Resident Evil 6

I personally can't wait for the new edition to the Resident Evil franchise, It's been a hell of a wait even today I still play Resident Evil 5, which in my opinion is one of the best games out there. However many people don't seem very optimistic abut Resi  6, due to the massive let down that Resident Evil: Racoon City brought with it (my opinion). What people must realise though is that Racoon City was simply a spin off and If any of you have watched the trailers and game play of Resi 6 will know this it's shaping up to be a massive hit (I will post a link at the botom), with multiple character play choices to play though one singular campain, playing from each Characters perspective. Spacing the game out and adhiring to the entire Resi fan club, adding editions for each play style eg. Chris campaign is suited to the more guns blazzing, f**k sh*t up kind of player. Where as Leon's campain is suited for the followers of the early resi franchise, more dark and scary like's too shit themselves kind of players and the new edition to the franchise Wesker's son Jake, following in the footsteps of his farther with bad ass hand to hand combat and genaral f**k sh*t up deminar. This I think will be a great adition the the game adding a character who can chose to use only hand to hand melee. Jake is definalty a character I look forward to playing as....
   The game is set to release October 2... so per-order now I know I have :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS_bGpe9qE8

Reflection questions- 3d environment

·       What did you do and how did you do it?                                                 I used 3ds max to re-create an environment in Saltaire, I decided to model Salts building along with part of the surrounding area. In order to create this I first began planning for what I wanted in the animation, which had to be appropriate for the theme as the finished animation would be added to a final trailer I did in a team. Once planning was finished and the team was decided upon what we wanted out of the finished product I went out and took pictures of Salts building and its surroundings to get an idea of how I was going to re-create the building in 3ds max. After which I began work on the modeling of Salts building, I started of using simple box modeling techniques to get the basic shapes of the building done by converting the box into an editable mesh. I then continued to shape the box as it slowly started to look more like Salts building, I used the pictures I previously took to see what the building actually looks like which gave me an understanding of what I needed to do in 3ds max to get the model looking accurate. After about 3-4 hours the building was complete, After which I started on the surroundings of the building e.g. garden, (tree's, bench's, grass area) the surrounding wall, fences and the buildings around Salts. Doing so took about 1 hour to complete. Now it was time to start texturing the models, unfortunately the deadline was getting closer and I still had to animate and render the scene, so I was unable to UVW unwrap the models and texture them in Photoshop. Instead I created textures using the material editor for the stone of the buildings ext. The scene was set I just needed to add lighting, I used a Omni light to illuminate the entire scene, changing the emitted colour to a red to give the scene more of an atmospheric effect. I then turned the contrast down to make the scene darker and scarier. The scene was done but I felt it was missing something, so after pondering fro a while I decided to add rain to the scene, which turned out okay not as good as I had hoped but I didn't have enough time to make it any better unfortunately. I then sent a camera around my environment and rendered it, which took about 1 hour. 

·       Does your final design meet your original intentions? It does and doesn't, originally I wanted to create Salts building and a post apocalyptic city, but as time constraints where in play, I found that I just didnt have enough time for both and as we needed to add Saltaire into the trailer I had to make compromises.   

·       Self evaluation – how did you manage your time? How could you manage your time more effectively? I feel I manged my time fairly efficiently however I could have done so much better, by thinking ahead and not taking to much work on at once.  

·       What did you struggle with? E.g. Texturing, modelling, lighting, animation. I wouldn't say I struggled with anything in particular, If anything I would say that I wasn't happy with the finished texturing of my environment, but because of time constraints I was unable to spend time texturing the models properly in Photoshop.   

·       What did you find easy? Nothing was easy but what I found most enjoyable would defiantly be the modeling & animating of the environment. 

·       How does your finished design compare to professional examples? Defiantly no where near the caliber of quality in professional work, but for a team that have only used the software for under 2 years I think we did quite good. 

·       What do other people think of your finished design? The feedback I have had form people about my work is Quite good many said they really like it, but others gave constructive criticism, which will be taken on board. 

·       What could you improve upon? The texturing, use UVW unwrap on the models and texture them in Photoshop. 

·       If you were to do it again what would you do differently next time? I would give myself less work to do so I can focus more quality of my work rather than quantity. I would also model interior, rather than exterior, as I want to try my hand at something different to test my skills further.  

