Y1KNGamesArt

I am disappointed. I sit here, typing frantically, whatever comes to mind, as I try and finish before the deadline closes. Hopefully, I won’t be too late. Yes, what I have created near the end of the project was rushed, unwanted and likely a marginal failure. But that does not mean I have not learned. I improved – I did better than what I was like last year. Unfortunately, I didn’t complete everything, even though I thought I had, which is what leads me to this moment in time. However, this is a sign of improvement. I worked more during the weeks than I usually would, and because of that, I feel like I’m improving slightly. Getting out of the habit I’ve been in for years is difficult, and will likely take years to get out of, but hopefully, by the time I finish this course, I will have overcome my difficulties as a student and will be able to move on to being a developer. I apologise for this final evaluation to be short, but I suppose you could consider my journal a partial ev...

This concept art of a burning village has a distinct orange hue to it - both from the fire itself and the light the fire emits, which causes the sky to become a shade of orange. This, coupled with the natural hues of the ground and village, causes the image to give a feel that this fire is invading the village - which is accurate as to what fire would do. This image has a strong collection of blues and greens - both colours commonly found in nature. That, coupled with the subject of the image, creates a very natural, open, away-from civilization feel. If the hue of the image was shifted to a reddish theme, it would completely change the feel of the image to a more violent tone. Having the shades of blue and green denote a calm, natural feeling, which is what this image achieves.

This image has a distinct two point composition, one from the distance where the sunlight is, but another point is off-frame, in the distance to the left. Not only that, but the image itself has a fish-eye lens effect, which is noticable by the curve in the wall. This method of composing the image gives it a large, sprawling feeling, which fits the feel of dragons. The wide size of this image directly contributes to it's composition, causing the image to 'spread out' among the canvas. There is a single point perspective, originating from the lower middle of the image. The mecha on the bottom left, with it's distinctive silhouette, makes it seem to be the focus of the image as it is what the eye is drawn to the most. The large objects in the background, while noticable, slightly blends in with the sky due to the distance from the camera.

There are multiple sources of light in the image - but the two primary ones are the volcano underneath the dragon and the sunlight from behind. Due to the sources being in the center and background of the image, the foreground of the image is naturally dark, as not much if any at all light is affecting it. The volcanic light source coming from underneath the dragon gives the beast an ominous look in a similar way that light is shone to a persons face underneath them when telling frightening stories. There is one primary light source in this image, and that is the sunlight out of frame. Due to this strong sunlight, it casts strong direct shadows all throughout the image. Along with that, there is some refractive light from the water below the bridge, giving the bride a blueish hue in some parts. While this refraction is not entirely accurate to real life, it still gives the desired effect of adding some variety to the dark beige that is the bridge.

In what specific ways is Red Dead Redemption 2 an example of creative communication? Kyle Newman Creative Communication – the conveyance of meaning and significance between the game and the player. Everything from opening a door to deciding whether to save the orphanage or the hospital, anything in a game is a form of creative communication. Within this essay I will be covering multiple areas within the game Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar, 2018) and how these areas serve as a form of creative communication. I decided to focus on Red Dead Redemption 2 as the game is focused on achieving immersion and realism, and comparing that realism to reality can expose how the game expresses itself to the player. Within this essay I will be making use of multiple theories: Donald Norman’s ‘Signifier and Affordances’, Ferdinand De Saussure’s ‘Signifier and Signified’, ‘Meaningful Play’ by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman along with ‘Characters and Representation’ by Robery Mckee. I would l...

There are thousands of games out there that can fit into some of Propp's functions - which one to pick, however, I had difficulty doing. I decided to pick a game that isn't too well known for it's story (in fact, it's a little criticised for its story) due to it's 'cookie cutter' ideas and presentation. This means that it should fit quite well into Propp's functions, and that game is Destiny 2 (the base game, not the expansions).  The set up is rather typical for modern action games. The player, returning from an unknown mission, comes to the home city to find it being invaded by an unknown enemy force. After landing and fighting through a variety of forces, the player discovers that the one leading the assault is on a large ship. After encountering the main villain, the player is defeated, stripped of their powers and left for dead. Afterwards, the player leaves to retrieve their powers and figure out a way to defeat the main villain, which they do, ...

