Who am iiiiiiiiiiiii?

I have no idea yet Jackie but i know i wanna be creative :)

So for our final presentation of the year PPP i did a game environment again... surprise.

I wish i would have had more time to make a new environment but instead to save time and cause Anna said it was ok i used the environment i just made for the responsive brief. I made sure to add things to it though to make it PPP orientated. I added in a leap of faith and a graveyard of ideas where i've wrote my feelings on tombstones and put old crappy idea's in the graveyard. I've also set up a live band of the Plobears to view with a great view of my responsive brief :)

I've set up some image planes of all the work i'm proud of this year and to talk through what i learnt from them etc. And finally i've put my brain in there.... 

I like the little presentation i've got going on and can definitely talk for 20minutes. 

Here's some questions i answered from the powerpoint so that i can have a better idea of walk i'm talking about whilst up there. 

A little bit of Story Background information on 'Tkan'

I jotted down some ideas of my landscapes background just to give the feel of a little more information and story telling for the audience. As Transmedia's taught me it's very important to tell the story and bring everything together to create a sense of interaction and immerse the audience. 

My target audience is RPG and open world gamers and also students via educational tools through Transmedia. 

My Proposal Performa

I'm just uploading my Proposal performa as I'm not sure if mine was uploaded to the moodle, my internet was playing up that day so just in case here it is - 

Paintings and Photographs of Landscapes

I decided to take a different approach to looking at things and step away from the media side of things at look at paintings draw from real life, as i want to capture that realism it makes sense to look at the geography side of things and how the world actually works and how mountains are positioned, how weather effects them, how time erodes them, this way i can add a special touch to my environments and understand fully how something should be positioned there. Here's some research i ddi of photographs capturing beautiful mountain ranges. As you can see they are truly gorgeous and everything seems to just be in place, i have noticed i do need to get the hill shape that is created cause most mountains slowly build up in height, i dont want a mountain just shooting up ridiculously tall in my scene.

There always seems to be depth of field used everywhere and reflection, at the moment i dont know how to create reflections this is something i need to learn and practise but i've definitely used depth of field with the two terrains making one lower and higher to give that feel of how far away things are in comparison to the first person controller. 

Here's some painting's i took inspiration from-

Susan Everett - Screenwriter

Susan Everett came in to talk to us about screenwriting and her life in general, as soon as she started talking i knew she was going to be a great speaker, she gave us the talk of what she did through her life, facts about her, helpful tips and just spoke to us with confidence and humour. She was very easy to listen too and i took a lot away from the talk. 

She made points of entering competitions  don't loose hope, keep trying, know your field etc... It was refreshing to have someone talk to you who you actually believed and wasn't there to just big up themselves. 

A main point Susan made was to do research, dig under the surface and find out about your subject and the people in your area. Find out how stuff works instead of waiting to be taught, get out there, do it, go see, also find people you can trust and like to help you along the way. 

Don't waste time really. 

For me she has probably been the best talker we've had, honest, funny and down to earth and i respect her for that. 

I'll keep with me for life the sentence she said - 'Imagine people as onions' 

...so many layers :')

ha true. 

Unfortunately i cant find a video of her work on youtube she showed us but i especially liked the litte details in it, you can tell she's passionate about getting her story across and creating twists in peoples minds. From the beginning of the film i could tell the girl was nuts, she had that crazy eyes about her, very well acted. All in all a great talk and she had great advice. 

Minecraft - how anyone can now build a landscape from their mind

It's nuts today now, anyone can jump onto minecraft and create a whole world. It's fantastic. I still am to get minecraft but i've seen it been played and the environments people have made, some of them are amazing. It's great how now people are being given the technology and creativity to make something and they enjoy it cause they think its a game but really it's a sort of transmedia in itself. Kid's don't wanna look 'uncool' being creative and learning but really video games now are expanding and developing so much that minecraft in my opinion is a source of art. You can literally pick up an axe and blocks and build away till you have the empire state building, or Neverland  or Winterfall. Here's some images i found from the web on people creating these spectacular things, i'm going to buy it over summer as it will also be a good tool for scenography  another thing that kids are learning without even knowing it! -

Ok i'm getting carried away wanting to show them all so here's the link if you want to fully look - it's brilliant - http://mashable.com/2013/02/13/amazing-minecraft-creations/#gallery/25-minecraft-creations-that-will-blow-your-mind/518922bd97b2f84b61003b49

