks, attempt to vocalise myself whilst I currently under go numerous brain farts and brain dead drooling in a corner.
Any set project, whether it be in the gaming industry or an alternative design occupation, undergoes a series of design processes in order to obtain a well-rounded final outcome. As I can refer more accurately to the projects I have been set over the past year and a quarter, it’ll be easier to pick the process I personally underwent in order to get my final outcome. In my opinion, the initial stage of concepting is possibly one of the most important stages of any brief, and whilst it can be the most time consuming aspect, I have found that a large, well thought out concept for a design – whether it be environment, character or vehicle – will generally produce a more effective final piece. The initial concepts of a design are an aspect which will constantly be referred to throughout a project – being adjusted as they go along, so in reality need to be produced in large batches in next to no time at all.
From my own projects, the process of concepting begins with research, gathering images and ideas from either primary or secondary sources for accurate representations of what the projects brief may be as well as suggesting stylisation and themes.
From here, a large quantity of silhouettes, thumbnails and prep sketches are produced using said research in order to gain the most eye catching form – with any design, an interesting silhouette can make or break its recognisability with an audience. These will then be narrowed down to the most attention-grabbing forms, their interior shapes developed and moving onto stylisation and colour theory application. I personally find that combining and nit-picking at silhouettes & interior detailing can help produce a more well-rounded design – although I find that caution needs to be applied with this approach, as a design can very quickly become over complicated, busy and impractical.

In addition to the initial concepting, the way the files are planned and organised are an essential aspect, as in industry concepts will be shared by multiple artists. Numbering silhouettes, file names and titling layers in photoshop files give ease to adjusting a concept later down the line, as well as ease in locating files and such. Planning out time management is also an important factor when it comes to not only concepting but the overall project itself, as if deadlines are not set and aimed for, a final design may be out of reach – or just take a lot longer to get to. Or, on the other hand, the final could be underdeveloped if not enough time and planning is given to concepting. In order to attempt to avoid this, I’ve given myself more time to focus on the initial concepting stage – as part of me still dislikes silhouettes due to the unreadable nature of the inner workings of a design at the first stage, I understand how important this is to a design and see it as something I can constantly better myself at. In doing so, I will be more of a valuable asset when it comes to the group project later on in the year, as well as demonstrate important abilities to everyday life.
All in all, concepting is more difficult than it may be initially thought. And I’ve used concepting too much in this post. Concepting, concepting, concepting. It’s no longer a word with meaning.

I realise this post may be rather dull due to the lack of images, as well as references, however I was at a bit of a stand still as to how to reference something like this topic. Next post should – hopefully – be more interesting.

Apparently I can be happy with my work.. who knew?
The past two game production products I've been relatively happy with the outcome - and obviously I could always do better, do more, and so on, but a standard I'm content with is quiet nice.
And yes, I may be procrastinating from the visual design vehicle project a bit by writing this blog entry.. but I hate vehicles. And presentations.

So the current project is to design a building which will fit between two provided, fully textured meshes. So I naturally went with my first cliche thought to do a Chinese restaurant.

Well, not really just a Chinese restaurant. Mainly inspired by the scene in the movie "Spirited Away" when Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs - more of an outside buffet idea. Ideally, I wanted to give it an appearance of a converted apartment building - a sure safe way to maintain the brief and make my design fit between the two buildings provided. Basically, taking typical, traditional Chinese shapes and applying them to a store-front styled design, with an open buffet/seating area 

 The one thing I was looking forward to about this project was the amount of baking I would be doing to a lot of the geometry - not necessarily having a strict, low tri budget meant I didn't have to be as strict with certain geometry - for example the roof canopy could actually have geometry and maintain its silhouette somewhat, but I doubt I could have a 10,000 tri asset attached to the scene and explain it somehow.

I even baked a little mooncake. It was a bit pointless, but I couldn't resist.

The final result I'm overall please with the appearance - it conveys what I wanted to, despite the fact I may have been a tad lazy/apprehensive to attempt parallex mapping to create a kitchen scene within the openinn and instead added shutters. I could have used more decals however, to grime up the place - however with the limited texture budget we had I didn't want to include too many details which would be blurry and distorted on the final object.