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Steph Ramos is an Animation student at Ravensbourne. In her free time she likes to draw and play video games.

[stephramosanimation]

Modern technologies influencing and enhancing the visual storytelling in the gaming industry

Why I chose this industry

I chose this industry since I have always been interested in creating narratives and the conception of the final product over the product itself. My interests have always been in creating an interesting story that leaves a mark with the person who is going to see it, and I think that games leave the biggest impact on people, based on my experience of playing games my entire life. With the change and development in technology over the coming years I can see the potential that it has towards making the process of creating games a lot easier and different enough to change the scene entirely.

Outcomes/Objectives

With this research and essay I aim to achieve the knowledge in my chosen industry that will help me get a job in the future or at least identify the key skills I have or will need to work on in order to get a job in the future in this industry. I also aim to look at current companies and practices and ways for myself to innovate and bring something new to these companies and practices using the technology I will research.

General statistics 

21 million people play video games in the UK, making it the 5th largest video game market in 2017 based on consumer revenues. The UK consumer spend on video games was valued at £5.11bn 2017 (12.4% increased from 2016: £4.33bn)

There are 2,175 active video game companies in the UK (as of 2017) and 68% of the companies were founded since the beginning of 2010.

Higher education in the UK strongly supports the games industry; 60 universitires provide 215 undergrate video games (in 2014 alone)

23% of courses are in London, 18% in the West Midlands and 16% in Yorkshire.

Trends in Technology

Motion Capture technology (or MoCap) is a method that is used to digitally capture and record human movements. Recorded motion that has been captured is mapped onto a digital model in 3D software (Maya or Unity) so the character then moves like the actor you have recorded. Motion capture can be used for film, video games and VFX.

Examples of motion capture: Andy Serkis in Lord of the Rings, Troy Baker in Infamous: Second and The Last of Us.

Software MoCap can be done in: Xsens MVN, Maya, 3DS Max, Unity.

 At this time the market was “booming for mobile and handheld gaming, so a common trend became the secondary screens for consoles and cross-play.” (Poh, 2018)

The Wii U was announced at E3 in 2011 and wasn’t released until 2012, or really become a leading game until 2013. The Wii U’s main selling point was the additional “controller” which had a screen, giving the players the ability to to play both on the gamepad or the tv, or both at the same time using the gamepad to access inventories the play on the screen.

At the same time, rival company Sony, announced the PS Vita – allowing the main console to act as a second screen through cross play and remote play. This would allow players to play console games away from the console and on the smaller screen to play on the go.

VR became very popular in 2016 when the Oculus Rift was announced and introduced: it aimed to let players experience games they play as if they’re in the world in the game. With it’s design they aimed to make it as comfortable and immersive as possible. Once Oculus released the Rift other companies such as Google and Android also wanted to take advantage of the VR, which welcomed the release of Google Cardboard.

Tools used to create games in VR include:

•       3DS Max and Maya

•       Unity 3

•       Unreal Engine 4

•       Blender

Trends in technology (2016-2017)

VR, AR and “physically collaborative” (Erica Webber, 2016) games are becoming a big trend in 2017. Companies are now trying to find more ways to incorporate the body into gaming but not only as a way to get players more active but to also immerse them in the world they’re in, your body would act as a physical anchor to the game you’re playing.

Pokemon Go, released in 2016 paved the way for augmented reality games on mobile. Created by Niantic with 650 million downloads in 2017 alone, it influenced Google to create augmented reality games on mobile such as: Ghostbusters World, Jurrasic World and The Walking Dead Our World. Even though it didn’t create a surge of AR games on mobile, it did allow Google and Apple to begin development on AR platforms which would allow developers to easily create AR games.

Some tools to create AR games include:

•       Apple ARKit

•       Vuforia

•       Kudan

•       ARTool Kit

•       Augmenta

•       EasyAR

UK based companies that specialise in AR/VR Gaming:

•       Harmony Studios

•       Preloaded

•       Kuju

•       Climax Studios

Rise of indie studios

Rise of Indie studios

Developer platforms have been increasing in the past years considering software available to create games have been more accessible for anyone to create games. Because of this the numbers of indie studios and games have been increasing.

