Week 3 Sketch Dump

 Here's some studies of trees I did in my sketchbook last week in preparation for the tree tests in my previous post!  And I also managed to get more digital stuff done than I thought I would in spite of the broken laptop (which is all good now!)

Here's some "tiny studies" of environments inspired by this ctrl paint video.  By doing these studies at a small scale it allowed me to focus less on the tiny details and more on the general form and lighting in the scenes.  I really struggle with environments so I thought this would be a good jumping off point before I do any bigger studies.  Each of these took between 15 - 30 minutes each.

And some more hands!  I currently have a folder of 50 hand references I'm working my way through.

Tree Tests/Meeting with Ryan

These tree tests were inspired by Denki Doodles' blog post "Style Quest:  The Tree" where James of Denki talks about establishing the art style for a game by starting off with the design of a tree.  The idea is "That object’s design rules — complexity, colour range, geometry — all of it can inform your overall style choice." 

I'm not really happy with any of them but I think there's some potential to take a few of these forward in order to achieve a more polished style, so I posted these designs on Facebook in order to get some feedback from my peers.

To begin with a lot of people were just giving feedback on the type of trees that would work best for a horror game (fyi everyone unanimously agrees that pine trees work best) so this was already a sign that my styles weren't varied enough, however after getting people to focus on the individual style of each tree some of the feedback confirmed this, so in my next test I'm going to have to really push my styles.

Most people seemed to prefer the "realistic" pine tree fourth from the left and the water-colour inspired tree on the the right.  However the "realistic" tree was the most time consuming to paint by far and someone who preferred 1, 3, 6 pointed out that more stylistic 2D art lends itself really well to horror games (the textured flat style of Year Walk, Neverending Nightmares's Victorian illustration style and Lone Survivor's obscure pixel art are good examples of this) and after playing so many 2D horror games for research I'm inclined to agree with them! 

Lots of people mentioned that I should really experiment with the design of the trees themselves so I think some silhouettes are in order before I move on to my next test and someone mentioned I should try making the pine trees purple which I really like the idea of - I should definitely experiment with horror colour palettes.  They also mentioned that it was difficult to give feedback on the trees without them in context so in my next few designs I'm going to place them in a more horror-esque night time forest scene.


I've also just had a meeting with one of my lecturers, Ryan.  He suggested I test out three really different styles at different ends of the 2D style spectrum - the first just basic geometric forms, the second more illustrative and abstract (such as Year Walk) and the third more realistic and mixing in collages of creepy Victorian photographs (super excited to try that one out!)  

He also suggested I look in to different types of fear such as psychological, gore, jump scares and how these different types of fear can be mixed together.  Another cool idea he had was to try and create quick 2D "programmer art" versions of scenes from horror films or 3D horror games and discuss what works and what doesn't and how the elements that work can inform the atmosphere of a 2D horror game.  Another suggestion he had was to play with the frame rate of my game - 2D games are usually smooth (this is one of the benefits of 2D over 3D,) how would frustrating the player in this way mess with the horror aspect of my game?

So yeah, feeling really inspired!  All I want to do now is go home and watch horror films and make stuff, however I've got a week's worth of Gamemaker tutorials to catch up on so I better crack on with those!

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References
Law, J.  2014.  Style quest: the tree. [blog].  19 March.  Available from: http://denkidoodles.tumblr.com/post/80060829580/style-quest-the-tree [Accessed 30 September 2014]

Week 2 Sketch Dump

Not too much to show this week unfortunately.  I'd mainly been focusing on preparing my presentation for the Nine Trades of Dundee.  Nine Trades sponsored my internship on Strawberry Thief this summer and now that the project is more or less done I had the opportunity to meet some of the members and tell them about the game.  It went really well and everyone I met was really lovely and interested in the project.  It was also the first presentation I've ever done where I haven't started shaking with nerves which is a huge, huge deal for me and I'm really happy that I'm finally improving at public speaking!

