Unit 06 Application, Exploration and Realisation in Art and Design - Final Major Project

                                      Final Major Project Proposal

EDEXCEL Level 3 BTEC Extended Diploma in Interactive Design

 

Learner Name: tyron sheppard

  

City of Bristol College

School Media & Art

College Green Centre,

St Georges Road

Bristol

BS1 5UA       

 

Specialist Area: Interactive Design

Date:  

Section 1

Working title: Vertically challenged

What you will work towards producing: (Detailed description of your proposal)

In my piece of interactive design I shall work towards creating a 3d modeled version of my college class/ computer suite and have you, the player, walk around and interact with things in the world. But there’s a twist, your character that you are controlling is about one fifth the size of your average pubescent teenager. You look through the eyes of what is essentially a “borrower” from that movie and experience what life would be like as one, seeing all the smaller things, trying to do the things a normal sized person could do and perhaps find hidden secrets that no tall person could ever find.

Aspects of interaction include: rope swing earphones, climbing, Ramses’ ball, pressing buttons, more climbing and possible puzzle solving.

Section 2

     Influences, starting points and contextual references:

The only real influences I have would be the movie borrowers or the Indian in the cupboard; I was always fascinated with the idea of being so small and looking at the world from a different aspect or point of view. Really I do this already as being an artist I see the world in a different way but to be small and be presented with a world created for somebody completely different to you and then have to traverse this space is an interesting idea, a ruler becomes a bridge, a crack becomes a cave and a paper airplane becomes… well a paper airplane but perhaps ride able?

However I was lead to the idea by my tutor showing the class a project from an earlier year. It was basically the same thing, a small avatar walking around the class room, but that was the limit of the interactivity, whereas I plan to add a lot more i.e. actually interacting with the world and the object that occupy it. So I guess you could call that a starting point.

    

     Early ideas research and sources:  (What are your sources for contextual and personal research?)  

Indian in the cupboard

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEM42Jqlt9I

This would more or less be most of the research I needed (other then the other movie “the borrowers” but I couldn’t get a link for that) it visually represents what I’m trying to achieve in terms of scale of character to it’s surroundings. A small space to us turned into a massive city sized landscape for you to explore, finding every secret the environment has to offer you. I suppose this is why expansive rpg games are so popular because you are the one to explore massive worlds and find its every secret or every interaction it could offer you, the only difference being is my world is really just room sized.

 

 

Section 3

Intended techniques, non digital and digital processes:

Digital: 3d modeling software either cinema 4d or Maya, unity; to run the interactive media, scripting using JavaScript and possibly Photoshop for the creation of custom materials/skins for models and the scenery.

Non digital: this would only really contain sketches of the environment and how things will work, this will serve to be a visual aid.     

 

    

Section 4

     Proposed methods of evaluation: (How will you document your final major project evaluation?)

some videos i used to help with my game 

 in this build i am showing off the architecture of my scene/ level. created using maya 3d software, i imported this to unity and added colliders so the room would be contained but i did add a small gap as shown near the end of the video for some "easter egg esc" fun. 

this is a secondary showing of the same thing but showing instead the colliders I've added to the chair model. it also shows the reset script I've attached to the slender man model, i intend to also add a move and follow script to slender man in the future to make the world seen more alive and not static.




the third video shows off the far reaching 'hidden easter egg' room. it isnt textured yet but inside will have pictures of a fellow class mate and a tutor, an inside joke among my classmates. the door is initially closed but I've added an animation and a trigger script so that when you walk around the building and enter the invisible collider the door opening animation with trigger and play. i will be adding some sort of marker where the invisible collider is just to make sense to the player.

unit 10 professional development

Artist statement

In this statement I will outline the type of artist I am and what mediums I enjoy working with.

In short I am a conceptual artist specialising in environment design but also conceptual ideas in design. A lot of the time my work will require some thought from the viewer, I like to leave my art open for interpretation so it generates some conversation. A lot of the time my work will be taken as very literal when viewed by people who don’t fully understand the type of art I make but its still very positive reviews when shown to people.

A lot of inspiration comes from the surrealist movement or dada but I can also do photo realism using digital software like Photoshop but I still prefer to work with pencil and paper.

