Game Narrative
In the modern Caribbean islands, a
dubious historian attempts to find the origins of the local West Indian folklore
and myth. Following the local word of mouth, the skeptical adventurer journeys
into the depths of the bamboo forests at night, the lonely shores of the
Atlantic Ocean, and the archeological sites, eventually making a chilling
discovery. Disturbing traditional Obeah and Yoruba ritual ruins and artefacts
deep within the island awakens malevolent spirits and beasts, which are released
into the wild and the towns. These fearsome creatures, full of spite and
mal-intent, serve only themselves and seek the undoing of their disruptive
guest and to meddle with the world of the living. Through learning their
weaknesses from folktales and rituals, the adventurer must learn how to avoid
harm and defeat these creatures to restore safety and spiritual peace to the
islands. In order to survive, one must learn their enemies’ movements and fight
when necessary. And when the foe is truly as sinister as this, running and
hiding is essential. What path will they take, and what discoveries will they
make about their own ancestry along the way?
I am pleased with this final narrative draft because it creates an immersive background context for the digital characters and figures.I also wanted to start thinking of ways to present my work at the final exhibition. I thought about gaming events and how games and artists present their character and environment work using posters, figurines, digital screens and freebies.
I went to the Science Museum 'Power Up' event in April 2018. The event featured over 180 consoles and classic games from the 1980s to now. I was able to play original games such as Tomb Raider I, Super Mario, Crash Bandicoot, Golden Eye as well as many other titles. When reflecting upon my visit to this event I notice that the games were presented very prominently around the room, for example on the walls behind the consoles, there were large posters that showed characters or scenes from the games on their respective consoles. Some posters simply showed one large image whereas others were presented in collage-type arrangements. I could consider using this presentation style for my final pieces at the exhibition, e.g. having the figures set up in front and a collage poster of the original digital models behind them on the wall.
Comicon artists/companies are another source of inspiration, as I like how they present their work in the small stalls that are provided. Companies and small artists show and advertise their merchandise using large and small posters, freebies and shelves for figurines. Speaking to my tutor, I began to consider the idea of setting up my own 'stall' at the exhibition, featuring the figures on a shelf, a poster behind and small freebies featuring my character renders.
Testing and Evaluations: Freebies
From this idea I began to do some freebie and poster mock-ups. For the freebies I decided that I could use photo paper and make small ID card-sized freebie photos of my renders. I chose the close-up renders of all three characters, as well as a render of all the characters standing together. I liked the first test, although it was quite dark and hard to see the details when printed. I also thought it would be a good idea to add the names to the characters on the cards for context. For my next freebie test, I placed the names of the characters onto the cards using Caribbean lingo (Di = The, e.g. 'Di Jumbie') as I thought it not only suited the context of the game's local environment well, but it felt like a subtle and inviting way of infusing the Caribbean culture with popular culture. For the next test, I had to correct the image printing size so that the text fit in the picture properly. The card size was thinner but I quite liked this layout. The last test I did was using the same layout but brightening the images and reducing the contrast. This made them much clearer on the photo paper. I then did some peer feedback and offered the freebies out to people in my class, all of whom were excited by the free cards. I was told that the images were the clearest on the last type of card, but some people told me that the original card layout was best. I will carry out more tests in the future for the freebies, playing around with changing the layout and text.
17/05/2018
I carried out some more tests for the freebies as I was not satisfied with my last tests. Firstly I opened my renders in Photoshop and changed the text so that it simply showed the names of characters on their own, and using a different font. I thought that it had a stronger impact than the first tests as the font suited the characters better, and it was larger and clearer. I also felt that the names on their own fit better with the horror genre rather than having the prefix 'Di' before the names. The first printing tests I carried out on photo paper did show the colours of the renders more vibrantly, however the settings I used to print this way were not compatible with the photo paper, and so the ink brushed off very easily, ruining the picture. I tried another test using the same settings but increasing the quality to see if the ink bound to the paper better. When the photos first printed the image quality was better, but the ink was still brushing off whenever it touched a surface. As the freebies will be constantly picked up by people this is unsuitable. Therefore I reverted to the photo paper settings, and edited the brightness and contrast in Photoshop again (60 brightness, 20 contrast). This time the print remained clean and the ink stayed onto the paper well. Although the images are not as vibrant, they are still bright and the text shows up well. I will use these freebies for my final exhibition
Test and Final
Testing and Evaluation: Poster
Looking at my previous research on Naughty Dog's art books, I noticed how the 3D art is displayed in different ways on the page, using a wide variety of compositions. I liked the neat arrangement of both the concept pieces and the final 3D models, in rows and using a 360 degree display. It presents all elements of the models clearly and professionally, almost like a showreel. Therefore I decided to do some poster mock-ups inspired by these art book pages for my 3 characters. I used photoshop to firstly test how I would edit the renders to line up neatly in a row. Once I was happy with the spacing between each render, I carried out the first test on Photoshop. At first I used a portrait stacked photo arrangement, but the renders became too small to see clearly and the 360 degree effect was lost because of this. Next I tried a landscape arrangement, using A2 dimensions and placing the angled render shots in a row, with the final two in the row being the Mudbox model render and the close-up render shot of each model. This arrangement was a lot neater and the details of each model were a lot clearer than the first test I did. I will carry out physical printing tests to see how well the images come out, and reduce the size of the paper to A3 if needed.
15/05/18
I used the print shop facilities to print my mock up poster 2 on A2 page wide design jet paper. It was sharp in most areas apart from the line of Soucouyant renders at the top. The render with more fire was more blurry than the rest of the images, ruining the visual quality of the poster. As well as this, the line of five Soucouyant renders compared to the lines of four Jumbie and Douen renders felt odd and overcrowded. I solved this by opening the Photoshop file and removing the full fire render of the Soucouyant, and aligning all of the renders neatly. I then sent this version of the final poster layout to the print shop and received a better result. This poster showed the images sharply and overall it had a better appearance as the renders were all aligned. I will use this poster in the final exhibition to showcase my digital work, as well as using the digital screen provided.
Poster mock-up 1 Poster mock-up 2
Final poster design
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