Dark Souls 3: The affordance of reaching a checkpoint is signified by a Bonfire. The Dark Souls series is considered a difficult type of game, and many a time do players find themselves low of health after a long time of exploring. When in a situation like this, the sight of a bonfire, or at least reaching one, is extremely relieving for the player. With Zimmerman's definition of Meaningful Play, the impact of a bonfire for those playing dark souls is obvious. Players are able to rest, respawn, and avoid enemies by resting at a bonfire - it's the only truly safe place in the game. This is even further enforced by the fact that bonfires are a common icon for the series, due to their importance and relief they provide. Final Fantasy XIV: The affordance of beginning a bossfight is signified by a magical gateway. Within dungeons for Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV), there are three bosses throughout it. At the entrance of each boss arena, there is a 'barrier' which signifies...

With Barthes' essay, he primarily views wrestling as a spectacle. And I, personally, agree with him - wrestlers who train to wrestle are taught the moves and how to make a believable performance. This is exactly what wrestling is, a performance. However, I would still consider it a sport - sport, one way or another, is a form of entertainment. It is made to be entertain both players and viewers. Does it relate to games? It depends on the game in question. Many games today incorporate some form of viewer entertainment or interaction. Not only the games themselves, but the ways they are presented. Many games are streamed by players, which is what encourages developers to incorporate interaction. These streamed games can be viewed similarly to the way Barthes views wrestling - a spectacle. Like wrestling, there of course may be improvisation, but the results are the same or similar as it has been predetermined by the developer.

The character I have chosen is Lyse (Previously known as Yda) from Final Fantasy XIV.                                                                                                                      As 'Yda Hext'                                     As 'Lyse Hext' Lyse is a supporting character throughout the story of Final Fantasy XIV. She originally assumes the identity of her younger sister whom died 6 years before her reveal as Lyse. What does the game need the character to do? Lyse starts out as a side character within the story of Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV), however, during the second ex...

Agon (conflict) Alea (chance) Mimicry Ilinx (vertigo) Agon (conflict) Star Citizen Dark Souls 3 Alea (chance) Overwatch Mimicry Final Fantasy XIV Resident Evil VII Ilinx (vertigo) With the games I have chosen, there were a few games that fit multiple categories. Because of that, I decided to redesign the grid to accommodate this. As with all forms of categorisation, there is rarely a system that perfectly defines each piece of media – many things are often a combination of the two. With my chosen games, a few incorporate multiple aspects of each category. Star Citizen is an in-development MMO set in the future, where the player is a pilot in a world where spaceflight is as common as driving a car. However, the game has a natural aspect of Player vs Player (PvP) within it, where you may freely attack...

This is the week where I'm writing this, catching up with what I had missed so I could finish the project in time. I had caught up with work in terms of art, both the in-situ piece for the bridge and the character had created, but the character piece definitely didn't turn out as well as I'd envisioned (it never really does). This means I had finally caught up with almost everything. I had all the artwork finished, which is a big relief! However, there's still a bit I need to finish before handing in. Hopefully, next project, I'll be able to journal things better. That's my personal goal on how I can improve with my work, and that'd be through making my journal an actual journal, and not an evaluation of sorts.

For the final week, I only did a couple of things. This is where I started worrying about the work I needed to produce (not just artwork, but also journal work, which I hadn't been keeping up with), and started thinking about extensions. However, while worrying about that, I did manage to do some work, and wasn't absolutely horribly behind like I usually am. I created a little drawing deciding on the back of the character, where I imagined her having spider legs being able to protrude from her back. Along with that, I also created the start of the model sheet (the front view) and the character sheet drawings. Design Doll was heavily useful for this, especially with the Character Sheet, as i wouldn't be able to do anything as interesting in terms of poses without the use of the software. However, this was when I realised I was behind. It may not seem like it from this journal, but I had done no journal work and barely any of the tasks or essay. Because of that, I ha...

For Week 7, I created a bit more work than I did week 6. I actually started properly making use of what I had. I had the idea of a spider lady in mind, and knew that I had to have a kimono, a monster face and a mask to design. During the week, I started with focusing on the dress and monstrous parts in a little more detail. I also started to make use of a program called Design Doll, which gave me a model I could pose and use for references. This helped me massively with my drawings, as anatomy is not a strong suit of mine. One thing I decided to do was determine the shape and components of the kimono.I made use of an idea I had received during summer holidays, when I entered an armour design contest for Final Fantasy XIV. As part of the rules, we had to create a drawing that showed what parts of the armour were assigned to what piece of the body (Pieces of armour were interchangeable, and had to be separated). I took this idea to help with the creation of my Kimono and, along with De...

