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