SHELBY SUSANNAH SMITH

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Year Three

August 18th, 2020.

It’s been a long summer, and I’ve had some ups and downs with everything going on at the minute. I’ve not really been able to see family or friends being stuck in Glasgow and I haven’t really been able to work on a lot between having a job over summer. But I’ve decided that I don’t want that to necessarily define how I’m going into my next year. Last year I put a lot of stress on myself trying to be more than I was. This year I would like to take a different approach to my work.

I’m definitely not going to beat myself up about what I have or have not accomplished over summer. That’s no one business but my own. But I have been working on a few things and I would like to talk about them on my blog at a later date.

In terms of working, I’ve now managed to create an environment from home that I can work from, which I didn’t have before. I think this was the biggest problem and caused a lot of strain on my work life balance. It’s also probably more appropriate this year for me to work from home. I commented on this last year on my blog and I’m glad I’ve finally got around to a set up with a laptop, printer and tablet (thanks to my boyfriend for letting me borrow his! <3)

So, from a more academic perspective, what I want to accomplish this year in my projects is I want to take the brief’s literally and creatively. I want to focus more on what needs to be done rather than trying to better it. Of course I want to put my 100% into everything but I think trying to separate my portfolio from everyone else’s would sometimes lead to unnecessarily stress. My mentality is going to be clock in, do my best, clock out.

To help with this, I’m going to create a folder on my computer of inspiration. I’ve already begun this, but I want to create something a little bit bigger so that I have a library that I can “pull” from when beginning a project. I know a major piece of my work is the aesthetics and creating fully realised worlds that look visually impressive, so having this will cut down a lot of the time it takes to get a project off of the ground. Especially because this year, I want to create projects that are visually distinct.

I remember having a conversation with one of my lecturers about the game I made for a GameJam in April and he said “This game is so you! I could tell it’s yours because it looks like your other projects!” and I thought, “No, no, no! That’s wrong! I don’t want you to think of my work like that”. I want the worlds that I create to feel more unique, and I want to dabble in more unusual visual styles and elements.

I think one thing I’ve also learned from working on projects over the summer is how to work under people. I don’t believe I always need to be in control for a project to be successful or well rounded. There’s ways of working with everyone and around everyone’s needs. I’m going to take this into consideration when working with group projects in the future.

In terms of blogs, I want a more complete schedule. I’m not sure what my lecturers want yet from an academic perspective, but I’ve prepared in advance some topics that I want to discuss as general posts that I’ll hopefully post monthly.

I think I’m going to try to be more on schedule with project posts. I also don’t want one project to overshadow another as that’s something I have a really bad habit of doing. I want one blog post per project per week. I really want to hold myself to that this year, because I feel as though if I’m working at a similar pace for projects I’m working on at the same time it’ll hold the pace better.

I also have some non-university related goals in terms of projects I want to create. I want to work on things creatively outside of games for my own benefit. Whether it be creating audio or sculptures, I would like to incorporate more of this into my time.

And I’m just not going to be hard on myself. I just want to be the best version of me that I can be this year. I’m definitely going to have ups and downs but positivity is my main focus. No anxiety or doubt. I want my head screwed on and focused and I’m not going to let anything throw me this year. I’m doing better this year.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

User Centered Design and AR - Part One

This post was originally published on March 1st, 2020.

If I’ve said it once I’ve probably said it a million times - I don’t really have an interest in serious games, and I’m not particularly good at making them. However, this hasn’t gotten me anywhere in the past, so I’m going to attempt to go into this project with better spirits.

For this project, we are to create an augmented reality application demo considering user centered design. The project is to be centered around some scan data of the one of the fountains in the park surrounding the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

The tasks of the project can be split into two categories - the art side, where we’re to recreate the scan data of the fountain, and of course the user elements - where we’re to collect data with considerations to, and in response of, the application.

For this project, I’m going to begin by creating a plan - presumably a Gantt chart - considering all of the elements and stages of this project. I’ll then create a preliminary design for the application, and at a similar time to doing this collect my research and data. Upon creating my application, I’ll run the prototype back and see what the response is. That’s currently my basic idea, but I’ll really need to go into creating a list of what I’m going to do, what I’d like to go and a chart to reflect this.

In the meantime and between working on this, I’m going to get started on the fountain model as it will probably be the only element of the project that’ll be a constant. My aim will obviously be low-poly for the hardware it runs on, but I would still like something impressive and reusable, but I’d like to go into more detail in a dedicated post.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Game Development 2 - Part Three

This post was originally published on February 12th, 2020

I don’t think character design is a particular strong point of mine, so I really wanted to take the time to assemble something I would be really proud to sculpt. When we initially began, most of the focus was on anatomy of the character - so we began looking up research and references of faces that we would want to reference.

I began looking at references of girls that were a bit younger. With the thematic of my project, I think this is an important aspect that needs to be communicated to the player - both through anatomy and through style. I collected some imagery of woman that had very “young” features like large eyes - such as Mars Argo and Frances Bean Cobain - as I thought they communicated this idea really well in their anatomy. Despite being 32, you would probably guess from her facial proportions that she’s in her early twenties.

I think that she has a really interesting face that would be nice to play around with - but at the same time, I wouldn’t want my model to fall intro the trap of feeling too animated against realism - so I’m really going to have to play to find a nice medium.

Another thing that is notable about her face is the way she sometimes applies her makeup - sometimes applying things like white to her waterlines to make her eyes appear larger. This got me thinking about the way that I will need to apply makeup to the model. While sculpting will be really important, makeup can really offset facial features, so I’m going to need to really pre-plan the way I do this long with the rest of the characters outfit.

So because of this, I began looking at different makeup looks and styles to try and compliment the themes I want to show in my game.

When I began thinking about the way I wanted to show the makeup and the outfit of the character, I knew I wanted to do something stylized and dated. The idea with the game will more be a retrospective on idolization of the past and times shifting, so I wanted the way the character looks to represent this. I began looking at makeup that felt very graphic and fun, but dated. Things that are very iconic and recognizable - I began looking at face makeup from the 60′s and 70′s.

In terms of the design of the makeup, I wanted it to feel like a nice medium between the past and the present. As someone who does their own makeup daily, I designed a few looks I wanted to try and then tested them out on myself. I thought that it would probably translate better onto a 3D model to practice the designs in 3D rather than in 2D so I had a better understanding of shape and what the makeup was doing to my features.

