I’m new here and worked only from 1-5 August for work experience, not for an actual job (yay free labour! there’s free hot chocolate/coffee though , I think unless I unintentionally stole for the whole week), if you don’t know what ‘work experience’ is then it’s just a placement in a company where you get to learn what it’s like working in the real scary world because people my age haven’t got a single clue outside the ‘school bubble’. I’m Isabel and currently studying A Levels hoping to study either Computer Science/Design Engineering at University, if that doesn’t work out for me then I suppose I’ll do Art, I still have another year at secondary school.
Anyway, throughout this week I have been doing QA (testing for excessive amounts of time) and Art Concepts for Ambient Creatures; these aren’t monsters or anything you can actively interact with but VFXs that bring the worlds to life, you know those irrelevant things in the background like flies in real life, BUT IN GAME! particlely things
I was given the task to brain dump ideas for this, for example tardigrades, luminescent shrimp, rocky slugs to name a few out of the 115, and for each of them I had to place an image reference, if they had a sound effect, where they would spawn and if so in what type of weather conditions etc. Minyi, gerryjacobs, Jess and I picked our top favourites that we could see actually put into the game and then the task of drawing them in their appropriate background as concept art was put in my hands.
Here are really quick doodles of what the ambient creatures would look like against a background and my initial brain dump.
So that’s me done for the week, hopefully you guys like it even though it’s nothing compared to the other artists. This work experience has been absolutely amazing and hopefully I can come back to help out some other time. If you have any questions at all (can be absolutely anything) feel free! I’ll definitely miss this place.
That’s pretty cool! Those aren’t half bad. I didn’t go to as nearly a cool place for work experience and I hope you really enjoyed yourself and got something out of it.
Those creatures are quite cute, I particularly like the 1st picture’s insects.
Thanks Isabel. Hope you’ve enjoyed your time here.
@everyone - How do think these creatures will affect the environment? Can you collect them? Do they relate to hints of materials in the area? What do you think?
Thank you for being so kind about my doodles haha, I had to search for this work experience myself as my school as it’s one of those top grammar schools that only provide experience for those who want to go into very heavy subjects such as the Sciences which leaves people like me out
Not everyone wants to be a doctor dammit but it’s nice having experience here as I do want to work in the games industry, I had experience at Chucklefish before when I was 15 who made the game Starbound; at these sorts of companies the work is so much more enjoyable.
Critter food is a good idea! More variation on the standard raw/cooked meat. Maybe some could be used in crafting recipes as well … Lubricants, medicines, glues.
Failing that, maybe give the ability to collect them, (either for a challenge, or allow to display in a critter tank). Hmmm, critter pet shop!
Using them to implement a way of regenerating a tiny bit of health (by simply pressing ‘E’ while looking at them) for when you run out of ‘real’ sources to heal yourself would indeed be a really good use for them.
I know in minecraft a lot of little bits of things are used for making potions, so maybe these could be used for something similar.
Making food, decoration, mixing into potions (if those exist) maybe even other stuff.
I actually like both of those ideas. I think being able to collect them to add ambience to builds would be fun. Kind of like the space zoo idea, only with little ambient creatures instead of only the big ones with AI and purpose. I’d compare it to fireflies from the Minecraft mod Twilight Forest:
And it’d be cool if some of them only spawned within a set distance of gleam, for example, and shone with a light ambience that matches the hue of the gleam. Maybe that makes it too obvious that there’s gleam about, but it could be neat.
, I think unless I unintentionally stole for the whole week), if you don’t know what ‘work experience’ is then it’s just a placement in a company where you get to learn what it’s like working in the real scary world because people my age haven’t got a single clue outside the ‘school bubble’. I’m Isabel and currently studying A Levels hoping to study either Computer Science/Design Engineering at University, if that doesn’t work out for me then I suppose I’ll do Art, I still have another year at secondary school.
