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final evaluation

We were asked to create a game that we are in the game industry, as a project pitch to the company that will make them the most money. We would have to look at existing games on the market that generate a lot of revenue.

For this project I was looking forward to creating my own game idea, without restrictions on how, why or art style. This is because of me liking my own sketches and concept art ideas to provide into my project. Which I believe is my best ability in this course.

With this project I hoped to develop my skills with animation, which I couldn’t manage to fit into my time frame because of deadline moveback. I did development skills with writing in bulk, like writing my presentation on a reasonable amount of slides. This allowed me to deeper understand my thought process and putting it into words. I developed my understanding skills while listening to peer feedback and working on the feedback into my project.

Research I did was into the sales of Nintendo games over the last few years, and how sales have gone up over time with the pandemic. I also researched into reptiles and animals that have attributes that I wanted to implement into my dragon, and use some of these as context points for what happened and why: Dragon bromating, cold earth core. I also researched artists on art station that heavily focused on fantasy worlds and dragons to inspired my work. Thes e link well to my idea and provide reason and explanation to why the dragon is like it is. As well as explains the lore, which admittedly has a lot of points where it could be improved.

I planned my project through the project proposal we were given as a task to complete within college time as well as at home. This however didn’t work out due to deadlines being moved. I stuck to the plan as much as I could, with producing work faster than writing as that was ap oint I struggled with. I met all deadlines within this project and assignments.

Research I did was into the sales of Nintendo games over the last few years, and how sales have gone up over time with the pandemic. I also researched into reptiles and animals that have attributes that I wanted to implement into my dragon, and use some of these as context points for what happened and why: Dragon bromating, cold earth core. I also researched artists on art station that heavily focused on fantasy worlds and dragons to inspired my work. Thes e link well to my idea and provide reason and explanation to why the dragon is like it is. As well as explains the lore, which admittedly has a lot of points where it could be improved.

I planned my project through the project proposal we were given as a task to complete within college time as well as at home. This however didn’t work out due to deadlines being moved. I stuck to the plan as much as I could, with producing work faster than writing as that was ap oint I struggled with. I met all deadlines within this project and assignments. I liked my dragon in my project but I feel like I did over-focus on this aspect and didn’t give myself enough time to focus on other things in my project which could have improved my project with its lore and plot.

If I could do this project again I would focus less on one thing and try to get more of the background life/NPCs into the picture

[saoty]

Evaluation 1

I think I did better with this project than I have done before.  With creating a better presentation to showcase my world and talk about the process more in depth than in previous projects. This has improved my thought processing and allowed me to think through my problems with accurate solutions, as well as creating context on why certain things are like they are for whatever reason they are for in game. I also think I actively did more researching than before and this really did improve my work, and understanding I wanted to have for my dragon. 

However, I think I could have improved by still doing more research such as looking into more videos and videos on subjects around pixel animation and analysis of these videos. This would have let me understand more of what platforms would have been best for for my game, and let me get better understanding of revenues around the world with pixel games in 2022

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Character Animation help

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Contexts wip

Example of Context

Target Audiences, Children & Adults

What would be added in a children's game

Bright colours

Cartoon/Comic style

Learning 

Simple shapes

Usually 2D     

What would NOT be added in a children’s game

gore

nudity

weapons

realism

complicated / adult language

What would be added in an adults game

Weapons

violence / gore

longer, more descriptive words

sensitive topics, war, historic events

quests (longer attention span)

usually 3D

What would not be added in an adults game

simple shapes

bright colours

cartoon animations

Learning help

[saoty]

Animatic Reflection

In this pixel art gif, I tried to lead the eye more to the left where the fire is. The fire is the main point of focus, but I have done more pillars and rocks on that side as well for the light to bounce off of.

This concept art’s leading focus point is the character and its head/feathers. With more detail put into the feathers along with shading and highlights. Another leading focus point is the bow but there’s not enough contrast on it to be a major focus point. 

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I will also include ‘leading the eye’ in my animatic. With this scene: 

I will include this by adding contrasting colours in the black, and around certain points in the scene. Such as the scroll, bell, and the black smoke. Those will be my focus points. These focus points will also try to convey the importance of these things within the animatic. 