I think I liked the first look the most as it was really graphic and fun. Interestingly, the way that the eye-shadow is blocked in and the eyeliner is shaped basically creates a new lid, which creates a very large and unnatural looking eye. I thought that this would be really fun to play with. I like the softer looks as well, but I felt the more graphic look was more impactful - but most importantly, it feel the most obvious. In the other makeup looks, I was changing my anatomy with more subtly - redrawing my crease, blending and giving the look an overall more natural feel. With the graphic look it becomes heavy and unnatural, which makes the makeup easier to read in terms of knowing that is real and what isn’t when you come closer to it. Ultimately, I’ll just have to see how this translates when it comes to the final model.

At the same time, I also began looking at some of the fashion styles I wanted to replicate. I think with the ideas I had in the basis of my story - being set in California and kind of having a surf vibe to it - I thought it would be most appropriate look at a time period when this kind of culture was iconic - so I began looking for inspiration from specifically the 70′s and the 90′s - which are both iconic and unique in two separate ways.

I began looking at all kinds of things - t-shirts, bombers, shorts, skirts, patterns, rollerblades - everything I could to bring together the kind of style I wanted so that I could reference these for a board of sketches. Once I collected a good level of inspiration I really wanted to just begin sketches.

I often find when I’m doing these initial sketches I get really frustrated at the way I draw versus what I would like to accomplish. When I first began work trying to create a template for the fashion I found I was getting really frustrated, so I looked into some of the concept work in some of the video game art books I already have for inspiration.

A lot of them began with using silhouettes and colourless sketches to create a baseline aura for the character. Using these as a reference helped me create ideas on paper that were similar to what I wanted to accomplish from a character sheet and helped me feel more confident. It was really good to see how these ideas were started in industry and helps me get to a point where I wasn’t frustrated with every detail.

As I kept practicing, I finally got to a place where I created a template that I was happy to work from that didn’t feel too stiff or rigidly referenced while maintaining the seven-and-a-half-head anatomy that I needed. It helped me feel a lot more confident in the work and allowed me to create a wider range of designs and really experiment with different looks. 

I wanted to work with a range of different styles and fits to the clothing, including in some ways that I wouldn’t consider wearing clothing. I think one thing that’s really important when considering clothing female characters is the fit of the clothes, and how you want clothes to wear and rest to meet an aesthetic. Luckily, as a woman (and an avid fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race!), I’ve had more than enough experience in this. When I did my character sketches, I really wanted to break down the look and feeling - so I went into annotation of what I was trying to accomplish with each look; why are some aspects oversized, why I specifically specify a men’s fit, why I used certain fabrics and what cultural aspects they come back to.

I felt very inspired by some of the reference imagery of the cultures of California, so I didn’t limit it to cute-skirt-and-a-totally-rad-top-I-found-on-depop. I also began looking at things like Chicana culture and other forms of fashion and expression used by minorities in California (as at this point, my character didn’t particularly have a set ethnicity or style). 

Because a lot of the fashion was very graphic back then as well, I also coincided some of my designs with some graphic designs as well that I would hopefully be able to use. I referenced a lot of graphic designs, fonts, quotes and lyrics that I felt appropriate for the designs I wanted to produce:

These decals were intended to be able to be used in a few different areas if I wanted to - on shirts, as patches for jackets or for jeans and skirts too.

Some of these designs were intended to be for either a front patch or a shirt design, other were things like back patches for jackets and other. I also created some designs and quotes that ran off of the backs of each other, so that I could use multiple patches with the same theme in one outfit (”some things just change in a day” / “or even in an hour”).

I referenced a lot of Californian and surf culture inspired typography. I used typefaces from different cultures as a means of getting in that “melting pot” Americana aspect that I discussed in one of my previous posts - if I don’t end up using it, I’ll definitely use it somewhere - like on environmental signage. I do really like the way it looks up against things like the surfboard so it’s definitely something to keep in mind.

In the end, I created a big large board of designs that I was considering - each with annotation and explanations to the style, fit and design choices.

I then took some of my favourites and went into more detail - did a back and a front and really tried to develop my idea and sow what I was really trying to do with the fabrics and break everything down. I was inspired by some of the concepting done in the second Alice game, where they did very specific breakdowns of everything that was relevant to the design process and referenced everything. I also think by having boards in this style, I’ll be able to communicate my design work a lot more clearly and effectively and hopefully it will look a lot cleaner in a portfolio.

I then made a final render of the front and back of my design just for the clarity of having a definitive design.

To help me get the project on it’s feet, Danny scanned my face so that I can work from it as a base in ZBrush. I’m really excited to be able to work with the data and manipulate it. I’m not sure how it’s going to go, but I’m just going to fire through it and hopefully it’ll be an easy process.

Although, I have struggled with learning ZBrush - but I really want to push myself this time to create something I can be a lot more proud of.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Game Development 2 - Part Two

This post was originally published on January 29th, 2020

In my last entry I discussed the general thematic of what I wanted to accomplish, but I was thinking that I would need to go a little more in depth with the means of execution. I’ve been looking at a lost of sort of point and click style recent adventure games. I didn’t want the gameplay to feel too heavy over the narrative as well as really focusing on homing in on the things that I’ve learned over the first semester into the second.

I really wanted to focus on games that were particularly known for the execution of their narrative with gameplay elements of less strength - such as games like Life is Strange or some of the Telltale style games (The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, etc.) These games were very popular when they were released among all genres of gaming fans - although more mature in narrative, the gameplay elements weren’t hardcore and didn’t have elements that would feature a learning curve. The most that would happen in terms of quick-paced thinking and reaction times would be things like quick time events. These games were really enjoyable and because of their narrative elements also found popularity on platforms such as Youtube - because they were extremely easy to play and watch.

I’d sort of like to replicate the elements where the played is instructed to interact with certain elements of the environment, but rather than triggering interaction, perhaps trigger an element relating back to the environmental storytelling. By allowing the player to interact with the environmental aspects at their own pace, they can chose what’s important to them. I think I would like to do this with as little vocal commentary as possible so to fit the idea that the environmental storytelling is an important aspect of the project - but I definitely think I would like to utilise subtitles to some extent for quotations and references that I feel are important to the narrative - as a lot of the narrative derives from lyrical influences.

