NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Kibosh (Obstacle Course TV show) animation R&D

For this project, we were tasked with creating a 3D animation based around Kibosh, a fictional obstacle course TV show that is inspired by Wipeout and Ninja Warrior.

According to the brief the project is about: learning the processes of animating characters and scenes, exploring the development of body and facial animations in order to portray a convincing performance through the use of animation, learning the process of animating characters and scenes, using this to explore the development of body and facial animations of characters for cinema, television and entertainment while exploring the different processes and stages of creating animations.

We were also tasked with developing the ability to present a narrative concept through the use of an animated character, with the context that we are "working for the new research and development department at Third floor films." The company's been approached by a new production management company seeking to branch into animation in advertising, potentially looking into creating an animated feature in the future.  

As a result, for this project we needed to present research and produce a brief TV indent, at a professional standard, for the upcoming (fictional) obstacle course show ‘Kibosh!’

(This is based heavily on Total Wipeout: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk3gT7AL-rQ and Ninja Warrior: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IARzaXV8W0E).  

Also, as stated in the brief context, we are "working for the new research and development department at Third floor films", effectively meaning that rather than just heavily focusing on the animation itself, it is also significantly important to justify each descision made based on gathered research.

This ident will display a simple animated character attempting an obstacle from the show with each classmate's individual animations, as a group, collectively making up the final ident. This would then be presented to the "production management company seeking to branch into animation" detailed in the brief's context.

I started this project by by creating an animation strategy based off what was required in the brief. The animation strategy consisted of a list that encompassed the many different processes that will need to be completed throughout the creation of the project. This list of what is required can be seen below:

• Create an Asset list to show what elements will be required for the creation of the animation.
  

• Storyboard the animation / animation ident.
  

• Create a basic playboard for what the animation may look like.
  

• Create a project pipeline.

• Collect and present research conducted.

• Create the final ident animation using the given preset character (Beefcake) in a CGI scene.
  

• Launch promotions for the product.

As a result of this, for my project I decided that certain parameters and constraints are set for the creation of the animation. These constraints consisted of:

• Timeline / Video Duration - The animation must last between 5 and 7 seconds long in order to fit the time shown for each animation ident.
  

• Target Audience - The animation should be applicable to all ages and fitness levels, however mostly family audience similar to Wipeout and Ninja Warrior.
  

• Required Language - If there is any writing or spoken language it must be in English.

• Aspect Ratios - The video should be set to standard aspect ratios (W 16: H 9).
  

• Technical Details - Any colour/colour correction, characters or specific styles can be added however they are less important than the animation itself.

Why use CGI for the animation?:

 

Each type of animation has its advantages and disadvantages for use in the Kibosh animation, each bringing their own target audiences and methods of production.

While Hand drawn / Cartoon drawing can appeal to a young audience, as it can be easily animated in a childish and family friendly way, typically, as of now it is often used to appeal to older audience, as that was the style of animation that those people grew up with and likely wouldn't attract the more modern, younger audiences.

Similarly, Stop Motion can have a childish and family friendly style, with a clay and old fashioned appearance enticing both older and younger audiences alike. However, Stop Motion takes a lot of time and would be in development for significantly longer than other alternative types of animation.

As for CGI however, while it would be possible to create a photorealistic animation, it would not appeal to a larger audience because it would not appeal as much to a younger audience due to its more mature and serious appearance. As the show 'Kibosh' is supposed to be  family oriented it requires an appeal to both younger and older audiences 

Similarly to cartoon animation, CGI also allows for a more childish, family friendly and cartoonish appearance while also appealing to a more modern audience and younger audience. This would be the best pick, not only because it can mimic the styles of both Stop Motion animation and Hand drawn animation, but it also has significantly more flexibility, with it being able to be edited at any part of the animation at any time, helping to create a significantly more fluid workflow.

It would also be better to use the pre-made VFX / 3D modelled character "Beefcake" that was provided to us because it allows for significantly less time spent on development of assets and instead allows for more focus and time spent designing and creating the final animation.

Once I had outlined the constraints, what I was required to do and what animation style I would ultimately use, I decided to create a Production Pipeline detailing the different development phases and processes that will need to be completed through the creation of this project. This was done to better understand the processes within the project. This Production Pipeline can be seen below:

Next I created an Asset list to keep track of what models and resources would be needed for the animation. These included:

• A 3D modelled rigged character for animation (Beefcake)

• 3D models (obstacle course)

• Possible Water effect particles (VFX)

Then, in order to visualise how the animation may play out, I decided to create a playboard showcasing an idea for the flow and content of the animated ident.

Meanwhile, for the creation of the animation ident, we were given a ready made character called "BeefCake" which would be used in each of the class's animations. In order to familiarise myself with the character, I decided I could find out how to move and animate the character through the use of testing and revision.

This led me to creating a Maya project to experiment with different positioning and animation ideas using the 3D rigged character, allowing me to understand how each of the rig's joints moved and how I could use the model in my final animation.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Indie Game Advert Rotoscope Testing

For my video game advert, I started the production phase by filming each live action shot using multiple different versions of camera placement and direction. Even with the limited space for filming, I made sure to create many different shots for each scene, some from alternate angles and with alternate actions. Afterwards, they were syphoned through to pick the best scenes for the advert.

