Creative Development Week21:Art of Gaming

Art of Gaming is an original series produced by Machinima which delves into the process behind the modern day game production looking from the process of concept art to the actual implementation of the concept art. I found this series from simply looking for something and i was impressed by the insight that is covered of which i feel is definitely beneficial to me as i am constantly unaware of really how much work needs to go into something or whether i am doing something right and this series maybe at times isn't as insightful as i first thought through the information spoken but through the visual standards i was able to really understand much closer the process and work flow.

Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/show/artofthegame?s=1

Creative Development Week 08: Sefton Hill Creative Process

Below is a link to the game director of Batman Arkham City, Sefton Hill who speaks on the creative process of Arkham City as well as in general of the process and how it doesn't always go the right way but through the wrong decisions you can get the right end results, also what stood out for me was the fact that he had mentioned that they had built a basic prototype of the whole game before actually setting out to develop it, to rather test what is needed and what they could do without to break down the game into key components, the video can be viewed at: http://guru.bafta.org/sefton-hill-games-directing-mini-masterclass

Extra Work: Fort 4 Storyboard

Sketched Page 01 of 05

Cleaned Up Page 01 of 05

During my final major project i was approached by Fort 4 to do some clear visuals for their fashion storyboard for a small fee and they had basic outlines of the storyboard which were given to me to use and i accepted this job because i felt this would be a breather to my multiple projects and wasn't much work that was needed from me other then the outlined specifics of the storyboard and the deadline of Friday, i had completed the work on Wednesday night and had given the images to Fort 4 who told me that the work was great and in the transaction of the money i remembered something of which Bridget had mentioned in class that a deal of 'you scratch my back and i'll scratch yours' would be beneficial to both parties and this is when i thought rather than take the money if i ask Fort 4 to have me in mind for their next piece of artwork or stoyrboard needed then i would let this piece of work pass over to them and in which they agreed so i feel this benefited me because i would have work coming from them when needed.

 

 

Sketched Page 02 of 05

Cleaned Up Page 02 of 05

On the left side is the sketched version of the storyboard that i had done and on the right side is the cleaned up and handed to Fort 4 version.

Sketched Page 03 of 05

Cleaned Up Page 03 of 05



Cleaned Up Page 04 of 05

Sketched Page 04 of 05

Sketched Page 05 of 05

Cleaned Up Page 05 of 05

Final Major Project Week 03: Individual Project

Start of a Concept

Similar Work Research

Along with the two other projects within my final major project i chose to do a 'Fairy Tale Princess' game, a medieval, fantasy set game in which the gamer controls a male character going in search for the princess and then the roles will switch with the gamer controlling the princess in seek of revenge. The birth of this concept was created in response to my dismay of my previous medieval project in which i created a whole castle and one which i feel lets down my portfolio and so i chose to rather focus on a room instead in my new project to rectify the mistakes made in the castle project. The initial concept of having two roles which switch mid way through the game allowed me to come up with a concept to involve a female touch to the story as well as gameplay which furthers my range of demographic from the usual adult, male game designs that i have worked on and also because my other projects are focusing on a children's aspect this Fairy Tale Princess (FTP) project allows me to delve into a different approach to creating a game and also focus my attention on one confined space. The confined space being the room in which the princess is kept within by the main enemy of the game the wizard and in this room you would have the main objects that would fit within a room such as bed, wardrobe, draw and so on with also additional objects that fit with the female character to show that the room has been inhabited by the character. Also at the start i rushed into doing some work which happened to be character sheet and it wasn't until i was doing one of them that half way through i realised that this wasn't part of the listed hand ins so i would be wasting my time carrying on but because they were quick to do i felt i should finish up by having the three main characters the wizard, knight and princess character sheets done and the princess character sheet i feel will be beneficial for the project as i get to understand the princess through the character sheet i will be able to implement that into the room and here are the character sheets:

Princess Character Sheet

Wizard Character Sheet

Knight Character Sheet

Final Major Project Week 03: Second Team Project

Another one of my final major project is again a team project this time being a two man team. I have decided to team up with Tom Newton to produce a 2D children's game we will blog our steps throughout the project and use an independant blogger which is accesed by this web address:

http://tomandifraz.blogspot.com/

Final Major Project Week 02: First Team Project

One of my final major projects was to create a game within a team and here is the separate blogger with all the details and process of making the game eleMental, with our team as a company named Broken Games. With each individual taking on certain roles, the synopsis for the concept is that one of the statues on Easter Island gets hit by an asteroid that contained a large crystal, thus turning the statue into a living thing. One of the crystals lands in the hands of an excluded archaeologist who wants to take revenge and so the statue has to go through levels, finding crystals that allow certain elements to be controlled which are used to stop the ex-archaeologist.

