Ideas For 505 Game Level

So I decided to do an old method of narrowing down ideas and just write all of the ones I liked down, then just circle the ones I liked the most and that I would have time to follow. As shown, out of all the ideas me and my group (Andy Joel Me) came up with.

 I liked the rooftop idea as it could be a very dynamic looking place to make an animation with possibilities for a nice cityscape background.

  I liked the idea of modeling a train and the cargo in it, and also has an opportunity for a moving background which I think with a simplistic animation could add a lot to. 

Monastary was another thought that I had which would make some good visuals if it was done properly but the idea fell through when I couldnt see a story really working or being clear enough in a short time frame.

The warehouse picture below which I found on the web is what inspired me to think about designing an environment similar to this one, the cold colours and size of the factory could make for a very gloomy atmosphere and ideas like accidents or mishaps in a workplace environment is what made the factory warhouse in particular seem like a good environment to design.

Finally my favourite idea the airship, this has always been an interest of mine since I started playing games with airships in them from a very early age, I have always liked planes and the freedom that comes with flying and the fantasy of which airships bring to the flying experience, the 'on deck' experience along with the 'flying above the clouds' experience put together is in my mind something which will be very interesting to base a project on and to work with.

I will try and do concept art for all of the ideas I would maybe like to pursue, and then when my group has got and agreed on its focus, then will do more artwork specifically for the 'one' direction we have taken.

The Game Cutscene I Used

This is one of the most memorable games I have ever played and as such was the first thing to come to mind when Annabeth told us to do a blogpost about a machinima style cutscene which uses the in game character models. This is the cutscene from probably the most famous Dynasty Warriors game and level in the game, it has Lu Bu (the main enemy of the level) break down a gate and run over and kill a lot of soldiers, after the cutscene ends Lu Bu is right in front of you as if you have just witnessed the cutscene first hand, this is a technique that a lot of games are now incorporating and for good reason, as it adds to the gaming experience and keeps a player interested and on their toes.

Game art briefing day

So this was the first lesson back at Uni we have had, I have been really looking forward to coming back to Uni and get the ball rolling with work as I want to feel like I need something to do and it motivates me to do more and more work. We talked about what we would be doing in the module and were told that we have to get in to groups of three to work through this project, so we will have to do that at some point.

My first idea when Annabeth told us that we need to think of a cutscene from a game was one of my favourite games from a few years ago, Viking, this came to mind particularly because we also talked about a thing called a quicktime event where the character has to actually interact when there is an in game action cutscene happening and the player has to press a button to continue with what they are trying to do, weather it be trying to kill another player or enemy or simply climbing up a wall or something like that, but viking is a good study of quicktime events and ingame model cutscenes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJF-SHRCEDs - viking

We also talked about how games recently have been using the 'silent protagonist' as a character and the massive game franchise Call Of Duty came instantly to mind as when playing the game, the character the player plays as never actually talks, this is a good mechanic when it comes to immersing a player more into a game because the player can believe more that they are the main character when they do not have a voice of their own and the player can believe that it is them that they are being talked to.

When I think of machinima I instantly think about the youtube and home made player videos that I have seen containing home made stories from some of my favourite games, Halo 3 in particular has a lot of machinima based fan stuff because of the already in built level builder where a player can build their own environment and record from a floating camera, making it very easy to make and save your own videos, we also talked about the challenges of coordination and directing that is involved with making machinima as part of a group.

These notes are what I picked up from the first lesson this year back at Uni, I look forward to getting on with this project as I think I have a lot of ideas of my own, and experience, to input into it all.

My Summer Blogpost

So as my first blog post of the year I have been asked to write about how I spent my summer break. Overall I tried to keep up with what is happening in the industry of Games, Films and Animation, I indeed played a lot of games over the summer, some of which were new releases IE Guild Wars, which I found to also be a great study and a new found interest to me because of the style of concept art which the game uses, the style is a very unique and noticeable one with very loose looking brush strokes and textures, I may study this style further in the year.

I watched many films and found myself thinking about how the camera angles were thought of and how the perspectives were achieved in them, I also watched some older films but which are animation related, Treasure Planet was one film I watched that I had never seen before and found it to be very enjoyable (as are most disney films) and thought it would be a good study for the upcoming Machinima project we will soon recieve.

Another film I found to be a great study was the animated film Beowulf, it challenged the rules of animation and seemed to have a very unique style which I have never seen in animation before, I enjoyed the film for its story and could appreciate the amount of effort that must have gone in to animating an entire film like this one, but I think that I prefer other styles of animation out there that I have seen, maybe the fact that it tried to be too realistic is what pulled me away from the style a little as I am used to things like Toy story or Bugs life.

I also kept up with my drawing in photoshop using my new graphics tablet, I looked up videos and tutorials online and posted things on Deviantart and other sites to keep up practice. Here are a few of the things I painted.

Things not so related to DFGA would be the work I did over the summer to keep my funds up. I did a lot of work and a lot of play. Two pictures will be enough to emphasise the level of work and play I achieved :) .