CAGD 470: Sprint 1
ePortfolio
Blog Post 1: Going Bananas!
Publication - 9/13/26
The Goal
By December, my team, Monkey Business, will display to the world a shipped PC title called Banananauts. The development of this game does not have strict guidelines, meaning that our team has development freedom as long as it passes the code of conduct that our major enforces. With a larger team of six, our skills in the production process will once again be tested with regard to following the agile development process and the iterative design process.
Vision Statement
Banananauts is a comedic first-person construction simulation game about a monkey building a spaceship to get to the Sun.
Game Summary
A goofy first-person monkey-to-the-sun simulator. Players scavenge junk to build a rocket, then attempt to survive a launch. Players will make chaos-inducing choices, refill rockets, put out fires, and climb around a failing ship to keep it moving.
A goofy first-person monkey-to-the-sun simulator. Players scavenge junk to build a rocket, then attempt to survive a launch. Players will make chaos-inducing choices, refill rockets, put out fires, and climb around a failing ship to keep it moving.
The Role
For the duration of this project, I am Monkey Business' 3D technical artist, a role that I have never taken on before. Despite not taking on the role before, I have unofficially done the work of one in past projects like Lightfall's Reign, where I designed and modeled all 3D assets for the title. In all of my previous production classes, I have been a lead designer, where I introduced the game idea to my team and needed to ensure throughout the development process that my members shared the same vision. As a 3D technical artist, the stress levels in the first sprint have been way less than those of my team's lead, who dealt with balancing the other members' source materials. For me, I mainly just have to follow the reference art he posts and only message if I am unsure about a detail he requested in the model. With it seeming pretty easy being a 3D technical artist, in the later sprints I'm sure it'll become more difficult, so in these first sprints I'm hoping to knock out as many props as I can.
For the duration of this project, I am Monkey Business' 3D technical artist, a role that I have never taken on before. Despite not taking on the role before, I have unofficially done the work of one in past projects like Lightfall's Reign, where I designed and modeled all 3D assets for the title. In all of my previous production classes, I have been a lead designer, where I introduced the game idea to my team and needed to ensure throughout the development process that my members shared the same vision. As a 3D technical artist, the stress levels in the first sprint have been way less than those of my team's lead, who dealt with balancing the other members' source materials. For me, I mainly just have to follow the reference art he posts and only message if I am unsure about a detail he requested in the model. With it seeming pretty easy being a 3D technical artist, in the later sprints I'm sure it'll become more difficult, so in these first sprints I'm hoping to knock out as many props as I can.
The Sprint
The start of this sprint was unlike any one I've experienced before; each member of the team was essentially formed before the first class occurred. Each member on the team has a proven track record for going above and beyond in their work and has strong communication skills. Once our team was formed, we immediately began preparing ourselves for the sprint. The first couple of days, it was rocky for my lead and producer to gather all materials for each member regarding card allocation, as well as documentation, but they turned that around quickly without external input from the other members. However, I was the last member of the team to fully get the documentation that I needed for my allocated cards, as my lead prioritized my programmer's documentation over everyone else's. Since then, my lead has improved on this aspect, and I have had no issues regarding documentation. Once I received my reference art, I began working on the many props I had been assigned.
Props
Banananauts is a very prop-heavy game, with them being essential to constructing the rocket the monkeys are using to reach the sun. This means the props must be easily identifiable to the player while at the same time not be too taxing on the engine to the point it hampers overall performance. My goal for each prop that I make is: 1) easily identifiable, 2) topologically optimized, and 3) accurate to the references given by my designer. The visual identity for our game is more of a simiplistic with it, aligning with Sea of Thieves, meaning that most work on the props is not in the 3D modeling, but the texturing itself, which I'll also be doing later on. So when creating the props, I have to determine what can be done in texturing versus what needs to be actually on the mesh.
