Throughout my trip to Zagreb I've not only been making new friends and connections via Infogamer, but also keeping a look out for interesting objects and faces that I can work with. I've managed to find quite a few that I'm happy with, so here's a post showing some of them. :)
I'm also going to be drawing characters for these on my journey home (I'm at the airport waiting for my plane as I'm typing this), so hopefully I'll have a few to show by the end of the day! You may not see them until later, though, because as far as I'm aware my £9 coach doesn't have the luxury of free WiFi. ;)
The
reason for the slight lack of posts this week is because I'm in Zagreb,
Croatia for Infogamer - a huge gaming event held by Reboot magazine for
games companies big and small. It's a yearly event which runs over 5
days and you can find out more about it here if you're interested! Here are some photos:
I have way more but they're on my phone and I can't send them over at the moment... I
have a pass for the full 5 days, which means I was lucky enough to get
into the expo when there weren't that many people around - providing a
great opportunity to talk to some Indies and get some sound advice! Some of the best advice I was given was:
Try
and replicate your favourite game in your chosen engine - by trying to
recreate what you love and what you know you'll know what's working
right and what isn't, and that way you'll learn the engine better by
trying to get specific things to be like what you already know
Always work as a team on game mechanics; never have one person working on them, always get input from all team members
Be
open minded about change in design - games will never be the exact same
as the concept that you originally had. Embrace changes and the idea
that some mechanics will/won't work out, it'll be better for your game
in the long run so don't try and avoid it!
I've
also had the opportunity to talk to some really great Indies who I'm
going to mention below. I'd really recommend checking them out - they're
lovely and extremely talented and I had so much fun playing their
games. :)
I
fell in love with this game from the second I saw it across the room.
The art style is fantastic, it has an interesting charm to it that I
just couldn't pass up, and I really don't regret it. The
game isn't out yet so I only got to play a short demo, but what I did
play was fun, entertaining and enjoyable. The art style is the kind that
I have always looked up to in a sense that it's bright and full of
character, so it was incredibly inspiring to get to play this. They do
have a Facebook page for the game here,
so if you're interested in keeping up with the game as it gets
developed I'd suggest you head over there and give it a like - I have!
I
think out of all of the Indies I talked to at Infogamer, Sock Puppet
Games are the ones I have to thank the most. I spoke to two lovely
members of the team (who came to showcase their game from Oslo, Norway!)
and from the second I said hello they were warm and welcoming and happy
to answer any questions I had or any advice I asked for. I even went
back a second day and had another great chat, so if you guys are reading
this - thank you so much!
Their
game - Flight of the Penguin - is a frustratingly difficult yet
addictive side scroller in which you play as a penguin, strapped into a
rocket, trying to avoid explosives. Now I'm not very good at this kind
of game and it showed, but despite that I still enjoyed playing it over
and over. The game is still in development (though they hope to release
it soon!) and if you'd like to keep an eye on how it goes I'd recommend
you follow the guys on Twitter here. They're super friendly and great to talk to, so if you get a chance to say hi I'd really suggest doing so. :)
The
last game I'm going to mention in this post is called CloudFall by an
Indie team called Mood Oven. In CloudFall you play as a cloud, but can
also turn said cloud into a whole bunch of elements. As with Mini Bang, I
was immediately drawn to this game because of the art style, and I'm
happy that I stopped by because it's a charming game with a lot of great
mechanics. CloudFall is still in development, but if you do want to
follow as it progresses then here's a link to their website.
