Game Art - Character Development WIPS 3

I call this WIPS 3, but it isn't a work in progress at all. This is more the point where I felt that I was starting to lose track of what I was meant to be doing, and that I should stop before I find myself in a position where I'm getting lost in the details.

This is also the point where I generally feel unhappy with the results. On the other hand, being someone that has not draw more 'realistic' humans  given a preference for cartooning... I feel like I've done what I'm able to do with the experience I have at present. I'm not going to excessively beat myself up for not pulling off the job perfectly.

Like I've said in earlier entries, I only feel like I want to try harder to get into the habit of drawing and  practicing on a regular basis. It is hard sometimes to remember that I'm not just working from a "hobby in my spare time" standpoint anymore.

Game Art - Character Development WIPS 2

A minor update. With a deadline extension and my body now at a point where I'm fully operational again, I find that I still do not have a massive amount of time available to me to finish the work as I see it in my head. But I've told myself many times that I need to be realistic with how much I can actually do.

I've set myself a deadline for Tuesday to give me time to make alternate plans if my printer decides it doesn't want to function correctly. As a result, I am focusing more on lightly refining the work I did before my spine decided that I needed more pain and less mobility in my life.

I'm going to show off an earlier version of what I'm working on at this moment in time. I've used a transparancy locked layer to paint over my black and white drawings with colour, originally to deduce how they would come over in a final image... and is instead now serving as a base to add further details and refinement of character features. Further highlights and deeper shadows.

edit - A bit more

This assignment has really made me feel like I could do with upping my drawing frequency, and without feeling boastful I'm starting to believe that I just need to practice and learn a little more.

Game Art - Character Development WIPS

I'm writing this while dosed up to the eyeballs with assorted painkillers... I'm not even sure that they are really working, but I'm positive I'd be feeling a lot worse if I weren't taking them. Back spasms... not a fun thing to be afflicted with, and they seem to keep cropping up. I should really take my body's hint and start exercising.

Up until the aforementioned back problems, work on the current assignment was going slowly but steadily. It has been tough fighting against my fear of Adobe Photoshop, and equally tough trying to establish a working method to make a final image work out.

So this would be my initial character sheet layout. Organized into rules of 3, I decided a large image of the character in his suit would be accompanied by some further images of the character in profile and portrait shots without the larger suit, and some images demonstrating the suit in action and how it appears from the inside. Thumbnail below -:

I hit upon the snag of the suit not measuring up when I attempted to iterate on the thumbnail sketches, and this resulted in a little impromtu reworking to try and gain a better resemblance to the diving suit inspirations... at least in terms of how a human body would fit into something so large and bulky. I also started designing the character himself. I did bad by adding colour, but I was struggling to work out how things went together otherwise.

Around this time, my back started playing up, and has made the task of doing my work a lot more problematic. I'm at the point now where I've done some shadow work ready to be iterated upon and finalised as soon as the pain subsides. I found myself working with the shadows by creating a dark silhouette and steadily applying lighter shades, it worked a lot better for me than adding darker colours onto a white background.

That is about all I have right now. Fingers are crossed I'll be able to feel well enough to get this done by Thursday.

Game Art - Character Development Images Part 2

A minor update to note down changes and ideas that have developed since the last post.

I have more or less decided to focus entirely on the space themed character, mostly because I want to spread my wings just enough to try and work on an artstyle I want to develop rather than playing more safely with a cartoon artstyle I already know I can pull off (Without being boastful!). Besides that, I have found myself rather interested in the ideas of making a heavyset (FATASS) character into an interesting design.

The bulky spacesuit design has also continued to mutate as I found difficulty in making a large domed torso work with arms and legs that could still function normally. I could very well have worked out a method of making this work if I felt inclined... however, my diving suit moodboard I lovingly knitted together with all the tenderness of a man beating a squirrel with a rock... took me down a different route of designing the suit. So this first image comes before I firmed up on the decision that I didn't want to work with a dome shape, and also features a rudimentary doodle of the man IN the suit.

