Term 2 Game Project

I have only just properly started on the actual coding of my game since my computer has been playing up. I spent the time planning the game on paper and designing the levels and interactivity. Once I got my computer working my internet wasn't working so I then couldn't get online to find help and code examples so I quickly got to a dead end.

At uni I was able to look at different files on the VLP and bits I had worked on in different projects which helped me over come the problem I was having with making my character jump. My internet is now back up so production of my game should be quite faster than before. Below is a plan of the first part of the game which gives an idea of how it will work.

The animation stops abruptly because its unfinished but I thought I would put it on here as it shows the general concept of the game. If its not obvious from the animation, the controls move both the top and bottom character (or block in the case of this example) and you must use stratergy to get through the game, finding ways to move the characters independently.
level plan.swf

Animation Rigging

Admitedly I am being terrible at doing my blog.  I have done quite a bit of animation in maya and even taken quite a few screen shots but just not got round to uploading them on here, and the one time i tried it just wouldn't work.  Anyway here are some screenshots of some of the stuff I've been doing in Maya.

1. Very basic rigging of a cylinder shape to show basic movement:


Basic Cylinder shape


Adding the skeleton


Adding the IK (Inverse Kinetic) joint


Using smooth bind to bind the joints to the cylinder object


Moving the IK Joint to modify the shape of the cylinder



2. Human Modelling




In this second modelling example, I have modelled a human's upper body and then added the joints as before, however, when moving the arm, the whole body becomes destorted in this example and so I left this and started from scratch.

Maya Animation Rigging

I don't think I have actually put anything Maya/3D related on this blog since the stuff I put on at the end of last year.  I have been doing a lot of experinmenting but because nothing I have done has felt finished or good enough I havn't put anything on here.

Anyway, I have been trying to rig a skeleton on characters in Maya, which I thought I got the general idea of but apparently not from the failed attempts I have produced.

Because I have nothing working or even anything that looks nice to put on here I will instead put my failed attempts on, at least to show I tried and failed, and will hopefully be able to work it out by playing about/animation lectures and seminars.

.....and because blogger/my computer is being rubbish and won't let me upload any images to this blog I will instead put nothing on here. Oh well.

Maya

I decided to get my hands on Maya 8 and I have been creating some basic animations to get used to the software and the tools available. The seminars and lectures on 3D Studio Max were useful as the methods are quite similar though some stuff was quite tricky to do and I am still learning how to use the software but I am really enjoyingusing it and will continue experimenting with it over the summer and will hopefully help me out when creating 3D animations next year and the final year in game design which I have chosen to take up.

Work update

Done lots of work since last update, just not got around to updating this.

Finished identity project.  Due to my server being weird I can't upload this onto there at the moment.

I've completed my report on this project. That was up here but I have taken it down because it was taking up too much room and going on for too long, I will upload it along with the extended 'what I did and why' version on my site once it is up.

woops

hmm i didnt realise it was so long ago i updated my blog. eek.  Anyway  its not that I havn't done any work, just that i havn't got round to writing about it.

Same But Different


We had a few lectures and seminars on this which resulted in a group project made up of the same group as our last group project (Stella Rimington) minus a few people.  In this project we took photographs of apples and catelogued them in a website which allowed the apples to be searched by colour, where they were bought, and the name of the apple.  We designed a minimalistic site which was effective.  Unfortunatly when showing it to the rest of the seminar group, it did not show on the projector.

e4 Indentity Project

I have been working on this on and off throughout the easter holiday and have so far done:

• Animation - 85/90%  -  I actually restarted my animation from scratch but realised I prefered the original when I looked back so I am now just tweaking the original, incorporating some of the changes from my newer version.  An old version is available on my website, I will add a link here some time when i find the link
  

• Website - 15/20%?  -  I have kept restarting this as at first I was slowly working my way through learning CSS, but the designs I was coming up with were too basic and finding it too complicated to make what I visualized in that way.  I then started a flash only website which I found a lot quicker to make but looked quite unproffessional.  I then started creating a third website which would use html/CSS but with bits of flash incorporated within it.  I created a side menu for this in flash and placed it in a website, but I have changed my idea of how it should look slightly.  I edited the existing e4 logo for my page, which I quite like and think works well.  I have an screenshot showing this page (I used the logo again as a filler background).  I am using this logo for my new design but the sidebar as it looks in the picture is not how it will look in my final site.

• 

• Leaflet - 0% - A lot of this will be reusing images from the website and animation so this should not take long.

I plan on having all three of these nearing completion by the end of the easter holidays.  I have been working on and off on these, but towards the end of the easter will be working more solidly to finish off these projects.  

