After looking at all the other interesting characters and ideas from the other groups, we had a change of heart and decided to switch our ideas. We did this as we thought we couldn't do anything else with the Indiana Jones idea we currently had.
Instead, we decided to go with the bird people idea as it would be more interesting for us in terms of design and storyboarding. We really liked the idea of anthropomorphic bird people and we could play around with all sorts of features and make interesting characters.
We only decided to keep the basic concept of this idea, the temple, and one character. This character could be some sort of village elder who guides someone through the temple or something like that.
Sunday 21 October 2012
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Girl Explorer's
As a group, It's my job to design the female character. I had a hard time designing her as I didn't want her to look like an explorer. I didn't want her to look like the typical Jane Goodall or Laura Croft. I wanted to design a character that looked feminine but could handle herself in any given situation. I began to look at the role women play in explorer films like Indiana Jones.
In these films, women are not explorer's. They are either picked up by Indy or thrown into the action and then get picked up by him. They don't usually dress like explorer's either. They have this nice dress and it gets tattered and dirty. According to Indiana Jones, all women are either soft, feminine character's with a lovely wardrobe or Nazis. Although I encountered many of the stereotypes in Indiana Jones I wanted to avoid, it gave me several ideas for the character.
The woman could be taken by this Indiana Jones character but would hate him for doing so. In this case, the woman would still have a ripped dress and this would still play into the stereotypes. To avoid this, I had to look into the shape of the body and face.
Fiona from Adventure Time is an explorer. She fights monsters and wields a sword and enjoys it. She is headstrong and can stand up for herself, however she doesn't fit in with the Laura Croft stereotype. This is partly due to her appearance, she is slightly chubby but still has this feminine air around her. I decided to try and incorporate these aspects into my design.
I went through several different hairstyles until I found one that suited her. I didn't want her to have long or flowing hair just because I've seen it done too many times. I decided to make her hair short and curly and stand up to fully show off her sarcastic face.
In these films, women are not explorer's. They are either picked up by Indy or thrown into the action and then get picked up by him. They don't usually dress like explorer's either. They have this nice dress and it gets tattered and dirty. According to Indiana Jones, all women are either soft, feminine character's with a lovely wardrobe or Nazis. Although I encountered many of the stereotypes in Indiana Jones I wanted to avoid, it gave me several ideas for the character.
The woman could be taken by this Indiana Jones character but would hate him for doing so. In this case, the woman would still have a ripped dress and this would still play into the stereotypes. To avoid this, I had to look into the shape of the body and face.
Fiona from Adventure Time is an explorer. She fights monsters and wields a sword and enjoys it. She is headstrong and can stand up for herself, however she doesn't fit in with the Laura Croft stereotype. This is partly due to her appearance, she is slightly chubby but still has this feminine air around her. I decided to try and incorporate these aspects into my design.
I went through several different hairstyles until I found one that suited her. I didn't want her to have long or flowing hair just because I've seen it done too many times. I decided to make her hair short and curly and stand up to fully show off her sarcastic face.
Group Ideas
After banging our heads together and a lot of discussion, we came up with three main ideas that we all liked and would like to develop.
The Grave Robber Idea
I talked about this in a previous post and we developed it further. The basic premise now is that the two grave robbers are not companion's and they are not exchanging items but information, information about the location of a grave in the cemetery. While digging the item up, the two characters would discuss payment and after they finished and removed the item, the ground would rumble or the gravestone would crack to suggest removing the item was a bad move.
As we are producing a machinima, this idea has further consequences as a game. Say this scene is the beginning of a game and your character would have to restore the mistakes these two character's made by taking the object.
A Not So Romantic Date
We had the idea of a love exchange however it could go extremely wrong. It would be set somewhere romantic like the canals of Venice or something and a man would be waiting nervously for his date to appear. He is interested in her but the feeling isn't mutual so he plans this romantic boat ride down the canal to try and change her mind. When she arrives, he greets her but she shows no interest. He holds his shaking hand out to help her onto the boat, however he slips and she falls into the water.
An Indiana Jones Temple Raid
This idea is like a combination of our previous ideas. A man, the explorer, and a woman enter the treasure room of a temple. The man has to swap the item with a bag of sand like in an Indiana Jones scene. He tries to impress the woman while doing it however she doesn't buy it and she feels a bit irritated he brought her here. After he swaps the item and he is about to leave the room but the floor falls through as he is about to greet the woman. The item hangs in the air and the woman takes it and leaves the man there.
We eventually decided to focus on the temple raid idea because it was funny and we thought we could really work with the humour and visuals to make an interesting story.
