fmp2georgiathompson - Tumblr blog

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I’ve now finished with my FMP but I want to continue with developing my ideas and creating robots. I want to explore the game idea more and maybe make it by using the same techniques as Harold Halibut to input it into a games engine, and also continue to develop my sculpture work and techniques.

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Game poster

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Photographed and edited final product

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Game cover

Dave looking down a one point perspective city.

Dave strolling through a city, the view is taken in the same way the side scroller game would be. 

Dave charging in his locker, I would have done this design if I had run out of time because I wouldn't have had to make anything else. 

I wanted to keep with the watercolour because of imperfectness of how it can often look a bit pale and not vibrant while still looking really colourful. To give the buildings texture and shading I went over all of the watercolour with pencils.

This could symbolise how the story is really bright but has a deeper and darker side to it, the lack of saturation shows that the happiness is all an illusion.

I want Dave to look really small in the city, to do this I made the outside skirting really high up and also made the bricks really big compared to the bot.

The idea that I had for the game cover was heavily inspired by red nose studios book cover work, in these book covers Chris Sickles has physical backgrounds that are wither other sculptures or drawing and I wanted to add my own twist to this way of creating.

Cover Idea without editing.

Cover with editing.

[fmp2georgiathompson]

The robot does not stand on its own so I had to make a stand for it. I did this by cutting a thick circle of MDF and then drilling a hole in the centre of it. In this hole I stuck a bit of thick copper wire that is also painted black they would essentially go up daves butt and look like a wire and would also hold him up.

I chose to paint it black because I knew that it would be harder to see the base when I added all the stuff around it.

In college there is a cupboard full of old motherboards and I absolutely destroyed a few of them and took parts from them and glued them to the base.

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I then moved onto priming the base, I did this by watering down white poster paint and paining on three layers of it. 

Most garage floors are grey and I wanted to make mine grey too. I did this by mixing black and white poster paint but not watering it down, I did two layers of this and then I was happy with the colour of it.

I then dry brushed the same black poster paint onto the fully dried bonding. 

I made the miniature paint pots by taking the paint sets that you get from a model making kit, removing the extra bits and painting the silver with my enamel paint. I also added the rest mix to some parts of them to make them look old.

I made the oil spill by mixing the same black poster paint with equal parts PVA and a bit of water and pouring it onto the board. 

The other splashes I made by flicking very watered down watercolour to it.

[fmp2georgiathompson]

Mackinnon & Saunders

Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders began working together in the 1980s at one of Europe’s largest animation companies Cosgrove Hall Films. They pioneered new techniques in puppet making on productions such as the BAFTA winning The Reluctant Dragon and Emmy Award-winning The Fool of the World and The Wind in the Willows. At the start of the 1990s Ian and Peter set up their business partnership. At the same time Ian produced The Sandman with colleagues Colin Batty and Paul Berry. This dramatic short film won many awards on the international festival circuit and received an Oscar nomination in 1993. The film is used in UK schools by the British Film Institute as an introduction to film language.

Following their collaboration on Mars Attacks!, Tim Burton asked Ian and Peter to create the puppets for Corpse Bride. Working from designs by Tim Burton and Carlos Grangel, the team produced an incredibly intricate cast of characters.

Ian and Peter’s talented team have worked on a huge range of TV series, short films, commercials and feature films. Their work includes puppets for popular TV shows such as Postman Pat, Bob the Builder, Scream Street, Pingu, Koala Brothers, Rastamouse, Strange Hill High, Raa Raa the Noisy Lion, Twirlywoos and the new Clangers. Feature film work includes Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie.