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Critical Perspectives

When creating concept for a character/Environment, it is important to make it look professional. To do this you will have to study the clients preferred style to make stylised choices for the art. Colour is also an important part in making concept art look professional, such as: lighting, effects, mood setting.

Example: 

This image is very stylised because of the thick lines around the body of this character, and its use of basic shapes and lines. It is all very stiff and blocky. This is more stylised toward a 2D game.

It’s use of colours aren’t very broad but are soft of the eyes with only having blues, blacks and red/browns outside of skin tone and metal. The clothing also contrasts against the bright blue effects around the bow. The effects also match with a piece of clothing; the bandana, so that theres not so much contrast it feels out of place. 

This piece of concept art is much more realistic with its proportions, shapes and muscles,  having no thick lines and smooth curves this art is mores stylised towards a 3D realism game. 

The colours in this art are darker with some contrast, compared to the dark greys and browns of the metal and leather on the character. This character also has a lot more lighting and shading that’s visible.

Comparing Style and colour Importance.

I think style is more important than colour because of the clients that would be asking for art. It would be more appropriate for the concept art to fit the style of the game and no colour compared to having the wrong style and perfect colours. This would only show that you can colour art and not fit the correct criteria for the job. 

I also think style is more important because it shows you to be more professional to be able to produce multiple styles, this would also let you get more jobs because of the variety.

However I think colour is important for being able to stylise work more with how you can shade; using blocks of colour or blending colours. 

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Creating / Producing Ideas.

Two examples of methods for this are the silhouettes and sketching.

Sketching - This method is good when you have a bit more experience in creating characters because of being able to clearly picture how things could work out from reading an assignment. This is also good for practising loosely. However this is time consuming when creating a new sketch and having to copy from eye what you have already drawn, and when you need to create multiple designs(on paper). You would need more cleaner lines.

Silhouettes - A digital method of using the lasso tool within an art program to draw a random shape and filled with a flat colour. To then later on draw over to make a character within or as that shape. This is good for creating multiple pieces because of the quickness of just creating a random shape. Though this methods drawbacks are the fact you need to have a lot of inspiration to make something clear out of the shape that fits the brief, another drawback is feeling that you can only draw in the shape youve made. 

I prefer to use sketching because of being able to create more specific/clear drawings for my brief. I also prefer this method because I find myself worrying less about what can be done as to compared to the silhouettes. 

[saoty]

Evaluating Working Practices

Examples of different methods to make concept art.

digital shape silhouettes, sketches on paper, photobashing, collages.

Comparing two techniques, sketching and photobashing

These two techniques are quite different, sketches are quick and easy lines to give basic shapes and shades, whilst photobashing is compiling different pictures and art into one piece to create the effect of a full art piece.Professional settings that need quick results, will rely more on sketches than other techniques to quickly produce art for their games development to take the least time as possible. 

What is good about working with sketches? Sketches are much quicker, but they also allow easily flexible character designs due to the simplicity and lose lines.

What is good about working with photobashes? Photobashing is good because it allows you to see the character is an environment that would take much longer to complete if it was a finished art piece rather than a mix-match of pictures.

What is bad about sketches? Sketches with their loose lines, lack of details and wide range of accessibility make it so that sketches can sometimes overwhelm you with what ‘could be’. They can often require you to create range of variety with sketches to make sure you are creating something you actually want to complete.

What is bad about photobashes? Photobashing requires a lot of time to blend, cut, locate images and can in a professional environment could lead to legal issues when using images from online; or become a waste of resources (time, money).

I prefer sketching because of being able to work on sketches on paper and digitally. It allows much more flexibility and lets me work in different styles to fit what I’m currently working on (I.e, Anime, semi-realism).

[saoty]

Self - Development

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPflB7_XXaY

I was looking for a way to correctly draw the body at certain angles of the body and the muscle placements in the pose in quick sketches. This helped me find the easiest method of drawing poses in a time based manner. (with reccomendations to videos to get poses from within the video too). I found this helpful also because of the time stamps within the video to  remind me of not focusing too long just on a base sketch that has a lot of detail. This will also help me to learn to produce sketches quicker and more losely to leave room for imagination in sketches for later development as well.

