Christmas Finished

Because its a Christmas card I wanted it too look a little sketchy rather than serious detail.
And as christmas cards are hand written I wanted the writing on it too also look handwritten, so it gives it a personal touch.
I apologise for the fact it is a bad upload, but it had to be done via my phone as i had no internet on my computer at the time.
If i had time to change it, I would have liked to have put a pot on the tree and add a little more detail to it and the star, and maybe a few more presents. But other than that, i do like the idea.

Christmas Card Sketches

As I work for royal mail i thought it would be a cute idea to have the card as something related to that. As Santa doesn't deliver the parcels I do, i thought it would be a cute idea.

The two ideas i am picking between are parcels in the sleigh. Or santa with a royal mail bag, I need to make this guy fatter, but other than that I think this is the idea I will do.

Christmas Card Research

For this project we were to make a christmas card featuring Santa Claus and it has to be 1240 x 1748 pixels and @300 DPI

These are my reference images for the Christmas Card project. Although it doesn't look like much, it shows me everything that i need to see.

Weekly Task Update

Okay. So we were all set certain things to do for the week to achive by friday the 23rd.

Jack
Was required to unwrap and texture the interior of the building which he achieved in time and to a useable standard. He also created the low poly bookcase

Alex
Alex task was to finish unwrapping the exterior of the building and texture it. As well as create a urinal.
He has some issues with the unwrapping which left no time for the urinal. And he created the texture but didn't get round to applying it (so I did)

Sam
Unwrap and texture the fan, the library lights, the outside ground.
The fan is done and to a useable standard - but he took such a long time that I did the outside ground.
The library lights are useless and need to be retextured and the same with the outside stairs, they aren't what we asked him to do - but he takes such a long time with it that we are going to do it ourselves.

Adrian
Adrian was to unwrap and texture the printer. Model the security scanners and create sign textures. He only managed to do the printer. - Whilst it is to a good standard there are far to many excess polys - which I now cannot sort out without runing the unwrap.

Dani
It was my job to model the rest of the interior and apply the basic textures (like the carpet and the ceilings which were created by Jack). I also modelled and textured the exterior ground as well as applying the textures to all the exterior walls. I have also made sure that there are no gaps between the walls and everything lines up perfectly.

For next Friday

Jack
Jack is going to create normal maps for all of our textures.

Alex
He is going to texture and unwrap all the interior doors. He is going to model the urinal and texture and unwrap it. If we have time then he will add the collisions to the objects in unity.

Sam
Is texturing the bookscanner (that I have already unwrapped).
He is also going to model the outside libray lights and texture.
Also a small tree.


Adrian
Isn't here so he can lose marks.

Dani
I am going to coninute implementing all the objects that everyone finishs into the scene, whilst optimizing all of the object and putting them into the correct places. An updating the blog and putting everything in unity.



26th - Sam hasn't shown up. I will also clarify that 80% of the time Sam has never turned up. When same does he just sits on games. He doesn't come in when its our library days.

Week commencing December 3rd

Dani
I have put everything into unity now. And myself and Jack have lowered the size of the textures.

Jack
Jack has added all the animations to everything. And created some little UI things.

Alex
Has added all the collisions to the library. As well as modelling and texturing the tree.

Adrian
Has modelled and textured all the signs. The signs are far to high poly, but we don't have time to reduce these now.

SAM HAS DONE NOTHING NEW
 

Plane Crash Finished

Here is my progress update.

As you can see i did change my original idea slightly, and I do like the positioning of the plane in the new one.

These are the final two pieces one is day and the other is night.

I would have liked to have been able to add more detail, but i wasn't sure how to do so.

The idea but it would have been much better if i was able to make it look more realistic, and the size of the guy doesn't look right to the place, but when i shrunk him it still didn't look right.

Emotional Attachment Draft

So i thought I would go away and do some research on what people actually thought.

Basically found out that people that don't get sad at films do not get sad at games ever.
But even the most toughest of people mentioned one film that at least got them slightly upset.
Green Mile
Toy Story 3 - Because they were characters that they grew up with.
Schindler's List - Because it is based on a true story

Questions name ideas
Real Emotions for Virtual Characters
Emotional Attachment Towards Fictional Characters

Potential opening sentence

In this essay I will be discussing the emotional attachment players have to fictional characters in games the reason for this is that it is impressive that game developers can get us to feel something for a character that isn't real, getting us to emphasise with something that isn't human and considering that gameplay seperates you from a story yet we still get attached. I am going to refer to Final Fantasy 7 Crisis Core and The Last Remnant, I will discuss how one does it well and the other doesn't.

