IMT&S Blog 2023

A blog about the IMT&S projects in 2023

[imts2023]

Leyla Sprint 2

As part of my assigned tasks/learning goals, I have focussed on the task of organizing our environment in a way, of which it seperates into multiple layers, by means of making it easier for the programmers to have it implemented into our game build. My objective is to ensure that these layers are structured in a manner that facilitates seamless integration, while also upholding a consistent and coherent aesthetic that is both captivating and imaginative.

[imts2023]

Sprint 2 - Core AcuTe

The team made a lot of progress in the second sprint.

Deepfake

For the deepfake project a lot of progress has been made. Research was done about any legal issues regarding using footage of someone and making them say something of your choosing. A design document was made, there is a base for a web request prototype and the project setup including some API's have been added. Also a tablet UI research document has been made.

Deepfake - Design Document

Deepfake Design Document Items required for the set-up: A powerful computer which can run the program at a decent pace A tablet which can

Tablet UI design principles

Tablet UI Design Principles Tablet UI/UX is quite different from mobile UI/UX. The main factor is its large screen s

Most of these tasks were done by the designer, Simon. He had help from Daniel (teacher) and from Artiom, who works part-time on the backend development for the deepfake.

Nova Gorica

A time guestimation was made by Jeroen, based on the possible app functionalities that will be implemented in the app - this would be for a team of students without much experience making apps. Here is the link to view the document.

App functionalities list

App functionalities list For the nova gorica project, an app will have to be developed. This app must be able to do the following: Scannin

For Nova Gorica, the client wanted to get advice from the team about a profile for the expert resident(s) that they want to hire to work on the project. After discussing some basic necessities for the expert resident with the team, Mirthe and Jeroen took the time to research some more and decided on 2 clear profiles to use as a base. They then looked at some specific profiles on LinkedIn and added that all that to a presentation for the client. The conclusion was that they would need a data engineer and a (indie) game developer as they would likely have the combination of skills that would be needed - to form a bridge between what the client needs and what the students from CMGT are able to do.

Expert Residency Advice

Expert Resident Advice For the development for Nova Gorica

The clients were seemed pleased by the presentation and the help and now they can proceed. During that same meeting, the client also gave an update regarding story. It is still relatively primitive, but this is it in short.

You have an AI (character) that wants to unite and connect people by erasing their history and differences to become an entirely new community. As a player you do missions to help reach that goal (which entails re-enacting parts of history to access a memory that will then afterwards get deleted from history). Then there will be another, smaller, AI (character) that will pop up in the app and tell that player that to reach that goal, you shouldn't erase history, but you should celebrate your differences and cherish your history.

Multiplayer VR Game

After the storyboard was made finished on paper, it was time to make it digital. Lex focused mostly on this as he is in charge of the storyboard. Digitalizing the storyboard is what Lex worked on during the entire sprint. Lex was not present for the last 3 days of sprint 2 because he was sick. The last parts will need to be finished in the next sprint before the Reality Check Festival

General

In anticipation of the Reality Check Festival, 3 presentations had to be prepared for the partners. The base for this was made in sprint 2, a presentation theme was chosen, base slides and the setup was made, including the team introduction slides. An opportunity came up when it comes to working on learning goals for the artists of the team. People from the organisation of Reality Check would like to have content to post on social media about ACUTE during the Reality Check festival and this is a chance for Lex, Tamara and Mirthe to work on their photography and videography learning goals. More information about this will be given in the next sprint in the days leading up to the festival.

[imts2023]

BeeYou Games - sprint 2

General overview: Going from sprint one to two saw us still in the concepting phase. The designers have been busy with iterating on the gameplay and narrative while documenting it for the whole team. This meant however, that there could not be a greenlight for the artists to move away from the concept phase. In general, sprint two was defined by concepting, design, early prototyping and research.

We found out that because of our passion and motivation, we moved a bit too quickly into the ideate phase, nearly turning a blind eye to the research we still needed to do. It was an important part that multiple parties were expecting to see during this period. This is what pushed the design of the game a little bit into the background, leaving artists and engineers with little new tasks to work on besides more concepts and new iterations on the main gameplay mechanics.