I’ve begun creating a visual script that’ll hopefully allow me to visualise everything before creating a small storyboard and animatic for some of the non-gameplay scenes I would like to create. I’m not actually fantastic at writing stories, so it’s coming along quite slowly - especially considering I want the narrative to feel quite floaty and not particularly direct to an outcome. I have a rough idea of where I want the story to go, but I’m struggling of finding an enthralling way of getting there.

In the mean time to help, I’ve developed a Hack n Plan that’ll hopefully create a basis for most of the tasks that I’m going to produce. This is also hopefully going to act as a basis for things like a gantt chart and other organisational means. I feel, currently, as though I have a lot on my plate. I think one of my major problems, in comparison to my major semester two project from last year, is that I’m not really sure where I’m going to be able to cut corners. The game has one, long flowing narrative through it’s scenes while last year I could break off levels as we didn’t have the time. I’m definitely going to have to think a little bit more in depth, or work a lot harder than I’m potentially anticipating.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Game Development 2 - Part One

This post was originally published on January 23rd, 2020.

“...I miss long beach, and I miss you babe, I miss dancing with you the most of all. I miss the bars where the Beach Boys would go - Dennis’ last stop before Kokomo.”

At the beginning of the year, I had an idea of a project that I potentially wanted to accomplish but didn’t really know when I would want to go about creating the vision I had in mind. I think when it comes to the way I envision video games, I don’t really think of a clear final execution - I just create concepts and scenes in my head from influential imagery, sound and writing. Sometimes this works it’s way into a bigger concept, sometimes its just the basis for things to come.

One of my favourite artists released an album last year and a music video for one of my favourite songs on the record. Although she’s a really big part of my life and has been for almost ten years now, I don’t really create art directly inspired by her. I think my work is always influenced by hers in some capacity, but I never sit down and create things with the basis of “this work is directly based on this song, or this artistic output of hers”.

“The Greatest” is the eleventh song from Norman Fucking Rockwell! and is arguably one of the best songs Lana Del Rey has ever written. The song’s lyrics focus on nostalgia for a range of things - people, places and music - and how she misses how things used to be.

When I first listened to the song, I think what I enjoyed about it the most was the contrast between the song’s title and the contents of the lyrics. In the first few lines, she talks about all the beautiful things she misses - how “on fire” everything felt and how alive her world was. The title of the song makes you believe it’s a reference to these things - how all these things were “the greatest”.

In reality, the title isn’t a reference to how these things were the greatest to her - but how losing these things and the loss of culture is her facing “the greatest” loss of them all. How her nostalgia of her past, her relationships and her culture are present in her character. I loved the contrast between the positivity of the times she remembers and the negativity of the loss. Everything felts grand and beautiful until it wasn’t.

I wanted to create a concept that aesthetically replicates the style of the music video that she created for it. I love the use of colour palettes, neon and mute tones that she uses here - as well as bending the styles and the eras that she reminiscences about to create a vision that seamlessly incorporates these contrasting periods.

When I started doing research, I looked at a range of things environmentally. I want to go for a very California surf vibe, as I feel like these kinds of aesthetics are very relaxed and fun and make for a good retrospective. Sun, beaches and warm radiate happiness and calmness so I think this would make a great aesthetical thematic. With my moodboard, I mostly wanted to capture a few things - things like architecture, fashion and photo image quality were at the forefront. In these images I selected, I wasn’t really choosing a connected palette between the elements of the images - just an overall “mood”.

In my research folder, I’ve also got a lot more sections than I think I’ve had before because I feel like I would like to replicate aspects of the culture well and really break down the elements that I want to reproduce. I also looked at specific elements of architecture, graphic design and contextualised some of the cultural influences that create the “melting-pot” of not only skate and surf cultures, but considerations of immigration to the Americana aesthetic (Hawaiian, Chinese, etc.) I think when using these elements, I’ll have to be quite sparing as to not overbleed too much or oversaturate one thing over the other. It’s definitely going to be a balance - and I can actually potentially see some of these outside cultural influences being axed later on for that reason.

I also took screenshots from the music video and used the mosaic effect in photoshop to create some small “palettes” and colour scripts. I screenshotted about 12 scenes where I really enjoyed the use of colour so that I could analyse them - and from there decide on what kind of effects I could replicate for the scenes I plan on creating. One thing I really enjoyed looking at these screens was how the colour reflects back onto her and changes her appearance. I think this will be a really interesting thing I could use to project moods onto the character I have to create - to consider this, I’ll probably have to create a character design with a lot of muted colours so the lighting projections work better.

I think when I envision what I want to create, the project is really going to rely on a lot of post-processing, colour grading and unity as a finished piece.

I’m going to start throwing together more character sketches considering what I want the protagonist of the game to look and feel like - as obviously this is what is the most important. I have also begun looking at Californian fashion trends and makeup trends, but I’d like to save this for a future entry so that I can have everything in one cohesive piece.

Similarly, I have some ideas for the fundamentals of the gameplay and game design - but I also would like to look at those in a little bit.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Image - Part Six

This post was originally published on January 14th, 2020.

So I finally got around to post-processing, implementing everything and putting the finishing touches on. I added a few extras in, like a pause menu in the main scene so the game doesn’t immediately quit out and in the opening of the game and the opening of the main scene I put in a little skip when the player presses down on any button, just because it felt like it would take forever when I was playtesting and playing it over, and I’m sure my lecturers would also appreciate a skip.

So, looking back on the project as a whole, I think I accomplished the visual thematic that I set out for - but in terms of narrative I don’t think I’m emotionally satisfied by the project.

I think the menus and openings look and sound great and the post-processing really did wonders. I think in terms of the scene detail, I would really like to try and stretch it in the future. I wish i had created some more textures by myself and I wish I could have just played around a little more and put a little bit more into the scene.

This also goes for the interactions. In the end, because I imposed a time limit to the scene, I didn’t want to put too much into the scene so that the player would have to go back and back and back in order to see everything, but I wish I had maybe just added a little bit more so that the player would hopefully have to come back to the scene at least once - even if it was just little things like all of the individual perfume bottles making sounds rather than just one cluster. But I am happy with the sounds that I’ve created. I definitely know how and where I would change them - whether it’s removing certain stems I dislike from certain songs or making vocal effects sound heavier. But this definitely got me into a good rhythm with working with sound.

