Initially, I wanted to steer away from complex scenes for my Twitch pack, and wanted to come up with some abstract graphics instead. As much as I really admire and appreciate Twitch packs with more complex artwork, I felt like I didn’t have the skills to accomplish this myself. I decided to experiment with creating some graphics in a more abstract style.
While I like these pieces and the style, I didn’t feel particularly inspired by them and hit a metaphorical wall.
For a while I put this part of my project to the back of my mind, hoping to get some kind of new inspiration.
After seeing a lot of monochromatic 2D scenery I decided that maybe I could experiment to see if I was capable of creating something like this.
These are just some of my pieces of inspiration.
I took to my iPad to draw up some ideas and came up with this
While I could easily create this in the Adobe suite, I wanted to take advantage of the toon shading in Cinema 4D and thought that this would be a good way to do so.
As usual, I had my initial idea and developed it into the project as I went along, rather than planning everything first. I feel like this method works better with the way that I think, if I sit around planning for too long I can often lose inspiration and motivation, and I find it difficult to realise my ideas once they are already partially written down.
Modelling
Whilst modelling the different aspects of my piece, I realised that it would be a good idea to add the materials as I went through. This would mean that everything had the right material already applied when I was duplicating objects (then, later on, I could change the textures to what I want).
The video I recorded where I made my trees move has disappeared but this was my process:
-Use the tree null and create a Mospline directly through the centre
-Align the tree to it
-Add wind in the field
-Keyframe the wind speed so that it loops perfectly (the speed has to be on 0 at the start and end)
More Modelling & Texturing
Through my modelling process, I struggled with deciding on a style. I tried initially to use the toon shading, but I couldn’t get it to look how I wanted. I tried a different, more realistic style but found that I actually liked this even less.
This is the final Starting Soon screen, I added the text at the bottom afterwards in After Effects. It loops well and I like the visuals, but I wish I could export it at a bit higher sample rate to just make everything a bit more crisp. I also have a bit of an issue with some banding in the sky because the colour range isn’t wide enough.
Creating the BRB Screen
To create the BRB screen, all I had to do was create a new camera and position the existing things in the frame to make a good composition. Then I added a small sign to one of the doors that says BRB, I thought this was a fun way to get the message across.
Creating the On Screen Graphics
To create all of the onscreen graphics and ensure that they fit within the theme well, I used the parallel camera option within Cinema 4D to export out some key assets that I could then image trace in Illustrator.
I used these to assemble some panels and also a frame for the streamer’s camera.
I mocked it up initially in Photoshop before I decided to use the image tracer in Illustrator.
Here are all of the assets I created. The wood panels are so that the streamer can create backgrounds for any panels they need. There are also 3 camera frame options, because not everyone wants a flashy, overcomplicated border.
Here is a photo of me demonstrating how the assets can be used to create a webcam border when you layer them up. I’m lucky that my bedroom wall is bright green so I can use it as a pretty decent green screen, and show that the user could put a panel behind their video feed to represent the back wall of the house.
Creating the Transition
For the transition, I wanted to stick with the running theme and had the idea to create a curtain effect but with some trees. To do this I used a parallel camera again to give the perfect 2D effect.
I initially used one tree and keyframed it in and out of the shot, and also keyframed a bend to make sure it moved as naturally as possible. All I had to do then was view the shot through the camera view and duplicate and reposition this tree until it filled the frame. It took a bit of tweaking to make sure that every pixel was covered but this is essential to make sure the transition is seamless.
I then had to export it (making sure I exported with alpha enabled which I usually don’t need) and then put the image sequence in Premier. I very rarely work with videos that have transparency, so I didn’t realise that it would be slightly more complicated to export from Premier. Usually, I just export as a H.264 but this wouldn’t let me keep my alpha channel, so after a quick Google I settled on a QuickTime video. I tend to try and avoid these because their file sizes are huge.
While I think that motion blur could add another layer of depth to this piece, I think that with it the transition might look just a bit too soft.
The Finished Twitch Pack
Here is a demonstration of the finished pack
I am really pleased with how this has turned out. The resolution of everything could be a little bit better but I don’t really have the facilities to do that from home. The transition works really well, there isn’t any point at which you can see the scenes changing behind the trees, so I would consider it to be a success.
I would love to work on some more themed Twitch pieces after this, and think that teaching myself to use OBS was really valuable. I think it would come in handy for a lot of people, not just Twitch streamers, so I have decided to create a tutorial demonstrating how I added each of the assets to an OBS set up and made each part work. This will look great in my EPK too!
Bibliography
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Lesterbanks. 2019. How To Create A Cel-Shaded Cave Scene In C4D – Lesterbanks. [online] Available at: <https://lesterbanks.com/2019/02/how-to-create-a-cel-shaded-cave-scene-in-c4d/> [Accessed 26 April 2020].
Nana Ga, 2018. Behance. [online] Behance.net. Available at: <https://www.behance.net/gallery/61364205/Twitch-Stream-Graphics> [Accessed 29 March 2020].
Rivero, N., 2019. Six Indie Games That Show Why We’Re In A Golden Age Of Video Game Artistry. [online] Quartz. Available at: <https://qz.com/quartzy/1482483/six-indie-games-that-show-why-were-in-a-golden-age-of-video-game-artistry/> [Accessed 29 April 2020].
Walker, A., 2014. A New Game Set In Wyoming?. [online] Kotaku Australia. Available at: <https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/03/a-new-game-set-in-wyoming/> [Accessed 23 April 2020].
Jennie Hawkes 