Click the image above for the website

Final Major Project Week 01: Project Ideas

After being made aware of employment expectations such as time spent on projects and seeing that the ship project would have taken around six months altogether i decided to shift my final major project into doing a series of three or four small briefs, with a months deadline for each. The reason i will be doing small briefs focusing on both concept art and 3d modelling is based off of my independant practice i began to understand concept art much more and i felt that it was my best work to date. With the independant project being my best work and then carrying it on into the final major project, i would only have a best piece of overall work to show for my portfolio where as doing mini briefs, helping to speed up my creative process as well as giving me a range of projects to add to my portfolio would be a better way to go.

For my final major project i will be doing three to four briefs, focusing on concept art and 3d modelling being utilized within each briefs. I will be solely focusing on environment design with a possibility of adding character designs to the concept art to showcase charaters that inhabit the environment. To broaden my mindset and skills one of the briefs that i will be doing will be a team project with Chris, Tom and Danny in creating a 2d children's game. Another team brief that i will be producing with Tom because of him also doing three to four briefs is a 'Food Landmarks' brief.

This brief inspired by Toms hunger was just a random idea, manifesting into a possibility to now having many ideas for particular 'Food Landmarks' we feel we should go ahead and use this idea as it is one that isn't used much. Along with the two team briefs i will be creating two self briefs, one idea that i feel i will be going ahead with is 'Nightsky', 'Skynight' or 'Nightfall' as the name of a game surrounding the sky. The idea i have is for the gamer having to get to one end of the level to the other before nightfall to which gameplay would change and also after watching Hugo i have a rough story for the game.

The final brief is still being developed but the possibility of creating a female based brief would help to strengthen my portfolio with a range of work from the female brief which will likely be much more detailed than the previous three briefs which will be directed at children. What i hope to achieve at the end of the final major project is a range of products for my portfolio, strengthen my maya and photoshop skills to which i feel i got the hang of at the end of my independant practice and working within a team.

However to sum up for my final major project I will be breaking my time into four projects, two being team briefs and the other two being self briefs all which will be focusing on games. With each of us working towards the games industry the next stage was to produce something as a group to become familiar with the industry's process and contribute to each other and allow ourselves to experiment and reach the status of producing a full game, with each role fitting the skills of each member. The overall projects will have a month of time and a limit of 100,000 polygons to keep the workload stable.

The first of the two briefs will be a four man team which we will make a game together with each individual taking on certain roles. The synopsis for the concept is that one of the statues on Easter Island gets hit by an asteroid that contained a large crystal, thus turning the statue into a living thing. One of the crystals lands in the hands of an excluded archaeologist who wants to take revenge and so the statue has to go through levels, finding crystals that allow certain elements to be controlled which are used to stop the ex-archaeologist.

The second team project is a two man team which will again produce a game based on landmarks being formed by food, the synopsis of the game will revolves around an obsessed adult who want all landmarks for himself and finds that through them in the form of food. The story of the gameplay is that one night he dreams he is inhabiting the food landmarks but something goes wrong and insects start to eat the food and the character has to stop them by going through the level and fighting them off.

The first self brief is night sky project, the synopsis is that the sky has been damaged due to the missing part that brings the sky together and makes it stable. The balance of the sky has fallen out and the clouds have been affected with one cloud rising up and going through the level before nightfall when the full extent of evil is released.

The second self brief will be a fairy tale princess game, where the gamer has to fight his way through the castle and work his way up to the princess in the tower, to which the gamer would then take the role as the princess in seek for hero revenge on the evil wizard. The synopsis is that an evil wizard traps a princess in the tower of his castle and leaves, which leads to the princess being rescued and going after the evil wizard.

Each project focuses on the aspect of game and will make me work towards a new objective such as a team game, creating a children’s game and even a female game, but all the projects will build my skills and maintaining that frame of mind to become consistent.

Summer Work

Over the summer i was able to develop my skills further, all be it not to the extent that i had wanted but i was able develop distinct designs that helped me to understand a set way of developing models. I wanted to develop significant comic book based objects and looked at objects such as captain America's shield, Thor's hammer Mjolnir, Green Lantern power ring, Daredevil's Billy Club, Ghost Rider's Chain and Medallion and Batman's Batarang and Batmobile.