So I remembered why I'm not using a .AVI file

So I have no idea, but this happened the first time I rendered as a .avi file at the start of the project.. all I know is it's working well as a .flv.

Opinions Part 1

OK SO... I've only asked a couple immediate family members if they can gather what the game is about (they knew nothing before showing them the trailer) and these are the responses so far, my mum didn't quite get it but my brother hit the nail right on the head.

FinalWithoutAudio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lu7u1RxfL1o&feature=youtu.be

Ok so hopefully this is it, if there's any more tweaking it will be to sort out the monk scene, I feel the pauses between speech bubbles are too drawn out and it makes the scene long and boring. Also there's a random purple square which isn't showing in the after effects file but is in the render *shrugs*

Latest Work

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BE_7rGFBYc

Ok so I haven't had a chance to fix the smaller problems picked out but I have completed another 3 scenes since my last post. However I think the last scene is too similar to the one before it and could also use some speeding up. I want to get all the scenes done before I start nitpicking at the other problems.

A recollection - Of Friezes and Vinyets

Thursday 26th: 

Steve B wanted to see how are group project was going so we decided to get his opinion on are trailer, mainly what he though of the Frieze/tapestry.

Steve suggested to we needed a spoken or 'on screen text' narration, to get the story over.  Who are these people? What this place/planet called? etc.

Steve showed us the intro to 'The Vikings', as an example of narrated tapestry - 0:23-2:07

We didn't really want narration any kind of narration for are tapestry, just wanted it to be purely imagery. So that the player could interpret the story how they wanted. 

Friday 27th:

The following day we decided to get Tanguy's advice on the tapestry, he disagreed that it need narration but the imagery needed to be more obvious. Tanguy also suggested we try it vertical, to give the impression of civilization progressing under ground, also suggested the use of lens flare to give the impression of the beginning being on the surface, then making it dim when they go underground.

Final that the Tapestry should have a smooth transition to the Monks.

So me and Katie reworked the assets from the horizontal tapestry into a vertical one.

First sample of the Friezes/tapestry in vertical postion:

Then smooth transition to the opening Monk scene:

... and then with audio:

Friday 4th:

Tanguy found the improvements much better, but going back to the original first draft of the trailer that we showed during are vertical slice. He addressed that the monks were over animated, moving to frequently and looked too "puppet like". Suggested to reduce the arm movements and head bobbing and to adjusted the "Waving/pointing" Monk to give him more a bend in his elbow.

The first rough cut of the trailer, that was shown during the vertical slice:

Revised monk scene. Now with less movement and reordering of speech bubble content:

Wednesday 9th:

After the talk with the guy from BBH Global (Bartle Bogle Hegarty). Decided to show a roaming Evan  the updated trailer (second video above). Evan also preferred the vertical Frieze, his main issue was during the Monk scene that the speech bubble got cut off by the top of the scene. Suggested that the bubble should be more central so that the viewer isn't looking toward the top of the screen, since the focal point should be in the middle. The only other is which was also pointed out friday by Tanguy was that the Vinyet need to be more content with the other ones, Evan and I agreed that the faded one in the blue screen was better than the dark one in the Green Mossy scene.

Vertical Frieze/Tapestry with SOUND :D

"We detected that your video is shaky. Would you like us to fix that?"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owDBX4QY_Tg&feature=youtu.be

....Not sure the parts gel together too well................... :/ what do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIF2Tj4egfQ&feature=youtu.be

So I took one of Jacks lovely frieze compositions and quickly made this :) It will need some tweaking and extensions need to be added to the end for it to make sense when juxtaposed with the next scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbbH0ZnrzDU

Tapestry Image

Tapestry 1: Basic

Tapestry 2: Beveled

Tapestry 3: Tattered

Tapestry 4: Tattered + Beveled

Mac was crashing again, had upload via ImageShack again, sorry for small pictures.

Tapestry test style

Ok sorry parents suddenly said we were going out just as you asked me to do this. Any way just though quickly get some to kinder get the idea of the style.