Sound Unit Reflection questions

What did you do and how did you do it?
I did the narration for the wolf packs team trailer (my team) as well as the narration for the Cybertronics team trailer, I did this by writing a script about the trailer, then recorded me narrating the script in the sound labs recording room. After this I but the recording into the software called Cubase and played around with it until changing the speed, tempo ext. until it sounds how I envisioned it.

Does you final audio production meet your original intentions? If it does not match your planning explain why
It doesn't meet my original intentions, originally I planned to have sound effects of car alarms and fire ext. but found that during production of the trailer I was going to have to make compromises in order to finish on time. The team originally didn't think to include a narration, but I offered my serves's for the part.

Self Evaluation- how did you manage your time? How could you have managed your time more effectively?
I feel as though I managed my time quite efficiently, and finished my narration with time to play around with it in Cubase. If I where however to have had more time or managed time more effectively then I would have been able to add more effects into my animation, to have done this I could have made a good plan and stuck to it rather than changing my mind half way through.

What did you struggle with? e.g. Cubase, microphones, playing instruments, sound cards?
I think overall I had a good grasp on things, but If I had to pick one I would say that Cubase gave me the most challenges, but after some time I came to grips with the software and did fairly well.

What did you find easy?
I found that when I did the narration for the trailer was the easiest part for me, many people might not feel comfortable, talking into the microphone knowing everyone will be hearing you voice, it can be quite embarrassing, but for me it didn't bother me. I enjoyed it and when I messed up even though people laughed I thought it was funny as well.

How does you finished audio compare to proffesional examples?
I don't think my work is anywhere near as good as professional work, but i think for my first audio production I did okay. Although in the actual trailer the music overpowers the narration and its hard to hear, but the narration itself sounds quite good.

What do other people think about your audio?
Other people think it sounds quite good, the often heard comment is that I sound like a cross between "Batman" and "Keanu Reeves."

What could you improve upon?
I think I could have done a few more takes in the sound lab to get the narration sounding exactly how I wanted it but due to deadlines I had to go with what I had, So I think Time management would be something to improve upon.

If you were to do it again what would you do differently next time?
I would have managed my time more effectively and spent more time perfecting my narration.

It's not about the finished product, it's about the journey. What did you learn?
I learn't how to operate Cubase, and learn't about sound cards and more about sounds labs in general. I learn't about Foley artists and How different sounds are made using a multitude of different techniques. 
     

GUI- user interface

This is a games user interface (GUI) I designed using a Jpeg still shot from my part in the team trailer we created. I made it in Photoshop, the background is the Jpeg still shot of my environment I made in 3ds max. I tried to make the layout as original as possible but with so many games out now nothing is truly original, but I did my best. The user interface is comprised of a mini map in the top left corner of the screen, along side is the health, Magic and level bar. In the bottom left corner is the equipment bar which includes, health potions, money ext. The right corner is the weapons bar, both bottom bars are opens by holding either left or right trigger depending on which bar you want to open and so forth.  

Trailer production plan

Today as a team we planned how we are going to comprise our trailer. My part of the trailer features after the narration screen, on this screen the narration I did will play as it does the words will appear on screen which will last for about 35-40 seconds. Before this the splash screen will appear which will last for roughly 10 seconds. My part of the trailer is an environment featuring salts building in Saltaire which lasts approximately 26 seconds as well as the narration and the first splash screen. After my part of the trailer the screen will fade to black and Alex E's sequence will initiate, this features salts corridor and lasts for 30 seconds. The overall trailer will last for approximately 3 minutes 48 seconds.     

Development process of salts building

As part of my input to the team trailer for our made up game "Torn", I'm Modeling the Shipley college salts building, to be featured a t the beginning of the trailer. The environment isn't finished thus far, but I'm towards the end of the modeling stage, soon I will be using unwrap UVW in order to texture the model of salts building in Photoshop.

This is what I've done so far-  
The textures soon on the building now are only temporary until I unwrap the model and texture it in Photoshop.

Team T-shirt design

Today our team each created there own T-shirt design For our trailer. We used a website called Streetshirts.com to create the designs as on the website they have template shirts, T-shirts ext. So this made the process a lot easier it also told you have much the end product would cost. I made a black short sleeve T-shirt with the game Logo on the front and the team name "the wolf pack" on the back.

