BLOG: Lets Talk About Cat Pirates and the Production Process (Part 1) (Patreon)

The cat pirates were a pretty old concept of mine, dating back to aged 4 I combined my two favourite things, pirates and cats. They became a good source of inspiration when working on Billie Bust Up.

The first concept was made October 2017 and iterated on again a day later, it took a while to find the right style for the pirates.

 The next part would be 3D modelling the characters, the first draft was made in November 2017. The hardest part was my original inexperience with 3D modelling characters, I started out as an environment artist but had to adapt for the game. 

 Another technique I use involves drawing the face into the character to help shape it, this can be very useful for characters with 2D faces. 

 After finding the correct face shape that works with the 2D face I started to work more on the clothes and the body. I find the arms to be a particular struggle of mine and often draw over a screenshot to help myself (see below otter for example) 

March 2018 and the cats were finally rigged and ready for animation!

Next up was sorting out the eye and mouth shapes for the cats, I exported out the eye texture from my original Zbrush sculpt and used it as a base. We had a unique new challenge with the cat pirates, we wanted the eyes to work like feline eyes and dilate from slits. 

The pupils were animated separate to the rest of the eye and the animation controlled by a unique bone in Maya. 

Then all we need to do is finish off the rigging with a quick skin test and get the AI ready 

Now they're rigged lets give them a lantern and set them to patrol! Naturally a lot of work goes into the AI, but I sadly won't be covering that today.

Lets quickly talk about some enemy variation! Naturally one enemy type can get quite boring, to mix up the gameplay.

First up is barrel cat, intended to work similar to "Boo" from Super Mario. 

They sneak up to the player when Billie is not directly looking at them (not based on the camera view) and shoots  darts at a distance 

 The fat cat pirate is intended for heavy attacks. He uses a ranged weapon and cannot be taken down easily.   

 He is currently being 3D modelled but the model needs reworking (currently looks a bit too much like Pooh bear)  

This ends the first part of this new segment, where we explore the development process of each characters and their design changes along the way! Next part will talk more about our Queen, Elaine!