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Choosing the style and design

Little Robots is a stop-motion animated children's television series that was made by animating small pose-able robots similar to the one that I have made, because of this I have decided to research conduct research into the TV-show. The show was based on 'the eponymous book' by Mike Brownlow (1999) and first aired in January of 2003. The adaptation was produced by Cosgrove Hall Films, who are most well knows for their animated version of danger mouse, since starting this research I have realised that Cosgrove Hall Films produced most of my favourite animated or stop-motion programs/films from when I was little such as; The BFG, Wind in the willows, Rainbow, Noddy, Bill and Ben, Andy Pandy, Engie Benjy, Postman Pat, Fifi and the flowertots, Rupert the bear and Roary the racing car. This research has has made me realise that most of my favourite programs from when I was a child were stop-motion animated and used models similar to what I am making now, I find it ironic that I hadn't thought of going into a career which involved making them.

In the show the Little Robots live in the shadow of a Nut and Bolt Tree, in a fantastic corrugated realm they've constructed for themselves beneath a gigantic scrap heap. The robots  little world has its own automated Day-Night lever, which is used to turn the dome of sky above their heads 180 degrees and bring them under the influence of their own self-created little sun and moon. Now they can get on with the important things in life, like getting along with each other, discovering new friends and things and creating a jolly home for themselves. Tiny is the little leader of the gang, a keen blue robot with a flip-top head, used to store tools. It's Tiny who lead the way through the scrap heap down to their new home. Joining him are the ever-energetic Sporty robot, exuberant Noisy, bossy Spotty, the twins Sparky One and Sparky Two, teddy-loving Stripey, Stretchy the robot engineer, Messy the robot dog, the vampirific Scary robot, and Flappy the robot bat.

The style of little robots is very cartoon like and feature lots if over exaggerated shapes and features and well as highly saturated bright colours. This style works really well with the fun storyline that the show has and also appeals to the young audience that it has.

I think sticking to the watercolour style will work really well because the imperfectness of colour in watercolour and how it can often look a bit pale and not vibrant while still looking really colourful. This could symbolise how the story is really bright but has a deeper and darker side to it, the lack of saturation shows that the happiness is all an illusion.

When I start to generate ideas for my characters I think i'm going to lean to a more traditional, watercolour style. This is because i'm more comfortable with creating my work in watercolour and I also think that digital art can sometimes lack the texture that I really want to have in my project.

Roar - The robots in roar have the most realistic robot style when compared to all of the robots that I have researched to far. This coil be down to the fact that the film was made in blender and 3D engines like it are able to add lighting and different texture that are almost impossible to add to an illustration or model

I want my game to feel loving and bright that radiates optimism because I think it would be really interesting to have a game that style has a totally opposite feel to its storyline, in my opinion the blender style is really cold and it doesn't look very happy.

When I start to create my game I want to steer clear of the 3D created, hyper realistic robot style, I don’t think the style is bad but I don't think it conveys the overall feeling that I want my game to have.

[fmp2georgiathompson]

Mario sidescroller concept art

It was important for me to fin actual sidescroller games and explore how they are created and specifically the concept art behind the behind the levels, I researched this because it was relevant to my project because I will be creating concept art and concept pages for a few of the levels. This is a first draft of how the world map might look, this concept isn't actually from Nintendo, its a recreation by Arne Niklas Jansson, I've chosen to use his artwork because original pieces from Nintendo are difficult to find and o love they way he has visualised the way that Nintendo makes their levels. The different regions of the map have different terrain and game themes, I love the way you can see the whole map and visualise how it would look even though when you are playing you only see a small section of the map.

Researching these levels

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What goes into creating a level for a game

only used stuff that was relevant to what i was creating

Environment art (or "env art") is the cosmetic decoration of a level or game world, while preserving its core functionality and gameplay.

This work involves building up a library of modules, props, textures, materials, and other art assets, and then art passing the level by painting / placing decor to supplement the underlying design.

Before the 2000s, level designers often made their own environment art too. But today, a level designer is usually supposed to make as little visual art as possible, and the environment artist is usually supposed to wait for a mature blockout before beginning an art pass. However, when working in a small team, level designers will likely have to source or make their own environment art, and vice versa.

Here we will focus on general environment art principles and high level concerns, so that level designers can better understand the art process and collaborate with environment artists. This is not an environment art book.

