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Visual FX Year 3

Narrative VFX Techniques

I am planning on hopefully having multiple different visual effects within my cinematic. These consist of, Water/Rain effect, a dust particle effect as well as multiple visual effects done upon a pre-recorded video.

The water/rain effect will be used at the begging of the cinematic just before the person enter the building. I will try and make a sleet like rain that slowly builds up on the persons visor which they then continue to wipe smearing the water and removing it shortly after.

The dust particles will show up in the cinematic as the player enters the house and disturbs the dust within. The flashlight showing more defined dust particles as it moves across the room. Slowly settling back down as the cinematic continues.

Finally I am planning to film myself on a greenscreen as a tv commercial chef. Within this video after I add the 3D models to the video I will slowly start to distort parts of both the environment and the chef. The distortions and glitches getting worse as the commercial continues. This will eventually spread into the cinematic itself effecting the 3D models within the cinematic and leaving multiple glitched static parts on items.

This cinematic will be animated from a first person view. This means that I was be attaching a camera to the players head to give the image of the viewer being the one to experience this horror.

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Visual FX Year 3

Exercise 2 Particle Creation

Within this exercise I decided to create smoke, this will help me as a smoke FX is going to be very similar to that of the dust FX that I’m planning on creating.

To start off I made sure that I had Niagara active on my version on unreal engine 5. Once I checked this I started to create the VFX. I first started off by creating a system to run my VFX through. This started me off with just a small white circle that faded after a short amount of time. I then changed this out for the smoke texture and begun.

Firstly I made the texture larger, this would make it easier to see. After this I followed the lab with every step eventually turning the simple texture into moving smoke.

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Visual FX Year 3

Exercise 1 Virtual Cameras

I did this exercise in hopes to better myself with using the cameras within unreal engine 5, allowing me to get a smoother and higher quality end piece.

To start off I loaded the scene of two people stood in front of a sofa. After it had loaded up all the shaders I began the exercise. To begin I added 3 Cinematic Camera Actors naming each one there respected camera angle. Those being: Wide shot, Close up shot C1 and Close up shot C2. After I added these three into the scene I moved them into the correct place using the pilot mode on each of the cameras.

Once done I started to edit the Level Sequence. Within this I changed when the cameras would change, changing them at intervals of 60, 120, 150 and 200. Swapping between the Wide to Close1 to Close2 then once again back to Wide.

After this I decided to add some key frames into the sequence allowing me to have the cameras move whilst I the sequence played out.

Finally I went into the level blueprint and made it so that whenever you start the game level the sequence will always play first before giving the player control.

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Visual FX Year 3

Story Boards

Categories
Visual FX

Genre of the Piece

With the piece that I’m going for there is actually two genres happening at the same time. These two genres being a TV Commercial, as well as a videogame cutscene.

The way in which I’m planning on adding both of these into a 60 second clip is interesting. My plan is to have the commercial be a video that plays within the cutscene and is a key part of it.

Lets start off with the TV Commercial. The commercial is going to consist of a telemarketing cooking show which seems to be making a rather weird dish. This is going to have multiple video distortions within the video with both the distortions happening to the kitchen and the individual themselves. This will try to consistently get across a feeling of stress and horror to the person witnessing this.

Secondly we’ll talk about the cutscene. This is where the commercial will be. You’ll start off by walking into this abandoned house after some sort of disaster on the world wiping your visor as you do. Once entering this house you’ll be greeted with an old box TV with one of its legs crooked and broken into the floor boards below. Once you move your light over the TV it sparks to life, starting off as static but quickly changing to the TV commercial. As the commercial plays out the player continues to move closer and closer to the TV eventually being physically dragged into the TV by something laying wait inside. Once again I’ll be trying to put across heavy horror vibes in an attempt to scare the player within this cutscene.

Categories
Project Proposal

Research On the genre’s

With the game I was going to make I decided that the genres had to fit in with the idea/theme that I was trying to go with, that being nostalgia. After this I started to look at what types of games came out during and around the 1990s that were popular and recognisable.

