AJ Posts Tech

Hello! This blog document mys work, ideas, and other such material while I am studying Creative Technology. If you want to message me to chat or ask questions, feel free! One important note before you go though - the ideas, works, or other such material that I have created are mine and the people that I have worked with, so no taking or claiming as your own. As most of this stuff will be for projects which then have to be handed in, graded, and checked for plagiarism, I don't want any issues if my stuff is cropping up around the internet. So copyright. Thank you for reading, and see you around!

[ajaderaven]

Oasis Art Book

I was in charge of collecting and curating our collection of concept art, screenshots, and final images into an art book. The final, printed book has several spacer pages to line pages up correctly, so that the titles are always on the right-hand side of the book. 

[colabpixelpusher]

Critical Framing:

“Interaction assumes that there are individual independently existing entities or agents that pre-exist their acting upon one another” (Barad, 2012). Intra-action challenges the idea of individual entities and instead suggests the world is one integrated system. “Individuals do not preexist as such, but rather materialize in intra-action” and constantly reconfigure based on their ongoing interactivity.

A person’s actions influence not just their own reality but also the reality of those around them. As we exist within and influence our environment, so do we impact the environment of those around us due to our systematic existence, both passively and actively. Our project explores this concept of intra-action and encourages people to be mindful of the influence others have over their own perception of the world, as well as the influence they have over others.

Keep reading

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Animation Final

I’ve finished animating all the necessary actions for the moment, which in the video are idle loop, hover loop, jump loop (falling), walk, run, wall grab left and right loops, a full wall glide loop with start and end actions, a ‘momentum jump’, and lunge with start, loop, and end sections, and a jump with start, loop, and end sections, then back to the idle pose. 

I had to tweak some of the existing animations, like the transition from wall grab to wall glide was strange because the character was on a much larger lean in the wall grab pose. I also added a ‘wall jump’ animation for when the character jumps off the wall, but I forgot to capture that as well. I also added some movement to the loops like the falling loops to make them feel more life-like

I created some start and end animations for the dash and wall run animations, but the character will probably just transition straight from the previous animation (run, fall, hover) into the center loops. 

I also played around with a momentum jump animation, where the character takes all their momentum and converts it into a big upwards jump. However, the rotation may have to be redone in Unreal, because rotating the character all the way around doesn’t set the rotation back to zero, it’s now set at one, so whenever it transitions to another animation it’ll unwind and rotate in a circle back the other way.

Creating these animations have been really interesting and I’ve learnt several tips. Some of the animations still look a little unnatural, and that’s because all the actions like hands moving, arms swinging, bag flapping, tunic flapping, are all key-framed to the same frame. In real life things are always a little bit out of time, so I’d have to go through and move the key frames around. Another technique in animation is to stretch and squash the character when they move, like squashing their shape when they land a jump. I’d like to play around with that next time. In stylized animation exaggeration of movements can give the character more personality and charm. As it was my first attempt animating I kept the movements pretty tame and tried to make them look life-like, but next time I’d like to venture out and try more expressive movements. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Colour Tests

After finishing the rest of the animations and tweaking some existing ones I started doing some flat colour tests to demo colours for the textures before painting it in 3D. 

I took the front view template and blocked out flat colours, experimenting with different colours, patterns, and combinations. I wanted the design to both stand out from the background to make the character easier to see, but also look somewhat natural in the desert environment. I also wanted the design to be bright and colourful, so while the tests with grays and whites look nice, they’re very simple and plain. I ended up mixing the three red and orange designs together, using soft oranges and reds with accents of yellow, and a little bit of blue to add something that stands out and is bright. I’ve been trying to use more restricted colour palettes, as those look more aesthetically pleasing. This made the design on the right, which will be my guide for texturing the model. The model currently is going without the skirt, as we couldn’t get the cloth physics on the skirt working properly and that’s pretty low priority at this point. I’ll paint pants on to the character. 

I got the base colours in a line to the right of the model, and then I used colour picker to choose the highlights and shadows for each colour to make my colour palette. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Game Developer’s Meetup + Play-testing

Last Thursday we presented the current version of our game at the GDM, with two play options - story mode and sandbox mode.

In story mode the player starts at the bottom of the tower and must first climb up to the hub, and then one of the tower challenges (the dash) is open to attempt. In sandbox the player has access to all the power-ups and there are three short challenges to attempt and play around with. We got lots of valuable feedback from the testing session, and here are the raw notes:

Suggestions:

Button to snap camera behind player?

Camera to close too player, should be zoomed out more

Far too dark at bottom levelMake text describing abilities bigger / clearer?

Fix the POV when bouncing between walls

Make a few more ways off the ground of the tower than just the stairs

Make jump physics so that the character is more reactive, only moving forward when stick being pushed forward and slowing back down when stick released?

