Rigging Fundamentals

In this project I will be rigging a pair of legs so they move in a realistic manner. Firstly I'm going to examine the bone structure of the lower body so I have some idea of what I'm aiming for.

I have been examining the bone structure to gain a further understanding on the bone structure of the legs. 


Here is my finished rig complete with reverse foot lock. 

  

Representation and Space

In this project Im going to focus mainly on how games reflect culture as well as touching on how game environments have advanced over the years. 

Here is some work I put together to go towards my report: 

How do games reflect culture and how has technology and techniques affected game environments?

Culture in itself is a very diverse concept that is often used to refer to the values, actions and knowledge of a society.  Culture can be attributed to social organisation, religion or economy as well as a societies traditions and their way of life. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman’s Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals suggests that pigeon holing culture with a single definition would limit the concept as there are so many ways to see and understand it.

 Games are linked to culture on many levels. They reflect culture through the way they depict gender in their characters as well as race and class. For example Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas reflects the culture in the USA of the African American stereotype as well as reflecting the class of the poor who have turned to crime. Games are also influenced by the culture of the time they are made like how Army of Two featured suicide bombers obviously influence by the many terrorist attacks that hit the headlines over recent years.

 Fallout: New Vegas is an interesting game to examine as there is so much culture reflected in its story and characters. Firstly the most prominent cultural reflection is the fear and morbid curiosity of a nuclear war. Ever since the 19060s Cuban missile crisis the world has obsessed with the possibility of a nuclear war and what would be left of the world if such an event were to happen. However the Fallout series is set in a universe on a different path and timeline to our own where it is the USA and China that start the nuclear war. This is also a reflection of culture as it is a historical fact that China and the USA have seen each other as mortal enemies in the past and clash in culture still very much so in the present day. This is partly down to the political differences between them with the USA being adverse to communists such as the leaders of China. Post apocalyptic worlds seem to fascinate people and have become a popular concept. Other examples of similar stories include a film called The Road based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy and another film called The Book of Eli both take place in post apocalyptic America.   

 The next most prominent reflection you’ll notice in Fallout: New Vegas is the 1950s theme, which is one of the key characteristics of the game. You will see examples of 1950s décor in the buildings occupying the game as well as the style being expressed through the clothing of some characters, the illustrations in the manual and loading screens. This concept draws from the idealistic ‘world of tomorrow’ view of the future that was popular in the 1950s. So not only are they reflecting the real historical 1950s society but also the sci-fi culture from the past.  

 Once you get past these initial concepts you get to the culture portrayed by the characters in the game. There are of course a great many characters in Fallout: New Vegas with varying personalities and cultural representations, one example is a faction called the Great Khans. The Great Khans are based on Mongolian warriors who raid towns and reflect the brutal nature of the Mongols. Perhaps the most obvious representation these characters have to the Mongols is in their name referring to Genghis Khan a famous historical figure in the Mongol culture. The leader of this faction, a man named Papa Khan, takes on the role of the tough chief who values strength above all else and gives little thought to mercy.

The plot of Fallout: New Vegas is about a power struggle, where different factions are looking to control the Mojave Wasteland. Each faction represents a different culture such as the New California Republic (NCR) who are portrayed generally as the good guys and as the name suggests they are an organised republic who reflect our western culture the most out of all the factions. The next main Faction is Caesar’s Legion who strongly reflects the Romans. Again this is evident not just in their name but in the armour they wear and the culture of the faction itself by keeping slaves, a fighting arena and their quest to expand their domain. The different cultures of these factions’ starts to look like a battle between old and new ideals the NCR representing the new and Caesar’s Legion representing the old.

 Fallout: New Vegas shows that although games occupy their own space and time but their cultural representation and influences can extend outside of this relating to the player on a more real and personal level.

 Fallout: New Vegas is a very in depth role playing game that is completely free roaming and lets the player to customise their character and make their own decisions throughout, leading to different consequences. This allows the player to explore the personal identity of their character and take on the responsibility of the future of the in game world by picking a side to fight for. This lets the player take the culture of the different factions into consideration using their own judgment influenced not just by the game but by the cultural experiences and personality of the player themselves.

