This week I tried to experiment with CAD. I couldn't get a license for CAD software, so I used an open source one call Free CAD. I couldn't get used to the controls well but fortunately for me I could change it to Maya controls. I later imported it into Maya and see if I can scale a block out to the CAD drawing. It eventually worked well, however, I did take me all week annoyingly.
Before I started to get somewhat use to the software, I wanted to do rough basic floor plans in my sketch book. Which can be seen below:
I forgot to post this on the 10th of February post. But from my texture practice I created my own substance graph and added my favorite bits from each practice and combined them to create a new texture. Results below:
There's a 'clean' version; a variation of the 'clean' version and a dirty version
My main inspiration for this current MA project is Notre Dame Cathedral.
I didn't want to just look at certain angles at Google images, I wanted to look a over every bit I could at Notre Dame.
Annoyingly I'm not in travel distance to the Notre Dame nor a parkour expert. So, I took a leaf out of Joey's booklet.....
I went into the map:
Images from Google Maps.
Unfortunately, these aren't the best of images - So with the magic of games I done the next best thing: I went to Assassin's Creed Unity:
Disclaimer:As much as I would love to harp on about why I love the Assassin's Creed franchise, I'm going to remain objective for MA - As this is for academic purposes not a review.
Though it first emerged in Northern France, I notice from documentaries I watched last week and looking at buildings around Norwich, there is a slight difference. Comparison seen below.
As stated in last week's post, I was going to look at weathering. Though I remember what types of weathering from my GSCE geography, I thought it be best to refresh my memory.
There is different types of weathering (such as chemical, physical and biological)
The main weathering effects that would effect the building would be freeze-thaw and acid
Freeze-thaw: is when water get into cracks of something, for example a rock. When it gets colder, the water will freeze and would expand the crack in the rock. This would happen again and the crack would get bigger - and this will repeat until the crack becomes a hole. Or in case of a gargoyle, a bit will fall off.
Acid rain: Rain water is naturally have some carbon dioxide as humans and animals breath it out. But rain water has become more acidic due to pollution. So this acidic rain will erode objects, such as stone.
Though these types of weathering would effect my enviroment the most, other weathering techniques would effect it too.
Note: I need to make sure I integrate this into the textures for my project.
Texture practice:
This week I also done some texture practice following tutorials. I really want to get better at using Designer and being able to make my own textures.
Note before we begin: Now that I have finally figured out what I want to do for my second set of projects for MA, all these post will be for both SNU and ASU2 as I am treating it as one/complimentary project.
I've also made a plan which I will work on one part of the project for one week, then the other part of the project the week after that. I will hopefully keep doing this throughout this project to aid in time management.
Anyway, I digress:
For this week and also next week, I shall be doing research for both SNU and ASU2 projects.
For SNU, I've decided to create an architectural piece in style of Gothic Architecture, I wanted to research the history of it.
For ASU2, I decided I wanted to create a gargoyle which I'll add to the SNU piece. Once again, I'm going to treat both units as complimentary units.
One documentary I've found have been really handy which explores the history of Gothic Architecture: BBC Architects of the Divine: The First Gothic Age
This documentary was really fascinating to watch as it doesn't just talk about the Gothic architecture but the reason behind it and the history of some of the buildings that use it.
For gargoyle research:
During my research into gargoyles I found a documentary on gargoyles: Gargoyles: Guardians of the Gates
As with the other documentary I watched, I found this one fascinating. One thing I didn't realize before my research is that gargoyles don't usually last beyond a century as they erode away and fall apart - This is something I should take in account when creating my gargoyle asset - Obviously it isn't going to be pristine - So the amount of wear and erosion will help dictate the age of the gargoyle. In a
Note: I will look into erosion next week as apart of my research.
In addition to this, each creature carved has a different meaning to them:
Basilisk: Myth says the are born from a satanic union of venomous toads and roosters. Due to outbreak of syphilis in the middle ages caused my basilisks. From what I gave from this documentary, this is used to show that this outbreak is cause by a basikisk
Aspect gargoyle aka a Dragon with one ear to the ground with the other clogged with it's tail: symbolizes the refusal of sinners to listen to the word of God
Griffon: Their nature is a representation of the duality of Christ - who was both flesh and God
Other animals were used as gargoyles as they were't just seen as animals. One example from the documentary a pig was sentenced to dead for eating a communion wafer.
One thing I have talked about in an older post (from year 1 of my BA degree), gargoyles, grotesques and Chimeras are three different things. The later two are decorative purpose and gargoyles have not only a decorative purpose but a functional one as well - To divert water away from the building.