For links to free textures, materials, and models, see Resources.

For links to dedicated environment art communities, sites, and books, see Community.

Before you begin an art pass, you should to be able to answer these questions:

Theme. What is the time of day, climate, and location for the level?

Gameplay. Which parts need emphasis? What should be simple, what should be detailed?

Style. Realistic or stylized? What type of realism, what type of style?

Palette. What's the overall color palette, what's the mood? What kinds of shapes?

Production. Which parts need to be done first, and which should be last (or never)?

concept art is generally any visual art used for planning the game, but not used in the game itself.

Sometimes the goal of concept art is to convey a desired theme or overall mood, while other times it must communicate technical specifications and details for art assets. Ask yourself, is this concept art meant to inspire, or is it trying to solve a specific visual design problem?

Inspirational mood art is most useful during pre-production (especially when pitching a commercial project to a publisher) or early production, but detailed technical art is more useful later in production.

A paintover is a type of concept art that starts with a 3D screenshot and then an artist literally "paints over" the underlying screenshot to visualize the next version.

It is very common to paintover a blockout screenshot to plan an art pass. This workflow saves a lot of time because the artist doesn't have to manually draft the perspective calculations for basic shapes. For this reason, even 2D artists should have at least some basic knowledge of 3D art tools, so they can potentially build their own blockouts for paintovers.

Sometimes the artist fully renders some finished-looking concept art (see image above)... but usually the paintover is about providing direct feedback between artists: suggested edits, corrections, and notes (see image below).

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Minecraft concept art

While researching the concept art from Super Mario I remembered the previous research that I had done on the concept art from Minecraft and decided to revisit it because I wanted to see how art was created for a game made of cubes. When researching Minecraft concept art I wasn't quite sure what to expect, I didn't know wether it would look like traditional concept art that looks like a normal illustration or it would be just made in minecraft itself or if it would have the same sort of cubed/blocked stye that the game is so known for. I was pleasantly surprised to find it was a mix of both the art itself is blocky and looks like Minecraft but its drawn in 2D instead of being made in 3D like the game. I also found it interesting that the artists have decided to add shadows and a lot on sunlight in some of the drawings, which are not actually in Minecraft and you can only get if you are using the JAVA edition of Minecraft which is PC only and have also downloaded shaders which are mods that create shadows, dynamic sunlight and added detailed texture. Researching this made me realise that it is important to keep the style in my concept art consistent with the style that I would use in the game itself, seeing as i'm am not planning on creating the actual game and just creating the concept for it dosen't particularly matter what they look like but it is interest to think about how they would look.

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Harold Halibut

Harold Halibut is a fully model made stop-motion indie game that started in the bedrooms of the Slow Bros developers. In the game you play as Harold, who is a lab scientist on the city-sized spaceship 'the Fedora' which crash landed into an alien ocean about 250 years ago. Harold is determined to return his people to a dry and save planet earth.

I absolutely love the style of puppets that Harold Halibut has, when looking at the gameplay in the trailer its textured in a way that makes it look like its been created in a 3D software such as MAYA. My favourite thing about the game as a whole is the set design that it has, I love the intricate details that the ships deck has such as the panelling and the use of lighting which I imagine must have been very difficult to achieve.

After watching the game trailer it became very obvious the they hadn't used actual game because game footage tends to be not as clean and has different angles which could possibly disappoint people when they go to play the game and its not as well animated. This happened with Lumino city which is another stop motion game, people complimented the trailer on how smooth the playing looked in the trailer but where disappointed when playing the game as it wasn't as smooth but I believe this was solved later on. The only difference in the two is that only the settings are created in stop motion and the characters where 2D animated in a computer whereas everything in Harold Halibut is stop motion.

