Crit presentation

This week has been really busy. Apart from participating in a lower year’s Crit presentation as usual I had my hands full with my own preparation for Thursdays Crit presentation: trying to complete oil and watercolour mock-up screenshots for my game 'Lyse'. On Tuesday met with Simone to have a quick chat about my work so far however because I had only one version ready did not get much feedback but she said she liked what I was doing.

I have managed to finish my game environment layout sketches by completing the last part: air (see image below)

Also finished intended screenshot mock-ups (see images below)

 Oil/acrylics version

Watercolour version

Although I did not have time left to redesign my character I have included my new character inspiration moodboard (see image below)

So far my personal thoughts about the work

Not happy with the mock-up screenshots. There is nothing wrong with the sketch underneath the paintings; however the painting bit for neither oil/acrylic nor watercolour is right. The images are of course quite rushed and supposed to be only 'sketches' but still... things are wrong. There is no surprise about the watercolour media imitation as it is very far from the real water on paper technique. However, one would think that oil/acrylic would be easy, but no, the art is not happening on a digital paper/canvas like it used to on a real one. The technique does not feel right even though use of various brushes and their different settings helps (mentioned in my week 19 post). At the moment watercolour looks better, however there is an issue with watercolour. Since the feature of watercolour is its translucency on a paper and my game environment is contains many layers I think transparent trees just not going to look right. Besides,  if I vent for the 100% opacity then the environment would look 'cut-out'. Not sure if I want that.

In addition,  the colour! I like the sky in the background however it just does not work with the foreground. I defiantly need to fix that by either changing the sky layer or the forest. Also, sky is obscured by the forest layers. Perhaps revealing more of it would also give more space for the UI/HUD at the top of the screen.

During Crit presentation I have talked about my game idea, game design and layout.  Also showed images of paper prototype as well as character designs and moodboards and told them that I will change my character design to something simpler. Perhaps something similar to the Boy from 'How to Catch a Star' by Oliver Jeffers book, however I want it to have a painted texture and face.

Lecturers’ feedback

I did not get that much feedback even though they asked quite a few questions about my process and art. They still like the idea and what I am doing though which is nice. Also, I probably need to learn how to structure my presentation better so I explain more about what I am doing and how. I will have one more chance to do that at the end of the year and the presentation will be graded so I better make it right.

Crit presentation feedback

Thursday Crit presentation went well. Just a couple of days before it I was worrying that I still do not have an aim or even a vision statement for my project. Luckily my conscious finally managed to make a connection in my head between all those ideas that I have been having last few weeks and I finally have a vision statement/aim: 'explore how traditional art practise can inform and enhance production of 2D game art assets'.

My final project goal stayed more or less the same: create art assets for a single game idea and try to implement them in to a test game or most likely a mock up playable level.

As my practical work I have shown all the images from my previous post. Feed back I have received was exactly as I have expected. I had been advised to tackle background and interactive assets issue: how to try and make it more easy for a player to distinguish which objects are interactive and which ones are not. also look more in to traditional art and see what I can bring it to my digital art project.

My further action points are:

• to continue literature research. At the moment i am looking in to art aesthetics and aesthetic theories.
• reiterate my previous practical attempts: change colour scheme and fix artwork for: Fianna, Dragonfly dash and Noboy games.
• make more practical tests: improve backgrounds, try and reproduce texture that is often seen in oil paintings. (see image below)

Alexander Sigov. [online image]. Available from: http://pinka.pl/pin/148714/Alexander-Sigov#.UukZWfnFJpg [Accessed 2 November  2013]

Also as the time goes by I am starting to realise that I will not have enough time to do any programing on my own if I really wanted to make a playable demo. In my opinion, it would be a much better outcome then having a video or a bunch of still images as a final peace therefore, if I really want the demo to happen I would probably have to get  someone else on board. It is a major step, as some of my previous experience shows, working with others or depending on others for projects is not an easy task. I might have to look at getting programmers or game designers on board.