Wednesday, September 11, 2013

WEEK 2: Game Project Development DESN 3010

Now that your first week of classes is over hopefully you've had a bit more time to dig into the planning of your animation exercises. 

Trello is a great way to track projects - join our class group!
By now you should have a set of sketches, thumbnails, layouts, storyboards or 3D layouts demonstrating the concept for your piece. Please remember your project must be approved in order to receive a grade.

By next week you should have completed all your animation for this project in rough and meet with me to discuss revisions. 

Progression from Horton Hears A Who -
from reference to blocking to animation to final

WEEK 2: Asset Development 1 DESN1083

standard police and military issue Beretta 92F
 Now that your first week madness is behind you I hope you're really digging into the thumbnailing process for this assignment. I've shared a Digital Tutors playlist with you on creating concept art to get you in the right frame of mind.

Here's an excellent tutorial from concept artist and GBC instructor Ted Kim about his design process for creating weapon concept art.  http://youtu.be/Dytz7DbAW3Y
The fully-loaded version with whistles & bells plus optional cappucino-maker
Today I'll have a look at your work-in-progress and answer any questions you might have, and hopefully show you some examples of successful past assignments from this course. 
Low-detail Beretta from Resident Evil, missing
takedown lever, the majority of the slide release lever,
and has a made-up logo 
When you're drawing, think about the difference between a REAL Beretta 92F and the stylized versions used in many movies and videogames. Here's a catalogue of this gun in many games -  http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Beretta_92_pistol_series#Video_Games
Are those Berettas from Black Lagoon ginormous
or is she just super tiny?
These Berettas from 2001
Max Payne look teensy


Look online for more inspiring types of concept art, such as that of the incredibly prolific Scott Roberston.
Scott Robinson - concept artist extraodinaire

Monday, September 9, 2013

WEEK 2: Motion Studies DESN1136: Environments and Composition

Sidescroller "Beast Hunter" from local Industrial Brothers
Hope you brought your drawing chops today because we're going to be digging into the next part of your first assignment - the environment!
Sidescroller "They Bleed Pixels" from local Spooky Squid
3D multi-level shooter "Damnation"
We'll be looking at some typical game environment designs to get an idea of the planning process for your virtual game. It's a good plan to think about the action style of your game and build a world to accommodate it than to build a world and try to fit your character's actions into it.

In the planning stages artists thumbnail ideas to collaborate and sketch out the big picture for the game or project. This process requires great skill in distilling information to simple shapes while communicating the main idea of the story. This must be more than just who/what/where nitty gritty detail. It also must add emotional information. This requires a basic knowledge of cinematographic language - subjective and objective camera angles, and what various angles and shapes communicate to the viewer. We'll have a look at several sources that can teach us about the major elements of composition:
1- Focal Point
2- Framing
3- Lines
4- Space / Position
5- Perspective / Depth
6- Balance / Hierarchy
7- Scale / Volume
8- Pattern / Rhythm
9- Value / Contrast
10- Color 
All 4 are trees but from completely different movies!
It's not enough to just read about it, practice is essential. And you can start anywhere - freeze-framing movies and searching through photos that illustrate the elements described. Two great books to invest time reading are, "Film Directing Shot By Shot" and "The 5 C's of Cinematography".

A lot of great information we'll be covering in class is available here:
http://www.floobynooby.com/IPUB/comp1.html

I'll show you some successful assignments from past classes so you know what to aim for.
Character design by GBC grad Maya M

I'll also have a look at your work in progress from last week. By now you should be about 1/4 of the way through this 4-part assignment.

Next week we'll get into drawing some more formal story boards for our action sequences.