Designing A Games World: Summative Submission - Year 1 Games Art (Ryan Cudworth)

Designing A Games World: Summative Submission

By Ryan Cudworth

Research

I’ll be starting off my research by talking about my source material that I was given for this project And going into detail of what this project is about and all the different tasks that I’ve been said to help me work my way through this project. 

For the project itself, but we were given the test to create an environment based on a prompt that we could choose ourselves that would be of the type of environment that would be creating all of them being different types of buildings or environments that were around a fantasy setting for a hypothetical game. These prompts included different kinds of huts or interiors that we could choose from, this is so that we can’t just go wild with our ideas and create whatever we like. We need to stick to a certain prompt that would be very useful later on when we work into a game company or whatever and they tell us what we need to create something for. We need to be able to work with what we are given upon creating our own ideas out of an assigned prompt. Another thing that we were given to restrict us in our idea generations with this project is we had to choose an art fact that we would have to somehow incorporate into the design of our environment. Such as art with any more details, we could somehow incorporate that into the design of our environment. Use cultural inspiration and what it means to help us devise why environment is around and what it is used for. For what I have chosen, I had chosen to do the Interior of wights tomb, Which would mean I would have to incorporate imagery of death and have it be a very cold and lifeless environment. And with the fact that it has wight It would be safe to assume that the interior undesigning is supposed to be some sort of boss room That character would have to fight against. With that in mind I had to pick the artefact that being a silver diagram that is from southern Morocco. From looking into the and general design I had thought of the tomb being that of some sort of royal figure who had sadly died into the tomb trying to protect treasures from any grave robbers. 

With all this in mind, I had a very general idea of what I wanted my environment to be, Being that of an interior of a tomb that is a royal figure who died sadly in their life and are now an angry undead creature that will attack anyone who tries to steal any of the valuables with the tomb that it resides in. And with that idea where in my head I can now go onto creating final concepts designs that would best incorporate not only the design of the artefact but also the theme that I am trying to go for for this environment.

 

Next for my research, are we totally into And talking about any kind of culturally inspiration and information that may be useful to use within my environment design, And also used to make sure that I don’t accidentally offend any type of person or group of people with my work. For a good game design, it has to be something that doesn’t offend or Discriminate against any certain type of people within the world since I want to be very inclusive and not make anyone upset with the work that I have created.

To start off with I would like to look at the cultural Aspects of tombs around the world. Tombs are very well known to be sort of house of the dead, Many cultures around the world have many different ways of celebrating death either in positive or negative ways depending on how it is viewed within the culture. Within some cultures it is seen as something to be celebrated not as to be sad over the life that is lost but to remember and celebrate the life that they had lived. Well, in other cultures, it is very sad topic that Should be respected. Either that of respect to the individual who has lost someone they know dearly or respect to the dead and not to ruin their memory. Knowing all this, I need to be very careful of how I Portray death within my environment, If I were to go to over the top, I may end some cultures were like to keep death as respectful as convey, I need to make sure that I don’t overdo it or try and make something like a joke. I also need to be wary of the idea of having an undead individual within this tomb, Since well, many cultures all around the world have many folklore and stories of the dead rising with many years today still believing in those ideas and myths. Many games have undead characters within them and have not any sort of culture that I can find, But it is still good to be wary of when creating something such as this. I want my environment to be seen as something very serious and not something taken lightly. I want it to hold the weight and atmosphere of a dark and scary tomb where the dead lay, But whether they also come back to protect what is their. If I play my cars ride and don’t do anything to insulting, I may be able to pull off my idea for my environment without accidentally offending any culture or group of people.

  

For my next research, I would like to look into the Berber silver diadem From southern Morocco. From previous research they have done on this object it is Headwear that is of set of jewelries that has worn by a king, queen or Emperor that is to be married. It seems that this head holds very significant value within the culture of Morocco and its royalty with it being a very important and high valued piece of jewellery. From doing research, I have seen many other versions of the diadem, With each one having different designs and unique additions to it to help it look a little bit more interesting and to show off towards other. It is obvious that this head is supposed to stand out and show one’s high status, Which means that I have to be very careful when incorporating it into the designs of my environment. Well for my environment I don’t really want to heavily take inspiration from the diagram. I do want to take some aspects of it and try to incorporate it into the design of my environment some textures and colours from it to hopefully create very detailed and nice looking environment that I will be able to create. But I need to make sure that I do not take too heavily of inspiration that it is really noticeable that I have sickly copied and pasted it into my environment, I need to show that I have been able to take aspects from it and use my own to shape my environment into what I have envisioned in my head. Also the fact that this headwear has been worn by many different types of royalty over the years I will definitely be taking that into consideration with my environment and for that reason is The inspiration of the tomb being one for someone of very high status and Royal background. 