List of Indie games made by UK Companies:

•       Monument Valley

•       Purrfect Date, Surgeon Sim, I Am Bread

•       No Man’s Sky

•       Prison Architect

•       LittleBigPlanet, Tearaway, Dreams

UK Indies:

•       Ustwo

•       Bossa Studios

•       Kuju

•       Introversion

•       Hello Games

•       Media Molecule

•       Hard Light

•       Criterion Games

Free software available for game development:

•       RPG Maker

•       GameMaker Studio

•       Unity

•       Stencyl

•       Unreal Engine 4

New Technologies 

Grease Pencil in Blender

The grease pencil in Blender is beginning to create a change in the way we animate in 2D, by combining 3D features with 2D tools you can make an animation in Blender fully in 2D but on a 3D plane, create visual effects using 2D and rotoscope your 3D animations or combine 3D with 2D. Positioning cameras in conjunction with models and affects can allow the grease pencil to create dynamic animations. When using the tool it also allows for bone rig and model deformers allowing you to change the shape of the objects you create. “Hero” is a short film made in the Blender using the Grease Pencil that shows off it’s true potential and some limitations. Much like Spine, using Blender retains the traditional charm of 2D.

Spine – 2D animations for games

Spine is an up and coming 2D software animation tool which allows artists to create animations specifically for video games, whilst utilising a lot of aspects from 3D software. The basis of this software is that it allows you to create 2D animations for video games whilst using a lot of helpful features from 3D software, meaning you won’t need to spend a lot of time animating frame by frame and thus cutting down a lot of time and therefore money. Some main features include:

 •       Dopesheet: allows a detailed view of the layers and timelines, letting animators make fine adjustments in timings.

•       Meshes: as opposed to drawing rectangles the meshes let the artists specify polygons inside the image and increases the fill rate as the pixels outside of the polygon won’t be drawn or selected – which is essential for mobile games.

•       Graph editor: allows interpolation between keys to adjust the timings and create life like movements, like we’ve seen in Maya.

•       Free-form Deformation: allows you to move individual mesh vertices to squash and stretch the image which isn’t possible with regular rectangular images.

Paths + IK/FK: allows your images/2d animations to be rigged with Bezier splines to be controlled using bones, allowing intuitive use of your drawings.

Some companies that have used Spine as a 2D tool:

•       Rocket Punch

•       Game Freak

•       Daedic Entertainment

•       Bee Square

•       Bulbware

Real Time Rendering – Unreal Engine 4

Real time rendering involves “animation that are rendered so fast they appear to be generated in real time.” (What is Real Time Rendering and Why It Matters, 2018) It was created by Epic Games, they unveiled it by showing off three new games that utilised this technology: Fortnite, Kingdom Hearts 3 and Sea of Thieves. Real time rendering allowing designers to create characters and props that would be placed in the world or the stage and it will be rendered immediately, also meaning that any subsequent changes to the characters, props or lighting will also be rendered immediately, thus saving time. Not only does it save time, but it allows great potential for the designers and developers to experiment greatly with the designs, lighting, camera placement and colour effects as they can be rendered in real time and making the process much more intuitive. It “allows the directors to act much like a film director would on a set” (What is Real Time Rendering and Why It Matters, 2018), by cutting waiting time and making almost immediate changes. Other upgrades to this engine mean that games can be created with photo-realistic finishes with characters that are much more life-like. In the future, artists might be required to also know how to use real time rendering and it will most likely become common practice in industry considering how much time it saves.

Places for innovation 

Real Time Rendering saves a lot of time in the development pipeline such as saving time when changing assets or small design aspects, for example, in the development of Ori and Blind Forest, a lot of time was spent on having to re-render the character of “Ori” as they constantly had to change position of his arms to fit the 2D plane of the game. If the team had access to real time rendering, a lot of time could be saved as they could’ve just changed the assets and render them immediately.

Tiltbrush in VR; Tiltbrush is a tool made by Google which allows artists to freely draw in a 3D space in Virtual Reality. It also allows artists to create small animations in VR, Tiltbrush could easily be used to create 3D models, which means they can be done faster and easier, as well as allowing potential for more stylised models. Tiltbrush will let artists cut time and create 3D models and still retain the charm that comes with 2D.

Upon completing this research I have found that I need to develop my technical skills, specifically in terms of rendering assets. As well as this in my future studies I aim to work on my conceptual skills in order to develop my aesthetic and skills. This research has given me an idea of what the gaming industry looks like in the UK and what I should expect to be getting myself into. With this research I have also identified companies I aim on interning at or doing work experience at: Mind Candy, Bossa Studios, Kuju, Jellyfish and The Third Floor. These are pre-viz and video game development companies.

