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

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. 

WEEK 1: Game Project Development DESN 3010

Welcome to Game Project Dev 3!
Please remember to sign in at each class.
This is a portfolio-building class that will give you time to complete your own pieces and to get feedback from industry pros. You could find yourself working on a game here at school or in the industry.
This class is strictly a work period and no lectures or formal instruction will be given aside from one-on-one critiques. Use your time productively so you don't fall behind or distract students around you. You will not be permitted to use this lab for gaming or web surfing except at designated breaks.

Your grade will be the cumulative total of 5 assignments DUE IN CLASS, each worth 20%.
All the assignments are your own choice but must be approved by me to receive a grade.

Milestone 1:  ex 5-10 second piece of animation. Value: 20%
DUE DATE: WEEK 4 Sept 26th @ BEGINNING OF CLASS

* Late submissions will receive ZERO marks.
In-class you would want to show:
WEEK 2: thumbnails
WEEK 3: rough posing in 3D
WEEK 4: final animation - Playbasts are fine. No rendering required.

FILE NAMING:

3010_ m1_lastnamefirstinitial_001.mov (mov, m4v, mpeg, etc)
ex: 3010_m1_donovant.mov

Please read my post about file sizes, aspect ratios and codecs. We will go over this in class.
We will be using a few tools to simulate a professional animation workflow. Please check email regularly for invites to shared folders and applications you may need to join for this class.


What types of pieces should you create? Well, SHORT ONES. Keep it simple. You should animate 20-30 short pieces over the year or two if you can for practice and expand on the ones you like best. By the end of term you should have 5 pieces of 5-10 second of animation or concept work.

some great ideas to get you started. 

Avoid obvious noob mistakes like having obnoxious content or a style so niche that would only appeal to one tiny studio. The rest is common sense -
-keep it short 30-90 seconds MAX - <2 min if you're a professional.
-only show your best work - be ruthless and cut everything that doesn't quite work
-make each character unique in their movements and personality
-try to find new rigs
-show your range

More advice here:
http://www.animation-addicts.com/2012/12/17/the-perfect-reel/

WEEK 1: Asset Development 1 DESN1083

Welcome to Asset Development 1
Please remember to sign in at each class.
This is a portfolio-building class that will give you time to complete your own pieces and to get feedback from industry pros. You could find yourself working on a game here at school or in the industry.
This class is strictly a work period and no lectures or formal instruction will be given aside from one-on-one critiques. Use your time productively so you don't fall behind or distract students around you. You will not be permitted to use this lab for gaming or web surfing except at designated breaks.

Hey, isn't that a Beretta 92?

Examples of weapon design thumbs

Your grade will be the cumulative total of 4 assignments DUE IN CLASS.

Assignment 1:
Beretta Preliminary Concept Art: 25 marks

DUE DATE: WEEK 7 Sept 26th 

@ BEGINNING OF CLASS

* Late submissions will receive ZERO marks.

Develop a gun concept based on the Beretta 92 semi-automatic pistol.

a) Thumbnails - Produce minimum 6 thumbnail sketches focusing heavily on silhouette designs.

b) Revised Thumbnails - Incorporate various characteristics from the first iteration of

thumbnails in a 2nd design pass, produce minimum 3 revised thumbnail sketches.

c) Rough Sketch - Pick at least 1 of the revised thumbnails and develop the concept further in

a more detailed design pass.

DELIVERABLES:

PSD SOURCE FILES, JPG 

2348(W) X 1280(H) pixels 72dpi

REFERENCE: BERETTA 92 (or 96 and 98)

FILE NAME: 

1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial.psd

1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_a.jpg
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_b.jpg
1083_a1_lastnamefirstinitial_c.jpg

ex -
1083_a1_donovant.psd
1083_a1_donovant_a.jpg

WEEK 1: Motion Studies DESN1136

Welcome to Motion Studies!
Please remember to sign in at every class.

Have a look at the outline for the course and familiarize yourself with the 

Concept art from Machinarium

academic policies.
Motion Studies continues your animation study by focusing first on the production methods used to create animated sequences. From concepts and character designs to story boards and finally animation you'll try out many of the roles in a professional animation pipeline.