These live action shots turned out well, with each scene fitting together well and accurately following the storyboard I created. From these shots I picked out the scene in which the character kicks open a door, I did this to import the selected footage into NukeX, using the software to create an assortment of rotoscope shapes to mask out the door frame, while keeping other objects in the scene, such as the character's leg and gun, as well as the door itself.

In order to do this, I started by creating a Read and Roto node and inking them together, while linking them to the view node so they could be seen and edited. Then, I imported a series of scripts that would allow me to change the apearence of the rotoscope from the default appearence, to a red highlighted appearance which highlights what will be visible or the rotoscope with the background removed, showing only what will be visible in the final product.

This, therefore, allowed me to more accurately position and edit my roto as it gave me a more accurate visual representation of what the final rotoscope would look like. Also I could edit any parts of the roto that dont overlap the areas needed or areas that overlap into the background.

Overall, I believe that this went well as there is very little deformation in the rotoscope and the final rotoscope product fits well into the doorframe, which will alow me to add the animated VFX shot into the image.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Kibosh (Facial Rig Example: After Effects)

During this project we were tasked with creating a 2D animated Facial Rig through the use of both Photoshop and Adobe After Effects, animating the rig to synchronize with a voice line of our choosing.

In order to do this, I first used photoshop to draw a series of different mouth expressions, based around the pronunciation of different letters (A, O, F. etc...), using multiple existing images as a reference for each one.

Once this was completed, I created a text to speech sentence saying "Hello World" using an online text to speech website (nuance.com) and using OBS to record the output. Then I imported both the mouth expressions and the recorded sentence into After Effects.

Finally, I organized each of the mouth expression syllable types to link with the text to speech voice, mimicking the flow of the sentence and appearing as if they were speaking.

Overall, I believe that this task went well, as the expressions accurately synchronize with the spoken works, however, if I could improve on this I would change the sentence to be longer so that the video would be easier to watch or understand.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Short Film Project (Idea pitch, research and analysis)

For this short film project, first, we were tasked with creating a short film idea and pitching it to the rest of the class, in order to decide on a final movie idea for the class/group to work on.

During this phase of the project I came up with multiple ideas I could use. But first, I gathered inspiration for my ideas by searching for similar short films to my initial ideas and interesting short stories that others had created.

The pieces of inspiration I gathered through secondary research, to help create my ideas, included:

• "Blood Punch" (great low budget horror comedy).

• "The Ritual" (horror movie with Viking connotations).
  

• "Junji Ito" (horror director).

• "The Rake" ("Creepypasta" horror story and monster/character).

• "Poilus" by ISART Digital (WW2 short film).

• "Machina Mortem" by Jan Postema (another WW2 short film).

• "Best Friend" by Gobelins (dark short film about future technology).

• The "Autodale" dystopia series by Dead Sound including episodes such as "Model Citizen", "Don't feed the Freaks" and "Friendly Shadow".

• "TRACE" by Markus Dahlslett (Viking short film).

• "The Rite of Holmgang" (Viking short film).

• "Ragnarok" (Viking short film).

From these points of inspiration, I created a list of short film ideas consisting of different settings and genres. The list of my short film ideas included:

• A Viking battle or short story, such as an ambush, medieval battle in the woodlands or perspective of a Viking village.

• A WW1/WW2 battle or short story, exploring the nature of war and the ruin it brings. For example, by showing the life of a man during peace time, growing up, going to their father's funeral, having a child, then showing the child go to war and the final shot showing the man over their son's grave, with the sentence "In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons." shown above them.
  

• Viking horror film, similar to that of "The Ritual", I came up with the idea that I could use Norse imagery and props with the use of horror elements such as zombies, strange creatures, a cult or Norse monsters such as "Draugr".
  

• A horror film based around the Creepypasta "The Rake", such as a group of campers in the woodlands getting attacked in the night, leading to the creation of the original Creepypasta's iconic image.
  

• Murder mystery horror film, this could take place in a house or abandoned building with the story consisting of a group of rich acquaintances with one of them getting murdered and the remaining people needing to find out who the murderer is, similarly to Sherlock Holmes.
  

Using these ideas as a basis, I made a list of possible locations for filming these ideas with locations such as:

• Filming in a nearby park (may be limited due to Covid19).
  

• Filming inside a public abandoned building or old site (also may be limited due to Covid19).

• Filming inside a house, possibly a public building or teammate's house (again, may be limited due to Covid19).
  

•  Using 2D or 3D animation with a mix of filming or instead of filming (time costly).
  