 When games like this push the boundaries and expand beyond their own space they can be interpreted to have transformative play. This is when a game has the potential to transform culture by referencing, influencing and altering cultural contexts beyond the formal limits of the game. An example I believe to be a form of transformative play is the much talked about mission entitled “No Russian” in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where the player embarks on a terrorist mission undercover and witnesses and can take part in a massacre at an airport. It’s clear this scene was designed to shock people as terrorist attacks, particularly linked to airports, have shocked the world in real life. I believe it to be transformative play because it’s referencing the heightened threat of terrorism in modern culture and allowing the player to not only to witness the act but take part in it influences the way people feel about it by evoking some sort of emotional response. And finally it alters the culture of the gaming world more generally as they are the first to produce a scene like this in a game to gather so much interest and can be seen as a mark of how controversial games can be on this particular issue whether it be considered as too far or just risky. 

 In conclusion the evidence I have found through the primary research of my own experiences and secondary research using Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman’s book Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals shows that games represent culture in the contexts of where and when they are produced and played. I have also found that some games can transform culture through transformative play to affect a genuine change. As games can represent culture so efficiently they can be considered as a cultural text meaning they can be interpreted and analysed similarly to investigations in cultural anthropology or cultural studies. 

Digital Modelling

For this unit I am going to be modelling a door, UV mapping and texturing it so its production ready.
Firstly I decided to choose the style of door I wanted to model. After searching through many pictures of doors on the internet I decided a medieval style wooden door with a strait edged arch. This is partly to because i like the style myself and also that i decided being my first digital modeling experience a strait edge arch would easier to create rather then a curved one.

This is a preliminary sketch for the door I am planning to model:

This an experimental sculpt of my Maya modelled door: 

This is my finished sculpted and textured door: 

With the lighting I gave it a slightly yellow tint to try and mimic flaming torchlight. 

Media Industries: Roles and Practice

Activision and Tale of Tales 


Activision Blizzard has a vast portfolio of best selling games such as Guitar Hero, Call of Duty and Tony Hawks.
Activision Blizzard has operations in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia, Chile, India, Japan, China, the region of Taiwan and South Korea.
Activision specialises in contemporary games designed to appeal to the mass market unlike Tale of Tales, which is a independent game development company that appeals to more of a niche market.

"The purpose of Tale of Tales is to create elegant and emotionally rich interactive entertainment. We explicitly want to cater to people who are not enchanted by most contemporary computer games, or who wouldn’t mind more variety in their gameplay experiences. For this purpose, all of our products feature innovative forms of interaction, engaging poetic narratives and simple controls."
http://tale-of-tales.com/blog/information/ 


This quote clearly explains that Tale of Tales developers intensions are to be different from developers like Activision, they offer a very artistically surreal experience as I discovered when I played The Path, a production of Tale of Tales. Although Activision has the advantage when it comes to funding and having a wider portfolio of successful games Tale of Tales has a specialty that the consumer won't find in any of Activision's games. 


My Report

In this report I will be looking at Epic Games paying particular attention to Gears of War 2. I am then going to compare them to Tale of Tales, an independent games developer, and one of their games The Path. I have played both of these games and am hoping they will help me understand the differences between mainstream and independent game developers.  Mainstream AAA+ titles dominate the game industry with well-advertised releases, huge hype from the media and legions of dedicated fans.  Funding of course is a key factor in the success of these companies allowing them to use the latest technology and pump money into marketing their products.

 Independent games on the other hand do not have this advantage these low budget game developers have a fraction of the resources that the big commercial companies have, much smaller teams working on their projects and a smaller reputation.

 Epic Games are a very successful games developer their Unreal series has sold in the millions and Gears of War and Gears of War 2 sold over 12 million units. One aspect Epic Games boasts about is the Unreal engine used to create their games, this technology allows the developer to produce high quality games expected from top titles like Gears of War. It also provides Epic Games with a source of extra revenue and networking opportunities by essentially renting the licence for the Unreal engines to other game developers who then have a business agreement through the Epic Games partners’ programme. The exact cost for access to the licence is not publically known.  