This week, I most likely created the least amount of work. While I had a lot of alchemy sketches to play with, I didn't produce nearly as much as I could/should have. I did, however, start to have a solid idea of what type of character I wanted to create. I had an idea of an elegant woman in a dress, wearing a mask, whom had a monstrous form underneath. She was meant to lure people in with her dances and pretty dress/mask, but only to break the charade and reveal her true self underneath. I decided to take the chance to do some actual research, and find some  Yōkai  that I could use as inspiration.  Yōkai are japanese mythological monsters, and there are many throughout japans history. Using Yokai.com , I found a few yokai that piqued my interest. However, one in particular stood out, the  jorōgumo . The Jorogumo was a spider that became so old and powerful that feeding on bugs and insects wasn't enough, and decided to start to feed on humans. It would transfor...

This week, we were introduced to the character project. I was actually expecting something different to what we got for this project -  I thought we were to create a character that could fit into the environment piece, but it turns out we were given a story and had to create a character from that story. From as soon as I read the story, I wanted to create the Monstrous Hunter. However, while I was planning things out in my mind, I didn't realise that I had to set the story/character in the era of Edo Japan. Luckily, this moved me into a better direction. While reading the story I envisioned the monstrous hunters to be these disgusting, masculine beings, but I thought I'd subvert that and try something different for the project. At least, this happened during the initial alchemy silhouettes I created. I decided to focus on a female character instead, and see what came of that. I found myself drawing dresses and more elegant designs than I did with the male base, and was able t...

This is where I started to fall behind. While I did do some iterations and decided on a design to focus on, coming towards the in-situ piece daunted me a little, and caused me to not be as productive. In fact, I had gotten everything up to the in situ piece done - I had even created a model and small environment to use for the in-situ, but I never actually did the in-situ piece itself until much later. I feel that I didn't do enough iteration for this project. While I did create plenty of silhouettes and ended up with a finished piece, I probably should've created variations of the bridge that I could make use of.

With the completion of the Asset project, I felt a little more confident about things than I did at the start of the unit. However, this week, we were introduced to our second project, the Environment project, with bridges being the focus. Unlike the asset, I was far less confident with this. We were tasked with creating not only a model sheet, like with the Asset, but an 'in-situ' piece as well. Nonetheless, I started working on the project. We were actually introduced to Alchemy, a sketching program that has the goal of 'taking away control' from the user. While I was hesitant to use it at first, I found it to be quite useful with creating silhouettes. My initial messy alchemy silhouettes partially worked out, but I found that the silhouettes I created in Photoshop before using alchemy worked more. I ended up creating a lot more silhouettes with this project than I did with the Asset project, but after this point on, I started to fall apart a little bit.

For week 2, I actually did some work and finished the project. Usually, this is where things start to fall off and I begin to get behind, but I was actually able to complete the project and finish the Asset project. I decided to chose one of the 'crystal' silhouettes to iterate on, and I ended up going with this iteration for my final piece. I did, however, experiment with doing an iteration of one of the potions, but I found it to be a little too difficult to do to the standard I'd like. After finishing iteration pieces on the crystal, I went and created a 3D model. While we hadn't been introduced to this yet, I do have experience with 3D modelling and wanted to take advantage of that. The result was a useful model that I could make use of in my model sheet, as it helped get the proper perspective and consistency that I wouldn't have achieved by doing it without the model.

For the first week, we were introduced to our first project, the asset project, focusing on a container. During our first session, we were shown the method for creating silhouettes. Like many others, I started with things like chests and whatnot - typical containers. However, as I developed silhouettes I found that I wanted to do something slightly more interesting. Because of that, I ended up trying out smaller items. The first thing I did after this was potion bottles. In fact, I was actually inspired by what I was listening to at the time. I typically have music on while working on things - at the time, I was listening to the recently released songs for Final Fantasy XIV, for multiple bosses in the game. This music inspired me, and I decided to draw a few silhouettes based on the songs I was listening to. Silhouettes after deciding to do more interesting containers. I spent the first week primarily working on silhouettes, as did most people. While the potions could be co...

I'll preface this journal by saying that yes, like my year 0 work, I did not keep up with my journal work. So, I could technically consider this an evaluation journal. However, I will try to cover what I was thinking at the time. I apologise for this, but, on the bright side of things, I actually did a lot more artwork during the project than leaving it until later. So, there's a bit of improvement.