overall summary of work in the last 8 weeks

The star, space and other interactive assets

star points continued

after the environmental game assets were created during the last assignment I instantly started to continue off with my stars seeing what i could work with and improve upon for the first week with the aid of my group. After a week we all had agreed to a more line-less style and I instantly was ready to begin fixes.  Our team leader Oscar suggested to only continue with the green star as it was the only one that was more suited towards the game roll and improve on it further. Which I did in the end as by removing the outer line of the circle and thinning the inner lines to aid with keeping the designs consistent. This would overall be the final time being worked on a star as well as any future stars as development basically stopped here. The green star had several rolls that it was meant to take as firstly it was originally meant and designed to be a health point. This was changed to be a story node star where it was then to be telling the player at the beginning how to play then what to really do. This idea was later scrapped and the star was then left alone for the rest of the games development until the recent end as it has the potential to be a end point to the game that will activate the ending. This however was suggested and was being tested which may mean it might not make the ending cut.


 

  This asset was also made during the second assignment. The blue star is probably the only star that was not changed during development and this is mainly that it was originally decided not to be used as it was thought to be unnecessary. This was made as a checkpoint where the player could respawn and continue off. But it wasn't needed due to original thoughts of that the game in the beginning was a lot more easier. But after play testing towards the end of the project it became apparently clear that it was needed but at least once. Which it ended up being used for. The design for the Blue star was to make it stand out and be recognizable to the player so they would know that this is a checkpoint and would be a safe object for them to interact. Personally to me this feels like it follows its roll strongly and was later agreed by the team leader when it was finally implemented in the near end of the games build. The idea was to make the two smaller stars bounce up an down to make it more stand out and noticeable so the star would be easily seen in its neutral state and after its been interacted with it will spin 90 degrees to form its active position to show its now an active checkpoint. I personally liked the design for its simplicity and stand out nature as a whole. 

Concepts for interactive black holes or attacker stars. (never made it past concept stage)

These are concepts that never made the cut for the black holes and attacker stars which were made to be environmental hazards towards the players goal and would spring out suddenly but also would give the player a chance to escape if they were fast enough. My concepts stopped here as the objectives of making black holes was later moved towards another team member so I could finish other assets and speed up work on the cut-scenes. However the attacker star idea wouldn't be completely lost as it later lead up to the exploding star asset for the game. Another reason the concepts never made it to development was how complex it was it as this would require a lot more time needed and could be a waste of time to make when other assets are needed at the same time, and personally I thought this wasn't going to make the final cut at all so I easily quit on developing these, but leaving the idea on hold for later as it was a great idea that needed more thought placed into it.

 The clouds concepts (also not making it past concepts)

Though originally the clouds were made by Raven I also tasked to do this I drew quick sketches of what i needed to do from the team leaders request to make two cloud types. the first being normal cloud platforms that the player could jump on and off of easily and take their time with. while making storm clouds that were to be environmental hazards and cause damage to the players. However quickly Raven had made her clouds and did a much better job over mine as she already had her clouds done before I really got started so my clouds never really did make it past their concepts as a whole.

Exploding star asset

This is the interactive trap star was created around 2-3 weeks prior to the deadline and was intended to be a trap to trick players into avoiding it at all costs as it was a instant death trap. it was a small star like this and would blend in very well with the space like background becoming on of the stars until the player triggers it and it would instantly collapse on itself and explode. Getting some help with design both from lecturers and teammates, allowed the star to be finished rather quickly and personally, look really amazing for what it was. This was based off the failed attacker star concept and it really made off what the concept failed to achieve. Looking great while being very simple at the same time allowing it to be easily animated and also super effective in what it was made for in the first place.

 the glow was created  in after effects to give its nice shine and make it brighter than other stars as well so players with a eagle eye could spot it after dying the first time to it. 

Space platform assets

The concept stage was a easy process after asking Oscar what i was to aim for. As on point he made was to keep it on a slight isometric angle to allow it to feel like the character was actually standing on a piece of environment rather than a object. From that point came a quick and easy pick of choices between me and Oscar which he picked the best few out. Which have a tick next to them, and then it came to draw them up in photoshop which wasn't really that much of a hassle since it was to be a two toned shade and thus came out much better than I originally anticipated. Though the color would be personally changed by Ocsar himself a bit later. He was happy with these platforms outcomes and then tasked me with more and new work to do. I did originally plan for the bottom three to have moving parts but due to time constraints with other assets and works I needed to cancel that plan but they do give a bit more variety to the platforms overall rather than just being a one piece platform and having 2 to 4 pieces respectively between them.

