Mobile Games Concept Group idea
Individual Mobile game concept
Children’s book adaptations research and idea
Rabbit Heart Character Concept
second view Rage water Questionnaire
Initial research about different game company’s
Category: Games Design: An Introduction
Charlie and the Chocolate factory: HUD/UI understanding
For this brief, I will be researching about different HUDS in Games that I will be using as a reference to implement into my game idea. Charlie and the chocolate Factory is a Fantasy(not realistic)Game. film and book so expanding my Hud Ideas to me non-realistic will be a plus for me, The game HUD isn’t meant to look realistic but understandable for the player When designing the HUD the HUD needs to be understandable and clear to understand. Having a Hud with bright flashing lights will be unhealthy to some people due to photo epilepsy.
Below I have taken a GIF Out of Borderlands with the HUD turned off, this allows the player to see more clearly without horrible text or icons appearing on the screen.because the person made this black and white Borderlands looks like a totally different game.My opinion it looks like a horror instead of a cartoon fantasy.
Jayse Hansen
Jayse Hansen works freelance who works remotely from las Vagas, He also built a solid reputation as a creative director for print, web and motion design. Jayse has worked with many films such as Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Iron Man 3, The Avengers, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay I and II, and Disney’s Big Hero 6. Jayse is a fanatic for creating futuristic props, UI, and work. The software he mainly uses to help him produce his work area illustrator, Photoshop, Cinema 4d, After Effects etc.
The films UI he helped to create are See the Avengers finale through Tony Stark’s eyes, Artist Jayse Hansen on the bleeding edge of 14 computer interfaces that gave Avengers its high-tech texture and much more. Jayse Hansen blog
GTAV’s HUD as the best looking HUD in my own opinion, It’s clear, not cluttered and very well designed. The HUD is small, compact and simple to look at. Having a compact HUD is no good to have in a game, The first thing you don’t need is a bunch of text flying on your screen telling you what to do. like hints that pop up every now and then a great example for this are puzzle games such as tomb raider.
UI experiment
Here I have experimented creating UI in photoshop, for my children’s adaptation I wanted to create a basic and simple UI so it can be easy for the player to understand.
I still want my game to look children friendly because of the theme I had chosen for this brief. I stuck to my idea of not having the UI too cluttered and it been simple. I had used my gun design I Created, thinking its a great fitting to my game due to it been unique and alien like.
Sketches of inventory
Since I was creating the inventory as well as the UI I managed to create different inventory layout. I have more information about my inventory here.
Initial research about different game company’s
To help me have a better understanding of different game company’s, I am to research different artist that work with multiple platforms such as films, Games, comics and short clips. I will do research about Jose Manuel Linares who is a 3D artist, Shiflett Brothers who is a physical 3D sculpting to understand character design and what their narrative are. understanding these artists will give me a better understanding on how I can reflect on my work, What am I doing wrong and what I could do better for next time. I want my environments to have a narrative and something that can catch a person’s eye.
Jose Manuel Linares.
Jose Manuel Linares Lopez Currently works freelance CG Senior Modeler. He has currently worked on Organic Modelling technique, Hard surfacing, Uv`s and sculpting. when looking at his environment’s you can see a technique’s of using hard Surfacing and sculpting.The pictures below shows a retro looking building that has a narrative of that the building is no longer in use, the wood that boards up the windows indicate someone has put them there to keep other people out, also shows that someone still owns it. This style is similar to Fallout 4. The shape of the cars and building it has a more organic feel to it making the building show that it’s on its own due to the trees in the background. I would like to see for my children’s adaptation project to go in a similar direction, I want my environments to look similar to his put still have a sense it’s still based on Charlie and the chocolate factory book.
Jose Manuel Linares works with Autodesk Maya/Zbrush/UvLayout/Topgun for his main software. Jose can adapt to any working group due to his production of his work shown in his portfolio.
Jose Manuel Linares. portfolio
Paul Heaston
Paul Heaston really likes to draw interior and exterior environments, he also paints his environments but likes to draw more.He also sells a variety of supplies which include a bunch of art material such as, Pint, University pencils and paper. Paul received an MFA in painting from University in2008. Paul is happily married in Denver to a woman named Linda Permann, he also has a dog Freddie another extension to his family and a very friendly pet.