I
think it was important for me to write about these games and
experiences because they all provided me with inspiration. I can't wait
to get stuck back in and creating, and these games are showing me that
this is what I want to do with my life. I still have another day of
Infogamer left, as well as more to write in future posts, so I'm looking
forward to sharing more with you. :)
I probably should have waited before making that first blog post because not even 10 minutes later I've found more super amazing AR creations! This time it's Magic Leap who are working on this pretty incredible Augmented Reality app that combines social media with video games. Here's a video:
I also came across this... interesting video of a man who used AR to create a 50 foot Titan. I'm 99% sure he used Augment to create this because of the use of the tracker and the way it projects the model, so I'm going to have to create an AR character from space or something to top this. No further explanation needed, just watch:
Moving back to Sony, I also discovered a project that Sony is working on involving AR. There's an article here explaining them in a bit more depth, but here are two videos of the tech demos:
The first video shows some characters projected into the room interacting with different types of lighting. This is the first time I've seen anything like this so it's pretty great to see the silhouette turn into a full colour character, and then to see them interact with the lighting. It's similar to what is already around in terms of them just being characters projected into a space, but it's the fact that the lighting can be changed that makes them that bit cooler. :)
The second - and in my opinion more impressive - video is of a man pouring water between two 'bowls', which are projected from two separate AR cards. I just find this totally incredible because it's the first time I've seen it be possible to have these things actually interact with each other. It's also pretty amazing that the water literally pours from one to the other - it doesn't just disappear in one and appear in the other.
Then the next AR game I found is called 'Monsters Multiplayer', an AR game that you project onto a game board. Here's a video of it:
The quality isn't great but the concept itself makes up for it! A lot of the AR things that I have come across revolve around bringing video games into the real world but none of them have covered board games before - like Monsters Multiplayer does. Being able to create your own characters and bring them into custom board games could really see them take a new direction in terms of concept and how board games are played. I'm excited to see what the future holds for AR being used in this way. :D
I'm seemingly 7 months late to discover this but I've just come across Microsoft's HoloLens project and I'm in awe! For anyone who (like me) wasn't aware that this was a thing, here's the video:
The Microsoft HoloLens actually fits in perfectly with my project because while I've mainly been using Augment, this video shows how that can be expanded on and used to create even more incredible things in the real world through the virtual one. I can just imagine it - using the HoloLens to detect a character in something you see, and then having that character come to life and interact with the space around you. It'd be so much cooler being able to watch it go around instead of having to hold it on your phone! I just wanted to make a quick blog post about this because I think it's incredible and will be important for my research, so here it is. :)
Part 3 of my research in this area is dedicated to Anthropomorphic characters in TV. My favourite example (and the one I'm going to start off with) is Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
(FanTheories, 2015) One of the main characters in the show - Coco, is literally designed based on a desert island. Her body is the wreckage of an aeroplane and her head is a palm tree, with her mouth being a deflated life raft. There are hundreds of characters shown throughout the show, with countless designs being based on inanimae objects. Sponge characters, slime characters, anything you can imagine is likely to have been shown at some point.
See what I did there? ;) The Amazing Adventures of Gumball (KnowYourMeme, 2014) Also shown on Cartoon Network, The Amazing Adventures of Gumball features characters made from all kinds of different things. In the picture above alone there is a piece of toast, a banana, some potatoes, a cactus, as well as several other characters. The difference between Foster's and Gumball is that Gumball tends to use actual images of items for some characters, creating a completely different style. As you can see from the image the banana and the slice of toast are both made from photos of the objects, while other characters remain illustrations. This change in style makes them more interesting and gives more diversity to the characters, and it's interesting to see how the styles together give off different feelings for different characters. This is something I would quite like to look into for my own research - how would my characters look in the real world if they had a more illustrative style? Would they have the same effect and be as believable? Adventure Time (Playbuzz, 2015)
Another one of my favourites :D Adventure Time is just one great big Anthropomorphic party. Characters made of food, rocks, bugs, clouds, anything you can think of and beyond is probably there. I love Adventure Time's character designs because though some of them are kinda weird, they still make sense..? I shouldn't look at a giant Bouncycastle Princess or a character made from a human heart and think oh cool that works, but they do. Adventure Time teaches me that anything can be a character, and I find that really inspiring. Thank you Adventure Time. <3
I'm going to add more of these as I come across them, and there will be some that I'm forgetting but I think the 3 I've listed are good examples to start off with. Thanks for reading!
In my last post I talked about the use of Anthropomorphism in video games, and in this post I'll be focusing more on the use of it in film (with TV to follow). I was going to combine Film & TV but looking back on this post there's already a bit too much, so I'll have to split them.