References/Bibliography 

Poh, Michael (2018) Future of Gaming: 5 Exciting Emerging Trends Available at: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/future-of-gaming/(Accessed: 31 May 2018) 

Sardelis, Cleo (2018) Newzoo’s Trends to Watch in 2018 Available at: https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoos-trends-watch-2018/ (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Erica Webber, Jordan (2017) The top 10 gaming trends of 2017 Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/top-trends-video-games-consoles-2017-gadgets (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Fahey, Rob (2017) Gaming’s big trends to keep an eye on in 2017 Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-05-what-to-watch-for-in-2017 (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Millicevi, Milena (2017) Virtual reality started in film and gaming industry. What is next? Available At: https://arvrtech.eu/blog/vr-film-and-gaming-the-next-steps (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

What is Real Time Rendering and Why it Matters  (2018) Available at: https://www.easyrender.com/3d-rendering/what-is-real-time-rendering-and-why-it-matters (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Greene, Tristan (2017) Real-time Rendering is the future of computer animation Available At: https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2017/07/25/real-time-rendering-future-computer-animation/ (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Erica Webber, Jordan, Brewster, Kat(2016) 11 video game trends that will change the future of the industry Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/11-video-game-trends-that-will-change-the-future-of-the-industry (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Chisholm, Lee (2017) The rise and rise of indie games Available at: https://www.yoyogames.com/blog/443/the-rise-and-rise-of-indie-games (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

What is Spine? (2017) Available at: http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-in-depth (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Ukie (2017), The Games industry in numbers Available at: https://ukie.org.uk/research#Market (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Ukie (2017), Gamesmap Available at: https://gamesmap.uk/#/map (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

today Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTn3ePDt50 (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

CGI Today (2017) Is blender the future of 2D animation? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Wl3YoRe8w (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Vice Game (2016) virtual reality 3D modelling software will let you design in mid-air Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX4UpMdJkAI (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Tiga (2018) UK video games industry set to grow in 2018 Available at: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/uk-video-games-industry-set-to-grow-in-2018-668257263.html (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

MediaMolecule (2018) Available at: https://www.mediamolecule.com/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

OpusArtz (2018) Available at: http://opusartz.com/about/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Atomhawk (2018) Available at: http://atomhawk.com/services (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Leading Light Design (2018) Available at: http://www.leadinglightdesign.com/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Kuju (2018) Available at: https://www.kuju.com/kuju-games (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Artstation, Edwards, Liz (2018) Available: https://www.artstation.com/lizedwardsvr (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

GDC (2017) The future of art production in games Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rt0wOyCCAI (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

80 Level (2017) 4 Technologies to change art production Available at: https://80.lv/articles/4-technologies-to-change-art-production/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Gupta, Kitty (2017) Top games design trend 2017 Available at: https://www.freelancinggig.com/blog/2017/05/09/top-game-design-trends-2017/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)  

Harris, Miriam (2018) 7 incredible tools that let you paint and sculpt in VR Available at: https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/hacking-maker/7-incredible-tools-that-let-you-paint-sculpt-in-vr/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Kristjan Zadziuk (2016) GDC 2016 Motion Matching, The future of games animation... today Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTn3ePDt50 (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Esoteric Software (2015) Spine: 2D animation for games Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RTkImAOJKM (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

[stephramosanimation]

Here is my completed research presentation, on top of adding new content and a bibliography I have also included some images just to add to the text and give my presentation something else to also look at besides walls of text. 

To come to a conclusive on my thesis question, most modern technologies have developed in order to create characters and stories that are more realistic, and boiled down to a main ideology behind animation which is creating the illusion of life. However, in 2D animation artists continue to create abstract, cartoony and very stylised pieces of work. 

And finally, I also applied to all of the companies listed above, among some others using this template: 

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a first year undergraduate animation student at Ravensbourne. I would like to enquire about a potential work experience placement at Splash Damage, which I would be able to carry out for two weeks from Tuesday 21st of August 2018. I am very keen on gaining some practical work experience in the animation industry, as well as gaining hands on knowledge on what it’s like to be part of a team in a studio because I aim to be a character designer or animator in the future once I have completed my degree and aim to develop my skills. In my spare time I like to draw my own character designs and concepts, develop my technical skills in 3D modelling and constantly do studies and practices to further develop my artistic skill. I am familiar with working in the Adobe suite and Maya. As a passionate student with an internet in the animation industry, I would be very grateful if I were considered for an opportunity at Splash Damage for work experience. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Here I will include a link to my blog showcasing the development stages for my outcomes and university work: https://stephramosanimation.tumblr.com/

Thank you for your time.