It does really depend on the immersion you get within a game as well.

http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-final-fantasy-vii/3/
quote for ffvii - relatable to ff7cc

Bibliography Quotes - Potentially

Examples of peoples views on games and how they have/haven't done it well.
"To this day, very few games have managed to emotionally grab onto a player and make them seriously care about the characters. And they’re not alone, TV and films try this unsuccessfully all the time. I’ve seen one TV show where it pretty much said 'this guy who betrayed you is your father, therefore you should care'.

But it doesn’t work like that. As with real life, you can’t trick people or logically force them into investing in characters, it happens because of the experiences they go through together.

In Metal Gear Solid the fact that you have to fight your brother several times lacks any kind of emotional impact because there’s no proper build-up, no shared experiences. You just fight him a few times. No amount of cut scenes or dialogue helps, because it’s superficial.

Metal Gear Solid 3 gets it closer than the first game, but again doesn’t nail it. You get some build up with The Boss and some character development, but she turns on you too quickly. When you have to kill her at the end Kojima just about pulls it off, so I did feel uneasy about it. But if he’d saved her betrayal for later in the game the impact would have been a lot bigger."
http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/838621-readers-feature-emotional-attachment
By Ty Conlon - 20th August, 2010 

In terms of immersion without you can't have any attachment to characters.
"elements of story and gameplay are naturally separate. Thus, when the two are intertwined in a game, the player often feels that either the story is an unwanted distraction from the gameplay or that the gameplay is a tedious drawing-out of the story. However, the evolution of video games has resulted in a new technique for integrating story and gameplay more intricately than in the past."

http://illumin.usc.edu/printer/107/immersion-through-video-games/
Immersion Through Video Games  By Steve Woyach November 2012

Research that people have done
"Results suggest that people form real and authentic emotional attachments to virtual characters, and that these arise from a complex blend of the players' personalities and motivations, and the virtual characters' levels of physical attraction, friendliness (or hostility), and general usefulness within the game context."
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ppm/1/3/176/
July 2012 page 176-184

What the makers of Final Fantasy Say
 “The main issues of contention for fans worldwide are still Aerith’s death and the ending sequence with Sephiroth. With the plot I wanted people to feel something intense, to understand something. Back at the time we were designing the game I was frustrated with the perennial dramatic cliché where the protagonist loves someone very much and so has to sacrifice himself and die in a dramatic fashion in order to express that love. We found this was the case in both games and movies, both eastern and western. But I wanted to say something different, something realistic. I mean is it right to set such an example to people?”
http://www.edge-online.com/features/making-final-fantasy-vii/3/
Tetsuya Nomura August 2012

Good Example of why people are attached to these characters
"Tidus - Simple "fight for the one you love" scenario. Main character is very like-able and many gamers find themselves attached to him. Given the wide range of emotions the character can exhibit, players actually feel like they are playing "themselves" int he game. Tidus responds to situations like most people would."
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091026134733AALFu6M

Plane Crash Sketches

In the scene I want the character to look upset, or worn out from getting out of the wreckage.

I prefer how he would look in the second image but i prefer the angle of the first image.

As the final piece is to be landscape it would have been a good idea if i had done the sketches in that way. As i know the angle is now going to look a little off.

Box Man Perspective

I wasn't sure whether I had to do a clean line at the end or not, I'm not to happy with how the feet came out but I think in terms of perspective its right.

I understand where I go wrong with the perspective, but with a pencil drawing it is then hard to correct this mistake, which is a shame.

Emotional Attachement Research

http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Virtual%20Feelings.pdf
http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/838621-readers-feature-emotional-attachment
Zack Dying.
Aeris Dying.
Thinking Meryl Died
Lack of build up on back story.
Created by immersion
http://illumin.usc.edu/printer/107/immersion-through-video-games/
Think its the same as making friends you spend over 20 hours with a person. Experience there experiences with them.
Done by making a good character same as emotions you would feel in a film. Like dumbledor dying or when you think gandalf died. Good character creation.
Tidus dying in final fantasy x and separating the love between characters. Think thats upsetting.
Music plays a key part
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091026134733AALFu6M
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ppm/1/3/176/

747 Crash Research

For this project we were given a specific scenario, our plane is a Boeing 747 American Airlines and has crash landed in New York, the character is 30, white male, dark hair and a tshirt and jeans and is standing before the wreckage. It also has to be created in a 2.35:1 ratio. 'To feel epic'

So i did some basic research on the 747 to find out its shape and its colour. Also made sure to find a plane that had the American Airlines logo on it.

These are some images of the Lower East Side of NYC. I haven't really diverted to any other buildings because I don't know if anything else i research is actually there, as a lot of images that were coming up weren't in the area of new york that was required.

This is some research into what a plane crash would look like afterwards. These images were picked because I liked the colours in them and also to see what a building looked like with a plane in it. As well as rubble and the positioning of the plane.