On top of this, I also gained primary research by asking others what type of short film they would most likely be interested in, this had varying answers with the results I received being:

• A "Horror" short film (23%)

• A short film of a "Dystopia" / "Dystopian" future (21%)

• A "Detective" short film (16%)

• A short film about "War" (17%)

• A "Sci fi" short film (16%)

• And "Other" (7%)

As a result of all these factors, I used them to come to a final decision for my idea of the short film. Therefore, I decided that the best idea I created was the" WW1/WW2 short film about the nature of war and the ruin it brings". However at this point in time, it might be rather difficult to make, as filming it would be greatly restricted due to Covid19 and animating it would be time consuming and costly.

So to rectify this, I decided to use one of the more easier to create ideas, however, I would still present both as potential ideas for the project. The backup idea that I chose was ultimately the "Viking horror short film" idea, as I have many props that could be used in the production and while still being restricted by Covid19, could be filmed in a nearby woodland or park rather than in a more enclosed space, as there would be less restrictions. However, filming would also need to be appropriately done in accordance with Covid19 social distancing regulations, in order to maintain the safety of those involved with the project.

(WARNING: This Project has been DISCONTINUED because this Project was not supposed to be given to Unit)

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Ball (basic animation)

For this small project, we were tasked with animating a bouncing ball and using some of the 12 principles of animation to enhance the appearance and flow of the animation.

For the animation, I had two seperate ideas and decided to create both ideas with different animation methods. My first idea was a stickman picking up the ball and throwing it, while my second idea was a ball rolling to the edge of a obstacle course and falling into it, bouncing to the other side.

For my stickman idea, I decided to fully animate it in after effects using the shape tool to segment parts of the stickman, allowing me to animate the stickman through the use of a moveable character skeleton structure. Despite this, I didn't spend particularly long creating this animation, so the final product was much more clunky and ridged than the other animation.

As for the obstacle course animation, I decided to create it in photoshop, using the frame animation timeline menu setting. For this, I drew different layers for each part of the animation, using the transform tool to move the ball accross the screen, making use of the anticipation and squash and stretch principles of animation, making it look much smoother and making it flow much better.

Overall, I believe that I did well on this small project, though if I could improve this project I would go back and improve the animation on the stickman ball animation, while also using squash and stretch to make the thrown ball appear more believable.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Experementing with Smoke Particles in Maya

For my VFX promotional advert (Top down shooter), I decided to do some experimentation with smoke particle effects in Maya as I am considering adding smoke effects into the final video during the live action scenes.

Firstly, I created a Maya project and changed the modeling menu to the FX menu. Then, using the fluids tab, I created a 3D container so I could make and hold particle effects within a 3D space.

Once the 3D container was created, I began testing the particles and adjusting their values until I had a basic smoke effect, with the particles floating towards the top of the container and dispersing like a fog.

After I got that correct, I began further editing the particle's values, making the smoke appear more realistic by adding higher resolution, adding noise and swirling to make the smoke float upwards in a more randomised pattern and changing the frequency and speed of the smoke's turbulence.

Next, I created a small cube, then selected the 3D container with the cube (container first then cube) and used the fluids toolbar to make the 3D object able to collide with the particle effects of the smoke.

This allowed me to effect the direction, flow and behaviour of the smoke by having collidable objects and walls for the smoke to interact with.

Finally, after playing around with the different values, textures and collisions of the smoke particles, I created a short show reel of the VFX smoke in a 3D hall, showcasing the smoke's collision phyisics with a moving object (a sphere).

Overall, I believe this went well and I believe this experimentation has allowed me to better understand how Maya's particle systems work and how to effect them, giving me further ideas for what could be done for my final VFX video.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - 12 Principles of Animation

In 1981, Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas published a book examining the work of leading Disney animators from the 1930s and onwards. Through the course of their book they simplify their work down to 12 basic principles of animation.

These 12 principles of animation they created are:

1. Squash and stretch - is typicaly considered the most important of the 12 principles of animation. It gives your animated characters and objects the illusion of gravity, weight, mass and flexibility. This is done by stretching objects when it travels up and down and squishing them when they hit the ground. It's important to keep the object's volume consistent. So when something is stretched it needs to get thinner, and when you squash something it needs to get wider.

2. Anticipation - is used to prepare the viewer for what is about to happen and to make an object's action more realistic. This can be seen when a character jumps, bending their knees before launching, it can also be seen when a character pulls back their arm before throwing an object. The principle can be used to reinforce comedy, but is primarily used to make motion seem less awkward and stale, giving the animation more life.

3. Staging - is used to guide the viewer's eye and draw attention to what is important within the scene and to keep focus on what is important in the scene while keeping the motion of everything else of non-importance to a minimum.

4. Straight ahead action and pose to pose - There are two ways to handle drawing animation: straight ahead and pose to pose. Each has its own benefits, and the two approaches are often combined. Straight ahead action is drawing frame-by-frame from start to finish while the pose to pose technique is drawing the beginning frame, the end frame, and a few key frames in-between before going back and completing the rest. The pose to pose technique gives you a bit more control within the scene and allows you to increase the dramatic effect of an object's motion.

