BA4 Project Creating a Game Design Document (Group Work)

NOTES:

Story:
Early story idea, set in ancient Tibetan time period.
The Empire of the land is in darkness and disrepair due to all knowledge of the past and future leaving the lands.

The Empire was once very powerful and prosperous due to the symbiotic relationship form between the people and the "bookworms". The "Bookworm" were blessed with all the knowledge of the world beautiful depicted all over their body for all to see whilst soring majestically over the Empire. They brought knowledge and inspiration to the people, making their life's happy and phosphorus and had so for many hundreds of years.

The Rulers of the land, twins, sister Jinpa (Generosity) and brother Wangchuk (Lord,mighty). The twins were very old, older then anyone else in the kingdoms, it is said by the people that the twin emperors are decedents of the Yeshi (wisdom) whom first formed the "bookworms" to breathe life into the people, freeing them from the first worlds torment.

Though a great undoing shook the realm. A monsterious storm descended apon the Empire causing carnage and chaos, the people struck with fear did their best to flee from the storm but the winds and the rain were to great. Buildings toppled, statues and colosuims ripped from the ground and tossed into the air as if to look like the rock was mearly paper.

Children crying, mothers screaming. The people doing the best they can to save the land which they called home. 

The twins did what best they could to protect the people using the knowledge of the world to prevent further distruction. Wangchuk ordering the guardsmen to bang the gongs rallying the protectors to hold up the outer walls to prevent the waters from bursting in. 

Whilst Jinpa spoke words of wisdom to the people giving them action and direction. 

For three days and three nights this lasted. Then the clouds parted

Tired and without hope the people returned to the streets. They look up into the sky's "The Bookworms, they have gone?!"

IDEA? Make the Yeshi a being that created the twins to resolve the problems in the world and to shed light and creativity to the people. 

Unfortunately each twin had there own views on how the world should be led and divided the world into factions. 

Thus the protagonist is introduced "the third twin?" You are summoned by the Yeshi to bring balance to the twins and educate the world how to advance further. 

(Very early concept of "Bookworm")

Mind board I've created to get a rough Idea of what I want the landscapes to look like.

Wangchuk believed he could use the knowledge of the "Bookworm" to create a colossal mechanical army to claim more of the world for his own needs. Though the chaos and the harm that was scarring the world drove the "Bookworm" away. So he plans to use the army to find and forcefully bring them back to the empire to save the land and restore his factories to working order.

(Early Concept of Wangchuk)

These are concept I had created for Wangchuk's army. Which unfortunately never made it to the final game.

Jinpa believes that the "Bookworm" needed to be left to form the world as they saw fit and that it would only benefit the people to listen and embrace their teachings to take the world forward, finding new life and working as one.

After some thought I decided it might be better if we had the twins to be both female this way it would break traditional gender role conventions and give us the chance to build upon strong female character roles.

These are just a handful of my personal favorites. I didn't want to create a unnatural female form for the "Twins" I wanted to create something that looked realistic to a certain extent. I was going for the very tall and slender form as if she was a teacher to small children looking up to her in class.

 

These are the final designs that I was most pleased with. I refined them from my previous models and then created more realistic images. 

Wyrms: 

These are the very first renditions of the Wyrms that I had sketched out so that the team could get a feel for what I was looking for. I always wanted a long trailing feel to the creatures as if they were ribbons or cloth much like the ribbons in the game "Journey".

Unfortunately my concept images did not make it into the final designs for the Wyrms, though due to the input of the team we were able to create more unique designs.

These are the final designs I had selected for the Wyrms. I really liked the flat faces for the creatures because this was in keeping to my original idea of having the creatures covered in text of the knowledge through out the world. This way we could use the faces like unrolled parchment or script.

The final design was a collaboration piece between Lennon Chapman and Mikey Gledhill.  

Rewriting the story:

There once was and Empire strongest and mightiest of all upon the world, It was the stronghold to the Twins of Yeshi, Queens that had descended down from the skies to rule and bring order and unity to the people in darker times. The wealth of the empire was that of the knowledge given to them by the "Bookworms". Beings created by the Twins to show that the world was and had always had a living mind, controlling and deciding the fate of all that set foot onto it.

