Final week: the end is already here

I went to the university this Tuesday; finalised last paperwork and had some quick advice on how to manage word count in my dissertation so I stay below the 9 or 10K word limit mark. Just want to make sure, I will remove the danger of getting penalised in case the word count does matter.
I have also been working on my practical stuff with an odd interruption now and again to sort either the submission materials or things related to exposition. I have also asked a friend of mine to start proof reading some dissertation material which is a great help.

Tomorrow is 12th of May and my first submission is due by 4pm. So far I have been concentrating on getting my practical stuff ready. I was not a 100% sure on what I should concentrate so chose to improve an overall environment art and then just try and implement everything in to a gameplay video created by Adobe After Effects since  most of the lecturers seem to always stress the interactivy part of the art within games.

In my opinion an updated environment art (see image below) looks better now as I have polished the overall look and introduced a lot of details, like texture, various patterns etc (see images below).

Overall look of the game art (above)

Texture application method using Emboss Layer (image above)

A lot of the basic texture came through the use of digital brushes that replicate traditional media look (image above). 

I have used Texture  brush settings to give canvas look (see image  above)and stayed away from applying texture on top of everything mainly because in previous tests it looked quite unnatural and too overpowering. 

To address the composition seen on a screen during gameplay, a variety of different shapes were introduced in the form of trees and bushes (marked in yellow), a rolling forest and foreground edge (marked in red) to give more variety and guidance for the eye. The forest line has also been intersected by a few curvy cloud lines (marked in green).
The onscreen image had also been broken in to four tone bands which balance an overall view (top and bottom): the lightness of the sky is counterbalanced by the dark middle ground at the bottom of the screen and protruding shadowy foreground elements are offset by the very bright clouds at the top of the screen. (see image below)

I have also finished UI design. Not a 100% happy with it but I am really pressed for time and this is the best I can come up with (see image below).

UI in game with inventory window closed (image above)

At the moment still working on the gameplay video, but I am sure it will not be fully completed by Monday 4pm. I chose to concentrate on showing the art rather than animations (e.g. character walking) and gameplay since the whole idea of my project is the about the look of the art and prove that it can work within a game environment. Animations would be a great thing to have but I do not have time to complete it atm.

That brings me to another point- presentation and an exposition next week. I will try to complete and polish the gameplay video for both of them. That means that I will continue doing my practical work after the dissertation hand in is done. I hope having things completed or nearly completed would help with my presentation as well as exhibition as I will be marked for both of them and I would like to get the best mark I can. I would love to have a chance to have an option of doing Masters later on.

Hardly any Dissertation work had been done this week. I managed to get some parts proofread by my friend for whom I am really grateful and I have already fixed grammar and spelling mistakes he has found. I will go back to dissertation after tomorrows hand in and will work on it until Wednesday morning or noon before sending it to be printed and bound.


I have also moved forward with promotional stuff I need to have for exposition. On Wednesday I have ordered 100 mini business cards with a range of different designs taken from my final project piece and a few postcards (see images below). Both of them should arrive by the 16th of May so it gives plenty time before the exhibition.

 I have also bought a printing credit from photobox for a poster size 30"x20". I will order it on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. That should give me enough time to receive it by Thursday morning. I am planning on having a large poster at the top showing off the game environment (have not made up my mind if I will have UI also displayed or not) and then a few A3 posters explaining a little my process and maybe some zoomed in examples to show off my brushwork etc (as the ones seen in this blogpost) At the moment also considering to dedicate one poster for my aim and objectives so people can have a quick look and read what my honours year project is about. It is a bit confusing what space I will have since I will be exhibiting at HMC and there is no detailed info about the wall space allocated when exhibiting there but this is a rough plan I have made (see image below).

And The Conclusion: how do I feel about my honours year project?...
I feel really happy that I have chosen this topic because it is of interest to me as well as I think it is one of the next steps the 2D videogame art is already taking (Braid by Jonathan Blow, Amanita design games and this month’s new release from Ubisoft 'The Child of Light'). I think the art of 2D video games is still evolving and has a long way to go. I feel it is time to try and give more choice and perhaps more quality for the videogame players. With my project I have only scratched the very surface of the topic and there is so much still left to explore. Feeling passionate about it has definitely made me more determined and more stubborn to try and do my very best, but at this moment in time I feel very tired and need to have a little break to rest and to think what I am going to do next. I still love videogames and certainly want to do something meaningful. Around 7 years ago I have made a conscious choice to change my life and pursue my goal of creating art again and I am not done yet. Hell!!! I  have just started and have a long way to go and I know, I will find things to do: I want to continue improving my art, learn a bit of programming  which would hopefully help me to create my own games and I will look for likeminded people to team up and create things; things that matter.

Finally got it!!!

