Production Cinematic: Summative Assets

I was tasked to be an environmental artist for 2D elements in my group 'Team Contrast'.

These are the 2D elements that I have provided. Each sign is inspired by different parts of our society today while they are all still designed and geared towards this heavily neon-themed environment.

1)  For the first sign, I tried to make it look more exotic via the more jungle-themed fonts along with the tropical colours of blue and green.

2) The Mech Repair sign has three frames, made to look more mechanical with the scan lines as well as with the racing font.

3) The Red Light District sign is Kabukichou inspired (from Shinjuku). I went for the sex appeal of having the female figure on the sign as well as with the alluring red colours.

4) The Seraph Club is similar to the previous sign, but advertises for a bar rather than a love hotel. This one is more Americanized with the scriptive font and the 50's-like figure of Marilyn Monroe.

5) The Spectrum sign is specifically for our Neon shop. With this design, I leaned more towards techno and electronic themes inspired by the cool, punk designs and colours.

Self-assessment:

A lot of my disadvantages had to do with my own personal issues. While I contributed the work that I could, I feel as if I was an ill-match for this group considering my strong bias to working in 2D, whereas the project went almost entirely towards the direction of being 3D. With earlier preparation, I would like to, at the very least, work within a project that will really showcase my strengths. I would also like to prove myself in a time where I will not be held back by my own problems outside of class and will prove to do so in the following year.

Production Cinematic: Antagonist Colour Scheme

Since I'll be handling all the 2D aspects of the game, I decided to work on the possible colour schemes and eventually the texture for the NPCs and important characters from the cast. Later on I will also be working on signage for the environment.

Production Cinematic: UI Design

The menu we wanted to go for was a projection that would come out of the protagonist's arms. The character would end up looking down and raising his arm to eye-level, in which the projection would then appear.

Tutor notes & discussed additions:

• Controls & options isn't necessary.
• Could possibly add a compass / map to help guide the player through the level or locate where they are.

Creative Studio: Planning and Concepts

Choreography: ダンドル ECHO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkOfOf3Ih6U
Audio: ryokodesu97 https://www.youtube.com/user/ryokodesu97
Time: 2:04 - 2:52 (in video) 2:10 - 2:58 (in audio)

Animation will be about 48 seconds.
The boldness, stability, and texture of lines will be determined by the amplitude every half-second.
With the default waveform view in audacity, the amplitude will be measured at 0.0 to 1.0
1.0 will be where the lines are at their boldest, most unstable and at their roughest, while at 0.0 the lines will be thinner, calmer and smooth.

As for the actual movement of the lines, this will be determined by the audible beat in the song where I will match both of their timings.

Concepts (Character + Costume)

Production Cinematic: Animated Asset

Game asset moodboard

- Include a featured character

- Bright, fluorescent text

- High-tech features, but simplistic

- Stick to hot, bright colours?

Thumbnails

Polished Concepts

1) Rejuvenating, showing the power of neon

2) More reminiscent of the 80s + neon noir. Could be used for the Redlight District.

Animated Asset

Creative Studio: Journal Entries [Compilation]

Creative Studio: Ideation

Embodied Thinking
- Empathizing
- Kinesthetic

Kinesthetic: 5 senses
Applicable to music?
Changing rhythm, amplification, change in instruments, vocals (possibly lyrics?)

Wavelengths: bars, lines, waves

Apply to:

• Linework (stability)
• Colour palette/theme/scheme  (brightness/saturation)
• Size
• Stylistic approach (how realistic)

Examples of music to be used:

• Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen
• ALIEN - Maximum the Hormone
• ECHO - CrusherP
• Toxicity - System of a Down
• Circles - EDEN

__________

Sound = Audio waves

• Frequency/Wavelength
• Amplitude
• Sound pressure/Intensity
• Speed of sound
• Direction

Frequency = number of occurrences (higher frequency, faster rhythm)

Amplitude = measure of change (higher amplitude, louder volume)

Instead of the audio waves literally being the linework, it can instead dictate how smooth/rough the lines, textures, etc. are.

__________

Videos that follow the beat of the song:

Thought of You by Ryan Woodward: 

Duet by Glen Keane:

Notes: 
- Movements only follow the general rhythm but aren't entirely dictated by them. Big, key movements during the peak moments of each song.

- Linework is rough and free; matches both songs' calm and serene nature.

__________

Narrative videos influenced by shapes/patterns (animation process research):

Coda by Alan Holly:

The Junebugs by OddFellow:

https://vimeo.com/181109548

Notes:

- Shapes could morph to the beat, whether it's with size, colour or opacity.

- Using rough textures for each frame could mean wanted/unwanted extra movement

- Stylistic approach could be different for each element in the animation. Eg. Only linework for the environment in the foreground, realistic painting for the background, flat 2D for the characters.

__________

Music video with experimental animation (linework, textures and colours):

Old English by RuffMercy:

Notes:

- Frames are never consistent and always changing. Is rough by nature, multitudes of lines, layers of colours, text. Very wild and free.

- Shapes and patterns transform all around the rappers, matching key moments of the beat.

__________

Examples of rotoscoping with expressive linework:

EXO Dubstep intro animation (KAI ver.) by Chulsu

exo-k kai machine animation by Chulsu

Notes:

- Good minimalistic approach in linework. Uses not online outlines/folds, but also the shading and darker tones' strokes to bring about movement.

- At key moments of the music, the movement is exaggerated with motion blur.

- The costume design and environment in the second video allowed for even more movement through the linework.

Creative Studio: Pokemon

Today we designed our own Pokemon based on our chosen animation process. Considering mine has to do with the wavelengths of sound itself, I decided to create a Pokemon heavily influenced by musical notes and audio files.