I think in terms of narrative I’m not super happy - but I think it’s a hard thing to measure. Is there any scenario where I can create a piece of art surrounding my mental experiences, self-reflection and potential traumas and always truly capture what it feels like? Or emulate the experience for other people in a way that I truly find cathartic? It’s a really hard question. When I look at the experience, my train of thought and my ideas - I’m not unhappy, but I’m not satisfied. I think this is something I’m definitely going to grow and develop over time. I’m beginning to achieve the moods I want to produce, but not necessarily the emotions or responses. My retrospect of this may be harsher than other though - just because it comes from my own experiences.

In the future, I would definitely like to try a project like this on a different aesthetic scale - or potentially revisit it with more realism. I think in part, using a cartoon-like style helped me deviate from the seriousness of what I was trying to portray and maybe avoid my own confrontations with the subject matter. And while it helps me portray it, it doesn’t leave me satisfied with it. I think maybe in the future, when taking on personal projects, I should consider this.

Although I’m definitely really happy with the outcome in comparison to last year - I just kind of wanted my internal redemption-arc and I wanted to see how the year has been to me. I think I’m really happy with what I’ve produced aesthetically and I’m really happy with how the audio came out from someone whose a first-time-composer, first-time-voice actor, first-time-sound-artist. I look forward to creating more complex sound solutions in the future.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Physical Computing 2 - Part Three

This post was originally published on January 14th, 2020

Today I began writing up a basic psuedocode that’ll hopefully work as a good basis for my project. I know it’s not perfect and it’ll definitely be missing a lot of the things I’ll need to implement, but it’ll definitely help towards me creating a more realized code. I’m not really confident in what I’ve started writing so I’ll definitely need to go over it with a lecturer as I don’t find my Python skills to be that

It at least definitely goes through the kind of routine I would expect it to, or has the rough pattern that I want for the final game. I had some placeholders for the art, as some of the art was going to be animated, but I don’t think I’ll actually have the time for this, so I decided to throw together some screens from traditional tarot card designs in photoshop that will act as a placeholder - it won’t be animated, but it’ll at least hold a good level of detail that I hope will balance it out.

I also created a table of what random cards I want to appear on what level, trying to match cards up to the three titular themes for representation as best as I could. 

And I also decided to write down the rules for each level - like how long each level would last for, how the “points” system worked in the background and what the losing conditions would be, just so it would create a more fulfilled psuedocode.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to try and get a little bit of help from my lecturer to get the game up and running. I think I’m going to focus on the raspberry pi elements later. I just want to get the game fully working and running with a keyboard or something and then I can worry about the physical arcade aspect a little later.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Image - Part Five

This post was originally published on January 14th, 2020.

Sound is one of the most crucial elements of this project – I began by tackling some of the basic sounds using online libraries. I really wanted to get some of the sounds in the UI and some of the harder scripts out of the way so that it would be easier to just implement the models into Unity and go. I’ve already done a lot of basics with sound in Unity and used sound in scripts before – like playing sounds on interaction, collision, etc. I knew my project was going to be washed with a VHS look, so I began looking for some sounds like VHS’ being inserted, computer sounds, beeps, synth-y sounds and bitcrushed noises like I said I wanted to in my research phase of the project.

I wanted a kind of “cinematic” opening, but rather than editing a bunch of audios I found together to get the effect I wanted, I made a script that turned the sounds I wanted on and off at certain intervals so that it could coincide with what was going on on the screen. I thought it would be easier to do it this way rather than animate on time with the sound or try to create one timeline. It also meant that I could re-use the original sound assets later without having to edit one long string of audio – so I just thought it would be more efficient. So I created a UI segment where the screen begins black, turns on and then turns off at a certain interval and had the audio sync to this.

In the next scene, I had my menu. I didn’t want the menu to seem repetitive in terms of sound and wanted to test out the idea of having a playlist/randomized sounds – so I threw together some background effects and noises like white noise and drone-y/humming noises for a base effect and then created a short script that takes sounds from an array and plays them randomly. I used an online tutorial that was really helpful and game me the exact effect I wanted. In the future, I would love to make it more customizable as I found I was a little bit limited by what was in the inspector. This is something I would like to work on in the future.

I also wanted to make the menu feel a bit more responsive, so when the player hovers over one of the option, it glows a bright yellow (falling in-line with the aesthetic) and then I created a script that creates a sound when the user hovers over. The interesting thing when I tested the script is that the sound “glitches” and gets “jammed” at the start of the clip and repeats, creating a heavy noise as it repeatedly restarts. It only plays the clip correctly when the player removes the mouse from the object. I actually liked the way this sounded – it kind of felt like a “roll-off”. So despite the fact it was unintentional, I decided to keep it in as I thought it would be interesting. It works with the aesthetic of the menu. To save myself sometime, I also repeated the sounds in the level select menu.

I created a small opening for the main scene which is a repeated version of the actual opening scene, but with a few of the sounds removed. I wanted it to feel more like a loading screen rather than an opening, so I removed the sound of the VHS being loaded in so that it felt like more of a progression from one section of a VHS to another, rather than putting in a new one.

In the main scene, there were a lot of things I wanted to do with sound – and a few of these I needed to record and create myself. My lecturer wanted at least one looped sound in the project, so with the help of a friend I created a song for the main scene. I’m not actually a huge fan of it (it’s the first song I’ve ever had any hand in making), but I needed at least one loop and I thought it would probably be easier to just stick to what I made rather than find someone else’s work and loop it. I also wanted to put a couple of pieces of voice work into the project, so we sat and recorded some vocals and bitcrushed them. I wasn’t a fan of my voice and the way in sounded in the end, so before I put them into the game files I pitched them down a little bit so it didn’t feel so jarringly me. I don’t mind them, but I don’t always feel like I’m a fan of the way I sound. Oh well. During this time, I also took the time to create some whispered ad-libs that I wanted to use during the main scene. It was mostly whatever came to mind at the time – it didn’t matter as it was inaudible. The whisper is played throughout the scene as a subtle solution to allowing for more to go on in the scene. My last vocal was made when we were messing around with the settings and playing around with the intensities and styles of the bitcrushing and downsampling. We found a really deep and distorted effect. I decided to recite some more of Whitman’s poetry as fast as I could speak and this was then used as a kind of “jumpscare” when the player interacts with the pinboard on the desk. I really loved the effect here.

All the other effects were found effects, perhaps edited in different ways in the Unity inspector. Most of the scene is activated by sound on click. I also use sound at a specific time interval again with a lightning/thunder effect I use. I just wanted to add a bit more animation to the scene as I felt as though a lot of the work was in the post-processing.

