Game making begins

I've just been gifted a copy of RPGmaker VX Ace through steam for christmas!

Might try to make a basic RPG over christmas. I'll try to post some progress here.

Assignment 6: Heroes and Villains

Just before Christmas  good and evil battle again! In class we were told about how heroes often use less sharp edges, colours like blue and white and will not look aggressive. Villains are shown in darker colours such as red or black and tend to look very aggressive and dangerous to all who encounter them.

We were also shown that the definite difference between good and evil does not exist and you could have a bad protagonist or even an antagonist with good intentions but going about them the wrong way.
That is where Nefarious and Winston Kingston IV come in. Nefarious doesn't sound like a very friendly or heroic name but it was the name of the scientific project that created him. Winston Kingston IV is just a businessman who found a way to make a lot of money, he is doing what he believes is best and wants to help humans who can not grow fur n cold winters like this.

Here are their character profiles:

Assignment 4: Shape and Silhouette

Ever noticed how the shape of a character will tell you everything you need to know before you learn anything about them?
Using shape and silhouette can help define a character before it is even designed!
There are 3 main shapes that characters fall under. Circles, squares and triangles. Circles are more friendly, squares are shown to have more authority and protect others while triangles are known to be more aggressive.
Silhouettes are used to design a character without having a definite idea. You just erase parts of the silhouette and add detail.
For my art I drew an ape based on a circle and someone insane based on a square.
I tried to break the mold by having the shapes mean different to as expected as the ape is in a threatening pose, as if chasing the audience. The insane man also is lacks authority but is based a square. Both of these characters could actually have backstories which fits the shape they are.
Is the ape usually calm and friendly and was just pushed over the edge? Was the insane man once a member of the police force? It's good to look into character backstories for this reason, it makes the character itself much more interesting.

Here are the images:

Assignment 3: Colour and Light

The main aim of this assignment was to discover how to accurately colour an object with shading from lighting.
I mentioned earlier that I drew a man with pale hair and what looks like a Sainsburys uniform. I made it look like this as before we drew our own we were recommended to practice colour and shading on a ready drawn image. The bright orange tie contrasted a lot and stood out in that piece and also did in this image where most other colours were washed out.
The shading is a little too sharp. I tried to get a smoother transition by using more shades between light and dark but I notice I'd need even more in future.

Assignment 2: Photoshop

This assignment was used to help the class get used to using Photoshop and a tablet. I don't really like this picture but I'm going to keep it here to document how much I may improve over my time in the creative thinking class. I might just redo this piece, the left arm is out of place and the background isn't needed. I did like the 3/4 view of the character though, really the left arm lets the image down. Really it shouldn't be clearly visible. I might just modify the arm and put stronger lines on the feet to make them morte viisable in photoshop.

Assignment 1: Myself as a character

As mentioned, for this task the class had to produce a drawn image ofourselves as a character from a video game series of our choice.
The game series I chose was Sonic the Hedgehog by Sega. The reason for this is that I'm a big fan of that series.

Before picking Sonic I thought of a few other series. One was Grand Theft Auto by Rockstar games. I soon realised that drawing myself as a character from Grand Theft Auto would not be very different from a normal drawing of me as the series imitates and satires real life.
Another series was Pokemon, made by Game Freak. I didn't choose this series as I felt that to make it look like pokemon, an actual pokemon would have to be drawn. I didn't think I could draw a pokemon that well being so early in the course.

For the image I drew myself as an employee to Dr Eggman, the main villain to the Sonic series. I couldn't draw myself as good as all of the good characters are usually animals. I had a lab coat, a spanner to mend robots and a shirt that says "Eggman Land" on it.
There are two versions of the image, one draen on paper, one drawn in photoshop. The one drawn in photoshop is cleaner but the one on paper has more details linked to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

Here Is the new image. The main difference being that the second one iscleaner as it was done on photoshop. I'll upload the older image later when it's available for comparison.

 

Creative thinking overview

It's time to talk about my portfolio. I'm typing this on a phone so I don't have the pictures available at the moment.

I'll go through the assignments in order with a brief description of each. There will be a blog post for each later with the images included.

Assignment 1: Myself as a character - For this assignment it was asked that I drew an image of myself as part of a video game series. It was to test my ability to draw humans in proportion.

Assignment 2: Photoshop Test - As few people in the class had used photoshop or a tablet before, this was used as a practice of proportion (like assignment 1) in photoshop.

Assignment 3: Colour and Light - This was where we learned about colour and shading, depending on the location of the light source. I drew the head and sholders of a man. He had grey hair and a white shirt with an orange tie. I'll go into more detail in that blog post.