The Grave Robber Idea
I talked about this in a previous post and we developed it further. The basic premise now is that the two grave robbers are not companion's and they are not exchanging items but information, information about the location of a grave in the cemetery. While digging the item up, the two characters would discuss payment and after they finished and removed the item, the ground would rumble or the gravestone would crack to suggest removing the item was a bad move.
As we are producing a machinima, this idea has further consequences as a game. Say this scene is the beginning of a game and your character would have to restore the mistakes these two character's made by taking the object.
A Not So Romantic Date
We had the idea of a love exchange however it could go extremely wrong. It would be set somewhere romantic like the canals of Venice or something and a man would be waiting nervously for his date to appear. He is interested in her but the feeling isn't mutual so he plans this romantic boat ride down the canal to try and change her mind. When she arrives, he greets her but she shows no interest. He holds his shaking hand out to help her onto the boat, however he slips and she falls into the water.
An Indiana Jones Temple Raid
This idea is like a combination of our previous ideas. A man, the explorer, and a woman enter the treasure room of a temple. The man has to swap the item with a bag of sand like in an Indiana Jones scene. He tries to impress the woman while doing it however she doesn't buy it and she feels a bit irritated he brought her here. After he swaps the item and he is about to leave the room but the floor falls through as he is about to greet the woman. The item hangs in the air and the woman takes it and leaves the man there.
We eventually decided to focus on the temple raid idea because it was funny and we thought we could really work with the humour and visuals to make an interesting story.
Moodboards, Ideas and Sketches
After we were briefed, I threw these quick moodboards together to get a sense of direction we wanted our group to head in. We didn't want to go too over the top in terms of realism, so we decided to look at characters from games like Psychonauts, Rayman and Abe's Odysee. These characters have these strange and quirky ways about them that makes them really likeable. I also think it would be more interesting and challenging to design a character like this.
I began by breaking down words and ideas that revolve around the brief's themes: surveillance, stolen and exchange. I really liked my ideas that came from the theme exchange.
Rather than a physical exchange, I was thinking about an exchange between life and death. However I thought this broke away from the brief a bit too much and decided to change the idea around a bit. The concept revolving around life after was interesting so instead I thought about grave robber's and an exchange in a graveyard. The basic idea was that two character's dig up a grave to exchange an item or body. I immediately thought of Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns and of the game Red Dead Redemption.
After looking at Red Dead Redemption, I found the graveyards in Mexico to be a lot more visually interesting, so I thought why not set it in Mexico. We could draw inspiration from the day of the dead to create this really stylized, mysterious graveyard where only a few colours really stand out, like really luminscent green mist and white marble stone. This inspiration could also help with the plot, something like the item these two people are trying to find is a magical object.
I began by breaking down words and ideas that revolve around the brief's themes: surveillance, stolen and exchange. I really liked my ideas that came from the theme exchange.
Rather than a physical exchange, I was thinking about an exchange between life and death. However I thought this broke away from the brief a bit too much and decided to change the idea around a bit. The concept revolving around life after was interesting so instead I thought about grave robber's and an exchange in a graveyard. The basic idea was that two character's dig up a grave to exchange an item or body. I immediately thought of Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns and of the game Red Dead Redemption.
After looking at Red Dead Redemption, I found the graveyards in Mexico to be a lot more visually interesting, so I thought why not set it in Mexico. We could draw inspiration from the day of the dead to create this really stylized, mysterious graveyard where only a few colours really stand out, like really luminscent green mist and white marble stone. This inspiration could also help with the plot, something like the item these two people are trying to find is a magical object.
I didn't want to create characters that look human so I tried to find animals that would suit the persona of a grave robber. I chose a magpie and as they are known for stealing valuables and a bird native to Mexico, the Crested Caracara. The smaller one with the hunched back is the magpie and the other is the Crested Caracara.
Monday 15 October 2012
Second year! - Machinima
The second year has started and we began with Machinima. Machinima is a set of scenes filmed within a game engine. To understand what can be considered Machinima we first looked at varied game cutscenes and cinematics. Games usually use Machinima to tell a story to the player. It acts as a reward and provides an incentive to complete the game and can take various forms in a game.
In a third person game the story is usually told in the form of cutscenes, the gameplay stops and takes control away from the player, the story is told and then the game begins again. In this form, Machinima is cinematic, relying on camera angles and 'film' storytelling to immerse the player within the game.
In a first person game like Half Life, scripted sequences are used, however the player retains full control. The player essentially becomes the camera and can view these sequences however they see fit. It can be very immersive however there is nothing to stop the player from looking another way. In a way, the player can choose how immersed he wants to be in the story.