At the end of the scene, I added a game-kill. I didn’t really know how to finish the scene, so after about a minute and a half of exploring the scene the player is booted from the scene and given a kill screen. I kind of liked this idea, because I feel like it because the scene represents my mental space I wouldn’t want people “overstaying their welcome”. When this happens, the screen goes blue with a message and all the sounds in the scene stop. I liked this idea because I thought it perhaps felt like a representation of brain fog/noise – sometimes you just want everything to stop. Akira Yamaoka, the composer for the original Silent Hill’s said it best when he said silence was just as important a sound as any other. Sometimes I just want to feel the silence.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Image - Part Four

This post was originally published on January 13th, 2020.

So I began working on the models for the game – I wanted to keep the appearance as low-poly as possible and as true to what PSX games would have looked like – I wanted to use a lot more referencing than I have in the past. I found a Sketchfab where someone had uploaded a lot of the environments from the original Silent Hill, which helped a lot. This allowed me to see better what details were put into the actual anatomy of the models and what was just texturing. It’s amazing to see how far it was pushed sometimes. Even things like fences just being planes rather than having any geometry really help pull together the mood of the scene.

For the modelling, the room wasn’t particularly difficult – but I feel as though last year I struggled with creating an effect that felt fully realized. I think my environment felt far too large for the amount of detail I was putting into it, there was definitely far too much “white space” in the model.

I also made a lot of the textures myself in a cartoon-like style. While this is fine, I don’t feel like it was detailed enough to actually portray the low-resolution well. I found some of the texture files from the original Silent Hill online for a reference. While pixelated and ultimately quite cartoon-y, they have a lot of detail and shading which reflects well in the final models. I think when I was practicing my texturing in my other project, my models looked better with more detailed textures on a lower resolution than some of my final textures.

So I tried it – I ended up having to edit textures quite a lot, but I’m really pleased with the results. A lot of textures had to be scaled, pixelated down from more high quality textures and then reduced to 128 x 128 resolution for the effect but I really like this a lot more than my last project. The bits of miscellaneous detail really make all the difference – even if the textures aren’t necessarily easy to read. I’m really excited to process it into the game engine and see how I can really make it spark.

In this time, I also worked on a character model. When I was reading the art-book for the second Alice game, I remember seeing a comment from one of the artists saying that if they had had more time, they probably would have put more self-reflecting imagery into the abstract environments of the game to represent the main character’s mental space more. I wanted to make sure that the space was a good representation of myself and I wanted to see if I could add myself into the scene physically for effect. I think last year I was super let down by my character models – I really disliked how they turned out, so again I references a lot more.

I found another really awesome Sketchfab that broke down the anatomy of a PS1 character, showing how shapes were transformed and merged together to resemble something more humanoid. One thing with the original Playstation is obviously that every poly and vertex mattered, so a lot of models were tri-heavy, including the one I was referencing. For the sake of my lecturer, I tried my best to eliminate tris where I thought polys could be used instead, without making the model seem too detailed. The body was fine, but I think with the face there were some elements like the nose and jaw/cheeks that really needed the tri’s to emulate the look well – it just works a lot better with the shaders and the lighting. Anything more and things like the nose would have just looked excessive. It definitely works to its advantage and I’m happy to keep it this way for that reason.

To texture the model, I took a photo of my face and overlaid it onto the model. It looked horrifying. I blended out my nose so that it wouldn’t interfere with the geometry of the model. I then went over my features using a pencil brush and zoomed in so that I could work on individual pixels. I’m experienced in pixel art, so this wasn’t particularly challenging for me – I really liked the outcome and I think it’s actually relatively accurate to the way I look (or at least it seems to be from some people’s reactions). I then textured the rest of the hair and body quite generically just to get the ball rolling.

I then put her into position and exported the scene out ready to go into Unity. I’m really happy with the way it looks this year. There’s so much more detail and effort and I really tried to best to create a more accurate representation of how these games looked – the referencing definitely helped a lot. I think I’ll be looking to sound next so that I can really finish up the Unity side of things.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Image - Part Three

This post was originally published on January 13th, 2020.

I decided on what elements of Song of Myself I wanted to relate to what symptoms - and through this decided that thematic of each level. I found that this would be the easiest way to come up with an asset list that would actually reflect what I was doing in the end.

So now that I’ve created an asset list and have a better idea of what I want to accomplish, I wanted to create a plan and schedule relating to the thematic of my project - so I went on to create a short gantt chart with all of the things I think I’ll need for the foreseeable future.

I think it would maybe help in the future if my gantt chart were a little bit more specific, but I think for now, because a lot of my assets will take so little time to develop (a bed, a chair, record this voice over line) I won’t create an endlessly long chart with specifics were detail doesn’t need to be specified.

As we know, I already have the aesthetic and thematic drawn out for my project - I’ve begun sketching some of my ideas down and creating concept imagery which I’ll then produce in 3D. I want to be finished this aspect soon that so that I can get to testing sound as soon as possible. I jumped the gun and started putting together some of the UI, just because I know what I have to create there and how it’ll look and it only really requires Unity assets to make. I also want to start applying some sounds to these scenes just so I can get into the rhythm of it. I wanted a VHS menu with a little intro of a VHS being put into the tape slot, so I’m working on the visuals for these.

I’ve also been looking into some post processing effects and I’ve found some really neat resources to help me accomplish my aesthetic vision on the asset store - I’m going to play around with these a bit more and see what I can mix and match and anything else that I can potentially use.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Physical Computing 2 - Part Two

This post was originally published on January 11th, 2020

So I’ve been thinking about what I would like to achieve a little bit more with this project and have kind of come up with a more refined idea. So, I have the basis for what I want to go on on screen, but I’ve created a better idea of a custom controller with 21 inputs.

This, however, will probably not be super possible on my time restriction - but I want to have a go on at least creating 13 inputs. This still seems like a lot! But I know what I want to achieve so I don’t think it’ll be the worst thing in the world.

“... The 22 Major Arcana cards from the tarot deck chart the soul’s journey through all of our incarnations, describing all of the different challenges that we will meet along the way “

Each level will have a triptych of three cards titled “DEATH”,  “DECAY”,  “RENEWAL”. On the bottom title of the card, there will be a number between 0-13 (originaly 21) which are representative of the numbers of the Major Arcana - used as birth tarot cards. I specifically reduced the controls down to thirteen as thirteen represents death, which is my own birth tarot.

