Part 2: Unit 2

This is the second part of the unit 2 blog post.

These are some graphics that are finalised for the trailer but may not contain actual gameplay.

These are all graphics that started out as drawings and concept art, these are all not yet finalised but they are the latest and most accurate representation of the final product, the Cinema 4D concept art is final though.

This is the link for my Cinema 4D work/project files.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B92WRsc1YSd6SVNDamJPRTRKY3M

The video underneath is a sped up video of how I created the animations for the final render.

 

 

Task 2; Communication Skills

Main functions and why it was chosen.

The software I am using is Cinema 4D as it is the easiest way of creating assets for my game and it is the default software on the macs at college. It is limited to certain restrictions such as texturing, the texturing menu in Cinema 4D isn’t great as the textures are as detailed or made to a high enough standard, it’s also industry standard meaning it’s a professional software, therefore will be capable of creating many amazing animations and assets for my game. cinema 4D also has a very basic and simple interface meaning someone like me, who is new to the software, is easily capable of creating great things.

Strengths.

It’s a very good and professional software which focuses purely on making industry standard assets meant for cool animations or gaming projects. However it is limited in some ways such as; the power and speed of rendering is limited to the power of the processor within the mac or PC that is using the software. So if you have an I3 processor instead of an I5 then you may not be able to produce as many items in Cinema 4D and render them at a quick speed and with great effects, also the capability of Cinema 4D only stretches as far as modelling and changing certain primitive shapes so I will need other software to create other items for my game.

Comparison.

Cinema 4D is a good software however it may not be able to produce models as effectively as something like Zbrush which is purely used for modelling character’s faces etc. Other softwares like Maya are also good for making assets just like cinema 4D however it is more complicated and is for more experienced users who understand the software and know exactly how to effectively use it, but Cinema 4D doesn’t take too long to learn and is quite simple due to it’s basic looking interface.

Exporting.

When I am finished and I need to export certain files to be put together and create the final products, to do this I will use either photoshop for the textures and I will export them through that so I can change the format if it’s needed to make it compatible for other things. I will use the render tool in Cinema 4D to create any animations that I will need as I can render each frame very easily and make it look amazing with all the effects that can be added to it, I will then use After Effects to put the images together and make it look like a really good quality animation.

Evaluation.

I have been greatly successful in what I am doing as I have learned how to use the software and I can now successfully create a good quality animation, I will now use that animation to create a trailer for my game and make it appeal to the audience that will view my trailer. Cinema 4D helped greatly as I have used all of the features that are available and the final product looks fantastic.

 

This is a photo of me spell checking my work after finishing a draft.

 

 

 

Lynne Task 1

The graphic style I am using for my game is cell-shaded as I looked at popular games of my genre and they used cel-shaded, therefore this seemed like an obvious choice for my game.

Deadlight and State of Decay, deadlight is a 2D side scroller with an abstract and cel shaded look to it. I plan to make my game just like these games as they were very successful and are very fun. State of Decay uses some photorealism mixed with cel shaded, however I mainly used the inventory system  and statistics as inspiration for my game.

Cel shaded can also be used to create a unique and dynamic comic book feel to a game which can provide an immersive experience for the player.

The cel-shading process starts with a typical 3D model. Where cel-shading differs from conventional rendering is in its non-photorealistic illumination model. Conventional (smooth) lighting values are calculated for each pixel and then quantised to a small number of discrete shades to create the characteristic flat look – where the shadows and highlights appear more like blocks of colour rather than mixed in a smooth way.

Black “ink” outlines and contour lines can be created using a variety of methods. One popular method is to first render a black outline, slightly larger than the object itself. Back face culling is inverted and the back-facing triangles are drawn in black. To dilate the silhouette, these back faces may be drawn in wireframe multiple times with slight changes in translation. Alternatively, back-faces may be rendered solid-filled, with their vertices translated along their vertex normals in a vertex shader. After drawing the outline, back-face culling is set back to normal to draw the shading and optional textures of the object. Finally, the image is composited via Z-buffering, as the back-faces always lie deeper in the scene than the front-faces. The result is that the object is drawn with a black outline and interior contour lines. The term “cel-shading” is popularly used to refer to the application of this “ink” outlining process in animation and games, although originally the term referred to the shading technique regardless of whether the outline was applied.

This information contains facts about what cel shaded is therefore it is relevant to me as I am using cel shaded and the way it is explained kind of answers why I am using it along with the other information I have provided.

Cel shading or toon shading is a type of non-photorealistic renderingdesigned to make 3-D computer graphics appear to be flat by using less shading color instead of a shade gradient or tints and shades. Cel-shading is often used to mimic the style of a comic book or cartoon. It is somewhat recent, appearing from around the beginning of the twenty-first century. The name comes from cels (short for celluloid), the clear sheets of acetate which are painted on for use in traditional 2D animation.

This information contains facts on what cel shading is and how it is used to effect the graphics of games.

Cel shading is one of the best graphic styles out there as it can be used in many different ways to attract audiences such as using screenshots of the graphics to show how the game will look and by using certain colour schemes to make potential fans become immersed in the world and want to buy the game. Cel shading can also be used to entice a certain audience like comic book fans. Cel shaded is very effective when creating a book adaptation game as cel shading is a very comic book-like graphic style so can be used to easily show the representation and link back to the original comic source and inspiration for the game. I can use software such as Cinema 4D and Zbrush and many more to help create a cel shaded look.

Bibliography:

http://watchmojo.com/video/id/13142/

https://turtlesgames.wordpress.com/category/gareth/

http://research.omicsgroup.org/index.php/Cel_shading

http://undeadlabs.com/stateofdecay/ : Initial inspiration

http://www.deadlightgame.com/ : Second initial inspiration

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cel_shading