Game research

An open world is a type of video game level design where a player can roam freely through a virtual world and is given considerable freedom in choosing how or when to approach objectives. The term free roam is also used, as is sandbox and free-roaming. Such as:

1. Grand Theft Auto 5
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8. I would like my game to be an open world, third person action game, similar to Arkham Knight and the other Batman games for heroes and scenery but also GTA for the set out (e.g using a map and missions).
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   (Arkham Knight and Arkham Asylum)
10. (Concept art)
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Primary research: settings

Overview

Heroes
Nocturnal flying animals:
Flying fox- main hero (like Batman)
Flying squirrel- sidekick (like Robin)
Bold outline, abnormally large feature to create cartoon like characteristics




Villains
Typically dirty animals people do not like
White rat- boss with a suit and gold tooth (mobster looking)
Three brown mice- henchmen wearing overalls 
Bold outline, abnormally large feature to create cartoon like characteristics

Setting/Scenery

• Typical dirty american alleyway
• Big bins where the villain's HQ is- dark and dull colours for dirt and negative energy
• Heroes HQ is in a tree house in a garden- bright and pure colours for cleanliness and positive energy for recycling 

Scenario
Third person action game, mostly set during the night where the heroes come out to try and clean up the streets, but the villain try and set traps to stop them for cleaning up, sidekick gets caught in traps and main hero saves the day by rescuing him in missions. Open world game so you can travel around unclean city, by picking up different pieces of big rubbish in different corners and alleyways, a new mission will start.  



Research
I need to:
Gather photos of each animal, find a style for the other cartoons to match the rat I have already created, find good examples of locations to base the scenes (examples from Batman series)

 Original photo

 Photoshop edit #1

Traced line drawing #1

Stop motion animation

Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion animation- 
In animation, stop motion animation is a cinematic process, or technique used to makes static objects appear as if they were moving. This technique is commonly used in claymation and puppet-basedanimation.


Examples- 
Wallace and Gromit 















Coraline

Inspirartion

Brief

Target Audience

• 7-11
• Children into action and superhero 

Form & Style

• Realistic colours and shapes
• Unrealistic cartoon based features (e.g. abnormally large eyes)
• Ed Edd n Eddy style? 
• Based on forest animals; flying squirrel, flying fox 
• Evil white rat with red eyes in white suit with gold

What characters will be based on 

• Superhero duos and teams
• Best friends
• Main character (e.g. Batman) and sidekick (e.g. Robin)
• 1 "big boss" enemy (Rat) + little minion squad (mice) 

Scenery

• HQ/hideout in tree in back garden
• Street scene + alley way
• Night time based

Exploring and experimenting 

• Free hand drawing
• Illustrator
• Look at similar styles (e.g. Ed Edd n Eddy) 

What I intend to produce

• 2 groups, good and bad side
• Superhero and sidekick
• Big boss and minions

Vector tracing with the pencil tool

What is the difference between vector and raster graphics?
Vector is a solid based object and raster is made out of small pixels.

Idea Generation

Villain for Fly-High and Huggy

• Animals that dislike squirrels e.g. dogs, foxes, cats.
• Dark colours + reds
• Big red eyes and sharp big teeth
• Sharp fur
• Sharp claws

Anthropomorphic characters

Arthur is an 8 year old anthropomorphic aardvark, who is made to look more human by adding glasses and clothing and a standing body structure, with hands like human's and wears clothes. He is a beige colour, however it is not similar to the colour of a real life aardvark and has more bear-like ears than an aardvark. He behaves and leads the same life like humans, he attends school and plays with friends.

Pet Squad consist of a guinea pig, dog and a cat, all common household pets who part time act like normal pets and the other they save the world. The guinea pig is animated to look like he has fur and all the animals are of similar colour to their real life characters. When normal pets they shrink down to normal size, but when they become superheroes they become anthropomorphic and enlarge in size, they put on superhero costumes and are able to talk. 

  

Fly-High and Huggy are two squirrels, but unlike real squirrels they're red and blue with fingers and are able to talk. Their main focus is to collect nuts and have a strange obsession with them. The animators have not chosen to show them having fur however there are small details on the ears like hair lines to suggest they are, like their real life characters. 

Definitions

Pixel- a minute area of 
illumination on a display 
screen, one of many from which an image is composed.













Raster Graphics- digital images created or captured (for example, by scanning in a photo) as a set of samples of a given space. A raster is a grid of x and y coordinates on a display space. (And for three-dimensional images, a z coordinate.)









Vector Graphics-  is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygons—all of which are based on mathematical expressions—to represent images in computer graphics.

Photoshop trials

Anthropomorphic character

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic is a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog who has the ability to run at supersonic speeds and the ability to curl into a ball, primarily to attack enemies. Throughout the course of the video games, Sonic most commonly has to race through levels, collect power up rings and surviving against a host of natural obstacles and minions to achieve his goal and reach the end. Sonic's programmer is Yuji Naka and artist is Naoto Ohshima.
 


The natural colour around his mouth, eyes, body and arms give him human like features and more realistic to a hedgehog than blue.
Bright blue hedgehog with large proportioned feet and hands to exaggerate how fast he's running whilst playing the game, his shoes are also red in contrast the his blue body making them stand out more.
His aerodynamic head/hair shape also helps the idea that he is "the fastest hedgehog in the world". 
He is turned into an anthropomorphic hedgehog by adding the body features of a human, and big cartoon like eyes and given a strong personality, of that of a humans. 

Photoshop trials

Overview

• The BBC, in association with the Recycle Now organisation, are looking to develop a cross platform series of games, videos and animated stories to promote and raise the profile of recycling amongst young people (it is up to you to identify an age range).
• They are looking for ideas for characters to be used during the development of this project, the only specific requirement for your character is that it is not human but an anthropomorphised animal or object.
• They would like to see a full digital documentation of your progress through a comprehensive blog alongside a series of concept drawings and visual representations of the characters you have developed.
• These proposed characters should also have a rationale that explains their relevance.

Visual Characteristics

•Colour bright + vibrant

•Recognisable characters on front page

•Big bright bold text

•Pictures + symbols instead of text

•Younger websites= less human characters

•Shapes- rounded, symmetrical or really irregular 

BBC Research

CBBC

       •CBBC uses a dark background with bright and bold icon buttons

       •Clear icons to show where the button leads to

       •They use sharp shapes and mostly rectangles

       •Darker colours are more sophisticated

       •Simpler layout than CBEEBIES to make it more grown up

       •The icon pictures for shows make it more fun and interesting

       •Recognisable characters on front

CBEEBIES

•Use very rounded shapes and bright happy colours like yellow

        •Bright scene with smiling characters

        •Rounded font

        •Clear interactive buttons with            labels under.

iPlayer

•Plain, maximum colours of 3

•Simple rectangular shapes

•Most popular shows on front

Research Characters