Asteroid assets

The asteroids were made in a very similar way the platforms begin hand picked by Oscar with a small amount by me personally and with the same intention being two toned like the platforms themselves. The difference was that these were inspired by Ravens original asteroid concepts with some tweaks and changes between mine and hers like shifting from 3D to 2D and removing the purple for darker shades of grey are examples. Being environmental hazards they're designed to be quick fast and hard to give the player something else to look out for. each asteroid can also spin on its own as a individual rather than a group allowing Oscar to create certain scenarios where the groups can preform a sweeping action if needed. This was one of the most easy to make and best looking assets I've made so far.

Video works - the beginning cutscene.

simple animatic


first animatic (detailed version)


animatic 2


there were originally two animations for the starting cut scene a simple and detailed narrative versions. The simple was created to get directly to the point making a very short and sweet and brings the player right into the action. The second was a detailed narrative which was made to give a little more story to it with added scenes to show its point while giving a narrative driven theme to it that allows the player to understand the situation the characters in. After showing both animatics to the group they voted more towards the detailed narrative which became my primary focus, but Oscar recommended to fix mistakes and changed certain scenes in the first one before i moved onto full production. This lead to animatic two which fixed upon many issues first one had as well as change placement of scenes like the part where the character is looking up to the sky was moved earlier as a transition, Also as well it did help me fix issues of understanding after effects as a whole in how to rotate position and other key workings in understanding after effects.



first start of the series

the first attempt of the film was mainly to get things in sync and see what needed to be fixed upon it with the aid of the group behind me which gave me many important things to rework with. and this would lead to attempt two. However this did come with benefits as I did learn how to tinker with music to make it softly start and finish out.

Attempt 2


the second attempt was overall well more improved over its original in many aspects. this was primarily to the criticism Oscar gave me that allowed me to to make improvements to the cutscene which focused on the following: Make the characters smaller and extend the dance so its giving the feeling of space, Shortened the light so it doesn't linger too long and is more a flash and to replace the old backgrounds and clouds new background/clouds as a whole made by Oscar and Raven. Thus improving it majorly over its original in quality and timing. It was also the first to include Ravens intro to the short. However this didnt really solve all the issues and brought upon newer issues which were needed to be focused on and lead to attempt 3.

Attempt 3

Attempt 3 was made to improve upon the issues created in attempt 2. Which were to Slow first shot and pan it. Fix the ending animation and to fix fall timings  which were quickly done in no time but the fall timings were still too fast with the background and thus needed to be worked on again for the last time.  This also had the character facing the sky scene having its loop move much faster than before to help out speed consistency. Leading to attempt 4 or recognized as final 1 as this ended up being the first final and that solve all the problems. Though there was a editing error than caused the scene to end later than normal it still was good and fixed all its problems that it used to have.
Attempt 4/ final 1

Finalization


though attempt 4 was technically the final video an last minute adjustment was made for the games benefit in mind with just one difference to Attempt 4. The ending of this scene, as it was to now cut mid flight so when the game starts the players character was to land in game time. A very simple and easy adjustment and went very successfully overall.

Video works- The ending

Originally the ending was placed together with reused assets to help make the scene work and was created in less than a week with no animatic involved in the development of this. In fact this probably was its animatic, due to its quality and limited animation incorporated but was more the base to finish off the work as there was two bases involved with different assets involved. The only thing that would remain the same throughout the whole refining and editing would be Raven and Oscars backgrounds. I also made a new Ying and Yang symbol for the ending to make it look more clear and better than the one made in raven and Oscars backgrounds.
Base 1


Base 2




The first true attempt had a checklist behind it with Oscars help: Orange should already be there also scaled smaller Add idol from oscars and The ying and yang flash should be less white
certain modifications to it including idol animations and was the first step of improving the ending quickly to a better state as well as adding ravens credits this was more a stop gap area for the next attempt
Attempt 1 ending



The next two were based off Oscars suggestions which I took to fix the animations more which had included Fix transition and idol Still too much white (maybe turn it cream) and Fix ying and yang as it goes in the opposite direction (which was a mistake in editing). all these were done and came in two versions with a white glow and a cream glow added to it and also lowering its time seen. These solved most of the issues gained in attempt one and solved it to its core aspects.
ending attmept 2 with cream

ending attmept 2 with white



after these two being reviewed with Oscar, this lead to another refined version with a even shorter flash going on in the background and adding minor fixes including timing and speed and thus officially finishing the ending once and for all to allow it to be made for the videogames ending.

