Concrete Apes Leader Background

From birth he was part of the upper/luxury class of verticle city due to the wealth of his parents. His mother was a housewife, whilst also home tutoring him, teaching him the rules and ways of the fathers business. His father was the owner of one of the largest manual labour factories, mass producing products for the working class whilst using the working class to produce them. Every day he would go down to check how the process was going. Everyday, the small team of militants that were given to him protect the factories from invasion from gangs and the public, as well as scout and capture any new works who would work for a wage not even possible of living on.

When he reached 10 years old, his father thought it was best to take him down to see his process so that be could one day retire and make his son the boss of the factory.

One day he met a worker there as he was exploring the factory, a young boy know as Nail. His dad gave him this expendable telescope that made him feel like his dad. He worked in the factory alongside his mother. Everyday he would come down and everyday he grew closer and closer to this boy without the know of anyone else. Nail gave comic books and eventually gave the telescope to him as a gift. Nail stated that the docks was his favourite place cause of the waves crashing against the wall. Nail was a fan of comic books, for the superheroes and he constantly kept on saying that his dad was going to save him and his mum from this factory one day, so that he could live his life like normal again.

The last time that he went down with his father, the Leader of the gang.....................burst in with his gang to recover some of his members that had been ratted out and captured from him. The leader was the dad and husband of Nail and his mum. There were gang members everywhere looting and kill the militants, until the gang leader ran right up to his dad and put father and put his middle finger right up to his face and said "you will get yours one day."

As Nail was swooped out the door, he shouted to him, "the Docks." From this point on his father refused to ever go down to the factory again. Every day, he would look down at the docks with Nail's telescope hoping to find Nail, but never did. From that dad he kept on modelling himself after Nail, clothes hair style, completely going against his parents wishes, he couldn't care for what they wanted any more, all he wanted to do was be down and enjoy his life without rules doing whatever he wanted. When he reached 18 he finally decided he had had enough of waiting as he snuck out in the morning to catch the lifts that go down every morning to allow the day shift militants out into the factory. As he hit the lower ground, is when he begun his life as a working/lower class citizen.

He searched the docks everyday until he remember that he could possibly find Nail at the .........gang hideout. Eventually he found them and stood on the door asking to he taken on as a recruit, at first he was nearly killed until the gang leader remembered his face. From this the gang leader instantly took him and used him for ransom at the factory for his father to come down and offer himself for his sons life. As his father came down and noticed the resemblance to the gang leader and him he instantly turned his nose up and said "he is no son of mine."

The shock from him knocked him back a little until a fire over took him inside as a tear feel down his eye and realised that there is no going back. Right before that were about to kill him, he shouted "I WILL FOREVER SERVE UNDER YOU AND BY YOUR SIDE, I AM YOURS," the pledged words of the ..................... gang. This point on the leader knew that he had a loyal addition and a force against the upper class on his side.

For years he questioned the leader where Nail was to get an answer of "you will find whenever you find out" as his response. Until he reached 28 where the gang leader was captured and put the a public death sentence. He was asked for any last words where he said "I WILL BE THERE TO PROTECT YOU, FOR ALL THE TROUBLES AT HAND."

Due to all his hard work, and loyalty to the gang, he was made the new leader of the gang, where he reformed the name to the Concrete Apes. From this day forth as much as he fought to take no shit and take whatever he wants, he searches this day and everyday at the docks to find Nail, hopefully being able to share that bond they once shared as best friends.

Critique

CRITIQUE 28th OCTOBER 2010

Cool ideas have been flying all over the place and I'm not sure whether or not we are wasting time throwing ideas out that we cannot achieve because of the technical/coding aspect, like combat against enemies and various terrain traversing mechanics.

Having a chat with Adrian has definitely defined what is expected of us as a group as a final result.We wanted to create 2 levels, that both use 2 different gameplay mechanics:

• Hand to hand combat based, where the player would be fighting against guards and gang members (Vivi Pre-pregnancy) in the more slums settings (lower of the tower).

