Critical Evaluation

At this time I have just about finished this assignment overall and it has been an amazing experience for me to see my idea grow over the whole year. Even though this is the end of my second year and this project, I will be continuing on this in my own time because I feel as though this concept is only the beginning of a game idea that could be great due to its themes and underline meanings. I am unsure it I will be taking this idea onto the 3rd year and continuing because I want to challenge myself again to ideas which I have been working on in my own time.
This term has felt strange compared to the others because of the personal nature of using all my previous work and turning it into a portfolio to promote myself rather than the game. In saying this, I believe this to be one of my strongest terms because of how my portfolio has turned out. Though I still have a little more to add, it seems to be very easy to manage.
My portfolio, I have tried to convey a sense of who I am from the backgrounds, drawings and how the interaction works as the viewer would progress through it. I have tried to make it enjoyable from easy to follow instructions of how to use, simple hover features to see the work and keeping every page stimulating to look at which out over being powering. I believe it to show myself as an artist and promote my game concept in one. The portfolio itself contains a large about of idea for the game concept but also I included other works I have done both inside and outside of University so I can show my flexibility for this design work and styles. Overall I am very pleased with my portfolio because I have taken a lot of time in designing everything so I can get my points across without any words. It also is a triumph for my skills as an artist too, seeing my work skills improve from image to image and giving my confidence a boost in the right direction.
My blogging skills however still need to be improved. I have tried blogging many times before and yet still find it hard to keep on top it. This time around I know I manage to keep up somewhat may however I did have to back log some parts. It is always a learn curve and getting myself in the habit of doing it and I did find it enjoyable to do once I got into the rhythm of it. The only problems I have with blogs from a personal point of view is talking about my ideas because I have very protective of my creative process. Much the same with this game concept, I was unsettled talking about it on a public site however learning about Creative Commons calmed the mind down a little. This is something I have to get used to. Mostly the blog has helped to keep on track with setting myself deadlines and keeping track of everything that has been missed out or forgotten about. Benefits of blogs are will be helpful.
One thing I know that was a big deviation was my progress compared to my learning agreement. I did change quiet a lot because I felt like the path I was on would not get me to the best possible outcome. My learning agreement did not seem to reflect myself creating a portfolio of my work but rather another part of the game which was not a part of the brief. In doing so, I believed I made the right choice because of the finished product I have. I would of liked to done some animation of some kind but because of changing my ways, it did not seem like the best choice of action and would not fit in with the portfolios overall theme.
One part I was unclear about was doing more research and how that would be presented. This is because I felt this term was not based around research because of the last term which was heavy on the development stage of the game rather than this terms personal portfolio. Research I did manage to do was mostly Artists for inspiration or new programs such as InDesign which I created my portfolio in. Research key elements and how to use it was the most of it. This was all documented within my blog so I am hoping this will not drastically affect my mark. This is because personally, I did not feel the need for more research because of the nature of the assignment and my content with the games concept up to this point.
If I was to take this concept on to next year, I believe I would focus my attention on the narrative and 3D modelling. I tried my hand at a few 3D mesh over the year and a piece for this term which felt very much like the begin of a larger development for my concept. Enthusiasm is the key and I know I have a lot for this game concept and do hope to take it on further at some point in time whether it is next year or as something else later on in my career.
As a whole, I believe it to be a success. I know from over the past year and this term I have become more confident in my idea and creative abilities to express my thoughts. I am very excited what next year has to bring and hoping that my next project will be as enjoyable as ‘The Dawning’ has given me over the past year. With the small drop in my grade for last term, I am hoping with the effort, overall presentation of my portfolio and the amount of emotion I have shown will give me that push for high marks.

PDP Interactive

Even though it is coming up to hand in, with the success of my portfolio, I think I will add some buttons to make it easier to select which part to go to straight away.

Progress...

I am really enjoying Adobe InDesign. I don't understand why I did not take the time before to investigate this program which had been on my computer for a while now. My portfolio is looking great and I am extremely happy with it. I have tested a few PDFs on the uni computers and they work fine so I have everything crossed that the more interactive parts will work fine.

Portfolio Progress....

