Development - Interactive Brief 4

My process of my screens that i drawn (except the main screen which was manipulated in photoshop)

- For the cities i found reference images to re-drew over them to suit my story as im crap at drawing cities.

- I sketched my screens, except for the main screen that image from the internet and manipulated in photoshop and then i adopted my character into it to look like my character is walking down the road.

- After sketching my screens, I inked/coloured it in with black and left the highlights white.
-Re-scanned them in and put them into photoshop and really ramped up the levels particularly the black.
- Then re-drew over my sketches in photoshop with my tablet ( wacom tablets are life savers!!! - true story)
- Then painted in the colour of my main character, KAI.

The references for the poses for the human , there is a site is specifically for drawing character poses and er they are naked.

Here is the final outcome of the story:


This is the main screen which i didn't draw but digitally manipulated in photshop to suit my story. All the rest i had drawn.


The first screen where you enter ground zero.


The screen when you choose the bad option.


The screen when you choose the good option.


The good ending which you get when you choose the good option.


The bad ending when you choose the bad option.

Interactive Brief 4 - Process

I knew what i already what i wanted to do, but i already had afew problems that i thought i could overcome, however in the time frame i had to scrap it.

-1 Even though i wanted to have a "Auto pan" that would move with the mouse to see the graphics, there wasn't much else for interactivity. For example , how would i get the user to see the different rollovers without moving the image all the time with the mouse, or to click on the choices?

-2 The layout, i wanted the viewer to be immersed in the story almost 3d but the big problem was how or what coding i needed to know for Flash.

-3 Personally for me having alot of great ideas and be limited with my experience AS3 coding. But i will be definitely teaching myself it over the holidays.

What i had to change .... I changed to layout form of my story i wanted to keep that story idea and make it into a graphic comic strip , so its a subtle immersion for the viewer.

What i looked out for my interactive layout :









Interactivity, "Auto Pan" would have been great but design wise, as to how the user would click on the other buttons and mouse over the "rollovers" would be annoying as the mouse would have the function of moving around the picture itself.
I thought maybe to have the "Auto Pan" function with keys instead but i felt that would be abit tedious , going back and forth using the keyboard and the mouse, which i felt it would be too distracting and the viewer would be less involved with the story.

- I wanted to have some rollovers to show some environmental facts as well just to have some food for thought as our story was based on the BP oil disaster which had just a great affect upon environment and for the people aswell.

- Colour scheme - i kept it simple , black and white gives it the most dramatic effect and the colour would be only for the main character as he is the focal point of the story.

- Environment - It had to be set in "ground zero" atmosphere such as destroyed city/ post apocalyptic . Here are some of the inspirations i looked at to get started.











Sounds i thought about, but i felt my idea is a story to be told, the more sound effects i had, i felt to me would be more distracting. Personally for me when i'm reading a book i need a quiet place to myself to be immersed within the story. So i opted to find a music track playing in the background of the story that can be turned on/off to set the mood and feel of the story. Clicking soundSFX i found annoying so i opted that out, as the main focus is the story and the extras such as sound etc are there to enhance my main focus rather than to distract, so that is why i kept it minimal.
Here is a track that inspired what kind of music track i was looking for, however this particular track is very loud but its the sounds of it what i'm looking for but on a subtle level. Autechre Gantz Graf is on a much harsher level but i admire it and it is what i'm looking for

Interactive Brief 4

My idea for brief 4 was to show an interactive story about my character, and make choices that affected the outcome of the character's personality/ending.
At first i wanted to have the viewer use the mouse to scroll around the image , like a Chinese painting where the whole painting itself tells the story.
The graphic style/feel i wanted was a grungy, dirty style yet detailed enough to be believable.

Inspirations i looked at :







- I wanted to have my story/graphic comic in this layout initially so that viewer could scroll around within the painting, to immerse themselves within the story.

The inspiration i looked at , as to what kind of style of drawing to adopt for my story











This style is what i was looking for, dirty grungy but a unique style that shows the viewer of believe able world.
The setting had to be futuristic, post apocalyptic. Styles i looked at was Borderlands, and Fallout 3. As their storyline is based in same time frame and the style was exactly what i wanted.

Kai's Walk Cycle

Making a detailed character , i knew i would encounter some problems but being stubborn as i'am
I was determined to find a way to keep him true to the character sheet.
I knew one problem was keeping all that detail of his muscles etc natural whilst kai walked.
2. How he would walk as he had fin like feet and his legs were like hind quarters so the walk itself would be difficult even though kai is bi-pedal.

