UV wrapping assets Experimentation/Creative response

This is a screenshot of a ledge I made in cinema 4d. I experimented on the different styles of graffiti textures I could use on the object to give it a different look and feel.

With the graffiti in the 2 images on the left, I used the ‘Darken’ texture with 73% opacity. I did this so it will bring out the blacks in the image and by turning down the opacity it makes it less bright and gives it more of a dull and realistic look.

With the 2 images on the right, I used the ‘Overlay’ texture with 100% opacity which just basically brings out a lot of the whites in the images and gives it a more faded look. I think this works well because it doesn’t look like the same person did the graffiti on the same day, instead makes it look like the graffiti on the right is old and worn out and the graffiti on the right is more recent.

Creative response: In skate 3 the colours are very bright colours in a well lit city so i am going to have darker skatepark being just gray stone in a mediocre lamp lit area surrounded by a mental fence. These images about UV wrapping show how the park will look with the subtly colour that the graffiti will show the rest is just stone which will have a few shaded areas in mot so lit places.

 

Critical Analysis of Skate 3

The skate series is a skateboarding game designed for casual players or skaters to imitate tricks they may want to do or have done in real life. The game has hundreds of parks and a couple of real-life spots to bring the game to life. It also uses loads of professional skateboarders brought into the game to keep the flow of the game going and to keep players interested, riding with their favourite skateboarder in a game. The game is so big around the world that players are howling at EA to make the 4th game to bring everyone back and keep the community alive. I am looking at this game because historically this was the go-to skate game and the game I am creating is a skate game.

If this is your first time playing Skate 3 you should expect to see awesome NPC skaters, and even your friend’s characters if they have played before, busting out tricks on anything and everything and often bailing. You should also expect to see loads of funny glitches and random encounters with pedestrians roaming the streets and getting in the way of your line. For example, sometimes you may be riding around and hit a bench or pedestrian by accident and because of the ragdoll effect on the characters when they fall off it makes some really funny outcomes. These may include benches flying across the screen or even your character getting launched 10 feet into the air and then hitting the floor. This is actually an error within the game but because content creators on platforms such as YouTube make funny clips which inevitably promote the game these glitches become part of Skate 3’s core gameplay. This then brings in other players that may not have known about the game but go and buy it because they see that they can do funny things within it other than just skateboard.

The game looks incredible for a 2010 game and continued with the realism of skateboarding that the first 2 games nailed. It also had some funny things you could do that were not realistic at all but still made the game fun and gave loads of replayability. For example, by changing up how you played the game in general such as trick line where you make use of a speed glitch with the controller to create unexpected outcomes. (I’ve had the game since release and still play it to this day and I’m still not bored of it)

The game itself was super photo real for its time, the most realistic of the skate games, but is played in a supersaturated west coast style landscape under constant sunny skies where the city is a constant skate playground of concrete and steps and so on. The landscape is a fictional creation based loosely on reality, where the surfaces and environments are designed for skating.

The audio in the game is great because when the EA servers were up for the game you were able to add your own music into the game and have it playing in the background as you skate. About 3 years ago they took the servers down because of how old the game is. Now if you play the game you get the same 10+ songs playing but the range of genre is great, going from hip-hop to rock which often appeals to skaters. Even the dialogue that the cameraman says still cracks me up to this day with his cheesy one-liners and cringy comments and when you get close to pedestrians or get in the way of them they shout abuse at you.

Other than the above sounds, there are realistic skate sounds which add to the sense of you being there.

The game feels so good and feels awesome when you’re trying a trick or line for ages and you finally land it just like in real life. There are endless amounts to do in the game even if you have completed it. The challenges are set up into a couple groups.

