Old Creative Stuff

Just a quick meeting this one, I presented the 'Demo Walk-through' for the demo level we will be creating. It was warmly received, and apparently made it all a lot clearer in peoples minds. It outlined the play mechanic, and general feeling of the game: Family Game Demo Level Walkthrough: Of our plan B, multi-faceted, single screen multiplayer racer / puzzler. Initially, you are faced with a faded distorted slowly panning splash screen of a crowning ceremony. This indicates the open visual style appropriate for all the family. Pressing start, large cartoon-like text will indicate the main options on the panning circuit / environment background; Single player, Multiplayer, High Scores, Help/Tutorial (or something similar). Selecting multiplayer will prompt the screen to fill with all manner of characters running on. Multicoloured pointers relating to which and how many players are connected. Are used to select their characters (we can limit the choice to 4 or 5 in the d...

The brief is to design a family game. Not an easy brief to stamp particular artistic creativity on as it must be accessible to all ages but we shall try. Last week, we met up twice to discuss the brief and come up with some design principles we wanted to stick by. What we needed to consider within the design, and what we didn't want to do / take from / end up with. We then set about throwing loads of ideas about, mixing in what would be possible for the whole family, but also be tactically difficult, with a secondary level of 'trickyness'. We have a rough idea now - we had a great meeting Monday where we went through loads of ideas. We have settled on a racer / puzzler. Super Mario Kart-esque where you race and collect boxes, but in ours the boxes have player-specific puzzles in them. The player determines what sort of puzzle is in their colour box; be it logic, quick reactions etc.. At then end of the racing stage, you complete the puzzles you collected to get jewels / ot...

Attempting some tilt-shift on the hotel I stayed in on holiday. ...and a bit closer enjoy

Playing with the toon function and motion blur in maya. Headphone design. The environment, train station, train and large glowing billboards. --- It features a CG character wearing headphones on a train. Music starts (we went with Vivaldi's summer), the CG world around her dissolves and she falls into this music transient state where she is a Plasticine stop-motion character. Running, action, and movement are timed with the crescendos as she struggles to outrun buildings closing in on her. They finally meet at the climax and drag her back to the pseudo-real CG world. The Video:

Concept: Music can transport you to a completely different place, and offer intense experiences. Our character moves from the grey mundane to the vibrancy of heightened emotion and back. In collaboration with Brendan (BHD). 3D modelling, animation, rendering. Stop motion plasticine animation. Location filming. Finally; editing, slicing, dicing and colour keying in After Effects. Limitations - quality of captured stop-mo stills, and learning the software. Overall debrief - interesting concept, difficulty implementing the vision with a wide range of techniques required. 

It's going to be an exciting week! Bruno and Ruth from Igloo are coming in to pass on their expertise through workshops / demos / critiques. Check out http://www.igloo.org.uk/ These 2 are the artists behind their some very interesting environments, treating the 3d space as a performance area and flipping the preconceptions of games on their head. Their most recent work; Swan Quake has elements of motion capture dance within its level. https://gibsonmartelli.com/portfolio/swanquake/ http://www.swanquake.com/interview.htm - gives a good indication of their intent. We get a chance to try out motion capture equipment and have a crash course in unreal modding. Should be very exciting!

Quick-ish sketch I did earlier this week: I definatly need to get back into traditional drawing of a more polished nature. My thought and idea development sketches are very quick and rough. I think i need to find a finer balance between a quick sketch to convey a point and a nicer looking drawing that shows some element of skill.

Desolate spaces... Interesting technique on black scratchboard:

Stop motion animations from Hereford Art College