HERE IS MY NEW WEBSITE/PORTFOLIO

Hi to all those (particularly those I have spoken with at GDC) who may be visiting my website to inquire about my work.

Allow me to proudly redirect you to my brand new official portfolio and website...

www.kendallrobertson.com

Thank you for your interest!

Kendall

Game Lab: Project Oz Environmental Depression Concepts

This semester for our Game Lab class, we will be working on essentially a "mini capstone" project that will include delivering a product/experience that ultimately serves a higher purpose than mere entertainment. Teams are self formed and must acquire and regularly consult a subject matter expert (SME).

Myself and 14 other people will be continuing work on the artists Wizard of Oz VR project from last semester. We will be putting an interesting spin on the idea - essentially creating an immersive experience that will allow players to identify mental illness and learn how to respond/act towards people in their lives who may be suffering from such an illness. For scope reasons, we will just be portraying depression since it is a widespread and relatable illness. In this case, the Tin Man will be depressed and the player will be navigating a dialogue tree game flow.

One of the ideas the art team discussed was to portray the science behind depression through environmental storytelling. This first week, I whipped up some ideas of how we could do this.

This first concept portrays my idea of "synapse" trees. The tree tops resemble a synapse and the mushrooms below portray serotonin receptors. When the Tin Man is depressed, the glowing particle effects will be limited, and floating towards the ground, symbolizing the inhibition of serotonin reuptake in depressed people. As the Tin Man's mood elevates, the particles will increase and begin floating upwards towards the tree tops.

Above is the real life reference I used for creating the concepts below.

Another idea I had was to subtly portray mountains in the environment to resemble brains (not in a gross way, however). And have them glow/light up to resemble CAT scans of a depressed and non-depressed brain depending on how well the player is doing in the game. Perhaps these mountains could signal entrance into the Tin Man village and exit of the Tin Man village torwards the Emerald City.

Capstone Week 04: Aerial Jungle Concepts

This final week of winter break and with all the feedback I have been given thus far, I worked on aerial views of more jungle concepts. This time I wanted to focus more on actual scenes that the player might encounter in-game as opposed to just snippets of environment areas. On the left is a good example of incorporating "wall-running friendly" areas.

The piece on the right is intended to be a pivotal moment in-game. There is a lot of room for this concept to grow... perhaps it could be the entrance into the installation? Perhaps this could be the exit of the jungle leading to this giant cliff... and the cliff could be the home of the "shanty town" and its inhabitants. Something I like about this cliff is that it is somewhat terraced, with individual "mini canyons" that would allow for even more wall running!

Matt also made us a spiffy new template for all MasterKey concept work. All art will now be presented on these boards in an attempt to make our style cohesive.

Capstone Week 03: Jungle Environment Concepts

This week I worked on the piece I began the first week of winter break. Feedback from last round included editing the pathway to make it more natural - humans/robots are not supposed to have touched this area yet. I also began to add some basic value and shading as well as refined the backdrop of the scene. For good measure, I also threw in a concept (bottom) that focused on an idea for "terracing" that would allow for more wall running - although I am thinking this particular concept needs to be pushed.

Capstone Week 02: Vertical Jungle & Tree Concepts

This next week of winter break I continued work on concerting the jungle environment. I was directed this week to incorporate more ideas for "verticality" to accommodate a key game mechanic: wall running. I also started to test ways I could incorporate shanty pieces of old machinery into the environment.

I also began work on some ideas for alien trees that could be strewn throughout the jungle environment to give it an otherworldly feel. I hope to refine the theme and tone of the alien flora throughout the coming weeks.

Capstone Week 01: Jungle Environment Concepts

With FIEA now being let out for our winter break, it is now officially (and unofficially :D ) the time to start working on our Capstone projects. To recap, I am working on a team of 15 people to make a game called MasterKey. I utilized my first week of newfound freedom to work on some concept art. Out of our three working environments, I chose to stick with the jungle. These are two scenes I whipped up to get the ball rolling and to check with our art lead if I was heading in the right direction.

Animation Week 8-11: Character Mailing a Letter

Animation Week 5-7: Jump

Animated Growing Ivy

This piece was originally created for our Wizard of Oz VR experience but did not end up making it into the final product, mainly due to integration issues between Houdini and Unreal. I followed a very popular tutorial to make this animated growing vine and it was a great learning experience. I hope to continue my research in learning how to convert something like this into a digital asset so that it may be used within Unreal.

RPP Round 1: Doodle Duels

The first round of our rapid prototype class required us to follow two conditions: the first being that we make a game that is simply FUN. The second being that we had to make the game in Flash. Shown below are examples of my artwork created for the game.

My team and I made a two person "doodle duel" game where each player has to use a pencil/eraser to match the image in the center as close as possible before time ran out.

The theme of the game was centered around Windows 98 and, more specifically, the MS Paint application. Various comical power-ups were offered in this game that stayed true to this theme.

RPP Round 4: Dear Brother

This round of rapid prototype was designated the "storytelling round". My team consisted of Samuel Moss, Gabi Capraro, Brandon Kidwell, Siddhant Grover and Evan Bass.

My team decided to go down the horror/mystery route and created a wonderful prototype called Dear Brother. Players begin traveling on a boat towards a dark silent island while a letter from this players younger brother is read on-screen. Players land upon the island and discover a series of notes from the brother that slowly begin to unravel the mystery of the town people's disappearance. The game took a lot of inspiration from and played upon the historical event of the Roanoke colonies' disappearance.