Going to make rips and tears along the top and bottom sides. My main idea is with the rainbow/colour wheel again but it just seems off here at the moment not how I want it, want it more pastel than vivid/high lighter colour.

Also not sure if should make the shapes in the border progress along with the story, soft shapes when its calm and sharp shapes when there havoc.

*Edit* The lines on the colour one are probably because I had to re-size the doc back to A4 and also saved it at a lowish resolution .jpeg, hopefully won't been there on the finished one.

Was think scene of people drinking celebrating (green) > rumbling ground (yellow) > ground starting to crack volcano starting to erupt (orange) > people panicing, rain ash, etc (red) > pointing to cave entrence (pink/purple) > people entering the door (purple/blue) > people starting to dig/drill tunnels, maybe there discovering this tunnel/door for first time and golems (blue/cyan).

Hmmmmm...

Also looked at the Wall.e credits again and the art style gets progressively more complex, think may stick with the ancient Greek kind of style.

This has got to be, the most text this blog has ever seen. :P

Trailer Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYgwvobA7Dk&feature=youtu.be

SOOOOOO attached a few of the vids together with some music, it's a bit funny in places but I am in the process of writing a list of improvements!

Monks Opening

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubsGwpcAGDI&feature=youtu.be

Now with added monks!

black and white

slight improvement? :/

:/

Test

http://youtu.be/N1DPxmYPQaI

Trailer end Mock up

Final seal done, with each segment on its own layer in PS, also done a mock up for the end part of the trailer. 

And Another

Another

Some more

So..

How's the contrast looking on your mac?

Revised Storyboard

Revised certain parts of the storyboard, mainly the beginning and middle. Made sure to give some scale this time to make pollie happy. Haven't changed the end though, since it the same and would have been too time consuming to draw that out again as well.

Tunnels extras

As to what Tanguy said on friday made some little bits that could be merged into layers within the tunnel scenes.

In-game

How the player will look in-game, note players size, the light he casts and tunnel width.

The coloured veins on the Golem may change to reflect the environment, or the general environment tone maybe applied to all of the player.

Tutorial

So after meeting with Tanguy today there are several changes we wish to make to our trailer and one to our game play.

make scenes flow from travel to settlements
At the moment the transition from travel sections to settlements is quite jarring and makes it seem like there are two separate games squished into one. We will add a couple scenes to the trailer showing to accomplish this.

make everything in the trailer relevant
At the moment the settler in the trailer was going to just talk in some random crazy language. This is being changed so the settler hint towards a puzzle solution.

make the character useful for solving puzzles
Make puzzles less disjointed from the rest of the game, have them include the character and/or ship.

make a couple extra opening scenes
Polly wanted the objective of the game to be clearer by adding in a scene explaining, this ties in with what Tanguy said today. He suggested an overall explanation, most likely involving text. We had an idea to have a sort of scrolling cave art/tapestry style experience.

make embellishments
Embellish the backgrounds to make them more interesting. Add in some broken statues, fossils, cave art. Anything to keep the player interested.

We've decided to combine the sprint card into our scedule, not sure if should also do sprint cards with details of what each job was or is going be. 

 

So if might look a bit fast or jumpy but I can slow it down when I edit it later :) I'm going to add a pulsing glow to the text too if that sounds cool?

Seal Varaitions

Some seal variations,  might make a black and white one for the end of the trailer. Any pre-fences? 

Neon pipe puzzle (2nd trailer puzzle)

Ok started working on the neon scene, I've blocked in some elements so just get an idea.

Start off with the player about to interact with the puzzle, seal is in the room to the right. The build has been cut away btw, it wouldn't usually show the inside.

The puzzle would become sort of full screen like in Machinarum, but you can still see the environment behind. (Will add a fade layer aswell, to fade environment)

I think we should show the player attempting to solve the puzzle then fade to black quickly to point where they've just solved it.

Once solved the room containing the seal (to the right) unlocks, and fountain out sides actives (due to the puzzle pipes?) 

Music and Sound effects

When I was talking to luke he did say that sound/audio would probably come after we show do are first showing of the trailer. But might as well get something together now.

