One more thing, I think I should really try to make this blog a little more formal. I enjoy being able to write here without feeling like i'm being marked, but I think if I just keep it a little tidier and more educational...maybe? Maybe people who read this might actually be able to learn something from my mistakes and stuff. I'll give that a try. So this blog will be showing my work, of course, a place to verbalise my research for the upcoming project, and hopefully be helpful as well. I'll tag all of my posts as well if I have the time, so if anyone ever actually reads this crap then it'll be easier to navigate.
To Start: Some Research/Indulgence - E3 2009 Game Trailers.
Final Fantasy XIII
One of my favourite series, one of the only games that i will DEFINITELY be buying when it comes out, pretty amazing in game cut-scenes. All great stuff. The things that I particularly like in this trailer are:
-The colours: I really love the bit with the mecha guys and the blues, whites and reds. Every time I see it i think how great that shot is.
-The enemies: I think these are designed really beautifully, they look exotic but are designed well enough to look feasible and real. Particularly like those blue things, Sahagin maybe. Even the robo soldier guys with the glowing red eyes- they've been done a million times but still seem sort of fresh in this incarnation.
-The summon animation (pink glowing lotus flower: I have absolutely no idea how they make these things, but they look awesome.
Some things that I don't like so much:
-The references to the story/factions: I don't like to admit it but the story seems sort of contrived. It's probably always the case in the FF games, and i'll probably forget about this when i'm immersed in the actual game, but I don't like their references to the il'Cie or whatever they're called, seem a little cringe making at a push.
-Some of the character designs: Lightning (The main girl) is alright, I like the black dude, his chocobo is awesome :D, the young kid with the hair is kinda cool (maybe I think that because of the good voice acting he has?), The woman with glasses is pretty hot, but apart from those people, the rest seem sort of generic, or maybe the designs don't appeal to me. Particularly the hat guy, he's not really cool atm. Balthier and Fran plz, they're smooth as.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
This is pretty fucking epic. I'll cut to the chase.
Good:
The pacing: I think this trailer is paced really nicely. Slow to start, really fast in the middle, slow at the end. I particularly love the Jedi's death transitioning into the space ship thingies, and the very end with the Sith guy walking towards the camera, he looks pretty damned evil and sort of awesome.
The humour: There's not much at all, but I love kicking the Jar Jar Binks guy in the face :D
Boba style trooper peeps: Got a thing for those troopers, they look awesome.
Bad:
Not much to say really, I don't really like the bunny eared girls and the animation is a littttttle worse than some of the trailers maybe, but this is really nit picking.
I think i'll stop analysing now and just rant a little.
Final Fantasy XIV Online
Where the hell did this come from!? A game I really wasn't expecting to see at E3, or for like at least another couple of years to even be announced, and here it is coming in 2010. I was an big time fan of FFXI, the last MMO that square released, like BIG BIG fan. Put in more hours than i'd like to admit to. Finally stopped playing when I came to university because you need so much free time to play the games, or in fact any MMO. They are ridiculously addictive, and while I think I really shouldn't get into another MMO ever (I secretly plan to play MMOs when i'm a grandad and retired) I can't help but get excited for this. It's just such a cool thing, and getting into MMOs right at the start is awesome because it's literally an entire world to explore, not just with characters in a game that aren't real, but you get to explore them with your real life friends, make friends in game and basically pretend to be wizards together (you can see why i'm doing what i am for my third year project...). But enough nerdery on that subject.
The Last Guardian
The Last Guardian... kinda cool name. BUT WTF! THEY CHANGED MY GRIFFIN! If you look back to one of my recent posts I was getting so excited about this game because of the awesome teaser with the cute but kinda realistic griffin thing AND THEY CHANGED IT. This has honestly lowered my expectations for the game. He was perfect as he was... sigh. And they didn't really change the feathers, they still look a little funky.
That'll do for the game trailer stuff. I think this may even be helping me a little, I will be creating a game trailer after all. I've also discovered these really cool, free to watch gnomon event coverage thingies. I watched the making of the Warhammer Online trailer, it was kinda cool, not super helpful but I love to get any insight into how game studios actually work, and getting to look at the bare bones of the actual models they use and stuff like that. Here's a link: http://www.gnomonschool.com/events/events.php Check them out for sure.