The process of Making Harold Halibut (revisit)

Also review the use of actual models made and then scanned into create games -, how does that impact the type of person working on the game?Discuss the processes used and the model making. Consider how Chris Sickels makes characters and develops kit bashed items to make the scenes

Harold Halibut uses a mixture of dioramas, building models and creating

Analogue creation - The makers of the game start by sketching out the rough idea of what they want the character to look like, this is usually done with just a sketching pencil or pen and never has any sort of colour to it. Once the final idea of the character has been created the artist will create a sort of skeleton drawing on paper that has been draw to the specific size and proportions of what they want the model to look like. Once they have created this the drawing is handed over to the model makers who creates the skeleton out of medium sized wire an small round pieces of super sculpey that act as joints in the model. The clothing that is used in the game is created by making miniature patterns that are created with the use of the skeleton drawings from before.

Digitalization - The models of the Harold Halibut characters are scanned into the computer by using a technique called 'photogrammetry' to create 3D scans, This is when they take hundreds of thousands of photos from every angle you can think of, all of these photos are then processed by capturing reality, a special 'photogrammetry' software that matches all the points on the objects surface through all the photos taken because it is able to triangulate all of their positions and get something that is called a '3D point cloud' which is then translated into a 3D mesh. From the mesh the makers also get textures because 'photogrammetry' is an image based technology, one issue with this technique is that the model makers have baked in light meaning that the light that is taken with the photo is the light that the computer model will have and it is very difficult to remove. To get rid of the lighting and shadows from the mesh they use a turntable and a controlled lighting set up, the lighting comes from the cameras direction meaning that the side that is being photographed will have the same brightness, no matter what angle you are looking at it on the computer. The 'photogrammetry' scans have a very high poly that ranges from one to ten million polygons and to use these assets in a real time environment for in a game the game makers have to reduce some of the polygons. They do this by hand when they create the initial models by not adding too much detail, the example from the talk was an older woman who had just enough wrinkles to know that she was older but not enough to increase the amount of poly. I find it really interesting how they have manged to find the perfect balance between aging someone so they look like their intended age but not actually adding too much detail. Once they scan everything they quite often have to go back and alter the materials of the scanned model in something like substance painter and try to achieve the same material settings so that the have a similar look the real object.

I found the similarities in texturing between Amanita designs Machinarium and Harold halibut to be really interesting, both of the games makers have said how having the thing you are trying to texture physically in font of you and in your hands improves the texture and makes it more realistic than trying to texture something from memory. The makers of Harold Halibut furthered this point by saying that when they are rigging up the lighting for the game it is very useful to again have the object physically in front of you, but this time adding a torch to shine light onto the material helps them capture the perfect lighting and shadows.

This information was from about half of the video, I did watch the whole video but decided to only write about the stuff I thought was relevant to my project due to a limited timeframe, the rest of the video went over in game lighting, mask maps, blending, and the timeline. Overall this research was really useful and has made me want to explore how they scan work in and I want to learn how they do it and how I might use it in future projects. I would have like to use the 'photogrammetry' in this project but due to the price of the set up I would need and also the fact I only have four weeks before the submission date I wont be able to finish it in time. I would like to use photography and photoshop to explore what it could have looked like if I did have the budget and the time.

[fmp2georgiathompson]

Red Nose Studio

Red nose studios is a 3D illustration and stop-motion animation company by Chris Sickles who creates his work in is barn conversion studio creating his works. Chris' work is mostly personal self led projects but he does do commissions such as the one above that he did for author Sophie Anderson. I think is children books are amazing, my personal favourite is his book called BUILD! where the story is a group of construction site vehicles work together to "build a building like no other". The thing I find most interesting about his work is how they are all just photos that he's taken with a very fancy camera with very little to no editing. Looking at his work has inspired me to have a go at creating a game cover in his style, the only problem with this is that all of his work is bold and brightly coloured and has an overall positive feel to it. This is the complete opposite of how I want my cover to feel, the game is sad and completely changes the life of the playable character and the cover will need to reflect that.

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most garages have a concrete floor that has sort of lines in it from where it is poured in layers. 

My dad used to be a builder do I spoke to him about what I wanted to make and he recompensed that I use something called bonding which is essentially concrete that has been blended more bus still has the same grittiness.