Paul has worked on books that include
The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabi Campanario
This book shows you beautiful artwork from all over the globe, there are 320-pages to this volume that gives you visuals of urban cities and buildings.
Urban Sketching: The Complete Guide to Techniques by Thomas Thorspecken
Capitol Knits by Tanis Gray
This urban environment created by Paul Heaston inspired me by the amount of narrative he has put into this project. the door that is half open indicating that someone is still living there (is he/she doing the gardening due to the tools been propped up against the house?). The house does need some TLC but for my main room, there are similar buildings like this, such as the powerhouse. If I could reflect on Pauls work I could make something similar to his environment.
Mike Hill
Mike Has been working with the film and games industry for 10 years to build up his portfolio and to gather different experiences.For his 10 years in the Industry, He worked as anConcept artist / 3D modeller/designer / Art Director.FDrom his hard work and His fantastic leadership, he was managed an Emmy award winning design studio, Kararkter.
In 2013 Mike left his management responsibilities at the studio to pursue to be his own boss at freelancing.Mike can now work professionally by extending his work by teaming up with his skills with other AAA film/Gaming industry’s, Mike says “I now provide concept art and creative direction as an independent consultant.”Mike Hill has already worked with infinity ward in 2016 for the latest Call of duty Game, his role was to add narrative and Environments to a futuristic game.
source Mike Hills Artstation
Mike Hill has a great perspective on sci-fi, His new work on the call of duty game has great visuals and has a great narrative in his environments, For my children’s adaptations brief, Narrative like Mike Hills Will be perfect for my environment designs.
Shiflett Brothers
The brothers also known as Brandon and Jarrod, are well known from all around the world from working with multiple gaming industries and films such as Peter Jackson and Robert Rodriguez.The two brothers have succeeded with six separate volumes of the annual book Spectrum making them one of the best Contemporary Fantastic Art.The brothers Taught a master class in sculpting for the comic book industry. The character creations they make are mainly non-fiction.In this video, Jarrod and Brandon Shiflett show you how they created one of the sculpting characters.; In my opinion, it would have taken the brothers decades of practice to achieve this amount of detail.
Evaluation
Researching different Developers and artist has really changed on how I do things, I have learnt so much about hard surfacing modelling narrative in environments and the process of becoming a 3D artist. with much more research to come in the future, it will guide me onto a better path of becoming a developer for my job in the future.
Rage water: Questionnaire
In this session, we were to take part in a questionnaire to help the developers to develop their game even further and also for them to know that me the players thinks of their game. I do enjoy the game because of the improvements, The game seems better with better dialogue and optimisations. I completed one questionnaire before the game wich was about personal information, For example, one of the questions would say “How long do you play video games for”. The second part of the questionnaire which we did after playing the game, asked about what we enjoyed about the game. I still think the game needs great improvement because it appealed as a learning program rather than a video game as it quickly became repetitive and boring.
Factory maps layouts
Because I have created some visual images that you can find, here about my environment, I had designed some map layouts that will be placed on the top left of my HUD.
The mechanic of having a map is vital to our game, it allows the player to have easy direction on where the player is going.
At first, I started to sketch out my map layout onto paper, I then scanned the picture so that I could drag it into Photoshop. Because my sketches looked too bright that you couldn’t hardly see my images, I had changed the level and curve by using the modified in photoshop.
Now I have presented my sketches of the Map, I decided I wanted to experiment by drawing the maps digitally. This would give me a cleaner and more accurate look to my map design. In the digital version, there is a tallied chart that gives you information about what’s on the map. For example, the red box indicates the door.
Evaluation
With the map layout, I wish I had done pareidolia to expand my ideas in a much more unique way.but for the end result, it did turn out fine. In the future, I will improve on what I am doing wrong.
Children’s Book Adaptation: Weapon
Gun design
For this task, I had moved away from environments to start to designing some guns for my our game. The guns were to be visualised by mid-range audiences.I started to do some initial sketching of realistic guns using the B-grade pencil and the Line marker 0.1, I started to look on google images at many designs of different types of guns.I started to sketch a weapon that was a similar design of an MP5 and an M4, skelingtonOnce skeleton of the gun ruled out and drawn I started to modify the gun to fit the main purpose of out game, That it was made of candy and it shot out Bubble gum balls.
I started to draw around glass sphere that sat on top of the gun, The Sphere that was on the gun held the Gumball ammo that the gun would use to shoot at their targets.