Each of the Major Arcana numbers will represent one of three actions per level the player will need to preform in quick succession. For example, if 1 meant to push a button, 2 meant to flick a switch and 3 meant to turn a dial, and the game told the player the card numbers were 2, 3 and 1, they would need to do those tasks as quickly as possible in that order. Kind of like a really emo bop-it.

So, for my controller, it’ll have to be some kind of box with thirteen inputs on it. I’ve created some sketches about what this might look like but I’m not really sure how I want the final outcome to look like yet.

IMAGE HERE

With my arcade machine, I want to recycle an old CRT computer monitor I have lying around from an old art project. It currently sits in my bedroom surrounded by plants. When I was looking at it one evening, I thought about how I liked the contrast between old technology and new life - and how this CRT was probably used for different things thirty years but now just sits in my bedroom recycled as some kind of nerdy ornament, sat around plant-life - where nature if often the definitive representation of life. In that moment if felt like a beautiful representation of what this project meant to me - how energy is never destroyed, just transferred. I feel like this felt more relevant than just constructing some kind of traditional arcade machine - I never really wanted to construct something traditional anyway after seeing the V&A Alternative Arcade night. People creating arcade machines out of real cars or out of long strips of LED’s - it definitely helps me think a lot less traditionally about arcade,

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Image - Part Two

This post was originally published on December 13th, 2019.

In my last post I discussed the aesthetic and basic thematic of my project, but I wanted to get into the gritter details of the experience in another post.

One game that’s been inspiring a lot of the sketchbook work for this project is The Path. The Path (2009) is a horror art game where the players only objective is to stay on the path - inspired by the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale. Despite this, the player is rewarded through exploring the environment and going off the path. There are several playable characters - all sisters - and each one has a different symbolic experience from one another that the player can uncover through environmental storytelling. The game is deliberately open ended and at times very avant-garde - leading to a lot of theories, analysis and research on the games topics.

I think the element of non-explicit environmental storytelling is very desirable to me. I’d like to create an experience about my experiences that isn’t necessarily overt in nature. I think once of the aspects of The Path I enjoy the most are the final cutscenes for each character, which are very abstract.

As a commenter back-handedly put it:

“… This is by far the most pretentious thing I’ve ever seen, I feel like I’m in a college film class.”

But I think that’s what makes it enjoyable. The Path was released more than ten years ago now, but was making strides in abstract storytelling that some developers wouldn’t remotely try and touch nowadays. The game was still being reflected on years after its release. It wasn’t just some art school indie-fad. While it’s far from the best interactive art experience I’ve ever played, it’s very memorable in its use of surreal imagery. I would like to reflect this in my own work, hopefully with some semblance.

My original concept was not too dissimilar to the presentation of the ending of each chapter of The Path. I wanted something similar to a house, with shifting or abstraction in separate rooms. I don’t know how I specifically feel about the idea of an actual house, but I definitely want the game to feature contrasting abstract spaces that reflect me.

With the themes of this project being abstract considerations of self, and being a poetry enthusiast myself, I was thinking about creating the basis of the narrative around one of my favourite American epic poems and using it as the spoken narrative aspect of the work. “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman is interesting in the style of how it was written - as “I” is not limited to the physical or mental boundaries of self. “I” does not refer to Whitman, nor does it refer to some all-powerful god or narrative figure, but can be projected onto the reader - or all of mankind.

As a rule of thumb, Borderline Personality Disorder can be categorized into four sections, with each section having multiple symptoms. These include:

Emotional instability

Cognitive distortion

Impulsive behavior

Unstable relationships

For this reason, I think I want to separate intractable “areas” into one of these four categories. I think with that, I can separate scenes into “levels” - meaning that if it becomes too much on my plate, I can just complete a level or two and lock the other areas for later exploration. I think I would prefer to tackle one area of the project very well rather than several areas of the disorder in a manner that’s rushed and unfinished. 

In reference to Whitman, I would like to do something similar - I would like to attach segments of the poetry to the ideas and symptoms of the disorder and use these as a narrative drive for the scenes. I hold this poem close to myself as someone who often feels as though the lose the meaning of self and I feel as though this would be an appropriate way to decorate the narrative.

I’m going to create a rough asset list and a plan for what I want to tackle in each scene. For now, I’m going to focus on one scene and then potentially move onto another scene and create a separate task list later so that I’m not wasting time if I don’t get more than one scene finished. I think the process I want to take with this project is create some sketches, outline what I would like to take from these, create an asset list and then a list of what I need to implement in Unity and then work on these. Once I’ve finished these to a standard I’m happy with, I’ll repeat the process for multiple scenes so that I’m not wasting my energy on creating things that won’t be to a standard I’m happy with.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Physical Computing 2 - Part One

This post was originally published on December 12th, 2019.

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to visit the V&A during the opening of their Videogames: Design / Play / Disrupt exhibition after being fortunate enough to see it in London. This was followed by Arcadia - a day of talks and presentations by independent game developers, AAA developers, interactive art designers and more. This was then followed up by Press Play, an alternative arcade evening. I think going into our arcade project last year, I didn’t really have a true understanding of alt arcade and the possibilities of creating more tactile experiences in games until I had the opportunity to experience more.

I came up with an alternative arcade project in the summer that never really came to fruition. The idea was based on micro/mini-game compilations like Warioware after a few friends and I were playing Bishi Bashi with one controller. Between micro-games, we had to pass the controller back and forth between one another in a hurry in order to take turns accordingly. I really liked the physical aspect of this and wanted to create something along the same lines.

When also coming up with random video game concepts last year, I came up with a post-it note that discussed the idea of a video game triptych. I kept the note on my wall and wanted to potentially use it for a future physical project. This is what kind of sparked the development of the original idea of the project.

My birth tarot cards are Death / The Emperor. Death is often perceived with its negative connotations, but can also be seen as part of a cycle - representing endings and welcoming begins. It also isn’t necessarily representative of the death of life. It could represent feelings, mindset, tasks or being. I often struggle with the concept of death, and when thinking of this I was reminded of a perfume collection and wanted to name my project after this. Death, Decay, Renewal. I think this also fits the thematic of a triptych idea.

Death Decay Renewal will be a reflection on the three titular concepts. Individual mini games will fall under one of the three themes but together create a story when played. The general theme is hope and patience; the concept of life after death and how energy can never be destroyed or created, only transferred or changed.