Music: http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/174661

That licensing terms in the left hand bar is the actual CC terms, so all we have to do is give credit to the music if with use it. (Music by m477zorz - "-Magnoor Caverns-")


Waterfall sound effect: http://www.freesound.org/people/reinsamba/sounds/24054/

Rocks falling, for the rocky section: http://www.freesound.org/people/Benboncan/sounds/60085/

Door closing sound, for the bit just before the end title: http://www.freesound.org/people/pscsound/sounds/71261/

Other useful sounds (Maybe):

http://www.freesound.org/people/reacthor/sounds/130438/
http://www.freesound.org/people/ERH/sounds/34187/
http://www.freesound.org/people/pushtobreak/sounds/17823/

Flying Golem for Animating

Ok done this version so it can be animated now, shoulder, arm, fingers and torso are on seprate layers in the PS file so it can be animated.

Storyboard

Though I might as well put this up here, even though I've sent you the bigger version.

Storyboard WiP

Currently how far I've gotten with the storyboard hopefully finish it tomorrow.  Also got a bad feeling it may end up being too much animating work for you, katie. : /

*Edit* I'll send these to you when there done imageshack has made them really small, and hard to read on the blog.

Logo design

So this is what I was thinking for an opening thingymajigthing, obv we'd use the nice font you found rather than that one but I thought it was nice to show she was a pixie by having the wings, it means we can animate it to make them flutter too! :D Just need to make the lineart neater on the hand and add a liiiitttle bit more...

Vehicle designs

Here the helicopter... that didn't make any sense.

and heres the preferred idea. It could start off with no arms then as the game progress obtains arms and tools. Also arms could interchange between other tools while still in game, the previous tool would just retract back into the arm.

SUPER DUPER DRAFT STORYBOARRRDDD!!!11!

Monk Designs and final monk?

The few colour variations I've tried.

One of these? or should I re-do the mask again?

Going add like a hip bag to the belt thing most probably, aswell.

Scedule

Week Start	Tasks	Tasked to
20th February	1)     Continue game mechanic and puzzle designs. 2)     Official polished level plan/layout. 3)     Rough character, Vehicle and final boss design. 4)     Rough tunnels and settlement design.	1)     Jack & Katie 2)     Jack 3)     Jack 4)     Katie
25th February	1)     Highlight areas to be included in the trailer.	1)     Jack & Katie
27th February	1)     Polish tunnel and settlements designs. 2)     Official main character, settlers and final boss design. 3)     Start rough trailer storyboard. 4)     Rough Design walkthrough.	1)     Katie 2)     Jack 3)     Jack 4)     Jack
5th March	1)     Start trailer (Animatic). 2)     Continue concept art designs.	1)     Katie 2)     Katie & Jack
12th March	1)     Continue working on trailer. 2)     Start putting together game walk-through.	1)     Katie 2)     Jack
19th March	1)     Polish trailer. 2)     Polish game walk-through.	1)     Katie 2)     Jack
26th March	1)     Prepare for presentation. 2)     Check trailer 3)     Walk-through again	1)     Katie & Jack 2)     Katie 3)     Jack

Monk Designs II

Not done with trying out colour schemes and pattern designs yet, but though might aswell show how far. Maybe you can suggest a good combination of colours. At the moment I think I really need change the mask design, it reminds me of castle crashers too much.

I was thinking that it actually looks nice with the linework on top, at least a little bit.... could be made a bit subtle but overall I prefer the look of the character with a tiny bit of line

quick rough test

Settlers Designs

More designs to come. Couldn't do hair looked weird when i tried to do it. Katie do you like the big forehead or should I shorten it? 

Left to Right + Top to bottom: Starting skin, Potato worshiper, Organic farmer person, Neon guy 1(note grey/faded skin), Nerd 1, Blank skin, Neon guy 2.

*Update* cleaned the blobs off the backs, re-adjusted the hat for organic guy aswell (doesn't look that different though) and did some hair for Nerd 1.

*Update* now with crystal guy.