5. Follow through and overlapping action - is when animated objects come to a standstill after being in motion and different parts of the object will stop at different rates. Similarly, not everything on an object will move at the same rate. This leads to a small amount of follow through on parts of the object, like a part that stops slightly later than the rest of the object or some unattatched part of the object flinging off. This can be seen when a character is running across the screen, their arms and legs may be moving at a different rate from their head, which is overlapping action. Likewise, when they stop running, their hair could continue to move for a few frames before stopping.

6. Slow in and slow out - is, effectively, the application of momentum to an animation, with the beginning of movement starting slow, slowly picking up speed before slowing down and stopping slow once again. This is achieved by adding more frames to the beginning and end of the action sequence and it is used to give objects more life.

7. Arc - is used to exaggerate the laws of physics, giving animations an arc pattern. For an obvious example, when you toss a ball into the air it follows a natural arc as the effects of gravity pull on it.

8. Secondary action - is used to support or emphasise the main action happening within a scene. Adding secondary actions helps add more dimensions to a character or object's design. For example, this can be seen when a character is walking and other parts of their body such as their hair or hat, bob up and down slightly later than the rest of the body.

9. Timing - is basically the principle of how the laws of physics would apply for an animation. For example, moving an object more quickly or slowly than it would naturally move in the real world would lead to the effect not being believable. While using the correct timing allows you to control the mood and the reaction of your characters and objects. However, if you choose to push these limits it is important to be consistent.

10. Exaggeration - as you would expect, is when animators add more exaggeration to their characters and objects, making them more dynamic and pushing the limits just beyond what's realistically possible. This is because too much realism can ruin some animation styles such as childish cartoons, making it appear more static and boring.

11. Solid drawing -is an understanding of the basics of drawing. This is effectively knowing how to draw in three-dimensional space and understanding form, anatomy, weight, volume, lights and shadows. While animators can push the limits here, it's important to remain consistent. For example, if the animated world is in a wonky and warped perspective, it is important to keep that perspective throughout the entire animation.

12. (And) Appeal -is the idea that characters, objects, and the world in which they live need to appeal to the viewer. This can be things such as an easy-to-read design, solid drawing and a personality.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Climate Change Extension (feedback)

For our Climate Change group project, we were tasked with gathering, analysing and evaluating feedback, discussing examples of good practice and areas for improvement in the collaborative project we created based around the climate change project's final video.

We were originally tasked with creating a media project (it could have been anything, such as a game, video or article) that informed a target audience about a specific topic / controversy.

We originally wanted to create an educational game project that would teach the audience about climate change and quiz them through the use of a variety of minigames. Unfortunately, this never came to fruition as we realised we wouldn't have enough time to complete it within the timelimit the project was due in.

Therefore, instead we decided to create an educational video, as it would be significantly easier to complete within the timelimit and would allow us to give more information about climate change quickly.

Our original target audience were going to be children, however, this soon changed after we decided to change our original idea of creating a game into the idea of creating a video. As a result, we decided to target the video more towards a teenage demographic, so we could give a more serious tone and explain more complicated information.

I mostly contributed to the project through the accumulation of research and preproduction. With the research I conducted I produced a large document detailing the causes of climate change, the effects of climate change, the processes of how that information was gathered and explaining how people could personally help lower climate change. I also researched more complicated topics for climate change such as the Milankovitch cycles, however this was not mentioned in the final video.

I believe I contributed effectively to the group through research and planning for the final video. However, I believe I could have done more within the group for the later stages of production and post production. While I did volunteer to do multiple tasks, these tasks were ultamately filled by another member of the group, leading me to do significantly less work towards the end of the project.

Overall, I believe that my group worked well together, with each of my team-mates completing their tasks efficiently and effectively.

The names and roles of my team-mates were:

Scott - who was responsible for creating the first survey to help choose a target demographic and form of media the final project would be presented as.

Ryan - who was responsible for completing the voice over and directing the rest of the group as our project leader.

Frank - who was responsible for creating documents such as the EPK (Electronic Press Kit), GANT chart and helping to brainstorm and plan the course of the project. Frank also created the second survey which was used to gain feedback from our final video's viewers.

Adam - who was responsible for editing the final project video and creating the visuals and graphics seen within the final product.

The production of the project went well as we managed to meet each of the project's deadlines and milestones effectively, with the final video giving a clear, although basic, explanation of climate change.

I think that the final video did meet our group's requirements as it managed to give a moderate explanation as to what the causes and effects of climate change are. Throughout a large portion of the project we were forced to work together over remote collaboration, whereas towards the beginning of the project we were able to work together at college.

Personally, I believe because of this the final video wasn't as good as we originally hoped for. Despite our fewer options of communication and the obstacales we faced however, I still believe we did well on our project.

Despite my belief that remote collaboration hindered our progress, both studio based and remote collaboration have their own benefits and flaws.

The benefits of studio based collaboration include:

Gaining exposure to multiple points of view to better come together for ideas relating to the project at hand.

It is easier to communicate quickly with teammates, allowing for more teamwork, collaboration and feedback on work.

While flaws of studio based collaboration include:

Typically, reaching a consensus or coming to an agreement on project direction can be time consuming and drag on longer than anticipated.

And often too many viewpoints can water down the message, as everyone may have different directions they want to take the project.