Because this research took longer than expected, the game design was pushed back to the second week of sprint 2. And because the game design was not something we could just rush out the door, we were not able to finish the game design document within this sprint to push the team forward into the next stage of development.

We did manage to still be very productive within the project, the work and tasks done are as follows:

Engineers: Worked on the character controller, added a general event system that allows the player to talk with NPCs and more tool creation revolving around the dialogue system.

Artists: Some more work was done for the characters, creating more concepts that we would be able to show to the clients (can be viewed in Kalina's post), and the first concepts for the creature designs were made (can be viewed in Lisa's post). Unfortunately, because the way we need to create levels and how the design intertwines so much with the narrative, we were unable to consider a lot for the environment art.

Designers: The designers were busy with the research for the project, namely the empathy phase and define phase. After we went through that hurtle, we focused on the game design document to get everyone on the same line with the mechanics and so we can push out of the concepting phase. The narrative design document is also well underway with the main outline for each level having been decided on. Some work has also been done in Figma for the UI of the game.

Plans for the next sprint We hope to be done with the game design document very soon, so that we can get the whole group together to go over the rules we need to set for our game and the levels. We will also plan an extensive meeting with the whole group where we will look at the important tasks we need to plan when jumping over from the concept phase to the development & production phase.

Once we have discussed everything concisely, then we can start working a lot more practically, and we hope that we will be able to present more cool things other than concepts.

[imts2023]

Kalina (Sprint 2)

During the second sprint, we were still in the concept phase. I had to make the design for the main character. The guidelines were that it needs to be a human child and the focal point of the design was a hat. The headwear has a role in the gameplay so I made several concepts just for that. Based on the best received I created full character concepts.

[imts2023]

Sprint 1 - Team ACUTE

Nova Gorica

First client meeting

Brainstorm

We had our first client meeting in the first week of the sprint. This was very important for our process as this made it a lot clearer to us what the client wants and needs from us. They had great examples about what they had in mind and the goal of the experience was made clear as well: Unite and create a community within the 2 cities.

After the meeting, we could start working on doing some more specific research (empathize phase), and we could brainstorm more specifically about what they needed from us.

Deepfake

First Client meeting

Empathize phase

Brainstorm

In the first week we had a meeting with Daniel Valente de Macedo, who had been working on the deepfake. He explained to us what the idea was from the client and also showed us how the deepfake worked. This made it easier for us to come up with some clear tasks like collecting footage of world leaders that can then be used to create a deepfake video with. We all got access to the repository as well so we could continue working on what the past group has made.

We also had a client meeting at the end of the second week. Here we got some more information about the target group, the intended goal and the specific requirements of the deepfake. This made our tasks for the next sprint clear.

Multiplayer VR game

Testing the game ourselves

Start storyboarding for the new trailer

Getting the game

Talking to Jos for some clarity.

Brainstorm

Once we got the files from the multiplayer VR game from Jos (one of the engineers that worked on the game), we made sure we got a VR set up. Then all team members took turns playing the game as different characters. From the trailer and just playing the game, it was still unclear what the story was. However, after all playing different characters talking about what we found out, we finally figured out what the story was. The conclusion was that the idea of the game is really cool, but it absolutely does not get across to the player through the trailer of through playing.

Since we are going to be making a trailer for the game, we need to have a good idea and then start storyboarding. This was started in the second week of the sprint.

[imts2023]

Sprint 2

At the beginning of this sprint, I switched from BeeYou to Storytelling with data because storytelling needed another artist.

Storytelling

Moodboards

Concepts

These were the concepts I made for the Core.

BeeYou

For this sprint, I was still 1 week in BeeYou. That week I helped create mood boards for the game and made NPC concept art.

Moodboards for concepts

Npc Concepts

Xsense

Worked for 2/3 weeks on Xsense from Movella.

the deadline was moved to earlier so we had almost 2 weeks less to work on the project. We made an animation of me(in the suit) kicking a ball. We went to their building and gave a presentation and after that we got a certificate to show that we knew how to use their suits.

[imts2023]

Sprint 2

In sprint 2 everything was still a little chaotic. I heard I could finally start therapy, which is in Tilburg on Monday and Thursday morning. I made a plan and discussed with the team if I could continue with IMT&S or not. They agreed with the plan so on Monday and Thursday afternoon I'll work from home. On Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be working at school.