Small sketches from a pocket notebook I carry around for quick drawing during journies

As I started trying to refine the design above into a larger image to add detail and accessories, I grew increasingly irked at how I couldn't feel that the suit was practical... and furthermore, the idea for the suit was increasingly becoming more of a powersuit that would feature additional components for long haul space walks and repairs in a zero gravity environment. I started referenced the diving suit moodboard and started to change the shape of the suit to allow for a greater range of arm movement.

Although these drawings are far from complete, I started to make the domed compartment of the suit more rectangular, and used older diving suits as an inspiration for how to structure the rest of it. I soon decided to make the main arms a lot larger and longer than natural arms for tethering to surfaces or lifting larger objects, and add smaller arms for delicate work. I also started working more towards the idea of the suit being operated like a machine rather than an outfit, both for the character to work for long durations of time in a cockpit like environment, and to have a concrete idea of how any character could get into and out of the suit.

Again from my pocket sketchbook, a design I am more satisified with as well as demonstrating how the suit opens up.

  I will be uploading digital drawings in the next day or two, while right now I'm starting to work out the composition of the final piece due to be handed in on the 30th May. This is proving surprisingly difficult, although I am going to be speaking to the tutor some more on Thursday to discuss what I can do. I'm starting to look at images of spacewalks, which I feel would best reflect the function of the suit. I'm also going to be working on some additional, rougher images of the suit from different perspectives as well as the opened up suit as shown above... afterall, the assignment is about making ourselves into a character and I feel the suit with a visor would obscure that.

I'll have to see what else I can do (maybe add a screen 'head' on top of the suit that is connected to a videolink in the cockpit?) to get this done.

EDIT - Forgot to mention that I'm also considering keeping the suit fairly mechanical whilst being covered in fabric - akin to that on regular space suits as well as what seems to cover the International Space Station. I find it an intriguing idea to follow. 

Game Art Assignment 1 - 2D Character Art

Not got an awful lot to say about the subject itself so far, what with how surprisingly quickly we burst straight into the first assignment. The first assignment that is frankly a nightmare to me - I have to make myself into a character that is recognizable either literally or in say... traits. Like I said, a nightmare owing to being so far away from being a cool person, and my dislike of idealising myself into something more than I am.


I'm hoping to work on a couple of designs over the next few days. One of which will be a further refinement of Bill Dup, a character that already represents myself and normally cameos on scraps of paper or sketchbook work. Given the fellow has never been finalised, and the opportunity to really run with the Fleischer Studio art style I admire... I think I could do something fun.  I have plenty of ideas for Bill as it is, including his cowardice/nervousness and his occupation of tea making that would lend themselves to a character sheet well.


And after deciding that this assignment could be interpreted in a number of ways, I'm actually contemplating doing a design with a more realisitc art style... on the presumption that this imagined version of myself would be a member of a party rather than a hero in his own right. I feel compelled to do something space based, though whether based on an existing game franchise or something entirely made up, I'm still working on. I like the rougher feel of the future in Dead Space, but I also like the shiny sleekness of Mass Effect 2+.

I'm mainly writing this all down to tide things over until I do some proper writing and include some sketches and drawings. Whoop.

Assignment 1 Part 5 - Nearing The End

With the hand in date occurring at the end of Thursday's lecture, I've still got a fair amount of work to get on with. It is going to transpire that my game isn't going to be very big, but that being said I have been viewing this assignment more as a test of being able to make use of the various statements and loops.

This is the chief reason I decided to make a game based on Mass Effect. It gave me a reasonably challenging task in working out how to replicate the various functions of the actual game series.

And as I write this now, I have succeeded in making conversations that loop and and advance the events of the game. One conversation will conclude differently if the player first speaks to another character that reveals the betrayal of the individual being spoken to. And I'm about to finish the conversation that triggers this option and try to include a brief section of the player escaping from their prison cell. I'm not too worried about this failing to manage the latter though... I'm more pleased that I managed to work things out so that the player's status bar remains in place, a problem that I solved after finding that the screen cleared in the character customization section, which I wanted to avoid for the game itself.

I'm satisfied. Finding creative ways of using ints, strings and bools has made the assignment a productive one.