  

And finally for my research, I’ll be looking into how I would be able to create and develop my worldbuilding for my environment and I’ll be able to incorporate any kind of lore within it as well. 

I talked about worldbuilding before within my informative submission and went into some steps of how to create and develop some worldbuilding and lore. But from that time to now, I have looked a little bit more into some worldbuilding techniques and how to best create The world that I have with my head from my environment and I found a much more simplistic and easy way to do this. This is to do who, what, where when, why and how. Even though these are just very simple words using them within world building can greatly improve And make it much more easier to develop a world that is believable and don’t make sense. For an example, asking about who created the tomb, I would say some sort of royal figure who had long since past and was a pilot of an ancient and no longer around civilisation with the only thing standing is his tomb. From doing that, I have forgotten across large bit of worldbuilding and law just by asking one simple question about my environment. And I don’t need to ask that I could also ask who is the tomb made for, And such on. By doing this for each one of the five W and one H, I’ll be able to create a proper and unique world that my environment in habits. 

As for creating lore For my environment, it is pretty much the same as worldbuilding just asking the simple questions of who what where when why and how. I’ll be able to servicing craft and proper law for the environment and develop a proper story that would do be able to create sense within this setting.

After I learned about it this way of creating worldbuilding and law I had to spend some time thinking about what them and how it relates to my environment thinking about What is it for? Who is it made for? When was it made? Where was it made? Why had it been made? And finally, how is it that It isn’t habited by a wight? These are just simple questions that I asked myself wow doing other work for this project. I could really expand upon and think about the world building just by asking myself the simple questions and going into detail about the answers that I give them. For what I have created so far for my environment I believe that this is a tomb of a royal figure who had sadly passed during their wedding to another figure. After they died, the other figure decided to create a tour to their dead bodies and belongings to help keep it safe creating a whole labyrinth of traps and winding holes to hopefully keep their loves memory alive and deep underground. Team would be buried underground a large mountain to not only allow for more space but also allow for better safety and the tomb was created long long time ago in ancient times with now being lost and only known as a myth and stories that parents tell their kids bedtime. The tomb would be created by Royal servants and used to dark magic and ruins to help make sure that their loves life and memory never really fades. After many years, the spirit of the Deceased Royal has grown Ban angry at its life not being able to finally rest with it now we’re grown angry and bitter towards all of our life that comes down into its chambers. Many years of being tracked within the stone wars of its to have made it gone animalistic with only joy being the treasures that surround it. Poor soul that does to venture down to tombs will find themselves at the mercy of the heartless and cold wight of the once loved Royal. 

And that’s it for my idea of what the tomb is used for. Just by asking simple questions I’ve been able to develop a whole story around the reason for the tombs existence and came into existence. This is very important for this project since it not only allows me to actually generate ideas more sufficiently but it also allows me to really think about what I want is to be made for which then help me to generate later concepts and ideas for the style and design of the tomb.

 

In conclusion, I’ll be taking all of the research I have gathered and found and incorporated into my environmental design. Taking into consideration different types of cultural aspects that may be found within my designs of my environment and to also think of the world building that I have laid out for my environment as well making sure that I try my best to show off what I have in my head for the design.

7. 

   Here, I had created a simple mind map. This mind map Is to help me generate ideas for my environment by taking simple words and connecting an extending of words that relate to them expanding and creating more more to hopefully generate ideas that would help me with my concentration and world building for this project. 

   
   
   

   

   Here is a mood board that I have created for this project. The reason why I had created this mood is to help create extra ideas for this environmental design. By giving images together that relate to different topics that I wanted to have within my environment hope to really show me what kind of image I had in my head. Analysing and describing what it is and the reason why I had brought together to even expand my ideas for this environment. It also allows me to see real life or other interpretations of things that I may not have to begin with.

   
   
   Final Concept Sketches

Here are some sketches, of my concepts for the environment and the layout that I wanted. I drew out three different layouts and labelled some of the stuff that I had designed with them trying to really think about how it would look and be stylised.