Mirthe and Lex were very busy with the XSense course because everything was moved up which means we didn't do a lot together during this sprint.

Week 5:

Together with the rest of the team I brainstormed for the Nova Gorica project. We came up with a lot of ideas and options but also a lot of new questions. We prepared a document with our ideas and questions for the meeting we had on March 15. The rest of the week we focussed a bit more on brainstorming. But I used some of my time to finally start working on Applied research. It was all still very unclear to me. I have trouble understanding this subject which I think is mostly because I am working on three projects. I was afraid to ask questions and ask for help. I did finally start writing the introduction.

Week 6:

On Monday in week 6 I started with therapy. In the afternoon I had trouble getting in the right headspace to work on the projects. I took a long walk to clear my head and edited some videos for the deepfake afterwards. After the Applied research lecture on Tuesday it finally became clear what I have to do and how to do it. The reason why I didn't really understand it was partly because I didn't get great guidance during the landing and because the teacher didn't know we had 3 projects within ACUTE. I worked more on the document during the rest of the week. On Thursday the therapy was very exhausting and I honestly didn't do anything for the project that afternoon.

This was the first week I went to therapy. In the coming weeks I will hopefully get used to the therapy sessions and I think it will get easier to work on the project after therapy once I get used to it. I still need to figure out what works best in this case.

[imts2023]

Sprint 1

Brainstorming

The artists and I brainstormed some artstyle ideas, with our Pinterest board, the first mindmap result and the client meeting the week before we had a better understanding of what we wanted to make. I wouldn't personally start on the UI art quite yet as I'll base this on the art of our game rather than ideas, but I still wanted to be part of the process.

Artstyle brainstorm result:

cozy/cute feel

Animal crossing

soft/pastel colours

Animal NPC’s

Tiny characters-Big environment ( Like Grounded; It takes two)

hybrid humanoid animal characters (like animals/spirits from ATLA)

Adaptive backgrounds

Narrative

One of my ideas was chosen during our client meeting, which meant I already had some idea of how to design the narrative. I used a template I made myself during my minor on storytelling as a base and wrote down the premise, character goal and progression goal. I used my initial idea from the brainstorming and expanded it to have more of a story.

Premise

MC (Main Character) receives a quest: All the realms in the universe are in disarray. Each realm lacks a key social skill and without it, the realm is lost. They need someone to save them and MC is the hero they need. MC is special, they are smart, empathetic and most importantly a social expert, however, what they lack is the power of confidence to go out into the world. MC needs to travel through the realms, in each realm investigate the core of the issue and teach them the social skill they lack. They meet many different creatures along the way and as MC teaches others they also gain valuable insights themselves and grow their confidence. After the realm is saved MC is rewarded with a key/charm/token, upon collecting all they’ve fulfilled their quest and become the new keeper of the universe. Creatures in all moral alignments attend the ceremony and can tell MC how they impacted their lives.

I wanted to use the Hero's Journey for our story as it's a tested and true method for storytelling. I knew the first level "Introduction" would always be level 1, which would serve as ACT 1, but the other levels could be shuffled around in any order depending on the curriculum of the school. This means ACT 2 would consist of the remaining 4 levels and ACT 3 would be the aftermath and conclusion of the game.

I started on the next level on the list: Giving and Receiving Compliments. I researched how people generally struggle with compliment giving and receiving and how to remedy these difficulties. In this early phase, I wanted to only make a setup so I could receive feedback from the team and our project lead Fin Rovers.

Over the holiday, we received documents of the curriculum from our client that would be used alongside our game. I was able to make some iterations based on this, but my own research already fit the curriculum very well, so I didn't have to make many adjustments.

We held a team meeting to talk about the first concept art and game mechanics, here I was also able to share what I worked on so far regarding the narrative. After the meeting, I talked with Fin to implement some ideas he had as well: collectable sidekicks and a boss in each level.

Iterations of the introduction and compliments levels based on curriculum, meetings and feedback.

Learning goals

Aside from the Narrative and brainstorming I also worked on my learning goals a lot this sprint, After receiving feedback from Hester and talking about my goals in the first landing with Rob, I asked for help formulating what I really wanted to achieve during IMT&S from Rob. After this meeting, I felt more confident about my learning goals and was able to address Hester's feedback as well. My adjusted goals are better measurable and give me achievable goals to work towards.