For the back of the gun, I put a fizzy string Ribbon on the end To give it that bright candy look.The gun was mainly made out of Lime candy with a chocolate centre making the gun more fragile.
I wanted to spend a lot more time designing my Weapon for our game,(Charlie and the chocolate factory). When I did my presentation to present my game conceptI had shown my idea about my Guns design, The feedback I got wasn’t very much positive, From the feedback I went to develop more Gun designs that would fit our game,(Not realistic)The reason why my Guns were so out of place are because they were too realistic and not suitable for our audience base for our game.
I had done some initial sketching using the pareidolia technique to come up with a unique shape for my Gun, The technique stops developing something that already exists and creates something new. At the moment the guns look something like an alien would use, I plan to develop more of my weapons to be audience friendly for my game.
Final Gun Concept
For My final Gun design, I have taken a design from My pareidolia.The design I wanted to take further into development is the middle left.Before I took my final design into Photoshop I wanted to refine my gun even further, I had redrawn the design smoothing out the edges and making it look like a gun. The reason I had chosen this design is because I found it more intriguing than my other designs.My personal opinion of this gun is that it should belong in a Call of Duty Zombie game, The weapon could have been used as a toxic liquid gun that shoots out toxic liquid making the Zombies Walk slower or melt.But instead, it is actually used to blow out bubbles to catch ump alum pa’s in my charlie and the chocolate factory game.
After I had finished my refined drawing of my gun, I scanned the image to insert into Photoshop. In photoshop I highlighted my Gun with the rectangular marquee Tool then Went to the Image tab To add a curve adjustment that made my image darker.Now I can see my pencil lines properly I used the paint brush to start colouring the top half of my Gun (purple, and a mucky Blue) I set each layer’s opacity between 40/60%.
Evaluation
Pareidolia has improved my wide range of creativity whilst drawing.Without Pareidolia, I wouldn’t have come up with my Gun designs. I don’t use Pareidolia just for this module but for the other 2 modules (Creative futures,3D realisation).I Enjoyed the design proses to make this gun, it will improve my skills to extend my ideas and to be a better creative person.
Rage WaterCooler
Game description
The player is hired as an office assistant by a small games studio with the goal to increase the productivity of the company. The productivity is reflected in the amount of finished and shipped games and their quality.source
The game felt a lot like The Sims, you had the ability to customise a few of your office areas but at the same time very limited to resources within the game(as of yet).The Things you can customise are plants, basic desks, and some bookshelf.The way you spaced things in your in-game world became very clunky and again you were limited to where you can put the declaration within your office space (why can’t I just place it anywhere I want).To improve the game, in my opinion, is to allow the player to have full freedom and customisation over the game.I am not saying the game is going to be a bad in the future, I like the mechanic where you had to make multiple games and be guided through each step to publish your game. After a while it does get boring because of doing the same thing over and over again.(maybe let us build multiple office areas in a different country as your team grows, Not just the interior but the exterior.(I want to feel like this is my office and something I would like to look at when I play the game.
Pros,
The Game was in the good state for an alpha a few bugs here and there but nothing major.I like the layout of the game and the character design.I like the Idea of the meet and greet up at the centre of the room where your staff can go to if they want to socialise making them become less bored.The mechanics are great, the way your characters can go in a mood if you say the wrong thing while you’re talking to them. even when they finish their work they can notify you when it’s done so that you can proceed to the next stage of making your game.
cons:
The level design was very basic to the point I got bored of looking at the same room for over 40 minutes, How about adding more mechanics to the game, for example, changing the colour of the wall, carpets and desks, adding more plants, TV and other social areas.Most game companies now have office’s that are themed by their game, making it more inspiring for other people to get on with their work (NOT GETTING BORED). I feel that the game is lacking in som department but hopefully, in the future, I will be able to revisit this game and review it again.
Rabbit Heart Character Concept
For this task, we had to work as a group to come up with a character design on a game that our tutors are working on(Rabbit Heart).we each was to work alone for at least 10 minutes just for us to familiarise our self on what The Rabbit Heart was about.once we had a better understanding of what the game our tutors were creating was about.we would share our different ideas on a character as a class group.Each of us had to come up with a possible idea of a villain for the game.each person in our group shared their ideas that they had visions for the character.to then progress further we created favourite elements from everyone’s designs.my favourite element was the toxic gas that the character had to breathe it in to stay alive.On how I had come up with that idea was, I was watching The Flash /(TV Show) and one of the villains in the show had to breath toxic chemicals to stay alive so he started to break into toxic wastelands, as he faded on the toxic he became stronger and more violent.
