Character - Alien Character Colour Completed

The colour scheme for this character took much longer to get right than the plant characters. I am however very happy with the result.

Character - Final Logo Designs

Main Game Logo 

'Alien Enemy' Card Logo 

'Plant Character' Card logo

'Mutation' Card Logo

Character - Plant Character 2 Colour Completed

The colour is finished so now it just needs a little more work before I finalize it.

Character - Plant Character 1 Colour completed

I have completed the colour and detail for my first plant character. All that is left to do to complete him now is to neaten up all of the details and perhaps tweak some of the colours. The face will need more work in order to make it a more emotive character.

Character - Approximate Size Chart

I made this size chart for my three characters mostly for my benefit as I work on the colour concepts of these characters. I will likely include this in my final 'character bible' however, as it provides a useful insight into the size differences and how they would interact with each other.

Character - Final Alien Character Concept Silhouette

I have finally completed the silhouette for my alien character. Using a black silhouette as a base for this character has helped a lot, as I want this alien to be laden with random pieces of machinery/enhancements. Using an eraser and brush to keep adding and taking away from the shape has helped greatly to create unique and uneven shapes on this character. Let me know what you think.

Character - Final Plant Character Concept Silhouettes

These are the rough silhouettes for the final concepts of my two plant characters. As I struggle with posing characters I felt that working up from a silhouette would be the best way to do it. Let me know if you think they could be improved.

The character above is my first plant character. He is supposed to be agile and smart.

This is my second plant character, he is supposed to be strong and sluggish.

Narrative - Fish Scales

After receiving the file from mark, I implemented the scales onto the fish character I had skinned. Working with the scales as they grow/shrink for the animation will be somewhat slow as each scale will have to be altered individually . It is quite quick work to alter each scale though so it shouldn't be too bad. I think this fish is looking really good so far and I look forward to seeing it textured.

 

Narrative - Skinned Fish Character

After many issues and restarts, the fish character is now completely skinned and setup with the basic controls. If necessary, I may add more controls for the fins and tail. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome here.

 

Character Setup 

Character Setup (moved joints and mouth control)

Narrative - Fish Skinning Progress

The fish character is steadily progressing and the skinning is working out so far. The basic movement of the mouth and tail have been done but small tweaks and cleanups will likely need to be made.

 

Fish Mouth Movement

 



Fish Tail Movement

Character - Alien Character Development

Narrative - Rigging the Fish Character

 Basic Rig Setup

 Applied to Model

 Adding more Joints for Flexibility

Final Rig Setup

Film Review (Adaptation) - The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)

Fig 1. The Hunger Games Poster.

The Hunger Games was originally a trilogy of books written by the author Suzanne Collins. The film 'The Hunger Games' was released in 2012 and is an adaptation of the first book in the trilogy. When it was first released it was incredibly successful and set a record for the opening day of a non-sequel. When comparing the film to the book, it appears as though very little has been lost and no key pieces of dialogue have been left out. Overall the film seems to have been made very closely to the narrative in the book. This makes sense as the author of the books, Suzanne Collins was part of the team that wrote the screenplay for the film.

As the film appears very close to the original book, there are no notable or significant changes. Nothing specific has been added either. In terms of bringing the book to a more visual medium and the risks of such a move, the film appears to have captured the mood and look that the book portrays. As a result nothing has been lost in giving the world a specific look.

What is perhaps the most important part of the book are the themes and messages it sends to the reader. It speaks prominently about the problems and exploitation in reality television. The book also has a strong female protagonist which is a rarity in significant works of fiction. The film doesn't lose any of these traits, there are key pieces of dialogue in the books that speak to the audience about reality television. Those are still prominent in the film. The film also keeps a strong female protagonist.

Overall, this film is a rather successful adaptation of the book and there are no notable issues with its representation of the key aspects that are important in the book.

Illustration List

Ross, G (2012) Figure 1. The Hunger Games Poster. http://www.hungergamesdwtc.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/The-Hunger-Games-Poster.jpg (Accessed on 01/12/15)

Character - Further Character Concept Development

After talking with Justin on Tuesday about my characters, he suggested that I redraw my characters in a more dynamic pose so that I could better understand how they would look in 3d space. As I had already drawn my alien character in that way, I have now drawn my two plant characters like this. I intend to do more drawings like this as I test the possible changes that could be made.