Meanwhile the benefits of remote based collaboration include:

The fact that less travel is needed, lowering costs such as transportation and allowing more time to do work.

And the significantly increased amount of flexability for doing work.

However the flaws of remote based collaboration include:

There is much less connection with colleagues, making it harder to work together on a specific project. 

Sharing files becomes significantly harder without the use of connected devices, however this can be avoided by using file sharing sites such as Google Drive.

Working from home can increase the amount of destractions around you, leading to lower concentration.

And finally, decreased morale as you are working alone.

 

Final Project video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9Cumc0fP9M

 

In order to gain feedback from viewers of the video, our group decided to create a survey, recording the viewers responses to gain positive and critical feedback.

For our survey we managed to collect 50 responces, below is their answers to each of the survey's questions.

Q1 - How informative was the video on a scale of 1 to 10? (1-lowest 10-highest)

• 1 - 0     (0%)

• 2 - 0    (0%)

• 3 - 1    (2%)

• 4 - 5    (10%)

• 5 - 2    (4%)

• 6 - 5    (10%)

• 7 - 8     (16%)

• 8 - 10    (20%)

• 9 - 9    (18%)

• 10 - 10    (20%)

Q2 - How well was the information presented on a scale of 1 to 10? (1-lowest 10-highest)

• 1 - 0     (0%)

• 2 - 0    (0%)

• 3 - 1    (2%)

• 4 - 2    (4%)

• 5 - 4    (8%)

• 6 - 5    (10%)

• 7 - 9    (18%)

• 8 - 7    (14%)

• 9 - 9    (18%)

• 10 - 13    (26%)

Q3 - How was the length of the video?

• it was too short - 4 (8%)
  

• it could have been a bit longer - 10 (20%)
  

• it was a good length - 33 (66%)
  

• it could have been a bit shorter - 2 (4%)
  

• it was too long - 1 (2%)
  

Q4 - How would you prefer information presented? (Tick multiple if they apply)

• More text based - 13 (27.1%)
  

• More visual based - 37 (77.1%)
  

• More audio based - 13 (27.1%)
  

Q5 - Were there enough topics?

• Yes - 42 (84%)
  

• No - 8 (16%)
  

Q6 - If your reply to the previous question was "No" please leave a suggestion for other topics you would like to know about.

8 responses:

• "It was yes :)"
  

• "I would like to know more ways to help reduce CO2 emissions."

• "The above is yes and no. It is good as a simplified presentation of a very complex issue. It covered most of the basics."

• "Runway greenhouse affect. The efforts being made now by governments to tackle the growing issue."

• "Wildfires."

• "Pollution in the waters."

• "Car's effects on the climate"

• "More could be said about government and large manufacturing companies' responsibility to reduce packaging and climate damaging pollution. Possibly discuss recycling/re-using items to produce less waste. Consider the impact of travel and online purchases from far away countries which create a huge carbon footprint."

Q7 - What was the best part of the production?

44 responses

• "Good visuals."

• "The visuals."

• "Animations and visuals."

• "The animation style."

• "How informative it was."

• "It was informative."

• "rainforest section."

• "The animation style."
  

• "The explanation."

• "I like the part of what you can do to change things in your life to help climate change."

• "The way the slides were presented and audio. Very concise, informative and easily understood."

• "The best part was how easy it was to understand, there was nice clean graphics and clear voiceover."

• "It was very well set out and very informative."

• "The best part was how much information we got in such a short amount of time."

• "Easy to visualise and clear information with little jargon."

• "How we can help with climate change individually was a nice addition to a video which was somewhat broad."

• "Visuals matched the audio presentation really well."

• "The ice caps section."

• "The range of topics in such amount of time."

• "It was easy to understand."

• "I believe that the opening section was the best part as it appeared to have the most effort put into it as the rest of the video appeard amore and more rushed."

• "I liked the rainforest topic"

• "The visuals."

• "Some of the Graphics, the voice over was clear and well presented."

• "all of it!"

• "The animation/infographics were good and creative especially in the rainforest part."

• "I really liked the graphics and visuals."

• "How well explained it was."

• "The topic of the video is great."

• "Images and information."

• "The animations of images were done nicely."

• "The best part was how each topic was split up and well spoken."

• "The information was clear quick and concise."

• "The section on pollution."

• "The best part was the range of different topics."

• "The best part was the graphics and how easy to understand they were."

• "The audio."

• "Loads of interesting facts."

• "Information well presented for all levels both my daughter and I watched."

• "The voiceover was very clear and well spoken."

Q8 - What area needed the most improvement?

43 responses

• "He said buring fossils, did he mean buring fossil fuels?"

• "Voice over could have been smoother."

• "Each topic could have been longer."

• "Nothing - all very informative."

• "The topics went too fast with not a lot of information."

• "The information given."

• "I felt it could of used a bit more information on a couple of topics such as the ice caps."

• "None, its excellent."

• "The delivery of the script, could have been more engaging and passion led. Visuals didn't draw me in."

• "The voice over needs a bit more work."