The teacher suggested to me to look for reference of a creature that was similar and take screen shots of the frames and then trace those outlines as a guide for kai's walk cycle.

Problems i encountered: When capturing the frames i captured were too few and the poses between each frame, it was such a big gap between each other that i couldn't really use them.
On the up side it was a good idea to base my walk cycle on.

Here are the frames i took that i was to use as my walk guide from Youtube;










You get the idea


In flash i used this as my background to help me with my walk cycle
Image from Animator's Survival Kit by Kit Richardson...i think thats the name.

The background i already had a strong idea of what i wanted. I wanted him to be in a ruined/destroyed city as in Kai's profile states. I'm drawn to night scenes so i wanted it to be that time .... i don't know why i feel nostalgic when night falls so i'm sure Kai feels that way too :p

Here is the progression of my background;


The night bg is a gradient, and drew the moon aswell as using gradients both done in Flash.


The ruined city is meant to be ground zero of a destroyed Sydney, which i did in Illustrator and imported it into Flash.



To make the walk i started to use the bone tool and break Kai into individual parts as use him as my rough walking guide and then i would re-draw each frame individually (drawing 48+ frames is insane :|...). I wanted it to be natural but in the end it looked like he was sneaking, but i find it rather befitting because he is walking through a war zone... so he should "sneak" past the dangers of ground zero

Here is a screenshot of how i was using the bone tool;



After many long hours and my left hand cramping up and becoming numb because of drawing each individual frame... here is Kai's walk cycle, it may not be perfect but i love it that he is 'sneak walking' :) its hard not to grow attached it after putting in so much work/pain

Kai - The Creation

A rough sketch of Kai in my sketchbook


Rough layout of the character design sheet



One of the sketch in illustrator - i will put more in and from my sketch book when i remember :|



Here is the final layout for Kai.

Character design - Inspired Images

After i had finished the profiling i immediately had some pictures/reference that i already had in mind, such as amphibians e.g frogs , the human muscular outline so i could draw upon it when i drew my character in illustrator.
Recently i saw pirates of the Caribbean 3 i think it was boring but the effects were good to look at and the character that really caught my attention was the evil nemesis Davy Jones - the tentacles i liked to use as a feature as well on my character.

Here are some of the images i that helped me developed my character;


Muscle drawing since i wanted my character to be a very tall person - male but almost like a giant " a big bear" with lots of muscles.


The character that caught my attention and felt i could incorporate into my character developement


Another amphibian i could think of that looked interesting - Axolotl hmmm i think i want one as a pet!


Frogs! i looked at mostly their legs - webbed feet something i could use .
I don't know why but to me it looked humanoid to me




And Character concepts as a template for mine

Some examples of template layouts that i could use








A character design from Blizzard

Character Design - profile

In the end i chose the latter , i felt more drawn to the general character idea and it seemed like it could have more depth to it.

I chose to build the profile first rather than what the character looks like. This process was a first for me usually i like to build what the character looks like rather than its background.
However this process proved more useful as while i was building the profile i could already picture what the character should look like.

Here is the profile i came up with and felt it gave various facets of the character which i think made Kai even more fascinating.

Name: Kai
Age: 26yrs old
Gender: Male
Height 185cm
Origin: Sydney Australia

Likes: Peanut butter and jam sandwiches, seafood, swimming and sleeping in
Dislikes: Loud noises, bad coffee and country music

Kai was originally human until he was infected by one of the sea creatures whilst trying to escape with his grandmother from Circular Quay.
Before the invasion, Kai worked at the fish markets as a dock worker which required waking up early and heavy lifting. He liked it there as he got to work with his older brother and eat all the seafood he wanted.
Kai is easily content by the simplest pleasures, such as eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich whilst digging his toes into the beach sand, one of kai’s favourite past times. However, his gentle disposition contradicts his physical appearance, due to his height and strong build, people usually avoid him and kids would run away scared. Kai likes to think of himself as a giant bear, fierce on the outside but soft on the inside.When the sea invasion had started, Kai rushed to Circular Quay to help his grandmother escape. Luckily enough his grandmother was able to escape, However Kai was able to fend off one of the sea creatures only to receive a minor scratch. A week later he himself turned into a sea/land creature, through sheer mental will he was able to overcome the madness that overwhelms most victims and regain his sanity and normal appetite instead of eating human flesh. Funnily enough Kai enjoys his new form and
new- found abilities, His senses are a lot sharper, stronger, and faster, in the water he is like a torpedo.
Where ever he can Kai tries to help the humans to escape the wrath of the sea creatures but at the end of the day Kai believes he has found his place amongst the sea creatures where he belongs.

