Wednesday – Visuals, Composition and Layout part 1

In these posts I’m going to being exploring how composition techniques can be used to draw the player attention. Whether it is to lead a player to a specific area or object or to simply create a certain mood or atheistic.

This week I was looking at an article by Phil Straub. The article covers compositions  with regards to concept art.  Some of these I had already learnt in my first year. I decided however to return to composition as a start for my research and reacquaint myself with them seeing what I could use for my three pieces.

Golden Rule

First is the golden rule, a concept where a grid made of four intersecting lines if placed over an image or view. Where these lines cross are act as focal points for the eye, as such they are the best place to put the subject of your composition or were you want to lead the viewers attention.

Fig[1]

A similar composition technique is the rule of thirds. This like the golden rule uses the same grid and focal point layout. However in addition to the main focal point chosen by the author, the other three can be used. While the main point of focus is placed directly under the intersection, the other points are placed slightly of off their respective points so as not to compete with the main focal point.

Fig[2]

Continued in part 2

Bibliography

Straub, Phil. "Phil Straub Composition Tutorial | Cgsociety". The CGSociety. N.p., 2005. Web. 27 Nov. 2016.

Available at: http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/phil_straub_composition_tutorial

Image References

Fig[1]   Fig[2] http://www.cgsociety.org/index.php/CGSFeatures/CGSFeatureSpecial/phil_straub_composition_tutorial

Monday Environmental Storytelling part 1

Welcome to my part 1 research post on environmental story telling.

So starting of this week’s bout of research. The first piece I found was a very comprehensive slide show on the GDC done by Harvey Smith who worked on dues ex in the early 2000s and  Matthias Worch who worked on dead space 2 and mafia 3. As this slide show is quite large (around 80 slides) and contains many areas that are applicable to my project. For this post I’ll just be focusing on what is relevant to environmental storytelling and will continue it in later parts. Here are a few key aspects summarized:

Familiar visual references – This is the idea of using familiar or well know objects to give cues to the player either in terms off story or mechanics. For instance an example of this, medic packs.

Fig 1          

     Fig 2

Medic packs are used so often in videos games that they have almost become a trope, but this is not without good reason. Most people can identify what a first aid kit looks like or at least a red/green cross,  so most people would associate these objects in the game world with health and vitality. Another example of this would be a Super Durper Mart like the one in fallout 3.

Fig 3

Again thanks to the buildings gigantic sign, the large car park, vending machines and trolleys strewn around the player can easily infer that this is a super market and may contain valuable resources. It also uses the bodies being hung around this location to imply that this area may not be safe and that their could be further dangers inside. So just by looking at this scene the player has a lot of information to go on, being presented with a kind of risk and reward scenario.

Reinforcing the player Identity – This is about using the environment to reinforce the players identify in game. In the slide show they use portal as an example with the player having to perform puzzles and being made to feel like a lab rat. Another example of this can bee shown in games like halo.

Fig 4

Through out halos game play your constantly pitted against waves of hostile aliens, the few allies you have are nowhere near as powerful as you are and your often fighting in exotic sci-fi environments. This all helps to reinforce the players image of themselves as this unstoppable super soldier in the future and the last hope for humanity.

Continued in part 2

Bibliography

Smith, Harvey and Matthias Worch. “What Happened Here? Environmental Storytelling”. Gdcvault.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.

Availble at: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012647/What-Happened-Here-Environmental

Image References

Fig 1

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/2c/34/31/2c343134f6e529492a04d39af6fa503c.jpg

Fig 2

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/f8/ed/9d/f8ed9dcd6a25f3f730e4b0c4e0da4f95.jpg

Fig 3

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/2/2b/Super_Duper_Mart_front_view.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110628001952

Fig 4

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eWhdbtey4s4/maxresdefault.jpg