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Wednesday, 30 March 2016

31/03/16 - New Storyboards

Uploading new storyboards here in case needed for reference~




















31/03/16 - Progress - 3D + Storyboards

I haven't had the time to update my blog over the past week due to personal reasons, but I have still been able to keep up with some work for the project.
I modelled the bookshelf and the sofa over the past week, trying to get in the details to make them look run down and give it a destructive feel.
I am planning to make a few small changes to these two things, such as a few more details to give them a bit more feeling.
I also redrew the storyboard panels over a couple of days when I had a bit of time, I didn't have that much time but I managed to get them finished. I sent them to Joseph so he can change the images in the animatic, but the timing needs to be corrected a bit because it's a bit uneven.


Friday, 25 March 2016

25/03/15 - Game blog- Banner Saga

Do the choices you make in the game contribute to the sense of meaningful interactive moments?

Banner Saga is a turn based strategy game which also incorporates text based storytelling through frequent narrative cut scenes. The game I feel is heavily sided with storytelling through these cut scenes which sometimes allows you to choose an answer from a small selection of choices. These choices don't seem to have a major effect on the story and the game play early within the game, as I didn't make it too far through the game. The story fragments are split up through game play scenes where the player is thrown into a strategic turn based battle against the enemy. Through these battles the player has to control his men, deciding where to move the characters and whether or not to attack the armour or health as it depends on who you're using and who you're facing.
The choices you make within the battle don't seem to have any affect on the actual story within the whole game, as you could let your characters be killed but it doesn't affect the outer story at all, the character will still be alive and the story will continue. As long as you can defeat the enemies, the story will continue. In regards to the dialogue in the cut scenes, the selection of choices given to the player seem very minor at the start of the game, they don't really affect the overall story that much. Later on further into the game this might have more of an effect, but I would have to play it through multiple sessions to find out.
The choices in this game also don't have any time limit, during the battle scenes the player has as much time as they want to make a decision to progress the battle, so the choices made aren't made out of reflex they are made out of thinking and strategy. This also applies to the dialogue cut scenes, the characters will wait for probably an infinite amount of time for the player to respond to the conversation.

An excerpt from Sebastian Domsch's reading Storyplaying also explores the concept of time during game play, and is further explained in the article.
'These are the games whose concept of time is at least partially turn-based, that is, the passing of event time is restricted to the making of a turn, which does not necessarily have an equivalent passing of play time.'

Sebastian Domsch -Storyplaying

Sunday, 20 March 2016

21/03/16 - Changes to story

There have been some slight changes in the story. It all started from Phoenix's idea to change the table to a vanity unit that the wife would sit at, because it would be more personal and reflect her as a person I guess. The man would treasure this vanity unit because she would sit in front of it to do her hair and make up and she would have a lot of stuff on it that is still hers.
The second change came from an idea Keat mentioned that instead of her sitting right in front of the vanity set across from him like she's just waiting for him, she could be sitting in a chair reading or something, like she's in this world in the mirror.
Phoenix and I came up with the idea from that to have her playing the piano in the world of the mirror, and when the husband comes home he sits down in front of her to chat and look at his mail or something. She would be playing the piano and occasionally turn her head towards him and smile as she has no dialogue, and when the earthquake happens she stops playing. I feel that this would give the scene a more dramatic effect too with the silence after the piano music.
We also thought that the furniture inside the mirror doesn't have to completely reflect the furniture in the real world, because things could have been moved and changed in her world as well as his.

Changing this means we have to redraw some storyboard panels to cater to this, so I will do some quick sketches tonight.
We also need to finalize the furniture in the scene ready to model this week so I think Phoenix will be doing that tonight.

Notes for furniture:

-World map on wall
-shredded couch with coffee table, sleeping bag on couch
-coffee table with missing leg, books stacked to support table
-book shelf, broken shelves and books scattered
-piano


Ideas for furniture:



Thursday, 17 March 2016

17/03/16 - Week 3 Gameplay Blog - Fahrenheit

Do the choices made in the game result in branching narrative paths? If so, how? If not, how are the choices meaningful?