Assignment 1 Part 4 - Choices, Choices

I'm making a fair amount of progress within this assignment, although I remain convinced that I'm probably not going to be able to make a full adventure. It might just be one of those things where I'll want to continue adding to it even after the hand in date. I'm increasingly seeing the work as a test of how I can use the knowledge from college then as an attempt to make an actual text adventure.

With character customization neatened up and complete, I've been able to start on the story itself, which I've mapped out in an Open Office document. While this was going to be quite the quest, I'm lowering my scope to dealing with three areas, each testing a particular mechanic I want to include.

I have been using ints and if/else statements to help with the character conversations I'm drafting out at the moment. Chiefly, if I want to add bonus points to paragon or renegade stats, I don't want that to be exploitable. I've been able to use switch cases with if/else statements to successfully carry out basic conversation... and after each conversation ends, an int is changed so that if the player inputs "Speak to Teammate" for example, they will speak... but if they do it for a second time, it will say that that command has already been used. I've gone a little further with this in regard to not allowing event progression until at least one other person has been spoken to. 

Probably not all that necessary, but I mostly wanted to see if I could do such a thing.

Furthermore, I'm working out small ways to change certain things in the game depending on choices the player makes in the customization screen. For example, in the second area, an enemy may be observed at a distance. Unless you are an infiltrator, you will have to encounter this enemy once you reach the other side of the room.... of course, if you ARE an infiltrator, you will be able to use a unique skill to take down said enemy from a distance and avoid that event entirely.

So yeah, I'm perhaps being a bit elaborate. The only thing left that I really need to do is to create a game over screen with the option to restart or quit. I doubt I'm going to be able to allow the player to restart at a previous point without screwing up the player stats, so I'm going to just try and look everything around back to the main screen. A bit of a cop out, but I don't know how to do otherwise for now.

Assignment 1 Part 3 - Text Adventure Rising

//Thought I'd write an update so far. I'm basically at the point now where I can get started on the //actual adventure, for all it is worth. I don't think I'm going to be able to make too much... man.

//If I'd known what I know today over the weekend.

//Martin was kind enough to look over the massive amount of code in the program I put together over //the weekend, and showed me an alternative way to achieve the same aim without the sheer amount //of lines I'd used... and sitting at a far more respectable 1000 lines, it functions exactly the same way. //It really has been amazing to see how much more efficient one can be with just a /little/ extra //knowledge.

//Making an int for the number of questions asked and increasing it's number by one for each //question answered was truely beautiful... so of course, I have to thank Martin heartily for helping //me improve my work. I was able to complete the rest of the character customization, as well as //create a seperate loop at the beginning of the game that would allow me to offer the option of //starting with a default character instead of going through the customization. (Well... most of it. It //ties in nicely with the last customization loop which allows the player to start the game or reset their //customization and start over).

//So now it is onto the game proper. I know I'm probably not going to manage anything particularly //long (if I can even achieve THAT), which means that I'm going to focus more on making those //decisions made at the start of the game visible.

//I've also been inspired by the brief coding exercise at the start of Tuesday's lesson. I wish I'd written //it down, because ugh... I got the greatest idea for a little sequence where a player has to escape //within a certain number of turns, and if they don't make it, GAME OVER. Hmm...

Assignment 1 part 2 - Character Customization

Thought I'd make a quick update before I start the jobs I have to get on with today.

It took near enough the full weekend, and rather a lot more lines of code than I really though, but at this point now I've succeeded in recreating the character customization feature in Mass Effect in do while and switch statements.

This involved an awful lot of branching as the choices stacked up. As mentioned in the previous entry, I have

name    

• name (ccname + "Marshall");

gender  

•  male = (+1 male);
• female = (+1 female);

history  

• spacer = (+4 paragon, +1 spacer);
• citadel born = (+4 renegade, + 1 citadel);
• colonist = (+2 paragon, +2 renegade, +1 colonist);

profile   

• sole survivor = (+1 survivor);
• war hero = (+2 paragon, + 1 warhero);
• ruthless = (+2 renegade, + 1 ruthless);

class      

• Soldier = (health = (health + 25), soldier + 1);
• Infiltrator = (infiltrator + 1);
• Adept = (adept + 1);
• Engineer = (engineer + 1);

And so gender branches out in two directions, and then each of those branch out in three directions... and then each of THOSE branch out in three directions... and THEN THOSE branch out in four directions. And at the end, I put in an option to start the game or reset... which wipes out all the int changes involved with the individual choices and returns you to the beginning of the customization screen.