Onscreen UX/UI showing powerups? E.g. greyed out symbols that light up once powerup picked up, and fade out when used until recharged. Shows controls as well

Hold jump for wallrun maybe?

Window collision to stop players falling out?

Call lunge dash / airdash instead

Observations:

Couple of difficulty spikes in first, tutorial level. This level should be easy.

Players fell off the end of the stairs multiple times when jumping onto block, and had to walk back around.

Unclear to go to center to get double jump power up. Can’t be seen from that angle, several people saw the shining gold block instead and went to that.

The jump near the tunnel is far too hard. It is also unintuitive and difficult to spot, as the player has to turn completely back around. Doing so often forces the camera in close to the player due to the block there, so it is hard to spot the next platform.

You can complete most of the dash challenge without the dash. 

Players often don’t realise what ability they’ve picked up or how to use it. 

People kept trying to pick up the glowing pip in the center of the large pipe. 

When trying to wall jump it was hard to control camera, and often player couldn’t see both walls clearly.

Players didn’t understand what the momentum jump was doing

People liked using the trigger for wall running once used to it. 

Some people will follow and look for the blue specks. Prehaps make their placement clearer and use them more liberally.

In the playground level players will buttonmash to figure out what the controls and power-ups are. This works mostly - but not for the wallrun, since that powerup is only activated on the wall. Players either don’t realise they can wallrun, or don’t know what button to push. 

When players fall down from the loop, because of object placement it looks like they should be able to climb back out. However, they are always just short, which frustrates some players

Many players quit if they fall back down due to a difficult jump

People Said:

It’s cute!

They liked the movement and mechanics

Liked Physics

Liked Graphics

“Ah, I get it, follow the light.”

Once get hang of controls becomes much easier

Liked jump distance

Really good!

Why are some blocks gold? Doesn’t make sense, distracting

In the end there were several big issues that kept coming up. The tower was far too dark, and nobody could see what they were doing. There were also several difficulty spikes in the first level and sometimes the path was confusing and unintuitive. As this is the first, tutorial level, it shouldn’t be difficult. Finally players didn’t realise what power-ups they’d collected or how to use them, so we’re probably going to add some onscreen UX/UI.

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Animations

After finally finishing rigging last week, I started working on some of the main animations of the game - the walk, run, and jump loops. These can be seen in the video above, with the rigging in the first half and with rigging hidden in the second half. I was anticipating it to be another tedious, long task, but was pleasantly surprised when after looking up and following a few tutorials online, it only took me about an hour to get a working walk animation, and another two to get a run one. I enjoyed making the animations, and kept laughing at all the weird, in-between poses where I’d moved the legs but not the arms and etc. I tweaked those and got them ready to go, and started on the jump animation. That one’s still a work in progress, but once it’s done I’ll split it up into a jump start, fall loop, and land animation.  

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Rigging.

Over the last day I finished rigging! Yay! I was having issues with rigging the arms and shoulders, because whenever I moved the arm it wouldn’t affect the tunic and would go through it. I remembered a tutorial I watched a while ago about how to rig a skirt, and remembered that they’d added bones to the skirts itself to help it move properly. I tried that out, initially adding five bones in a half circle on each side. This worked much better, but affected a little to much of the tunic. I then tried three, then one, then ended up with two floating bones on each side and another two at the back, with the bones on the sides parented to the arm. 

This was working much better, but I still ran into a few problems. The arm kept dipping through the tunic. In the end I cheated a little and just deleted the problem faces, especially since that area wouldn’t be seen anyway as it was tucked into the tunic. 

I’ve also created the different materials for the model and I’ve started playing around with putting some default colours on the materials so that when it’s play-tested it looks slightly better than being the default gray. This will just be temporary until I have time to create some real textures. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

UV Unwrapping Hell, Rigging, and Learning that I Don’t Always Have To Do Things the Hard Way.

Last week I was going to start rigging the model, but realised that it still needed UV unwrapping. I didn’t want to delay animating more, but some research showed that apparently UV unwrapping after rigging can mess up the rigging. Also, I rig and animate in blender and UV Unwrap in Maya, and porting the model between the two already rigged tends to break the rigging. 

I was using a subdivision modifier to smooth out the model and make it look more appealing, but had to apply it before exporting and UV Unwrapping it. This made UV Unwrapping harder, as the model went from less than 5000 points to 50,000. However, subdividing an already unwrapped model can mess up the UV Unwrap. 