I played through two sessions of the game Fahrenheit, both for at least 2 hours each on the same day. I only planned to play it once, but for some reason the file didn't save so I decided to play it again. On my second encounter with the game I realized the my choices made in the game affected the game's story. In the first play through I was more cautious, trying to get used to the controls and learning what the game is like. When the police officer came towards the bathroom after my player had killed the other guy, I started panicking, not knowing what to do and realizing that this police officer was going to figure it out. I made the choice, unaware of it, to run straight out of the restaurant without paying my bill and the police man was chasing me. All of these choices I made, I had done differently in my second play through and I noticed the differences in the character interactions and the way the story was told. The story didn't change completely, the two police investigators still came to the crime scene and every main story path was still pretty much the same, but my minor choices in the game can affect the minor story nodes the and game play experience. I felt that this made a big impact on the game play experience in Fahrenheit because the freedom to act upon the situations given to the character within the game really immerses the player in the world of the game and it makes you feel like you are a part of the story being told.


18/03/16 - Quick Digital Concept for woman

Yesterday I quickly did up a digital concept for the woman in the mirror to kind of get a feeling for how she would look when drawn digitally and 2D animated.
I drew her in black in Photoshop, put a newspaper overlay over the top with decreased opacity to show her link to the newspaper articles on the desk and her death.
I also added a Gaussian blur overlay to make her a little bit blurry to also show that she isn't quite alive.


Wednesday, 16 March 2016

17/03/16 - Concepts and Final Design

I had been working on the concepts of the wife from the photos of Holly, our model to base the character from and was working towards creating a more stylized look for her to make it easier for animation.

The first two sketches are just based off pictures of the model, the second image has more sketches of a stylized look I was trying to achieve.

I had written some notes to keep in mind while stylizing the character to make sure it still shows some resemblance to the model. The notes didn't show up in the scan so I will retype them here for later reference.
Distinct features:
-big/wide exposed forehead
-big round cheeks
-round, medium sized nose
-eyelash flicks at end of eyes
-round chin
-curly hair
-eyebrows point up towards ends
-round face
Points to consider for design
-sh
ow tiredness/fatigue
-simplify hair
-make less complex for animation
-still recognisable




The third sketch is the final concept sketch I drew to give to Phoenix, Raven and Gabby so they could do some work on the turn arounds, expression sheet and the clay modelling.

I will be doing some digital concepts to test out the digital style for her today and tomorrow once I can get my tablet working.

Thursday, 10 March 2016

Week 2 Game play blog - Never Alone

Did linear storytelling your chosen game engage and excite you as a player? Why/why not?

Never Alone is a unique side scroller platform game that involves a lot of storytelling through narration and videos embedded into an accessible library. These videos are unlocked as the player progresses through the levels and would like to learn new things about the game and it's relation to the real world it's based off. I found this new way of telling a story through game play quite interesting, as it clearly shows you it's relation to a real world culture and landscape and they effectively built the game to make you feel immersed in this realistic environment. The only thing I didn't find as engaging was interrupting the game play to watch the videos that taught the player about various aspects of the culture/environment and the animals. I felt that it dragged me away from the immersion everything I came back I was slightly disorientated.

Do the story nodes in your chosen games work well to support game play and game play objectives? Why/why not?

I think that in a way, the story nodes really compliment the game play because it gives you a lot more information about different aspects of the game. For example when you receive the bolas a video is unlocked telling you the history of the bolas and how they were used in their culture. This extra information about things you are using in game gives you more knowledge that I don't think could have been explained that in depth if not for the educational videos. I think that this extra knowledge that the videos give you make you feel more immersed because you have a better understanding of the world inside the game and I think that it definitely supports this game and it's style.

11/03/16 - Group progress and team meeting.

Today we had a team meeting with the tutors, we discussed our individual progress so far.
Keat gave us some good advice for drawing the woman, to look up tutorials on creating caricatures and pointing out the distinct features which makes the drawing recognisable to the person. Also notes on simplifying the character for animation, such as the curly hair.
I will be doing a lot more sketches for concepts on how to draw the woman that will be recognizable to the photo of her but also simple enough to animate.

