PPP conclusion

Copyright

When creating work to be shown on the Internet, it is important to know about copyright. When everything that you create belongs to you, uploading should be generally fine. However, if you use someone else’s music or footage from someone else, it can go against copyright and be taken down. If you can acquire permission form the original owner to use it, you can use it, however it is rarely that smooth.

You usually have to pay to have permission to use music or footage; sometimes this can be very expensive. There are resources that are free to use called royally free recourses, these can be used without any repercussions. You can also produce content under the creative commons license, which means you can freely use the content, so long as you don’t alter it and give credit for the source.

There is some content which has had it’s licence expired, which means it is free to use. When 70 years have passed, you are free to use music form that artist, this used to be 50 years, until Cliff Richard changed it as he was losing money on music he created 50 years a go!

Creative Industries in Leeds

In Leeds there is a variety of creative industries that can help me in my education and my future job prospects, especially with the Yorkshire Content fund which is pumping 15 million pounds into creative industries in the area.

 One of these things is Light Night, which is something I actually attended. For one night a variety of performances were happening all around Leeds, including interpretive dance, collaborative art activities and NES era video games being projecting onto the walls of buildings. I was a really interesting event to attend and I would definitely like to go again next year.

Other creative industries include Munroe house, which is being set up to contain a variety of creative companies. It will also be available for use to brand new start-up companies and to use as performance space.

There are over 723,000 people working in Games, Software development & Electronic publishing in the UK but only 60,000 working in Video, Photography and Film. This is great for people wanting to work in the games industry, but not fantastic for me, who wants to work in animation.

Elephant in the Room

The theme for the next round has been revealed as 'The Elephant in The Room'. This is an interesting theme as I can take it in multiple directions. I could take it literally, using an elephant, or I could take it metaphorically, going with the idiom and having someone ignoring a blatant truth.

I personally think that the literal method is a little too lazy and obvious, but directly going with the idiom is also a little too obvious.

This theme seems to lean well with comedy and dialogue, so I would like to go against this. This will help me stand out amongst the judges.

I will have to think about this theme carefully, especially with such a difficult opponent that I have for this round.

I Got Through!

I got through to the novice round in NATA!

This is very exciting! I genuinely didn't think I would get through to the next round so I am really surprised!

32 animators have all been placed into brackets to start the tournament proper. Unfortunately I have been placed with a very tough opponent for the first round. 'Vie Rickend' Came second in the judges choices for open rounds and also produced the highest ranking animation in the tournament. The odds are not in my favor it would seem.


However this doesn't mean I am giving up. I am going to try my best to get through to the next round, having such a tough opponent has inspired me produce a really good animation for the next round.

Paradox Pandemonium

I have finished my  animation for NATA. Paradox Pandemonium!

I finished it with two days to spare from the deadline. Though things didn't go quite as planned during the making of it. I skipped out on a couple of days as I was burned out, so I had to make up time at the last minute by waking up early and spending my entire day working on the animation.

I also had to cut some scenes out of the animation, as I feared I wouldn't be able to finish it on time with them. Despite this, I feel I have done well for an animation created in under 25 days.

If I get through the Open round (which I think is unlikely) I will most definitely do some things differently. I would make my next animation less verbose and have more of a focus on movement, as it is an animation tournament after all. I would also make it a bit shorter, as it took almost all my time to create a 3 and a half minute animation. Making something shorter would mean I have more time to relax and more time to focus on the quality of the animation.

We will soon found out the results and see if I have gotten through to the Novice round!

NATA Animatic

This is the rough animatic for my NATA animation, which I have named 'Paradox Pandemonium'. Unfortunately it glitches out at the end and the sound quality isn't very good but it identifies what I want to show well enough.

Although it is rough it allows me to identify timings and the positions for the animation. I have worked out I need to roughly do 14 seconds of animation a day, taking away days I am working on college work. It is going to be difficult but I am sure I'll be able to do it.

NATA

I have decided to enter the Newgrounds Annual Tournament of Animation (NATA).

I saw the original post for it on Newgrounds and decided to enter on a whim. While I don't think I have very good chances in even entering the Open round, I think it will be good practice for my animation skills and good dicipline for working to a deadline.

The deadline for the Open round is May the 10th and the theme for this round is 'Discovering Time Travel'. I have already thought of an idea and will begin working on it straight away.

Approaches in Games Industry

The start of the design process in games is a very important stage and can affect the entire game when finished. There are various ways to begin the design process, such as using an existing IP. There is also a 'me too' element to design process, which sees game companies making similar products to successful companies. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this, very good games have come out this way. Most new ideas come from mixing and matching existing ideas, there is nothing new under the sun after all.

Research and development is also important in game making. When an idea is formed it is important to research into this idea by searching for things similar to it and things related to it. You also need to think of the genre and feel of the game you are creating, are you making a horror game? Is it for adults or children? These are all things that need to be addressed early in the game making process.

When the idea and research has been all put together it is time to create concepts for the game. Most people think of art to give inspiration for certain scenes, but concepts can come in other forms as well. Basic cubed out levels, scripts for the story, sound prototypes, all of these help build the concept of the game and inspires the game makers.

Moral Kombat

During a session, we watched Moral Kombat, a feature length documentary about the history of violence in video games. The film goes at great length charting the history of violence in Games, giving a balanced view for each argument, though I personally believed that the film leaned against violence in videogames.

Violence in videogames has been discussed many times over its history, many people complaining that this violence causes real life violence in children. However, I disagree with this standpoint. In this day and age millions of children have been shown violence in video games, and barely any have repeated the actions in these games. I think that most children can differentiate violence in a video game
and real life violence and the idea that they can't comprehend the difference is a little insulting to their intelligence.