I have decided to use this image of the wall frames as my main navigatation page to my different works. It is linked into the game concept I am working on as originally it was going to be used later on in the portfolio just showing concept work. Now it is the main page, each frame will have different works in them, examples like:
Frame 1 = The Dawning concept work
Frame 2 = The Dawning Finished Concepts
Frame 3 = 3D work
etc

Everytime you click on a frame it will bring up another frame which will contain the first image of that set. Along the side will be smaller frame with the other images. Click on them to send that image to the main frame to view larger.

PDP

Finally my PDP is up to date, not finished as such but it is all organised now in the parts instead of scattered in folders. Had to do a bit of back logging but I am happy with it for now.

InDesign progress...

I have been learning a lot from Adobe InDesign today and have learnt some useful tricks. I have learnt how to make buttons and like them to other pages and also how to create a rollover effect. So with this I can use my wall frame image by adding the rollover effect to bring up the images in a larger space. This is mostly done with learning how to use 'States' action box and asigning behaviours to a 'HotSpot' button to activate a hidden layer which would be the larger image. What I am wanting then is to click on the larger image to return to hide the image again. Hopefully this will work.



-Image above of my practice with buttons and rollover elements-

Carbonmade

I am not happy with using Carbonmade for my portfolio. I have seen others peoples who use iPortfolio or something on there MACS, but because I am a windows user I can not use it. It is very limiting and extremely dull to look at. I have tryied looking for other online sites but it is very difficult to find any. I have not idea where to start when it comes to building a site and I want my portfolio to really stand out and look great. So, I have decided to kick out Carbonmade and investigate an offline portfolio using other software like Adobe product.

Inspiration: Claude Monet

Claude Monet painted a series of pictures of his impressions of London. At that time London was a smokier place than it is today because people burned coal for heat. The sky was generally dark with pollution, and Monet recorded that in his paintings.



This painting of London gave me an Idea for an image which I completed in 4hours or so using the variations of the colour palette Monet used here. I tried to retain a connection with this image by keeping this sense of emptiness which is only filled by a large shadowy object. It is also very still and calm considering what it is portraying. It has not beginning nor end, what i mean by this is Monets painting could be the beginning of a story or the end, almost a perfect setting which can create complete narrative from a single scene. This is what I have tried to take into my own piece inspired by this.


-Crop of Larger image-

Adobe InDesign CS3

Today I am going to learn the basics of InDesign so I can get started on my Interactive PDF. As always opening up a new program seems to be very confusing... at the moment I dont even know how to add an image to my template, so, hopefully by the end of the day I should be able to add images, make buttons and link pages together.

INTERACTIVE PDF

I have been thinking about creatng a PDF for my work with some interactive elements to it. I have never done this before and have no idea where to begin. With the software I have, I am going to learn some basic Interactive elements on Adobe InDesign which can be exporte as an Interactive PDF. I believe this will be much easier to do than going back to Flash at this point in time.

Up to now

At this moment in time I have been finishing off other concepts which I have been playing around with which I believe as benifiting my over all portfolio. It has taken alot of my time but I have really enjoyed being able to see my skills evolve over the course of the past few weeks and it had driven me to do more and more.

My original idea of having my portfolio play out as the introduction would has become alot more difficult then I thought. Given the time we have had and seeing it past by alot faster then I would of thought, it is unlikely I will be able to achieve this. Flash is becoming alot more complex and difficult. This is one program I plan to learn alot more of over the summer term so I can use it alot more surfisantly for the 3rd year. So now, I will be uploading my portfolio on to an online portfolio site.

One issue here that is holding me back if the lack of online portfolio sites which are free and simple to use. If I had this idea from the start I would of been able to have the money and subscribe to a certain site and learn the basics, but even HTML coding is confusing to me and I know 'coding' is the next step for me to learn for other programs aswell. So now, I have been using a site known as Carbonmade which allows for a very simple, easy to use interface for uploading a portfolio of work. Only, I find the simplistic design very inkeeping with my game concept.

Inspiration: Kris Kuksi

I have never seen this artist before and I am complete amazed by his work. I have always had a fancy for art which is considered startling and horrorific. I am not sure how this will directly inspire my current work but I am sure it will at some point, Specially for idea for creature design or a nest environment? I am not sure but the work is fantastic.