After Last week’s presentation I have made a decision to continue with the oil/acrylic media look do to the facts that digital watercolour technique seem to be time consuming, especially when trying to get it to look right (as realistic as possible), also there is that layer issue mentioned in my last week’s post. I think oil/acrylic look is a bit of a safe option, but at the same time still very interesting one and not fully explored. In addition, there is a lot of practical information available online about digital painting in general and some of the digital artist (especially the ones that came from or also practice traditional media) now and again mention their use of certain techniques or types of brushes or other tools (e.g. Smudge tool) or ways of work on layers that are a little bit similar to traditional art. For exampleNykolai Alexander comes to mind. I've seen/read quite a few of her tutorials, and she seem to like using photographs of traditional media or even everyday patterns or textures for her custom digital brushes, as well as adding layers of some stains, or just smudges of colour and reducing their opacity to create a bit off 'mess'/'imperfection' to eliminate that 'digital polished look' in her own digital art. I do think that since human eye is trained to see patterns, facial features in various things, subconsciously we can recognise the repetition of brushes/brushstrokes that is visible in the digital art. I think subconsciously we might be able to recognise that there is something in-organic within the painting that is going on. But that is only my own theory and at the moment there is probably no point going in to it even if I really want to find out because I already have too many things going on.

So after I made up my mind about the media style and still was not happy about the previous attempt I've done a few more quick tests (see images below). I have wanted to see if I can find a better way of painting that looks more natural.

In the image above I was experimenting about leaving the black outlines and just layering the low opacity colours. It looked more like a watercolour then oil/acrylic so I decided not to continue with it.

In the image above I was experimenting with brushstrokes. How in a dark environment I could still possibly show some of the texture of the tree trunk.

Here I was trying to experiment with the sky: what brushes to use how it would work with the tree.

In the image above I was experimenting with a different kind of brushstroke.


I could feel it that there was something not quite right. The colour palette was what I wanted it to be and for some reason it was not working, and I had this issue with textures of the paint of the trees and the sky, how can I make them look different so they do not look boring but to still make it work. Something just wan not there and I was not happy.
I had to take some time off because my neck and my back were starting to hurt like crazy. After a day and a half I have returned back to the art and things just fell in to place. To help me along with the colour I did use an array of images that contained my desired colours and then just colour picked them and went on top with my brush covering everything that was there previously just keeping and mixing the colours I wanted. The same technique I have used it last year for the creation of animation background paintings. Also played some more with the colour dynamics on my brush. Below is an image I have managed to create and it just worked. I knew I got it! (see image below)

It just made me feel sooo good. Now just have to improve on it and make it things work better.


Now that I have the artwork on the way, I will also need to go back to the dissertation writing. During Crit presentation everyone was asked about their research and their dissertation. It certainly worked as a reminder to do the written work. I definitely need to go back to the aesthetics books as I really need to understand how I can tie it properly with the art that I am creating and digital 2D game art in general, and especially if I’m going to analyse art in my dissertation. It is still a very confusing topic to work ones head around. My plan is to complete the dissertation by the 21st of April with a few parts regarding my work missing and to be filled in later). I  do not like writing dissertation before my practical work is done but it has to be finished well before the submission because my supervisor needs at least 2 weeks to read it and give feedback.

Also need to make sure that I will have something to submit before 7th of April for the showcase reel.

On Thursday I had also been recommended to look at some art as practice books (e.g. Graham Sullivan 'Art practice as research') but so far I did not have time to do it.

Photoshop: Digital Brushes

After last weeks Research Proposal document submission I had a couple of days rest and tried to catch up with the rest of 'real life' stuff that had been abandoned for a good few weeks while I was working on my document.

Since majority of the written work is now out of the way I can concentrate on going back to doing some practical work on my project, which has sadly been more or less abandoned since the crit week.

As a first thing on my ‘to do list’ had been creation of some digital brushes that would help me imitate traditional media look. General Photoshop brushes that come with the software are certainly not enough. I have also discovered that some of downloaded brush sets are also not quite what I am looking for. Also, I think learning to create my own brushes would benefit me immensely in the future. From reading some of the digital painting magazines I took from library (series of ‘Digital Art Masters'  and 'Digital Painting Techniques' both by 3DTotal) I have come to realise importance of the digital brushes. Although, brushes will not make one draw/paint better however used cleverly and appropriately can save time and help one with achieving some of desired texture look; what I'm really looking for in this case.

The process started with making some marks on paper using traditional media like: graphite pencil, charcoal pencil, ink as well as acrylic paint, then scanning all of it to digitize it and turning each in to brush/brushes.


Here is my .pdf document showing originals and tests of Photoshop brushes I have managed to produce.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/blyq137wwh5ozub/PhotoshopBrushesSet.pdf

Link to actual brushes can be found at the end of the .pdf document.


I have to say some of the brushes came out to be more successful than others. (E.g. pencil ones and some paint ones as they resemble more the look/texture of the real media.) In general I think knowing how to create digital brushes is a great skill/knowledge for any digital painter as it gives a flexibility and speed  to workflow as well as perhaps a 'personal touch' to final artefact.