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.

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.