Task 4: Evaluation

My animation planning was a basic idea of a game of skate where each player would do a trick and the others would have to copy to stay in the game. This would have been influenced the most in my final animation where i filmed with a go pro and i would have got clips with me and my friends playing Skate and just animated over the video. Unfortunately this didn’t happen because when i came to my final animation i was cutting it close on time for the hand in date so i had to scrap the idea of the game of skate because i had no one to film with me. I just ended up doing a couple tricks with the same idea of having the tricks come up on the side of the screen with points counting up and the combo counter in the bottom corner to show how many tricks have been landed consistently. Given the circumstances of time shortage i am pleased with my final outcome and i cant think of a lot to make it better without making it too much and crammed other than add some audio like a song or sound effects.

My pixel animation went well and stuck to the planning for the most part. I didn’t come across any major problems that held me back. The biggest issue was actually creating a decent looking pixel character with a skateboard as that was my first time actually doing anything to do with pixel art. I feel like the animation was pretty well done other than the odd slowed down part before the rail but i am pleased with how the kickflips worked in the final product even though all it is, is a image of the skateboard upside down that is being flashed quickly on screen to give the illusion of a flip. The text rolling across the top of the screen was a last minute idea just to include the name of the game.

The animation i am most disappointed in is the stop motion animation i made. There are many problems i have with this mainly being the fact that you can hardly see the character and props because of the fault i had with the camera and key lighting during the editing process. Whilst taking the pictures i didn’t realise that the camera was set to a certain setting that turned the whites of the clay to a dark green. This was a big issue because i had a green piece of paper underneath as the background to help me with the editing and would have made the key lighting part so easy and simple but because it tinted everything green, using key lighting made it worse because to edit the green background out and put in my own image also messed up the character and props by making them slightly transparent but the legs of the person and the money bags are the worst as they where so green that they are almost 100% transparent. The end result was as close as i could get to it being visible without ruining the background.

Research

The research i did for my project was very helpful completing the design and style of animations that i did. The tools i had at my disposal was mainly the internet which i used effectively to find different methods and ideas to form my project to what it is now.

The challenges i faced during my research was unfortunately running out of time and some pages being blocked within the college so i had to carry out some of my research at home to get what i needed. Other than that everything went fine and i am pleased with the information i received and twisted it to benefit my own work. The research i collected was pretty accurate because most of the answers i received from my questionnaire were very similar which helped me narrow down some options very easily. A lot of my research i already knew about because of me actually being a skater but i still had to research certain things to double-check just in case i had something wrong or not.

My research took a big turn for my project because i was thinking of a different layout completely but i ended up changing it up to give it more of a basic look yet very effective and visually pleasing. Some ideas stayed but the concept design was different for the outcome which some others and I believe was for the better.

Parts of my research i could improve is using more kinds of sources such as books and more communication techniques because i feel that worked very well compared to the secondary research i did, which generally gave me similar results and wasn’t the most effective way of finding out different ideas. Looking at different trailers was helpful but i think i should’ve looked at more involved with the genre of my game to get an idea on how the differ from each other.

Word Count=846

 

Task 3: Research application

Quiestonaire

1. Do you play video games? (yes/no)
2. Whats your favourite genre of game? (Horror, Action, Survival, Multiplayer, RPG, Sports)
3. Have you ever played Skate 3? (yes/no)
4. Does skateboarding interest you? (yes/no)
5. Have you ever tried riding a skateboard? (yes/no)
6. Do you prefer First person games or Third person games?

I asked people around my area these questions and got a various amount of feedback which helped me towards my final piece. A lot of people i asked had never actually been on a skateboard but have played the game skate 3 which helped me with my project knowing that because then i knew that not many people would know small details that only skaters may notice at first.

This is the YouTuber who inspired me to do a go pro animation after finding this video within youtube. I then borrowed a go pro from the equipment centre and recorded myself skating which I edited over to look as though im being controlled and someone is playing with me as the character scoring points and getting combos.

Task 2:Primary and secondary research

Primary research is new research to answer specific questions. Ways of primary research include questionnaires, interviews with certain people or groups and online surveys.

Secondary research is the opposite of primary research. Where as primary is new research that you have carried out yourself, secondary research uses primary research as a source of data to find answers.

primary research

secondary research

3 Examples of how primary research has been used to inform someones work.

• Photographs
• Autobiographies and memoirs
• interviews, surveys and fieldwork

Photographs are a good way of collecting primary research because its raw information/ideas that you have gone and collected yourself maybe of a specific area or people to help boost your ideas to create and expand your final project and to either manipulate your own idea into it or keep it as real as possible to the original image

Autobiographies and memoirs are a very good way of re-creating a character or concept based on a real person because you are taking direct information from that person or relative close to them which is a very believable source because of who it comes from.

interviews, surveys and fieldwork are helpful ways to find a lot of information from various sources depending on where you go. Having an interview with 1 or 2 people who are related with your project may be good if they have a lot to talk about but if they are not very knowledgeable it may be easier to create a survey for lots of people to see and give them specific questions that benefit your research and help you proceed with your project.

https://sccollege.edu/Library/Pages/primarysources.aspx

3 Examples of how secondary research used to inform my own work.

I used the internet mostly to receive information for my project. Some information i already knew due to me actually doing the sport my projects are based on but i looked at various sites and pages on different social media to come up with some ideas in which i knew would work and look well done.

