Sneak

*Note: For the weekly blog assignment read the run post*

As usual this week has been very busy so far, and the worst is not yet over. Since we have a deadline Friday I decided to take on doing a sneak animations, two aiming animations and two shooting animations, I was hesitant as it is a lot of work to do in the little time we have, however it has to be done. It would have been hard work getting it done and as expected a lot of other things have come along. Yesterday we started with a lecture in character design and then we gathered in our group to design our first level. We also had some things that needed to be worked on in our scrum document, so I was asked to sort out the items-list and the deadline dates.

I started with counting how many deadlines we had for each day, separating art/code/etc so I would get an overview of our current schedule. Then I started to redistribute deadlines more evenly and prioritize where necessary. When finished I looked over it again and repeated the process until I was satisfied, I made sure no deadlines were due on a day of testing and tried to avoid them the day before such dates where possible. I also made sure we had very few deadlines the week before and only one during the final week since I want our team to be finished with production since we will be very busy with testing and fixing things. that will also give us a little space for those things that will need to be added later. This took me a few hours yesterday and a couple more this midmorning, I also managed to get started on one of the aiming animations yesterday although it is only a rough sketch at the moment, trying to map out the proportions.

After lunch today I started on the sneaking animation, first i thought I would try to finish the aiming and shooting first, since they are easier and less time consuming, meaning that I could spend the rest of the week on the sneak-animation. Since we are considering using the sneak animation for walking and aiming we decided it would probably be better to get it done first.

Soon I realized that I was right in thinking it would be difficult, as usual I tried to ask Google for "woman sneaking" and as usual it was not very helpful since I was not looking for pictures of women eating, that is however a different discussion. Sneaking is not something I normally do so it was difficult to imagine and feeling the movement pattern and we all tried to figure it out and then went on with taking more reference photos.

After many hours of work I managed to get something that at least looks like sneaking, although I had big problems getting the arm movement right and working with the leg movement. I had to redo the arms many times before being satisfied, no I have to get some movement into the body and head aswell and then I can go on to refining and cleaning up.

I have only been working on the arms and legs so it is a bit stiff looking at the moment.

Running

Last week, as I have mentioned earlier, I decided to take on creating two animations for our game, currently named Terminal. The main character is of course the most important part and therefore we want the animations for her done as soon as possible. Since I have already discussed the walkcycle I thought I would write something about the run-animation.

I started by using some of the walkcycle frames as a reference for proportions, movement style and placement and redrew on top of that and decided that I would start with three frames and then add if I needed to. I also referenced back to the photos we took for the walk but that obviously had its limitations since you move differently when you run. I got a base for the animation rather quickly and reworked it a few times and got something that looked okay but something was not right. It looked a bit stiff so I tried searching Youtube for a woman running, unfortunately all I could learn from those result was how to do jiggle physics.

After some intense searching I did find some fitness instruction videos that helped somewhat, although I would rather have found someone who was a less experienced runner. The next step was running back and forth through the apartment to get a feel of how you move when you run and running towards the mirror, mainly to study the shoulders and arms. I eventually came to the conclusion that women generally keep that part rather still, mostly just moving the arms.

After that I reworked the frames again and then some more and finally added colour, I think it looks good but it is still not perfect, there is something with the legs going backwards that is a bit off I believe. That was really tricky to figure out how it looks, especially in the straight top down angle, and I will wait to see how it looks and works when it is tested in the game and then see if it needs to be worked on again.

The character is supposed to be a feminine woman who has not had any special training, she is not a competitive or experienced runner and probably has little time to go to the gym. Therefore I wanted her running style not to look too much like the fitness videos I found. I also decided to let her braid fly around behind her as this was something we had discussed and it added a sense of speed to the animation.

Something I would do differently is to take reference photos of someone running but I think it could be difficult due to the movement speed, especially without a good camera. If we had managed to get some decent picture I think it would have been helpful and I think I am going to suggest it when we are doing the animations for the guards.

Animation

This week I started with the animations for our game, currently named Project Terminal, the actual drawing of the walkcycle took me about 11 hours, I had estimated it to take about 10 hours so I got pretty close. I did spend some additional time on work related to it, like taking reference photos to see how a walkcycle looks from above. The reference pictures were really helpful and I used them at first as a guide as to where to put and move things and then I reworked and tweaked multiple times until I felt I was satisfied so that I could colour it. Now I will just have to wait until the programmers can implement it so that I can see if it needs to be fixed or if it works in-game. When I had finished the walkcycle I went on to the run, I have already created a base and reworked it several times but it is far from perfect at the moment. I think the runcycle will go faster since I have learnt a lot while doing the walk and that I can reuse the walkcycle as a guide, also I think I will not have to do as many frames for the runcycle.
Animating things is really fun but it is time consuming and difficult to get right, I would really like to learn how to do it properly. It is amazing to see something you have created come to life.

We have had a lot of meetings this week as I have mentioned earlier, yesterday we had another one with Adam Mayes which went really well. We got to describe our game and told him what we were going to do and why, he asked us just a few questions and then said we could leave since he had no remarks. Yesterday afternoon we had another meeting, this time with one of our teacher's assistants, we got to discuss how we were working as a group and how we feel about the courses we are taking right now. At the moment I feel the group work is running smoothly, there are no frictions and people are getting along and working together so I think we can be a successful team. Our main concerns during that meeting were instead the lack of information and confusion of the current two courses and the fact that we have so many meetings and lectures that we are constantly interrupted and do not get the time we need to sit down and work. Apparently several other teams had brought this up so there will hopefully be some changes from now on.