When I think about Anthropomorphism in film, I immediately think of Pixar. So many of their films contain characters in this area and so many of them are close to my heart. Just some of my favourites are as follows:
WALL-E - WALL-E (IconArchive, 2008)
This little guy stole my heart from the second I saw the first animated trailer that he was featured in. He's also conveniently a robot, so made of manmade materials - just like my current project! Hooray!
It's a huge goal of mine to be able to insert the amounts of personality that WALL-E has into my own characters, and he has been a source of inspiration for me for a long time.
Cars - Luigi & Guido
(Snipview, 2014) Though most people I've talked to about Cars didn't really like it, I actually enjoyed it a lot. I love the way that Pixar brought them to life by using the windshield as eyes and the various lights and bumper features as the rest of the face. Luigi and Guido in particular are my favourites simply because of how much personality they have. They make me smile. :D The Blue Umbrella (Youtube, 2013) Moving onto Pixar shorts here, but arguably the most relevant of the films listed so far is The Blue Umbrella. I could talk for ages about how amazing this is and I have already mentioned it in a previous blog post, but I wanted to talk about it again. The Blue Umbrella is packed with different characters made of buildings and pipes and all kinds of things that you see every day. I can't watch it without feeling completely inspired and it has been a big inspiration for what I look for when I'm looking for faces in the real world. Lava - Uku & Lele (cuteasafox, 2015) Then finally in the Pixar list is another short - Lava. I mean come on, it's about singing volcanoes who find each other and live happily ever after, what's not to love? I remember watching this in the cinema and being in awe at how clever the character designs are. This is the type of character design that I aspire to be able to make, and I'll continue to watch this short to help me get there. Even if the song does get stuck in my head for annoying periods of time...
Regular Disney are great for Anthropomorphic characters too. Here are some examples... Beauty & The Beast - Mrs Potts, Chip, Lumiere, etc... (SideKickDumpling, 2015) Beauty and the Beast is a classic for Anthropomorphic characters. It covers both animals (Beast), as well as inanimate objects like Mrs Potts, Chip, Lumiere, etc. These characters are all loveable and unique, showing that regardless of what they're made of, inanimate objects can be loveable if designed right. Alice in Wonderland - Curious Oysters, Card Soldiers, etc... (1Zoom, 2015)
Alice in Wonderland is a goldmine for Anthropomorphic characters. From the Curious Oysters and Flowers to the Card Soldiers, it's packed with characters. It's also great that the Tim Burton version is around too because we get to see the same characters but with a different twist. Aladdin - Magic Carpet (dettoldisney, 2011)
Then finally I'm going to mention Aladdin, simply because of how much character they managed to give to the Magic Carpet. He has no face and his only real 'limbs' are the tassled corners of his body, but he's easily one of my favourite Disney characters. I love how you can tell the emotions that he's feeling based on his posture - it really shows that facial features aren't necessarily required in character designs and that posture can contribute a lot.
Is it just me or is that word a real pain to spell? Anthropomorphic. Anthroroflskjdglkfsd. As the title suggests, I've been doing some research for my project in the form of Anthropomorphism. For anyone who doesn't know, Anthropomorphism is "the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object." (credits to Google for that nice little description). Now games have a wealthy amount of these characters, with this nice little webpage here listing just a few of them. You've got games from Spyro, to Legend of Kay, over to the more 'realistic' games like The Elder Scrolls series, but here's my problem - most of these games feature Anthropomorphic characters in the forms of animals. Which is great but for my project I am focussing on Anthropomorphic characters in the form of inanimate objects (for example the little air vents and light switch characters that I've been making). This makes my search a little bit more tricky. There are some games that use this kind of character - for example Amanita Design's 'Machinarium' features Berta and Josef (pictured below); two charming little characters made out of old metal parts.
(Amanita-Design, 2015) Also in the metal spectrum is Chibi-Robo! (pictured below), developed by Skip ltd, though rather than being made of old metal he is a bit more new and sparkly. (Nintendo, 2015)
There are also Anthropomorphic characters who are made of inanimate objects that aren't metal, though because for now I'm working with characters made of metal and other manmade materials, these are the types of characters I will be focussing on. These are just some of the Anthropomorhpic characters in games, however, so the next blog post will be covering a broader scope with characters from film/tv and possibly books. :)
