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.