This was all but to tempting for the Vinayakas. A group of horrific tormentors that had grown unnatural obsession with the people of the empire, the hunger to torture had grown to strong to control. The creatures would massacre people in the night, dragging families from their beds for all to hear the screaming and punishments in the streets.

Then one evening something happened. Something that would cause the Empire to shift. The Twins managed to capture one of the Vinayakas.
"Release me!" Screeched the beast. "You know not what will happen when they come for me."
"Be quite beast, we have no time trying to negotiate with you. You are a lost cause." Kunchen (All Knowing/ Head strong) turns to walk towards the guard. "Make sure it never see's the light of day for the rest of its days.
The guards approach the cages, when like lightening the Vinayakas tears of its bottom jaw and holds it to the guards throat. "Hahaha we told you, now you've made us very unhappy. We think you deserve a special punishment."
The Vinayakas lets out an piercing scream. The trees to the north-east board start to move as if something is racing towards the Empire.
"Here we come."  

A disfigured hulk of a beast started hammering at the gates. The beat of his fists against the stone could be felt in the chests of all around. The only thing louder then the roars of terror from the Vinayakas are the cries from the people.
The gates erupt into pieces a smear of flesh and fur rush up toward the temple.

General Ideas:

Central plot -> recover/ discover locations of the worms.
Awake in a glade, explore your way to the empress.
Tasked with the finding worms before the emperor.
Hunt ancient artifacts that will lead you to the worms.
On the side gather artifacts and learn of their history and relevance, can view all treasures in museum.

Many artifacts hidden or protected by puzzles, riddles etc. Indiana Jones style.
Through artifacts you discover that no new events can happen when the worms are gone, life is stuck in eternal limbo (aging/death etc still occur but state of the world cant advance, no new world knowledge can be learned.)

Your path takes you to the Emperor who has captured the worms, planning to use their knowledge to create weapons.

Finding the worms near death, you discover they feed on knowledge, use gathering artifacts to find them.
Emperor in rage unleashes an army of constructs.
Race back to Empress and give her the news.
Prepare for war by helping people gain faction trust etc. Can also carry on adventuring for treasure no time limit.

Quick thought, what if wangchuk comes across some artifacts that release an evil power being into the world? Could change pace of the game? Dramatic shift?

Quick Idea I had for the villagers.

Museum Research:

As part of our brief we were required to look at some artifacts exhibited in the Sainsbury's Museum in Norwich. My group and I wondered throughout the halls searching for inspiration when we came across these figures. 

I personally like these figures due to there form and decorative appeal. I feel they are very eye catching with their intricate details and marking and have such a rich cultural background. I will be exploring the meaning of the figures along with its cultural heritage to hopefully grasp a better concept of the era and region which they come from.  

Visual Aesthetics:

These are some of the cultural influences I used when producing work for the characters and levels for the game. I wanted to keep a very strong Tibetan feels throughout the game as I felt the vibrant colours and designs were very eye catching and attractive.

As I gathered a collection of images to inspire our team to imagine buildings and landscapes for the project I worked closely with Mikey Gledhill in order to get some really strong concept images to present to the lectures and the team to make sure we were all on the same page when generating ideas.

 (Mikey Gledhill)

 (Mikey Gledhill)

(Mikey Gledhill)

  We were really pleased with the outcomes. This made it easier for us to convey what kind of people would live here and how they would interact with the world around them. 

Mechanics:

When coming up with mechanics Lennon Chapman and I wanted to create something that felt natural and very fluid to the gamer yet still have the accuracy to preform challenging puzzles.

(Lennon Chapman)

 We used the PlayStation 3 controller as a starting point as we felt most comfortable with it. Whilst looking at other games with high athletic qualities and controls such as Assassins Creed, Mirrors Edge and Beijing Olympics 2008.

(Lennon Chapman)

(Lennon Chapman)

(Lennon Chapman)

One of the core ideas we wanted to explore was the idea of precision foot placement when navigating puzzles. At first we played with the idea of you the player having control of all your limbs, being able to place them wherever you like with in the world. Though this led us to some problems such as being in the wrong place during key events in game and missing important events, along with the possibility of miss placing your set so badly that you made the puzzles impossible to complete.

So we settled on the idea of you having to press select buttons to move to certain areas. This was the easiest possible outcome we could come up with for the character and the puzzles.