The full official ending


However at the last minute Oscar asked for a quick change that would need to be done. This was to cut a portion of the idol right at the beginning and make it go into the instant dance with the two characters thus making the scene slightly shorter but it would time out perfectly with the game overall and thus was done in a few moments, leading to finalization.



I am very proud of these works and happy to see it be done so well with high quality involved into the animations and cant wait to try making another set of cutscenes like these.

The animated idols and parts

first of  noting that these aren't in order of appearance

the animations in this short film are all the parts animated for the two cutscenes over the course of the project. These animations were all hand drawn in Photoshop then sent into adobe animate to be animated into their respected scenes. for the first 14 seconds the standing animation was made by Oscar and added upon by me as when blues hovering for when they're hovering straight up 3 seconds while yellow hovers 5 was made was by Oscar after those few seconds the characters lean back lightly and begin a new hover cycle and this was done by me for the new dance in the beginning of the ending cut scene. From there on everything was my work. each animation was started as still drawing based on its respective animatic point and was taken between Animate and Photoshop to be animated into their scenes as the loop comprised of all hand drawn frames that were imported from Photoshop. infact the original  dance was two still drawn images dude to the fact of it begin space there would be almost no movement coming from the two characters. This ended being a long and strenuous project but the end result for each of them was worth it in the end of it all.

order of animations seen in the example video are
1: Yellow and Blue idols (ending)
2: Separation between blue and yellow (beginning)
3: Standing fall/landing (beginning)
4: Drawn stills for the opening scene (beginning)
5: face the sky falling (beginning)
6: fall start and main (beginning)
7: yellow split (beginning)




Overall this project has been a very unique experience as a whole and a completely big and new challenges to overcome. But at the end of this all it was worth it and a great unique experience to take under my belt for the future.

Environmental Game Assets the star stuff

During the idea process of my concepts to the environmental assets I choose to do sprites of interactive stars each having unique characteristics to them as in the concepts of page 1 on left. With the soul style shooting star the idea is to make it a form of being either a environmental hazard that could be a projectile that could hit the player or be something that the player could potentially ride on the way down. Under and to the right of the star was the interactive star points which would be elements that could interact with the player in various ways. A blue star could be a check point, green could be health and so on, Stars can be different colors of the color spectrum and I could take that to my advantage to create unique star points but make them feel similar in their own right. as with conception below showing having add on features like auras, tails and so on could lead to different possibilities overall. 

The second page of concepts was to create black holes or star attackers which were either add on's to stars like the purple star which is a trap star or to be its own kind of star as a whole overall.

these don't seem to be working very well in my opinion and could be worked further in more development in the future of the project.

these are the first of the star concepts that were created for the project with two of the four selected for unity work. These two that were selected were the blue and green stars as they felt more polished and finished as a whole and I personally liked these the most over the current stars made. the shooting star is the most liked by my peers but however I personally see a urge to improve this asset before its ready as the outer parts don't feel like they flow over all and they feel more jolting than flowing. Finally the red star is one of my favorites of the batch, in fact my most favorite however I see just a bit more work is needed though at the same time it doesn't need it as its not really a interactive element rather a random element to inform the player than for interaction. So I left this one on hold for now but it feels good that its animation is jolting and broken to represent the fact its a suffering star and thus makes it my most favorite.

planning more stars as a total of eight were planned with two more already being animated in flash as the white star which is a story node star and the purple star which is a trap star that can kill the players in two fashions exploding or black hole attacks.

animation things weeks 2-8

Transdisciplinary Exercise 1 - Perceiving 

This was the first task animation to show reaction to certain foods we chose to eat while basing it around the ratatouille movie scene. The food I chose to eat lime Poki sticks, which personally I didn't like it overall. It tasted very bitter and lacked some taste at all. So when working on this animation I chose to make the background white to represent the lack of taste there was. While I made the green brief and quick as possible to represent how much I wanted it to finish and just leave it overall. Thus why this animation is so plain and bare as a whole.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 2 - Playing