 AAA+ Games attract some of the best games designers giving them a better chance of creating successful game. Lead game manufacturers such as Epic Games and Microsoft game studios can almost be considered as a guarantee of quality for any game with their logo on the box. Although the logos do not guarantee the game will be good the buyer can normally assume with confidence the graphics, audio affects and cinematics will be of good quality.

 To better understand the process of making an AAA+ game I watched a behind the scenes DVD on the making of Gears of War 2. Firstly Epic Games developed the story and the script and the voice actors worked on their parts. A contributing factor to Gears of War 2 being a top of the range game is the calibre of the voice actors and the quality of the story. The amount of effort put into making this game shines through but can be easily taken for granted. The audio effects are of a very high quality and Epic Games has a full choir and an orchestra playing separately and mixed together in a sound studio using a similar method to the making of a film soundtrack. The cinematics in the cut scenes use actors in special animation suits that track the body’s movement to get realistic movement. There is also a lot of programming, artwork and game testing carried out in a long, complicated and iterative process to ensure they make it as good as possible.

 It would seem that AAA+ games are just too good to compete with then. However independent developers like Tale of Tales have their own advantages. For example I consider myself a firm supporter of AAA+ games but after playing The Path I found it to be enjoyable in a way very different to Gears of War 2. It was simple yet effective creating a powerful atmosphere although the graphics are inferior to Gears of War 2. The path works very differently there are no enemies to fight and the goals are vague and self motivated, with many quirky features and even more promised in other Tale of Tales products on their website its clear that they appeal to a niche market and anyone looking for this experience is unlikely to look towards Epic Games or any other AAA+ game developer.

 The way these companies operate contrasts as Epic Games has a vast network of employees under pressure to produce lots of best selling games. Tale of Tales on the other hand has only 19 people advertised on their website working on their games and have a much smaller output of games.

 A disadvantage for AAA+ games is that they are not as free as independents if for instance the vast majority of new realises from big companies are sequels as they are the franchises making them the most money some good examples of this are Halo and Call of Duty. This limits the creativity because the developers have to keep to what they know will sell and cant deviate too much so not to anger their diehard fans. The pressure on the big game companies to bring out sequels to a deadline can interfere with the end result for example Fallout New Vegas although a great game is riddled with bugs and you get the impression it maybe needed more time to be perfected.  AAA+ games are also judged a lot on how advanced the technology used to create them like how many enemies can be on screen at once, how detailed the graphics are and the smoothness of the gameplay. Independent games on the other hand are expected to be inferior in these ways so less is expected of them and they are judged on other aspects such as their originality and quirks.

 To conclude if you were to choose which is superior the facts speak for themselves; AAA+ games sell more copies and make more money and use the latest technology to push the frontier of games forward. And although I enjoyed The Path I still prefer Gears of War 2 and I and many more like me are willing to pay £40 for some releases if you were to ask me to buy a game like The Path for that price I would refuse every time. So independent developers definitely have their place in industry but the big companies like Epic Games are at the top for a reason, in short in my opinion they are superior.

Animation Storyboard

This is the sound bite I am animating to: 

These are some poses I am planning to use in my animation.  The way I planned the poses out can be taken three ways:

1.    A slightly surreal take on the actions of the speaker with the speech sounding sympathetic but the character getting increasingly angry.

2.    The person she’s speaking to (Mr Hoskins) mocking the speaker in first few poses and proceeding to act out his displeasure at her words.

3.     The person the speaker is talking about who is “uncomfortable” and taking revenge on Mr Hoskins.

In the storyboard I am planning on displaying some key principles of ‘animation’ such as anticipation when the character prepares to walk forwards and ‘squash and stretch’ in the last picture when the character stretches his body and raises his fist. 

Principles of Animation

Squash and Stretch 

Defining the rigidity and mass of an object by distorting its shape during a movement.

Good example

This example shows a ball squash in preparation for its jump to the next step and stretch as it takes off then the ball squashes on impact with the floor. The squash and stretch in this clip makes the ball look as if its moving under its own power similar to a person bending their knees before they jump. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9TmyzsYoEk

Bad example

In this clip the ball bounces down the stairs without any squash and stretch making the ball look rock solid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCBtIX3mpDE&feature=related

Timing and Motion 

Spacing actions to define the weight and size of objects and personality of characters.