The game will have three mini games per level. Levels will progressively become more intense in terms of the delivery of the subject matter. Because of the style of the delivery of the games, and the way they need to be rapidly presented to the player, there unfortunately isn’t a lot of space to create an in depth method of storytelling – therefore, I would like this to become apparent from the subject matter in the games.

The game will potentially have multiple game modes. Similar in style to a game such as Tetris, the goals may either be to play infinitely or to progress into levels. For levels, there will be designated mini-games within a particular level group and the player must complete all of them in order to progress to the next stage. This will continue until the players reach the end. If playing infinitely, the player would be able to access all mini-games at once and gain an overall score for each completed game until a game over condition was reached. At this stage, these concepts may become “nice-to-haves” however.

As the player will be presented with quick rounds of short games, the skills need to be based on things that can be picked up on quickly rather than skills that would be learn over a duration of time. All games will be a reflection of the player’s reaction time. Ideas for mini game skill concepts include button mashing, memory games, fast paced puzzle solving and ultimately the ability to be able to react to commands in quick succession. The game will potentially only utilise a few buttons inputs. I would like to experiment with these, however.

Losing conditions are likely to fall under one of two categories – player response times being slower than the designated time limit or a player failing to complete an objective correctly. Players will be given three “lives” and may fail the mini-games collectively three times before their score is totalled and they are given a game over screen.

The style of the game will be 2D and replicate vintage astronomy charts and tarot cards. The game will ultimate follow a palette of only black and white for a recognisable and blunt aesthetic - whether or not my final output will be in black is a different story. This will hopefully also create less of a time constraint when creating art for the game. To fully replicate this, the mini games are to be displayed in a portrait mode – with the three mini games stacked one besides the other on the screen(s).

Specific artists I would like to be inspired by include Junji Ito and Godsteeth Illustration. I feel as though the aesthetic of their work would compliment the ideas that I’ve already presented through their use of composition and subject matter.

In terms of control and input and display, I have a few ideas but nothing concrete. Last year, I only ended up getting my buttons to working which was a pity - but I think this time around it’s going to depend a lot on how I want the game set up. I definitely want some more interesting inputs, but I’m not really sure how I want this implemented level to level. I’ve purchased some inputs and outputs for my raspberry pi, but I’d like to go into the specifics of my game later.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Sound and Images - Part One

December 6th, 2019.

I’ve recently been struggling emotionally and have been quite down on myself. I’m not really sure what I want to achieve with this project really, but I want to tackle a few topics for my own mental well being and release.

I’ve always struggled with my mental health, having tried to take my own life at one point. I think I specifically struggle with borderline personality disorder and I’m struggling quite a lot at the moment.

I had a few ideas for what I wanted to produce visually for this and a few ideas of how I want to go around executing it. Thinking of the audio aspect of the project, I wanted to produce something a little bit more stylized. I think a lot of the time I go out of my way to create visual aesthetics but not enough audio aesthetics. Thinking back to older games, I think I want to recreate a more vintage style of audio and visual.

Older games were limited by their hardware and the technology of the era. Because of this, audio was often times limited to blips and beeps. As the technology developed, more complex sounds were able to be added to games -albeit of low resolution - during the 80′s, some games and arcades began implementing voice audios. This resolution of sound is often replicated in games and music today through bitcrushing. I’d like to implement this as a collective sound aesthetic to give a more unified vibe to the project, as well as being quite selective about the audios I’m using. I would definitely like the audio to be more synth-y and electronic in nature. I’m not really well-acquainted with sound or sound production, so I’m just going to try my best.

Last year, I tried to create a game in the style of PSX era. I disliked the final outcome. Although my intentions were solid, I don’t really think I had the knowledge or the depth of Unity experience to be able to pull off the experience. I also don’t think it as appropriate for a VR experience. It didn’t really bring anything to the table. I think the project lacked the depth of texturing and post-processing really needed to pull off the effect with any kind of substance. I want to learn from this experience and create something more realised.

Although I think by the time the original Playstation rolled around audio quality was a little bit more advanced than the effect you get with bitcrushing, it’s actually very common place for modern replicas of games from this era to have audio that’s more similar to the style of the 80′s. I think it just comes under the general “lo-fi” aesthetic, so I suppose I don’t mind having that inconsistency there.

Looking at more contemporary examples, I would like to take inspirations from studios such as Puppet Combo who have kind of perfected the art of the PSX style graphics. I think one thing to note with their style of work is they’re almost emulating the hardware, not just the software. Things like the subtle tones of scanlines and rendering issues really help create a more unified aesthetic in the post-processing stage. One game that was quite popular a few years back was Dead End Road - a horror game using the same style. One thing I’ve noticed is a lot of lo-fi games use horror as their genre. It’s almost strange how much people seem to associate the late 90′s visual style with being scary. I think this is partly due to the influence of games like the original Silent Hill, where the limitations of the hardware created an aura and visual thematic that was completely unique to it’s brand.

Things such as lighting and fog were used to disguise the hardware rendering limitations, but also created a depth in the environment and an element of “the unknown” that the series was then known for from then on out.

I’ve also collated some other examples on the topic of PSX style horror games. I think I want there to be a dark undertone to the game. With the themes I want to discuss in the work, I don’t think it would be appropriate to feel upbeat or lighthearted, but I don’t think I want to go as far as a horror game just yet.

While I feel as though the low-poly style is simple, it’s quite challenging and relies a lot on the heavy use of texturing to add detail. I would really like to emulate this style and with this practice my texturing and mapping skills. One thing that’s quite neat with the style is that a lot of the textures are actually of a high quality - it’s just their in-game resolution is so low it often doesn’t seem it. I often found my best models from last years projects were the ones with the highest amount of details, like shading.

I have some other ideas more specific to the gameplay experience, but I think I’ll end on this note for now. I have a bad habit of rambling on.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Game Cinematic - Part Two

November 22nd, 2019

So we’ve finally finished the project, so I wanted to do a small retrospective on how I felt about our final outcome and processes. Overall, I think we did a good job working through the processes and creating a scene that matched on time with the music and was well thought out. I did a scene by scene analysis of what we did and why it was done to explain our thought processes behind everything - from light to sound to. I think if we had more time, I would have liked to have worked into things like the character models so that we had better characterization in the scene and perhaps also the pacing of some of the animations. Some of the movements in comparison to the beats (for example, walking), felt slower in animation in time with the music compared to what we envisioned. But I feel as though we were relatively successful in communicating the outcome we wanted.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Game Cinematic - Part One

November 14th, 2019

For this project, we’re required to create the pre-visualisation for a one minute cinematic synced to music. The project is a group project and I’m working with Matt for these upcoming weeks.