Yours faithfully,

Stephanie Ramos  

[stephramosanimation]

I made a gantt chart before creating my assets as a way to prioritise them in terms of how important each asset is and which ones I should focus on modelling first, as expected the assets that were compulsory to my diner I had on high priority, and most of them I ended up finishing first except for the booth and chair, since I considered them to be the most difficult and they recquired my attention more. Oddly enough I decided to model these last so I could most of my other assets out of the way and since they were easy for me, I could get them done first and faster. Once I learnt how to bevel and use the ep curve tool, I could use that knowledge to then create the rest of my assets, like the crayons, cups and stool. The gantt chart was very helpful as I would then not need to create loads of notes for myself constantly telling myself what was left to do and when I needed it done. 

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Unity

I experimented with placing my assets in unity in order to see how they look once exported into another program. As you can see the models look sharper and the lighting is a lot better than the dim lighting in Maya, but the textures have not been imported and the saturation/contrast on the colours are a little too much for comfort. I would probably consider keeping my environment in Maya as opposed to using unity. 

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Scripting

Before I began texturing my assets I experimented with using a script that would flatten the objects, even though this would be helpful in telling me how my textures would map out and help me plan accordingly, I didn’t neccesarily find it useful or use it besides the initial experimental stage. When unwrapping my UVs I was able to do so effectively so I did not need further help with the flattening scripts. 

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Here are some more shots, in which you can see further progress I have made towards my scene - I textured the flooring and added in some extra props (the pancakes) in order to give my scene some more life. Like the other shots, I used the directional and pointed lights that have been tinted, however, what I have also added is one spotlight that has been given a colour of light pink in order to add to the sunset lighting, it has been pointed at the booth in particular at an angle in order to cast the shadow of other booths, to show that it is quite late into the afternoon much like the windows also suggest. 

I decided to also move some of my props/assets to other areas of the diner to see how the light hitting them would differ. In these shots I placed them on the bar, and moved the lights accordingly. 

Considering there are no booths or objects to cast on these props in this particular angle, I decided to place my camera up high in the hopes to capture any shadows being cast by some of the assets themselves, which has not happened. In order to achieve this I will need to possibly place the spotlight closer, and lower, in order to give my assets the long shadow that is cast when the sun is coming down. 

When lighting my scene and picking the colours for the walls and floor of the diner I based them on these palettes I created by some of the images I was using as my primary references: 

This unit has been very informative to me as it’s improved my technical skills greatly and I have discovered that I may have a passion for modelling. The experience was very useful as whilst being taught in lectures I could then use that information and the methods to then experiment myself and create my own assets,  which is how I ended up creating the crayons and milkshake cups. 

As well as these shots, I experimented with placing my idle animation model from ANI14102 in the diner. 

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As you can see from these shots I have begun to put together my diner and referenced my assets in the scene together, I have also added in multiple cameras at different angles along with lights to give my scene some life. In the first two shots pictured I have used simple directional lights pointed towards that particular booth in order to create lighting, and in the bottom two shots I combined the directional lighting with pointed lights that have been tinted a light, pastel orange colour to appear to have a sunset affect. I think that this effect goes very nicely with the colours of my props/assets and fit the mood of my narrative and actually help that come across to anyone viewing my scene. 

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Here is my research so far into the industry along with possible places for innovation. 

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Once I had filled out my PPR form I had discovered that my strongest abilities would lie in the pre production aspects of animation and development, I would excel and enjoy creating storyboards and conceptual work rather than developing the outcome itself. I chose the gaming industry since I have always been interested in the narrative aspect of animation and art, specifically the conception of ideas and outcomes. In my opinion and in my experience, I think that games leave some of the biggest impacts on audiences and have the greatest potential to have strong and appealing narratives. 

Due to this I decided to research  how new technologies will influence visual storytelling in the next few years. To begin my research I started by looking at technologies that were used in the past vs now. I didn’t want to look too far into past technologies since they would no longer be appropriate, so I focused on the past 3 to 5 years. With this research I aim to achieve more knowledge on my chosen industry and identify the skills I both need and have in order to get a job in the industry, as well as identify potential work experience placements or internships. Lastly, I also aim to find places for innovation and how I can bring something new to the table in places of work I will join.

