My name is Deanna Giovinazzo. I’m a 4th year student in the 3D Digital Graphics program at Rochester Institute of Technology, and this is my production blog for my senior thesis, tentatively titled Morphscape.
CONCEPT
Morphscape will be a real-time 3D project built in Unreal Engine 4. In this world, reality has been invaded by an alternate metaphysical dreamscape, which is responsible for causing dreams. This will be structured in an exploratory, interactive “playground” gameplay style, featuring a system that enables the player to explore, interact with their environment, and experience this world transform seamlessly and fluidly around them.
SCOPE
I am hesitant to call my thesis project a game, since stretching myself thin across the entire pipeline of what is required to make a game is not what I feel will enable me to effectively output the level of visual quality I would like to see in this project in a deceivingly long (but actually very short) timeline.
As a 3D designer, my focus is on creating visuals to convey a mood that invokes a visceral reaction in the player. I don’t consider myself to be a gameplay designer, and so I am not necessarily going to be focusing on developing hard objectives that fuel the player to reach a finish line.
That being said, I fully intend for this to be a playable demonstration of my work, a contained demonstration showcasing the potential of the underlying technical system to realize a dynamic visual experience.
As a 3D designer, my focus is on creating visuals to convey a mood that invokes a visceral reaction in the player. I don’t consider myself to be a gameplay designer, and so I am not necessarily going to be focusing on developing hard objectives that fuel the player to reach a finish line.
That being said, I fully intend for this to be a playable demonstration of my work, a contained demonstration showcasing the potential of the underlying technical system to realize a dynamic visual experience.
GOALS
Working on the visual end of real-time 3D, I am primarily concerned with the look and feel of an environment. The impression it gives through its spatial quality, attention to detail in its construction, purposeful set dressing, and how light interacts with the material definition of surfaces is a lot of what inspires me.
Atmosphere and light with a hazy, ethereal quality, as well as a very neutral color palette are what I envision for this project. When I think of my dreams, they are very solitary. They remind me of early morning, a quiet feeling like you are the only one in the world. This, mixed with that hint of unsettling, surreal, something-is-not-quite right, is a mood I’m looking to express.
Additionally, a sense of aesthetic stylization is a goal of mine. I’d like to use my thesis project as an opportunity to explore my love for an illustrative quality. This is something that I can identify in many paintings, but I haven’t seen achieved successfully in real-time 3D yet. I find what I enjoy in a painting is an evident hand of the artist, the quality of brush stokes with contrasting soft and hard edges, lost edges and implied detail through deliberate strokes and careful brush economy. When this is attempted in 3D, I often see it done with very flat hand-painted textures that don’t feel well integrated into the form of the model. Although this in itself is a look that is sometimes appealing, it often looks more toony and doesn’t have the material definition needed to make something feel realistic. This is an area I’d be excited to make progress in.
Erring on the end of technical as well, I’d like to develop a living world that functions in a surprising or exciting way and isn’t just static — something that peaks your curiosity as you move throughout. I envision things happening as you look at them, morphing or transitioning in front of you.
Atmosphere and light with a hazy, ethereal quality, as well as a very neutral color palette are what I envision for this project. When I think of my dreams, they are very solitary. They remind me of early morning, a quiet feeling like you are the only one in the world. This, mixed with that hint of unsettling, surreal, something-is-not-quite right, is a mood I’m looking to express.
Additionally, a sense of aesthetic stylization is a goal of mine. I’d like to use my thesis project as an opportunity to explore my love for an illustrative quality. This is something that I can identify in many paintings, but I haven’t seen achieved successfully in real-time 3D yet. I find what I enjoy in a painting is an evident hand of the artist, the quality of brush stokes with contrasting soft and hard edges, lost edges and implied detail through deliberate strokes and careful brush economy. When this is attempted in 3D, I often see it done with very flat hand-painted textures that don’t feel well integrated into the form of the model. Although this in itself is a look that is sometimes appealing, it often looks more toony and doesn’t have the material definition needed to make something feel realistic. This is an area I’d be excited to make progress in.