UV Unwrapping is a tedious, repetitive job, and there’s only so much you can do to make it faster. Initially, because of how I’d made all the objects by extruding from a single face, every single face on the model was sharing the same UV space and was tiny. I auto unwrapped the model, which mostly worked, but each piece was broken up into dozens of pieces. The less seams in a model is better, as this is places where you can see visible cuts in textures where the textures don’t line up and places which have strange artifacts when hand painted. I had to go around stitching all the pieces together, and a lot of the times the shapes didn’t nicely fit in with each other. That meant lots and lots of point pushing as I reshaped large portion of the UV mesh to both line up with other parts and not be weirdly stretched. I also couldn’t allow any overlapping of faces, as that would make painting textures difficult and broken later. I’ve experienced it once, where large portions of a texture overlapped itself and made it basically impossible to texture. Drawing one line in one space made the line show up in hundreds of different faces on the model. 

Most of the model was fairly easy. The dress was easy, as it’s only about 30 faces. Same with the scarf tail. The body took a bit longer, especially bits like the hands and face, however I kept up a good pace.

However, just like with modelling, I got to the scarf and turban and progress slowed to a crawl. There were so many seams, and due to the overlapping, looping shape of the objects, that meant many overlapping, looping UVs. 

This is the scarf after the auto-unwrap:

Thats not too bad, except for some weird patches, the jagged edges, and the seams being pretty visible. This is after I fixed it:

The seams are tucked into the folds, the UV shells are much larger and there are fewer of them, and the seams are all straight lines. There are still some visible lines, but that’s about as I good as I can get it. It took me a full day to do the rest of the body, and a full day to do the scarf. 

The turban was even more confusing, with its many folds and more circular shape. That also took a little over a full day. By the end of the week I was Unwrapping UVs every time I closed my eyes. But now it’s done and out of the way, and I can move on to rigging.

Making the skeleton was easy, and took me about half an hour. Rigging the skeleton and weighting it correctly was not. Because I’d subdivided the model, I now had 10 times the points to weight. Instead of having, say, three rings around an elbow to weight at 1, 0.5, and 0.1, I now had ten to weight at 1, 0.9, 0.8, 0.7... etc. I was starting to think I should have unwrapped the model without subdividing it and take my chances with breaking the textures and animations. 

I messed around for a day yesterday, getting a (kind of) functioning knee and attempting to get a hip working. Hint: it did not work. I have very little experience rigging so far, and while I was following a tutorial a lot of my numbers were guess work. What I got looked crunchy, broken, stretching weirdly in some places and not at all in others.

I tend to want to do work myself and learn how to do things properly, as saying ‘yeah I can rig and animate something’ isn’t really ‘yeah I can hit this button and there’s a fifty-fifty chance that it automatically rigs it or doesn’t know how to do it, and if that happens you’re on your own’. However, I have five weeks to create a dozen animations, and the list keeps on growing. Practically, I just don’t have the time to spend the next three weeks learning to rig a full model from scratch. 

I caved and tried to use the auto-rigging function in blender. To my surprise (it’s kind of buggy and usually gives up on more complicated models, e.g., 50,000 point models with overlapping geometry like scarfs and turbans) it worked. Mostly. Lesson there for me - sometimes just use the tools to skip the hard work. Especially on a deadline. 

I checked out how Blender rigged it, and that helped my understanding of what to assign to where. There are still areas on the model that need reweighing, as a few bones were affecting parts of the model that they shouldn’t (the bag was flying all over the place when I moved the spine, so I added a bone for it to keep it in place) and some parts of the model weren’t being affected by bones that should have affected them. The tunic around the shoulders isn’t attached to the arms, so I’ll have to go through and and fix that. However, a lot of work has been cut out, and I can look at the existing rigging to inform my rigging of the missing areas. 

I’m aiming to get a basic walk animation done by the end of the week. I’m also going to look into Mixamo, which has a bunch of stock animations to use. Depending on how long it takes to make each animation, I might use some from Mixamo to speed up the process. (Again, I have five weeks).

I’m finally caught up on my work, as I was behind for the last two weeks due to being ill. I’m feeling much more positive about my progress now that I’m back on track. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Character Modeling

Over the last two weeks I’ve been 3D Modeling the main character of the game from my sketches, who is a desert wanderer. Most of the body was relatively easy, especially since I’m going with the stylized design. Most of the clothes are pretty flat and easy shapes, so I did all that first. The bottom skirt part will have cloth physics applied to it, so hopefully it’ll look like it’s flapping around pretty nicely by itself. The end of the scarf will also have some cloth physics applied in Unreal as well. 

I ran into some problems when modeling the scarf and turban. Part of that is I had some difficulty understanding my own drawings, and the side/front/back drawings didn’t always line up properly. For the scarf I followed my sketch, but for the turban I kind of made it up as I went. In my first attempt at creating the scarf the front went okay, but the back got confusing and lumpy and didn’t really make sense. 

Initially I tried to sculpt the scarf, using my wacom tablet. This kind of worked, but I’m still unskilled with using the sculpting tool and couldn’t create the flat shapes that I wanted or the finer detail. Also, in order to sculpt properly I had to subdivide the surface a couple of times, and then the low detail model looked strange with this highly detailed scarf.  The low-poly look keeps in style with the rest of the character.  