My extended learning goals are:

During IMT&S, my main goal is to increase my employability as a narrative designer by gaining experience and improving my craft. I want to do this by deepening my experience in narrative design and implementing it in serious games. I will develop a clear understanding of the objectives and goals of the serious game and apply this to the narrative design. I want to apply the hero’s journey to improve the immersive experience of the user. Finally, I want to research how narrative design influences gameplay.

During IMT&S, my main goal is to improve my UI/graphic design using Adobe Illustrator and learn to apply it in the context of a game. I will do this by learning how to create fitting UI designs for different products. I want to learn how to match UI design to the artist’s art direction by communicating and collaborating. I will go through the steps of moodboarding, stylesheet and designing in Adobe Illustrator. I additionally want to work on the logo design for the game using customized typography.

During IMT&S, my main goal is to become proficient in using Figma as a tool for UX design. I will follow an interactive Figma course from Befront and a Figma UX design course by a professional UX designer. I will complete the assignments and projects provided in these courses to deepen my understanding of UX design principles, Figma's features, and best practices. This will enable me to efficiently create high-quality UX designs using Figma that I can apply to IMT&S projects and any work I do in the future.

During IMT&S, my main goal is that I want to streamline my work process: work smarter, not harder. In previous projects I’ve had the tendency to overwork myself at the cost of my health and sanity, therefore I want to identify where I go overboard by analyzing my work routine to find where this negatively impacts my health. For this, I will look into how to implement a hybrid workflow that doesn’t jeopardise a qualitative project outcome. I need to learn to set boundaries for myself to protect myself.

Overall I accomplished a lot this Sprint and the team and I made some great progress for BeeYou.

[imts2023]

Sprint 1

For this sprint, I was still part of the BeeYou project.

We talked to the client and wrote down what they expect of us and their vision of the project. After we wrote everything down we started brainstorming. We came up with a lot of ideas. And after a long brainstorming session, we chose this concept:

''A 2.5D game with adventure and RPG elements, that focuses on exploration and narrative. The game is set within a magical forest with different biomes, each one filled with happy and troubled forest dwellers that the player needs to help out by talking to them and learning about their woes and how to solve them.''

Moodboards

After choosing a concept we (the artists) started making mood boards with how we imagined the game to look like. These were mine:

Mood board 1

Mood board 2

Mood board 3

Concepting

After discussing all the artist's mood boards we chose the elements we liked for the characters and started designing characters. The idea was to make animal/plant hybrids. I made a few of them:

Bear fusions: Robin, Raccoon and Sunflower.

Rabbit fusions: Lavender, Canary and Deer.

Bear/Raccoon emotion test

The feedback

I asked the Lead artist for feedback:

She mentioned that I spend too much time and details in one piece.

As an assignment, she said to me that I should spend 10 minutes on a sketch and do that for a whole hour. This way I won't focus too long n one idea and I can let my creativity run free.

[imts2023]

Fin Rovers - Week 1 -3

Hi, this is the first bog post for me, Fin Rovers ;v. I'm a designer during IMT&S with a primary focus towards game design. This blog post is the first of many where I'll recount the tasks I've done during the IMT&S weekly sprints.

Important to note is that I'm one of the flexible workers within IMT&S, which means that I'm actively working on two projects at once. This means that I have to talk about multiple tasks within different projects, which can make the post excessively bloated. To make sure this won't be the case, I might skip over the minute details.

Beeyou games During the first two sprints (sprint 0 and 1) I have been rather busy. As we are at the start and have to concept and ideate on an idea a lot, I had to do much thinking about solutions that the team could work with. The first sprint (0) was dedicated to a lot of brainstorming and thinking of ideas. After we got a solid idea on the preferences of our target audience, I could start on thinking of making the idea fun and engaging by thinking of gameplay.

By sprint 1 (week 2-3), the whole team was already busy with a lot of concepting. I was busy as well trying to get a first draft out for the game design which would give the team a general idea on how the game is going to be played, and so that everyone has something more to chew on for the next weeks while I would be busy with writing the game design document. I presented this to the team and asked for feedback afterwards.

