About SIP
Student Innovation Project is a course that allows students to show their skills and ability to innovate. We are given complete control as to what we create and how, the one requirement: be innovative!
As an innovative game artist with a passion for creating unique gaming experiences, I already had an idea in mind. I had been so excited to bring it to life. Let me introduce Wumu Melody! To create an innovative approach to pixel art, Wumu Melody is going to use normal maps on the pixel art sprites, inside of a 3D Unreal Engine 5 environment with dynamic lighting. My SIP manages to create a blend between the 3D and pixel art assets.
The game is a monster-tamer game where you tame unique creatures by playing music for them, providing players with a never-before-seen experience. The world has been carefully thought out to invoke a fun and unique experience for the player.
Currently, my team and I are producing a demo for Wumu Melody, but this game has gone through many iterations and changes.
The Origins
Before Wumu Melody came to be, I had called the game "Beat Beasts". I knew I wanted a game that combined two genres that I love: rhythm game and monster-tamer. However, The way I wanted to go about making the game was completely different in nearly every other way. Initially, it was meant to play similar to Crypt of the Necrodancer, where each move and attack would need to be done on beat with the music. I had played with many ideas to make this original concept work. As I did this I slowly saw the game bloating more and more. I decided to take a step back and simplify the mechanics. So, I returned to the drawing board.
The First Prototype
After much thought, I looked at what other games did right and found a way to add a twist to that. This is when Wumu Melody truly began to form.
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Here is when we finally meet Liu and the creatures called Wumu.
These were the designs that were created in preparation to create the very first prototype within
Construct 3.
Construct Demo
Developing this demo was a great learning experience for me, especially as an artist. It was challenging but exciting to bring some life to this game concept I had.
While I was proud of what I had made, I knew I could push the art further into a unique direction.
One day, I found a conference by the director of the Siege of the Sandbox, Chris Wilson. This is the first instance I saw normal maps being used on pixel art sprites.
I was so fascinated by this, I wondered what this would look like in my own game. This is when I began envisioning a version of the game that would use normal maps like this but within a 3D world. After researching, I was surprised to find out that a game like this didn't exist. This is when I knew I had to go down this path.
I started by redesigning some characters to allow them to have better shape language and look better within this game.
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I continued by creating more concept art for this new version of the Wumu Melody.
The New Direction
Here we can see the redesign of the player character, Liu! We had worked on her personality within a character design document for a while.
We had decided to give her a friend to add to the world: Sun! After creating both of their design docs, I created concept art of them side by side.
Next, I needed to create new concept art for the 3D world and how it will look like. This is the first area we are going to work on for Wumu Melofy. This is the outside of Liu's house! Additionally, I used this chance to play with how the lighting might look like.
After a team meeting, we played with ideas on how the battle sequence would play. This is a loose sketch of the Defense phase.
This is a loose sketch of the Attack phase. This idea is still in its early phases as we are focusing on the Overworld for this time.
The last concept art I have for the battle sequence shows a bit of how the UI and lighting may look. We will return to these ideas soon and refine them!
Laitger
Lighting Test
Taking a still sprite of Liu, I opened up an open-source program called Laitger. This program specializes in creating normal maps for 2D assets. This is when we can see the very first lighting test within the program!
The Prototype
Just when we thought we couldn't do it, we finally caught up to the prototype, and now we can witness the magic of dynamic lighting that interacts seamlessly with the character sprite. Thanks to the normal map, we can create a stunning illusion of form on the 2D asset, and the 3D world and pixel art come together beautifully. This shows us what's possible when we push our limits and work towards our goals with tenacity and creativity.
This Page is Under Construction!
Currently working on updating the page to show progress on Wumu Melody!
Stay Tuned!