Forums on beautiful landscapes in games

Here's just a little bit of research i found on forums, people talking about and comparing what they think the most beautiful landscapes in games are, it's interesting to see all the things people are talking about and the opinions they have. There's a few games i've never seen before as well that are stunning, have a look -

http://forums.gametrailers.com/thread/most-beautiful-landscapes-in-g/1160358?t=1160358&gt=1

http://forums.gametrailers.com/viewtopic.php?t=1160358&p=31559628#p31559628

Looking into scenography

Scenography is basically everything that is brought together to establish an atmospeher and mood. So usually where you place things is going to set the scene for example let's say a horror. This is crucial as without the environment and the correct placements of things things can look off and take away the realism and focus from the scene. Let's look at dead space, dead space's environments set the scene so well, everything is long corridor's small spaces or when your in a large space everything is bigger than you and positioned well to give a feeling of dominance and fear. The lighting is fantastic and come together with everything else to set the mood. Sound plays a fantastic role too creating suspense and many many jumps! I've learned to focus more on bringing all these things together to create a better sense of realism and spark more emotion for the gamer in the environment. Here's some screenshots of gameplay and art work from deadspace -

also i found this on a website, fantastic passage here about -

The relationship between scenography and architecture

It was in this way that the relationship between scenography and architecture was forged. The annotation is identical in both cases: scale drawings of a plan, section and elevations, and often scale models. Architecture has always historically been expressed this way, and scenographic concepts must ultimately be represented in the same manner. The essential difference, of course, is that the stage is a fictional universe, a neutral space for imagined places. Even the most distorted early perspective sets are obviously plan-driven.

The modern theatre owes much to its historical and traditional connections with architecture, and lighting and sound design have been tossed into the mix because technology has made it possible to control and reproduce them, along with set and costume design. These four separate but inter-related disciplines are included in producing the scenography.

The director is involved throughout, but the look and feel of the performance is ultimately the result of a collective creative process. This idea of a design committee is taken literally in many contemporary European theatres and is often the practice in Montreal theatres - wherein no individual design credits are given, and the scenography is signed collectively by a group of “conceptors” (concepteurs). Historically, conception has been a reference to the set designer. This is the traditional usage, common in western Europe and America, along with specific credits given to costume, lighting and sound designers. This is normal, in that usually it is the set designer who first gives an architecture to the space of the stage.

So it is that the term “scenography” has evolved from its historical antecedents in classical antiquity and its connection to the architects of the Renaissance. Largely due to the theatrical activity in Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, it has broadened its meaning to i nclude all of the elements that contribute to establishing an atmosphere and a mood for a theatrical presentation.

Here's the website from the above and another one about scenography -

http://theatredesigner.wordpress.com/articles/theatre-design-scenography/what-is-scenography/

http://www.artsalive.ca/collections/imaginedspaces/index.php/en/learn-about/scenography

making it more realistic - particles/ flares/ lighting

So the final touches are here! Need to add my waterfalls and flare. I attempted to do it old school at first and create the waterfall myself with world velocity and max energy etc... but i'm running out of time so i chose to use the built in waterfall in the particles folder.

Annabeth helped with the skybox as a bunch of us just could not remember how to do it but it's so simple! I added a nice day sky to match the water and the feel of the scene. I think it worked pretty well. 

One problem i came across was that unity wasn't registering all the scenery as there was too much of it (2KM) so Anna showed me how to easily solve this problem by increasing the camera clipping planes, this solved the problem straight away :)

One last thing that i had a problem with as well was that the first person controller moved so slowly, this again was due to the terrain being so vast so she showed me a simple fix under character motor which then we changed the max and min speed which sorted that one out too. 

Lastly Anna showed me how to insert a flare to a directional light which just made the scene much more believable and pretty. These simple things have really added to the realism of the scene. 

I did a little tidy up with box colliders so that when your exploring the world you can't walk through objects, this was done really quick and Tim showed me an even faster way then creating empty shapes. Much much quicker way of doing it here - 

Now on to the waterfall!

as i said above i attempted to do it all on my own at first but due to time its an already made waterfall, i tweaked around the measurements so that it would touch the bottom of the water where i wanted it and also anna said to put world collider on which is a fantastic tool that just makes it look more natural and pretty.

i accidentally made a tsunami! 

hahaha

:D

So yeah particles do help here's a screenshot of everything together, i'm quite happy with the final thing.

Creating the terrain in Unity

Here's my favourite part :D i had so much fun doing this, i really enjoy it. 

So i started off by putting two terrains together one higher than the other so that it would create an atmosphere of space and so that when you reached the fence you could see how far away from the rest of the landscape you were. I worked from my head and positioned things as i saw fit from the research i had made and the short sketches i had drawn. I fund it really easy to place everything like i saw it in my head and before i knew it i was done, well, as done as i could be with the time i had left. 

another two views here-

So then i moved on to the painting part, i started by covered the land all in one colour and then adding textures in layers painting them over the top of each other until i was happy with the result. I found this much easier to do in unity rather than photoshop. I also added some water in so i could get a better idea of where to paint. 

I then moved on to the other side and worked my way back again adding paint as i saw fit thinking of the colours of landscapes in real life and referring back to mood boards and images. 

So here's the almost finished result! Got everything set up as needs be, the graveyard, the place for the temple, the shed, the waterfalls etc...

I then added in little details such as pathways and tree's to make it look more realistic  the only thing i have left to do now is add in the model's i made in maya and resize them and place them.