And then after I had done that, I decided to take the design of one of them and I like the most and try to draw it in an isometric view. Trying to get down everything that I wanted to look like some of the environmental pieces within to get a general scope of how it would look trying out different versions of shelves and brick textures, Just trying to figure out how I want to look. From this small bit of sketching within my sketchbook, this has then developed into a much more developed piece of work.

For this part of my concept creation for my final bits of Mental concept sketches I have tried to only figure out how I wanted to Kind of style drawing when going into the final concert, but I also wanted to kind of figure out how to add different kinds of foliage, plant life and Any other natural things And have them interact with my environment. That’s why I have drawn out a brick and tried my best to draw different types of Natural things that may occur with underground tomb and see how I can fit them towards it and see how they work alongside.

After I had finish all of that work, I next went onto doing the Final bits of concepts sketches for  Project getting ready to create my final image for my environment sheet.  This one I slim down some of the stuff that I drawn previously getting rid of some unnecessary unit details and any other things that wouldn’t work and more focusing on what I know that I will definitely put into this project when going into 3-D.  Doing this, I’ve been able to make it much more easier for me to design concept catches and make sure that I have enough to have for my final imagery.  When drawing each one of the concert sketches I made sure to think in my head about what kind of thing I want to look like and how old would interact with not only the environment but with everything else.  Needing to space within the environment and how the size from the object will correspond to the size of the character.  And also to think about how by designing them to look a certain way how it would portray a story towards the viewers.

For this I had drawn the different coffins that I may incorporate into the design trying to one think about how my artefact that that I’ve chosen looks and his stylised to help me create my own unique look for this coughing but also show that I have drawn inspiration from it. I definitely like the top left coffin the most out of the designs that I have drawn and will probably use it for my Environment with a few tweaks to the design.

For these concepts, I had drawn the shelving for my environment. While drawing this, I didn’t really take into consideration how big my shelves would be compared to my environment that are drawn and I had sadly made them a little bit too tall Compare to how I wanted the actual room to look and be sized with the player character. That means that most of the designs are drawn are kind of not really usable in some of the designs but I would say that I do like spiky design designs for the shelves and also in incorporating some bumps or cracks into it to make it look a little bit more worn down and old. Trying to cooperate into my environment design.

Are the urns that I’ve drawn. The shape of the urns the same through each one of the Design, since I really like the shape that I It was very good shape for an urn, And possibly that it would allow for enough room for many of them to be placed onto the shelves. I do like the design that I had created think it works very well for something that’s more older, but I think Top left design is probably something I really like since it’s very simple But still looks good and It also links to the artefact that I chose the circles within that to have this design. 

Next are the designs for how I wanted the walls and floors to look within my environment. Since it’s supposed to be a tomb, I bought a stone base environment will probably work best for it. For the wall I do like some of the designs I have mainly the top left design. I think that looks very interesting and unique and combined with the given design. May make it a little bit more interesting and intriguing for my environment. And finally for the floor I think that simple brick texture like with the middle left will probably serve very well for the environment and probably like I said with the wall was just adding some cracks and maybe indents will help make it look a little bit more realistic.

Moving onto my gates and door designs for this project. I mainly focused on getting the designs of the gates and what not all down since it was going to be a main feature that separates the main room from where the coffin is, So I had created a little bit more design is very simple just trying to get maybe some different shapes and adding extra spikes Into see if that works for the design. I believe probably simplistic and normal kind of design will probably work well nothing too complicated since I’m pretty sure that this environment might be a little bit too overwhelmed with the more extravagant designs that I crafted up for the other bits. And I didn’t really think that I might try and incorporate that into my design since I’m doing the inside and think bars work kind of more better for a tomb supposed to keep stuff locked away, I’ll definitely take some inspiration from the designs that I’ve done for the doors and use them Environment.

I have drawn out some different designs. Most of the designs that came up kind of look more like light savers in how they are designed and I don’t really want that for my torch since I wanted to just be a simplistic kind of torch so what I am going to do is take the top left design with the spikes and simplistically design down a bit more and maybe incorporate some from the bottom middle left piece with just a circles going around the rims.

For this part of my Final concept sketches I wanted to figure out some more plant that I may want to incorporate into my environment. The parts are not going to be a part of the designs. They are just some sort of placeholder, So I could fit them into a concept a little bit more naturally than just having them floating in kind of blank void. Out of the different things that I have drawn I think probably best to add in would probably cobwebs some mushrooms maybe and some simple leaves and Vines that are sprinkled around the environment. I did also failed to draw some mouse into the design, but I do want to try and cooperate that into my final environment.