I also managed to watch the new Next Gen Character Modeling tutorial from the Gnomon Workshop. I've only really skimmed over it, and watched the section about normal mapping and retopologising in full, but I'm sort of let down. It looks awesome on the surface but it's pretty much just the guy modeling in Zbrush the whole way through. Not that this isn't cool, but it's not really what I was expecting. But then again maybe since this is the way he actually creates his characters that are in the games, maybe I should be focusing on this... I do need to start getting to grips with Mudbox. I'll try and fit it in when I can in the studio, as I can't even run the stupid thing on this computer :/
Right now i'm really interested in how to make things deform correctly, and I find myself more and more interested in rigging... weird. I find it really difficult to find good tutorials online, and even the gnomon website is sparse on rigging videos. I guess i'm interested in it because I've sort of come to terms with modeling now, and I think that the only thing I need to do to make awesome models now is sit in front of the screen for a billion hours and work away. I also need to learn mudbox, but rigging is something I feel i've scratched the surface of, but there are SO many techniques and cool little tricks that i'd like to learn- to make these models which I create completely water-tight, have every range of motion and expression that is necessary for them to have, and not to have to do inconvenient little tweaks during the animating and stuff. It's a big shame when the animators (Hi Andy) have to limit themselves because the rig isn't perfect. I want perfection! I'm aiming for these great rigs in my third year project. Fingers crossed.
Let's chat some shit about the old Third Year Project. (TYP?)
Third Year Project
I'll kick it off with the Illustration that I managed to do for the proposal on Wednesday.
I'm actually really happy with this looking at it now. It's not mind-blowing but I kind of like the colour scheme, I think it looks interesting enough. The only thing that i'm worried about is that it doesn't really reflect the look or mood that i'm going for with my animation at all. In a way it sort of captures the light-hearted theme that i'll be going for, but not the aesthetic style very much. I now like the idea of making the characters have very strong colour schemes though, I think i'll try that out. They all seem to have quite distinguishable silhouettes as well, and I hear that's good for games. I knocked it up in a few hours as well, so, sweet. I like getting things done so quickly, but I feel I sort of make compromises sometimes and I don't like doing that. Anyway, that's it. I'm not really happy with my actual proposal either, I'm not sure it'll sell me and the idea. Hopefully the art will help with that. I'll wait for the feedback anyway. I feel quite committed to the project though, and i'm quite passionate about it so hopefully it'll come through. Here are a few extra doodles that I managed to scan in too. Not reflective of the final look, just exploration and experimentation.
I like the hoody guy, looks moody and cool, but quirky. The other girl is from street fighter haha.
This guy is sort of troll like, maybe orcish. Gives me ideas.
Now i'm going to talk about the STORY of the project in a little more depth. This'll just be a brainstorm of sorts, along with laying down my ideas somewhere other than my head.
Story Stuff!
So here's what I have so far:
- Maniacal billionaire takes over a country (-how? I'm thinking he buys it/bribes people of power to let him have it. Something along those lines.)
- He turns it into a real life RPG country (-how does he do this? I think maybe he'll have employed enforcers of his RPG rule, he takes everything from the people that doesn't fit with his ideal, maybe uses propaganda, that could be cool for some art. I'm now thinking Nazis, SS, Gestapo and i'm liking it lol, is it bad to say that?) I'd like these enforcers to be sort of clumsy hired goons. Some sort of cool and humourous armour/uniform. These will be great for a generic enemy to beat on.
- The majority of people are made miserable by this change, they are allowed to have no ambitions, they have no mod cons, they're turned into peasants sort of. This raises a question - is he allowing people to be adventurers? This i've not thought about...
- He puts orcs and other beasties around the place -this allows me to add some humour into the world by way of making a bunch of nerdy jokes, reusing and redesigning my favourite computer game bosses and having them as in-game bosses, this ties in a previous idea i had for the project about making a game game..thing. (Anyway these may be robotic, otherwise i'm gonna just have to go for the crazy approach and have him bio-engineering or maybe he found a spell book or something. Actually I don't mind the idea of him finding a spell book, but that sort of removes from reality. I'd like it so that this really seems modern, and I don't mean futuristic, but reflective of modern day.
- Anyway This also raises the question of magic. You need magic in games, I think i'd prefer to go for the man made angle, having magic coming from some sort of machine. If the billionaire is a bill gates type character he could potentially in my world have created this sort of technology.
- I'm thinking the crazy guy will have dotted equipment/loot around the world. He does this to make it more like a game, and this allows my in-game characters to have a way to upgrade equipment and such.
- The billionaire lives in his little castle as the ruler of the land. Maybe the people just think he wants to be king, but I want him to think of himself as the final boss of his real life game. And when, inevitably at the end of the game the adventurers approach him to return the world to the way it was, he's ready for them and there's a spectacular finale.
- To lock down reasons why the people are unhappy. What are they made to do/become? Why do they rebel?
- Am I using a single main character for the entire game, with partners who come and go?
- If so they all need their own good stories and motivation.
I think i'll leave this blog at that. I feel bad for writing so much haha. Poor readers (if you exist).
Once again, if you have any suggestions or ideas please leave me a comment, especially concerning the third year project stuff. Byeeeeeeeee
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