Above is my design:  
We then voted upon which design we deemed the best and will be sent of to be made into actual T-shirts for the team to be worn on the day of the showcase, Here is the winning design below:

Continuity editing- Windows Live Movie Maker

Today the class had been given the task of assembling a compilation of  short video clips into the correct order, so that the clips flowed as one to make a short movie. We each worked individually on this, and each ended up with a unique sequence. Once we had ordered the clips into a sequence that seemed fitting to each individual person, we then cut some of the clips to make the movie flow much better and also added filters to certain clips to give more of an effect off- for example I added a night vision type effect for the end sequence so that the camera running looked to be some kind of creature of the night. unfortunately windows live movie makers crashed at this point so I could continue no longer on adding effects and editing the movie. 

design idea of logo for Game

In our team we each had to come up with a design idea for the logo of the game we will be featuring in a trailer we will be creating very soon. I decided to go for an obvious design idea yet still looks good in my opinion, I added what looks like 4 claw marks or a tear (your preference) then found a good looking font on 1001fonts.com to use of the game name, then finally found a picture of one of the lions outside salts building in Saltaire. (the game trailer has to feature Saltaire & something to do with its history (teams preference)) then I changed the threshold of the image using Photoshop, so it would be in black an white rather than grey and boring, I also had to change a few other things as it originally had a background, which I had to get rid of.    
      Once the team had each created there own version of how they wanted the logo to look we decided to vote upon which of the 6 logos was deemed the best for the game featured in our trailer, after an extensive talk about each of the good and bad features of everyone's logos we decided to that Joe Lee's design was the best.
Below is Joe Lee's Logo design and the logo for the game in our trailer, Congratulations Joe Lee :)

Thanks for reading :)

Simple Tree scene

Today in 3ds max I looked at creating a displacement map, to do this I created a plane 20 length and width segments and added a displace modifier to it, them I added a noise bitmap to it and increased the strength to of the plane to make in change form and look more like a bumpy field. Then I went to the foliage tool bar and added a Japanese cherry blossom as this is my favorite tree. Once all the basics where in place I then went on the modifiers list and added a boxgizmo, in order to add a fog effect and a bitmap. Its fairly poor compared to my early work but the class hasn't been on 3ds max in a few months and the teacher wants use to get back into the swing of things, but once the boring stuff is done, soon I will be bringing you my teams animated trailer.
   Thats about it, hopefully next 3ds max blog post will have more to offer for you guys :)

Agreed content & delegation of roles for 3 minute animated trailer

We as a team today decided upon the delegation of roles for the production and advertising of the animated trailer we are soon to be producing. We all created a back-story for a game then chose from the group the best story, we decided upon choosing a combination of my idea and a few others from the group. In doing this, we were able to make the entire group happy as they all had influence of what went on in the trailer, and due to the changes we now can all create our own environment unique to our own imaginations.

The delegation of roles decided that:

Isaac Parker (ME): 

 Create Salts building exterior and an apocalyptic version of salts building & an apocalyptic town most, likely a few buildings as I don't want to over burden myself. 

Josh Williams:

Corridor within Salts Building & Separate environment unique to himself using a steam punk theme.  

Joe Lee: 

Stairs & corridor within Salts building & separate environment unique to his own specifications.

Alex Jeffery:

Create portal and portal effects & separate environment. 

Alex E:

Basement and power supply, with possible effects & separate environment.

Marketing Material:
I will be making one of the 2 splash screens, that will be used at the beginning and end of the trailer.
The other splash screen will be created by Alex E.
 Box art- Josh W

      Splash screen- Joe L

      A1/A3 poster & A5 flyer- Oliver S 
     Web Banner- Alex J
    Name Logo- everyone- The Loge of the game featured in the trailer is called "Torn", Everyone in the team is going to attempt to design and produce a logo for the game, once everyone has created one we will then democratically vote on which one the group thinks is best to use as the actual game loge to be featured in the trailer.

3ds max Windows & door

Today we finally got make on 3ds max after months of eagerly waiting for the opportunity to once again own my skills in the 3d world. We each designed a neo-classical style window, specific to our individuality.
   We started by creating a box then used the bend tool to create an arch from the box, and extruded the bottom polygons of the arch to create a window frame. We then added a box at the bottom of the window frame to create the window ledge, and also a box at the top to give a realistic look to how many of the window frames within Saltaire look like, we did this because very soon we will be making an animation based within Saltaire.
Once the window frame had been made we then added a texture using the material editor, and used a sandy brick type colour as many of the building is Saltaire are made with this colour stone.
To create the door we just duplicated the window and then extruded the bottom of the arch further to look more door like, then used the uniform tool to scale up the model making it look more like a door.