In terms of audio, we wanted something with a strong electronic presence to make it easier for ourselves. We looked at a couple of different sources, including some tracks off of 2107AD and music by Boy Harsher before coming to a decision.

For the song, we’ve decided to do “Motion" by Boy Harsher. This was because it was a strong electronic song that was very bouncy and beat-heavy, so we thought this would be good for syncing in time with camera cuts and such.

Because it’s a pre-visualisation and there won’t be a lot of time to create in-depth environments, so we decided that the setting for the short would be a desert. My inital idea would be something of a Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas type idea, with two characters in a desert with a car. We thought that this would be an easy way to cut down animation efforts by having them in an almost static object with little to no moving parts.

We then needed a motivation from the characters. We were thinking some kind of drug-related fiasco a la Fear and Loathing - perhaps with the two characters moving towards a city, but we found it difficult to tie off why they would actually be doing this. But we liked the idea of incorporating cityscapes as a contrast to the desert and thought it would make for some nice shots and use of lighting - particularly with what we found in terms of references.

From this, we also figured we wanted to go for a more 80′s/90′s electronic/vaporwave aesthetic as we thought this would be easy to mask onto the desert scenes as well as the city scenes. As we’re also not suppose to be texturing the environment, I feel by using the lighting to our advantage in the scenes this could also be used to help project the aesthetic and mood of the scene. We still didn’t have much for “plot”, however.

But I remembered an old piece but an artist that I particularly admire. B0neface, who is the illustrator behind the current album art cycles for Queens of the Stone Age, used to have an early piece on his website titled “Surprise Party” where a dead body can be seen hanging out the back of the trunk of a car. I’ve always liked this idea, so thought that we could use it.

Another thing I really liked by B0neface was during QOTSA’s ...Like Clockwork era of music, he created animated music videos. B0neface is not an animator - and this comes through in the style of animation that was produced for the final videos - which gave me the idea of referencing them even more, as the animation work is restricted to whatever movement can be created within the boundaries of the illustration.

In the music video for I Appear Missing, this is particularly apparent. The concept is also similar to ours with a desert, which by the end of the animation also becomes a city like we were initially planning.

During the moment where he falls from the cliff, I mentioned that I liked the idea of the city coming in gradually, although in this case it’s vertically rather than horizontally. With this, we thought that we could potentially have the characters coming out of a cityscape, leaving it behind, with the body in the boot of the car - which makes a lot more sense. The city slowly becomes less and feels more like desert.

To tie up the animation, I also considered another Queens of The Stone Age music video from this era, although this time a live-action one. In the plot of this, the front-man of the band, dressed as a businessman, goes out drinking and doing drugs with some other businessmen - to which their night ends when one of them murders someone. In the final shot of the music video, they can be seen looking across the desert at their friend, who is burying the body.

So that’s the scope of the plot we came up with - two characters move a dead body to the desert to bury them. I also began looking at some references for character design so I could get into some level of characterization, even if the models aren’t going to be particularly detailed. I definitely want both characters to have some kind of identifier such as sunglasses. I want there to feel like there’s an air of lack of identity or shifting identity in the characters, so this is why I did this.

We also have some other minor artistic decisions we’ve made from references we’ve found, such as aspect ratio. I wanted a ratio similar to that of Lana Del Rey’s Tropico.

The reason why I thought this would be good as I feel like it would create a nice elongation of the environment and help make the desert feel a lot more vast. I definitely want the environment and the scope of the scene to take up more of the screen space. I also feel as though this would help create a more impactful statement when characters are on screen and help lead the eye more.

Currently, Matt has been working on a storyboard while I’m working on a similarly styled animatic. I’m currently creating some traditional drawings which I’m then going to digitally colour. I want an effect similar to the storyboard of Gorillaz’ Rhinestone Eyes - which was never fully made into a music video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYDmaexVHic

I love the idea of the colour blocking, so I want to also use this as a means of getting across a colour script.

I’m going to work on this for the next day or so while Matt begins modelling. I also want to get to modelling so we can fill out our scene as much as possible and finish the 3DSMax portion of the project within the next couple of days or so.

[shelbysusannahsmith]

Immersive Visualisation II - Part Five

October 31st, 2019.

It’s been a hard first seven weeks but I’ve finally finished. I’m really happy with the work I did in 3DSMax and I really feel like it’s a good step up from some of the city environments I’ve done over the years. Most of the elements are modular and most elements have been stretched and repeated as much as possible. Little aspects such as some of the neon sign designs are also modular, but a few of these were created to help break up the scene visually. I think, bar that, everything in the scene is reused or recycled - including a lot of the textures. I was actually really surprised when I went into my textures folder to see how little I had actually created. On the flipside, I was also really happy with the fact that a large percent of the final textures were actually completely handmade by myself through sculpting. Only a few are outsourced, and these were a few images just so I could check the NDO box (such as the corrugated iron roll-up doors). I also managed to tackle some model types I have a tendency to avoid, such as more organic ones. I’m quite happy with that. I put a few of these inside some pipes to check the box for editing normals - I thought that by breaking open a quarter of the pipes it would give me a “reason” to split the pipes up rather than having them randomly modular.

In terms of shaders, I created quite a few different ones for different things in my scenes. I played around with the flag shaders in order to get some of the clothes on the clothing lines moving with the wind, which I think was a nice substitute for a flag. I also had some water running down the street sides which I think came out quite nice and stylised - not perfect but definitely enough for me to be happy with. I also created a shader that runs water down the windows and bricks in the scene which I feel gives the rain just a little bit more power. I really love this shader, even if it is quite simple. I didn’t have much reason to use a triplanar, so I used it in a custom skybox I created for myself and created a few “star” textures of different colours to get it to blend them together. It’s quite hard to see in the final game because of the fog and lighting, but it’s there I suppose. I did struggle a lot at first with the shader graph but as I got used to editing it definitely felt a lot more natural. It’s definitely not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, but I respect it and do love the extra blow it gives to the scene.

Overall I’m really happy with what I’ve done. It’s definitely not perfect and I had a few rendering problems still showing in the final, but I don’t mind too much and I’m not going to stress out - I could perhaps look at it another time. But for now I think I’ve checked most, if not all of the boxes of what I needed to do and I’m really proud of myself for overcoming everything.