Project:
Sustainable Development (https://projects.etc.cmu.edu/susdev/)

Client:
Alexandra Hiniker (Director of Sustainability Initiatives at Carnegie Mellon University)

Instructor:
John Dessler (https://www.etc.cmu.edu/blog/author/jdessler/)
Scott Stevens (https://www.etc.cmu.edu/blog/author/ss8s/)

Team (Sort in alphabetical order of Last Name):
Qisheng (Jerry) Chen (Assistant Producer, 3D Artist) https://qishengc.artstation.com/
Jia (Nancy) Xing (UI/UX Designer, 2D Artist) http://nancyxing.com/
Tairan (Evans) Gao (Programmer, Game Designer) https://www.tairanggames.com/
Shumiao (Sharon) Liu (Head Producer, UX Designer, 3D Artist) https://shumiaosharonliu.com/
Weilin Yuan (Programmer, Game Designer) https://www.weilinyuan.net/
Qiujie(Kristin) Wu (Lead Programmer) https://www.etc.cmu.edu/blog/author/qiujiew/

Project Description:
Sustainable Development is a game aiming at enlightening college students on the concept of sustainable development and its key components — 17 goals. (adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015.) Instead of adopting a traditional, didactic way to push all the concepts into the audience’s brain, Sustainable Development examines a novel way to deliver concepts by providing a compelling digital experience where players can explore and reflect on the impact of these interconnected goals and how they jointly make the world sustainable and promising.

Role: Assistant producer, 3D artist

In the first two weeks, I designed this logo with the color panel of the United Nation's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, we also design an animated version of our team logo with Blender.

For the rest of the weeks, as I was helping out the team with different meetings and ideas, I worked on 3D assets like our characters, buildings, and vehicles. I made most of the 3D assets limited with as few faces as possible so that the game will have the best performance with the autogenerating functions made by our programmers. When we have all the 3D assets, I began to arrange the 3D assets into different building groups not only to build a nice 3D virtual city in the game scene but also to assist our programmers with their auto-building-generating function during the gameplay.

In order to match the index we made for the city development, I made some effects and animations. One of the effects is having a flock of birds. I made a simple bird model with animation. For the character's status, I made animation couples to show their emotions depending on the index level.

At last, I made a short animation clip for our video tailor for the game. Other than my own work, I assist programmers with the 3D asset adjustments like grouping assets, adjusting game scenes, making particle systems and shaders in Unity, and so on. I also help out other artists in the team with the UI design, Card design, and 3D asset adjustments. Last but not least, I help out with the game design in the process. I am glad that our game can be posted in the CMU press, which interviews our ideas and gameplay experiences. Here is the link for the news: https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2022/april/global-goals-game.html