Monday, 7 March 2016

08/03/16 - Mood/Style Board

I have been looking for an overall mood/style for what to go for our groups animation. I made a mood/style board which is the second image on this blog.
The first two artworks in the mood/style board are some works I found that could be some possible reference for the colour and visual art style for the woman in the mirror. As a group we had already discussed that we think she shouldn't be in colour, she should be black and white/greyscale A, because she's dead, and B because it could link to the newspaper on the desk. She could look like a newspaper photo, with small dots as shading and out of focus?
Another idea mentioned was to have a faint otherworldly glow around her, showing that she is clearly a ghost.
I think that a mixture of the two styles I have suggested below, the shading of the one on the right, but the faintness of the one of the left with a slight glow around her could be a good way to go.
For the glow we could do a Gaussian blur overlay in post production. I found a few images as an example:



For the background I was thinking maybe a grungy style to reflect the disaster of the state of the house. Also the lighting for the background should centralize on the focus of the scene. So when the man is sitting at the table I found the bottom right example below to be very fitting, a warm but not too saturated light at the table that fades out into darkness.. it gives the room an eerie feel. Combine that with a grungy overlay and maybe that could work with what we are going with.


Sunday, 6 March 2016

06/03/16 - Writing the script

On Thursday and Friday last week Phoenix and I sat down and started to rewrite the script after we got some good feedback from the tutors. After we got back to the classroom our team got together and started bouncing more ideas off those ones to get a clearer sense of what we want out of our story. From that Phoenix and I worked through our notes and ideas, thinking about the camera angles, the dialogue of what the man would say, and the actions that would take place in the sequence of our animation.
We needed the story to make sense, we don't want the viewers to think, "but why did that happen?". Hopefully our script makes sense and the viewers will have no problems understanding the story and the emotion that we will hopefully portray.
We thought of  a couple of different ideas for the ending but didn't get to finish it Friday afternoon, so Phoenix finished it over the weekend.
We will be doing more 3D now since our backgrounds/environment will now be 3D, and Phoenix will be helping out Patrick with that. Our female character is also now 2D, possibly rotoscoped, we will see after we come up with our concept works for how we want the animation to look.
We will need to come up with a visual style, it can't look all over the place. I would like it to look aesthetically pleasing. :) That should be coming over the next week as we start designing concepts.

06/03/16 - Final Script - Team Spinach

INT: DARK APARTMENT, ROOM IS MESSY, RUN DOWN (PAST EARTHQUAKE - CRACKS IN THE WALLS, SLANTED WALL SHELVES, SLANTED PHOTOS AND PAINTINGS ON WALL, CEILING LIGHT HANGING LOW WITH VISIBLE WIRES, MAYBE BROKEN APPLIANCES, WATERMARKS ON CEILING AND WALL ETC).

LONG SHOT: FOCUSED ON DOOR AS MAN RUSHES INTO ROOM, QUICKLY TAKES OFF JACKET OR IS ALREADY HOLDING JACKET, COULD BE HOLDING BRIEFCASE, AND IS HOLDING TAKE AWAY FOOD.

MID SHOT: FOCUSED ON A DINING TABLE WITH A MIRROR ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE. LIGHT FLICKS ON AND IN THE MIRROR'S REFLECTION THE LIGHT ALSO TURNS ON BUT A DIFFERENT LOOKING APARTMENT IS SHOWN (THE CURRENT APARTMENT BUT FROM THE PAST, BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE AND IS CLEAN), MAN IS TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND.

MAN: *Sighs* what a day. Work was so busy today I'm exhausted.

MAN ENTERS THE SHOT AND UNPACKS THE TAKE AWAY FOOD, PUTS IT ON THE TABLE, PLACES FOOD IN FRONT OF HIMSELF AND ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF TABLE WHERE THERE IS A MIRROR.

MID OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT, ANGLED BEHIND MAN FOCUSING MORE ON MIRROR:

MAN: Oh I'm starving, didn't get to have lunch today. Had to fill in for George, you know how he is..."

MAN AND WOMAN ARE EATING WHILE HE IS TALKING. WOMAN IS EATING FOOD IN THE REFLECTION, BUT ACTUAL FOOD IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR ISN'T TOUCHED.
WOMAN IN MIRROR GIGGLES SILENTLY.