I will upload the flash only site as well as provide links to my animation and provide screen shots as my work develops.

Identity

IDENTITY PROJECT

Branding

Introduction to branding – history, why it is important, successful brands
What makes a good logo/brand, what stands out? Use of characters/celebrities endorsement/emotion

Should be:
· Simple
· Timeless
· Universal
· Scalable
· Unique

Try different things, experiment, and mimic to see what works and what doesn’t in artistic sense and for the specification. Try different thicknesses, styles, angles etc.

Analyse existing logos/adverts/characters.
Think about the name e4 and what can be represented done with these two characters.

I will look at the e4 logo as well as logos for other tv channels and related companies. I will experiment with different colours and shapes to see how the logo looks in different styles as well as ways the logo can be animated.

1. Advertisement (eSting)
   
   Look at different animations, short animations, cartoons etc. What looks good, look at small part of animation and see how things (characters, props, backgrounds) move.
   
   Make sure look and feel reflects what the company (e4) is about. Communicates a young, fun theme.
   
2. Website
   
   This must be informative and interesting as well as attractive and grab the attention of the visitor as well as making visitors want to return.
   
   This should use characters, colours and themes based on the eSting I will create to give some familiarity and continuity and gives a more recognisable identity to the company.
   
3. Poster/leaflet
   
   Like the website and animation, bright colours and characters familiar to the different mediums (animation, website etc) will be used to make it interesting and attractive. This will obviously be a still, none interactive design but will have to grab peoples attention and make people interested in finding out more about the company and watching the channel.

Stella Rimington Performance

Yesterday we performed the Stella Rimington presentation that Richard and myself had written. The presentation was shown on a projector using a file I had created in flash with buttons to move between the different animations, images, text and sound which made up the presentation. A script was read out and acting was done mainly by Richard and Ben which added more depth to the production and allowed facts to be read out and presented to the audience verbally.

I think the presentation went quite well, especially concidering the limited time we had to create the whole thing. I am quite pleased with the animations I created as well as the overal presentation and script which I worked a lot on and feel it was quite successful. We were also able to make about £17 for charity (Breast Cancer) and the audience seemed to find it amusing.

FrameForge 3D

We were introduced to a new piece of software called FrameForge which I found very interesting. This software is used for creating 3D storyboards and features many pre-built models (characters, props and walls, all fully customizable) in a simple drag drop environment which saves a lot of time and effort. It allows you to create a working storyboard which portrays what you want to happen in your finished movie or video in minutes.

I was very impressed with how easy it was to pick up and use and is a good introduction to 3D animation, using movable cameras which can be used to tween shots together similar to in 3d Animation software such as Maya and 3D Max.

The software features great detail in customability of every aspect of the 3D world. Facial expressions, body parts, skin colour and

clothing/accesories can all be changed, every little detail such as eye position, finger movement, weight and age could be manipulated. There are also many built in textures to give walls and objects a more realistic appearance.

Obviously this software is for pre-production design to give an idea of what will be filmed and would be very useful for the planning stage and visualization of what the finished film will look like.

Stella Rimington Animation

Here is the start to an animation for the introduction of our location specific performance. I have made changes since but this is the most recent version I have exported to a flash file. The animation uses themes of dectectives, secret agents etc to send across the secretive MI5 lifestyle of Stella which will play a big part in our production.

LINK: http://www.guiblin.com/chris/uni/stella%20rimington/stella1.swf

Flash Animation Basics

I have made a few very basic animations. The first one simply shows a ball falling, squashing, unsquashing and bouncing back up, easing in and out to make the ball faster the nearer it is to the ground. LINK

The second animation is the same as the first but the lighting changes as though a light is shining from the centre of the left hand side of the screen. This is done by using the gradient tool and moving it differently to the movement of the ball. LINK

The third example shows the ball bouncing towards the screen, getting larger and then disapearing. LINK

Variousness

I havn't posted anything on my blog this week which isn't very good so I thought it best I wrote and showed what I've been doing.

This week I have worked on my Interactive Narrative project as well as helping edit my groups Narrative video and creating some flash animation for it. Since I was ill on the monday and tuesday I couldn't get in to work on my Interactive Narrative so I started it again from home using drawn graphics and photographs. My website seems to be down at the moment but when its up the project should be accessable at http://www.guiblin.com/gibbo/uni/IN/hallway.html

The flash animation I created for the computer screen is also on my website so hopefully it will be back up soon! The address for that is http://beta.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=35738175

Last week I also created a quick animation on flash which I uploaded onto YouTube.

This doesn't include any sound yet but here it is anyway.



I also uploaded a different animation which I made last year which is a very silly simple animation (again without sound).