• Over the shoulder, where the player would kill guards via cover and gun combat (Vivi during pregnancy), higher up in the tower where it is more of a celestial design.

Adrian was saying that this doesn't necessarily help for fill out criteria. Its not necessary to make a working game demo because the tech doesn't necessarily demonstrate our artwork, just our technical skill

• DONT START OFF COMPLEX, START BASIC AND ITERATE AND ELABORATE.

• Create a section/period of time/with various beauty shots and props to give depth, showcase work and make the world seem endlessly huge from what is displayed in concept.

• To create an asset list so that we can outline the bare essentials of what is needed and build up from that.

• Only create narrative necessary for what is being made.

• Document every idea and store it in a file. Come back to it and edit what should be used and what shouldn't be.

• Create a defined art style and reference image file to refer back to always so track is not lost. 

At the moment, the entire group has various different ideas for the aesthetics of vertical city. This needed to be defined by much research and bring it all to the table and discussing it. This also needs to be done with anything either of us do.

NEW INSPIRING WORK

Just searching over the internet for portfolios and inspiring work that could influence the visual style or just generally inspire the group. That i did achieve as i came acrossman pieces of amazing work on www.polycount.com.

Sylvannas Windrunner by FirstKeeper

Sylvannas Windrunner by FirstKeeper from Slipgatecentral on Vimeo.

http://firstkeeper.deviantart.com/

http://firstkeeper.blogspot.com/
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76301

When i first saw this i thought it was a painting or editted heavily in photoshop, but after cloer inspection i have realised it is all in the texture and render used. 

Eagle Guy

Created by haikai , original concept by Joe Madureira

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71380

Young Storm (Comicon 2010 Challenge)

 

Created by Steffen Unger (Neox)

Dev Blog

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77626

Critical analysis of work is so important, when i create something i need to step back and do something like this, finding what what right and fixing it.  ITERATION.

Elder/Old Link (Comicon Challenge 2010)

 

Created by Damien Canderle

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?p=746731#post746731

Character Concept Art From Jainai Jeffries
Blogs: 1  2
Portfolio

CONCRETE APES GANG LEADER

monkey?
due to enslaved it now looks more like a rip off rather than being unique

voldo?

Wiper?

Concrete Apes Gang Leader

GAME CAMERA PROBLEMS

Talking with adam about camera's in game, we came across a few issues reguarding the world design with the camera we planned to have.

Dynasty Warriors (KOEI Tecmo, 2008)

The other camera was tracked/animated cameras, so that all the camera angles have been pre coded and the player has no control over it. this is a good way of setting the scene with various cinematic shots.

God of War III (Santa Monica studios, 2010)

The other camera, was a combination of player controller and scripted cameras which made a strong balance between cinematic areas and partial free roam areas.

Enslaved: Oddessy to the West (Ninja Theory, 2010)

NEW PLAN

talk about the new plan and dicuss more on tiny and big and stuff. also swap the enuro gamer posts and stuff around

INSPIRING INDIE GAMES

2 Indie games have grabbed my eyes recently due to their unique and interesting visual styles and game mechanics.

Tiny and Big

I found this game in the indie section of Eurogamer 2010. This was definitely the game that stuck in my head from the expo, mainly because i can relate it to my FMP. This game has a very clever puzzle mechanic, using a lazer gun to cut through scenery. It also has a very unique cartoonist/illustrative style which makes it stand out from what is already on the market.

all images artwork owned by black pants studios

This is a game that i will have to keep an eye on. The official demo of the game can be downloaded from the black pants studio's official website.

Their Dev Blog can also be viewed here.

Ilomilo 

I came across this game on youtube, called ilomilo developed by Southend studios for the Xbox 360. The visual style of this game is very similar to the LittleBigPlanet series as well as capturing that essence of cuteness and charm from its child-like visuals. Again its another puzzle game, which seems to dominate in the indie game market.

all artwork owned by Southend Studios

Southend Studios have a great blog explaining their whole development process right

here.