• "The graphics felt a little rushed so if they were a bit cleaner it would of helped my viewing experience."

• "A little more visualisation like showing/comparing the area (1 m sq m) lost to the size of a particular country or something simlar would be great. Visuals are definitely what keep me interested."

• "pollution section."

• "The graphics were nice but there could of been more of them."

• "the narration."

• "Give more ways to help reduce CO2 in our everyday lives."

• "The pollution section."

• "the graphics were quite slow."

• "The lack of visuals causes some loss of interest in listening toi the video so an increase in visual data or graphics could uncrease interest in the video and convey information more clearly."

• "the introduction could be improved."

• "The voice over."

• "hmhhh the transitions."

• "Some moving images would spice it up give it a little more impact, like footage of tree logging and forests burning, land clearings, traffic jams, over fishing, etc, if the brief was to make a short introduction to climate change then this had achieved that."

• "The audio quallity could have been a little bit better."

• "The lack of a pop filter and there could have been some background music."

• "Can't think of any improvements."

• "Needs to be more appealing Visuals wise."

• "The video was very vague, a lot of information was skimmed over. For example the rainforest segment. What rainforest is being mentioned? Also the audio could do with some work, although all information can be heard the audio could do with some cleaning up. Overall interesting topic with lots of potential."

• "None, it was very good."

• "The visulas and lack of information."

• "I feel that some quiet background music would help the narration to flow / sound better and give more impact."

• "The dialouge could have been stronger and more confident. Live footage of nature may have been a nice backdrop at times."

• "The animation style changed a little too much."

• "The area that needed the most improvement was the graphics on each section."

• "There could have been more graphs and statistics."

• "Some more visuals here and there."

• "More information."

• "None."

• "More detail on pollution."

From this survey, the feedback collected through the survey's results showed that a majority of the viewers were positive about the final video. However, there was also a significant amount of constructive criticism that could be used to improve future, similar projects.

For question 1, 10 people said 8 (which was 20% of the survey users), 9 people said 9 (18%) and another 10 people also said 10 (another 20% of the survey users) implying that the video was regarded as informative by the majority of the final video's viewers.

The second question was also shown similar high praise form the viewers based on how well the information was presented. With the survey results showing that 9 people said 7 (18%), 7 people said 8 (14%), 9 people said 9 (18%) and another 13 people said 10 (26%).

The third question also showed even more positivity from the video's viewers, as 33 people (66% of the viewers) said that the video was at a good length. While only a collective 14 people said it could have been longer, with another 3 people saying it could have been shorter.

As for the fourth question, the majority of people (37 people 77.1%) said that they prefered receiving information through more visual based media.

The fifth question also followed this trend of positivity as 42 people (84%) awnsered yes when asked if enough topics were discussed within the final video, while only 8 people (16%) awnsered no.

However, for those who answered no to the fith question, the sixth question asked them to elaborate as to what topics they would have liked to have seen discussed or elaborated on.

Each of the responses were different, such as "Ways to help reduce CO2 emissions," "Wildfires," "Pollution in the waters," "Car's effects on the climate," the "Runway greenhouse affect" and "The efforts being made now by governments to tackle the growing issue" of climate change.

Another relpy also stated that "More could be said about government and large manufacturing companies" responsibility to reduce packaging and climate damaging pollution," and to "Possibly discuss recycling/re-using items to produce less waste." As well as considering the "impact of travel and online purchases from far away countries which create a huge carbon footprint," which gave a significant amount of information of different topics that could have been presented in the video.

Next, the survey asked the viewer to explain what they liked about the video and what could have been improved.

The reoccuring areas of good practice included: 

• A clear and consise voice over that conveyed the information effectively.

• Great visuals when they were shown.

• and how well the information was presented.
  

While the reoccuring areas of improvement included:

• Despite being presented well, there was a destinct lack of information.

• Lack of visual information and too small a number of existing visuals.

• And more confidence within the voice-over.
  

There was also lots of constructive criticism such as:

• "The graphics felt a little rushed so if they were a bit cleaner it would of helped my viewing experience."

• "A little more visualisation like showing/comparing the area (1 m sq m) lost to the size of a particular country or something similar would be great. Visuals are definitely what keep me interested."

• "The lack of visuals causes some loss of interest in listening to the video so an increase in visual data or graphics could increase interest in the video and convey information more clearly."

• "Some moving images would spice it up, give it a little more impact, like footage of tree logging and forests burning, land clearings, traffic jams, over fishing, etc, If the brief was to make a short introduction to climate change then this had achieved that."

• "The video was very vague, a lot of information was skimmed over. For example the rainforest segment. What rainforest is being mentioned? Also the audio could do with some work, although all information can be heard the audio could do with some cleaning up. Overall interesting topic with lots of potential."

• "I feel that some quiet background music would help the narration to flow / sound better and give more impact."

• "The dialogue could have been stronger and more confident. Live footage of nature may have been a nice backdrop at times."

• "There could have been more graphics and statistics."

This gathered information is useful as it could be used going forward on future projects for use in more informational videos. Using more visual representation and having a clear and confident voice-over while explaining the information are two possible examples of future improvements.

