SONIC JUMP 3D - Concept Demo
Autodesk Maya/ Adobe Photoshop/ Unity Game Engine
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Sonic Jump 3D is a concept demo that I was given a chance to participate in. This project was brought to my attention by my long time friend who is currently working as a games programmer (At the time I had NO CLUE it was Sonic). Without much hesitation I accepted the project and then when I learnt it was going to be a Sonic concept....well lets just say I did some celebrating...
For a full portfolio on Darminder Atker Programmer please click on the image below:
This project was particularly fun to dabble with and yet I wanted to be extremely careful as to how I portrayed such a loveable Icon of Gaming. Sonic the Hedgehog was at one point in the 90's the most recognisable character in the entire world. This was important to remember throughout the design phase as I really wanted the player to be instantly transported into nostalgic memories of their childhood. This meant it had to be GENUINE... and so I decided to do something from the very beginning which is relatively simple to do yet so EFFECTIVE. I would create a pallette of colours consistent throughout all my assets that were primarily sourced straight from the original Sonic screenshots (as well as other later Sonic games)... the design phase was a really fun stage of the process and I feel like it is important to say that for this project especially, It was extremely important for me to sit down face to face with my collaborator and nail the concept down to the letter.
DISCLAIMER: This project was created accordingly to a brief which in no way was intended for commercial use or profit without first seeking the approval of SEGA. Basically.....please don't sue me SEGA....
Stage One - Brief and Concept
 Design Process - ConceptPlease feel free to view my design process. Here I will talk about what I refer to as the Concept stage. This stage helps us establish all needs and requirements of our product and allows us to build a blueprint/design that will influence to a great degree the outcome of the project....This isn't always the case as you have to factor in many unforeseen problems that YOU WILL have to face through development but good planning sets you up with better odds of ending up with a finished project. |  Sonic Jump 2D - The inspiration...This brief was very specific in terms of requirements and genre/style. This concept was created to be a 3D adaptation to the Sonic Jump 2D application. This meant that we knew it had to be a platformer game, somehow incorporate vertical jumping and still be able to run smoothly on a mobile device... |  All things Sonic...Using an existing character may of saved me time in terms of designing one but I reckon that I probably spent about the same amount of time researching Sonic as a fictional character....watching gameplay videos on youtube as well as playing a few of the Sonic games myself.... This referencing part of the project was very important for me to immerse myself into Sonic's World... |
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 Initial IdeasTo create an adaptation of a 2D platformer posed its own set of challenges...for example In the 2D version we can see Sonic will jump past a platform and automatically land on it because he is constricted to a flat plane...2D Space where we can only account for the X and Y axis.... to translate this into 3D space would be a problem as jumping vertically in a 3D game would have the issue of how would the camera follow and how would the character pass through a solid mesh of a 3D platform... |  Sonic Colour BoardAs I stated before, authenticity was key in making a believable Sonic game. This is why my colour values were extracted directly from the original Sonic of 1991. I felt this was too important to overlook and so colour extraction was done quite early on to establish a colour theme for the game and its assets. |  Environment Colour boardAs well as having the authenticity with the character, it was also important to have the environment matching yet as an artist I did not want to mirror another artist's work...I wanted to create my own flair and so I looked into other references such as the floating islands of Pandora from Avatar |
 Initial arena designTo begin with, the problem we had was that jumping was not something that Sonic could constantly be doing as opposed to the 2D version. However to create a vertical aspect to the gameplay, we considered using a bucket shaped mesh to contain the level (painted in with classic Sonic mountain textures). The lines in the drawing facing inwards represent the Polygon Normals and which direction they had to be facing; in this case it had to be inwards as the mesh would only be seen inside. |  Platform ideas & SketchesThe idea of an arena mesh was abandoned as we decided an edited Skybox direct from Unity would be sufficient in the time we had. Instead we approached a more linear option and decided to create a gradient of floating platforms...NOTE: This was due also to gameplay mechanics as instead of constant jumping, we decided to let Sonic do what hes known for....Running, and fast might I add... |  Initial Background IdeasA skybox is essentially a cube where each face is seamlessly merged to create the illusion of a 360 degree background. The 'set pieces' more commonly known as game assets or objects will sit inside this cube...the most efficient method considered was to use the existing skybox in Unity game engine and simply paint some backgrounds on....easier said then done as I found out later... |
 Level 1 With KeyIt was decided the game would feature 3 distinct levels using modular assets (modular assets are extremely useful in building environments as they are basically variations of the same geometry). The 3 levels would also be the 3 stages of difficulty so Easy, Medium and Hard and to keep it in the spirit of Sonic...they were decided to be called Green Hill, Blue Sky and Sky High |  Level 2The levels were designed to detract the player from linear gameplay... we knew Sonic would be constantly running and we liked the idea that the player only had a very limited time to anticipate a jump to the next platform...what we wanted to do to bring that feature out was to create player choices....fast decisions under pressure to make a more compelling game experience... |  Level 3As the levels increased in difficulty, we wanted to bring in more obstacles for the player. We ended up spending a few hours playing the 2D version and discussing which type of platforms would work well for our gameplay and how we should introduce them. As much as we would of loved to have moving platforms that is so classic to Sonic, we realised that it might not of worked as effectively due to the way the camera would be following behind Sonic and that he would be in constant forward motion.. |
 Wasp Concept SketchesWho remembers Dr Eggman? Although there wasn't much time to redesign certain things such as enemies, it was still quite fun to speculate and doodle because really there are no limitations...Dr Eggman was some sort of mad genuis that made cyborg versions of animals and I just thought the idea of some transformer inspired mechanical wasp would of been awesome to put into the game....sadly prioritizing meant that I had to focus on functionality as opposed to visual enhancement of the game. |  Game VisualizationAt the end of a few days of tirelessly pouring through all things Sonic and platformer related we ended up with a 3D screenshot of how we both imagined the game to look.... I feel it was extremely important to reach this level of visual clarity as a joint effort with input from both artist, programmer and with both of us taking lead through game design and gameplay mechanics.. |
Just to state that the Concept was done entirely face to face with Darminder and we made sure to go through every aspect of design. From here we were able to establish asset and animation lists, schedules, prototype ideas and a basic understanding of the work flow.... The techniques would be explored more through the next stage which can be considered as pre-production or as I like to refer to it, the Research and Development. In this next stage I enjoyed working quite loosely and quickly to try and determine the best approach or method to the game development.