My next task I had to do for this mini brief was to carry on a development of the character I then started to design different props that would suit the character.
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory : Group Project
About the Charlie and the chocolate factory
The aim for this mini brief is to adapt a children’s book and build a role around the idea and make it into an RPG game. We where Presented with 5 slips of paper by Paul. We were to choose one of the slips and develop it into an RPG game. This was a group project that we had to develop together and to show different ideas and concepts to be refined into a final Idea concept for our game.
The children’s book I was creating was Charlie and the chocolate factory. My brief was to set myself to read the book (Charlie and the chocolate Factory) first to gather information and more knowledge on what I will be creating. I will then start to develop my ideas and concepts on paper and Digital for me to be ready to present to the 2nd year, This will give me a Good idea and what I need to change by the feedback I will receive.
What is the book about?
The book is about 5 people who visit the world’s best chocolate factory and most secretive place in the world. The tickets were put into random Willy Wonka Bars around the globe and only 5 people were picked to go into the factory (If they have their golden ticket ).
Charlie and the chocolate factory book.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
At a young age, I was a big fan of the original film that was Shown in 1971, the original film was based on the book published in 1964 Author Roald Dahl. Even tho the title of the book was Called “Charlie and the chocolate factory” a lot of people such as myself called it “Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory” Worker because of course the person who owned the factory was called Wonka.The book tells you about a Boy who is named Charlie Bucket who comes from a poor family and once a year on his birthday Charlie Bucket received a bit of the Wonka chocolate. The whole family was soo poor that it took all of them to save up their money for that special occasion. The factory was within sight of Bucket’s house the factory was the largest and most famous in the whole world”, owned by a man called Mr Willy Wonka, the greatest inventor and maker of chocolates that there has ever been.” quote here 4th-page last paragraph. Charlie was soon greeted with a golden ticket allowing him to be one of the luckiest 5 children in the world to ever see what goes on within the factory. each child was accompanied by an adult that was related to them Charlie asked his granddad to go with him because he knew about the factory more than anyone. Charlie Bucket soon found out about how the chocolate was made and who helped Wonker. once wonker shown all his inventions to thew children he was then to pick a winner on whom he shall let him help run the factory, of course, Charlie was the only one that passed all wonkers stages meaning he won to work and live in the factory.
Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Wales of Norwegian parents. he was educated in England before starting work for the Shell Oil Company in Afric Roald Dahl was not only a writer but he worked in the RAF Piloting the fighter planes in the 2nd World war.Roald Dahl is known to be very successful writing Children’s books, Children’s books include James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Magic Finger, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, The Twits, The BFG and The Witches, winner of the 1983 Whitbread Award.Sadly Roald Dahi died of a blood disease, myelodysplastic syndrome in 1990 making him the age of 74. source of cause of death
evaluation
As I read the book It gave me a better understanding of how I want my final game concept idea to be. Researching about your ideas is very important because if you want to make something that is based off a book, film or a TV series then I know to do my research
Research
Dominick Domingo
Dominick Domingo Is a concept artist That is not for video games but for animation productions Dominick has worked on The Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Tarzan. I found this artist to be very interesting Even tho it’s not a game concept, Put the style and theme of the concept are what attracted me to his work.His work had given me Great inspiration to come up with different ideas to help me vision my Game style.I have always loved Disney because of the different ranges of colours and the way the character were designed to look pretty and friendly towards their younger audience.If I were to uses this style in my game I would heavily get sued by Disney for using the unique look. No one is safe when it come to Disney’s property even using a name In the creative Industry can give you a red Flag.
(quote)
Forget about “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for”. Unless you’re specifically referring to a robot within the Star Wars Universe, you’re also not allowed to use the term “droid” in a creative project or business venture: it’s a registered trademark of LucasFilm.
The cartoon images below helps me know what each environment style I want to take, In our project, we were to design an environment within the factory, and if the factory is the biggest in the world then why not fit a house in there to live in? This is what happens at the end of the book/film(The Charlie and the chocolate factory (charlie) moves his home and lives in the factory with his family.This kind of environment filled with candy and bright colors is friendly for a game to be based off a children’s book.