Relating back to the original brief and context of this project, we were tasked with exploring the "democratisation of media" and the credibility of online information, as false information can be spread from unregistered sources and opininated individuals.

This can especially be seen in the topic of climate change, as many people falsely believe that climate change is a false construct, due to reading false information and spreading it to others via various media sources, such as Facebook. This is why it is important to check the credibility of sources, checking the reliability of information and to conduct wider personal research. This is to gain a deeper understanding of the elements whch are relevant to many different topics.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - Going Indie (PreProduction/Game Development plan)

For the preparation of creating my Game Development project (Topdown Shooter), I needed to identify the requirements and constraints associated with each stage of my project's development.

 

This lead me to creating a Game Development plan to map out the processes for the game's development and set deadlines as to the completion of different tasks, as well as deciding what mechanics and development ideas would be achievable within the time limit of the project.

  

Before I could start planning out the eventual development of the game and time constraints, I needed to properly organise myself. Therefore, I created a GANT Chart to show the deadlines and what tasks need to be completed. The GANT Chart also allows me to see what I have completed and what set tasks are yet to be done.

GANT Chart:

Once this was completed, I had a more solid estimate as to what tasks should be completed by what time, allowing me to begin mapping out the game's development and constraints.

For the game's development, I created a Production Pipeline using flowcharts to better show the smaller processes required for each task, how they interlink and what order to do them in. This was to map out each area of the production up until the final distribution.

Production Pipeline:

Next, I created a series of Playboards to demenstrate what the game would inevitably look like. Therefore, allowing me to better plan out the UI and visuals of the game more effectively and visually represent the games appearance with annotations, to explain each part of the Playboard and their function.

PlayBoards:

Along side this I also made a list of different mechanics I wanted to add to the game. This would allow me to define what could and could not be done within the set timeframe and outline what game mechanics I have already completed through the use of experimentation in Unity.

The main Mechanics I wanted to add to the game include:

• Field of view (done)
  
• Pickups (weapons/health/ammo)
  
• Enemy types
• Opening and closing doors
  
• Conversations
• Ammo
• Health (mostly done)
  
• Main menu
• Level select
• Saving Data
  
• Moveable furniture
• Shooting (mostly done)
  
• Enemies reacting to sound
• Enemies triggering other enemies to help them
• Swap weapons
• Blood splatter
  
• Grenades (maybe)
• Allies (maybe)

These mechanics would be very good to implement into my topdown shooter game, however, if it became apparent that I did not have enough time to implement all of the mechanics before the final time limit of the project, some of these mechanics could be removed if there isn't enough time.

For example: the ability to move or push moveable furniture, or having moveable furniture, could be removed as it doesn't improve the overall gameplay aspects of the game and is not particularly important to the gamplay or type of game I am creating. Another mechanic I could remove to lesson costs and reduce time would be to remove the ability to use grenades, as coding and creating a grenade projectile may take a while and isn't particularly required.

Another way to reduce development time would be to use the Unity asset store, however, this may increase development costs as well, due to many development tools on the asset store requiring to be bought. On the other hand, the need for spending money can be avoided by only using assets from the asset store that are free.

However, by using the Unity asset store to aquire assets, it brings up the importance of the legal requirements of licensing and copyrights associated with game development.

Copyright (in essence) is used to protect artistic and literary expression and is the exclusive and assignable legal right that is given to a creator (of a form of media) for a fixed number of years so they can print, publish, perform, film or record literary, artistic or musical material. Generally, in videogames, code is often protected under copyright as literary work, while the artwork and sound are protected as audio-visual work.

However, artwork only has copyright protection to an extent. Certain artwork in videogames fall under the "doctrine of scenes a faire", which references that particular artwork and elements that are necessary to execute a particular idea are not copyrightable (the use of scoreboards, health bars, sky and ground a well as game rules and plot. etc...).

For example, in a golfing game, you would include certain design elements like holes, golf balls, golf clubs, golfers, grass, trees and water. And while you can’t copy these assets directly from another golfing game, you would have the right to include such elements in your game, simply because no one else would be able create that type of game otherwise.

However, using sites like Unity asset store you can purchase paid or free, licenced assets. These licenced assets can then be used in your videogame project. Despite this, it is important to check the licence as many free assets ask for credit or atribution, and using free assets in a game you need to pay for could breach their free licence. On the other hand, most of the licenced assets on the Unity assets store are extension assets, allowing for free use upon purchase.

Overall, I believe my game development plan is solid and has paved a clear path for the production phase of my project with the planning and preparation from my project pipeline, GANT chart and playboards. However, if I could improve on this game development plan I would change the project pipeline to better show the connections between different sections of the flowchart and that they could interconnect.

NEXT-GEN Nescot Year 4 HND - TopDownGame Advert (Planning and pre-production)

For an upcoming Game Development project (TopDownShooter), we were tasked with creating a Game Promo to advertise the game before it's release.

For this promotional advert, we were required to intersplice live action footage with VFX elements in advertisement for the game, leading me to the creation of multiple itterations of similar storyboard designs.