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Experimentation with Toon Shading

When doing my research on recent trends in technology in the industry for ANI14102, I found that a lot of 3D are now being placed on a 2D plane or designed to look like a 2D whether it’s the way they’re coloured or shaded. I wanted to experiment with this in my own models in ANI14105. I did this by experimenting with creating a 2D “outline” effect in my models, I first tried it out with basic shapes and then placed these toon outlines and shaders on my own models. Unfortunately these shaders do not work with Arnold Renderer in Maya, but I have taken screenshots nonetheless. Based on my research, I actually think that these shaders and outlines work really well with the aesthetic I’m trying to get across. 

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The unwraps of all of my assets, I have used a mixture of automatic, cylindrical and planar mapping when unwrapping my UVs. I mainly used cylindrical given the nature and shape of my objects and how they all have similar shapes and elipses. When it came to the plate considering it had many dents and inside parts I decided to split it and unwrap it using automatic mapping, which made it easier to isolate each separate part of the plate. 

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I have experimented with texturing my assets, using colours based on real life objects in actual diners and colours I gathered from my research. I tried to give my assets quite cold colours that look quite poppy and show up well against each other, I did this because I thought it would match the very happy, fun vibe that a lot of diners in the 1950s had. This would also match my narrative centred around children. 

[stephramosanimation]

As recquired by the brief, we need to model three extra assets that are important to our narrative. I have chosen to do: some colouring pages with drawings on them, a crayon, coffee mug and milkshake cups.

Much like when modelling the recquired assets, I would look at images of these objects and find their dimensions in order to then create orthographic views from them. Sine the cup and the crayon had round, symmetrical shapes I was able to easily create these objects with the ep curve tool, making sure to capture any ridges and dents in the objects in my curve and then editing them if need be. This modelling process was very easy and fast, which was convenient so I could then have more time to dedicate to texturing and modelling the other assets. Considering I am an illustrator by trade and not used to using Maya like this, the assets were surprisingly simple to make and I had no difficulties in creating them. I think that I have been successful in creating models that look like their real counterparts, especially as they are to scale, also. Some extra miscellaneous assets I wanted to create were pages of drawings done by the children, I was going to do this by simply using a plane and importing my files that I have drawn when texturing that plane.  

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Idle Animation Final Tweaks

I have edited some small parts of my animation upon receiving feedback, I was told that Mery’s hands were quite stiff and that maybe I should add a pause between when she turns her head, so I have made those amendments and they have really improved my animation. I have also changed the position of her arm that is bent over her back, having looked at people holding their arms in that position I noticed I was incorrect in posing her in that way initially. 

I also decided to make the facial expression when she smiles with her mouth open to loop better, instead of Mery doing it only once in the cycle, she does it again when she looks at the other side. I like to think that this loop would add some sort of interaction with her environment, as if she is looking at someone or something. 

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To add to my idle animation and make it seem a little more realistic and life like, I have made my character both blink and turn her head to appear as though she is looking around. 

I think that this has improved my idle animation a great deal, her movements now feel a lot more realistic and life like, the character no longer feels static or robotic. If I were to put her in an environment and give her context I feel like she would immediately bring life into the room. Even though these small changes in movement and additional actions and animation have given Mery more life, I still believe that I will need to alter the timings in order for the actual swing of her body to have more weight. 

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I have begun posing and experimenting with my rig in order to animate my idle poses, the idle animation that I have in mind is a character swinging back and forth on their heels with their hands behind their back. Ideally I would’ve liked to have had a character rig that had longer hair so I could exaggerate the follow through using their hair, much like in the characters shown in my research before. My chosen rig is Mery, since she has been the easiest to use and can execute my poses well, as you can see I first decided to place her in these poses and then I will animate her moving back and forth. 

Here are the basic animations I have begun, I think that they have actually come out very well and convey her movement very well, however I do think that I need to change the timings a little more in order for the speed of her swings to show a little more weight in her swing and show the action that’s coming from the bottom half of her body. 

[stephramosanimation]

Here is my initial powerpoint presentation showing my initial research into my chosen industry: the gaming industry. Considering at this point I’m not sure what I would like to specialise in, I decided to do very general research based on the statistics of the industry in the UK. With the information I found from Ukie and statistics based on 2016/2017, I discovered that London alone has over 600 video game development companies and 2175 active video game companies in the UK. On top of this I have discovered that 21 million people play video games in the UK and weekly people in the UK spend about 8-9 hours a week playing video games. Considering how much money the UK gives to the video game market, it makes the UK the fifth largest video game market in 2017 based on consumers alone. In order to be more specific in my research and find an area to specialise I aim to complete my PPR form and self reflect.