Character:

Lennon and I had lots of fun coming up with the protagonist. Now knowing that we needed someone who was going to be very athletic and slender along with having to fit with the Tibetan styles we wanted to create an elemental Golum create.

We decided early on that we wanted to create something that wasn't gender specific. We felt is unnecessary to create a male or female character considering that the elemental was going to be created by the twins to complete the tasks and puzzles set.

  

We explored the materials we could have have the golum made of. After asking both friends and family the most popular face was the pointed stone face with the blue eyes. (number 4 from left)

After having a discussion on what we thought the body should look like, we collected some images making mood board to get a rough idea of form. Then I let everyone know I was looking for something that looked like its was still growing into itself and using what it had around it when first created to form itself. Just like when you see plants grown through cracks in concrete and when trees engulf industrial estates.

This is the incredible final design created my Lennon Chapman. If you wish to see the design process please click on his name to jump to his blog. 

(Lennon Chapman)

I am really pleased with the way the character came out I feel It met what I was asking for very well and really like that the idea of having natural plant life grown across the body to create the robe and 'clothing' whilst rock and stone is used to create a look of armor and muscle plates.

Vinayakas:

When thinking of what we could use as a villain for our game we wanted to create something true to the world we were looking to create. So we researched more into Tibet and what cultural influences we could use. We then learnt that they have a high Hindu population in Nepal so then started research into religions demons. Which lead us to the "Vinayakas." The Vinayakas are a group of four troublesome demons who created obstacles and difficulties within Hindu Beliefs. Which fit beautiful with the themes of our game.

(Joe Nestor)

(Joe Nestor)

This is Joe Nestor's final design for the Vinayakas. We spoke in depth about different designs for these characters, we really wanted to create something that was really odd looking and brutish but also clumsy and comical. We wanted to steer away from making the characters looking to demonic and iconic to things already created so we came up with several designs before we finally concluded with this.

Personal Project's Entry 1

Ok, now that I've broken up and finished my first year I wanted to set myself little projects for myself to do so that I didn't forget the commands and controls for Maya.

After watching "Cabin in the Woods" for the first time I instantly fell in love with the idea of creating a rustic cabin setting with a horror twist.

I first created a very rough layout of what I wanted the cabin to look like from references I found online and in books.

(Photoshop images to come)

So from these designs I mapped out a floor plan in Maya of what I wanted to build.

Once I built the walls I removed planes to create windows and doors.

After tidying up all the edges and hidden vertex's I build the outer shell of the cabin.

I wasn't happy with how bland the outer house looked so I decided I should add small details to break up the large flat areas.

After looking at a rendered image of my cabin I really was not happy with It. I felt that it was to long and very mundane and boring looking with no character.

BA3 - LEVEL DESIGN

BA3 - LEVEL DESIGN 

We started with directed study where we were given a scene to create in Maya. It was a relativity simple scene but had a lot of room for expansion once we have grasped the tools needed to create it.

 These are the reference photos we were given to recreate, I rather liked these little scenes despite it not fitting into my usual style of work, but I thought to myself I'm not always going to get projects I enjoy in the industry so keep calm and carry on.

After several mind breaking sessions in lesson and half a dozen YouTube tutorials later I came up with something that way mildly similar to the images.

At this point I was not aware on how to texture the buildings I had created so I left them at this stage, still quite unhappy with the outcome. 

To improve the scene I think I would probably look at scale a bit closer along with more smaller objects to interact with rather then giant behemoth buildings.

Concept for my Level

At the time of creating my level I was heavily into my fourth play through of Fallout 3 so all I could think of is all things wasteland. So I took some time out from exterminating super mutants to do some sight seeing.

 So may I introduce you to the "Vault Tec" headquarters located in the capital wasteland.
The art style is best described as Art-Deco, a popular decorative motif in architecture and design from mid 20's that went out of style around 1940. The form of the buildings mainly involve straight lines along with harsh angles to create exaggerated perspective along with warm colours and metallic textures on colossal scale. I've always had a soft spot for the art-deco style I especially like some of the British architecture from this period such as the victory coach station in London and paddington train station, you can clearly see the weight of the buildings in the materials used and really get a sense that they were built for a purpose and to last.

I did some very quick sketches to note down ideas that came to mind first then I could expand on these to bulk out a fully formed idea.