I don't usually post my doodles on here but I thought I'd post the drawing below as I'm quite pleased at how it turned out - No reference was used and although there's a few issues (her head's a bit too big, her right hand should be slightly smaller as it's further away from the viewer, the right leg of her shorts should be receding further, her knees aren't defined enough, her left foot should be a bit bigger, the line work is a bit scribbly)  I really like how the posing/attitude/facial expressions of my characters are starting to shine through more.  

Aaand finally, I've been working away on some Gamemaker tutorials thanks to this fantastic Youtube channel ran by Shaun Spalding.  Pretty simple stuff so far but I'm starting to get the hang of it.  

There probably won't be a sketch dump for next week as I'm planning to give Duality some much needed attention, however I'm going to start doing some media tests for my project too.    

UPDATE:  So as of today my laptop and graphics tablet will be in a repair shop until the end of the week.   However I still have access to the uni computers so I'll be keeping on top of my reading list and my vector art for Duality.  I'm also planning on sketching out some rough ideas for potential characters and environments for my horror game.  Unfortunately though no laptop/tablet means no media tests or Gamemaker tutorials which effectively puts me behind schedule.  Going to have to work extra hard next week to catch up.  But hey, I guess if I'm getting these kind of technological blips early on in the year the rest of fourth year will be smooth sailing, right?  (Right??)

Week 1 Sketch Dump

In addition to project work I'm going to be posting weekly "sketch dumps."  This week I've tried to focus on improving my life drawing, more specifically trying to let my own style through (instead of copying the photo exactly) and getting faster at drawing within time limits.  I've mainly been using pixelovely.com for this but I recently discovered Croquis Cafe which has a much more diverse range of body types to use for reference.  

I planned to focus on environments next week but today I tried doing studies of hands in different poses and I'm even worse than I remember!  Therefore I'm dedicating week 2 to hands. 

Project-wise I'm going to be finishing up my 2D horror game case studies and making a dent in my reading list.  I'm also going to be doing some Gamemaker tutorials.

 I feel I'm slowly managing to get a style across although I think I'm going to experiment with mixing in some more dynamic, angular lines.   I have to stop being lazy with feet and hands and also improve at rendering quicker!

On the left I drew a quick portrait based on Kate Bush in copic markers.  I tried to concentrate on style but I definitely lost her likeness in the process.  Need more practice.
I'm really unhappy with how the drawing on the right turned out as it's totally disproportional - the arms are too long, especially her right one, the right hand is too big and the legs are too short.

 From left to right, 30 second drawings, a 5 minute drawing and a 10 minute drawing.  (Apologies for the dodgy quality, my pencils lines were far too light for the scanner!)

30 minutes for the drawing on the right, forgot to time the others!

Research and More Project Ideas

Yesterday we had our first class of 4th year and I had the opportunity to talk to our lecturer, Lynn, about my idea of looking at immersion in 2D horror games.  She asked "How do you measure immersion?"

Carrying out a project like this would involve a lot of user testing with hundreds of people to prove my game is immersive.  This would take away from the art side of the project which, as a computer arts student, isn't ideal. I was also advised to steer away from vague buzz words like "immersion" and "visual style."

However Lynn pointed out a whole bunch of other aspects of my 2D horror game idea that I could look into - Mise en scene, creating atmosphere, pacing in horror games and 2D first person perspective.  She also advised studying lots of horror games (which I've been doing for a while - expect a blog on my case studies soon!) and looking in to older games such as first person shooters which used 2D first person perspective before 3D graphics were an option.

I think I'm leaning more towards focusing on atmosphere as I think 2D games have a lot to offer in that respect - Lone Survivor for instance does a fantastic job of creating an unsettling atmosphere and Limbo has a distinct surreal dream/nightmare like atmosphere.


Today I'm at the library looking up a whole bunch of articles and journals pertaining to horror games, 2D vs 3D, mise en scene and atmosphere.