Erring on the end of technical as well, I’d like to develop a living world that functions in a surprising or exciting way and isn’t just static — something that peaks your curiosity as you move throughout. I envision things happening as you look at them, morphing or transitioning in front of you.
QUALITY BENCHMARKS // INSPIRATION
Here are some paintings with expressive brush strokes I am looking to for defining my style.
Here are some games that I feel demonstrate a level of quality I'd like to hold myself to for my project.
Kentucky Route Zero is inspiring in its color, light, atmosphere, and interesting silhouettes. It also has a very serene, dream-like mood. Although it is more two-dimensional and graphical in style than what I am looking to create, it’s a great quality benchmark. Its sense of mystery and peculiarity is also something I strive for.
Botanicula is also a two-dimensional game, but I can take many cues from its whimsical forms, color palettes, and soft, glowing, dreamy light. Additionally, the gameplay is all about clicking around, interacting with the environment and finding surprises, which really appeals to me.
The Unfinished Swan is a great execution of a unique game mechanism revolving around environmental discovery (splattering paint to reveal and navigate the world around you.)
Mind: Path to Thalamus does a nice job of establishing harmonious color palettes and atmospheric quality throughout an area. I enjoy how the environments are sparse and look as if fabricated by scattered thoughts, and their cohesion of these spaces through similar forms works well.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons achieves a painted look in its textures, but still maintains a sense of well-defined, realistic materials. This is something I aspire to.
Journey is a prime benchmark for beautifully directed color and light, strong silhouettes, and gameplay enhanced by taking in the environment around you. It is also a very quiet and meditative game.
RESOURCES
Here are some of the resources I expect to be referencing in accomplishing my goals:
-Official Unreal Engine 4 tutorial videos - specifically those on Blueprints, procedural creation, spline meshes, and morph targets
-Official Unreal Engine 4 documentation
-Official Unreal Engine 4 forums/Answer Hub
-Polycount forums
-YouTube videos
-DigitalTutors
-Official Unreal Engine 4 tutorial videos - specifically those on Blueprints, procedural creation, spline meshes, and morph targets
-Official Unreal Engine 4 documentation
-Official Unreal Engine 4 forums/Answer Hub
-Polycount forums
-YouTube videos
-DigitalTutors
WORK LOG
Gathering reference and inspiration: 3 hours
Research: 2 hours
Planning: 2 hours
Painting/sketching: 8 hours
Testing: 6 hours
- -Looking at games, paintings, and real-life locations I might want to build, figuring out what appeals to me for this project
Research: 2 hours
- -Generally keeping up to date with new and different workflows to keep an eye out for something I might want to incorporate into my project.
- -Research into dream psychology, surrealism
Planning: 2 hours
- -Planning out timeline
Painting/sketching: 8 hours
Testing: 6 hours
- -Beginning of testing a dynamic texture that can be drawn on in-game with Unreal Engine’s canvas drawing functions. I want this to serve as a mask for the entire area of the world I build, and be able to draw to it dynamically.
- -Sometimes writing and compiling stuff takes longer than actually doing it.
Here is my semester long timeline. This is subject to change or become more specific as I flesh out more about my project.
Here is my weekly schedule. Right now I have marked out hours that are open for working on my thesis. Realistically, I will not be working all of this time, but I'll be blocking out the hours I actually work on a weekly basis and posting that here.
Next week, I should have more solid progress, including some finished sketches, style tests, color palettes, specific references, and some early testing.
Here is my weekly schedule. Right now I have marked out hours that are open for working on my thesis. Realistically, I will not be working all of this time, but I'll be blocking out the hours I actually work on a weekly basis and posting that here.
Next week, I should have more solid progress, including some finished sketches, style tests, color palettes, specific references, and some early testing.