• YouTube
• Instagram
• Google

YouTube was very beneficial because for my last project i used a go pro to film my last animation which i got the idea from a YouTuber who i recently found who did videos of him skateboarding in POV using a go pro and i thought it looked so cool. Then i just added my own research and switched some ideas up to create my final piece to look somewhat like gameplay.

Instagram i asked a couple of underground skateboarders some quick questions which helped push me in the direction i went with my project whilst taking minor ideas from other sources i had found. Instagram is a very good way of sourcing information because there are so many different options you could go about it. Just looking at different pages or even asking certain people and receiving straight answers to any questions you may have.

Google is one of the main sources where i collected most of my images for my moodboard and cosmetic design for my characters concept. Although i didn’t use all of the ideas i had in my mood board i took a simpler idea of it and changed it up to suite what i thought would look better in the final project.

Primary research i may use

i may design a survey to fit the criteria of my projects to ask different people and see their view and consider what may look better or even try get some better ideas that may benefit what the final outcome will be like

Word count = 594

Task 1:Research tools and methods

What media and technological tools are available for research? 

There are many ways to research around media. Some ways include using popular social media sites and trends to narrow down some options but also going to a specific area that may suit your target audience and ask people yourself and carry out a survey. The internet is probably one of your biggest tools of research as it will most likely have any questions you have or anything you need to expand you ideas and get the right audience you intended. Books and libraries are even an option as they give thousands of options to look at and they are more certain to be correct information that the internet because they have had to be published to become public where as the internet can be changed and altered so some information can possibly be wrong.

https://www.clickz.com/10-research-tools-for-social-media-strategies/52694/ -media tools source

Different methods of research

As stated above there are lots of methods to research depending on what you prefer.

• Books
• Social Media
• Internet
• Community

Here are some ways just to list of a couple, Personally i prefer to use social media or the internet to find out research im trying to gather but one of the most effective ways may probably be books. Going to the library can be very helpful because you have so many different sources to choose from to find a specific detail you may have wanted, the good thing is that its more than likely going to be correct because it has been seen by so many publishers and they don’t just allow anything to be put on shelves for people to see. The internet is different because that can be edited and you can sometimes be given false information but it is so much easier to find what you need so i would advise looking throughout many different sources if you choose to do this.  Asking around a specific area in which would suite your questions and talking to people or asking them questions to receive information to benefit you can be very good aswell. Example: if i was making a survey about BMX and skateboards i would go to a few skate parks and ask people there to get a good understanding of people actually in that field.

Skills you need which help with research and develop your project

These are a couple of helpful skills to help you research.

• Communication
• Attention to detail
• Technical skills
• Statistical and graphical analysis of data

Communication is very helpful when asking people and carrying out surveys to find useful information towards your project. Even being able to ask the correct questions and present a good survey to collect answers that actually benefit you towards your end result.

Attention to detail is needed because you don’t actually read 20 full articles the whole way through to find what you need because that would take so long and you may not even get the answer you’re looking for. You should be able to skim read quickly throughout the pages and pick out key words and points you may find along the way, this can help save time drastically and can benefit you if you need quick information.

Technical skills are good because being able to roam around social media and interact with people online easily to find answers is great, being able to create an online survey on a website publicly is a good idea because so many different people would see it and you will have sources from all kinds of different places.

Statistical and graphical analysis data is beneficial because you could make graphs and plot your research that you found it in a controlled area where you can easily find statistics of whatever you are looking for.

https://www.topresume.com/career-advice/research-assistant-top-needed-skills – skills you need…

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Go Pro Animation

This is my final go pro animation trailer. This was my first time using a go pro and i don’t think the was filming that bad although i couldn’t use the head mount i was given because it kept falling off my head after each trick. Once i had my footage which i only about 30 seconds long i chucked it into after effects and began adding icons and score counters. This was quite simple as i just used a text generator and added what numbers i needed to keep track of the score. The tricks pop up at the top of the screen after they are landed and then they move to the left under the trick list where it adds your points and keeps adding them in the top right corner. the fire ball in the bottom left is a combo so after each trick is landed without bailing it will count up to show you how many tricks you have landed consistently. I found this way of animating quite fun as i was just following some ideas from my mood boards and changing them up to fit the video and make it look as good and visible as possible. I feel like this went very well and i am pleased with the animation even though it isn’t a lot. The flame in the bottom left is a GIF i found on google and wasn’t created by me. My initial idea was to make my own but due to time restrictions i wasn’t able to.