Plant Character 1 (Agile) 

Plant Character 2 (Strong)

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing 3

After testing what lighting setup would be best in our current ravine scene, I am confident that what I have arrived at will work well as we begin to create our complete scene for the animation. After numerous attempts with different lights, I eventually used a weak area light covering the interior of the ravine and a volume light on our glowing plants. I also used a point light with the plant test (the orb). In the final scene it will likely sit inside of the plant and be disconnected from it, creating the illusion that the plant is glowing. 

 

 Render 1

 

 Render 2

 

 Render 3

 

Final Render

Character - Improved Alien Concept

As I struggled to create a definitive alien concept previously. I did some more sketches and was very pleased with the final result (bottom left). I now feel that I have three unique characters that I can start to work on more thoroughly in order to get the details right.

 

 

Character Session 9

 This session was our last we ended it on a group commission task. We were split into threes and given a sheet of paper detailing character bio's and environment details for a game. We had to split the work between the group and create concepts for all of the characters and environments. However, at regular intervals we were given additional tasks to complete with short deadlines. For instance, early on we were given the task of designing the logo for the 'Galactic Aviator Force'. In the end we decided on using my design.

Overall I enjoyed this session greatly and I am pleased with most of the concept work I created for the game.

 Our Logo for the Galactic Aviator Force.

Character Design for LX-ER 

Character Design for Dr Kromar Zun

 

Environment Design for the Splicing Chamber

Character - Refined Character Designs

After using specific character silhouettes as reference, I have drawn out my characters in more detail, focusing on specific features. In particular I have focused on the facial details of both of the plant characters as they will share traits such as mouth and eye design. My alien invader character still requires more work and I have not settled completely on a single design. I may need to do another set of refined ink silhouettes gathering all of the best features of previous work into cohesive designs. I have decided to work mostly in ink for these designs until I make them into digital concepts. This is because I do not want to lose some of the details that can only be achieved through ink work.

 

Plant Character 1

 

Plant Character 2

 

Alien Invader Character 

Character Session 8

In this session we had to design a game based on a specific card that we were all given. I was given the 'robot' card and I designed a card game about two mechanics racing to build their robot before the other, stealing their opponents cards and sabotaging their progress to get ahead and win. We had to design emblems and small details in order to get across information such as health, damage and other traits to our audience. I found this very helpful and it will no doubt come in handy when designing for my own card game.

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Page 2 

Page 3

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing 2

 Previous Lit Scene

 Changed the Spot Lights to a Lighter Blue

Added Volume Lights to Plant Life to Simulate a Glow

 

 

After adding a little more detail to the lighting testing I had worked with previously, I asked Simon what other techniques I could use to create a deep sea feel to our scene. He said it would mostly come from our work with light in the scene. He did also suggest some subtle particle effects in Aftereffects to move past the camera view. I feel that the bottom render image in this post is quite close to the basic lighting setup of our scene.

Character - Alien Invader Silhouette Work

The silhouettes below are for my 3rd character in my game, which is the alien invader that my two plant characters will be fighting. Overall I am quite happy to take some of these forward into more refined concept work. I feel particularly drawn to numbers 4, 6 and 7. 

 

Narrative - Render and Lighting Testing



I have been trying to get a rough mockup of our ravine scene to appear underwater. So far I have tested different lighting techniques, including colour and fog effects. I intend to look into rendering techniques that could help me next as lighting certainly helps but will definitely not be enough on its own. The bottom image is what I have achieved using various lights.

 

Apologies as the images are quite dark as our scene is deep underwater, so a lot of the stronger lights will likely come from the plant life.

 

Basic Lighting setup.

Working with light fog. 

Final result with lighting.

Character - Post OGR Progress

During the character session with Justin, he advised me about how I could develop my three characters more.

 



The three thumbnails above are for my first plant character, he is meant to be the more agile and flexible of my two plant characters, as such Justin suggested that I take the character I had already worked on and make his limbs longer. This helps translate that this character is agile and fast. Of the three silhouettes I have created, I feel that number two is the strongest and is very close to how I want my character to look. I will definitely be taking that design forward and developing it into more refined concept work.

 These three silhouettes above and the six below are both further explorations of my second plant character, I feel that number five is the strongest silhouette of the group but will still need more work. The six thumbnails below seem far too generic to me and as such I will not be considering any of the designs as I move forward with my characters.

The next thing to do now is to create more silhouettes for my third character, the 'alien invader', and then begin more detailed concept work for all three.