Creative Research

3rd Year Uni Module: researching and writing an essay on abstraction and emotional attachment, and creating a supporting piece of work.

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(edit: Second) Render of the final practical piece. Blog & Uni blether, people I’ve linked here to the video don’t need to read the rest of this :) ------------------------ Changes are few and far between now, mostly just being pernickity about things, such as noticing non-smoothness in animations or that I’d accidentally left the background layer over the surf animation and it cut the last 15 frames off.

Also keyframed in some zero saturation at the beginning of the static background to go along with the rain SFX being quieter, and to aid the theme of boring, quiet household. Felt that it also made the player and text pop out a bit more as the prominent features on the screen, even when the colour starts to fade in.

Had some feedback regarding this so far and seems mostly positive. I think people are getting the jist of it. I was worried it wouldn’t be perfectly clear what was happening, but thankfully I seem to have left that much clear to viewers who have no context. It’s understandable, relatable, it connects with people (hopefuly) who have no context or direct knowledge of the project, and that’s the goal at the end of it, right?

I also still feel that trying to make something like this in 1080p graphics, full 3D models or live-action and such, wouldn’t benefit in nearly the same results, and would come across as more of a trippy music video than anything. Because of this, I feel it does support my essay well as something that’s relatable and can draw attachment, and something that does directly benefit from being in the style/format it’s in (HD pixel art) rather than any other medium. I also do feel that it benefitted from the HD side of things, in terms of being able to play with more detail and show more, as well as making it more accessible to viewers who may otherwise be less inclinated towards pixel art, they could hopefully still be able to watch and enjoy it to some degree without just feeling that it’s “bad, pixelly HD art”, and it be clear that it’s the intention. Anyway, ramble over. Think I’m done. With six days to spare too! Six whole days to sit and think up changes to make....oh dear...

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Essay 3rd Draft: Proofread

Gave the third draft of my essay to a sociologist friend (who does heaps of essays) to proofread, and she’s got back to me with some mental feedback! Once I’ve finished up with my project, will get that amended :D

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Have created many of the asset elements that’ll be getting used, such as the character loops, the background elements and the music. I put them into After Effects and created a timeline with them mostly synced up.

Next, I started adding in various special effects to suit the more HD look I was going for. This was mostly keyframed glow effects, as I just wanted it to look a bit brighter and more colourful, and played about with the timings of things. A few iterations of that and I put it into Premiere to add some credits and cleanup.

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Intending to sync certain chunks of the visuals up with the music. Rather than just having arbitrary flows of colour, I wanted it to be very clear to the viewer that it is an imagination/visualisation of the music itself, coming to life. Although I won’t be syncing every beat and aspect, I wanted certain points of it to be synced up just to aid the coherency for the viewer, so they’d know without a doubt, yet without needing to see it totally overwhelm them with every detail.

Oh, hey, that’s what my entire essay’s about isn’t it? Funny that.

These particular bleepy bloops are the general sparkle effect I’ll have playing alongside the regular beat in the background. They’re faaairly closely timed to the beat, and are simple enough they should be recognised as a music related sparkle. Music videos tend to have various glows and sparkles abound such as this, often beatmatched as well, so this shouldn’t lose the viewer.

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So, have finally picked a track I like. It’s a chiptune that meets everything I was looking for; quite trancey and upbeat, but with a nice casual flow that doesn’t go too mental. Also one that starts off slower but picks up quickly, as I don’t want the scene to lag on the walking animation for too long before getting into flying.

I’ve got the boring background made up so far, with boring colours and boring saturation and boring assets. The character will get up and walk away through this, as the music will start to visualise and take over and completely replace this.

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Presentation 3 Feedback

So, had presentation 3/final one today.

I think it went quite well actually. I did mine first as I had to leave halfway through the 4 hour session and wanted to make sure I didn’t need to rush mine. At first I felt good, but then wondered as I watched the others’ do theirs as they were very different, but was calmed at least when I realised everyone’s presentation was quite different from each other.

