GUI Reflection

What did you do?
I created an animated GUI by using buttons that perform an action when the user hovers their cursor over it. Most of my GUI is based around a point and click game where the player uses the cursor to click on various elements of the environment.
Original Intentions
My final result does meet my original intentions somewhat the overall design is similar but the intended genre is not. The GUI was originally intended for a first person game in which the character controls the character. But ended up turning into a point and click due to the nature of the interactive objects via cursor. Other than that the design and placement of the onscreen elements remain the same to my original concept sketch.

Here are the concept designs I made. I liked the first one the best, and chose to do that one in Photoshop.  As you can see it still bares the basic similarities to my final design.








Self Evaluation
Overall I managed to manage my time quite effectively, unlike some of the other projects. I decided on my design relatively fast something that often caused problems for me in the past. If I had more time, I would have liked to use the frames from 3D Max to make an animation activate in Flash. I did not know how to do this nor have enough time remaining.
What did you struggle with?
One thing I did struggle with in this project was getting to grips with Flash again. We haven't used Flash much this year and don't know how to use it as well as 3D-Max or Photoshop. In fact we had to be re-instructed by Chris on how to make buttons, which we did in Year 1.
What did you find easy?
I found actually creating the various elements of my GUI the easiest due, to its rather simple straightforward design. A simple red and yellow bar for health and stamina, basic round mini map etc. Most of it was already created in Photoshop when we had to flesh out our initial concept sketch. Porting things from the PSD file and converting them into buttons was a relatively easy process.          
Comparison to Professional work
I think that some students in this class made the mistake of not thinking how their GUI was going to be used in a game including me. At first my GUI was intended for a first person shooter which was then changed to a point and click browser game due to the nature of the pop up notes. Professional GUI's are made my player usability in mind, not how many common GUI elements you can cram in at once. No point and click I have seen has a Health bar, Stamina, or even a mini map. Because of this I don't think my GUI compares well to a professional one. As it is not player friendly or genre specific.
What do others think?
Most of the feedback I received stated that it was compact, out of the way, overall a good design for an FPS game. Though l'm still unsure whether it is an FPS game for the sake of my original intention lets say it is. During this time I listened to what other students thought they did wrong the most common one was. The GUI taking up too much space, too cluttered etc. I was careful to keep the design as simple and out of the way as possible but still serve its purpose as an on screen status update.
What could you improve upon?
-Keep genre in mind
-Animated more bits to add interest
-Look more aesthetically pleasing


I have already discussed the issue about genre and the lack of time to animate. Another thing I would have liked to improve on was to make it look nicer. Make the design unique with various shapes to make it fit the theme. Since my environment was inspired by the steam punk style it would have made sense to add steampunk elements into my GUI. Such as brass, cogs, steam things to make it more unique.

Here is an example of a steam punk GUI. Note it is made out of wood to give it a more classical, Victorian feel with various forms of metal like the clock. This is what I would have liked to achieve, to create a unique GUI that fits the theme and style of the game it was intended for.

If I could do it again? 

If I could do this project again I would spend more time into the initial idea to make it as previously mentioned. 

"more unique"

I would add various steam punk elements like brass, clocks etc. To emphasize the theme the game itself has. Also have a definite genre in mind and design the interface for ease of use for that particular type of game.   

    

3D Work Reflection

For my environment I did a steam punk inspired industrial corridor meant to represent the corridors in the Salt building in an alternate timeline. The environment is entirely metal and industrialized to emphasize the steam punk style I was aiming for. I did this by adding various mechanical props in the scene such as control panels, valve operated doors, and various pipes and factory like elements. Chris taught us how to do interior environments in one of his lessons in particular corridors. I used the technique he showed to model the inside of the corridor without much difficulty. The result was a convincing indoor environment which did not show any empty space and looked real. Since my environment was symmetrical for the most part it was easy to simply do one side then clone and mirror it to the other side cutting the workload in half. The basic shapes I used in my environment were actually quite basic but the end result looked far better than I anticipated.

My final design meets my original intentions fairly well if you look at my concept designs and compare them to the final result, they are very similar. Apart from animation my environment meets my original plan. The only part I left out was all the complicated animation I thought I could achieve. I wanted lots of movement within my scene so it wouldn't be boring. I soon gave up though due to time constraints despite this I still wanted at least some actions so I settled for something as simple as a door opening. I wanted the valve to turn as well but I couldn't group the valve and door together and move them individually.

I regret spending too much of my time starting over and over again unhappy with the overall shape of the corridor. This soaked up far too much time I could have spent on more worthwhile things. After a while I picked up the pace a little and started to manage my time a little better. If I had that attitude from the beginning I could have accomplished a lot more and spent some time on animation.