I also make games, one in particular was sent to three people currently working in the industry and I had very positive reviews given back, “it’s a bold concept and I think it has definite curiosity value.” Or “I definitely feel it has potential” and “it has potential to be a crowd sourcing campaign”. So I feel very confident that I could make it as a game developer in terms of making a story and being the team leader.

research into possible futures


voice over work

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/may/14/how-become-voiceover-artist

I've recently been interested in a different job sector that doesn't involve drawing but could still be seen as an art. i have a talent for voices, accents and other noises for as long as i can remember and never really thought anything of it but i've been approached by classmates for help with voices and noises on what ever thing that needs it and been told many times now that i would do well in that industry so i have done some research into this field.

to expand into this line of work i have signed up to the website www.gamevoices.co.uk. this site offers game developers and voice over artists to interact and is a platform to showcase your voicing talents. my account is pending authorisation but when the sites administrator accepts my request to be a member i will upload a range of my voicing talents.

http://www.peopleperhour.com/freelance/concept+artist

i'm also thinking about attempting freelance work as a concept artist once i no longer attend college, just to give it my full attention.

unit 68- games team twisted games

i created this concept art for our game pitch from scratch, i am really proud of this digital painting as its my second attempt at doing this kind of realistic coloured art, i mainly work in sketches and rarely ever attempt to colour them because ive never been good with colouring in, ive found it hard to correctly set the mood by matching the correct tones but digital painting is far more easier and approachable as i allows me to make mistakes or experiment. ive always had an eye for colour tones and how light reacts in a scene but have never explored it to this detail. i am seriously considering becoming a concept artist after this second attempts successful outcome.

this concept was later created using cinema 4d by a member of my team

i also contributed by creating the basis for our story, coming up with the concept really, after long debate within our group we all settled on a atmospheric horror genre to which i came up with the  basis for the original story idea, which was actually too graphic in upsetting scenes so after a discussion with the team as a whole we all contributed new ides to make my first draft more digestible for  a mass demographic and marketable for a potential release.

                              the live action trailer was also created,directed and filmed by me
          

this next video is the full trailer made by my team with us all contributing, this video was sent to industry professionals to receive feedback.



           
                                                            industrial feedback 

industry professional 1

industry professional 2

industry professional 3

this was the feedback received from the industry pannel. we found this very useful to hear insight from people within the industry, they were clear and honest. me and my team were happy with what we had achieved in the time we were given although if given one more day working on our video pitch we would have been able to put way more in to the final product. however the information from these industry professionals blew us away, myself and my team are proud of what we've achieved and the positivity received from the professionals just goes to reinforce our belief that we can, as students aspiring to break into the gaming industry, make it in this world. we may only be beginners right now but i think me and my team can do great things.

on this project i was the creative lead, coming up with the ideas to progress the group, generating a basis for most of our work and then conferring with the rest of our team to shape and expand on these ideas. we had many meetings with lengthy discussions about my general ideas for this project, it was of upmost importance to allow the rest of my team put themselves into this and leave their own mark on the world. as an artist it is often hard to hear criticism weather it be positive or negative feedback but understanding and really involving my team allowed our idea to flourish and expand.

and these were just a few buzzwords we came up with as a mini exercise for the team, just to make sure we were all on track and on the same wave length as it were.

now comes my other task as creative lead- concept art.

this was one of the first concepts i came up with, an image of " the valley of death".

by the time i had finished this the story had grown beyond this idea so i never "fleshed it out"

this image is the sketched version of the digital painting shown at the start of this post.

this was one of the first images i created and i was adamant it stay in our game design so i digitally painted it using photoshop software and worked it into our story, this painting was the catalyst to the game mechanic that our game would eventually rest upon. i speak about this further on.

i also drew some other views of the house showing some layout and perspective to help my team visualise the style of the house.i was going for a classic american house, middle class family home.

some rough storyboarding for my live action trailer

this would be the character of the father of the family who were murdered. his disfigurement being a representation of his mortal wound, gunshot to the face. i wanted it to not be obvious though, i needed to be grotesque but also a little surreal. my art for the characters tried to emulate the spirit of horror survival great silent hill.

these two images were from a silent hill game. i wanted to emulate and reflect this as much as i could in my art. 

so for the sketching process i played with some facial and body structure, trying to create a tortured, malnourished look, for a comparison i used images from the holocaust. images of starving, thin and skeletal jewish inmates. 

"WARNING"

the next images my be distressing to some viewers but i add them only to show evidence of my work and artistic research. they depict jewish prisoners in states of severe malnourishment and some nudity.

this inspired the thin body in the next sketch image, i also tried to exaggerate some of the thin skeletal facial structures associated with starvation.

i wasn't satisfied with the face in terms of resemblance to the silent hills artistry so i sketched a few basic ideas based around the characters way of death. he blows his face off with a gun so i played around with how this would look if it wasn't actually the real wound but rather a "supernatural manifestation" of the wound.

i decided on basing it around a flower, how a flowers petals would be closed in on its self protecting its self from the harsh environment. this would be like how the father is protecting him and his family in the afterlife only to be shown as a hateful monster on the outside never truly seeing the beauty of his love for his family on the inside.

these were just a few basic ideas to begin with but eventually expanded on first by my self, then reigned  in by the rest of the team. they focussed me in a sense,  listening to them and incorporating the ideas put forward to me.

