FMP – Designing for children – What to do

Research

There is a major difference  between designing products for children and adults,  This means for my FMP, I need to make sure that I design the product  toward the correct demographic, which are children. So what do I need to do with the design to make it friendly and appealing to the younger audience. Well by drimlike.com, they state that due to children not being able to read well, or have difficulty reading, use short paragraphs. This can apply to the early stages of my game when teaching a user how to play the game. using simple instructions within the game will be a must to make this game easy to learn and understand, not just for children, but for older consumers too. Another major point stated is navigation, which should be simple and easy for a child to use, this can apply to the menu system to the game. This will mean that I can not have complicated menu systems within the game.  Another few points is that children are not patient, and will not keep playing or interact with something that takes to long to load or takes to long. So this means I need to make sure that each level in the game is able to load quickly and each of the levels do not take to long to complete. the next point is to keep the product interesting for children and this can be done by making the product look fun, by using simple sounds and animations to keep them interested.

Another site timbuktu.me also add some extra rules. “Don’t underestimate your audience”. Which means don’t treat them lessers to anyone else, you want to make them feel like they know what to do and they are smart. another rule is to respect the parents, this means make sure that the product is appropriate, as they say “Would you want your own kids to buy things online every time they grab the ipad?”, even though I can not designing the product for an ipad or to have in-app purchases, but it makes you think that, if you are a parents, would you find this product suitable for a child to play?.

Next is to look at what type of colour scheme that I need to use to make the game most desirable for a child. By childsmindinnovation.com, “colour is a big part of their world. The playful, visually stimulating variations of ‘reflected light’ that we see as ‘colour’ provides a dose of happy energy like that of a child”.  “young kids are drawn to it and desire playful interaction with it”. So by this designing a product aimed towards children should always have a lot of bright colours, as they are naturally drawn to it.

So what have I learned from this?

I have learned that I need to make sure that the game is simple for a child to use, this can be done by making instructions simple to read and understand, this can also extend to making the designs the visuals of the games to also be simple, to make the world within the game easy to understand. This will also mean that I will need to show what the goal of each level is in a simple manner, I plan on doing this by showing what needs to be done within the first few levels (which will be tutorial based). Next is to make the levels not last too long, so the a child does not lose interest, make the levels short and fun, and reward the child for completing the level, making it a more enjoyable experience. The menu system of the game must also be simple so that a child is able to play the game without help from a parent. Finally the colour scheme of the game should be colourful, as colour indicates fun. I will be making the world of the game look like papercraft, using different colour paper and a animated world (using small and simple animations).

Client – Burstalls Project: What have I worked on? (Part 2)

Before meeting the client, we (me and my group) were given the direction that they want the project to go. They wanted to have the outside and the inside safe room to be recreated and set within the time it was built (1899 – 1901).  We decided that we will recreate the front of the building, the hallway, stairs and the safe room and if there is time, recreated some of the rooms on the ground floor. We started to look for references online and within the History centre to get an idea and understanding of how the building would of looked at the point in history. Before going and meeting the client, we all worked on assets that could go within the building as we have not seem the inside of the building at this point.

Below I will show some of the early work I created:

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Client – Burstalls Project: What have worked on (Part 1)

Before christmas in November, we (me and my group) were given the task to recreate the outside and interior of the Burstalls building, we created concepts and ideas of what direction design wise we could go to the client. I created sketches and 3D rendered concepts of how the building could be showcased. I will show the images below:

These are the sketches I drew up before I created the 3D concepts.

These are the 3D concepts based of the sketches I created.

And these are just showcasing how the building can be shown, what perspective I could show the building as.

The final decision of the art direction was to create a fly over of the outside and inside of the building using a normal perspective, so not having the building cut like in many of the designs shown above, however the island concept maybe used.

FMP – Gameplay and mechanics Direction Finalised

What am I planning to create?

The plan for the gameplay and mechanics for my project have not changed much compared to the original idea, but since the decision of the design direction, the project will be more focused on designing mechanics based around the main theme, which is paper/card origami. An example of how this could be used is making paper as a way to travel across danger zones, but make the paper seem floaty whilst flying. Another example is to allow the character to rip through thin paper, either as a way to hide secrets or as part of a puzzle. The puzzle elements that I originally planned to do when  starting this project will pretty much stay the same, it will still be my main focus for this project. The fighting and enemies for this project  will still be included within the game, as I feel that a conflict helps build the gameplay and story for the game; the enemies will not be complicated in any sense and they will not directly attack the character, and maybe even design it in such a way where you don’t have to destroy any enemies to win the game; it could be a way to give the user two different rewards depending on how they played the game, or even two different endings. Or the actual mechanics the character within the game will have, this also has not changed much. The playable character will be able to move left and right from walking to running speed (controllable speed is only achievable using a game pad), pushing objects, jump and double jump, and finally a basic attack which could be used to break open object and to destroy enemies.

My influences

The main game that has influenced this projects gameplay mechanics design from the start is the game series “LittleBigPlanet“, which is a side scrolling creative platformer, but only the story mode levels within the game are the influence, the reason for this is that these levels have puzzle based systems within gameplay along side basic fighting. Below I will show a clip of gameplay of this game:

Another game that has influenced the mechanics and gameplay design is “Rayman Origins” which has fun gameplay and fluid movement of the playable character.

FMP – Art Direction Finalised

What have I done

I have finally found the design direction that I want to go with for this project. I am planning to make the environments  look like paper/card origami from the character, environment and even the sky. I am planning to make the origami style to refer to what normal within the environment, enemies and “evil” objects will be perceived as non-paper/card origami, such as toys and large more realistic objects. This design choice is to show the user what is bad and what is good. An example of this will be fire that will look realistic and will burn and damage the paper environment.