So far my reading list consists of:

Journals:
- Agency Mechanics: Gameplay Design In Survival Horror Video Games (Habel, C and Kooyman, B.  2013)
- The Effects of Disassociation, Game Controllers and 3D Versus 2D On Presence and Enjoyment (Williams D. K.  2014)  [Turned out to be pretty irrelevant]
- Horror and Hedonic Ambivalence (Strohl, M. 2012)
-  Origami Fiction: Psychological Horror in Interactive Narrative (Perez, B.  2014)
- Resident Evil's Typewriter: Survival Horror and Its Remediations (Kirkland, E. 2008)
- "Did This Game Scare You?  Because it Sure as Hell Scared Me!" F.E.A.R., the Abject and the Uncanny (Spittle, S. 2011)
- Sign of Threat:  The Effect of Warning Systems in Survival Horror Games (Perron, B.  2004)

Books:
- The Art of Game Design (Schell, J. 2008)
- Deleuze and Horror Film (Powell, A. 2005)
- Horror Video Games:  Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (Perron, B.  2009)
- The Ultimate History of Video Games (Kent L. P.  2001)
- Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces (King, G and Kryzywinska, T. 2003)

Articles
- Alone in the Dark Post-Mortem
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/173722/Video_Alone_in_the_Dark_A_classic_postmortem.php
- Scary Game Findings:  A Study of Horror Games and Their Players
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6480/scary_game_findings_a_study_of_.php
- Alien: Isolation - Back to Ridley Scott's Haunted House in Space
http://www.develop-online.net/interview/alien-isolation-back-to-ridley-scott-s-haunted-house-in-space/0188509
- How Alien: Isolation is Using Audio To Manipulate Players' Emotions
http://www.develop-online.net/interview/how-alien-isolation-is-using-audio-to-manipulate-player-emotions/0195322
- Revival Horror:  New Ideas in Fear Making
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/5772/revival_horror_new_ideas_in_.php
- Flashback: Why 2D Games Should Be Revisited on Next Gen Hardware
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130407/constructing_artificial_emotions_.php?page=2


I'll be updating this throughout the year as I go.  I  plan on making a separate post with all my notes (most of it will be under a read more jump don't worry!) so that I have them written down in one place and saved online, which I'll also update throughout the year.

I've also decided I want to actually make my game.  Learning to code will effectively double my workload but it would great to have something playable for the showcase at the end of the year and will be an invaluable addition to my skill set.  I'm thinking about using Gamemaker as I've heard it's artist friendly (i.e. relatively simple to get to grips with) and there's tons of tutorials available.

Project Idea - Exploring Immersion in 2D Horror Games

Something I've been curious about for a while is 2D horror game design and why 2D horror games don't seem to be as common as their 3D counterpart.  

Games immerse the player in the game world and this is an especially important aspect of the horror game genre. To convey a sense of fear, players should feel so immersed in the game environment that they feel as though the scary events of the game are happening to them.

Many horror games use first person perspective with no Head Up Display (HUD) elements, such as Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games, 2010), Slender: The Eight Pages (Parsec Productions, 2012) and Outlast (Red Barrels, 2013). A first person perspective allows to player to witness the game events from the player character's perspective, arguably allowing the player to easily project themselves on to the main character and thus feel more immersed in the game world. Likewise in theory having no HUD to clutter the screen results in less visuals for the player to be distracted by, allowing the player to focus primarily on the frightening events unfolding in front of them.

Amnesia:  The Dark Descent (2010)

Slender:  The Eight Pages (2012)

Outlast (2013)

However, in comparison to 3D, first person perspective is much more difficult to achieve in 2D games due to the limited degree of movement 2D allows for.  I feel it will be really interesting to explore a solution to this problem.  Moreover, designing a horror game will involve undergoing the challenge of creating a visual aesthetic that will contribute to a fear filled gameplay experience.  

So for my honours project I want to explore how visual elements can be used to create immersion in a 2D horror game.  

A few questions to consider: 

• How can the the Game User Interface be designed to aid the fear aspect of the game and avoid obscuring the players vision?
• How can the art style compliment the horror genre?
• What makes a game scary?
• How important is narrative in horror game design?