Also, the word gargoyle comes from the French word gargouille - which means throat in English. However, this word and the idea of a gargoyle comes from the legend of Gargouille
The Legend of Gargouille - Summary version:
During the 7th Century the town of Rouen (a town in France) was terrorized by a water dragon called Gargouille. The dragon had bat like wings; a long neck; a reptilian jaw and not only does he breath fire but water aswell. Gargouille would sink ships; torch local villages and cause floods. The people of Rouen were terrified by Gargouille and would offer him sacrifices every year - human sacrifices.
One year, Saint Romanus agreed to rid this monster and set out to kill it. Using but only a cross to tame the monster, Saint Romanus manage to tame him. Saint Romanus brought back the dragon to Rouen and Gargouille was burned at the stake. However, not all of Gargouille burned - The only thing that remained was his neck and head. Saint Romanus nailed Gargouille's head upon the town's church where it became a water spout.
Whilst watching documentaries, I done some studies on lizards to get some ideas for gargoyle as I would like to have a dragon style gargoyle
Task One
This week I also tasked myself with a task to create a great sword in Maya and texture it (I limited myself to two days for this). I needed a break from researching. Though the leather on the great sword in textured render isn't my own (I couldn't recreate a good enough leather texture - See render of my own below.) I used a stand in leather texture in Substance Painter. Metal texture I created in Designer
Note: I think I will give myself tasks during my project to break it up a little and to keep my energy going
This week I finished my essay and at the beginning of the week I managed to get more of the transcribing that needed to be done for one of my interviews - shan't transcribe the other one as it took far too long. I've found some more research that I am adding to my offline research papers.
Next week I'm going to proofread my essay and double check everything before I had in.
For RIPU this week, I once again focused on doing some creative body of work. I haven't talked about it much in my blog, but I have got a lot more done for my offline research pages. A few more pages and I think I will be done for these.
This week for RIPU, I whilst doing my pages of research, I wanted to make a head start for the creative body of work needed for the unit. I wanted to create a concept piece for depression. Results seen below. I used a lot of black in my concept piece as the colour black, scientifically means the absence of light and often used figuratively represents darkness. I wanted to use these two meanings and use them towards the character design. Why did I choose this? Often, when people are depressed they feel like there's no light. They feel darkness surrounds them - I combine these together to create the character design below
This week I mainly looked at documentaries that could help give me a better insight into mental health - specifically anxiety and depression. But I also looked at other documentaries regarding other mental health issues.
Though I looked at more, these are the main ones I looked at:
BBC The Secret Life of The Manic Depressive: Part 1Part 2
Social Anxiety Documentary: Afraid of People: Link To Video
The Not So Secret Life of the Manic Depressive: Ten Years On: Link to Video
This week, I looked at how games have explored mental health and how already existing games have helped.
GameSpot have two videos on this matter (found through re-watching the Low Batteries series by Eurogamer via recommendations bar)
Links to the GameSpot Videos: How Video Games Explore Mental Illness Video Games Vs. Depression Video Games Vs. Depression:
This video explores at how gamers views on how games have helped them through their mental health problems or not.
As mentioned in this video, the relationship between depression and video games are complex. Some use it as a crutch to get through the day (in a healthy way) but others can escape into gaming so much, that it can make their depression worse or getting addicted to the video games themselves.
When talking about the article, it talks about the negative impact of gaming on depression, a point though I thought about and looked about briefly, I haven't taken into account properly. I looked at the negative portrayal of depression within games and video game addiction, but I never thought about HOW games can impact depression and could make it worse.
One of the major aspects I took away from the video is the community aspect and gaining friend via online gaming and helping them though the bad times. One of the players, due to health problems (not the depression but did cause the depression) couldn't go out but made friends online and manage to socialize.
Personal takeaway from this video: After watching this video, I was in awe on hearing how games have helped their lives and hearing their own stories. Though I've done essays on this subject before, but it always manage to touch my heart on hearing people's own experiences and hearing their stories - it gives a more human face to the research. This always reinforce my beliefs on games being a form of therapy, drives my passion for this concept and drives my passion more to help people, like these with my greatest hobby.
How Video Games Explore Mental Illness:
This video helped me finding games that explore mental health. But one game that stood to me within this video was The Town of Light; a game based on a controversy within a mental hospital during the 1930's.