Whilst looking around I found an article that had quite a few games on it that were popular during the 90s and are still well known and popular today. This list included things such as:

  • GoldenEye 007 – 1997
  • Resident Evil – 1996
  • Doom 64 – 1993
  • Grand Theft Auto – 1997
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past – 1991
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – 1992
  • Final Fantasy VII – 1997
  • Super Mario World – 1990
  • Super Metroid – 1994

After looking through these the ones I decided to base my game off of was Final Fantasy VII, Doom 64, Super Mario World and Grand Theft Auto. These were all iconic games that have expanded and grown from what they once were, and it felt as though a lot of people had grown up playing them.

The first genre of the four is an Role-Playing Game or more commonly known as an RPG. In an RPG the player will normally assume the roll of a character, or group of character within a fictional and normal fantasy based setting. Within these games the player will normally undergo multiple quest to increase the power of your character/s in both stats and skills.

The second genre of the four is First Person Shooter or also known as a FPS. Within an FPS the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist, this genre is also centred around the use of guns and or weapons within a 3D environment. Normally these games will share common similarities with that of the “Action” genre of games due to there high octane gameplay loop and narrative.

The third genre of the four is a Platform Game, often referred to as a platformer. A platformer is a sub-genre of the action genre in which the main goal is to move the player character through a 2D environment. The levels that are formed for this genre normally consist of having traits such as, uneven terrain and suspended platforms of varying heights that require the player character to traverse to finish the level.

The fourth and final genre of the games is a Shoot ’em up game also known as a STG. This genre can vary a lot, spanning from games such as space invaders to enter the gungeon. This genre is defined normally by two things that being a shooting element within the game as well as it’s requirement to be 2D.

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role-playing_game
  • https://gamerant.com/video-games-90s-best/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_game
Categories
Project Proposal

The narrative/gameplay loop

Narrative/Gameplay Loop

The game itself will follow a noble knight who has finally made it to the final boss, though this boss has something that the noble night has never come across before, the ability to force others into other worlds. 

After beginning the fight he realises that this creature is a lot stronger than he expected and eventually loses and is shoved into another world. 

Here he has to fight his way through this newly found world and get through the portal that was created from the boss that sent him there. 

This will happen multiple times, each time the knight getting stronger from the different worlds and each time getting a new item to assist him in defeating this boss. 

Eventually after finding an ally in these mysterious worlds he is finally able to defeat the boss and save his world.

This will be the narrative of the game, it will be hopefully about 20 minutes long to finish and will be a nice little game that will make the player feel nostalgic about the game itself.
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Project Proposal

Production Timeline

This is my production timeline, this is what I’m using to make sure I’m keeping on track with what I want to be making. I will be updating this shortly to keep up with the up and coming weeks.

I am currently behind on my estimated progress due to things at home that are clashing with my university work. Though I am catching up on them and will edit my timeline to represent this.

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Project Proposal

Mood/Reference Board

Mood Board

This Mood/Reference Board contains multiple things within from the art style that I will attempting to reproduce for my levels to the character design for the main protagonist of the game.

It even has a reference on there of the loading screen that I want to make for when the player is falling into the hole. That being the picture in the bottom right, the context of the image is not the necessary part that I needed. Instead it is the pose of the falling knight that I was looking for as it was only image I could find that matched how I want the loading screen to look like in my head.

To start off with, the images of the knights will be used as reference images for the main character, these will be used multiple times as I will need to make at least three different full body sprites and a first person perspective due to the different genres.

The next thing is the FPS asset references, these will be used as references for when I’m creating the fantasy style dungeon FPS. I will be taking a lot more reference from  “Wolfenstein 3D” as I will be having a much more confined narrow map.

The next one is the final fantasy reference images, these will be used to reference the main part of the game with both the combat and the art style.  

Categories
Digital Storytelling Year 3

The Flowchart of the Narrative