For the first 7 weeks of this course we will focus exclusively on DRAWING so always bring sketchpads and pencils. Later on we'll be shooting some video reference to guide the animation process.

There are 9 Assignments for this course due weekly or bi-weekly. 

Machinarium final artwork

Assignment 1:

DESN1136 Assignment 1 Rubric

Concept Design

% of final grade: 20%

Assigned: Tuesday, Sept 3rd

Due: Tuesday, September 24th IN CLASS

Character designs from Machinarium

*Late assignments are worth 0

Please work in PSD in high resolution but SUBMIT  only JPGs following the image formatting guidelines from this post.

Filenames:

1136_a1_donovant_char_001.jpg

1136_a1_donovant_env_001.jpg

1136_a1_donovant_stry_001.jpg

1136_a1_donovant_stbd_001.jpg

Description:

Create a concept pack for a virtual independent game complete with design sketches for the character and environment, a story outline, and one story boarded sequence. The sequence should be planned around the walk, run, and jump cycles to be animated in the second half of the course. It should show how the character will interact with the environment. Drawings need not be clean but they should be clear, dynamic, and detailed.

Keep your ideas simple. The graphic style should be very easy to sketch so all your ideas can be presented within the allotted time. Consider that you will be one modeling and rigging the character when you design it. Click here for a detailed description of this assignment

File Management Tools For My Classes

Hi there -

There are many basic tools commonly used in the industry for storing, sharing and managing files. We will be using many of them in our classes. Many of these tools require a login so if you're not comfortable using your personal email, create a new one.

Speaking of email...You must be able to use your George Brown Email account to receive grades, announcements and class cancellation notices. If you need help, contact technical support. You can forward your email by using these instructions (only works in Internet Explorer). If you write to me please include your email address as only your name shows up in my email.

You will be invited to join specific folders for your class into which you can upload documents, drawings, and videos for marking. I do not accept any email attachments for my classes or links to personal folders unless previously arranged. Once your file is online it will generate a public link you can add to an email if necessary.  As storage is shared among all users please keep your file sizes as small as possible but do not zip or rar them unless instructed. Shared folders are vulnerable to tampering so always keep your backups stored elsewhere. Also remember every action is recorded and your name attached so I can see exactly who tampered with files. Files will not sit long in our shared file. Once I have downloaded copies they will be deleted.

Please direct any questions to the Help form above.

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.

DropBox:

Lots of free cloud storage available these days

The industry's most common file sharing service. 2GB free for signing up but earning more storage can easily add up to 10x that. If your account is filling up you will need to empty it to another online service such as GoogleDrive or Hotmail's SkyDrive. We need space for school.
https://www.dropbox.com/

Trello:
Free collaboration and tracking tool.
https://trello.com/

Vimeo:
Free video hosting service. More professional than YouTube.
https://vimeo.com/

GoogleDocs:
Free service for creating and sharing all kinds of documents. You need a Gmail account to use this service.

Winzip: 
Open source program for compressing files for emailing and storing and for extracting compressed files.
http://www.winzip.com/win/en/index.htm

Hey, animators - this is for you!

Stop Motion - Occupation: Animator from Bruna Berford on Vimeo.

July 29, 2013

So long! Have a great summer.
See you guys in September!

WEEK 15: 2D Digital Art 1 - Assignment 4, completion

This is our last class for the semester! We'll be working through the final details of the portrait assignment. We'll be looking at using blending and custom brushes to refine details, soften transitions and add painterly effects. 

All assignments must be handed in in class today. You may also submit one previous assignment for regrading.  Please be very careful of your naming conventions and file sizes so you don't lose marks unnecessarily. 

Thanks for being such a hardworking class! Have a great summer.

WEEK 14: 2D Digital Art 1 - Class cancelled for Victoria Day holiday!

Reminder that there is no class this week. 

Next week is our final class of the year! 

All assignments to be marked must be handed in at the last class.