Bonding has a 1:1 ratio of the powder and water, so I used a bucket and this ratio to mix together a small batch that would be just enough to cover the round board. 

I then put quite a thick layer on the whole of the board. When the whole thing was covered I used a massive spatula to indent the lines that the garage floors have and left it to dry for 48 hours.

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I primed the board with white paint and then used PVA and toilet roll to texture the board and hate it, this means that I'm going to have to rethink how to approach the texturing.

[fmp2georgiathompson]

How is climate change melting the ice caps?

The disease in my game originated during the time of the dinosaurs, which was a few billion years ago and it froze in the ice caps during the first ice age. Due to Climate change and the earths rising temperatures the ice caps have started to melt, this means that anything that was previously frozen in the ice caps is now melting and spreading through the sea. Though my research I want to explore what would happen when these things melt and what the earth might look like in a few hundred years.

The Ice that covers about 10% of our earth acts like a protective cover over the Earth and oceans. They reflect excess heat back into space to keep the planet cool. In theory the Arctic remains colder than the equator because more of the heat from the sun is reflected off the ice and back into space. Most glaciers that cover the Earth froze between several hundred to several thousand years ago. Rapid glacial melt in Antarctica and Greenland also influences ocean currents, as massive amounts of very cold glacial-melt water entering warmer ocean waters is slowing ocean currents ,and as ice on land melts, sea levels will continue to rise.

Why are the glaciers melting? -Since the early 1900s, many glaciers around the world have been rapidly melting. Human activities are at the root of this phenomenon. Specifically, since the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions have raised temperatures, even higher in the poles, and as a result, glaciers are rapidly melting, calving off into the sea and retreating on land. Even if we significantly curb emissions in the coming decades, more than a third of the world’s remaining glaciers will melt before the year 2100. When it comes to sea ice, 95% of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is already gone. Scientists project that if emissions continue to rise unchecked, the Arctic could be ice free in the summer as soon as the year 2040 as ocean and air temperatures continue to rise rapidly.

How will the ice melting effect us? - Melting glaciers add to rising sea levels, which in turn increases coastal erosion and elevates storm surge as warming air and ocean temperatures create more frequent and intense coastal storms like hurricanes and typhoons. Specifically, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are the largest contributors of global sea level rise. Right now, the Greenland ice sheet is disappearing four times faster than in 2003 and already contributes 20% of current sea level rise. How much and how quickly these Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets melt in the future will largely determine how much ocean levels rise in the future. If emissions continue to rise, the current rate of melting on the Greenland ice sheet is expected to double by the end of the century. Alarmingly, if all the ice on Greenland melted, it would raise global sea levels by 20 feet.

Today, the Arctic is warming twice as fast as anywhere on earth, and the sea ice there is declining by more than 10% every 10 years. As this ice melts, darker patches of ocean start to emerge, eliminating the effect that previously cooled the poles, creating warmer air temperatures and in turn disrupting normal patterns of ocean circulation. Research shows the polar vortex is appearing outside of the Arctic more frequently because of changes to the jet stream, caused by a combination of warming air and ocean temperatures in the Arctic and the tropics. The glacial melt we are witnessing today in Antarctic and Greenland is changing the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean and has been linked to collapse of fisheries in the Gulf of Maine and more destructive storms and hurricanes around the planet.

What happens in these places has consequences across the entire globe. As sea ice and glaciers melt and oceans warm, ocean currents will continue to disrupt weather patterns worldwide. Industries that thrive on vibrant fisheries will be affected as warmer waters change where and when fish spawn. Coastal communities will continue to face billion-dollar disaster recovery bills as flooding becomes more frequent and storms become more intense. People are not the only ones impacted. In the Arctic, as sea ice melts, wildlife like walrus are losing their home and polar bears are spending more time on land, causing higher rates of conflict between people and bears.

This research was useful because it has given me the knowledge I need to understand the science behind my game, Its shown me where the ice caps came from, when they froze and why they are melting.