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.