Concept arts

I've been having a couple of busy weeks so I regret to say that there was no blog entry last week but I was going to talk about themes and stuff like that. I did spend some time thinking about a theme and a setting and I will elaborate on it later, but for now I'll upload some of the concept art I drew this week that is based off of my theme research.

For now that's all this post will be, I'll get around to writing a lot of stuff about this stuff in the morning probably.

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Okay now I can talk about these a little bit and the idea's behind them;

This is the first concept art I drew, I started it a little before week 8 and finished it during. I really-really wanted to do some Rayman: Origins inspired backgrounds and this was the product of that desire. Or perhaps I just wanted to draw a mushroom village.

The scrolling effect would include a lot of "Mushroom Trees" in the background, hanging vines and a lot of foliage, some stones too but to a lesser extent, it is a mushroom village after all.

This is the Second concept art I made during week 8, the theme of this one was destruction and the setting was a post apocalyptic world. The biggest reason for me wanting to do a background like this is because it would work well with the scrolling effect, as is the reason for most of the other background idea's I had.

The scrolling could reveal destroyed buildings, fallen girders and broken down vehicles, this kind of setting could really use the full narrative potential of the scrolling, plus this gives me the opportunity to practise with depth of perception tricks.

The Third concept art I made was cave themed. I very much like drawing earthy, organic backgrounds as far as I know, and the gimmick with this one would be that you could see the scrolling effect through the holes in the cavern walls, and as you scroll through you would see the sea, clouds, boats, whatever move around.

This is more gimmicky than the first two backgrounds because of the hole in the wall things, I still would really like to turn this concept into an actual background. The only thing is about this is if the caves point out to the sea then the scrolling would be wasted if it's literally just open waters.

This is the fourth and last concept that I did during the week, the setting is a medieval castle. I thought of doing this one in a completely different style, if I got around to doing this concept I thought of doing it in a pixel art style only because the setting was very reminiscent of classic video games like Castlevania on extremely old consoles.

I'm really just more enthusiastic about the style I wanted to make this in, the actual idea didn't really grow on me as I was developing it, and the scrolling effect would be wasted too, unless the castle grounds were really far away and you're just at the gate.

Proposal

This is my proposal. It has to be in for tomorrow, but here it is in it's first incarnation anyways.

Just a word about the animation of assets, that is a broad term and when it says that I usually mean that I will be animating everything and not just the foreground assets or the background assets. It means everything, because of that I feel like I should have given it more weeks in the time table but I feel like animating the assets won't take as long as creating them will.

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Two Dimensional Backgrounds in Video Games
By Artyom Levashov

For this year’s Dissertation project I will be composing a series of animated backgrounds for a hypothetical game on the 2D plane.

Brief outline of Work

Below you’ll find a list of things I’ll need to do to create the background/s

• Concept Art
• Draw Backdrop
• Draw foreground assets
• Draw Background assets
• Draw Several Layers of backgrounds for Parallax Scrolling
• Learn Actionscript for Dynamic Animations and Parallax Scrolling
• Compile assets in Flash/Photoshop/Illustrator

Concept Art

Completing this step would greatly help me plan out what kind of assets the backgrounds will contain in the foreground, the background and what will move and what won't. It can also help me get a good feel for the kind of atmosphere the background will have.

Draw Backdrop

The backdrop is the literal background, the stuff that will take up the negative space in the open areas where there are no assets for the background, like the clouds or the ocean in the previous examples. The backdrop will usually appear on the lower-most layer.

Draw Foreground/Background Assets

Because I think it will be a bit hard to draw and animate everything as one, I thought it would be a smarter idea to include things with animations on them as separate assets that go into the picture but are never actually part of the picture.

This was I can focus on individual animations for the background, and apply code to them so they each either play at a different time, or are unique to each other in some way or another.

Draw Several Layers of backgrounds for Parallax Scrolling

To do this I would need to first know what I am drawing, and I will from the concept art, preferably as I do the concept art I will be drawing on different layers to create an authentic feel for the concept.

