I'm now an Author and Publisher!

kind of...
I got my Year 1 Blog in the post today. Check it:

I'm actually quite surprised by the quality of it. The paper is fantastic and its all so clear. I really am impressed by it and now have all my year 1 blog posts in one great book. It has a dustcover and everything. For just £30 I recommend it to everyone.

I got it from Blurb.co.uk.

Summer Project - Basic Level Design for future reference

Draft 1:

Obviously this level will be changed and optimized many times, but at the moment this the basic idea of where I am going to take it. The silver dots represents the main characters path through the level and the obstacles he overcomes. The level will greatly change when I apply the sound scape to it. This means changing the position of the obstacles and the amount of enemies involved. I have also applied the art style to the image. This design is simplifying to allow me to see what the kind of world I am creating is and the art style involved. The music will heavily influence my final level, meaning every note played will affect the overall layout.

Summer Project - Rough Previs Tests and Sketchs

The 'game' takes places in a very colourful and bright world. The Protaganist will be very bright and fast, and in contrast the enemies will be dark and slow. The world has no place in our own but takes a more twisted view. For example, trees will still look like trees but will have a twist to fit in with the world. The world has no technalogical connection to ours. The laws of physics are still in place in my world but are very loose. The characters can jump higher than any real world counterpart. Jumping on Enemies heads will defeat them and collecting coins is as simple as running into them.

Summer Project - Initial Ideas and References

The sound scape I'll be using for the project is '9'.

The animation I am going to create will take place in a fully 3D world created using Maya. This allows me to fully explore the 3D space and interact with the models created and are necessary for the final animation I will Produce.

Initial Ideas:
Straight away the music is fast and uplifting. It has a feeling of genuine energy and gives me the thought of fast movement.
Taking this into consideration, and my own personal interests, I have come up with an idea for a Game-inspired Animation. The music has multiple 'jumps' and 'pitfalls' which is perfect to a platforming type game in the same variation of 'Super Mario' or 'Sonic the Hedgehog'. The music even features a small section for a 'End of Level Boss' to appear.

My initial idea for the project is a side scrolling platform game which stars a small game character that must reach the other end of the level in the fastest time. The art style will be suitably cartoony as if aimed at the younger audience, Playing on the Nintendo Wii or DS. All characters , Protagonist, Antagonist and enemies, will the same core design to imply they are all part of the same world. The visuals will be bright and colourful with the staples of the platforming genre. These is bright blue sky, enemies walking in patterns and so forth.

Due to the speed of the music, the character created will have to move at speed to keep up with it. Due to this, I must make a character that appeals to the audience as well as being athletic looking.

For Example, Mario is a portly Plumber that moves at an adequate speed, while Sonic is known for his speed meaning his design is more slender. I will need to create a variation between the two.

References:

(Sonic the Hedgehog)

(New Super Mario Bros Wii)

(Sonic the Hedgehog HD)

(Super Paper Mario)

(Super Paper Mario)

Mario Game play

Sonic Game play.

Initial Character influence:

A Boy and His Blob
I plan to create a character similar to the Blob. To add athleticism, I plan to add legs for speed and maybe arms to increase the look of momentum.

On a side note, I'll be drawing up sketch's tomorrow and creating a Game storyboard Friday. Then you won't see anything because I'll be on holiday in Portugal, but during this time, I'll be drawing and finalising all character designs and the final layout of the animation. I'm going to have all pre-production done before I come back to ol' blighty because I'll then be building my very own computer for the new year of Uni. Then I can get cracking on the production and have that done by the end of August and spending a week in Post :)

Also what is the date we are back on Phil? My loan goes in on the 20th so I assume its that? Also have we got do any enrollment and the such? Don't know why I'm asking... you'll probably blog post closer to the time but hey ho.