CLOSE UP OF TABLE, FOCUSING ON NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT EARTHQUAKE. SHOT IS STILL ON NEWSPAPER AS THE MAN TALKS.

MAN: I miss you.... It's my fault you're gone.... I could have saved you...

MID SHOT IN FRONT OF MAN:
MAN PUTS DOWN FORK AND CLENCHES HIS FIST. HE HAS A GRIM EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE AND LOOKS REGRETFUL.

MID OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT FOCUSING ON MIRROR:

HE LOWERS HIS HEAD AND THE WOMAN LOOKS SAD AND APOLOGETIC. THE HOUSE INSIDE THE MIRROR STARTS SHAKING AND HE LOOKS UP. SHE LOOKS SLIGHTLY SURPRISED

MAN: No.... not again!!!

MAN SITS UP AND GRIPS THE TABLE. WOMAN CALMS DOWN AND SMILES AT HIM SHE HOLDS UP HER HANDS TO GESTURE TO HIM THAT SHE IS OK.
MAN RELAXES SEEING HER EXPRESSION AND ACTIONS.

CLOSE UP OF MIRROR:
WOMAN SMILES EARNESTLY, PUTS A HAND ON HER HEART AND ONE ON THE GLASS OF THE MIRROR AS HER HOUSE FALLS APART. SHE STARTS TO FADE AWAY AND THE PERFECT HOUSE STARTS TO REFLECT THE ACTUAL APARTMENT IN THE REFLECTION. WE ARE LEFT WITH HIS REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR. THE MAN SLOWLY LOOKS DOWN AND FURROWS HIS BROWS AT SOMETHING.
CLOSE UP OF HAND AND NEWSPAPER:MAN GRABS THE CORNER OF A PHOTO WHICH IS STICKING OUT FROM UNDERNEATH THE NEWSPAPER. THE HAND BRINGS THE PHOTO UP TO THE CAMERA (POV?) THE PHOTO SHOWS THE HAPPY COUPLE TOGETHER.

MID SHOT OF MAN:

MAN SMILES GENTLY AND FINDS COMFORT IN THE PHOTO FROM THE HAPPY MEMORIES.

Thursday, 3 March 2016

03,04/03/16 - Rewriting the script + notes, in progressssssss

INT: DARK APARTMENT, ROOM IS MESSY, RUN DOWN (PAST EARTHQUAKE(CRACKS IN THE WALLS, SLANTED WALL SHELVES, SLANTED PHOTOS AND PAINTINGS ON WALL, CEILING LIGHT HANGING LOW WITH VISIBLE WIRES, MAYBE BROKEN APPLIANCES, WATERMARKS ON CEILING AND WALL ETC))

LONG SHOT: FOCUSED ON DOOR AS MAN RUSHES INTO ROOM, QUICKLY TAKES OFF JACKET OR IS ALREADY HOLDING JACKET, COULD BE HOLDING BRIEFCASE, AND IS HOLDING TAKE AWAY FOOD.

MID SHOT: FOCUSED ON A DINING TABLE WITH A MIRROR ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE. LIGHT FLICKS ON AND IN THE MIRROR'S REFLECTION THE LIGHT ALSO TURNS ON BUT A DIFFERENT LOOKING APARTMENT IS SHOWN (THE CURRENT APARTMENT BUT FROM THE PAST, BEFORE THE EARTHQUAKE), MAN IS TALKING IN THE BACKGROUND.

MAN: *Sighs* what a day. Work was so busy today I'm exhausted.

MAN ENTERS THE SHOT AND UNPACKS THE TAKE AWAY FOOD, PUTS ON THE TABLE, PLACES FOOD IN FRONT OF HIMSELF AND ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF TABLE WHERE THERE IS A MIRROR.

MID OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT, ANGLED BEHIND MAN FOCUSING MORE ON MIRROR:

MAN: Oh I'm starving, didn't get to have lunch today. Had to fill in for George, you know how he is..."

MAN AND WOMAN ARE EATING WHILE HE IS TALKING. WOMAN IS EATING FOOD IN THE REFLECTION, BUT ACTUAL FOOD IN FRONT OF THE MIRROR ISN'T TOUCHED.
WOMAN IN MIRROR GIGGLES SILENTLY.
MAN IS STILL TALKING.