QTE's are interactive cutscenes. They are timed events that leave the player with some amount of control. It is essentially a 'press button to see more' sequence. Although player maintain some control during QTE's, they can be quite jarring as the story can freeze or take a wrong turn just because you had to push a button at a certain time. I hated the QTE shown above because it didn't make sense. Why do I need to press a button to hug him? and of all places in a game to use a QTE...just why?
The cutscenes in Max Payne 3 rely heavily on film to tell the story. The Max Payne series takes its inspiration from film noir and Johnny woo action films, so naturally the scenes in Max Payne 3 revolve around these core themes. In past iterations of the series, still comic book panels were used instead of cutscenes. It was a really unique way of story telling. To keep this sort of vibe in the third game, dynamic cutscenes and static effects were used. The effects would make the cutscenes blurry and dizzy to suggest that Max is an alcoholic and he would be feelig like that throughout the game. Even when taking painkillers, effects blur the screen to suggest his addiction and mindset.
In a third person game the story is usually told in the form of cutscenes, the gameplay stops and takes control away from the player, the story is told and then the game begins again. In this form, Machinima is cinematic, relying on camera angles and 'film' storytelling to immerse the player within the game.
In a first person game like Half Life, scripted sequences are used, however the player retains full control. The player essentially becomes the camera and can view these sequences however they see fit. It can be very immersive however there is nothing to stop the player from looking another way. In a way, the player can choose how immersed he wants to be in the story.
QTE's are interactive cutscenes. They are timed events that leave the player with some amount of control. It is essentially a 'press button to see more' sequence. Although player maintain some control during QTE's, they can be quite jarring as the story can freeze or take a wrong turn just because you had to push a button at a certain time. I hated the QTE shown above because it didn't make sense. Why do I need to press a button to hug him? and of all places in a game to use a QTE...just why?
The cutscenes in Max Payne 3 rely heavily on film to tell the story. The Max Payne series takes its inspiration from film noir and Johnny woo action films, so naturally the scenes in Max Payne 3 revolve around these core themes. In past iterations of the series, still comic book panels were used instead of cutscenes. It was a really unique way of story telling. To keep this sort of vibe in the third game, dynamic cutscenes and static effects were used. The effects would make the cutscenes blurry and dizzy to suggest that Max is an alcoholic and he would be feelig like that throughout the game. Even when taking painkillers, effects blur the screen to suggest his addiction and mindset.
Wednesday 10 October 2012
What I did this summer
Summer is probably not the best time for me in terms of productivity and motivating myself into actually doing something worthwhile. So this year, despite playing many awesome games (steam summer sale..ahem) I decided to really focus on developing the skills I learnt last year.
I really couldn't find a good workflow with Maya so I focused on Photoshop instead. In Photoshop, I wanted to learn how to paint people and get out of bad habits like focusing on a stupidly small area of the painting while leaving the rest undeveloped. I also wanted to stop being too much of a perfectionist so I tried to give myself a time limit for each painting, this failed by the way.
Here are some of the paintings I did over the summer.
I think the best thing I learnt would be a better workflow in painting and also in photoshop. I can make better use of layers and can work my way around photoshop a lot better now. I'm slowly getting out of my bad habits which is a good thing as well.
I also managed to expand my gaming library by half over the summer which is probably not the greatest achievement ever, but I did play some really great games.
I really enjoyed a game called 'To the Moon', a really sad and thoughtful story about two doctors trying to grant an old dying man his last wish. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for brilliant storytelling in games.
Airtight Games Quantum Conundrum was great as well, apart from the ending. What I liked was the interesting puzzle mechanics that looked relatively simple but could be used to design some really amazing puzzles. Even when the puzzles were still easy, there was still the 'ooh' moment whenever you got it right.
I really couldn't find a good workflow with Maya so I focused on Photoshop instead. In Photoshop, I wanted to learn how to paint people and get out of bad habits like focusing on a stupidly small area of the painting while leaving the rest undeveloped. I also wanted to stop being too much of a perfectionist so I tried to give myself a time limit for each painting, this failed by the way.
Here are some of the paintings I did over the summer.
I think the best thing I learnt would be a better workflow in painting and also in photoshop. I can make better use of layers and can work my way around photoshop a lot better now. I'm slowly getting out of my bad habits which is a good thing as well.
I also managed to expand my gaming library by half over the summer which is probably not the greatest achievement ever, but I did play some really great games.
I really enjoyed a game called 'To the Moon', a really sad and thoughtful story about two doctors trying to grant an old dying man his last wish. I would recommend this game to anyone looking for brilliant storytelling in games.
Airtight Games Quantum Conundrum was great as well, apart from the ending. What I liked was the interesting puzzle mechanics that looked relatively simple but could be used to design some really amazing puzzles. Even when the puzzles were still easy, there was still the 'ooh' moment whenever you got it right.
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