I decided to start again with modeling how I knew, by extruding and manipulating faces, and with a bit of mental gymnastics as I tried to keep track of the location of points I ended up pretty happy with the results I got for both the turban and scarf. 

I added the little satchel at the end, and I like the added personality and detail it gave to the character. I also added more definition to the face, adding a nose, a more defined chin, and eye dimples. Most of the features will be in the textures. 

[ajaderaven]

Visit Original Link

Space Image and Sound

Conceptual Statement

Spatial Visualization:

Audio Samples:

(See Top)

Written Description:

This project is addressing the weak signal of the power of suggestion. We want to explore how one element can influence another and suggest a visual or auditory outcome. Based on the audiences observation of the first element their interpretation of the second is affected.

A potential example of this would be a layered image, consisting of multiple images all semi-transparent and superimposed over each other. Each image is individually visible when focused on, however difficult to detect among the other images. Accompanying this layered image would be a sound track specifically related to one of the images. As audience members approach the work, the sound they hear is suggestive of a particular subject matter and therefore, that is the image their brain will pick out from among the layers.

We will explore having both sound and image as the dominant element, investigating how each can influence people. They key element in this project is how the audience’s interpretation is subconsciously effected. Because of this we will prototype each element and see how viewers react before developing the work based on user feedback. We also want to investigate involving the audience in the suggestion, through the possible use of sensors. Perhaps the work influences the audience and their reaction to the work then re-influences the work itself, changing the visual or auditory element in real-time, creating a closed loop of influence.

We intend this installation to be set up in a gallery type ‘white space’ so focus is given to the images and sound on display. The work will consist of multiple image and sound pairings, however as the relationship between each pairing is so important, they will be displayed in different spaces or at different times so that they do not interfere with each other.

Conceptual Statement:

Weak signals are aspects of an environment which are hard to detect and so are often overlooked (Charlton, J., 2018). Some of the most interesting weak signals are those that exist within everyday human interaction. These are the signals and subtle communications we frequently rely on as humans, and yet are often unaware of. One of these signals is the power of suggestion.

Suggestions have the power to completely change how we as humans observe things. “If you expect something to happen - if someone or something suggests to you a specific outcome - your expectations of that outcome play a major role in its occurrence. The expectation or suggestion alone, often unconsciously, changes your behaviour and your responses to help bring into reality the outcome you are expecting” (Campbell, 2015).

The 1892 rabbit-duck drawing illusion (seen below) is an excellent example of this (Rabbit-duck illusion, 2018). Depending on how the drawing is viewed, both a duck and a rabbit are visible. However, if shown the image with the pretense of it being a rabbit, people are more likely to see the rabbit first. The suggestion, is what manipulates and directs a person’s view. In our work, it will be an auditory or visual suggestion that determines how the work is interpreted.

Chris Carter is another artist who uses suggestion in her work. Her line drawings are done in such a way that they suggest motion and form. (Chris Carter Artist, 2018). The lines themselves are quite simple, but they are suggestive of something far more complex.

The following video of a jumping telephone pole suggests a sound (KiddosOldChannel, 2011). The way the image moves and reacts suggests magnitude and sound, and watching it over, we almost felt like we could hear the pole hitting the ground.

Another sound and image suggestion combination, is the 4’33” composition by John Cage. This 1952 piece is a composition consisting of no deliberate sounds and so as a result, the ambient noise in the environment takes focus in the work (Pritchett, 2009). In this way Cage’s work also explores weak signals. The suggestive element to the work is based in the relationship between the visual sheet music and the auditory performance. Without the sheet music, the performer might have been assumed to be doing nothing, but with the composition it becomes clear that the performer is actually playing a piece that simply has no notes. The visual sheet music influences an audience’s understanding of the auditory element in the work.

Finally, Lisa Reihana’s 2015 installation “In Pursuit of Venus [Infected]” links sounds and images in a back and forth manor. As one sound becomes louder the audience is encouraged to seek out the image to which the sound belongs, suggesting a way of viewing the work. In a similar sense, when a new image appears on the right of the screen it suggests a new sound and the audience listens in for the accompanying audio. The way the work directs an audience is very subtle, but the visual and auditory elements in this piece definitely influence the audience’s perception of the work as a whole (Auckland Art Gallery, 2015).

Each of the above works has an element of suggestion in the way the elements of the work interact. The power of suggestion is a weak signal because it is present in all of these works and yet it is not the focus or direct intention of the work. We intend to use suggestions in our own work in a similarly subtle way - hidden amongst the background ‘noise’ so to speak.

Sounds will suggest images, images will suggest sounds and ultimately the work will suggest a way in which to be observed. The work itself will determine how it is viewed, by using suggestion to position the viewer. Suggestion is the weak signal because it will be subtle enough to be overlooked, and yet it is celebrated as the hidden key element in every piece.