Going against my learning agreement

I have been doing alot of thinking about my work recently and how it is I am presenting it. Up to now I have just been continuing with my work, designing and developing ideas but not knowing how to present them. When looking back over my learning agreement, I can see that I will be going againest what I said. I planned to show off the introduction to the game, only, now reading it and looking at what I am supposed to be doing, I can see I am in the completely wrong place and need to get it sorted. As I want to show myself as a concept artist, I can afford to focus on story boards when it will be time consuming and I can show enironments which would be seen at the beginning of the game, but I dont need to explain it.

I will be sure to mention this in my conclusion and summery of this term and why I thought I had to change my way of progression. I believe it to be for the best and this way I will be able to show off my potentional without being held back by keeping inline with the story boards. I wouls much rather use the larger concepts I have done than show the lack of storyboards I have.

Horse Concept

One idea I have been playing around with is putting in something which symbolises Fox Hunting. As the player would be controlling the fox, it forces them the play and survive in an event which is reality.

What I find so appealing about this, purely in a game concept way, is the visual image of a larger statue like creature, just perfectly still. The polluted horse has a growth on its back which is the symbolise the rider. These creatures would be scattered around and jus watching. Watching for the player to come into sight where then the horse like creature would call out, summoning a larger pack of polluted creature. These would represent the hounds used in fox hunting.
I believe this would be a great creature enemy for the game which would make the player think before acting, how would I get by this guy? what would I do if I am seen?

Luckly I have study horse anatomy before when I was younger for A levels and I still remember the best ways the draw them.

Inspiration: Jacek Yerka

I feel so lucky to have found this artist as I absolutely adore his work. Having played Machinarium, the art style really got my attention and Yerka style of art has some similarities to it, specially in his environment images.

What I like about these images in particular is that I can relate them to my idea for the introduction to the game. Focusing dramtic unusal changes inside a place which we feel is comforting to us. I am really drawn to the images above and below of the bathrooms. The top image more so because of its connection with natural elements. I love the idea of plant life from a pond or lake growing inside the bathroom and because the house I am using also has nature growing inside it, it fits perfectly and a good source of inspiration.

Creature Designs: Peacock

I had an idea today for an unlikely animal creature design which I can think of any other game having it. Watching 'QI' on Dave, they had a question on the Peacock and I just had to design a creature around this animal. One of the most unlikely for a design as it is not usually associated with anything 'evil' or 'blood thirsty', so, I got pen to paper on had a few quick sketchs.

__image__

After a few more designs I will create a high quality concept in photoshop to add to my portfolio.

Helpful Site

http://www.wonderhowto.com/
I have been using this site a few time to help with problems or questions about idnt programs like Zbrush and Maya.

Fox study

It is hard to find stuff about foxes which isnt seeing them as pests or sites on how to kill them. Even looking for the anatomy of the fox is difficult. What I have been reliant on is its close relationship to a dogs anatomy and how they move and their stance. I did manage to find this image of a foxes skeleton in frame by frame movement. Strange by highly help full with my fox drawings.

Art of Howl's Moving Castle

I have recently had my birthday and my friend got my The Art of Howl's Moving Castle which is one of my favourite movies. As I mentions before about collecting Concept books, this is something very special. It is so refreshing to see the idea looking so clean and naked on the pages and knowing that they will become such great film. I will be using this book for ideas on how to set out a concept sheet etc.

Fox and Creature Concepts

Even though I had choosen to concentrate on the environments of my game concept, I have done a few of the creature designs that would appear in the game. Also, I wanted to look more at the anatomy of the Fox and practice my drawing skills of this animal. So I will put up the images in another post that I have manage to do in my time away from environments. I will explain how the creature would act, move and why they look they way they do.

Inspiration: Dali

Dali is another Artist I wanted to research into alittle because of his extremely surreal environments. I have studied Dali alittle before for my foundation and found him to be very excentric and extreme views on art. Though his personality or views dont change my game concept in the slitest by his visions of environments melting under its own weight is very inspirational. As i have been thinking of how to show some areas of the polluted environments and Dali's images just came to mind.

Inspiration: Beksinski

Over the past few days I have been trying to come up with a visual style for the infected wildlife from the pollution. Obviously I have the mutated idea in mind as it is a natural response to a foreign body/ virus growing with living tissue. The problem with this idea is the animals/creatures would look too gruesome which is not effect I am trying to get. Showing too much would then fall into Resident Evil style of infections and mutation. These animals have to feel and look as though the pollution is apart of its own body and it isn't thirsting to kill etc, but just living as any other life form does.