Produce
The first section of props that I can talk about is the Produce set of props. Inside this batch, we have a bunch of bananas, either still on the " tree " or picked and ready to be eaten. The banana bunch is optimized to illustrate what the prop is while ensuring the asset isn't too heavy, processing-wise. The banana next to the bunch is the standard banana with a decent amount of polygons, as it would be one of the most used props in the game. In the middle, the super detailed banana is the "golden banana," which I'm not sure of its purpose, but I assumed it needed to have greater visual detail with it being golden. Next to that is the banana piñata, which will receive most of its detail in texturing alone. We have a pickle asset that looks like a fat sausage but will look more like a pickle once it's been run through ZBrush and Painter. Funnily enough, the pickle is now a running joke in our team, which made spirits high during the last team meeting. Finally, for the Produce section, the red hot chilli pepper that I think turned out beautifully despite its low poly-count.
These are the UVs for the Produce set; this isn't the final layout, but this is the current one so I stay organized on which set is which. Eventually, this will be more organized and utilize stack UV shells to save textile space.
Static
The second section of props is the Static set of props. These props will be placed around the environment to help build atmosphere, making it more immersive. These are pretty simple models, but I intend in a future sprint to place these into ZBrush and add a high level of detail to bake on the final iterations. Using this method, I will be able to achieve the Sea of Thieves level of asset quality.
These are the UV shells for the Static props; once again, these are not the final layout but a placeholder to ensure the correct UV shells are on the right material.
Interactable
This is the final set of props that I made this sprint: the Interactable set. These assets will be used extensively by the players to build the rocket or help them traverse the island. For these, it's essential that the props are easy to identify and are optimized since there will be many versions of these across each environment. This meant the shapes of them were easy to read while leaving enough room for texturing to do its work. The Interactables category of props will definitely be the most extensive texturing-wise during the course of the game's development.
The Interactable set of UV shells will also be altered, as the texturing for these will be quite extensive. This layout was to ensure all aspects of each model were properly UVed and laid out.
The Wrap
With this sprint being the first for a very ambitious project, I am moderately satisfied with my work. I believe I can increase my workload next sprint now as I have gotten back into the workflow I left behind last semester. Additionally, with all reference art being up to date, I won't be blocked from completing any more cards, thankfully. For several of these assets, I was temporarily blocked until I was able to resolve them with my team. This issue shouldn't be possible anymore.
The Path Ahead
Looking into the next sprint, I will maintain the same duties of modeling props with varying levels of purpose until all of them have been created. I look forward to increasing my overall output so I can eventually move on from asset creation to asset texturing. Having a mindset like this is the only way I think that all props will be completed with a level of quality and completeness that aligns with my standards.
The first section of props that I can talk about is the Produce set of props. Inside this batch, we have a bunch of bananas, either still on the " tree " or picked and ready to be eaten. The banana bunch is optimized to illustrate what the prop is while ensuring the asset isn't too heavy, processing-wise. The banana next to the bunch is the standard banana with a decent amount of polygons, as it would be one of the most used props in the game. In the middle, the super detailed banana is the "golden banana," which I'm not sure of its purpose, but I assumed it needed to have greater visual detail with it being golden. Next to that is the banana piñata, which will receive most of its detail in texturing alone. We have a pickle asset that looks like a fat sausage but will look more like a pickle once it's been run through ZBrush and Painter. Funnily enough, the pickle is now a running joke in our team, which made spirits high during the last team meeting. Finally, for the Produce section, the red hot chilli pepper that I think turned out beautifully despite its low poly-count.
These are the UVs for the Produce set; this isn't the final layout, but this is the current one so I stay organized on which set is which. Eventually, this will be more organized and utilize stack UV shells to save textile space.
Static
The second section of props is the Static set of props. These props will be placed around the environment to help build atmosphere, making it more immersive. These are pretty simple models, but I intend in a future sprint to place these into ZBrush and add a high level of detail to bake on the final iterations. Using this method, I will be able to achieve the Sea of Thieves level of asset quality.
These are the UV shells for the Static props; once again, these are not the final layout but a placeholder to ensure the correct UV shells are on the right material.
Interactable
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