Below is two concept pieces for the project:

I am planning to do one final concept piece for this art direction, along side a few other design directions, then choose the best suited. Though I do feel that this art direction is the best, as it has allows me to create a basic but powerful story for the game, and also be visually pleasing and very friendly to children. After this, I will start to plan out the first level, which will be focusing on the basic mechanics of the game, which are moving and jumping, so I will not need to create special objects or use complex BluePrints to create the level. Then create it within Unreal Engine 4.

What are my influences?

The idea is  influenced by many sources, from other games to films. The influence for the art direction is based on many games, but the main one being “Grow Home“. I will show an image of game play below:

Link to image here.

Another major influence for the design direction is  “Yoshi’s Woolly World” which is also a side scrolling platformer, but uses a material as the main style, which is wool/ yarn. Image of the game is below:

Link to image here.

 

 

Modeling a simple face

This is going to be a small project where I will be modeling a simple, cartoon face using the software 3DS Max. Within this project, I plan to do the following:

• Create a very simple sketch concept of a face which I will model
• Use this image to create a simple 3D version of this face
• Unwrap and texture the face

I have already completed the first task, I will post the designs below.

I will update this as I complete more.

How Things Work: Visual Explanation using 3D

What is the idea?

This is a new project that I will be starting from today to build up my 3D modeling experience, and my ability to collect information from others to create something visual.

There will be two different directions I will be able to go with this project, the first being creating just a 3D visual image of the subject that I am explaining, which could be how a door lock works, to the different in size between the planets. The other direction I could go, and will be the main focus of this project will be video and basic animation. This could be done by creating a voiced over video explaining how these things work along side a animated visual representation of what I am explaining.

How will I approach this idea?

I am planning on listing out a bunch of different things I can visualise and explain to people well and easily. I will collect information about any subject areas I will use for this project from good sources (NOT WIKIPEDIA), and use them to back up any claims I make within my visual representations. This includes videos and images.

Why this project?

I enjoy learning about new things, so using this I will be able to use what I learn as a way to showcase my skill sets.

What do I plan to achieve from this?

I plan that it will help me learn more skill sets to help improve my work and my work flow. It will also allow me to showcase my skill sets to people, and has the potential of being pieces that could be within my portfolio. I also hope that people are able to learn from the content that I will make.

FMP – Animation and Animatics: Plan

I am planning to start working on the animations and animatics early for this project. I am not planning to create any character animations within 3DS Max or any other 3D program for a while though. What I am planning to do is to learn the fundamentals of motion for animations by doing 2D based animations first.

First thing that I am going to do is create very simple animations, such as a rotating cube using the animation feature which is in Photoshop. I will also create a rotating cube within 3DS Max and render it out as a reference for the creation. What I am planning to do with these animations is to work out how the major points of an object move, such as an example with the cube, how each of the corners will move within a 3D space using 2D animation methods. The reason for doing this is so when I get to the more complicated animations and animatics, I will be able to work out how the object or character will move, by the major points of the object.

After I have created a few basic animations, I will start doing character based animations within 2D, which I will be starting of by recreating fight scenes from films and cartoons (using as a reference) to learn how to make the motion look more realistic. These will be done by creating stick-man animations which will be fast to produce and if done right, can have great motion which can teach me how to make more realistic motion within objects and characters.

next step is to start creating animatics for possible movements to be used within my game. The way that I am currently planning to do this is to record myself doing these movements to the best of my ability, or using an object to recreate the motion that I am after, placing the video in the background, and draw out points on each of the major movements within the video, and draw lines and circles to draw out a mannequin like character. This will be done for side and front views of the movement. The plan is that I will be able to use these animatics to create the motion within 3D animation using 3D animation software which will look professional and fun to watch. I do plan to edit the final movements slightly to make them look more powerful and fluid if need be.

I am planning to complete all of this within 4 weeks.

GrowGuu – Idea Generation: Visual and sound design

I have thought of a few directions that I can do with the creation of the visual look of the game and the sound and music that could be used with it.

I have thought of a design idea which is to make sound and design of the game work together. This means that with the simplistic visual design of the game, there will also be a simple music and sound library that will be used. This would be pretty simple to program into the game as all that needs to be created would be the music for the game, and basic code which allows the music to player and to be muted if the player wishes.

Another idea is due to the simplistic visual design of the game, I could use a powerful score (music) to make the game have more emotion and identity. This will require more programming as different events in the game could make the music more powerful or weaker. As an example, the music might be soft when the player is small, but the music could become more powerful as the player gets larger. The problem with this idea is that this would require a lot of sound programming to make this work well, and the creation of multiple parts of a song that gets played depending on player mass (player size).

Final idea is to make different music for different coloured backgrounds for the game. As an example, you could have a more powerful song play when the background is red, and have a calmer song play when the background is blue. This would require some more advance programming and the creation of multiple songs.

I may add to this list depending if I think of more ideas.

Before I create any of the music for this game, or decide on which direction I want to go with this idea, I want to do some research into sound design for games, so that I have a clear idea of what I need to do to make the music work well with the game, and make the user like the game with its music, or even make the music as a way of a user to remember the game.

Future Trunks Sword (Dragonball Z) recreation in 3D – Side Project: References

I’m starting a mini side project to recreate the sword that Future Trunks uses in Dragonball Z. Below I will show some of the references that I will use:

Link here.

Link here.

Link here.

With this project, I am only planning to recreate the sword. I will be using two programs to do so. I will start of by creating a basic shape of the sword within 3DS Max which I will unwrap once complete. I will then bring the model into Mudbox, which I will sculpt shape into into the sword; then finally create a material for the sword using the inbuilt tools in Mudbox.