My groups idea, is not similar to these games at all, but the stylised visuals they have used apply more to our idea than realism games do. Following a fictional narrative with fictional characters and worlds.  

EUROGAMER 2010

There are many beautiful new games coming to the market in between 2010 - 2011. Some where more beauty then actual game play, but that is my job which is why it appeals more. Some of the AAA titles that stood out there were Killzone 3, Bulletstorm, LittleBigPlanet 2 and Rage.


After going to the talk for id Software's Rage, using their new id tech 5 engine, really does give more freedom to the artists. It is a new in-house engine that enables artists to use mega textures or virtual textures which allows environments to look less repetitive in texture due to the size of them. 


This is obviously not something that we could put into the FRMP, but is something to look into for the future, as it is possible in the future that virtual textures could be used a lot more if it gives more freedom to artist. 

GAME GENRE AND DIRECTION CHANGE

Adrian said that the concept shows clearly that the idea is built for beautiful artwork, and that more brainstorming on the genre should be done. It seems that from trying to stick to the hack and slash genre that we were just creating more problems for ourselves as well as dulling our ideas into something that does express the scale of the idea that has been created. 

To conclude, we have decided that the new direction will be a story driven action/adventure game because:

• get to bring the same amount of characters to life but creating them to a narrative which will put Jack and I's skills to the test, as well as create a character heavy portfolio.
  
• Gives us more reason to experiment with styles for the stylised visual style which will allow the technical artist (Lloyd) to create wide range of shaders and codes for his portfolio.
  
• The environmental/concept artists get to create far more rich and interesting environments that have multi traversable terrain (which will show a lot of diversity and unique skill in Ceri's and Hannah's  their portfolios)

This idea can also prove many visible organisation skills needed to get a job in the industry, for example:

• We will look into AAA games to gain knowledge on what is needed visually of an industry standard artist and apply this to ours. Also look into successful indie games to see how and why they are successful.
  
  
• This is our last and best change to a well organised project that will have industry standard work for a portfolio to show to developers, and i believe this will help us push our skills even further.
  
  
• We will be researching into the games development pipeline so that we can follow a similar structure.

Fixing idea issues

Many issues have risen due to trying to find and fit a game mechanic to a really strong concept idea/art style. This is causing many points of frustration for the team which doesnt help anything. We asked the new lecturer for the corse, Adrian fr advice for various issues.

Issues

• Multiplayer only?
• Is there a reason why this sort of co op play hasnt been put out in a game?
• are we over thinking?

Critique from Adrian


From receiving crit, it is clearly obvious that the way we are going about designing the game is one of the hardest ways of achieving an innovative and well structure game idea.

• Build a concept to a mechanic, not the other way round.
• Its hard to make an truly original idea, as there are always subtle and sometimes obvious references to other same or other media.
• Don't be so quick to pin down a game genre, give time to enable the ideas to flow and this way the concepts will be more creative and imaginative.

Members of the Group: Name = Unknown

The Group has been solidified and consists of the existing members stated below:


Myself - Character concept/modeller
Jack Hamilton - Character concept/modeller
Hannah Andrews - Lead Concept
Ceri Rogers - Enviroment Artist
Lloyd Knott - Technical Artist

The reason for more character artists is because the game is going to be lead character heavy, so more modellers and concepts are needed to complete this task.

Notes from class: Pre-Production

(if a criteria is failed, then you will fail. Demonstrate all learning outcomes gets you 40)

Pre Production Criteria
See the Learning Outcomes here...
Knowledge and Understanding

• K1 - Plan the production process of a team or single individual.
• K2 - Risk assessment for anything that you dont know what to do. Identify the creative and indsutry factors.