I focussed less on talking lots about my final resolution and more about my path towards it, and how my vision statement had changed throughout the year, what decisions I made and why I had made them, and how that had ultimately shaped the specifics of my essay and final project to become what it is now.

My feedback seemed positive, if short. I was asked what I was planning for music (and why) and for some more specifics on my actual final piece. I rushed through my last couple of slides (where I had dedicated to my essay/final piece) because I was trying to say quite a lot and my tics acted up and wasted a lot of time, so didn’t cover it quite as in-depth as I’d have liked to. I explained my intentions more thoroughly than I would have in the presentation though, and my lecturers seemed happy with my answers, saying they liked the format of the presentation and the nice clear trajectory my project had taken over the year.

I was told it was insightful. That’s good, right? :)

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Experimenting with adding light touches of special effects onto pixel art.It’s kept a bit minimal on this as I actually spent a bit longer on the art itself than I intended to and was a bit sick of it by the time I got to adding extra touches.

But the idea is sound I think, and it’s encouraging along my plan to add extra non-pixel effects onto the background of my main project to add further life and pizzaz. Yeah, pizzaz.

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Fully compiled animation of all the sections. Some of them loop to last a bit longer, as they were drawn to be loopable, such as walking, flying and selecting music.

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A series of separate animation files have been made for all the important animations for the character. Much of the rest of it will be environmental behind the character, as the character is essentially only there for the ride.

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Walk cycle for the animation. I’ve been thinking of going back to the idea of music visualised, as after having talked to people, it seems like something people can easily relate to and understand. it may not be an emotional response in the sense that it’s happy or sad, but an understandable, relate able moment.

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Since I’ve actually been pretty bad at keeping my blog up to date, I wanted to make a post to cover some of the pixel art I’ve created, both specifically for this module, and for others.

I thought here would be a good time to throw down some of the stuff I’ve been creating, to demonstrate that, well, I have actually been working! Sorry blog. I’m usually good at keeping blogs up to date, but just haven’t really been in this case :(

Anyway, these are some examples of art that as been for modules and projects (therefore, more technical and planned), while others have been for my own experimental or creative benefit, and a lot looser and with the hope of finding inspiration more. What is important to note, is that I feel in each of these pieces has been drawn with the intention of being able to carry over a certain element of character or emotional weight. They don’t look dry and lifeless, or leave the viewer clueless as to what the character is feeling or thinking, they’re supposed to be readable, despite the fact that few of them have any fully distinguished features. Even the buildings at the top were designed to convey various thoughts and atmospheres, using the same principles.

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Practical Ideas List

So, as my previous post mentioned what I’ll be doing for the essay, I wanted to keep a separate post for the practical. The practical piece will retain my original vision statement (to create an animated piece of pixel art that evokes emotion) but rather than simply being a piece to sit next to the essay, I’d like to use it as an example piece to hopefully support the essay discussion.

Since the essay will be focussed around artistic expression and the fact that emotion and expressionism is rarely brought about through realistic interpretations of a subject, I’d like to have my practical piece be an adaptation of a known emotionally heavy scene (from a game, movie, tv show or such) created in pixel art.

The piece should be clear to the audience what it is, what is happening and (most importantly) maintain that emotional impact. I’d been considering seeing if I can find a game rendered in 3D graphics that attempts to have an emotional scene that is potentially interrupted by issues such as uncanny valley problems, as a way to really exemplify the topic question (with the implication that the pixel art piece may actually contain more emotional weight). However, I feel that that might be trying too hard to push a specific point of view, rather than offering material to the discussion that’s more open to debate and interpretation.

I’ve got a shortlist (that I’ll update) of scenes that I think might be worth considering to make the piece of, based on movies or games that carry heavy emotional impact and can be summarised in a single animated image.

~End of Disc II (FFVII) - Cloud standing over Aerith in the water ~Opening scenes (Up!) - Carl sitting in his chair next to the empty chair ~Red Wedding (Game of Thrones) - Robb being assassinated ~End scene (Fight Club) - looking out the window, talking to Marla ~Suicide Cliff (FFVI) - Celes standing on the ledge ~Generic - man hunched over crying next to hospital bed

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Where did I bugger off to?