Technical Requirements:

Software and Production Materials:

Photoshop - Already on personal laptop

Processing - Already on personal laptop

Arduino - Already on personal laptop

Digital Audio Workstation - Already on personal laptop

Printer - Printsprint is accessible at AUT

Installation Materials:

White Space - Book the ‘blackbox’ space at AUT

Screen - Book colab projector/tv screen

Speakers - Speakers built into ‘blackbox’ space

Sensors - Already owned, and can also be purchase from Jaycar and Surplus Electronics

References: 

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. (2015, July 20). Lisa Reihana: in Pursuit of Venus (infected) [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmMRF5nw9UI

Campbell, P. (2015, April 21). 4 ways the power of suggestion can change your life. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/imperfect-spirituality/201504/4-ways-the-power-suggestion-can-change-your-life

Chris Carter Artist. (2018). Retrieved from https://chriscarterart.com/

John Cage. (2018, August 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 27, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cage

KiddosOldChannel. (2011, July 12). Rope jumping electricity pole [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b–kczcf4AI

Pritchett, J. (2009). What silence taught John Cage: the story of 4’33”. Retrieved from http://rosewhitemusic.com/piano/writings/silence-taught-john-cage/

Rabbit-duck illusion. (2018, May 25). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 20, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%E2%80%93duck_illusion

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Character Reference Sheet

After my last post, where I said that I had three designs to choose between, I ended up choosing all of them! I asked several people, and everyone liked and disliked different parts of each design and everyone had a different favorite. I decided the designs still needed some work, so I took the bottom half of the first design, the top half of the third design, and used the second design to influence my simplification and stylization. 

I decided to simplify the reference a lot, using larger, block shapes and getting rid of the hands and feet. I’m probably going to be making several animations including walk, run, jump start/middle/end, wall run left/right, and dash to start with, so I need to cut time somewhere. I added a satchel, partly for aesthetics, and partly for if the character needs to pick anything up. Also, since the character is a desert nomad they’d probably have some form of bag. I tried to keep their design ambiguous when it comes to gender, so that the player finds it easy to project themselves into the character. I also made their skirt bigger so that I won’t need to worry about animating the legs kicking the skirt around. 

Next I’ll start modeling, and also start creating colour palettes and designs. We were considering having signifiers on the model itself to let the player know when they’re running low on health or using up a boost. That might be in a glow, or a part of their clothing changing colour, so I’m working with Xavier our UX/UI designer for that.  

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Character Concepts

I’ve moved on to character concept art for our project. We want a humanoid main character, so I drew a base skeleton, copy-pasted it all over the page, and set to work. 

Since our setting is a fantasy/medieval castle in a desert, I looked up images of traditional desert wear, fashion, and art to use as references. I started drawing, churning out different concepts, trying to get a large variety of character designs to choose from. Each sketch took me 10-15 minutes, so I could work quiet quickly. I run out of steam about 16, so did two more and decided to stop there. Then I looked at each character concept and took the parts of each that I liked and combined it into three final characters. You can see which parts went into each character in the third image, for example for the first final character concept I took the shape of the top tunic in the first character, the shape of the bottom tunic from the 7th character, the shoes from the 8th, and the skirt design from the 15th.

Now I need to choose between the final three concepts. I really like the third  design, but it is probably too complex for me to model at this stage. I also need to research some cloth simulation. 

It will probably be between the first two concepts. The second concept will be easiest, but looks very similar to the journey main character. The first design seems to be a good balance between simple design and pleasing aesthetics, so I’ll probably go for that.

Next I need to mock up some concepts for colours and patterns that I’ll use, and a reference sheet to model from. I also need to research cloth simulation. 

I also need to start making concept art for the power crystals. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Concept Art

This past week I have been drawing some basic concept art for different settings and styles of towers. This was somewhat of a learning curve as I had to balance the amount of time I had to do the five pieces and how much detail I wanted in them. 

I started doing them one by one, completing one before I moved onto the next. The desert piece took the longest, and I realised that I didn’t need to develop the piece as much. I spent some time blending shadows and smoothing edges which added some detail and, but flat shadows is enough considering how long the blended shadows took. In the second piece I did flat shadows. I completed that late Saturday, and I needed to do another three pieces in the hour I had on Saturday and two hours this morning. It’d taken me four hours each for the first two pieces, and I had three hours to do three more. 

I started working on those side by side. I drew the first sketch for each, and then did the line art for each, and then started doing block colours. While the last two pieces aren’t coloured, they get the idea across. 

The five settings + towers are: desert + circle towers, swamp + mushroom tower, snow + ice crystal tower, trash heap + steampunk tower, and dark void + fort castle tower. 