Cognitive Skills

• C1 - Analyse the structures of different games genres. (Compare game genres and test them against our idea)

Practical and Professional Skills

• P1 - Develop drawing, modelling and animation skills applied to game art and game play. (improve skills and show you can apply it through my groups idea.)
• P2 - Showing awareness of limitations and creative processes of technology (show what consoles and computers can and cannot do, and test them to our idea and see if certain powers are needed)

Transferable and Key Skills

• T1 - Use information technology to locate and process material.
• T2 - Organise work and manage time effectivily to meet deadlines.
• T3 - get critique from lecturers and write it down. Show that the critique actually happened and how it applied to the idea.  

- Placeholder of final assessment asset (make a link that takes the tutor straight to the final product, and make sure it works.)
- Placeholder for key assets (Rough placeholders of characters [not necesarry textures, but tested with shaders if needed] so that animators, coders can see)
- Schedule with priorities with ABC - (list what needs to be done the most in highest priority)

• Priority A - A main character (not all characters are prioroty A as they most liekly demonstrate the same thing. - Needs an obvious placeholder!!!
• Priority B - Stuff that you would like to have in portfolio, not neccesarily a high priority in the FMP. (Needs a placeholder)
• Priority C - Stuff that you do that is "mess around work" (doesnt need a placeholder)

- Game level - Something that can be assessed by scale e.g. block outs.
- All concept Art
- Research platform and technology - (assume that the users have older graphics cards when looking to make for PC, research the market for the game and see which console it applies to the demographic of the idea)


- Research indstry standards.
- Description of games critical path - (mechanics that need to be applied and what assets that need to be in for the mechanics)


- Production plan and risk assessment - (when are you going to get these things done by? Time plan)

- Methodology for learning log - (make sure the blog is all relevant, not to do with what you did today, its not important!) 

instead of walls of text, use short paragraphs to the point and lots of images.

Visual Style - Characters

This game is going to be stylised, in terms of character anatomy and texture/shader styles.

Key Aesthetics that appeal to game idea

• Bold colours that push the stylised models.
• Flashes for attacks (no blood) to broaden the target market.
• Frinel around characters to emphasise the style.
• expressive and over the top actions/attacks.

Also check Jack's colour/style sheet for the game here.

Other Inspirations

Asura's Wrath (PlayStation 3, Xbox360)

Kingdom Under Fire II (PlayStation 3, Xbox360)

Both the games above are more for gameplay mechanics/styles, as they are both quite over the top and hectic with interesting and elaborate combat.

Back to Uni & first crit...

Back to uni and straight away, me and intended group of people from my class have been asking questions to our tutor about the FMP.

• The critique given about the idea from my tutor was more focused towards not having a set demographic for the game yet.

• The group size was the other problem as well as he felt that the group was unbalanced because there are 3 concept/character artists wiht one enviromental artist and 1 tech artist.

I understand now that the FMP doesnt need to be a working demo of a game, but more of a display of quality industry standard models and enviroments, rendered in real time so it is possible to do a solo project. Working in a group, you are expected to achieve more as there are more people, and thus if done correctly, result in a higher grade.

Starting Early...

Getting started before Uni begins is definitly a good idea so that i can get back into the swing of things, also so that i can keep my creative juices flowing.

One of the artists in the class pitched an idea for a hack and slash genre game, similar to games like:

Dynasty Warriors - Release date: March 7, 2008 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

[skip to 0:48 for combat]

Lord of the Rings video games (Gamecube, PlayStation 2, Xbox)

Sengoku Basara (Devil Kings) series (PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii)

Arena based combat, with enemies filling out the arenas. The player would have a 9 characters of choose to fight with, each with different fighting styles. The main catch of the gameplay mechanic is that RPG class elements will be implimented.  

Tank, Crowd Control, Close Quarter Combat (CQC?) and Ranged.

I actually like the idea and i would like to throw my ideas and concepts/models into it aswell, as hack and slash is one of my favourite genres in gaming. As long as i would be able to be a character concepter/modeller in the idea.