Shown below are some of my 3D models made in Maya for the game.

Watch the video below to see a full run-through of the prototype!

RPP Round 5: Project Jade

For the fifth and final round of Rapid Prototype Production, we were required to make a game that used some sort of advanced technology. My group consisted of Paul Nirenberg, Hannah Pogue, Tiffany Brodie and Dale Diaz and we chose to create an escape room using mobile AR technology.

First things first, we chose to use Vuforia as our AR development platform. This technology allowed our phones to recognize physical target images through the camera and spawn an original 3D model onscreen. We also incorporated a collection mechanic where the phone recognized if you had a certain 3D model in your inventory, which would then allow that model to act as a "key" to a corresponding puzzle. Below are some examples of 3D models I created for the game.

As for the premise of our game, we decided to go with a theme along the lines of technology, AI and singularity. We wanted to evoke a unique and interesting emotion that had not been done before in an escape room. Our target emotion was compassion.

In a quick nutshell, players are prompted with the idea that they must work with a friendly AI named Katya to stop an evil AI named JSN (Jason) from taking over. Katya was acted out, live-action, by Hannah through a computer in the room's video chat system. This allowed the players to befriend and feel a connection to her. To evoke the feeling of compassion, we designed the room so that at the end players realize the only way to stop JSN is to shut down Katya for good.

Katya was created as a 3D model that pops up on player's mobile screens for visual feedback. I created some animations for her. An example of her "beaming up" and collecting an object can be seen below. 

The  escape room ultimately ended up being a success and very popular among the cohort. We ended up running the room/experience upwards of 8 times.

RPP Round 3: Totem Tower

Round 3 of RPP was designated as the mobile game round. My team decided to take the simple yet aesthetically pleasing route and made a 2D falling stacker game called Totem Tower. Gameplay entails players memorizing a totem "pattern" given to them and using a gyro mechanic to tilt the phone and catch falling totem pieces, seeing how high they can make their pole before it topples over.

There are two aspects to this game that make it unique, however, the first being the inherit educational merit. Players are briefed on the meaning of each totem before gameplay begins and must understand that different orders of totems mean different things. For example, players are to avoid the falling "crow" piece because according to native Alaskan lore, the crow symbolized a deceptive trickster. Players would find that their entire totem would be deleted should they catch the crow piece. The second aspect of this game that makes it unique is the theme. I decided to take the art in a more mature and relaxing direction which is not often found in mobile games.

Some of my artwork for the game can be seen below.

RPP Round 2: The Life Game

The purpose of round 2 was to create a game that went "beyond entertainment". My group and I had many great ideas and we could not initially decide which direction we wanted to take.

For the first interim week we decided to make a game called "You are Number 6", a game where players find themselves in a series of waiting rooms, waiting on their assigned "number" to be called by a mysterious speaker behind a closed desk window. The player interacts with several characters within each room, who all speak of the wonders that are through the next door.... and to just sit and wait. The game is essentially a metaphor for life, and how you must not simply wait for good things to happen to you, but rather make these things happen for yourself. The only way for the player to break out of the cycle is to take action and look around the room for an escape through the air vent.

Mid-week we ended up changing direction and going more towards a game that represents making personal connections with others while they are still around and not waiting for them to come to you. The player progresses through 5 rooms that represent different stages of their lives and interact with multiple characters to see what kind of connections come about, only to find out how they end up influencing your life as a whole.

Below are some models I created for the game in Maya.

Now shown below are some screenshots from the final prototype.

2D Week 16: Final Figure Drawing Turn-In

Examples of drawings I created during our semester long figure drawing class.

2D Week 15: Final Delivery (All Material)

This week I finished up the set dressing of the Lion Level by replacing bramble textures, making graveyards more jagged and other various small details.

I placed dead scarecrows in the hanging cages. I also rigged/animated the new bat meshes and then placed them all around the scene and offset their initial position.

My main contribution however, was creating three new lion animations and implementing them through trigger box blueprints in Unreal. Depending on what position the player is standing in relation to the lion, a different animation will play.

2D Week 14: Concept Round 04 (Final Color)

This week made major changes to landscape and set dressing, layed out warzone graveyard area and new path leading to witches castle. Rigged and animated swinging cages. Made path narrower and layed down new path in mausoleum area.

2D Week 13: Concept Round 03

This week I worked on the set dressing of the lion scene. We now have a "mausoleum" area where you first meet the lion. I added fences, several new graveyard areas, updated assets and adjusted the natural environment. I also rigged the bat proxy and threw an animation on it, placing many of these animated bats all over the area.

2D Week 12: Concept Round 02

This week for the Oz VR project I continued working with the lion rig. I posed him in different emotional states to start developing a feel for his attitude and personality. This also gave us a chance to see where the rig weighting needed to be improved.

2D Week 11: Concept Round 01

Continuing on with the OZ VR project, this week we focused on further conceptualizing our environments. Some of my fellow teammates worked on 2D concept work and I started getting my hands dirty with animation in the scene.

I took our first pass rig and slapped an idle animation onto him. I then pushed this animation into game as can be seen below.

I also continued work on my growing vine animation. I got it to look good but then encountered an issue with how to push this procedurally growing vine into the Unreal engine. I tried exporting it as a digital asset but it did not work.

In the meantime, I sought another way to conceptualize vines around our tree proxies. With the help of my professor, Chris, I was shown a free premade Houdini Digital Asset straight from the side FX website called the "Ivy Paint Asset". I played around with this on one of our trees as seen below, and think it would be a great addition into the final experience.