For this project I struggled most with the animation side of things as I just could not get it to work the way I wanted it to. Because of this I had to cut out all those moving parts I planned to animate. It was hard to make animation look natural and not clip through anything.

For this project I found initial idea to be quite easy. I designed a idea I liked and stuck with it. This was surprising to me as I usually get hung up on what to actually create. But after my first concept sketch I had a clear vision of what I wanted and how I was going to do it.

I was told by a number of people that my work was up to a professional standard including Chris, a few students, and Simon who came to the digital showcase. So it must be comparable to professional work.            

Audio Reflection

                Reflection

For my audio I created some factory background noise, using Foley techniques. By hitting two pieces of metal together and recording the sound with a portable recorder. I used Cubase to add a reverb effect, to make the sound seem more ambient and atmospheric. Whilst the result does sound quite good it did not fit my original intentions, because the team decided to just use a sounds track throughout the trailer. So using my audio just didn't fit. I also wanted to add other background noises such as machinery, muffled voices and other complicated things l would have never done in time. Overall I created two sounds effects footsteps on metal and some factory machinery, both seemed to fit my environment quite well. 

Overall I wish I had taken the audio a bit more seriously and spent more time working on it even though we didn't use audio in our final trailer. The end result would have been far more appealing with realistic sound effects rather than just a soundtrack. Parts I struggled with on this audio unit were mostly software based. I found it hard to work with Cubase because of my lack of experience with the program. Other parts that I found hard were getting the portable recorder to record clear, and usable sounds. There may have been some method of removing background noise I was not aware of, but this did frustrate me quite a bit. 

Aside from the difficulties of the audio there were parts that were well suited to me, and found much easier. I found using Foley techniques far easier and more effective than creating the sounds digitally in Cubase. After trying and failing to replicate the sound of metal in Cubase, I turned to Foley. By simply hitting two bits of metal together and recording it created a realistic effect that sounds like machinery in a factory. With a bit of editing I could use the machine sounds as a footsteps sound as well. By turning up the tempo and echo effects I created footsteps. Foley was by far my favorite part of the unit.   

Overall I am quite proud of how my audio turned out and think it is comparable to professional work. Even though I didn't create much sound after we decided to take the easy route and just use a sounds track and narration. I tried to make the sounds as atmospheric as possible and fit in with the environment. Create the feeling of being in a long, metal corridor. Quiet sounds in the backgrounds emphasize how lonely and eerie a cold, industrial environment is supposed to be. Despite this I think using the soundtrack instead was the right decision. The music seemed to fit very well surprisingly transitions in the trailer matched up with the music seamlessly whether this was intentional or just lucky I am not sure.   

After asking a few students the overall impression was it was quite realistic and gave of the impression of an echo.                 

I could improve on my audio by actually creating more of it. Industrial Environments will have more than one kind of machine operating. The slow and steady bashing metal together sounds a bit awkward for being too slow. Other improvements I could make include learning how to navigate Cubase better since since I was struggling to work the program. I could have done so much more with the audio if I knew how to work Cubase properly.     

GUI Designs

Here is mock up design of my GUI. It features a mini map in the top left corner, with the health and stamina bar running along side it. In the bottom right corner we have an inventory slider which lets the player cycle through his inventory in game. When a hot key is held down the slider will open up so the player can see the next item in the slider allowing easy item switching, without pausing the game. This is similar to the monster hunter GUI, which you can see in my previous post.

Here is a more old school GUI with bare basic requirements. Heath and stamina are on the left, whilst objective pointer is in the top right.

Game UI

Here are 3 designs of potential game user interfaces based of various games I have played.

1. Is a UI based on the monster hunter series which is a third person action RPG. This UI can also work well in first person perspective as it doesn't take much space and is visually appealing. The Inventory slider allows for easy switching between various items in-game without resorting to pausing the game. The player simply presses a button to open up the inventory, uses two other keys to cycle through to the item they want equipped, then press the same button to lock it. This is used in Monster Hunter to cycle through various healing items and traps which need to be accessed quickly.

2. This is a much more old school design similar to old FPS games. The health and stamina bars run vertically along the side of the screen, and are divided into health squares for easy measuring. It is important to keep status information about the player in one place most of the time to avoid confusion. Instead of a mini map this UI features a simple arrow that points to the next objective (very old school)

3. This is based of a game called Minecraft which features inventory slots along the bottom which can be cycled through using the mouse wheel, or the numbered hot keys. This allows easy and quick item selecting. Instead of a health bar the player gets the number of hit points he has remaining as this takes less space, same for stamina.

