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.