Tara Ruepling
Tara Ruepling I currently based in San Francisco, California where she works at Linden lab.Tara Ruepling worked for many companies Including the Game company Activision, Not only did she work for Activision but created concept art for companies such as Autodesk, Lucasfilm Animation, Turbine Entertainment Software, Blur Studios and Activision/Raven Software.Tara Has always been interested in creativity, but toInstead of kids wanting to be astronauts or a pilot Tara Wanted nothing but to work in the creative industry.Her parents would always take Tara and her brother to art museums, movies and theater play.Having these experiences as a child it opened her mind to look more creativity and how the world really works instead of been in a BOX and not notice anything around you. She Thanks, Her family for helping her to achieve her dream of becoming an artist that is quoted.
“Well I came from a family where there wasn’t anybody in the artistic profession but my loving parents still put a strong important value on imagination and creativity; My parents would always take my brother and me to art museums, movies and theater play. Having these experiences as a child opened my mind to a world of wonder and made me realize that I wanted to be part of this world were ideas could be pushed and expressed. I feel lucky because this dream is coming true………… an artist I am 🙂 Thank you, Family”
Here work gives me a wide range of different types of vegetation I could have in the game. You can see in the top picture the flowers have Bubbles floating above them, These could be interpreted into my game as Candy bubblegums that come from the plants? Maybe it could be a quest within the plant?
Props and objects
As This was a group project My role was to create Environments, props, and weapons.Our group game was based in the chocolate factory, the factory will challenge your skill with multiple rooms leading up to the final big room ( the room full of candy) in the game it’s your job to complete the quests that are given to you to progress into the Final Big Room.
The game will limit you from backtrack onto different paths meaning you can only retrace your steps so many time before the path starts to crumble away like cookie dipped in hot tea, The enemy Ai are small but clever umb alum pas, Umbalumpa are small people that were rescued by willy Wonka from their tree houses located in the Amazon Rainforest. It’s the player’s job not to get caught by the Umpalumpas by going into their territory, without been noticed in the ump alum pa’s territory you will receive a special bonus.
I started to do some sketching of different types of environments that would be in our game, The environment would include Main room, Tv room, A room that needed some TLC but was abandoned, Multiple Puzzle rooms, Fizzy lifting room and futuristic room.I started to sketch some environments into my Sketchbook with a BGrade pencil, I drew the rooms on the ideas that were given to me by the group, The main room was to have a chocolate river flowing through it, Candy piling, over growing the walls and bridges because of the Umpalumpas no longer working. The Tv room had A big television at the center of the room.Small offices that control the TVs were placed 200ft away from the screen, The room looked empty and clean because of the white walls and shiny surfaces. The Room that needed some (TLC) was a small basement area with furnaces that use to burn coal to power the factory when Electric wasn’t invented. Puzzle room with twisty hallways and random doors that lead to nowhere.
Once I had drawn these environments I put my sketches into photoshop to give it more color and to present it more professionally, itsI have learned if your work is well present it’s more catching to the eye and makes your work a lot tidier for other developers to see/read.
3D experiment.
since I had done the research and the initial sketches I have moved my Idea into 3d modeling. this modeling is to give me a visual idea of what our group Idea would look like.
Sugar cane path.
From looking at my past drawing, I have learned that I was lacking Drawing in perspective.I started to draw some simple cubes using the horizon line.Once I had drawn a few pages of using this technique, I moved ahead using the same techniques for my Environment. I am really liking this drawing technique for it has improved my drawing skills to the next level.I still have a lot of improvement to do but that comes with time and practice. I looked back at my drawing to find that I wished I could have learned this sooner.
Source control
Source control is a smarter way to work together. The source is an internet database that stores business/personal files in an Internet database for other people to share.Source control is which is the act of making changes to the files in whatever the person desires. GitHub is a command line tool that adds features to its own service clouds.
One of the most popular software is GitHub, organizationsGitHub is Trusted by more organisations 100,000 worlds wide.includeing the other popular companys such as Paypal, Airbnb and Spotify.GitHub is a source control started by Linux creator Linus Torvalds. GitHUb always stores backups of your recent projects so if someone made a mistake on one of your files you can use your backups to recover what was lost. You can also communicate with one another while your coding withing the service it also It also provides access control and several collaboration features, such as a wikis and basic task management tools for every project.(source)
My University blog 