[saoty]

How to Convey Meaning

The different ways you can convey meaning visually include shape, colour, pose, clothing. (I.e, reds symbolize warmth, danger, passion, life, war.) This often connects to the personality of the character and allows a visual understanding rather than telling someone about the character.

Pyke, The Bloodharbor Ripper - League of Legends

In this, Pyke’s shown to be holding few intimidating items; Bone shoulder guards that is a a jaw of a sea creature (similar to a shark), a serrated bone blade. He also has a red bandana mask, and a scarred face all the while being underwater. This shows him to be an sea-based character that kills creatures much larger than himself in the depths of the ocean because of his bone accessories and scars. His scars also show he has been doing this for a long time; and is an dead human due to his humanoid body but also his white glowing eyes, and clear ability to breathe underwater.

[saoty]

12/1/22 Reflective Journal

With the scripts we wrote yesterday we worked on creating 6 or more panels in a story board. Which we are planning to use for an animation. 

My story board consisted of 10 panels with few voice lines and narratives. I did this because I wanted to focus more on conveying emotions as I view that as something I could work on from analysing my previous project.

I also did this to work more on backgrounds as I view this as a weakness as well that I’d like to work on; along with perspectives. 

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Group Project Reflection

Group project: Dino People. 

For this project, I worked with two other people to create a world for our own species, with our own lore and specifics. We wanted to create a war based dinosaur-like species game. 

For our Research we did, primary and secondary research using the internet to easily access different perspectives and stylisations on art that were creating similar concepts for games or personal characters.

Primary Research that I conducted:

- Researching videos on how dinosaur legs functioned, bent and how they were structured.

- I also looked at male body types on Pinterest to use for reference on muscles. I also did this with chicken feet for the dinosaurs, and then dinosaur skulls/head muscles.

Secondary Research I did:

- I looked at art styles from War Hammer of Lizard men and how they did their people. Which was mostly two dinosaurs mixed together.

- I watched an Anime called “That Time I Got Reincarnated as A slime.” Which had Lizard men which were more fitting for our theme. Which also inspired their clothing that I had attempted.

- Looking at films on how dinosaurs were ‘drawn’ and depicted by other artists was a main research source during this project such as;  “We’re Back!”, “Land Before Time.” and “Ice Age: Dawn of The Dinosaurs”

From the list, my most relevant from the sources I used for research was the body types I look at on Pinterest from models. This helped me define difference between the two races of dinosaurs and had their natures more easily able to tell just from the concept.  However, this research also gave me elements on how I could put different work inspired from other peoples work to put into my own work; Such as the Chameleon scout warriors that were shown in my research evidence which I used to experiment with hunches and anatomy of the species.

Also looking at War Hammer: Lizard Men helped me look at more ways to show difference between the two.

The difference between Primary and Secondary research;

- Primary

Primary research is doing something yourself; such as looking at flowers in the garden rather than pictures online. This can also be said to be direct influence from an event you attended, objects you studied, person you analysed.

- Secondary

Secondary Research Is looking at what and how other people have interpreted and have produced work off of their own research about their own topic.

Research examples

How my research influenced my work:

I researched different types of lizardmen, and was experimenting with different poses for the thinner species. And with research I finalised my concepts with a more straight back dinosaur rather than a more hunched over; which was more fitting for them for their weapons compared to a hunched dinosaur person with a bow which would be more humanoid and allow viewers to relate to the character more.

What Research we did and what was best:

Researching a lot of dinosaur related things was easy to complete but I struggled to apply what I learned to the art I wanted for the character. This is because of the matching the joints together to make it look as accurate as I can depict. Though I think what I did best was the pose of the dinosaur person despite those ankle joints.  

Conveying meaning:

I found this a bit hard to understand at first, but after researching a little on clothing such as looking at how clothing would be: However I think I could of done better with this to show their lives a bit more clearly, as this could show their environment a bit more to match with their lore. 