Assignment 4: Shape and Silhouette - Here we learned that the overall shape of a character can determine their character. We also added the idea that you could create a character easily from a silhouette by erasing away the detail.

Assignment 5: Working in 3D - Up to this point we had only worked on photoshop so had not really considered different angles and such when designing our work. So, we were tasked with creating a model using fimo clay, wire and tinfoil.

Assignment 6: Heroes and Villains - I've already posted the partially complete villain but part of the assignment was to also create a hero and a backstory for both.

This Cat is Evil

Here is the villainous Cat For the Heroes and Villains assignment, found out that only one of the characters had to be coloured, but here is a concept of the main villain who has yet to receive a name. He also has no legs. I'll post a little more information on him when I post the hero, Mr Nefarious.

Not a lot going on here

I haven't written much on this section of the blog. I will post art when I have a starter portfolio prepared, which should be next week.
This year, there will be work to display based on myself as a game character (anatomy), using photoshop, colour and light, silouettes, sculpting and heroes and villains.
There should be posts of the work by next friday.

3DS Max First Assignment

Here are the texture and model I've been working on as my first assignment in 3DS Max. Texturing was the most difficult and time consuming part. Here is a link to the images, models and textures: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2gnkr4gh3idxcmb/N7hYZA9wxp

Historical Design Essay Skeleton Draft

Futurism: The Art Movement that Looked to the future and Never Looked Back

Here are the main points my essay will take:

References will be put at the end of the essay in the actual thing. The references for people are wikipedia for now, but will be changed to appropriate websites when I research more into the people behind Futurism.

- The origins of the movement:

+Italy 1909, The main creator was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.
(http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/365371/Filippo-Tommaso-Marinetti)

+ Marinetti said the phrase came from his emphasis on discarding what he conceived to be the static and irrelevant art of the past and celebrating change, originality, and innovation in culture and society. (http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/futurism/)

+ He wrote the Futurist Manifesto (http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html) which notes down the aspects of the movement.

+ The manifesto was first published on 5th February 1909.

+ Artists Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Giacomo Balla, Gino Severini and the composer Luigi Russolo. Joined Martinetti soon after the manifesto was p[ublished a second time on the 20th February 1909.

- What the movement meant:

+ Marinetti hated things which were old and admired new technologies such as cars planes, trains and machinery in general. This was the main influence of futurism.

- Futurist Architechture:

+ Antonio Sant'Elia  was the most famous futurist architect -

Perspective drawing from La Città Nuova, 1914.

+ Futurist Architecture has extra features which seem useless but add to the aesthetic appeal of the building.

- Art movements influenced by Futurism:

+ Art Deco: Futurism forms derived chiefly from Cubism were used to represent rapid movements and dynamic motion; showing hostility to traditional forms of expression (http://www.richeast.org/htwm/artists/AC/artdeco.html)

+ Constructivism: This movement came around the Russian Communist revolution, where radical change was seen as necessary and so, constructivism took some inspiration from futurism to highlight modern life at the time.

+ Surrealism & Dada: Both of these movements came about and were popular at arround the same time as futurism. As these movements had influence over a lot of Europe, it was obvious that these movements would meet and take inspiration from one another. These movements where French, whereas Futurism was Italian, being so close together meant that influence between them must have happened.

- Futurism and controversy:

+ Futurism has had links to fascism.

+ Futurists liked change even if it is violent, such as both world wars which were welcomed by them.

- Modern futurism:

+This is futurism after world war 2.

+ Modern futurism is more of a philosophy than an art movement, suggesting where society should go and how it should evolve. Through violence.

+ An art Exhibit called Futurism 2.0 is based on modern futurism.

Historical Design Essay Plan

Futurism: The Art Movement that Looked to the future and Never Looked Back

Both of the other two art movements I looked at briefly on my blog are directly related to games. As this essay can not be related to games, the only option is the early 1900's futurist movement.

As stated on my blog, I like futurism because of the fact that I like industry. I used to sit in history and think about how boring it was and how it would be more interesting to learn about the future (if that was possible). The way in which futurism disregards most of the past and tries to look towards the future is a good way to live. The only problem is that sometimes you may need to look to the past for the best inspiration. Even researching futurism is looking into the past.

Futurist architecture is great as it throws out all of the old rules of design and decides on what is new and different. The look of the building is a key part of futurist architecture, they look aesthetically pleasing and offer a feeling of industry and effort.