CLOSE UP OF TABLE, FOCUSING ON NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ABOUT EARTHQUAKE.

MAN: I miss you.... It's my fault you're gone.... I could have saved you...

MID SHOT IN FRONT OF MAN:
MAN PUTS DOWN FORK AND CLENCHES HIS FIST. HE HAS A GRIM EXPRESSION ON HIS FACE AND LOOKS REGRETFUL.

MID OVER THE SHOULDER SHOT FOCUSING ON MIRROR:

HE LOWERS HIS HEAD AND THE WOMAN LOOKS SAD AND APOLOGETIC. THE HOUSE INSIDE THE MIRROR STARTS SHAKING AND HE LOOKS UP. SHE LOOKS SLIGHTLY SURPRISED

MAN: No.... not again!!!

MAN SITS UP AND GRIPS THE TABLE. WOMAN CALMS DOWN AND SMILES AT HIM, AND HOLDS UP HER HANDS TO GESTURE TO HIM THAT SHE IS OK.
MAN RELAXES SEEING HER EXPRESSION.

CLOSE UP OF MIRROR:
WOMAN SMILES EARNESTLY, PUTS A HAND ON HER HEART AND ONE ON THE GLASS OF THE MIRROR AS HER HOUSE FALLS APART. SHE STARTS TO FADE AWAY AND THE PERFECT HOUSE HOUSE STARTS TO REFLECT THE ACTUAL APARTMENT IN THE REFLECTION. WE ARE LEFT WITH HIS REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR.

Notes:
As she's fading away camera changes back to over the shoulder shot, the mirror changes back to his reflection. he looks down, sad. Camera changes to a close up of his hand as he picks up a photo that was in between the newspaper which shows the couple when they were happy. Shot of him smiling gently as he finds comfort from it and the events from today.




Wednesday, 2 March 2016

03/03/16 - Group Progress + Notes

Today some good progress was made in terms of the story for our group, we got some really good ideas from the tutors and we were able to bounce off a lot new ideas and ways to make the story better from that. We decided to stylize the animation more, making the background 3D or possible painted, and the woman can also possibly be 2D instead. We also talked over our schedule and worked out our plan for the semester, which is now ready for the tutors to look over tomorrow.

Notes from today:
Earthquake - Woman in mirror died from earthquake (?) years ago,
Mirror - House/reflection in mirror is unaffected by earthquake of the past, a sort of dreamy/perfect/idealized image of the house.
Woman - A ghostly/otherworldly image in the mirror, every time she moves there's a trail, an after image.
Newspaper on table - Article on front page about the earthquake (?) years ago.
Animation - Woman can possibly be rotoscoped, or just 2D. We will do up some concepts and go from there.
*Environment can be either hand drawn/painted or built in 3D.
*Reflection in mirror (woman and the dream world) start shaking, reliving the earthquake from the past, the woman shows the man by smiling at him (or something else) that she is at peace and that she is ok. The man was traumatized by her death, but is able to move on after he sees she is at peace.

Tuesday, 1 March 2016

02/03//16 - Week 1 Gameplay Blog

This is my first blog post for our weekly game play questions.
Today I decided to have play the game Facade. Facade is a game about a married couple, Grace and Trip and they invite you, the player to their apartment one night. It becomes apparent in the game play that this couple is having problems and you can choose what to say by typing on the keyboard how to reply to these characters. What you say changes the narrative of the current game play session, and each time you play you can affect how to two characters talk to you, and what parts of their story get uncovered.
In my first play through I discovered a lot about Grace, but the other character Trip started to think I was taking sides, but that's because I was only listening to what she had to say. She had been very unhappy with Trip and at the end of that session she ended up leaving. The second time I played the characters stopped responding, I think I broke the game. The third time I played I discovered that Trip had cheated on Grace, and that resulted in him leaving because he said that their marriage is over. Fourth play through I uncovered their insecurities, but I did not say anything and they made me leave.
Depending on what you say you can change what happens in the story, uncover information in the hope that maybe you can repair their marriage the next time you play.