For this exercise I parodied the scene in this comic working around on how to change it and changed it from a horror discovery to a fake discovery of a murder where the murderer returns back to the scene of the crime. Mainly when I did this I didn't really have much ideas and this was more a out of the blue idea that came out, and for this kind of idea I kinda liked what came out though mainly dialogue was the only change I made.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 3 - Patterning 

When making this short animation with the stock footage I did a basic idea of getting thrown around in the waters wave. Compared to what some of my classmates have done its not out there like theirs but personally playing with this its a good try to do personally.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 4 - Embodied Thinking 

Working with my classmate Johnathan we traded our briefs. His being when he was 7 years old and using a hose, sandals and BB guns against a horde of bugs. my attempt is to start off with brown with the bugs and move to the two sandals and flood the screen with blue to represent water overall. This was to be quick, fast and flashy. Since I had no noise I tried to use the colors to quickly explain the chaos in the animated short. Overall this was a modest success but as normal I feel I can do more next time which I'll work with later on.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 5 - Modelling

The conception of time is kinda impossible to explain as it's really a thing that exists but you can't really explain it. To make it brief and quick each color shows the turbulence of history itself and that as it progresses it would slow down and calm down over time. This is overall how I personally can explain this to the best of my abilities.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 6 - Abstracting 

Her names Sophie a angel which means she can fly and has light powers. Her young age is very abnormal to fly as shes very young in angel years to fly. To the discipline I am working with it doesn't really work as I'm considering Modelling as mine and flight doesn't seem to work with this one and truthfully I don't know how it would work with it.

Transdisciplinary Exercise 7 - Synthesizing 

the brief

Create a visual artifact (i.e. a short animation, or an illustration) around the following theme: What does society look like when it is working at its best?

with my small illustration I chose to make it a token with a red cross which represents aid and morality used by our emergency services and the red cross foundation. The blue and green represents the calmness of society as well as unity between all of us as people. This is kinda referencing the Norwegian country's like Sweden, Denmark ect.

where they're know for having really good lifestyles and other advantages so it made sense to use this.

Exquisite Corpse 

work for the Exquisite Corpse from my frame to Teahi's 

had alot of fun doing this but wish I could have added something better to transition with as I did feel a bit disappointed with it.

Research and study work for project.

military themed

100th anniversary of tanks

strategy, armored warfare, classic illustration ideas from 1940s-60s-90s

huge scale

 

several comparisons of tanks going through various upgrades as examples

M4A1 Sherman to M4A3E8(76)W HVSS (easy eight Sherman)

       

British Cromwell tank evolving into the Comet tank

German Panzer 4s upgrades from F2 to H models

all these are evolution of variations series of tanks to newer versions or making way to a newer and better tank

there's a lot to play with here and my Discipline will likely be Modelling by playing with shape as what most tanks have in common is their basically a metal box sometimes angled boxes but are still boxes in a nutshell overall.

playing with evolution and shape will be my primary focus and during holidays will look for the tanks I want to use for the project as a whole but overall I feel I know what I'm planning now for the project as a whole

Concepts for game design

some of sky background concepts

bottom two focusing on could placement while top is changing the color a bit more at the bottom. will add more color combinations later trying to keep basic and useful as backgrounds as a whole.

playing with design concepts for the soul giving it a male and female counterpart

concept for tutorial level layout in underground setting.

mood boards for ice and space level designs and styles overall

Production interactive

Exercise 1

Decided for the task to create a personal message to a character of mine called Zoel. This takes place during the rising threats with a general wanting to warn and give Zoel both a sense of recognition for his hard work, but also a warning to whats been occurring recently. The message gives something that the player can start to thing upon with choice to where it is a good or bad situation their been placed into.

Exercise 2

A special Universal class weapon. Designed from the ground up to be perfect to the soldiers needs, however the weapon is suffering from a bad development history. But doesn't stop its power from influencing a battle. popularly given to commando squad delta















Exercise 3

 Pocket watch dialator
will dialate time around user to slow it down or pause it completely.