I guess you could say that I like futurism as I share the same admirations it possesses. They are technology such as cars, aeroplanes and other machinery which came around in the early 20^th century. It was a good time to be alive in terms of progress, as many things changed in the world in the first half of the century, some for the better, some for the worse.

Futurism is also interesting as it has so much to talk about. For example, according to www.futurism.org/ , futurism is a religion in which scientific endeavours and new technology research are western cultures biggest goals/priorities. Futurism also had links to fascism before world war 2 as it shared some of the same ideals.

Futurism avoided being influenced by the past, and managed to influence other great art movements of the future. These are: Art Deco, Constructivism, Surrealism, Dada, Precisionism, Rayonism and Vorticism.

Key Research areas:

The futurists manifesto – this shows what the first people within the movement thought of it and where the movement started from inside them. What inspired them. From the words of F. T. Marinetti , one of the founders of futurism.

http://masi.cscs.lsa.umich.edu/~crshalizi/T4PM/futurist-manifesto.html

Wikipedia for bare bones information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

Information about the religion based on futurism: www.futurism.org/

Futurism 2.0 - A modern look at Futurism: http://www.futurism2-0.com/

Wikipedia page on futurist architecture, my favourite aspect of Futurism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurist_architecture

Board Game Assignment Play Testing Notes

This game is a game similar in style to the risk games, but is played on a grid based map. I will upload the design document later when it is to a more complete standard. Basically, the players would move around the map, create settlements on grid spaces, collect money and troops from settlements to be able to built up an army or use money to build up more settlements, to produce more money and troops.

Play testing indicated that this would work better as a video game. The reason being that it requires a lot of calculations to calculate the strength of the player armies. Admittedly  the rule of training a squadron (a player chosen number of troops) multiplies it's attack by 1.9 is difficult to calculate without a calculator. The problem worsens when the player has multiple squadrons of different sizes, and even if they squadrons are joined to form a whole army.

Players also commenting on the fact that being able to move a maximum of 6 grid squares per turn is too slow. In future  increasing it to say, using 2 dice for a maximum number of grid squares that can be traveled to 12, doubling game play speed.

It was also questioned why the number of troops in a battle determined the outcome of the battle. It also meant that the player with more troops would will the battle every time. I thought the loosing player would retreat to safety and build up a larger army, but evidence seemed to show that the weaker players seem to lunge themselves at the player. It could be possible to use the dice as a multiplier which determines the attacks strength of both sides in a battle (one roll for each player) which could increase the player with fewer troops a chance to win. For example, player 1 has 300 attack whereas player 2 has 240. If player 1 rolls a 1, they get a bonus of 1.1 to make attack of 330. Player 2 could roll at least a 4 to beat player 1. This shows player 2 beating the odds and winning in battle, even with fewer troops.

Puzzle Play testing Notes 2: Headlines Puzzle

For this task, we were told to create a puzzle based on the subject matter we chose based on a newspaper headline. The headline my group chose was one about monster energy drink causing the deaths of 5 people. Without reading the actual story (the puzzle is based of the headline alone, not the context of the story), we based the puzzle on a detailed drawn image of the monster energy drink factory, with hidden dangers the player must find within two minutes  This is because the player takes the role of a safety inspector who must find health risks to close the factory down. The safety inspector must not be there for over two minutes as after that he will be found and thrown off the premises.

Lack of detail in the image was the problem with the puzzle. Mainly due to the fact that not much time was given to create a highly detailed image meant that dangers were easy to spot. Possibly if the image ha been designed on Photoshop (with multiple layers) it would have been mush easier to hide the dangers, for example, adding a barrel to cover most of one of the dangers, as currently, most dangers were out in the open. The reason for this was that we drew the dangers in first then found out that we didn't have enough time to go over with detail to hide a lot of the dangers.

The player would take about 30 seconds to find all of the dangers. This was due to lack of detail, but other than that all of the dangers were recognizable as dangers, so there is a success in that respect.

Puzzle Play testing Notes 1: Hostages Puzzle

The theme was hostages for this task to create a puzzle. The chosen puzzle type was a simple hangman style puzzle. The player(s) needed to guess the names of the hostages so that they would be freed. If they fail to name a hostage, they would be killed. The players had 10 maximum tries per name (all of the names were above 10 letters). The overall task was to try and successfully guess the names of 5 or more hostages out of a possible 10.