Learn Actionscript for Dynamic Animations and Parallax Scrolling

This will probably be the most difficult to do for me, but the least time consuming, in my opinion. to make the backgrounds have a much better feel some influence from code on the outside will be much needed, also creating the scrolling effect would be much easier with actionscript than straight up animation, it would also be more effective.

I will also be using code to make some of the assets more dynamic.

Compile assets in Flash/Photoshop/Illustrator

Towards completion of a background I will have to compile the thing with all the assets, the background layers and the code for the final composition to be completed.


Skills

Because in essence, this is an art dissertation and art is my strongest skill I don’t think that I will have to learn any technical skills for this dissertation, rather I will be improving my skills pushing them to their limit by tackling my weaknesses.

The skills I hope to improve are;

·         Scene Composition

·         Visual Storytelling

·         Animation Composition

·         Animating inanimate objects

·         Lighting and Atmosphere

Rationale

I wish to create a series of animated 2D backgrounds.

Lately in Video Games, it feels as if 2D is a lost art, everywhere I turn I see shooters in 3D, 3D puzzle games, adventure, aesthetic experiences, even retro franchises have made their transition into the 3^rd Dimension in the past decade and while there is nothing wrong with that I feel as if the art of 2D art in games is now under-represented in the industry.

It’s not a secret that at this time 2D game art is strictly for a niche market in the video game industry and being able to create 2D graphics is not exactly the most marketable skill a game designer, or a game artist even, could have. However I still wish to demonstrate how full of depth, charm and whimsy 2D game art can be using the skills I will learn and those that I already have.

So for my dissertation I will be creating a set of 2D backgrounds for a hypothetical side-scrolling game set on the 2D plane.

Annotated Bibliography

Melissinos, C (2012). The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect. New York: Welcome Books.

This book would be valuable to me because it contains a lot of examples of art in video games done well, it displays a wide range of video game art styles and talks a lot about how the examples it presents work.

I would use this book for examples to learn from, or as a source of ideas for things like colour pallets in the backgrounds that I would do, or what kind of settings I would go for, if I were to run out of inspiration.


Whittaker, H. Halas, J (2009). Timing for Animation. 2nd ed. Oxford: Elsevier.

This is an old book, first published in the 80s and then re-published in 2009. I have used this book to improve my animation skills in the past and I'd like to use it again, it talks a lot about the principles of animation and timing, as the title suggests.

It also talks in part about inanimate objects, about physics in animation and a large variety of things that I will find useful if I pursue animation for my dissertation.


Williams, R (2012). The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion and Internet Animators. London: Faber & Faber.

I would like to use this book for the same reason as the previous,  it has a lot of information about 2D physics and a lot of general lessons on animation.

Ollie Johnston, 1995. The ILLUSION OF LIFE: DISNEY ANIMATION. Rev Sub Edition. Disney Editions

This is a great book filled with some History of Disney animation as well as general animation Theory. It mostly prioritises on characters, but I feel like I can apply the lessons given in this book to add some personality to some of the assets in the backgrounds.

Fraser MacLean, 2011. Setting the Scene: The Art & Evolution of Animation Layout. Edition. Chronicle Books.

I hope to use this book to learn more about the composition of my dissertation backgrounds, to help add to the general feel of the hypothetical game that I’ll be creating.

Dreamworks Animation, 2011. Moonshine: Dreamworks Artists...After Dark!. 1st Ed. Edition. Titan.

I feel like this could be a great Reference book that I could use for inspiration. This book has art in it created by professional artists working at Dreamworks. It could also give me some ideas in regards to tones and the feelings a scene can create, for me to imitate.


John Lasseter, 2011. Walt Disney Animation Studios The Archive Series: Layout & Background (Walt Disney Animation Archives). Edition. Disney Editions.

This is a book is a book that focuses on Layouts and backgrounds, it is the fourth book out of a series and it focuses on Layouts and Backgrounds.

Ed Ghertner, 2010. Layout and Composition for Animation. 1 Edition. Focal Press

I’ll be using this book to learn about Layouts and Composition as well.

Will Eisner, 2008. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (Will Eisner Instructional Books). Edition. W. W. Norton & Company.

One of the things I am interested in is telling a visual story, not using any dialogue. I think that reading this book will help me accomplish this goal.