Good example
In this clip timing and motion of the kick gives the viewer a clear idea of the weight of the character and how controlled their balance is. And the reaction of the character being kicked demonstrates the strength of the kick as well as the weight of the character itself as it hits the ground.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzAEx6d4ow4&NR=1

Bad example 

This example is obviously a poor animation in many respects but in regard to timing and motion its particularly lacking as the movements are very limited and give no indication to the weight and personality of the characters. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inls7kteYvI 

Anticipation 

The preparation for and action.

Good example 

This is a good example for anticipation, as the cat readies itself to pounce it bends its legs and pauses in a realistic manner before leaping.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTNAJ2RYdBk

Bad example 

In this clip the fish may react to other objects but their is no decent preparation for its actions, for example when the fish sees the castle it reacts but then zooms of towards it without any preparation. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd48CQq6KKc

Staging   

Presenting an idea so that its unmistakably clear.

Good example

The example of staging in this clip comes at the begging when the panel in the opens and the monkey looks in and its obvious something is going to come out. And again at around 1:49 as the the robotic arm twitches and is obviously about to extend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_nTlsTK7qo

Bad example

This example displays a lack of quality staging and through out the whole animation you are never presented with an unmistakably clear idea of whats going to happen. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwtXNDx_GNw


Exaggeration 

Accentuating the essence of an idea via the design and the action.

Good example 

This is a great example of exaggeration, particularly after about 8 seconds in when the object gets stuck and is struggling to get out, the object stretches in an exaggerated manner to represent how hard it its trying to get out.  Another good example is when the object expands and shrinks giving it the illusion of panting in exhaustion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZPT9br4bds

Bad example 

This clip has a realistic animation first to compare to the exaggerated animation second. However I believe the exaggerated version is a poor example as, although it its exaggerated, it seems tacky and instead of looking like an exaggerated version of the realistic animation it just looks over the top for no reason.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9R4-JLYtsc&NR=1

Secondary Action 
The action of an object resulting from another action.

Good example
This clip has many good examples of secondary action. The way the characters react when they hit each other is very cleanly, professionally and realistically done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug3PzD8GAfM

Bad example
This example is of less well-executed fight scene then the one above and although the animation isn't bad as a whole the last action clearly shows one characters knee passing strait through the others head with no reaction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VCAtoupEKQ

Follow Through and Overlapping Action 

The termination of an action and establishing its relationship to the next action.

Good example
This example shows brilliant follow through and overlapping action with the horses mane and tail reacting with the movement of the horse, which gives the animation a realistic look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTXiWQITb_0&NR=1

Bad example

This animation is a complete contrast with the one above as the tail and mane on the horse stay completely still and doesn't look at all realistic.    

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw_ulKXDeYk


Arcs 

The visual path of action for natural movement.

Good example
This clip shows natural movement through the arcs made when he lifts his his arms and when he throws the ball. The animator clearly was careful to make sure the movements looked close to real life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-zQoNTklrg

Bad example
In this animation all the movements are overly exaggerated with no natural looking arcs and poorly executed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUaFoXtHQQ

Personality 

How a character can be defined by what they look like and how they move.

Good example

This is a good example as the character is well detailed in its features and movements and manage two present two characters in one as the old man switches sides of the chess board by changing his mannerisms.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnGBuhu6Txc

Bad example 

The character in this animation conveys very little personality as the character has a generic face design and has very little movement to define personality.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfXodJZlxw

Slow in and Slow out

The spacing of the in-between frames to increase the subtlety of timing and movement.

Good example 

This example shows as the characters move they accelerate as the action starts and slow down as they end. This is essential to creating a more realistic animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU4QvpyfANA

Bad example

In Burnt Face Man there is not much attempt to employ the slow in and slow out method, for example when a character moves an arm it goes from point A to point B without any change in speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxY5fDn5sjQ

Appeal 

Creating a design that the viewer finds appealing.

Good example 

The birds in this Pixar short film have been designed to look cute, be full of expression and are very detailed. In particular the big clumsy bird has been designed very well to capture the viewers sympathy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omk6TAxJYOg

Bad example
In this clip the characters not appeal as they have little expression and lack in detail so there is not alot for the viewer connect or relate to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwxEqFr5h2s