I looked into making a scene where the player would feel engulfed by the surrounding, this is an attribute I really enjoy when playing games. I find I personally get more involved in a game when the environment fully consumes me. So I decided to create an L-shaped layout to it would wrap around the player nicely and would also give the option to explore within tighter spaces.

I went through a couple of refinement processes to get to the style I had pictured in my mind along with looking at my reference photos. I found enjoyment and frustration trying to wrap my head around building a 2D image in a 3D space knowing things would not be as easy in Maya as they were on pen and paper. 

Modeling

 I first started off building the basic form of my building so I could later on build onto or chip away from the main structure.  

Once I had created a shape and feel I liked the look of for my main building I decided to flesh it out a bit by adding small visual details.

 Then I started construction to the outer sides to the building. I still wanted to keep the art-deco feel so I kept everything in straight edges and hard angles to make sure I would fit.

After this I went a head and built the second building which I originally want to connect to the main building via a bridge or tunnel.

 As I slowly went through removing any excess edges and tidying up vertexes I didn't really like the look of the second building so much and thought it needed something else to make it stand out more from the other.

So I was playing around with the idea of adding a sign to the front of the building. Not knowing how to add text to Maya I head over to YouTube and found a video teaching me how to insert text and manipulate it into different forms.

But my version of Maya decided it wasn't having any of this lark and kept crashing so that idea came to an abrupt end.....for now.

Feeling disheartened and down in the dumps I went on a tidying spree removing all unnecessary faces and edges to save myself texturing parts that would not been seen by the player.

Once everything was sorted and nice and clean I started texturing the buildings, I wanted to do the back buildings first because they are a relatively simple shape and I wanted to get a feel for UV'ing before jumping in the deep end.

One problem I did encounter was that because I had made the building at the back one solid structure the textures were coming out blurry and unfocused so I decided to split them into two smaller easier to manage buildings.

After texturing my first building I decided that I want to interact with my world a little more then just a flat surface. Which led me to look at the stairways to the London underground stations. I really like the look of these iconic land marks across London they are very distinctive and outstanding in their environment.

I created a couple of sketches and built the one I favored the most.

This led me to adapt my second building to more of an office block adding variations in height rather then the one solid mass.

I also added little features like the air vents and the billboard to break up the surfaces.

More texturing occurred making sure that all UV's were in a TGA format so that I could bake the surfaces to add more depth to the sides creating the illusion of a 3D image.

The finished outcome

Video of my level on my YouTube account.

More Animating! You must Jog before you can Run

After finishing the walk cycle I wanted to keep building up my skills in Maya while I still had great momentum for "creating life". 

I decided I wanted to speed things up a bit with my character and get him to do a gentle Jog.

I headed back to YouTube and found a reference from endlessreference.

I wanted the character to look more weighty and more in motion in comparison to the walk cycle.

This is my finished outcome. I wanted to make the character even more believable by giving him more facial characteristics and actually show expression when in motion.

I did this by turning "Facial CPanel" On and while using the move tool I manipulated the key points to rearrange the face.

After finishing a nice jog I wanted to up my game even more now that I'm getting a taste for Maya.

Once again I delved back into YouTube and found a running animation cycle by Ferdinand Francis. I liked this video because his characters body was quite similar to mine so I could match the extensions of the limbs easier.

...And here we are my running animation. For now all the videos will be of a low quality until I have them to a state I am happy with, looking on how my work has progressed I want to go back and redo my walk cycle because it looks kinda naff now.

Speak Soon.

My First Character Animation

I started off with a simple character rig with standard two arms, two legs and a head.

The character already had all the plotting points I would need to manipulate the body into the shapes and poses I wanted.

Before starting I had a quick play around with the tools just to get a basic feel for the controls and have a bit of fun without stressing myself out. Some of the out comes to make me laugh.

Once I had finished having a muck around I did some research online and got some walking references from YouTube. I thought this would save me a lot of time and hassle creating something from life rather then straight out of my head. So I watched this video by endlessreference.

I then set the key frames of which I wanted the legs to follow. We were set the task of making the character walk on the spot which I found harder to do then making the character progress forward. 

I had to do some crazy MJ moon walking manoeuvres to keep the figure looking correct.

After syncing up and coordinating the legs to walk in time I moved onto the motion of the body focusing on the hips and shoulders first. I had to make all parts alternate and fit together to create a convincing muscle structure motion.

Thus creating my first animated figure.