Character Design

Here is one of my character I've drawn out in Photoshop.

It was one of the beginning point towards this design.

Not much update

The first scene where there is crazy actions is done, all that needs to be done is replacing my character. But it looks really convincing as a game.

What can I say, the gameplay sequence is the most time consuming

Here is the corrupted /glitch scene:

I'm making the character in 3d first so I have the right adjustments when transitioning between the 2d and 3d sequence. I'm going to use blend shape to animate the eyes and mouth for the facial bits.

Character Design

My art direction is early 8 bit pixel grpahics so the graphics should be somewhere between the Artai and the NES. Colour Scheme should be like White, red and Blue (like sonic, Mario, Dig Dug and Bomber Man).

Here are some of the character sketches I've done:

I've approach to character design in a different way and I've played with lego:

The character I've created in Flash below looks like Earthbound/pokemon/ Link character:

Here are some websites I've checked out for character design research:
Computer Arts - 20 character design tips
Digital Arts - Games Character
Digital Arts - How to create commercial characters

Some design stuff

Here are some of the design of the background such as the clouds, sky, trees etc which will be linked to the game level.

One of the aim in design that it has to be simple and blocky so that I can easily reproduce them in 3d.

Here is a place holder to see how the camera: Anyway this is a preview on making the level.

Game level Design

With my film, there would be no cuts. It would be a single camera shot until the 3d stage.

Here is the design of the stages that the Hero would overcome:

The Red box are the scenes of the storyboards.

Now I have to make the scenery, but it looks like a game now.

Animatics

My first animatic:

The problem with it is that it was confusing and it wasn't interesting to watch so I had to go back to the drawing board and redo most of the scenes.

My final Animatic:
Uploading in progress...

The ending is a bit niff, What I had in mind is that after it has the 3d element. The character tries to reach the exit but fails. Therefore it rolls back to the beginning of Game Over sequence.

1-up image

A quick promotional image I've quickly made:

Enjoy!!!

Animatic in progress

I haven't posted up my progress of my film and I feel really ahamed because the whole pre-production because I'm a slow worker and now I feel pressured.

Anyway this is my animatic for the beginning:

I will going to finish this by today for sure but I'm not really feeling motivated. But the positive side is that the story is completed and all needs to do is the storyboard and animatic and the making should starts in a hafty.

But after looking at my schedule I have to really kick myself to do the uni work because time really flies by.

More Storyboard

I've done alot more compared to my previous post process.

I'm still drawing it up at the moment.

Anyway what happens in the story is that a normal 8-bit game plays out but a glitch/bug occurs. The screen freeze until the game character starts to move on it's own and becomes more self-aware. He journeys to a way out away from the player's clutch, the visual will be transition from 2d to 3d. So you'll see game mechanic such as loading screen, change disc etc.

Check out the post-its on the wall:

Expect an animatic by the end of the week and the production will commence next week.

Moodboard Sheet

I've made a quick moodboard on my short film:

Let me confirm that this screenshot is not the final thing but the feel of how the aesthetic feels.

I've used Old television scanline and TV border to have an old TV feel.

The pause screen.

Player P.O.V

One of the main issue I had in my storyboard is whether to include the scenes of the player point of view.

I like the scene where the player would blow out the dust of the cartridge because this is what everybody would do in the past and would bring an emotional response of nostalgic.

Chris said to me that he doesn't think it's necessary to put them in.

I think he has a point because a) I think filming this in live action will be time consuming. B) I don't think it would make any difference if I put it in as the plot would be the same.

But Who knows I'll probably need to play about with it when I have time this week.

Storyboarding

I'm about to start on drawing after realizing vocational studies is going to eat my time on my Major Negotiated Project.

Here is a preview of the Storyboarding/preproduction stage, I've been using Post-its because it seems alot more convinent to use when I post them on wall and the colour is alot more cheerful and happier:

Here are the title sequence and the credits sequence:

So it's a working in progress but it's better than nothing.