So, haven’t really posted anything in a while.

With deadlines for other modules in december, then the holidays (during which I got stranded abroad without my laptop) I fell a squootch behind on creative research. However, I’ve been on some mad catch up for the past half week or so.

I’m unsure what exactly to post here other than a generic “yes, I’m doing things” post, but I do at least have a stronger plan now.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading research and filling up my RefWorks bibliography with plenty of articles and such that I’ve found extremely useful towards really crystallising what it is I want to write about, and giving me a clearer picture of what I’ll be focussing my essay on. This, in turn, has helped put me on a set direction for the practical, as I now know of something I can do that will tie in nicely with the essay and hopefully serve to actually support the point I will be making.

Speaking of which, to summarise what it is I’ll be focussing on, is discussing why pushing realistic and modern graphics is not always necessary and sometimes does little other than harm or hinder the appearance and expression of a game. I’ll be questioning whether aiming for realism in graphics is actually beginning to become a lazy artistic choice, despite its high development costs.

Pixel art won’t be so much the central focus of the essay any more, and will now be more of a case study in which to debate the topic.

How the essay question will actually be worded and written is still a tad vague, though I’m definitely getting there, and have found some really interesting literature that’s changed my mind a couple of times since I began my research.

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Some quick thumbnails of a potential idea centred around creating essentially a comic with animated panels, one that require no text or exposition. Just visual interest.

It’s pretty messy since it’s just consideration thumbnails, but I thought I’d post it here anyway for the sake of maintaining records.

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Presentation 2 Feedback

The presentation went pretty well. I freaked out a bit because I was planning on doing my presentation on the first week of the two, but couldn’t due to external circumstances. Since I had it mostly done, I hadn’t thought about it much over the week, and then on the second week when I was on my way to Uni, I actually lost my cue cards. Not even joking, they fell right out of my pocket, possibly because I was running late and rushing. So, I had to try and wing it a bit and remember on the fly what everything I had to say about each slide was, but I think I did fairly well, and didn’t miss anything important. If anything, I actually ran on a bit after the end.

I didn’t get much feedback that would have me change a lot; I was complimented on the art I displayed as examples of my thoughts/plans for my final piece so I feel I’ve solidified confidence in my choice of subject.

I got one mention that I was apologising for choosing pixel art from some of my slides, but I did mention that I wasn’t using them as a way to apologise for my choice and explaining it away, as much as I was intended it as a compare/contrast between what I think is good pixel art and what I think is bad realistic rendering. I wanted to do this because my goal is to create something that can evoke emotion, and was trying to express that sometimes pixel art can allow this much easier through simply letting your imagination go to work, rather than many realistically rendered pieces which rely too much on full facial rigs and turn out looking totally horrible.

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As per my previous post, I wanted to just start creating, specifically something I feel would evoke any kind of emotional response or anything people might be able to relate to. I did this just by thinking of what animations I’ve been wanting to make for a while now, and if any met that criteria.

This one is something that feels very familiar to me and feels good to think about, I reckon, since I like listening to music while I go places as many people do, and it always helps just make the trip more colourful. I wanted to make something quickly that got that idea across in a simple, colourful way.

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Where Have I Been?

I’ve been a bit caught up in work and my other coursework modules, so have let myself fall a bit behind in this project in terms of producing tangible work. However I have still been thinking about it and looking for reading material regarding it.

I have a direction in mind for the essay question, but have been having trouble articulating it even to myself, which has made it incredibly hard for me to source relevant literature. After a discussion with one of my classmates about it, she pointed out that maybe jumping straight into reading materials isn’t necessairly the way to go, especially if I don’t know precisely what I’m looking for yet. She suggested focussing more on finding art and works, and producing pieces of my own towards my direction 

I love that suggestion, as it’s closer to my personal process anyways, and should hopefully help me get clarify what I’m looking for, especially with the new presentation rapid approaching!