Final Major Project Ideas

(Three Pages)

No. 1

3D Games Assets for a Survival Game

A series of 3D animated actions of the character, hazards and anything else throughout the game. As well as 3D models for the environment, which I may create a camera movement run through for.

Genre: Survival, Puzzle, Platform, sci-fi?

TA: All able. No adult encoring or limitations for age.

Plot: The player initially has a choice of a male and female character with a different weight class that will impact the gameplay slightly depending on the type of level that it turns out to be (random- do not know what you will get). The player must transport the character through the environment and avoid obstacles. Seems simple enough right? Well, the body of the characters have exchangeable limbs, these are what you will have to implement in order to move around and pass by challenges. The player will have to add, take away, sacrifice limbs from the body and locate more. As well as other implements such as a hook, clever (further are undecided). Most of all, you can use the random items in the world around you to help in your journey, such as cardboard boxes (useless), cartwheels (useful for its weight – but too heavy if you don’t have legs), a sheet of metal (which sometimes may protect you from a grenade if you are far enough away) (Others undecided).

You are allowed to move your limbs around on your body, where they would not usually be placed, and add more limbs than natural. Therefore, allowing the character to have five limbs on one arm and only the torso. The player then would be able to reach further, and move around by dragging the rest of the body along or using the long arm to grab higher platforms and swing forward.

There may be instances where a scale is used in order to lift a door, in this case, you will have to use all of the weight you can find, usually, that will mean your own body parts. Therefore, this sacrifice will mean that the player will need to find more to be able to move better, faster and further progress the level because they can’t do too much with half an arm other than move slowly. Some of the implements found can be attached to the body, such as the clever, in the place of, for example, a hand or foot.

Another example of an obstacle is a lift that needs as little weight inside of it in order to move up. Or as much weight inside to move down. Here the player will be given either very little or many items to progress with further in the level.

Need to work out where the theme comes into the game- needs more of a survival aspect to it!

Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3

Final Major Project: Next Steps

This is the plan I made for the project I will complete in 2021, year three before christmas. It is not set in stone and will definately be changed in every way, however, this is what I currently imagine the project may contain.

One of my many desires for the next steps would be to work in a team of productive, organised, communicative, and quick teammates for the final major project. This will even out the workload, in order to relax some of the pressure of working independently and allowing us to support each other through the process. I will ensure to make an informed and thorough decision about the final project’s theme, plot and medium. I would like to employ an experimental approach to the final major project. My intentions include using 3D software to create a professional visual outcome to a high standard. During this, I will ensure that I have learned enough about the process to create that high level. For example, if weight painting is involved, I will need further practice and research of techniques. Furthermore, I will continue the project through developed and high-quality sketches, mood boards, character and environment design and artwork finished to quality renders.

For the final major project, I will decide from one of the themes that I included within my summer project. One that I am passionate about and can decide on a well-structured narrative. From each other the themes, PTSD, survival and difficult choices, I have planned a few possible plotlines that the theme could undertake, and the way that the animation would look. 

The project’s overall aim will be to connect with the audience on a personal level, provoking an emotional reaction. They watch passively while the protagonist undergoes a great struggle. An idea that I am interested in, concerning the theme of difficult choices, is a storyline where I immediately push the protagonist into a brutal and nightmarish scenario where they have an impossible choice to make. A moral dilemma, for example, where a child will be severely whipped for the crime of the parent, rather than having the parent executed. I have a strong image in my mind of a child sitting in the rain, on the muddy, soft ground, next to a raised column of (about 5) hanged men and women. Then he looks up at them and looks back down to the ground. He is sitting close to them which should increase the uneasy feeling the audience would have from the situation.

In this or another scenario, I also imagine the protagonist in this type of serious scene, but near the end of the animation, they are pulled out. The protagonist realises that they are in a group gathering discussing a hypothetical conversation. However, to the protagonist and to the audience, the scenario felt all too real. Then the last act of all would be someone talking directly to the audience, head-on (to the protagonist in first-person view). And they would say something like ‘What would you choose?” This would effectively break the fourth wall and ensure that the narrative was taken seriously and personally for the audience as they would be forced to ask that question for themselves.

Summer Project

Summer Project: Final Major Project Themes

PRESENTATION SCRIPT:

  • START slide: beating heart

The area I want to focus on is how to capture a powerfully emotional moment!

I want to boil down to the beating heart of the audiences emotional durability.

  • Next slide:  365 days

To make them react from seeing something that connects with their personal experiences.

  • Next slide: Spoilers

BEWARE there may be spoilers in my presentation so stop me if you do not want to know about the events in the movie.

  • Next slide: gravity

Themes that have intrigued me are:

  • PTSD, aftereffect of trauma.
  • Having a determination to survive in extreme circumstances
  • Morality and making difficult decisions
  • Next slide: PTSD

My first theme is PTSD,

  • Next slide: shellshock

or also known as shellshock…

  • Next slide: Brothers

You may immediately think of military personnel like in the movie brothers but there are actually 13x more civilian cases.