Here are some of the very "special" sketches I made for the game design:

At this point, I was very eager to move with the team members of BeeYou, but we gained a rude awakening after it was made clear how massive of a jump we made by completely overlooking the research we had to do. So as I was ready to start writing the design document, we first had to start with conducting our research. Oof.

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Storytelling with data While being the project manager and game designer for BeeYou, I am also the game & narrative designer for the storytelling with data project. This project did not lift off immediately in sprint 0 as me and the team members first had to conversate with the clients to get a better understanding of what they wanted. Because this took a little while, we were not able to do anything else besides some research about the market analysis.

My research in the end was sadly discarded as the client made clear that such an analysis would be superfluous to them :].

We got more chances to talk to the clients during sprint 1, which helped us progress a lot more and allowed the team to start concepting as well. Actually, Sprint 1 mainly consisted of discussions and brainstorms, as we were very much trying to figure out the wishes of the client while also doing a lot of research on our target audience. Without, we were really unable and uncertain on where to even start.

During a meeting with the client, we did a collective brainstorm together where everyone threw their ideas on post-it notes. Everyone afterwards voted on the ideas they liked the most. The ideas that came out of this would be used as a foundation during a brainstorm of our own.

These are the results from the brainstorm with our clients

We did our own brainstorm closely afterwards while using the results from the client meeting as a foundation to build upon, the results can be seen here.

It's not too readable, but it is split up in different categories:

What we know

What we want to know

insights

With all our gathered information, we butted heads one more time to consider a first concept that we were able to develop more. Underneath can the summary of our first idea be found which we will develop overtime into a working prototype that can be presented to both the clients and our users.

[imts2023]

Week 4-5 ( Artiom)

Started working on an Unreal Engine project for storytelling with data having the initial concept: * Implemented the character movement, * Enemies creating an event * Placeholder puzzle for use to solve

Started working on deep fake for acute and was trying to set up the image, which takes a bit longer than expected due to issues with Hardware, now trying to install it on another machine

[imts2023]

Week 1-3 ( Artiom)

Over the last two weeks, I have been working on creating continuous deployment pipelines as part of your first learning goals for both BeeYou and Storytelling with Data. My focus was to create deployment pipelines using GitHub actions: * I have set up the build server using Azure resource * Created a pipeline with scripts that deploys windows build from Unreal Engine to Itch.io * Created a pipeline with scripts that deploys android build from Unity 3d to Itch.io Your work in this area is essential for enabling the rapid and efficient delivery of updates to both BeeYou and StoryTelling with Data, helping to improve their overall quality and user experience.

[imts2023]

Photoshoot

Together with Mirthe and Lex, we organised a photoshoot for professional headshots for the whole IMT&S group. These photo's can be used on social media, CV's and presentations.

Planning the photoshoot was pretty easy. Mirthe and I found a date where everyone would be available. We reserved the small studio in Epy Drost. Sadly the trains and busses were on a strike that day so not everyone was able to come to the photoshoot. For those who weren't able to join we'll plan another photoshoot at a different time.

To prepare for the photoshoot I watched a few videos on how to let people pose and how to set up the lighting. This kind of photoshoot would be best with a flash but sadly there was no flashlight in the studio.

One hour before everyone was expected, Mirthe, Lex and I set up the backdrop and lights to our liking. We made a lot of test shots until we were happy with the way it looked. We were done testing and setting up right on time.

The photoshoot itself went really well in my opinion. People were posing well and seemed happy with the photos. After the photoshoot we found out we weren't shooting in RAW, only in JPEG. This was a very stupid mistake we should've checked before starting. This made it harder to edit photos. Next time I'll remember to check these settings if I'm borrowing a camera from school.

The photos didn't really need any editing. Only one person asked if we could edit his photo.

I posted a few photos below. (With permission of the people in the photo)

[imts2023]

Sprint 2 [Simon]

In the second sprint, we were able to make a lot more progress because we had all our client meetings. This meant we could determine what needed to be done for the project and when.

This meant I could start creating a design document for the deep fake project. While also doing the design document, I had a brainstorming session to determine what option we had when it came to the design process of the application and the experience.

This design phase was followed after the research was done. I used the design thinking approach, meaning I thought of all the possible designs we could implement and then analysed them individually.