I liked the snow and desert setting the best, and disliked the swamp one. We choose to go for the desert as it suited our concept well with the shifting sand dunes and also because this was one that everyone was interested in. 

We also discussed what style the tower should be. We decided that a circular building would look cool, with pieces rotating around a center point. We also thought it would be good to have the center be a hollow pit, so that the player can see from the bottom to the top and see where they are heading. The empty pit will also give them a peaceful room between levels, and will be how the player traverses between the levels. It will also give them a chance to see the rising sand as it starts to swamp the levels. It will look somewhat like the castle in the last art piece. 

Mark and Nathan will continue to prototype moving walls in buildings, this time in the castle context. Nathan will start on level design for the castles. Once we’ve ensured that the mechanics work and they know what sizes and shapes the walls and rooms will be I’ll start modelling textures and walls for them to use.

In the meantime I’m going to create several concept art pieces of what the character will look like. We’ve decided to go for a 3rd person camera. I will also start mocking up art of what the ‘crystal power up’ could look like, and the ‘shrine’ you pick it up from. 

[ajaderaven]

Transmedia Narratives

This week in class we started with looking at each component of the experience, and balancing how important each is in different narratives. Four questions to help with that were these:

How important is the story?

How important is it that the audience can contribute?

How important is the real world in relation to the experience? For example; do they have to go to real world locations?

How important is it that the audience achieve a goal?

To answer these we have to look at our audience and what our goals for our experience are. We looked at this empathy map:

Which helps us draft out attributes of a potential user and then design our experience and advertising to best suit them.

I have a couple user diagrams in my slides, seen in one of my previous posts. I’ll add to those and adapt those as I continue.

For Near Mountains, the answer to those four questions are;

The story isn’t super important. Near Mountains is more about the experience as a whole, and bite sized pieces of entertainment and information presented in a friendly, easy to consume format. The user would be able to go through the experience in whatever order they choose, which would be harder if there was a story scripted into it.

It will be of medium importance that the audience can contribute. Near Mountains aims to cultivate a friendly relationship with it’s audience, so audience should be able to submit questions, suggestions, and prehaps stories or pictures of their own achievements.

The real world is super important in this Transmedia Experience. Near Mountains primary goal is to get people out and into their surrounding environment and neighbourhood, at both the places they advertise and encourage the audience to go to places of their own. 

Audience achievement is also a large part of Near Mountains’ experience. While some of the audience will probably only watch and consume the videos and other media, Near Mountains encourages people to complete trails, and gives them tools and information to aid them on their journey. It would also encourage the audience to set their own exercise and health goals, which would be important for people that weren’t in Auckland, where most of the videos would be based. 

We also looked at typical story structures and story arcs. Almost all stories can be broken down to this structure:

The steps are:

Start with the character.

Have the character need/want something.

Have that character attempt to go after it.

Introduce roadblocks, struggles, things going wrong

Have them find what they were searching for. Prehaps what they originally wanted is now no longer what they need.

Have the character take the thing they want, and make them pay the price. This pushes the character to the bring and lets us see more of their personality.

Have the character go back home, altered by experience

Back to status quo, but something/the character has changed.

As a writer, this is a really interesting breakdown of most stories.

However, for this Transmedia project I’ve run into some struggles. 

My project is more of a project than a story. It doesn’t have scripted struggles, or planned downfalls. It relies on chance to introduce problems. Near Mountains was originally an informative but playful, entertaining channel touring real world places to advertise them to others. 

In order to add a story I would have to make the videos scripted, which I’m not sure I want to do. They would feel less real and honest and more like entertainment. It would be harder to encourage the audience to go view trails if I’m making humorous skits showing all the trials encountered on them. 

Still, I mocked up a quick script of what this could look like if I followed this route, following the story cycle.

The main character, a young uni student, is comfortable at home, and doesn’t really exercise at all. 

They decide they want to go hiking to get healthier, and also want to learn their neighbourhood.

They find a nearby walk, and decide to do it. 

They encounter struggles, such as: they have no idea how to go hiking, they’re a bit of a klutz. Their busy uni schedule means they only have a couple hours free every other weekend, so have to sacrifice their dream of a three day hike for the moment and choose something closer to home. When they go hiking first they over prepare, and their pack is too heavy to carry more than a hundred meters down the track. They leave everything at the car, then later realise they don’t have food or water, so have to go back again.

They finally get the balance of supplies right, and get advice from an experienced hiker friend. They complete the walk, and enjoy the view from the top of the (relatively small) mountain.

The price they pay is aching legs and a tired body, due to being unfit. 

They return home, but now know what it’s like to go hiking.

They enjoyed their hike, so now plan to go on more. 