In the creation of my storyboard, I first started by creating a series of images; by drawing them, or using assets from the game to create them and illustrating what actions and movements the characters would make using red lines as an indicator.

Once this was done, I then began writing what each panel showed, explaining the movements and actions shown within each scene; as well as colouring over the existing images to give the storyboard a much more polished appearance.

Eventually, due to some feedback, I re-created the storyboard with further ideas for VFX shots and new scenes. This was because the storyboard didn't illustrate enough options for VFX shots intertwined with the live action shots, therefore leading me to show a selection of possible ideas that could be used in the final video.

Finally, I moved the text down to the bottom right so that the new panel I created could fit into the storyboard. Unfortunately this text is harder to read, however, I did attempt to clearly segment each part of text and align them with the number associated with the shot they correspond with.

Overall, I believe my storyboard went well, however if I was required to change anything else with the appearance of the storyboard I would attempt to improve the visibility and clarity of the text explaining what happens in each shot.

 

Meanwhile, in order to better understand and visualise the live action shots and VFX that go with them, I decided to create a VFX mock-up to showcase the different possible VFX shots I could create and how they may end up appearing.

Shot 1

Shot 3

Shot 5-6

Therefore, for this advert/VFX project I will need to create a large number of different game and VFX assets to be showcased within the trailer. This list of required 2D and 3D assets includes:

3D Assets:

• (possible) Rat/mouse Rigged 3D model
• (possible) Tracked Gun
• (possible) Table
• (possible) Chair
  
• (possible) 3D moddeled enemy
  

2D Sprites:

• PlayerSprite
• AlienWithLaserPistol
• BikerBoss
• SuperVillan
• GeneralNoGun
• GeneralWithGun
• ScientistNoGun
• ScientistWithGun
• MotorBike1
• MotorBike2
• MotorBike3
• MotorBike4
• LongTable
• TableChair
• DeskChair
• BasicCrate
• BasicDoor
• BikerGrunt1
• BikerGrunt2
• SuperVillanDesk
• SuperVillanGrunt
• Pixhell-Title
• Map-BasicTutorial
• Map-Biker1
• Map-BikerBoss
• Map-SuperVillanBasic
• Map-SuperVillanBoss
• Map-AlienBasic
• AlienSpaceshipCentre
• SuperVillanWallDecor
• BasicLamp

In order to better organise and prepare for the production phase of my project, I created a Production schedule/GANT Chart to create a better idea of what I need to do and when. This allowed me to segment the tasks I am required to complete, as I do not have other Project teammates.

Also, in relation to the storyboard I decided to create a Risk assessment, assessing the different risks and problems that could arise during filming the live action scenes and problems that could arise during the development of the final trailer.

Risk assessment
Risk /Hazard	What might cause this hazard?	Risk severity	Risk likelihood	What can be done to reduce the Risk?
(general development) Loss of work/data.	computer crash/data corruption.	High.	Low.	Keep backups of saves on multiple devices to reduce loss of work.
(Shot 5) damage to door.	The actor kicking the door too hard or the door being fully closed or locked when kicked.	Medium.	Low.	The door being slightly open so that it would be pushed open rather than actively forced and checking if the door is locked before kicking it open.
(Shot 5) damage to actor’s leg.	The actor kicking the door too hard or the door being fully closed when kicked.	Medium.	Medium.	The door being slightly open so that it would be pushed open rather than actively forced, to lower the force needed to open the door.
(Shot 1, 3, 5 and 6) danger of falling over.	The actor snagging their foot on a raised surface, actor losing balance and falling over.	Low.	Medium.	Using carpets and mats to increase the friction on the floor used, making sure to maintain balance when kicking the door open (The door being slightly open lowering the force needed to open the door could help).

 

The VFX requirements for this project are effectively the different processes and tasks I've set myself, that are required to complete the creation of my advert. For example, for the first VFX shot, I need to create a (possibly 3D modelled or 2D) animated rat.

Meanwhile there are effects that are proposed to be in multiple scenes, such as Tracking and compositing. Tracking could possibly be used in shot 3, 5 and 6, being used to track a 3D modelled gun the character's hands, making it appear as if the live action character is holding it. While composoting would be used to insert different effects and VFX elements into the scene.

I also decided that I could possibly add some smoke effects during the live action scenes, to give the environment a "drug den" appearance and feeling.

 

Rotoscoping is a large part of the project, as I will need to rotoscope the character's boots to appear in front of the rat in the first shot, in the third shot I could possibly require rotoscoping to better fit the (possibly) tracked gun into the scene. Finally, in the fifth and sixth shots I need to use rotoscoping on the doorway, in order to add the digitally created room on the other side of the door.

On the other side of the doorway, I decided I would create a series of 2D sprite animations in a 3D appearing setting. This was to better link the appearance of the VFX shot to the game and to lessen the amount of work required for the last two live action scenes (shot 5 and 6).

The overall processes related to the creation and different phases of the project can be seen in the VFX production Pipelines (flowcharts) below.