For this part of my final contact sketches I wanted to think of maybe more decoration items that kind of more served to show that it is a tomb like with the urns. So I had designed some different types of skulls. Some of them being human like school as well other being kind of rats, mouses bones canines, cats skulls, just whatever I could think of that may be nice to have incorporated into my environment. Also, one of the skulls trying to figure out Incorporating some different stuff onto school like fire weapon going through it and maybe some Plant life On top of it, just kind of adding some more unique designs for them.

Here, I draw out some of the layouts. Unlike the ones I drawn before for the concept sketchers I tried to Simplify it down into a much more easier construction for me to draw out. I tried a different way to have maybe two rooms I have above each other trying to incorporate different shapes into designs like circles and just trying to think of a very good environment that I could use. I think the design that I like more is the top left design not only is very simplistic but it also has a very unique shape with the round room at the back. That will at least not make it a box shaped room like designed. Mine is this kind of design environment may be a little bit too cramped for what I want, but I’ll have to figure out within my final design.

For these last pieces of final concept sketches that I had drawn. I want to try and think of some miscellaneous items that I could use to help decorate my environment. I drew some different kind of pots plates that I could use to fill up any floor space and decorate the surrounding rooms. And also drawing some different kinds of Shiny items like coins, crystals and gold that maybe some sort of offering to the spirit of the tomb. And finally to think a little bit more of some different light sources I decided to design some different candles that would help to add in a little bit more light that the torches may not give off. And they would also allow for different light levels within the environment, even though it’s supposed to be underground.

Final Environment

Here I started to plan out how I wanted my final environment to look. For the style of art that I would be drawing it in, I was thinking of doing an isometric kind of style. Just because I didn’t think I could really show off most of my environment by doing a perspective piece of art we’ve probably most of it being obscured and hidden while I want to fully show off what my interior would look like.

When drawing out this environment I Was informed that during each piece of the environment within different colours would help make it more easier for me to draw it out, That’s what I did for each different part of the design made sure that use a different colour so it would be much more easier for me to see what is part of one piece of room and that is not of the other. And also done the same and the block for the shelves, coffin, torches and urns. Just so it wouldn’t get too complicated for me and so that I could properly plan out where I wanted things to be. Add set off a little copy of the back bit so that I could probably plan out where stuff would go inside of it without having the other piece of the environment in the way. 

After I had fully blocked out everything and kind of got a gist of where I wanted everything to be I can now go onto drawing out my environment. I may change up how things are laid out when doing the final bits up for the environment, or I might keep it the same That is all up to how everything goes within creating the final lineup for the environment.

After I had created the basic layout of my environment, I had gone onto next drawing out the line art. An issue that immediately showed itself to me is when doing the line for the main bits of the layout I had drawn it a little bit too big with the pen width which made it look a little bit too in my A bit too cartoonish for my liking. If I were to draw it again, I would definitely use a much more thinner pen width to allow me to get a better look for the design. But aside from that I think that my design for the environment went pretty well.

 For the next piece, I drawn out shelving that the urns would be placed on top of. Unlike how I had drawn out in my final concept sketches, I didn’t make them as overly designed as I did there. Decided to keep them as just basic shelves without any really long details to them since not only would that have maybe complicated the design of being environment but also there wasn’t that much space within the environment to really add in any real detail. Since I failed to Proper scale how I wanted everything to be and the shelves just were a little bit too big for what I had planned for them. Now they will just be bare shelves and I’ll probably within the 3-D part of this project. Try and put my sketches into that part. 

Next, I had it drawn out the urns. For it, I had kept the ear the same shape that I done with my final concepts and just made the design that I like the most and just simplified it down a bit since they would already be a lot of them around and having no complicated design would mean more work for me and would make it look a little bit too crowded. Design design that I had came up with it I am very happy with just kind of combining a little bit of things here and there from the different concept side done and making sure that it would work With the shelves that I have drawn, making sure that they would fit together. 

And finally, for this stage of my line art, I had drawn out the coffin. Similar design that I had grown for the urn, I took inspiration from some of the concept sketches that I had done simplified them down a bit and tried my best to make it look interesting but not complicated. When designing this I wanted to add a little bit more intriguing to the design so I had made the lid of the coffin a little bit a skew showing that it’s been opened, just had a little bit of intrigued to the design and a little bit of movement to it. 