One concept I never thought about before is using games to educate people on how the mental health system use to be and how that system use to be. This also give light on how vital it is to keep mental health trust funded as if our current system keeps getting budget cuts, the system could end up being as flawed as it once was. I also didn't think of using horror games to explore metal health issues and thought it would be counterproductive (it was counterproductive trying to help anxiety by cause anxiety) so I did rule the genre out completely. However, The Town of Light have made me reconsider this stance.
More videos on Mental Health and Games I looked at this week:
Looking at this article has given me an idea of integrating an app into a game that may help people to do stuff outside of the main game - similar to Epic Win.
It's also interesting to see other apps designed to help people with mental health issues. Though it does point out a good point that (to quote the article) The mental health app marketplace is “very messy”.
This has given me to an insight that I hadn't thought of before - there's a lot of apps for helping mental health but from what it seems from the article it's been over saturated. This article also points out that the best way to find the best apps is to see if they have had input with professionals. I need to keep all of this in account if I am to pursue this idea further
Charles Dickens work has influenced many either with film, illustrations and in some ways games.
His books were kind of evaluation and analogy of the society he was living in. For instance Oliver Twist was evaluation on how poor people had to live in the Victorian era.
Christmas Carol was an analogy on how the society treats each other and how we ignore those in need. Scrooge was an analogy of upper classes refusing the acknowledgement of the poor and help them. But he's more than happy to begin with to take their money.
This is a quote from Christmas Carol that best define society. People are more than willing to take and always wanting more, but always willing to feign ignorance and push others aside if it inconvenience them.
'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down uponthem. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'
Games these days often do the same thing with the over dramatize versions of current events that we face today or at least bring attention subjects that are effecting people in today's society.
Case and points: In Dragon Age they show that what LBGT community in a bright light and they are fact just normal people and should be accepted like any other person. This in turn show how better everyone would be if we accept others. This also reflects current events in real life that LBGT is now being accepted.
Another example of a game being an analogy of real life is Fifa 16 as it has now a woman's world cup in it. This shows that now that women are now getting equal light like their male counterparts.
Whilst researching for my essay, I have some interesting articles about how the game The Last of Us is in fact influenced by a comic. Something which I didn't actually know about before hand.
The comic that influenced the game was in fact the comic of the same name "The Last of Us American Dreams"
Neil Druckmann explained that the comic explores and go into Elllie's backstory and her friend whom was only mentioned in the main game - However this was explored in the games dlc.
It also influenced some of the Parodies within the main game. But the main influence the comic had for the game was with it's dlc (as mentioned above) as Neil Druckmann stated in another article that without the comic, the dlc Left behind would of not been created.
Within the same article, it states that comics can not only influence a game but expand the game world itself.
In 2014 I attended a exhibition about the history of comics, from the politics, religion, to education and freedom of speech. comics have influence a lot of things during the history of comics.
However, one aspect of the exhibition stood out to me more than the rest of the exhibition. This section I am talking about is how comics influenced games.
Their prime example is how the Arkham Asylum comics from the 80's had influence to Rocksteady's popular Batman Arkham series
As stated in the Comics Unmasked exhibition's book Arkham Asylum shows "Surreal desent into madness, awash with baroque images of dream and nightmare"
This can be seen in the Batman Arkham series through the story line and segments with Scare Crow.
One segment with Scare Crow is the game pretends to crash with the blue screen which scares the player into thinking their game has crashed and lost all their progress with the story.
This is a somewhat of a fourth wall break which directly aimed at the player, which in turn makes them involved with the game as it effects them and play with their mind.
I forgot to add these on to the first weekly summary for this week, but wanted these to be on a separate post:
During this week I manage to get the high poly model for the dresser done and I was also able to get the high and low poly models done for my prop.
But with the props, I was also able to get the maps done, add them to the models and try them in UE4
Edit: For the normal maps, I forgot to invert the Y+ to a Y- in Xnormals. So the normal maps don't work properly in UE4. Though they do work in Maya.
What I have learnt: From experimenting and working with Xnormals, I have now gain a ruff understanding for Xnormals and that hard edges can't be connected to one another and they also can't be connected to soft edges.
Also, from trial and error I realized that I will have to change the cage size for the model and the ray distance.
But most importantly which I found out to be really helpful that sometimes I will need to edit the normal maps in Photoshop.
As at first I couldn't get all the detail from the high poly model to the low poly model in one go. Instead I baked the asset in sections and then edited them together in Photoshop. Also I found out with Photoshop I can get rid of some of the black lines that keep popping up on my models.
