for my asset I had to choose between different themes and subthemes and create an asset that relates to the themes I chose.
The four main themes were Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Historical with the eight sub-themes being Alien, Corruption, Utopia, Dystopia, Celebration, Decay, Family and Beauty.
I chose the themes of fantasy and decay as i felt that it would be a fun combination that i would have a lot of freedom to come up with different ideas and variations that fall within the themes, they also provide a good starting point as there is already plenty of fantasy decay media that I could use as reference and inspiration to come up with my own ideas.
I chose fantasy because I believed that it had a lot of freedom to make it realistic and plausible whilst also adding a mysterious element that was not based in realism, for example magic runes or a magic book, these are both concepts that commonly exist in fantasy media and I liked the idea of basing my asset around them.
for the theme of decay I thought about some kind of skeleton, I thought of this as i was determined to do a desert environment and I thought that I could incorporate the fantasy element with the decay element in some kind of fantasy creature skeleton that is decaying in the desert and buried in the sand, with this idea I thought of the most recognizably fantasy creature which is a dragon and then I thought about a rusty sword impaled in the skull of the dragon’s skull, then I researched concept images for this idea and found a few online, whilst researching i realized that it would be unrealistic for me to be able to create a realistic dragon skull when I was as inexperienced with the software as I was when I started.
For a different aspect of decay, I started to think about what it actually means for something to decay, and I decided that to me decay meant something that degrades over time and becomes visually and functionally worse, therefore I started to look at desert ruins, in both videogames and in real life there are ruins found in deserts that look dilapidated from many years ago with a link to a past civilization, with this I decided that my environment would be a desert with ruins hidden within.
using my chosen themes of fantasy and decay and the mountainous desert environment I started to research the right asset to create that is mystical and could be found in some abandoned desert ruins, after thinking about an altar or magical structure I decided that I would create a pedestal engraved with runes.
to show that my asset is a center piece and not just a regular asset as well as linking it in better with the theme I decided that it should not just be a regular pedestal and should have an extra aspect that connects the piece more to the theme of fantasy, for this I decided to add a floating book filled with runes, I chose to do this because it creates an atmosphere of mystery around the asset of why the book is floating and what the runes inside the book mean, this clearly differentiates the piece from a regular asset with implied storytelling and world building.
before I started to design and create my asset I decided to research to see if I could find anything that I would be able to base my work on, I found a few concepts that I liked and then decided on one concept that I most liked the look of and felt with some changes would best fit my idea, I used this concept as a base and whilst adding some mystical elements and other adjustments I based my work on primarily one concept.
using the reference image in photoshop I created a sketch with a similar shape that i could add features such as the runic writing to, i started by drawing one side and as the other three sides would be identical other than different text, I copied the front side three times and then drew a top down view which was simple as it was just of the pedestal and not the book.
After i designed the shape and had all of the visible sides to draw on I started to draw some symbols that I thought looked like they fit in the asset, I tried several different looks of symbols and played with how many symbols would be on my asset until I finally decided what I thought would look good.
after creating the design in photoshop i started to create the model in maya, i started with a cube and using primarily the extrude tool i created the rough shape of the pedestal
After creating the basic shape of the pedestal, next i created the shape of the book, using 5 cubes that were deformed into the pieces of the cover and pages, then i combined them by arranging them in a position of an open book, the pages were placed on a cover piece and the cover pieces were connected by the cover spine to create an accurate representation of a book.
After creating the book i paced it on top of the pedestal to give a basic look of what the asset will look like when complete, then I added a material to the pages, cover and pedestal, when each piece had a material using UV unwrap I created a UV map of the parts, I then exported the project and opened it in substance painter.
In substance painter I added a material of the colour I wanted for each part, i made the pages white, the cover a dark brown leather colour and the pedestal a sandstone colour, I chose these colours as the book needs to have writing on the pages and on white the writing would be most visible, the cover is supposed to be made of some kind of dark leather and as such this colour was perfect, and the pedestal is in a desert and as such it would make sense to be made of the local or surrounding rock and therefore would have to be a similar or matching colour to the environment it is found in.
After adding the base colours i started to add the runic lettering on the pages of the book, this is done in a dark red colour to imply that it is written in something other than regular ink, I feel that this emphasizes the mysticism of the piece and emphasize that the book us unknown even to what is used as the ink.
on the pedestal I drew a design of a different weapon in the center of each face to embrace the fantasy aspect as these weapons are not commonly used anymore, I also added one runic word in an indent on the base of he pedestal, this is in contrast to my original design as when I was creating the texture I realized that there was very little space in many of the places that I had planned for there to be runes, when I attempted it I received feedback that it looked overcrowded and took away from the overall quality of the piece, therefore after trying different variations of how many runes and their placement I decided on only one rune on each side.
After realizing that the asset did not match the theme of decay, I received feedback to make the asset look more decayed, using this feedback I added more dirt to the pedestal, after adding dirt to the pedestal it started to give a slightly decayed look, adding the dirt to the asset also helped to clean some of the previous problems with the asset, such as some of the runes and the symbols looked blurry and did not seem to fit the piece, when the dirt was added the edges seemed to blend in better with the overall asset and help tie the piece better together.
I then decided to test weather or not I should add dirt and decay to the floating book, while if I did add dirt to the pages it would link the book more into the theme of decay and make the book look damaged and old, i also wanted the book to be the largest link to the fantasy theme as it is floating above the pedestal and has strange mystical runes written in a dark red colour that is meant to possibly imply that it is written in some form of blood, with this in mind i decided that the pages of the book should stay pristine and should focus on the fantasy of the asset while the pedestal links to the theme of decay.
Even though I decided that the pages of the book should be pristine and mysteriously clean throughout all of the decay going on around it, I wanted to see if i could make the cover dirty and decayed, I though that if the pages were pristine and the cover was decayed it would emphasize the mysticism of the pages staying clean.
Above is a render from before I added the dirt to the book cover and while it may not be as obvious in the renders I feel that at a closer inspection, like you would see in a videogame the dirt on the cover brings the piece together in a subtle way.
After adding the dirt to the piece I felt that it still did not look decayed enough, as while the dirt made it look somewhat dirty which could imply that it had decayed but it still looked fully intact and just dirty and even though dirt can often mean that an object has been used and the condition has gotten worse since it was originally created, it does not properly display the subtheme of decay in a way that I felt was sufficient and meaningful, therefore I decided that by adding some cracks to the asset in substance painter I could better display the subtheme of decay as the cracks show that the pedestal has taken damage over time and has deteriorated, however this does not take away from the main theme of fantasy as the runes and symbols are still clear and visible.
The dirt and cracks also overall help to blend the runes and symbols into the piece as before they were added the designs looked out of place and were not well done, after the dirt and cracks were added the edges blended better rather than just being a design drawn on to the asset, while it helps to blend the design I also feel that it does not take away from or hide the design as it is still visible and clear.