I tried to convey meaning through their weapon as well, such as using a bow as to compared to any other weapon; swords, axes, etc. As their species are more light-footed, and weaker than the larger species and it wouldnt make sense for a small and ‘lanky’ character to be wielding a large long sword, or large shield when theyre built to be fast and sneaky. 

Development Evaluation:

This research helped develop my ideas by showing my how different artists have viewed and researched the same topic and produced a variety of different pieces. This also helped me with trying to create something not directly inspired from others work so that I didn’t unintentionally copy another persons work despite how easily it is to be similar. However I think I could have done better with this by adding more emotive language in my concept art for this specific part of the species, as well as conducting more anatomy research on the thin species to fix the proportions. 

I could have done better with my concepts with creating more experimentations and creating other concepts to better develop my ideas and the character itself.

[saoty]

Script Writing 11/1/22

For today we looked at writing scripts for 2D animations that we would be working on further into the term. We look at shorts from War hammer, Darksiders, The Banner Saga, Lords of War and Afi & Galu Trailer.

Looking at these shorts / Gifs gave me quick inspiration for something magical and fantasy based and with the prompts provided I wrote a quick story from what I imagined with the prompt: “You can’t believe what you just read on a scroll, you have to tell someone!”

I like the story I came up with, but re-reading it now lets me realise it is a bit of a generic story in my opinion. There were definitely more ways to make this more unique, such as doing a different time line. Scrolls are very over-used in fantasy so doing another theme would of made it more unique rather than something over used.

Below is a link of my prompt Story.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/z5sy5biy8pr58iv/Rawr%20Story.docx?dl=0

This link is a copy of my Script.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/b38i5yzrc1kz2lh/scriptwriting_template.docx?dl=0

[saoty]

EA22A Homework

Audio clips I used / Edited to fit the game ^

The clips I used are very ‘retro’, and almost all usual arcade soundtracks with elements of real world in the mix; i.e. Drag gravel, Door opening. These are still similar sounds but are different enough to not be seen as “typical” soundtracks.

I found these tracks by search keywords on the website; Freesounds.org in the search bar. Key words or phrases were an effective and easy way to find these sounds rather that searching in sentences. The way I searched was “Thud”, “opening door”, “Running”. These provided a wide range of sounds to use and inspire myself with different sounds to use, some of which i put into ‘Audacity’ to edit the frequency, pitch and edit the reverb on a sound.

I think my end result is fairly accurate to what its original sounds could be in arcades or on old game-boy, or DS. However after reviewing other peoples work, I think I could of improved my work by adding NPC death sounds on top of the current sounds.

[saoty]

Reflective Journal - 9/12/21

For today we mostly focused on finalising concepts for our projects. I tried to get some more anatomically correct concepts done in the few hours we had. I also used the time to research some more things on my project topic; Dinosaur People. I used Lizardmen from Warhammer for some extra inspiration.

[saoty]

Reflective Journal — 3/11/21

During the first part of the day, we looked at keywords for research that would give the best results; “Tutorial” “How to” etc, to help us find what we need faster.

Moving from that we began to sculpt on Blender. Blender was a bit hard for me because of there being so many diff tabs and couldn’t get my adult how I wanted it, but I still enjoyed the process and beginning to learn with it. I was trying to create a face during this and need to research more on the program.

In the afternoon we looked at incomes for our future plans, ie Freelance, employee and contractor earn per year. I’m not yet quite sure which I want to do, but i’m between employee and freelance. I need to look into this more.

[saoty]

Reflective Journal 2/11/21 - Character Design

For my character design, I created a monster shifter that was caused from a magical book. This monster was a two legged-Goo slime monster that had acidic attacks with it saliva and had two tusks.

Though this went wrong when my idea of a character couldn’t match with my story very well… So had to go through 2-3 backstories.

However what went right was the character design overall, I liked the contrast the monster had to his human form. He was a man that liked martial arts, so he lost his ability to move freely which would create problems for him which was a good into for a tutorial.

I chose to work in this style because of the simplicity and easy lines that were best fitting for the style I wanted and the best towards the audience I wanted to reach: All ages.

Today I learned to remember to put everything into my presentation if I have one ready for the assignment.