Planning

Last week we were very busy with planning, designing and making decisions. The assignment for that week was to create a complete scrum backlog as we are required to work with scrum for this course. After meeting with our teacher, our scrum master and getting some feedback from our teacher's assistants we started to get a complete idea of what we want to create and at the end of the week I felt that we had come so far in the planning process that we could just get to work. As I write this I realize what a great resource of people we have to help us, we forget all too easily to use them.

This week we started with trying to create a sprint plan for this week in scrum, we did find scrum a bit complicated but I think once we learn it will be easier. I was hesitant but I decided I would take on doing two animations this week, estimating the work hours to ten hours each. I am very new to animating things and we have not had any education about it at all, which I wish we would have had by now, I am going to have to work really hard to complete these tasks but it has to be done.

Here is what the main character will look like in the game and beneath it is concept art for the two types of guards we will have.

Group Dynamics

Today our group had a session about group dynamics, we were introduced to non-violent communication and we all got to, in turn, say how we feel about the project right now. Everyone thought pretty much the same, that everything felt very loose and that we should start deciding things. After that we did what we all had wanted to do and sat down and discussed what we wanted and made some decisions, now it feels like we have something to build on.

Before the meeting Oskar (lead Designer) and I sat down to go through our scrum backlog adding the art resources I had written down on my art list and conferring with our Lead Programmer. We really need to get it done so that we can put the rest of the team at work although it is hard to think of everything we need without missing something. The project is near the point where we need to discuss it with a teacher to see what is good and what might need to be changed so we can really start producing things. I have finally been able to get a somewhat clear picture in my mind of what I want the art style to look like, we want it to be inspired by comic books as we think it would fit the game and that it is something our target group will appreciate. The other artists have contributed with some really good ideas so I feel we can get started, at the moment we could probably concentrate on producing Concept Art.

I think it is a challenge as the Lead Artist to think of all the things that need to be done and how I want it since I am responsible for the final product but also recognizing the other artists' strengths so that I can put them to use in the right places. Especially since we do not really know each other that well yet but I think I am starting to get a feel of where they are at and I think the art style can be adapted to fit us all.

Finally here is what I have been doing as far as art goes. First is a sketch that Oskar and I have been working on of what our prototype might look like to help the programmers creating it and mapping out the mechanics that need to be tested. It is also thought to function as a tutorial level to teach the player all the mechanics. Second is just some experimenting with different clothing and colours on my previous character sketch. The last one is a storyboard idea I had that inspired me to go for a comic book style.

Escape

Escape is the current working name of the game we have chosen to develop, it is going to be stealth game were you are supposed to sneak your way through an airport, although, you will be given the option of killing your way through. Either choice of playing style will offer its own difficulties, for instance killing guards may cause them to increase in number and certain points may be very difficult to sneak through although that will always be an option since that is what we want to be the main mechanic. We have chosen to change the original concept dramatically, from an early 20th century story taking place on a rooftop in Chicago, to a modern day airport with very little narrative.

I still think everything feels a bit loose, it is not very easy when you are so inexperienced to know where to start but it is starting to come along now I think. I am starting to get somewhat of a picture in mind of what I want it to look like. The interior of the airport will be inspired by Arlanda and the style will be semi realistic with a cartoony hint, leaving subtle, clean line art on top. I need to make sure we create some Concept Art so that we can se how it works.

We have decided that the main character is supposed to be a woman about 30, give or take and I have created some, again, really fast sketches exploring what she might look like.

Representing or Misrepresenting?

Today we was the first day of the second 2D-course, we had a short lecture and then a workshop of how we portray and interpret things. The workshop was designed to automatically fail as we were given the task to, in small groups, find a group of people that is completely different from the members of the group and then find images that portray that group as they want to be portrayed. It was not so much about creating a good presentation as it was an exercise showing how affected we are by our own perspective, seeing how difficult it is to portray a group the way they are and not as the stereotypes we believe they are.

We started by trying to list who we were, covering our different ethnicities, gender, social background etc. We also created a short list of who we were not, even though doing this it was very difficult to choose a group of people. There were several examples that came up but I realized that no matter how we tried, we eventually got back to stereotypes and our own preconceieved ideas. It is difficult to find what, for instance, a culture thinks represents themselves, their values and what is important to them when you are from a completely different background. Those aspects may be things we would never think of since they are not important from people from our culture. Even in the group we were from different cultures in a way with our different ethnical parentages, gender and varying social backgrounds.

It is very difficult but I feel it is a valuable lesson to learn and that it is far to easy to forget that not everyone is like yourself and think the same way you do. I did find a very interesting text that I feel explain part of this very well. In this case the author discusses why anime characters are white and comes to the conclusion that they are not, a Japanese viewer will interpret the character the way they feel is normal, as Japanese, while an American will interpret the same from what they feel is normal, being American. I do not think this is applicable to all situations though, there is still the issue with stereotypes which defines how the public see themselves and others. It does however make you think and question why you assume that everything is like you, why is your culture/ethnicity/whatever what is normal?

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