Symptoms can be:

  • Night mares
  • Flashbacks
  • And general changes of mood.

Which can be seen in the movie Catching Fire

  • Next slide: Catching Fire

Possible causes for PTSD are:

  • Road accidents
  • Violent personal assaults
  • Serious health problems
  • Military experiences
  • Child birth experiences

Other examples.

  • Next slide:  Survival theme

My next theme is survival:

Research into this theme concluded that:

Pain and fear are key integral parts to the situation that determines your survival.

It is thought that if the potential to survive is low enough then the individual will perform self-destructive behaviour.

Examples within movies of individuals with a determination of survive:

  • Next slide x3

The 33: How long would you survive on rations before going crazy. Would you rather end your life there and then or wait for either death or an unlikely rescue?

  • Next slide: DECISIONS

My last theme is about making hard decisions or morality therefore I must mention ‘The Trolley Dilemma’ .

  • Next slide: train scenario

This is a theoretical scenario where an oncoming train is about to hit 5 people but you can to choose whether to divert the train from that track but this will kill one person.

Through studies questions come up such as:

Are you committing an act of murder by deciding that the one life must die or are you doing the same by doing nothing?

Some conclusions were made such as:

  • how people usually make highly self-serving choices.
  • Moral choices are highly influenced by tangible rewards and consequences.

Some examples of having to make difficult decisions, possibly in a moral scenario are such as:

  • Next slide: Eagle Eye

In this movie the character chose to perform an action that would draw attention to himself in order to stop a bomb from going off, but this will also get himself killed.

  • Next slide: Chronicle

What choice would you make if you suddenly had superpowers that allowed you to get money for the medicine your mother needed to stay alive but through criminal actions?

  • Next slide:

Would you torture a presumed guilty young man to find information about your missing daughter? Like in prisoners.

Or drown your dying father in order to make his death quicker like in sanctum.

Or cut the rope with your father on the other end to save yourself and your sister like in vertical limit.

  • Next slide:

Could you choose you gets to live, them being strangers or loved ones?

I have been working on presenting the question with juxtaposition in some way.

These I thought would be good as a dream sequence during the traumatic experience and then contrast a dream sequence of the traumatic experience in the mundane life afterwards.

Workshop: 5 Obstructions

Floating World Storyboard

First 3D background test.
Final Background animation video.
Shot experiments
Shot experiments
All visual editing tests.
Selected audio samples, post editing, from the group’s primary sourced videos.
Final edit with experimental audio beat using audio samples. Non diagetic.
Final edit with second audio test- more diagetic.

Workshop: Characters Behind the Pages

Task: Draw some rough shapes and then find a character within them.
Task for the first picture: Draw a baker, a builder, a thief and a swimmer with the shapes of a rectangle, square, thief and circle.
Task for second picture: draw a silhouette of a solder, a cowboy and a girl in the rain.
Task: List your personality and then decide on shapes that would fit to you. Then draw yourself focussing on using those shapes/.
The next task asked of us was to create a character from an already provided description. I chose ‘Amy Jones’.

Description: It’s easy to get to know an open person like Amy Jones, but the two traits most people enjoy the most are that she’s gracious and cheerful. Of course, she’s also charming, heroic and observant, but in smaller doses and they’re often spoiled by habits of being cold as well.

Her grace though, this is what she’s kind of cherished for. People regularly count on this and her charm especially when they need comforting or support.

Nobody’s perfect of course and Amy has rotten moods and days too. Her imprudence and instability cause plenty of grievances and just affects all around negatively. Fortunately her cheerfulness helps prevent most of these grievances.

Task: Create either a villain or a hero character using maximum two shapes.

Novel character: ‘Madge’ from ‘The Hunger Games’ series. Pg.13-15.

Description:

‘The major’s daughter, Madge, opens the door. She’s in my year at school. Being the mayor’s daughter, you’d expect her to be a snob, but she’s all right. She keeps to herself. Like me. Since neither of us really has a group of friends, we seem to end up together a lot at school. Eating lunch, sitting next to each other at assemblies, partnering for sport activities. we rarely talk, which suits us both just fine.’

‘Today, her drab school outfit has been replaced by an expensive white dress, and her blonde hair is done up with a pink ribbon. Reaping clothes.’

‘His eyes land on a small circular pin that adorns her dress. Real Gold. Beautifully crafted. It could keep a family in bread for months.’

…

‘My next guest is also unexpected. Madge walks straight to me. She is not weepy or evasive. Instead there is an urgency about her tone that surprises me. “They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?” She holds out the circular gold pin that was on her dress earlier. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but now I see it’s a small bird in flight.’

“Your pin” I say. Wearing a token from my district is about the last thing on my mind.

“Here, I’ll put it on your dress, all right?” Madge doesn’t wait for an answer, she just leans in and fixes the bird to my dress. “Promise you’ll wear it into the arena, Katniss?” She asks. “Promise?”

“Yes,” I say. Cookies. A pin. I’m getting all kinds of gifts today. Madge gives me one more. A kiss on the cheek. Then she’s gone and I’m left thinking that maybe Madge has been my friend all along.