One ideal style I have been using was inspired by an artist by the name of Zdzisław Beksinski, a renowned Polish painter, photographer, and sculptor. The images I came across are published in a book called 'The Fantastic Art of Beksinski' by James Cowan. His painting style expressing images in a fantasical surrealistic environments in a dream like state. I have always been a fan of surrealist artist such as H.R.Giger and Francis Bacon so to find Beksinski on a random search is extremely lucky and from his works I can say I am a fan.

In relation to my work, I can see certain aspects of certain paintings which I can relate back to my own. Even from his use to colour which the environments are chocked in a thick dirty mist of browns and dark oranges. This gives the idea of how the pollution should look in my concepts and is something to play around with. Not only that but the way he has depicted certain animal like forms, how they look to be woven into existence rather than birthed. It is fascinating to get such a creative idea from his images.





http://www.beksinski.pl/

My next blog will be my concept ideas for the wildlife/ creatures inspired by his work which I will compare the images above.

Interactive Wall Frames

When thinking about how to make my images interactive, I had this idea of a wall within the house which would have pieces of concept work in frames. The idea would be to click on the framed images to enlarge them, click to go back and click on another frame on the wall. The image below is the concept for this backdrop.

Okami Art Work book

Recently I have decided to try and find as many video game art books as possible to go with my animation art books. This because I want to understand better just how concept artist progress and show their work in a professional and coherent manner. Now there are a great many but I came across the art works for Okami which is one of my favourite games.

I can say with no hesitation just how amazing this book is. It is very in keeping with the came and from page to page it progresses just like a story. It was designed to read in the Japanese style of starting at the back and through to the front. It is all extremely well annotated and presented. Full of concept art, level design sketches, character reference models and even some mangas.
One touch I like about it in particular is the some amount of interactivity is has. Apart from turning the pages, reading and studying the images, there are little numbers on each page of the book. These number correspond to a disc number and track number which is for the OST for the game. I thought this was a fantastic touch to make the book seem more connected to the reader. Listening to the tracks that add emotions to the images on the page.

From going through the book a many of times, it give me food for thought on how to actually present and design my pages of concept art.

PDP

Today is PDP day. Decided to add my trip to Hong Kong so this should be fitting for PDP

Creative Commons

I have been looking on the Creative Commons site today and just going through all the details and understanding how this works. It looks very simple and easy for copyrighting my work for the moment. I will put up another blog once I have gone through it a little more and comment back on it.

I have had a little break from assignments today and just playing about with some techniques I have been wanting to try out for awhile.

Wallpaper design

One of the main ideas for this term that I had for the game was the house which I have mentioned before. As i envision this game as being very artistic in its approach, that's why I decided to have first scenes set in a music room and view some very old wallpaper designs. Personally I love this style of floral decor designs to give a place character and a sense of history. This is the idea for the game and I was planning to base a front cover design around this floral aspect.

Tree Pollution in 3D

Every night I usually end up sketching any idea that comes to mind and trees are a strong visual aspect at the moment within the environment designs. In my Learning agreement I stated that I would again explore a concept in 3D, so from my design concepts, I took a design into Maya. This is one of the main concept designs I am drawn to the most at this current development stage. The idea is how trees help life, now, in turn they can help the pollution grow. This design is to show a tree which has been nurturing a form of pollution inside for a period of time. The pollution forms a shell around itself and when fully matured, it opens up and releases spores into the air. The plan was to attemp the UVs for this mesh only I knew that I wouldnt be able to create the organic feel I was hoping for. So i decided to import the mesh into Zbrush. I have used Zbrush before but not to the amount of detail I managed to achieve.

House Concept Ideas

image to add...

The Dawning introduction concept

Over the Easter holiday I was mostly trying to gather as much research and sketch work as possible to fuel my Introduction idea. At this point I am going to explain how the introduction would work when it comes to showing my work as a portfolio or showreel.

One of the main visuals to the game is the abandonment of everything. This is due to the pollution forcing people to move out of heavily industrial areas, only the pollution became a new life form over time and destroyed most of mankind. However, these larger abandoned cities will not be shown until later on in the game because i believe this would show too much of what has happened and what is happening all in one scene. I am creating the introduction to be as suttle as possible so the player at first doesnt know what is to come.