I could change my project into more of a skit based format. However, this gimmick might run short very quickly. I could potential do a mix though, a couple of the humour videos to draw people in, and then more informative, exploitative videos to encourage people to explore more trails in their neighbourhood. I may explore the possibility of one scripted video, but I want to stick to the more experience based format that I was originally planning. 

[ajaderaven]

Twisted Dreams is an interesting game that plays with the idea of two different changing dimensions, where what you do in one dimension affects the other. 

What I’m most interested in is the models when they change between the two worlds. For our game, I was thinking about having objects that slowly change shape or form over time, so I found the changes really interesting in this video. It is probably just a quick animation with a change in the textures. It’s most obvious about 25 seconds in to the video, where she switches between the dimensions a bunch. 

If I was to do this I’d want to stretch the animation out over a longer time, so that the player wouldn’t notice what was happening. 

[ajaderaven]

Studio VI // CTEC709

Over the past week and a half tensions have been a bit high in our group. After picking our theme, I thought it would be rather easy to choose our setting. We wanted to continue using our prototyping process, which up until that point had been working rather successfully. However, some of us were stuck. We wanted to prototype more game mechanics first and while I made a couple of paper prototypes, only really the programmers could create working prototypes of the mechanics. That meant the the artists, the UI designers, and the sound designers were feeling somewhat lost and floating. As a modeler and concept artist, I generally work from a central concept and setting. 

A few of us wanted to continue prototyping last week, and a few of us wanted to just choose the setting and start making content. After some debate (arguing) we eventually seemed to agree that while a prototyping process would be good for a bigger, more experienced team, or good if we had more time, we weren’t really at the stage where spending most of our time prototyping would be the most successful method for us. Everyone was kind of going in different directions and getting attached to their own ideas, and I was starting to worry that everyone was getting too far out from one another and our project wouldn’t be complete or cohesive.  

As the ‘director’ I have veto power and make the decisions. However, I’m beginning to realise it’s not something I’m that good at yet. I dislike making decisions which make people unhappy, and everyone in our group wants different projects, settings, and methods, so no matter what I was going to make someone unhappy. I also didn’t want to be biased towards my own ideas, as I felt that I shouldn’t be the director if I wasn’t going to listen to anybody. I have to learn to be more confident in making decisions and motivating the group. I need to trust that I’m making the right ideas, but also listen to everyone else’s input, and in the end I can’t just keep having votes and I’m the one that needs to choose between ideas and settings. Hopefully with this understanding and a bit of practice I will grow into the roll of director better.

On Monday we agreed we’d get two more days, during which we’d come up with a couple of setting/mechanic/player-objective packages for a potential game, and then choose between them. We already sort of had a setting, or a mechanic, but they were only parts of ideas. Today we decided to choose between them. This was my brain storm, with a couple of inputs from Garian:

A lot of these were half-starts of ideas, or didn’t have objectives for the player, or weren’t really interesting. I ended up suggesting 3 ideas, a tower being swallowed by a desert which you were stealing things from, and critters were retaliating. A rat-maze thing, where the maze is changing as you run through it. And the third idea is you are travelling through an abandoned spaceship/skyscraper and plants start growing when you’re not looking, so by the time you get to the end you’re moving through a forest. 

In the meeting a few other settings came up, one of which was an airship leaking hydrogen, and another of which was a spaceship falling into a black hole and everything is slowly stretching. 

Through discussion we combined the blackhole and forest idea, playing with time dilation around a black hole, explaining why the forest appeared so quickly. We ditched the rat-maze as it was kind of meaningless and somewhat of a plain setting.

From there we had two ideas. The black hole, and the tower idea. The tower idea still lacked a somewhat ‘game’ for players to play though. 

Through more discussion the tower idea evolved. Instead of just stealing treasure, you’re stealing ‘power crystals’ for your town, which in turn is destabilizing the tower and causing it to be swallowed up by the sand dunes in the desert. And, rather than angering critters which live in the tower so that they set up traps, the tower is a sentient being that is just trying to defend itself. The player probably wouldn’t notice the tower sinking until near the end, and the sentient building could be changing its rooms and walls to protect itself. The crystals could also give the players power ups, making it more ‘game like’ with objectives and player progression. 

In the end, I decided that we should do the tower idea. It’s more ‘grounded’ than the black-hole one, where we were kinda breaking physics, and the tower also portrays the idea of creep more clearly. The player is directly the one damaging their environment, the more they take the quicker it destabilizes, and hopefully they only notice towards the end. It also has a clearer player goal and objective.

Now we have a clear setting and story, we’re going to prototype a couple of different skins and then choose between them on Monday. The tower could be fantasy, steam-punk, futuristic, etc, and we’ll explore a few before settling. We are also beginning to experiment with how we can make a shifting building. Nathan Young made a prototype of randomly shifting walls, but we probably want the shifts to be more deliberate and controlled. I’ve already started making a GDD, but I’ll add what we’ve decided to it today. 