Here is an example of what the game looked like:

The player(s) would have to choose letters from the alphabet. Then my co-developer or I would check against the corresponding name to see if they has guessed a correct letter. If they did, the letter would be filled in  on the bottom row of lines in the correct place of the name. If not, the letter would be put in one of the top ten boxes, meaning they would have one less try at guessing new letters. The names were written down in two lists which corresponded exactly with a list of grids to use (like the one shown above) for each name. So for example, if the player(s) wanted to try

What the player(s) seemed to enjoy about the game was that the names were all recognizable. Some were of celebrities, others where of people in the same class that they knew one was even the lecturer Stephen. This meant that the player(s) would feel a sense of accomplishment if they feel like they had saved someone they know (even in a made up situation). A slight problem the player(s) had was that seeing 10 full names (forename and surname) that needed to be guessed being too difficult. However, this problem faded as the names were largely recognizable by the player(s). This was show by the fact that the majority of the names were guesses correctly.







Note: Player(s) is used as both only one player or multiple players could try the puzzle.

Computer Art Mood board

Here is a mood board based on computer art. Look at the blog post on computer srt for more information.

References:
http://mysite.pratt.edu/~llaurola/cg550/oscillations.jpg
http://www.citi.columbia.edu/amnoll/CompArtExamples_files/image006.jpg
http://media.vam.ac.uk/vamembed/media/versions/uploads/rx_images/image/58001-59000/58360-large_custom_290x224_05600433.jpg
http://static.artfagcity.com/wordpress_core/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/computer-art.jpg
http://pluginin.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/computer-art-katyzzz61.gif?w=640
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/e/e7/Wiki.Picture_by_Drawing_Machine_2.jpg/220px-Wiki.Picture_by_Drawing_Machine_2.jpg
http://lh5.ggpht.com/-2IhbjIVcZPA/UH3epSMacqI/AAAAAAAAasM/Kq3qh8aqe4Q/CGArt116.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSR4wvTIUhcnm56vsIQYComPwgYkv1gZwKqTV_F3NuHMSuVkIMs0fGwSRpfLIp5yi1cYsIGwkK36CFwrfy9Znlqh2y9eJQ7SdJEXJiv3EA8XfALuUyV9YmmWCQddmwdNIyXR0N4Ha_Yho/s400/computer_art-0001.jpg

Pixel Art Mood Board

Here is a pixel art mood board. Being someone who wants to learn how to draw pixel art, I feel that pixel art was an easy choice for one of the mood boards based on art movements.

You may notice physical pieces of art and 3D art here too. These may not be pixel art, but do follow the principles and look very similar to pixel art. They all are made up of "pixels" even in 3D or if made out of what seems to be sticky notes for the Sonic image in the top-left corner.


References
http://www.gameanim.com/images/posts/SonicPixelArt.jpg

http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs40/i/2009/007/e/0/Link__Minish_Cap__pixel_art_by_jaruworks.png

http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/3d-pixel-art-voxels_mario-graphic-art-minimalistic-grafische-kunst-450x450.jpg

http://www.deviantart.com/download/143360107/Butron_casttle_pixel_art_by_Chocolerian.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_7krMABGw_9AK9vJ-kRZmyW4pwJp6smtRxgzSevS6Y-uWm0zspjFvE07Dw1eLRt0VBel61uWH269ERnFUSPh9Js34J6HlgKxUK8QFU7jeEiidfLchn6Wi74MsJkdVA5Duwcs26z3cN8E/s1600/top5_toejam-and-earl.jpg

http://www.deviantart.com/download/211549283/nyan_cat___minecraft_pixel_art_by_soulsylver-d3hy8gz.png

http://blog.karachicorner.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/27pixel-art.jpg

http://minecraft-guides.net/images/guide/pixelart3.jpeg

http://wallpaperstock.net/pixel-art_wallpapers_25442_1280x1024.jpg

A Third Art Movement to Note

Computer Art

This is an art movement which puts concentration on art which can be displayed or in someway be developed by a computer. Pixel art really falls into this art movement as all pixel art is done on computers. Computer art can be any of the formats a computer can output, such as CDs, Printed pictures, on screen display, videogames, websites etc. There is a lot of potential art to be made with so many formats to make.

At first (1960's), only engineers and scientists could create computer art as the technology was still heavily under development and was not yet widespread.. These people wanted to create creative looking pieces of art, so would mix and match different machines and software to try and create some interesting art.

Here is art from the 60's, created by Desmond Paul Henry, using "Drawing Machine 1".

Computer art became more accessible in the 70's Xerox developed the worlds first GUI (Graphical User Interface). When Apple Macintosh was released in 1984, with a GUI which allowed creative design allowed many designers to create art on their computer, increasing the popularity of the usage of computer art.