Here are some professional examples...

Trailer Sequence

Here we have created a final plan for the content of our trailer and what order our scenes will be in.

1. Will be the beginning splash screen Age Rating, Team Name, etc. This is also when the sound track will start and gradually build over time.
2. Next will be a narration sequence featuring a written version as well as a spoken version reading it out.
3. First environment scene will be Isaac Salt Building.
4. Next will be Alex E interior of the Salt building.
5. Next will be Alex J church style environment.
6. Then my SteamPunk corridor.

3D Production Log

Today I made good progress on my environment I finished the basic shape as well as adding textures to the scene. As you can see there are still some details to add as well as model the vault style door I want to open and the end of my section of the trailer. Overall l'm quite pleased with my progress so far and hope to complete it soon. Other elements I wish to add to this scene include Door, 2nd Room, Animated Fans and other industrial elements.  

T-Shirt Final Design

Team Wolfpack together decided on Ollie's T-Shirt design for it's simplicity and professional look from removing the square border of our team logo. The design proudly displays out team name on the front of the shirt rather than the back which was prominent in every other team members design. This T-Shirt is also unique due to where the team logo is positioned on the torso giving it a slightly different look.    

Production Log

Monday:
Environment-
I am making progress on my 3D environment. I was having trouble at first as to how I was going to create curves in the shapes I intended to use. I have finished the basic shape of the corridor and added a symetry modifier to ensure everything is symmetrical. Now I have started to create objects for my environment such as Piping, Control Panels etc.  
Tuesday:
Sound Production-
In Chris's lesson we began planning for what audio we are going to include in our environment. My trailer will include lots of industrial sounds often heard in a factory. These sounds will be obtained using The Foley technique which involves recording real life sounds with a recorder and implementing them into the trailer.
Post Production-
In today's activity we had to arrange a series of clips into what we thought was the right order in Windows Movie Maker Live. We did this to make us think about how everyone's scene will fit together.                     


  

T-Shirt Design

Here is my attempt at a t-shirt design. Did not turn out as l had hoped because the image needed to be made into a vector in order to work effectively, our game graphic is quite complex so the colours don't come through very well either. In my final t-shirt design l need to add the team logo aswell as the game graphic. It would be a nice design choice to have the team logo on the sleve almost like a badge. Another idea could be to have everyones team role on the back of their shirt e.g Alex E/Alex J/ Whoever would have team leader on the back of their shirt and so on.           

Game Graphic

This is the game graphic I have designed for our trailer project l have used an image of a clock face on a background I created with a splatter effect brush. I was aiming to make it look like torn paper to go with the game name but I ended up with some kind of stylised stain effect. This works well since I wanted a very old fashioned looking logo to look historical since Saltaire is a world heritage site and should have some historical astheticsa included. I got the idea for using the clock face you find on most bell towers from looking at the local church in Saltaire. I thought about how it would do well to symbolise time in an image which links with what actually happens in the trailer with the time travel aspect.          

  

Joe Lee- I like Joe's logo because of how it includes the two main aspects of the trailer time travel and portals. He has used different shades of the same base colour to make the clock around the portal look stained and aged for a more realistic effect.

Alex J- I like how Alex has used Titus in this image since Titus himself might be the only character included in this trailer. He will be presented in a horror genre like Alex has done with this logo.

Alex E- I do not think this would be well suited as a logo its looks like more of a splash screen to me personally. Though l do like the weather effects because they are also related to the trailer as we plan to have thunder and lightning as a main atmospheric effect in our trailer.

Atmospheric Effects

For today's session we used an option called AEC Extended to search through some pre-modelled objects to add to our environments such as trees. Once we had a set up we liked we looked into adding atmosphere with the Atmospheric Apparatus option. I added fog to my dessert scene and tweaked the settings in the environment option to try and make it look like the wind was blowing up sand.
One of the key points Chris made was these nice effects build up the render time.

 

Group Discussion

We discussed different roles and finally settled on an idea we were happy with by combining different elements from multiple ideas.  

Isaac C- Lights Flickering, Power Failings, Elevator Crashes

Positives:

-Dark mood, Horror/Blood, Camera Pans,

-Characters Titus etc.

-Sound Effects Screeching etc.