I haven't finished the final design on whether we will use a screen or run everything on a tablet.

I then started working on an early prototype to see how the application would be used and how a user would interact. I sat down with Artiom to discuss what will be needed from him with the back end and what I will have to do for the front end.

I then started to work within Unity to get a web request working so we could create a video from a Unity application instead of a separate application.

This application lets a user type in any text and sends it to the docker to generate a video. I also started to implement the option to choose the leader you want to generate a video with. This currently doesn't work because the backend still needs to be implemented.

[imts2023]

Sprint 1 [Simon]

In the first sprint, it was a lot of brainstorming and researching our respective projects.

I was responsible for researching the deep fake project, even though we had no information. I did some research on the general market as well as looked at some of the legal issues.

We also did some brainstorming on all of the projects. This sprint was also good because we had a lot of meetings which gave us more information on the respective topics.

[imts2023]

Sprint 1

In sprint 1 the projects become a lot clearer. We got a lot more information and I finally started to understand what the projects are about and what we have to do.

In this post I'll first explain shortly what the projects are and then I'll explain what I did for this project during this sprint.

Deepfake:

The deepfake is a program that can transform existing videos into new ones where you decide what the person in that video says. The movement of the mouth is generated by code. You can type a sentece and the program generates the person in the video saying this sentence. There is no voice changer yet. This needs to be implemented by a programmer. And the program needs an easy to use interface. This project will be displayed in museums. First in Austria. People will be able to interact with this program by choosing a person and typing a sentece they want this person to say.

For the deepfake we need to find videos of politicians from Austria and the Netherlands. These videos need to be cut into 10 second videos. In sprint 1 I searched for politicians in those countries and saved videos I thought could work for this project.

VR multiplayer game:

This project is basically finished but still needs a good promotional trailer. It's a 4 player game where the players need to find out who murdered the victim. Players can choose from 4 characters. Each character has their own biography. Players can pick up objects and read information about these objects. When a player (thinks) they know who the murderer is, they can go downstairs to phone to vote. People that are not playing can spectate.

To understand the game I had to play it myself. We tried to set up the Oculus VR headset on our laptops but the game didn't want to start. We also had a lot of troubles with the connectivity and updates for the VR headsets. We tried a lot of different headsets and different laptops. We asked one of the guys that worked on this game what headset they used. It was a HTC five headset. We got an HTC five headset and tried to set everything up. It couldn't be connected to any of our laptops so we had to get a pc and monitor. From here the set up was pretty easy. We all got to play the game.

After playing the game I understand how it works and what it's about. Now I can think about the promotional material and help Lex with his storyboard if he needs it.

Nova Gorica:

This is a project where they want to bring two city halves, that are both in another country, together. Nova Gorica is located in Slovenia and Gorizia is located in Italy. They border goes through the city. The client wants to organize an outdoor event with different phases. The event will be a month long. Participants have to go certain places to scan QR codes to earn points. They will also need to solve puzzles. Actors will play certain roles to make the story clearer and to immerse the players more.

We had a meeting with the client and the whole project became a lot clearer. This project is still very open. Not much is decided yet. During sprint 1 I worked on brainstorming some ideas together with the rest of the team. I also organised all the information we got during the meeting and put them in a new shared document.

[imts2023]

Introduction

Hello :]. My name is Simon Duckham. I am a designer in my third year. I study Creative Media & Game Technologies at Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Enschede. I am currently participating in the module called IMT&S.

I am interested mostly in the production of video games, focusing on game design with preferences for level design, character design and overall game flow. I also like to do C# coding within Unity.

Learning Goals

Improve my C# coding within Unity, focusing on good code architecture.

Improve my UI/UX skills and overall user experience.

Improve on game flow and the bigger picture of an application.

My Role

My role within IMT&S is to help with all game design which means joining brainstorming sessions and designing specific game mechanics. I will also develop the front end for a deep fake project while also creating the UI and user experience for it. I will also design the different levels and mechanics for the Nova Gorica project.

Sprint 0

In the first week, it was mostly getting to know everything and everyone. We did some brainstorming sessions and set up some meetings so we could start working in the next week. We also set up project management tools to create a good workflow in the upcoming weeks.