In conclusion for my line out stage for my final designs. I had wished that I took a little bit Better care with the scaling with the objects and my line width Since I’ve really impacted the design of my environment and not really a good way. But I am happy with how I designed some of the different items with the design and think that when put into 3-D, I will be able to make it look a lot more better.

For this stage of my final environment designer, I had decided to put my items together within the layout of the environment, And tried my best to Incorporate how I wanted them to be coloured within the design doing a simple simple just block out of how they would fit together and how they would look together. For the colours I kept it very grey with a little bit of blue incorporated into the design to help make it a little bit more gloomy looking and dead. Since this environment is not supposed to have that much life with it since it’s a tomb. I did think to maybe incorporate some brighter colours since this is supposed to be a tomb of some sort of royal figure but I thought that for a little bit more spooky and dangerous environment stone like colours would work for what I had in mind.


And here I have finally created my final image for my environmental design. For the last few bits of my drawings, I simply added in a few cracks and indent into the surrounding materials and objects to add a little bit more texture to the design making a look more like actual stone and I’d also add in a little bit more extra environmental designs added in some moss and dirt into the surrounding areas to help fill up any extra space that was left empty and I even added it in some leaves to help fill up a bit of the floor space. While my initial was to have it more overgrown, I thought that it was already very cramped with the room and that in a bunch of foliage and whatnot would overcomplicate the design and make it really hard to distinguish what, what. So I had simply just added in a bit of moss coming down from the shelves to show that it’s growing all along and some dirt at the bottom of some of the edges around the shelves and the walls to show that it has powered up and then finally a little bit of leaves in the centre of the walkway to make it feel like they have been tracked by other people. Overall, I’m pretty happy with how this design has turned out while I was Suspicious going into it I think that really had an in the texturing and details to the design really helped make it look a lot better than it did. 
If I was to go any further with the design I would probably add some shadows into it to help make it look a little bit more Freedy and maybe as some variations in the colours to help make it look a little bit more realistic like what I’ve done with the brakes for one of my concept sketches, When I was testing out how the nature would interact with the environment. 


CONCLUSION

Here I’ll be talking about the conclusion of everything I’ve done for my summative submission. I’ll be talking about some of the positive things that has gone well with this project talking about how well certain parts of it have gone and how well I had done when doing them. But I’ll also be talking about some of the negative things that have conspired during this project. I talk about any thing that I struggled with stuff that I don’t feel like I did as well as those certain parts that that would help me to realise what I should do differently when doing my next project. And then finally at the end, I will talk about how I can take everything that I’ve learned within the project positive and negative negative and use it to help me later on with other projects that come up later down the years.
In conclusion, I believe for this stage of my Summative submission, I think that I could’ve probably done a little bit better for this stage. I think that because of my refusal to do any of the work until kind of two weeks away from the deadline I have really restrained myself from doing a good job for this piece of project. I think that if I had done at least the sketches a few more weeks before I could’ve really gotten in a really good piece of work for this submission. I don’t overly hate what I have created and done for this project. I think that most of it is pretty rushed. We’ve not very much for put into what I have really created and then trying to incorporate it into at least my other bits of work. I had no time to think that I wanted to make it all work together. My disappointment in myself is with my final environment. I think that could’ve definitely looked a lot better than I had done it. Well, it does still look like I wanted to bit more time. I could’ve changed any mistake that I wanted but by giving myself a real time constraint for the final two weeks of the submission had greatly limited what I could do, in such a short times I had. So the positive stuff that I think I did well within this project I do like many of the concepts sketches that I had created. I think that even with my short time I’d really developed on what I had drawn previously with my concept sketches and really brought to life what I Had in my brain for this environment. I also think that some of the research I done into some of the cultural and worldbuilding had really helped with my project really thinking about what it is all for and how to incorporate any kind of significant imagery and design into my concepts and final designs really helped and made this project more interesting. And also learning about all this different kind of stuff really fascinates me and really makes me want to learn more while doing this project. Trying to figure out how a different culture celebrates and incorporate death into their life is very interesting and I think it’s very unique and the different ways that I can develop my worldbuilding also really on my creative side of my brain which for me is a good way to get me intrigued within a project.
Overall, I think that probably with a little bit more time I could’ve done a better project than I had, but from what I have done I think that I am very happy with it and that I think that I have put in my hard work for all the work that I have done.

LINKS

Who’s Who? - https://ry4nart.blogspot.com/2024/11/blog-post.html

Art Of - https://ry4nart.blogspot.com/2024/11/art-of-ryan-cudworth.html