Obviously, I like this art movement as one of the potential output of this movement is video games design, which is the reason I am here writing this blog, studying at university for a games design degree.


references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Art
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Wiki.picture_by_drawing_machine_1.jpg/220px-Wiki.picture_by_drawing_machine_1.jpg (Drawing Machine 1 Image)

Another Art Movement to Note

The limitations of the Sega Megadrive meant that all artwork had to be pixel art.

Pixel Art Movement
Being a fan of older games like Sonic the Hedgehog, Toe jam & Earl and Streets of Rage, I have always had an interest in pixel art.

I have always liked the precision of pixel art and that it is an art movement inspired by limitations.
I would like to be able create pixel art which I could use in a game, but doing so is a lot harder than I first thought. Getting exact curves and shapes by using pixels and getting the perfect looking piece of the art (even just a flower in a large picture of a meadow) is very time consuming, editing individual pixels to get it just right.

The phrase "pixel art" was first used by two members of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982. However, it was first referenced in 1972, ten years earlier that the phrase came about.

To create pixel art, you must use raster graphics software, which creates a grid (also known as a matrix) and allows you to clearly see the different pixels you can edit.

Older forms of art, such as classic cross stitching is similar to pixel art, but is physical, not on a computer screen.

This cross-stitch Cartman from South Park looks a lot like some pixel art.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raster_graphics

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/2986/291535-scrap_brain_zone_large.png (Sonic the Hedgehog image)

http://www.deviantart.com/download/113587617/Carman_cross_stitch_by_drsparc.jpg (Cartman image)

Art Movements to Note

 Futurism

This was an art movement from the early 20th century which came from Italy. There where English and Russian movements similar to this but here I'll concentrate on this one as it was where the movement was largest and had most influence.

The main aspect of futurist design is that futuristic designs and artwork are good when they show aspects of modern technology, such as cars, planes and industrial areas. This movement liked to move away from past uniform structures, such as standard art (like a portrait or a sculpture of a person) and move towards bizarre looking structures which are completely different to what you might expect. Being associated with change, futurists liked the fact that the first World War happened, to incite change over the world. Members of the movement also showed interest in fascism (mainly due to fascist influence in Italy around the time of World War II) but this is no reason to degrade the quality of the art and design of the futurist movement.

Giacomo Balla, Abstract Speed + Sound, 1913–1914

This is a piece of artwork from Giacomo Balla who was a key person in the futurist movement. Their art here shows futurist design to its fullest. There are odd, seemingly random shapes all made up of either straight lines or lines with one single curve to create arcing lines. Colours are quite vibrant and when applied to architecture gets some interesting results.

That is why I like futurist architecture. An example of local futurist architecture is the Manchester Civil Justice Centre. It is nearby the Futureworks New Bailey Campus.

The Manchester Civil Justice Centre

As you can see, the structure of the building is primarily made of straight lines or curves. It also contains elements of new and bizarre as some floors of the building pop-out like a bookcase.

Choosing what games to explore the mechanics of

While sat at home sick I've been thinking about what games to analyse for the first assignment. I'm thinking of the old sonic games (Sonic 1 to 3) as they are my favourate games and possibly minecraft as I've been watching a lot of the Yogscast videos and seeing what can be created in that game makes me think that exploring it's mechanics and possible dynamics would be interesting.

Ravines in Minecraft as part of world generation

Build a wheat farm next to a bridge if you want to as the mechanic for placing blocks where you choose allows you to build anything (blocky). 

Classic Sonic Spikes are a standard obstacle. Also, odd glitch where the inside texture of  Flying Battery has been replaced completely with sky.

See the second image (below) to see how events happen in levels to change the appearance of the level.

The area is now on fire thanks to the mini-boss above.

A mechanic added in sonic 3 (& Knuckles) where you can bounce the spinning end level post to hit the ground in certain places for power ups. I didn't find any.

Older sonic games weren't that difficult (except for certain water levels and  bosses) and even had areas of suspense like this where there was no real danger.

City I'm building in Minecraft. I have no idea what to call it.

Using Switches you can make it so a door can only be opened from one side! This is good for making a prison, as shown here.

You need a lot of furnaces later on when you have several stacks (64 pieces) of  iron or gold to smelt.

An enchanting table, used to enchant armor and weapons.

First Post

Just creating this to create tags for the different lessons.

First Post

Just creating this to create tags for the different lessons.

First Post

Just creating this to create tags for the different lessons.

First Post

Just creating this to create tags for the different lessons.