I believe the rare moments of history where video games have influence people to cause violence are in people who have other, deeper factors affecting them as well, it is foolish to assume that a video game alone could affect someones mind so radically. Much like movies and books, violence has always been around in our media, just because Video games are a new media doesn't make it suddenly much more dangerous.

Floating Island

Unity Web Player | Web version

« created with Unity »

Finished level

I have now textured the fence posts which means everything is now textured in my level.

Finally I have added a toon outline around the objects to fit with the light hearted cartoon style I was going for.

Particles and Textures

I have done a lot since my Crit. I have now replaced all of the boards with a textured white wood. I have also added some particle effects to make it look like magic is preventing you from falling off the edge, fitting with the Sceneography well.

I have also textured my house, adding windows a door and boards to it.

Finally I have added a tree texture and leaves to the trees. The other tree will soon have these new textures as well.

Final Crit

For the Final crit I managed to get the texture work for the roof/hat done. For the crit we walked around the room, testing everyone's games and writing out criticism for each game.

When we had finished I had gotten a lot of notes and suggestions for making my world better, the most prominent being that the wind sound effect is a but jarring with the rest of the levels mood. There were also some quick fixes that I needed to do, such as adding colliders to certain things.

I will try and implement these suggestions and improve my level as much as possible for when it is finally released.

Grass and Music

I have now added boards to all of the Fence posts, I have also added an invisible wall around the entire floating island to prevent players from falling out of the world.

I have also fixed the problems with my Big Crystal! I fixed this by triangulating the entire mesh and setting all of the normals to always face outwards, eliminating any backface culling.

I have now added a texture to the ground, I have emulated the texture style of Skyward Sword to get a nice cartoony style.

Finally I have added sound to the entire enviroment, with water sound when you get close to the pond and wind sound effect where ever you are.

Big Crystal

I have now replaced the large placeholder cube with the new crystal. However there are some problems with this, as the model is complicated, some faces have disappeared. I will have to make sure to fix this as soon as possible as the Crit is coming up.

Fence, Dock, Water

I have now added fence posts around the island, I still need to add boards connecting all of the fence posts though, I also still need to texture them.

I have added water to the pond, I will need to add sound and texture on the ground to make it look more blue.

I have detailed out the dock to make it look more natural I still need to texture them though.

Floating Gorund In

I have now replaced the terrain with a Maja object, it is now rounded and seems like it's floating in the sky. I used the Boolean tool to create indents into a cylinder, creating a simple path and area for the pond.

Wizard Hats and Trees

I have made more progress on my Unity level. I have added a simple skybox to the scene, though I would like a customised one, I am not sure on how to make one.  I have modeled out the roof for the house and the trees around my path. I have also added my tutorial tree into the scene, though I will be editing it later. The trees and the roof are not textured yet, I am putting these in right now as a crit is coming up and I'd like everything I've done so far to be up for show.

I will also need to add leaves to my trees at some point.

Crystal Building and Prototype

I have started on my level, first building my enviroment using cubes and shapes in Unity. I am using the terrain tool to create the ground but I will eventually have to replace it with a Maya object as I can't create round terrain.

I created some simple crystal shapes in Maya and gave them a simple texture. I added a transparency filter in Maya but it wouldn't translate in Unity.

 
So Instead I used a unique shader for the crystals called FX glass. Not only did this make the crystals see through, but it also made it shiny and warp things when looked through it. I am very pleased with how this has turned out and will use it for the rest of my crystals.

Skyward Islands

A heavy influence to my concepts is The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, specifically the floating islands of Skyloft. I really like the bright and colourful feel of the entire game, it is something that I would like to emulate for my own floating Island.

All of the textures in Skyward Sword are cartoon-y and painterly, I will have to make sure I choose similar textures for my own enviroment.

Avatar's Floating Islands

One of my first influences when looking into floating islands was the movie Avatar, which features massive floating mountains. These look fantastic, though I don't think I'd be able to recreate these. I am personally looking for a more cartoon-y style and look.

Final Concept and Floor Plan

I have produced a final concept for my floating island enviroment. After the tree tutorial I decided to make the trees have multicolored leaves as it makes the environment feel more magical and fit the feel I am going for.

I also produced a simple floor plan based on this concept to help the modelling process.

House designs

In my Sceneography I wrote about how a Wizard lived on the Island. However, I did not think that it would be obvious to the player that a Wizard lived there. I thought of an idea to combine a traditional wizards hat with the house.

I think this will help communicate with the player and set the mood of the enviroment a lot easier.

Floating Island Concepts and Sceneography

I developed my sketches a bit more and made a new concept for my Floating Island Environment. I used my Sceneography to also help develop my concepts.

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 SCENEOGRAPHY – REFINED BRIEF

Name : Ryan Lancaster

Project Brief:  UFO/ FAIRYTALE / KIRKSTALL ABBEY - ( delete as applicable )

Project Title: Floating Island

Broad Audience:  Child / Teen / Family / Mature  - (delete as applicable )

Mood / Atmosphere: Light, relaxing.

Scene Description

Time of Day: Midday/morning                INTERIOR / EXTERIOR / BOTH

Explanation / Backstory of Scene:

A man, travelling through the skys by airship, falls after encountering a turbulent storm. He awakes to find himself on a floating island, covered in grass and peppered with gigantic glowing crystals. The only signs of civilisation being a single house, owned by an eccentric wizard and a dock going out to the open sky. Smaller islands can be seen in the distance, with similar crystals on them.

The entire island is calm and relaxing. A small pocket of nature in the sky.

 
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I have taken some inspiration from games such as Skyward Sword and Crash Bandicoot, I would like to recreate the simple and lighthearted feel those games had.