Kai communicates through sound amongst his fellow sea creatures; the sound is similar to whales make.When he is angry his tentacles will shake, when Kai is sad the tentacles will drop down limp and close his eyes as he is a bit of a sook, and finally when he is happy his tentacles will turn upwards.

Character Idea

I've been considering two ideas still not sure which one i should do;

1. The mutated/evolved sea creature that has a moral dilemma that is against attacking the humans in Sydney harbor, however it understands why his race is attacking/eating the humans, as his home was destroyed by the oil spill, losing his family/friends that didn't survive the mutation or toxicity of the oil.

Description:
-not like the other sea creatures, not very fearsome looking, quite docile looking too cute to be fearsome.
- feels like an out cast for overcoming the hunger/madness, feels/looks different
-has a memory of a human showing compassion towards the character (fisherman putting him back in the sea)
-believes what his race is doing is wrong yet understands their anger/madness
-small build not strong like, yet has an iron will and feel compelled to help the humans to survive/escape that are trapped in Sydney harbor

2. Human victim that has been infected. Who is trapped in ground zero. Refuses to leave his/her home or let sea creatures take over. But is on the verge of being turned in to a sea/land creature becoming apart of their hive mind and can understand their feelings. The character is torn between trying to keep his/her sanity or be apart of a race that seems to be of one mind that is overwhelming the character

28th July Wk2

For our first group project we came up various world ideas;

1 - Fantasy like environment e.g Narnia
2 - Set in a snow globe or fish bowl environment
3 - Sydney's Circular Quay being engulfed by mutant sea creatures coming from the harbor ( with comical feeel added)
4 - Old gods awaken destroying half of the land and and the people are forced to create a new race to fight back by experimenting on themselves

By the end of it we chose #3 as it was alittle serious but with light-hearted humor to it.


We were given separate tasks to do and i was given the task to elaborate more on our world design storyline to make it be more believable.

Things that i looked at in detail was the BP accident , movies that revolved around an impending invasion attack usually of the alien kind.

Here is what i came up with:

In the year 2059, an experimental group called Bio Prospects (BP), aimed for the future development of mankind, worked along-side with the Australian Government and negotiated a deal to drill an oil hot spot off the coast of Sydney, as the oil is unique. BP discovered an unknown alien -like mineral within the oil. Its properties volatile and unpredictable, BP have been working on the unknown mineral in unlocking its potential and secrets; however, these files are highly classified.
BP’s oil became the new black gold because of its potency and high concentration levels - companies only needed a fraction of it compared to standard oil usage before.
Afterwards BP and the NSW government became the major global economic powers. Their new-found powers gave way to greed which showed a darker and sinister side to them. As a result of ‘cutting corners’, disaster struck BP’s oil refinery core pipe-line erupted, resulting in a catastrophic oil spill.

Sydney’s harbor was the worst affected area.The unknown mineral from the oil greatly affected the marine life, strange events took place.
Sightings of mutated sea life became apparent, creatures that were once placid showed signs aggressive behavior and an appetite for human flesh, even showing signs of alien-like intelligence. As a result deep sea creatures affected by the oil’s mineral have mutated and evolved rapidly at an alarming rate.
Overwhelmed by their thirst/hunger the deep sea creatures have gathered in force at ground zero’s, Sydney’s harbor area…….to begin the invasion.

Factions:

Humans that survive the sea creatures attacks/bites will turn and mutate and become one of them , stay well away from them. If you see one of them, RUN.

Bio Prospects, NSW government - who want the situation contained no matter what the cost and to get back their oil refinery up and running again.

Military – have sealed off Sydney’s harbor to keep the invasion contained, trapping the people who live in area in.

Sea/Land like creatures – Aggressive, highly intelligent and evolved, appetite for human flesh if scratched/bitten humans will mutate and become one of them instead.

Victims – tourists, residents who live in the area, humans infected by the sea/land-like creatures.

Scientists – want to study these creatures and want to resolve the situation in a peaceful manner.

Sea/land like creatures who have overcome their hunger –feel sorry for trapped people and want to help them.

Images that i found that helped me create the storyline a bit:


BP spills, other areas and its effects afterwards








Logos and BP Ceos were very central and the main culprit in our to storyline so people could immediately recognize.