Bubble Blower

At first I wanted to model a koi fish to be the character, which blows out bubbles in the sushi bar, mainly because the koi is a known Japanese symbol. When modelling I found it increasingly difficult to make the koi sit upright in the position I wanted, this is due to the koi’s natural structure where it’s spine curves on the horizontal frame not vertically, which made my model look unnatural and awkward looking.

(below are images found on Google for reference for how to model the Koi fish)

When creating this model I noticed that it increasingly looked like a seahorse, and with a bit of tweaking it could be a really lovely model. I then had to decide the importance of using a koi or if I was able to adapt my designs to make it into a sea horse, and what the hidden connotations might be. As it was a Japanese sushi bar I really wanted to have elements of traditional Japanese culture and symbols, but I had already decided that my game was primarily about the modern day Japan, which meant that as long as I made the model fun and enjoyable to look at I would be fitting my design idea.

(below is an image I found on Google for reference for how to model a seahorse)

I decided to add a glow map to the seahorse model and use bright yellow colours to express joy and playfulness. The model itself has an interesting shape with a mix of smooth curves with blocky modelling in places, which I think adds to the playfulness. Below are some screen-shots to show the development of my initial model and how it developed into the finished thing.

Here is a screenshot of my first attempt of modelling (left) with a slightly more developed model (right), showing my development process. I decided that the head shape needed to be changed quite drastically as it still looked quite humanised, that it needed finns to look more like a seahorse, and that although I liked the bottom curve of the tail on the first model it definitely needed to be resized and shaped to look more realistic.

I then streamlined the face by making it a bit slimmer and elongated the nose. I also brought down the crown of the head and reshaped it slightly so it didn't look so large. I also disliked the spikes of the finn on it's back, so I decided to go back and smooth them into a more curved shape which felt more natural looking and joyful.

I then added a torus for a mouth, but rescaled it slightly, making it slightly more podgy and cuter looking, which fits more with my aesthetic style.

After this I made some final tweaks, mainly with the vector tool, before going onto UV mapping.

I decided to use planar mapping as I knew I wanted my model to have a symmetrical texture. I chose to take it from the side as this is where the most detailing will be, but also due to the curve in the tail that would be impossible to texture well if done from a different angle.

Here is a test I created to see if the texture stretched at all around the front and back and how to combat this. I decided to incorporate this into my design.

At first I decided to use a Blinn texture as I first wanted the model to have a shine to look like plastic, but I soon decided, even with tweaking of the presets, that a Lambert would look more natural and less shiny and off putting.

I looked into glow maps and decided to have a go myself, changing the alpha channels so that I can reimport the texture, much like when making a bump map. I was really happy with the result after dimming the effect slightly, but found out that unfortunately Unity doesn't support this sort of texturing.

I then added some small details to the face such as eyes and finns which are all textured and modelled separately, and the parented and grouped to the object.

And there we go! One seahorse!

Primary research photographs

Here are some reference photographs I took whilst at Yo! Sushi, which helped me with different items I would need to model and the layout of the bar.

For the inside of my sushi bar, I needed to use reference photos for the rib cage, especially to get a realistic texturing, so I took reference pictures out at a meal for this too.

Sushi Bar- making it!

So, the sushi bar is supposed to be the main element of my game, but when making it (or attempting to make it) it has been the most difficult part to make.

I initially thought that making the bar out of separate elements would be rather simple, and then just animate them along a motion path. However after a couple of hours testing by myself, and a further few hours testing with Mat, we found that this way seemed more difficult than first anticipated.

I hoped that the sushi bar would be in an unusual shaped path, which formed the shape of the organ structure inside of the dinosaur. From these tests I found this would be near impossible to make, so I decided to create a normal circle sushi bar, with the track being simply the table, with the whole table being animated rotating, and have separate tables coming off which stay still. By doing this I still get the effect of a sushi bar going round, but just not in the way I first imagined. I then textured the top of the bar to have the sushi disks of the track, to further give the effect, and parented the sushi bowls and sushi onto the sushi bar.

Here is a video I initially watched to help me create the sushi bar, but with testing it didn't seem to work.

Understanding my audience

To understand my audience fully I need to identify a certain target for my game. I have specifically chosen to base my game on a non-violent topic which would make my game fun for all ages, but I understand that this style would not suite everyone’s taste, which is why I am aiming it primarily at people in the Western culture which are interested in modern Japanese culture. By aiming it at this group of people I allow them to explore a magical world, which is separate from their personal home lives. If I aimed my game at Aisain countries I feel that the novelty and owe may not be the same, however they would still enjoy the game itself and enjoy playing it. In this post I will be looking at ‘Kawaii’ Japanese fashion culture and how to incorporate this into my game. Kawaii is the Japanese word for ‘cute’, but the word is often used when describing a particular aesthetic style rather than a general statement. Kawaii style usually consists of obsessive decoration, kitsch, animals and food with large eyes and a cat mouth, bright colours and often very girly. Below are examples of Japanese clothing culture, of both Harajuku and Lolita clothing, which will explain further what the trends and norm in Japan is, meaning that my game needs to fit into this normality.

Harajuku girls originate from the area in Tokyo, Harajuku, and usually congregate by the tube platforms. Over the last decade, visiting the ‘Harajuku girls’ has been one of Japan’s largest tourist attractions, and many of the independent clothing stores in that area have flourished in selling alternative clothes.

Here is the Lolita style of clothing, which is similar to Harajuku style, but in my opinion is more a popular clothing choice in the Western countries as it is more gothic. Rather than using the bright and daring colours, which the girls of Harajuku are unafraid to use, Lolita girls tend to wear pastel colours with monochrome, but still accessorize but not as much! 

Both Lolita and Harajuku styles are mainly female driven, but this doesn’t mean that males aren’t following these fashions too, it is just more readily available for women. These are also not the only fashion styles available in Japan, but these are the two I am most interested in as they are easily identifiable.

Gwen Stefani is one of the biggest ambassadors of Japanese culture in Western culture, making the culture and lifestyle more accessible for those not living in Japan. This also shows me that my game will have an audience in these areas of the world too as Gwen and the band No Doubt is so popular. She has always shown an interest in Asian culture, choosing to wear a bindi whilst in No Doubt, and then choosing to have Harajuku girls as backing dancers during her solo tour. This influence is seen in the music itself, but also the music videos, her clothing, her image and everything surrounding her brand.

As my game concept, and my drawing/artistic style is very stylized and child-like, I feel that my game would attract young children, even when they are not my main target audience. I feel my game could attract a wide age group, as it is open and joyful, and not restrained to an older age group due to the content. I took some time trying to find images of younger Japanese children, which choose to dress in the bolder Japanese clothing styles, and found that it is quite common for older children and teenagers, to choose to do this. Whereas in Europe or America this form of self-expression, especially with this sort of clothing, would usually be rare as often children are bullied for what they wear. In my game I am aiming to promote players to embrace their own style and not to be afraid of people judging you; the characters used will mainly do this, but the environment will obviously embrace this ideal too.