This is a screen recording i did towards the end of the editing to show how i created some of the icons and text and how i edited it. The video is sped up by 250% because if i had left it at normal speed it would be about 40 minutes long.

 

Stop Motion Animation

This was my attempt of stop motion animation for my trailer. I had a lot of troubles with this mainly around the camera and the editing. When i was animation it i had my props and character on a green sheet of paper so i could use the key light tool to erase the green and add my own background. This was where the issues started because i am not the best with cameras and i did not realise that i had it on the wrong setting. This ended up killing the final result significantly because the whole point of the green background was to make it easy to edit but the camera actually turned some of the character and some props green, this made it very difficult to get a good outcome because i had to mess around with some colour tools by changing the gamma and black and white input to see if i could get a better finished product. I did have a screen recording of me trying this in after effects but the file actually got corrupted and i lost the footage.

I dont think i will be doing stop motion again because it took a while to make the characters and props and once that was done taking the pictures was very tedious and took a long time. I am pretty un-happy with the final result as i had put a lot of time into this and its very transparent.

Pixel Animation

This was my first animation for my trailer which i created in after effects.

To make this i created my own pixel character on a pixel drawing website which was very easy to use and to get used to. I made 2 pictures of the character, 1st just as him standing on the board and the 2nd of him doing a flip and the skateboard flipping.

This is to give the impression of a kickflip whilst the animation is playing through. Although i only made 2 images of the character i think it turned out pretty well and worked quite nice in the end clip.

The background is a standard image of google that i found. I picked it because of the bright colours and the way the city is layed out i thought it would be a good addition to the animation.

To create this animation i had the first image of the rider and on after effects made him roll to the right and collect the first money bag by doing a kickflip. After each bag is collected the Mario jump sound should play to give an indication that you got it. Then i animated him jumping up to the rail that i found an image of and had him collect 2 bags on the rail whilst grinding and doing a trick, once both bags were collected and he was at the end of the rail i had him do another kickflip off just to make the most of it. the title of the game is moving slowly across the top of the screen whilst fading in so by the end it is completely visible before it move off the screen.

I left the final project slowed down a bit so you can clearly see the images change and notice the flip a bit more because if i had it at a normal speed it would be just a quick flash and nowhere near as noticeable.

Pre-Production for my trailer

This was my first brainstorm idea for my game and trailer. It has examples of how the game would run and some objectives that would happen.  The planning was a bit too advanced for what the game will actually turn out to be like but with the trailer i will try to include as much skateboarding references as i can just to give skaters something to be familiar with and relate too.

The story board is a very rough sketch but i feel like it gets the point across of a basic idea. The games HUD will be a score counter at the top adding up each time the player does tricks and lands them consistently. There will also be a trick list to the side displaying tricks that have been landed by you or the other player when you play a game of S.K.A.T.E. When riding around you would just be gathering points and achieving super combo when you get a high score. When a game of skate starts the RO-SHAM-BO icons will appear (after showing the berrics rule sheet on the mood board) and you will click the highlighted option you wish to pick to start the game.

This is my mood board for my game trailer where i have images to give a brief idea of the scene you will be seeing and what the HUD will be similar to.  The points will be counted up and added in the middle of the broken skateboard within the star as a little icon. Real skaters will appear in the game as characters to progress the story taking you to real pro parks and competitions such as street league. The skatepark images are from Paignton skatepark, this is where the start of the game will take place so you can work your way to the top. The rules list is for games of SKATE and will appear on screen to show players what they can and cant do. The chalk board is a basic idea, once a trick is landed in the game of SKATE the trick will appear on the chalk board to show that it has been set and cannot be done again.

Ball Bouncing (Testing bouncing physics)

This was my first time trying to create the illusion of bouncing and movement in a ball being dropped. I think it went pretty well other than the little jitter where the ball first meets the ground, it took me a while to get to this point and i couldn’t quite get it perfect because the image kept expanding and looking weird

Stop Motion Experiment

This was a short stop motion animation that me and 3 others created and edited.

We created the bike with clay and had a tripod with a camera facing over the bike which was on a green piece of paper. Once we had the pictures we needed of the spokes turning to give the illusion of movement we transferred the images to after effects where we edited the green background to be transparent and added a image of some houses. We then slowly moved the image of the houses to the left on the timeline so that it looks like the bike is riding past the house. I found this type of animation a long process which could take very long depending on my characters and props that i have to make.