However I'm not entirely sure what this will mean for the portfolio side of my project as I won't be able to program the game.  Perhaps an animation that portrays a walk-through of a small section of a 2D horror game I'll design, or maybe a trailer?  I'm also a bit stuck on what to look for reading material wise.  Lectures for 4th year start on Thursday so I'll find out more then. 

My next steps will be to research 2D horror games and examine how their visual style, use of UI, audio, game mechanics and any other attributes I come across all contribute to the fear/horror factor of the game.

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References

Hello.

Hello and welcome to my Honours blog!

I'm a 2D generalist studying Computer Arts at Abertay University who enjoys all aspects of 2D art, from concept art to icon design. By the end of this year I aim to have a polished enough skill set in this field to become a 2D artist in game development.

Over the past year or so I've worked on several projects under a variety of role titles, all pertaining to 2D art, so I figured I'd start this blog off by talking about them a little bit.

In 2013 I worked on a B-Movie themed endless runner game called “Attack of the Ghastly Grey Matter” for the game development competition Dare to be Digital. As part of a team of five (two programmers and three artists) we developed the game for Android devices over the course of eight weeks. My responsibilities included creating the GUI, feedback animation and promotional artwork. As it was the first game I'd ever worked on and the first time I'd ever delved in to creating UI, it was really challenging and not without issues but I feel being thrown in at the deep end was a great way for me to start learning. We released the game on Google Play in September 2013 and it has since amassed over 10 000 downloads. The game was also nominated for a Scottish BAFTA New Talent Award this year.

In third year as part of the Professional Project module on our course I worked as the environment artist on “Escape Nebula,” a sci-fi themed platformer for Android devices. We went for a cartoony cel shaded art style with modular background assets. Though the modular assets and art style were time efficient to produce (which is ace considering how hectic third year is!) I personally feel that in retrospect my art looks a bit flat and lacks charm. Perhaps the conception more ideas and working in a different art style would have solved this. However the project was great for developing my experience in creating cel shaded art.

In the second semester of third year I took on an additional project to replace an artist who had left another team. I worked as the GUI and environment artist on “Ubiquity” - a top down, sci-fi themed puzzle game for PS Vita. It was really difficult managing my studies with this extra project (and my Abertay Game Development Society project!) and working in a vector art style (which I'd had little experience with at the time) however I feel my time management and work flow in Adobe Illustrator have significantly improved because of it. After the semester ended, four of us (two programmers, the animator/character artist and myself) decided we wanted to take the game further so over summer the guys worked on revamping the game and showed it off at Dare Protoplay festival in August. As I was already working over summer there was little I could do other than some logo design and “polished placeholders” however we'll be working on the newly re-titled “Duality” over the course of this year as part of Game Development Society. We're also still keeping in contact with the game company Futurlab (who supplied our student brief for the project) along the way as the IP of the game belongs to them.

Finally, this summer I had the fantastic opportunity to work as the 2D artist on game designer Sophia George's game “Strawberry Thief” for iOS which was designed as part of her residency at the Victoria and Albert museum. Obviously this was a really art heavy game (so much fun to work on) and trying to recreate William Morris' Strawberry Thief pattern (and all it's arts and crafts asymmetry) as a repeatable texture was really interesting. Likewise was the challenge of creating promotional artwork and menu screens which honoured his works in the digital form of a game. I worked closely with the animator on the project who brought these textures to life in game and also co-designed HUD elements with him. We showed off the game at Dare Protoplay Festival in August and will be releasing Strawberry Thief on the App Store soon!

I've also had some experience in character design as part of other modules and personal projects however character animation, or rather animation in general, is a skill of mine which is severely lacking.

 In general, I feel my art is not where I want it to be right now – my perspective, lighting, digital painting, anatomy, environment art and ability to create artwork of quality in a short period of time – are all no where near where I want them to be. I'm going to have to really push myself this year if I want to achieve a professional level by the time I graduate! It's going to be tough but I feel like with enough determination and dedication I can do it.

So that's enough rambling about previous projects now, in my next post I'll talk about ideas for my Honours Project!