the image below is the logo design for our team, i tweaked and added my own ideas into a basic design made by the other concept artist in our team

as a group we conferred and updated our tutor of the progress we were making, he had a few ideas that would direct us to make the conceptual idea into feasible game.

one of these would be how our  point of the game would manifest onto a mechanic, he told us the ideas we had were great but it wouldn't work if we didn't have a way to resolve the "endgame" or even how we would outline outline how the puzzles would relate to the house its self.

we decided on making the house decay as a game mechanic to show a mental state or health of the player, each time you couldnt complete a puzzle you could leave it but the house would delapidate, referring to a mental break down.

but as the house/mind got worse, the easier the puzzles would become to complete as shown in the designs below. the house would fall apart each time you left the pussle incomplete, but every time this would happen part of the house would obstruct your possible paths until one path would be left, the right path to complete the puzzle, so the closer you became to "brain death" the easier it would be to claw your way back to " sanity"

Unit 44 Website Design

relevant web technologies 

What is html5?

Html5 is the latest and last version of mark up language for structure and content in the World Wide Web.

Its goals include providing compatible language support for the latest multimedia whilst still being readable by humans and computers alike.

Its also been built with newest technology in mind, e.g. low powered smartphones to give the largest functionality of its kind when compared with latter versions (html 4, xhtml1)

In addition html5 utilises many new syntax features including <video>, <audio> and <canvas> elements designed to make it easy to handle multimedia and graphical content on the web

Css

Css or cascading style sheets are the visual companion to web design, it makes up what a website will look like or sets the layout when paired with the html code to make it visually engaging.

Css allows for the original mark up of the page to be altered and changed accordingly, making a web pages visual style more versatile even if it isn’t the original css from the owner of the page.

evaluation of other sites

web design issues

Poetry slam. Org

Aesthetically the poetry slam site is bland and uninteresting; only three colours are used throughout, dark purple, light purple and white. Normally this wouldn’t be a bad thing, too many colours can clutter the senses and make it hard for anybody make sense of the information but there has to be a solid use of css behind it to draw the user in and want to know more about this site.

Access speed is very good but this may be due to the basic interactivity, its plain.

Content contained within the website as a whole it very good its to the point and explains what each section is all about, unfortunately its very bland information.

The home page’s content however isn’t very good, all we see on entrance to the site is a very short poem then a short sentence explaining what poetry slamming does and is. It’s very confusing though as these all look to be in one paragraph, it’s hard to separate what the poem ends and where the information begins.

Also your not told what this site is really for, when I first found it I thought it was just and archive for poetry but on further reading and navigation of the site I found its for booking of poetry workshops.

In terms of responsiveness this site is very good, it reacts to resizing of the page and doesn’t break when doing so.

                                                                    web design.

this is pre design thumbnail drawings, i worked out a basic page layout that all of my pages would follow, i just needed to tweak each one to fit its individual purpose.

this was a larger polished version of my home page layout, i tried to keep it simple enough for user navigation but still have it so i could incorporate as much information possible. this was a hard task as too much writing would not keep a viewer of this site interested for long but also not enough wouldn't draw in the user and make them want to know more. as a designer this task wasn't to bad but from someone who is completely new to coding a website i didn't factor in the technical difficulty.

paper prototype

a design tool used in most industries, paper prototyping is a way of placing and plotting how things should be structured and work before you begin coding and interactively making the project at hand.

this helped me refocus and understand that i may be able to visually design a site but making a working thing would be much harder.

as coding goes this is probably very basic, i found my self focussing to much on the CSS and not enough of my time on the pat that makes the site "tick".

i managed to make the site technically interactive by giving it links to social media sites for my "social hub" in the bottom left corner. the tabs just under the header when clicked would also take you away form the home page but did not have a site to go to yet.

Evaluation of Homepage-

in the creation of my homepage i found that it's not as easy as it looks. the first 2 weeks of design were particularly hard as the concept of writing the HTML5 and the CSS to work in tandem was alluding me.
once i progressed in the code academy tutorials i managed to understand it better, although right now i understand HTML better then the CSS which is why design wise its pretty poor. I've kept with the original template given by the tutor but i've more or less focused on trying to incorporate user interactivity rather than aesthetics, this is shown right now with the social media hub at the bottom left hand corner of the footer.
the most i've done so far with design is changed the colour of the header and footer, added in a logo for the head and foot and also changed the font of the title at the top of the page.
another aspect of inline design would be the layout of the social media hub, getting them to be ordered in the "4-square"layout was a great accomplishment for me, i've probably done it in the most awkward way of placing it in a table and hiding the boarder of the table.

the feedback for my homepage was more or less expected, it needs more in its design, it doesn't catch my eye and the logo seems to be a little "splashy".