I’m happier now that we have chosen the base for the game mechanics, setting, and story, and I feel less stressed and more confident that we have a clear direction to go in. Hopefully we won’t get as stuck again, and now we can start creating content for the game in a few days. 

[ajaderaven]

Transmedia Narratives

Research

Before continuing development on Near Mountains I am first looking at similar projects, precedents, and other Transmedia Narratives. First I’m going to look at things that are thematically similar and based in New Zealand, to see what is already out there and what I’ll be competing against. After that I’ll look at thematically similar projects that aren’t New Zealand based, and also stuff that while it won’t be thematically similar, will be similar to the media I will be creating - for example, vlogs, review videos, etc. 

There are several organisations, both large and small, advertising trail walks and exploration of New Zealand in different ways. 

NZ Walks and Hiking New Zealand are organisations that you can hire tour guides from to take you on guided walks. It has several cool aspects - your tour can guide you confidently around the area, and has lots of insider knowledge. Hiking New Zealand is a branch of a global brand, so has lots of supports and connections. Their websites allow for easy searching and displays helpful information about each trail - like length, location, and difficulty. However, these sites seem to be aimed at more experienced hikers. The shortest hike advertised on Hiking New Zealand’s main page was three days of intense hiking. They are also generally located further out into the wilderness, away from Auckland. These are also pretty expensive - unsuitable for a uni student - and consume a large amount of time to get to and complete. 

Free Walks New Zealand looked like a very handy site. It has a large data base of walks to search through and has a short description and a list of useful associated statistics, like whether dogs are allowed and if you might get your feet wet. However, it doesn’t go into much detail and usually only has one or two photos of each track. 

I also stumbled across Epic Little Mission, which at first seemed similar to my idea. It is Auckland based, but I noticed that it mostly focused on walks nearby Auckland, not walks in Auckland. It also only showcases less than a dozen walks. The site is simple and clean, but lacks personality and depth. 

I looked at the Department of Conservation’s website. They are a well known, big name. They aim to protect the environment and educate people on looking after the nature around them. While they have quite a bit of information on trails in New Zealand and what to bring, they only present facts and information. I feel they are very successful on promoting environmental laws and restrictions, but don’t feel very personal. They also had this video:

It looks interesting, but only has a quick ‘wow’ shots of each track. I also noticed that while this had over 146,000 views, it only had 36 likes, and 1 comment. There is very little interaction with their audience. 

I also looked at what the Auckland Council does to promote walks and landmarks in Auckland. While they have lots of basic information on their website, I haven’t really seen them advertising this so much. That makes sense, as they are managing several different things at the same time. 

Finally I looked again at the MOTAT cycling exhibition. I would consider it a Transmedia project, as it has a combination of videos, installations, games - like one where you redesign a city to be more cycle friendly - and activities, like testing how fast you can cycle compared to a NZ Olympian. It is a big exhibit, well-supported, and has a clear, educational base, but it has a few weaknesses. It is entirely location based, so you can’t check it out unless you’re right there.

Comparing all these projects to Near Mountains, there are some clear differences. Most of those projects are aimed at experienced hikers and motivated explorers who have the time and energy to drive three hours to a trail, spend a day or more hiking, and then drive home again. I’m aiming my project towards young adults in Auckland, and they are often busy and may only have an hour or so spare to go check out the inner city park. I’m aiming towards people that either aren’t exercising yet or only exercise a little, hoping to encourage them to get into exercising more. I also want to get my audience to become more familiar with their immediate neighbourhood and environment. This means they don’t have to factor in much travel time or plan ahead. 

There were a few websites that give a short overview of different tracks, but they didn’t really go into any detail. I feel like they are aimed towards people who already go on trails and know what they’re expecting. I want to go into a more in depth tour and review, to engage the audience and inspire them to go check out trails themselves when they see how interesting it looks. I also want to create a more personal feel to my project, so that viewers are more engaged. 

References:

MOTAT. (n.d.) Celebrating Cycling In New Zealand. Retrieved from: https://www.motat.org.nz/about-motat/news-media/celebrating-cycling-in-aotearoa/

Auckland Council. (n.d.) Retrieved From: https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/parks-recreation/get-outdoors/find-a-walk/Pages/default.aspx

Epic Little Missions. (n.d). Retrieved from: http://epiclittlemissions.co.nz/

Free Walks. (n.d.) FREE walks and hiking tracks in New Zealand. Retrieved from:  https://www.freewalks.nz/

Department Of Conservation. (n.d.) Walking And Tramping. Retrieved from:  https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/things-to-do/walking-and-tramping/

Guided Walks New Zealand.  (n.d.) Retrieved from: https://www.nzwalks.com/

Department Of Conservation. (Oct 27, 2017) Short Walks And Day Hikes. [Video File] Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeMR5a2VqxE