Weiye Yin, 2011. Impeccable Scene Design: For Game, Animation and Film. Edition. Gingko Press Inc..

I’ll be using this book to learn about scene design.

Project Timeline and Milestone Deliverables

Learning Week	CGD Schedule	Project Timeline
	Induction
Week 1	Game Making Icebreaker
Week 2	Teaching Week
Week 3	Teaching Week
Week 4	Teaching Week
Week 5	Teaching Week
Week 6	Teaching Week Dissertation Proposal	Dissertation Proposal submission.
Week 7	Teaching Week	Research into Themes
Week 8	Teaching Week	Concept Art
Week 9	Teaching Week	Create a plan for the background composition & Asset List
Week 10	Teaching Week	Create Background Layers
Week 11	Teaching Week	Create Background Layers
Week 12	Teaching Week	Create Assets
	Christmas Vacation	Create Assets
		Animate Assets
Week 13	Teaching Week	Animate Assets
Week 14	Teaching Week Seminar Presentation	Seminar Presentation Research into Actionscript
Week 15	Teaching Week	Compile Assets and Background Layers and apply Actionscript
Week 16	Teaching Week	Polish 1st Background
Week 17	Teaching Week	1st Background Deliverable Make preparations for the second background
Week 18	Teaching Week	Create a plan for the second background  composition & Asset List
Week 19	Teaching Week	Create Background Layers
Week 20	Teaching Week	Create Background Layers
Week 21	Teaching Week	Create Assets
Week 22	Teaching Week	Create Assets
	Easter Vacation	Animate Assets
		Animate Assets
Week 23	Teaching Week	Compile Assets and Background Layers and apply Actionscript
Week 24	Teaching Week	Polish 2nd Background
Week 25	Teaching Week	2nd Background Deliverable Polish
Week 26	Teaching Week	Polish
Week 27	Dissertation Submission

Stuff to do

It seems like I am going through with this in the end, that much was obvious to me two weeks ago but now the background thing is set in stone in my heart. In this post I'll talk about the things I'll need to do to complete a background or two, an introspection into my dissertation, you could say.

• Concept Art
• Draw Backdrop
• Draw foreground assets
• Draw Background assets
• Draw Several Layers of backgrounds for Parallax Scrolling
• Learn Actionscript for Dynamic Animations and Parallax Scrolling
• Compile assets in Flash/Photoshop/Illustrator

These are in order of According to my opinion.

Concept Art

Completing this step would greatly help me plan out what kind of assets the backgrounds will contain in the foreground, the background and what will move and what won't. It can also help me get a good feel for the kind of atmosphere the background will have.

Concept art from last year for a game pitch I planned

Same as above

This is the sort of concept art that will help me plan the level, obviously on a wider level. The stuff in the foreground will be darker than the stuff in the background to draw more attention to the plane the player plays on.

Draw Backdrop

The backdrop is the literal background, the stuff that will take up the negative space in the open areas where there are no assets for the background, like the clouds or the ocean in the previous examples. The backdrop will usually appear on the lower-most layer.

Draw Foreground/Background Assets

Because I think it will be a bit hard to draw and animate everything as one, I thought it would be a smarter idea to include things with animations on them as separate assets that go into the picture but are never actually part of the picture.

This was I can focus on individual animations for the background, and apply code to them so they each either play at a different time, or are unique to each other in some way or another.

Draw Several Layers of backgrounds for Parallax Scrolling

To do this I would need to first know what I am drawing, and I will from the concept art, preferably as I do the concept art I will be drawing on different layers to create an authentic feel for the concept.

Learn Actionscript for Dynamic Animations and Parallax Scrolling

This will probably be the most difficult to do for me, but the least time consuming, in my opinion. to make the backgrounds have a much better feel some influence from code on the outside will be much needed, also creating the scrolling effect would be much easier with actionscript than straight up animation, it would also be more effective.

I will also be using code to make some of the assets more dynamic.

Compile assets in Flash/Photoshop/Illustrator

This is a no brainer, and I will preferably be doing this during the course of the project.

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This is a very preliminary list and some of the finer details are missing because I don't want to write a million words with very few pictures, but this is the sort of general thing that I will be getting up to.