-Environment Scratches, Blood Spatters other horror elements

Joe Lee- Portals, Government Group, Investigate, Threats, Private Military

Positives:

-Portal leads to Saltaire

-Turns out we are on another planet called Contra

Positives: Different planet twist, PMC, 

-Conspiracy 

Alex E- Ancient Gods, Ice Caps, Global Warming, Portals, Prophecy

Positives:

-Chris Stormhold must go through portals to retrieve artefacts

Positives:

-Adventuring, Fantasy elements

Alex J- Portals, Different Genres, Salts Building Is A Temple, Collections

Having Different Time Zones In Saltaire, And You Have To Collect Things To Go In The Temple.

Positives – Salts Temple, Portals, Artefacts.

Josh W- Portals, Time Travel, Different Genres/Aesthetics, Post Apocalyptic, Steampunk/Bioshock, Fantasy

Positives:

 -Shows Saltaire in different genres and time zones fantasy, sci-fi, post apocalyptic etc.

- Maintains a happy mood until the end with a climatic horror ending.

-Gives team free reign over a scene.

Beginning:

-Splash Screen, Age Rating, Copyright etc.

Everyone will contribute to the beginning scene in some way

 The scene starts with a 360 pan around the Salt building environmental. The camera moves inside the building and then we see the environment from the characters perspective. The lights will be flickering on and off as the character moves towards the fuse box to investigate. The character then flicks a switch which then triggers a portal. The character is pulled through this portal into another world.

 This will be the largest scene with the most detail and effects this is partially why we decided to have every team member to work on this scene to achieve the best result. As this scene makes up a significant portion of the trailer.

Middle:

This is where we decided every team member will have free reign over a set timeframe of the trailer. The team member is free to pick any location within Saltaire and use different aesthetics and themes to create variety within the trailer.  Every team member will get at least 30 seconds of screen time to pan around the environment they have created. For my scene l plan to use a steam punk style with lots of furnaces, cogs, and brass. Other team members will use different themes and locations which don’t necessarily have to link because of the idea of traveling through a distorted portal.  

     End:

      Isaac’s scene will be the climatic ending with the final scene being a post apocalyptic, desolate Saltaire that has been destroyed leaving only a barren wasteland. At this point all music will quiet down to hear the blowing of the wind to add more atmosphere. The ending will be sudden with Titus Salt suddenly attacking the character leaving a black screen. Then another splash screen will be displayed along with the team logo, game logo etc.                               

    

My scene is similar to my original backstory l made with the steampunk elements and different scenes per team memeber. 

Marketing items:

1.       Box art- Josh W

2.       Splash screen- Joe L

3.       A1/A3 poster & A5 flyers- Oliver S

4.       Splash screens to fit into trailer- Alex E & Isaac P

5.       Web Banner- Alex J

6.       Name Logo- everyone

Saltaire Architecture

Today Chris showed us how we can replicate the common architecture found in the streets of Saltaire using basic building blocks and small detail. The main focus of this was workload Chris emphasised that we should not make things hard for ourselves by committing to building and creating every aspect ourselves. When we can simply take resources from the Internet to get all the menial task out of the way and focus more on what the viewer will be most interested in.

This model is made up of the most basic shapes with a few simple modifiers. Even now it is starting to take shape and form the basis of a building. Another time saver is reusing models you have already created and editing them just slightly rather than starting from scratch.

Enviroments

Today in Chris's lesson we developed a photo realistic environment complete with a sky dome. To start off we used a simple plane with many segments. After using a modifier called "Displace" it created a random rocky surface to resemble an environment. We then made a texture in photoshop to go over this newly made environment. I wanted to create a hellish landscape so l found a lava texture on Google images to edit in Phototshop. After playing around with layer options I made something I was happy with and placed it onto the environment as a bitmap image. This turned out rather well with the lighter colour residing in the deeper recesses of the environment it look like light was emitting from the lava below.

We then created a skybox with a large sphere around the entire enviroment which we then turned inside out and used a sky texture in Chris's I-Drive to do over the dome. The problem was the texture was a clear blue sky which was not suitable for the lava land I had created. So by tweaking it in photoshop  I changed to a more suitable colour.

We now have a hellish landscape with light emitting from the deepest recesses for more realism complete with a sky texture which was just a blue sky to begin with but twith the wonders of photoshop converted it to suit the enviroment. To get to this point we used some new features including the Displacement modifyer to create the rocky landscape, and basic envoroment filters. Light fog was used in this scene to brighten up the light from the hole. These features are new to us and will prove useful in the upcoming trailer project.

Planning for my 3D Enviroment

This is the reference picture I worked from. I didn't have a decent corridor image from the pictures we took with the camera. I decided this corridor looked plain enough to be worked into any kind of image and would be suitable. It is also from a eye level perspective so the horizon line is in the dead centre of the page.