The first scene is set in a country house, out in the middle of no where. As this game has no time frame, it is up to the view to create there own idea of when this world would be. Obviously as the game progresses this will became much clearer but only to an extent because of the fact that there is no humanity to explain the situation.
The country house is to look and feel as though the owner was very proud. This house would of been past down through the family as a get away home, not as big as a mansion but easily managed by a middle class family. The house in some places could have been renivated for a much more modern way of living although most of the decore has been kept to 18th century design. With the few exceptions of course.
The reason why I have decided to use a place like this for the games introduction is because I want the player/viewer to become familier with this homely environment. To comfort the player before things begin to change. Now, this place has been abandoned for years. It has decayed and slowly begun to disappear into the landscape. However, the player is shown areas of the house which look to as though they had just been cleaned and well kept. As these scenes begin to fade in and out of different rooms from different angles, the aging of the decore begins to show. You see wallpaper which has been torn away from the wall, puddles of rusty water and damp rising from the floor, layers of dust gathering on furniture. As the scenes explore the house, an animal can be heard moving around. From sounds, to blurred animal shape running through the scene, to the main shot of the main character. The Fox.

This right away tells you that this house has been long abandoned and the fox is scavaging around the rooms. This idea at first was to have this place as the foxes den which I have yet to decide on. The scene then follows the fox outside to an open area surrounded by forests, viborant and lush in the bright sun. This image is to throw off the player as to what has happened in this world.

From here, I imagine this is where the player would be able to take control for the first time to understand the game play mechanics and to learn the basics. Again having this wide open area to a large house to play in, much like a child and learning new things and exploring the land.

This is as far as I have gotten with the introduction up to now. What I plan to do is design a floor plan so I can come up with what rooms are going to be shown in relation to the scenes and how they would play out. I will be creating a story board which will explain exactly what I have just written along side concepts of the main rooms for the story board and anything else which are shown.

Resident Evil 5 Story board reference

Even though the story boards in this bonus feature DVD for Resident Evil 5 are for cutscene actions, it does go to show that they are important for expressing scenes. I have been trying to find some more to do with story boards relating to video games but more in a way of showing how the game plays and the mechanics. For example, a story board which shows how a character would get from A to B and showing how the character can interact with the environment.

Other story board artists

Animation style of storyboard -The Pact Project-

I recently came across this animation which really got my attention. It is giving me more thought into how I can present a storyboard narrative. What I most intriging about this animated storyboard is how the camera is used, obviously all controlled by how the images of moved, however it gives a very cinematic style of tension.

Storyboard Site links

Icant say that I know from heart just how to storyboard professional so I have been looking for sites covering the basics of 'how to..'.

http://storyboard.cfms.uct.ac.za/

http://www.ibiblio.org/ism/articles/huffcorzine.html

http://www.strategicstoryboarding.com/storyboarding-techniques-to-make-smart-decisions/

Animated storyboards found on youtube:

Storyboarding

Here is just a few of the videos I have been watching on youtube as the best ways to create a storyboard. I am still in the middle of watching so I am posting these for myself to easily locate and watch again if needed. I post again with more annotations to these videos, my thoughts and how I plan to create my own.





These are a few storyboards which people has posted online themselves:

FGA6 assignment

Now that FGA 6 has started, it is essential for this term to be documented in a blog much like my attempt in FGA 5. This time around I have to keep at this blog and post atleast 3-4 times a week. Much the same as before, I will be posting material of inspiration, progress of work, articles of interest and time managment.

As stated in my FGA6 Learning agreement I will be creating a portfolio based around the scenes from the introduction to my game concepts. I am starting off by designing a selection of introduction story boards and then critically editing these for the best outcome. From this I plan to paint in photoshop/coral painter the scenes where the opening takes place. Again, editing and sketching these places before finalising.
This will take up the first 3-4weeks of this term and hopefully provide the outcome needed to progress to the next stage. This is all down to my own time manage meant and time I spend working.
Also as this term continues, over the easter holiday term I will be planning out to present my work in a cohesive manner with telling the opening narrative as it is meant to be. I have ideas of animated story boards etc only I have yet to decide because of the time it may take. I will have to experiment with Adobe after effects for this and brush up on my Flash understanding.

At the moment I am planning environments ideas in my sketch book. These images will be used within the final presentation as progress of concepts or used for backgrounds for introduction ideas.