I cut down the number of classes to 4, and while they won't act all that differently, I hope to use the ints to provide extra options for the player to choose as they interact and travel through the area I'm going to be doing. For example, a soldier may get an exclusive option to kick down a blocked door that the other classes may not get, and a character with high renegade points may get an extra conversation topic.

***

Long story short, I got more done than I thought I'd have done by now, it works, and I'm taking a day off to try and relax. I want to put in an option to skip the character creation with a default load out to allow a player to quick start.

It is likely that I'm doing something overly complicated, (Over 8000 lines for this section alone!) but I generally follow a rule that I'll try and take my learning as far as I can. I have to look into a couple of things that may help me make things look a little prettier (And work out how to make the window bigger), but I also want to avoid trying to use commands and lines/code that I'm not yet familiar with.

 I'm also compensating for the complexity of the character creation by making the story itself not so wide branching. It really will be a choose your own adventure, I don't intend on allowing back tracking (Although I will be allowing for some investigation)... something like that WOULD be beyond my present skills.

Assignment 1 - Text Adventure

I just thought that now we've got an actual assignment on hand, that I can resume blogging. I've had no real reason to do so up to now, partly out of desire not to clog the blog up with irrelevant topics.

(And also, I don't actually have a copy of the assignment. I only honestly recall that it has to be able to restart without exiting the program, and involve a combination of if/else and do/while statements.)

***

And so it begins. Or rather, it began on Tuesday but I didn't touch the coding until I had a clearer idea of what I was intending to create. It was a relatively simple choice between doing something more easily achievable and complete, or trying to use the knowledge I've acquired in class over the last 4 weeks to build something more complicated.

"Bill Dup Adventure"

Simply been an expansion on a task we did in class a week ago, with the tale of my sketchbook alter ego Bill Dup in his attempt to find out exactly why he can't open the door to his flat. This idea would have largely followed what I call a Frankensian logic with some surrealist/black humour... and that is more or less all I can really say.

"Mass Effect - Untitled Side Adventure"

A more complicated text based adventure set in Bioware's Mass Effect Universe, with segments of exploring, talking, and combat. Players can choose a default character or create their own to affect their path through a shorter adventure, and even gain a team mate or two as they break out of a prison under siege. Because I didn't want to use established characters, the player character will be a mercenary or similar such things that won't involve the System Alliance Navy or N7.

***

And I sided with complicated. Which I just know is going to come back and bite me on my pleasantly plump posterior somewhere down the road, but the idea excited me more, and I still feel that it will be a real challenge and thus also a learning experience.

The theory of how it will work remains rather sound, at least in my head. I will have to prepare for plenty of cut and paste depending on choices.

But so far, I've made a title screen (With coloured background and font no less) and I'm in the process of creating the character customization page which will consist of

• Name
• Gender
• Pre Service History
• Psychological Profile
• Class

As far as how these are going to work is concerned... as in the real Mass Effect games, History and Profile are mostly for bestowing early points to a player's Paragon/Renegade stats which I am presently using ints for. I have created further ints for each of the selected profiles and histories which I will randomly use for conversation or exploration options... and the Paragon/Renegade stats will allow for further conversation actions. Player Class will affect combat sections of the game, from what sort of weapon a player uses to any further actions I can come up with.

Unlike the title screen, I've not yet finished this section, and I'm going to be trying to niggle out the finer details further in. I think I want to make this section back trackable as well in case a player wants to change any details they've put in place. Using the Default character will set stats and name to a standard loadout.

Soon as I feel I have enough work to warrant it, I will be uploading some screen grabs.

For now, peace out!