prduction week 3 to 8 Animation and credits

over the last 5 weeks have been really hectic and massive amounts of work was done even though in week 3 animation work was started credits were apart of the work but however over the last 5 weeks animation did take major priority as a whole. mainly due to the time required and the constant changes in the animation as my scene for the animation spanned over 4 different kinds including a few minor differences relating to the 3D model but however my job was to do 2D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2gKy37UwwI

right here is the original work in progress of the animation made with help with my tutors as I did find it fairly challenging to do personally but after that help I was able to gain a idea of what I was planning to do. As originally nothing was planned for the scene and Johnathan as Head of 2D said I could get a bit creative in this part which I did. (week 3.5 to 4)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xre-PGAEd7k

during the animation I took advantage to get a pre-made parts for the arm giving it three parts. upper, lower and hand. This gave me a much faster and way more consistent feel of the arms and also this gave me a unknown advantage as when I had the hand to draw it was just adjusting and giving fingers to it, a nice bonus in animating. After the first animation was done there was a noticeable problem was that at the end, the hand blended too much with the actors hair and made it fairly hard to see, This ended up deciding as a group with input from our lectures to make this be redone and so i did. (weeks 4-5)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wduGDO4u4qc

this being a repeated and improved attempt suggested by Keith and since he was leaving the college we agreed as a group and decided to do it as a small tribute to him. I got right into it and created this and keeping the original template for the arms made this process much faster and less time consuming as a result but it still took off a fair amount of time to smooth it and make it flow nicely. after 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR29qvKuayQ

(weeks 6-7) during this point I was to work on shot 5 after this was finished but it wasn't as more movement was later required and I had to do it so I went off and later Johnathan told that another group member would take over from there to help speed things up. This allowed me to make the necessary fixes needed and I managed to get it out very quickly with maximum efficiency by Friday.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xx3ULrMy48

(weeks 8.5) prior to week 8 I was told that the shot needed to be redone and I was ready. But however during the first half of week 8 made it impossible to do and i had to do it on Thursday last minute. as the 3D needed to be reworked on. this was when I managed to get into working on a background for credits, later after receiving the new 3D animation i was to discuss with help from Jerwin and Johnathan on what to do and I after getting all the information I knew what i was to do and managed to pull it off in a few hours with Friday being handed in to the group (noticing just now the audio is acting up but in the school computers it wasn't doing that so i dont know whats happened but hopefully it was fixed in editing)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPvGAmSBANY

originally i was to do shot 5 however halfway into the WIP I was to redo shot 2 for the 3rd time and with credits to do also made it very time restrained but later other group members were having alot extra time and Johnathan gave it to Michelle Choi to do but this is what i did prior to it being revoked from my job.

during week 3 animation kicked in a I had to prioritize the animated shots over credits but around week 7 i managed to get enough spare time and quickly used it as a opportunity to give it what I could make and this was it on Tuesday i got approval from almost all of the group who complimented it as cute and even though Michelle Zhen wasnt there i instantly got into action doing the digital and showed it to her on Monday who agreed to it. On the last day of editing i gave the PSD file to Johnathan to help edit with and told him he can do what ever he needed and play with scaling it ect.

on a side note there was a copyright issue with the original font Birds of Paradise and we couldn't do it so we had no choice but to move to a new font and me and Johnathan quickly found a new one called Blacksword.

overall this experience to finish this was quite happy and im personally proud of what both my group and I have finished and accopmlished.

week 1 and 2 blog for production credits and other things

Credits listed out - new list

Story created and written by  Mikayla Atkins

Director:  Michelle Choi

Producer: Michelle Zhen

Editing: Michelle Zhen

Sound director: Jonathan Coronado

Background artist: Mikayla Atkins

Voice Actors/Actors: 

Michelle Zhen- herself

Nick "Mug"- Butter

Animation Department:

3D Department: 

Head- Jerwin Lucinario

Assistant- Michelle Choi

2D Department: 

Head- Jonathan Coronado

Assistant- Zack Karai

Special thanks

Nick "Mug"

Robby Peters

Color mood board and font mood board

personal favourites

mouth chart butter test to gain better ideas in lipsinc 

i made the mouth chat as a way of testing a reference to animating the butters mouth and to give an idea what it may look like in certain phrasing.

the font mood board has now been separated into 2 parts research and final one overall i like personally as well as a color board for suggested backgrounds


Edit added a new title color comparison

team members went preferably towards the 5th Birds of Paradise but two had extra opinions. One member suggested for the 5th that the red should be lightened a little bit as it felt a little harsh. Another team member suggested the 4th with the 5th as it felt good towards the darker tones of the films background. This trend however is probally due to matching the title card as even I admit it matches the cards base color very nicely and fits it very well as a whole.