Game Art Case Study

CASE STUDY |

AR Game Art

CLIENT: NapTime Studio

A young, up-and-coming, independent game studio based in San Francisco, NapTime Studio is on a mission to give voice to youth through its interactive, mobile augmented reality game called TeenTend.

CHALLENGE 1: Character Design

Based on user research in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, NapTime Studio knew they wanted to give teens an opportunity to share their feelings about their neighborhood through the app - with each other and the city - especially while walking around and commuting. Recognizing appealing characters are a key ingredient of market success, they envisioned 5 characters, one for each basic human emotion. But what should they look like? And how should they relate to the teens' neighborhood and environment?

HOW WE MADE IT REAL

Novaby's Concept Artists worked closely with NapTime Studio Founder and Creative Director, Faranak Razavi, to understand her vision and translate that into visual form. Working through various design concepts we landed on a leaf design for the characters that helped teens' relate to their real world neighborhood in a positive way, accentuating its natural elements.

Character Studies

Animation Studies

Grief

Yucky

Fear

Happy

Rage

Final Character Concepts

CHALLENGE 2: Modeling & Animation

Translating non-human character concepts into 3D, especially in augmented reality, is not a straight forward process. There are many artistic and technical choices to make: What should the characters look like in 3D? How will they move? How will the players use them in a real world environment? Will the AR software transform the files as intended?

HOW WE MADE IT REAL

Continuing our close collaboration with NapTime's Creative Director, Novaby's 3D Modelers worked through numerous shape options, with the Yucky character proving to be the most challenging. Our Animators explored options for expressing the characters' personalities through movement. To facilitate user interactions, idle, poking and action animations were created. Support throughout the testing and debugging process ensured smooth in-app operation.

RESULTS

NapTime Studio gained a trusted partner for art asset creation and Novaby gained a great development and gaming design partner. As a young studio with limited time and budget, they were able to work with top-quality, professionally trained 3D artists on an as needed basis enabling them to get their app to market faster, easier and cheaper.