Examples of gameplay within the game include…

• Deathrace – Race to the objective against 5 or so Ai’s or even your friends if you’re playing online.
• Spot Battle – This is usually against 1 other person, friend or computer and you just have to get the most points overall after 3 runs, 30 seconds each.
• Hall of Meat – This is more of a funny challenge set where your objective is to hurt yourself as much as possible. You will be spawned at the top of a high structure and you have to bail off your board and do different falling styles to break as many bones as you can.
• Own the Spot – To complete any of these first you must find the spot which can be anywhere in the world and then you have 2 score limits ‘Owned it’ or ‘Killed it’ if you smash the owned it score you must do the killed it score and that’s when you ‘own the spot’ and you and your friends can battle to get the higher score
• Goofy vs Regular – There are only a handful of these but at the start of the game you choose if you are regular or goofy and that decides your stance (right foot or left foot at the front) This competition is held at real-life skateparks that you unlock for free play when completed, this also has pro skaters ai competing against you.
• Film – This is where you will be giving a certain spot (ledge, rail or stair set) and you will just have to do any trick or tricks you want and then the cameraman will film it and you get the watch the clip over and pick whether you want to keep it or try again.
• Photo – This is basically the exact same as the film challenges but instead of having a clip the cameraman will take loads of photos and once you do your chosen trick you get to pick one photo out of the whole bunch and it gets put on the front of a skate magazine that you see being promoted around the game.

Every single one of these missions is replayable to try and beat your own score. You can even make a skate team with your friends and dominate the team challenges which are significantly harder. Even if you get bored of all of the missions you have the option to go into free play and have no pedestrians or cars driving around, this means you have the whole world to yourself and you can even use some cheat codes in free play that don’t drastically change the game but make it fun. These include making your character really small with a massive head, making your skateboard have no trucks or wheels so it’s floating, make zombies go around the world that will chase you and push you of your skateboard just like the security guards and you can even play as Isaac Clarke from the horror game ‘Dead Space’ series that EA also created.

The gameplay controls are such a good idea for a skateboarding game by using A or X to push on Xbox or play station and then you use your analog sticks to control you and your board and do tricks. It’s not just as simple as pressing a button to do a trick because to know what trick your doing every time is very hard in this game. You’re basically flicking the thumbsticks up and down depending on what trick it is but generally, it makes sense what way you flick it or shuv it to how you do it in real life which I think is a very cool concept.

The culture and ethics in the game are great because as you start up the game for the first time you get to create your own skater and the options are endless. They can be black, white and even some glitches to make them different colours. You have control of how big or small they are in length and width which makes for some funny characters for the people that are playing just for a laugh, once you have your character you go out into the world unlocking spots and unlocking new clothes, skateboards, trucks, wheels and other accessories that you can put on your skater. The game is not violent at all other than you falling off your skateboard and hurting yourself but that’s exactly how skateboarding is so you can’t really change that. In skate 2 there were more ways of interacting with a phone feature. This allowed you to call up a bodyguard (Big Black, Rob Dyrdek’s bodyguard in real life who passed away) to protect you from security guards and allowed you to skate private property freely. There was also an option to call for someone to remove skate stops from a rail. The phone feature was removed from Skate 3 for an unknown reason, which is a shame because I feel it gave the game even more realistic features because skate stops are everywhere nowadays to prevent skaters ‘vandalising ‘ stair rails or ledges. This makes the game more of a fantasy world for skaters because almost everything in the world is skateable.

There are a couple of stereotypes in the game but nothing offensive its more of the police and security guards chasing you if you are in a public place and they will do anything to get you off your skateboard like run at you and push you or even tase you but its all for fun and makes the game a bit more interesting. Also with complete control of your character, this leaves people’s imagination to run wild or make a character based on themselves. Considering I live in a dominantly white area most of my skaters I have created are white because my friends are. The game, therefore, reflects my social environment.

Conclusion – For inspiration for my game I am going to look at the shapes and objects within the game and also the textures and styles. Skate 3 is a very bright and colorful game which I want to add my own twist to, to create a semi-realistic skate park with graffiti and various skate obstacles and instead of having a bright, sunny southern California style I will try go for a more gloomy and cloudy devon style to make it feel like the weather here. The glitches in this game help it so much by keeping it fresh and players on their toes because anything can happen at any time, this isn’t game breaking at all because YouTubers and content creators have used these glitches to create funny content to promote the game.

link to images – http://www.goonskate.com/guide.php – accessed 25/2/19