Wednesday, January 29, 2014

WEEK 4: Game Dev 2 DESN2017 Assignment 2: Leap due in 2 weeks

You have a couple of weeks left on your leap animation. If you have any trouble please let me know - I'm happy to help!

There are many great examples of traveling cycles in games. These are clips from Tomb Raider featuring some running and jumping with different types of landings including rolling break falls.



WEEK 4: Asset Dev 2 DESN1086 Milestone 1: Character Concept Due Today!

Your Character Concept drawings are due today during class on BlackBoard.
Please be sure you follow all the instructions carefully and double-check your naming conventions, file sizes and types. Also be sure you hand in all the parts of your assignment.

Your next assignment is....

CHARACTER WALK CYCLE (runs are ok too!)

DUE DATE: WEEK 7, Feb 20th (in-class) – 20 Marks
*ZERO marks for late submissions

Develop a walk cycle (side-scrolling) for the character you designed in Assignment 1.
The animation should be consistent with your character in terms of the overall design, game type, platform etc. Similar considerations that were approached in the initial character design assignment.

Use thumbnails and rough sketches to explore your ideas. Establish your key poses first (minimum 6 frames). Any additional in-between frames are more to support the main action found in your key poses.

SUBMIT ALL OF THE FOLLOWING:

A) Thumbnail sketches – minimum 6 key poses
B) Line-test animation – preliminary animation
C) Final animation – polished B&W or Colour

REQUIREMENTS:
Filename:

FILE NAMING:
1086_A2_YOUR-NAME_walkthumbs.jpg
1086_A2_YOUR-NAME_walklinetest.mov or .gif
1086_A2_YOUR-NAME_walkfinal.mov or .gif
Ex - 1086_A2_BEIBER-JUSTIN_thumbs.jpg (last name first, please!)

Format:
Traditional (ie pencil, ink, markers, paints etc)
Digital 2D art (Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, Flash, Illustrator etc.)
Filetypes: movie clip ( mov) or animated GIF
Please compress all images and videos to keep them small using the following guidelines:

Videos:
Quicktimes, 560 pixels by 316 pixels, H.264 codec, max 10MB. You can use a variety of tools such as Handbrake, Adobe Media Encoder, Quicktime Pro and more to format your videos. I use the 11-second club guidelines for all submissions:
http://www.11secondclub.com/helpful_hints/encoding

Images:
JPGs between 500-1200 pixels along longest edge, 72-300 dpi/ppi, max 5MB. You can use a variety of tools such as Photoshop, Gimp, and online programs to compress files.

Examples - 

Please use good reference - preferably your own - but also go straight to the source for good analysis: Richard Williams has the clearest explanations:














WEEK 4: Game Dev 4 DESN3012 Second Milestone due in 2 weeks

2 weeks to go..

I hope you're all digging into the planning stages for your next project. I suggest you draw at least basic thumbnails before diving into the 3D world. Remember the little Wall-E clip I showed you - before they started posing they drew thumbnails of their ideas and worked out potential poses in rough before taking it to the next level. You should aim to get your blocking done for this week and bring in all your rough animation by next week.




If you're doing an alternate to animation - such as particles, dynamics, etc. please make a real plan before even turning on the computer. I want a strong concept and not just a tech demo. You can do a lot with a little creativity. I'm happy to work with you to make your piece look great. We'll get you working with a mentor who's been through the process before. Keep an eye on the new advancements in real-time dynamics - there have been a lot of tech papers and demos released recently you'll want to know about, such as here:
http://physxinfo.com/news/