vrijdag 27 februari 2015
woensdag 25 februari 2015
Journey
One of my biggest inspirations is Thatgamecompany's Journey. In this game you play a little character without a face and without the ability to speak. He or she has to undertake a Journey to reach a mountain in the distance. While travelling you visit the most wonderfull places and meet magnificent creatures. The art direction in this game is simpy stunning. I spent ages looking at the game's artbook.
This game basicly tells a story with images and locations. While travelling you learn about your past and about your people, still without spoken word or text. You can collect pieces of cloth that can be used to fly, that's about the only game mechanic in this game. Flying for brief periods of time.
You can interact with another player though. You are automaticly being connected with a random person playing the game at the same time. You don't see his name only his character walking about! So now you have a travelling buddy. But still, without spoken word.
It's magnificent to see how you can share your journey with someone you've never met before. This works best playing it for the first time though. But it's a great experience every time I play it. I believe I finished this game 7 times now.
So this game tells it's story only through the use of visuals and music, without music and text. To achieve this you need to have a very strong mood and a strong understandable shape language. Players also need to have a clear path to follow. In this case the mountain is almost always visible throughout the game so the players know where to go to.
This game is very interesting. Thatgamecompany manages to tell a story only using visuals and music and one or two very simple game mechanics. I probably won't be creating a 3D game but this is defenitely a big inspiration for me.
This game basicly tells a story with images and locations. While travelling you learn about your past and about your people, still without spoken word or text. You can collect pieces of cloth that can be used to fly, that's about the only game mechanic in this game. Flying for brief periods of time.
You can interact with another player though. You are automaticly being connected with a random person playing the game at the same time. You don't see his name only his character walking about! So now you have a travelling buddy. But still, without spoken word.
It's magnificent to see how you can share your journey with someone you've never met before. This works best playing it for the first time though. But it's a great experience every time I play it. I believe I finished this game 7 times now.
So this game tells it's story only through the use of visuals and music, without music and text. To achieve this you need to have a very strong mood and a strong understandable shape language. Players also need to have a clear path to follow. In this case the mountain is almost always visible throughout the game so the players know where to go to.
This game is very interesting. Thatgamecompany manages to tell a story only using visuals and music and one or two very simple game mechanics. I probably won't be creating a 3D game but this is defenitely a big inspiration for me.
Drawing and writing meet in the middle.
Scott McCloud talks about images and writing. In Comics they both play a big part. Images often support the text storytelling-wise. But I think they should support eachother. How can you bring text and images closer together
McCloud says this about bringing story and image closer together:
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So text can be made more bold and direct to make them easier to read and make them look almost like images. And images can be more abstracted so they they take a little bit more time to read, making them look a lot like text. So text and images meet eachother in the middle to form some kind of harmonious thing.
Perhaps this is something I can use for my project. As storytelling and images play a big part in it.
McCloud says this about bringing story and image closer together:
So text can be made more bold and direct to make them easier to read and make them look almost like images. And images can be more abstracted so they they take a little bit more time to read, making them look a lot like text. So text and images meet eachother in the middle to form some kind of harmonious thing.
Perhaps this is something I can use for my project. As storytelling and images play a big part in it.
What do we want to tell?
Or even better, what do I want to tell with my graduation project. I've made it clear that I will use a lot of images in my project. It's safe to say that that's my strongest asset, so I might as well put it to good use. The thing that I like to do most is telling stories with images. But what story do I want to tell? A generic sci-fi story or something that has a deeper meaning. Images could be use to tell different stories, ranging from war propaganda to cartoons that we read in the paper. Two old masters that told stories with their images were Albert Bierstadt and Caravaggio. Two painters with very distinct styles and very different angles.
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter known for his fantastic landscapes. He painted scenes with incredible amount of detail and romantic glowing light. His painting style is called Luminism.
Bierstadt wanted to give Europeans an impression of America. That's the story that he was telling with his paintings.
Carravagio on the other hand was an Italian master known for his bible themed paintings. He wanted to bring the bible to illiterate people by painting beautifull images.
Both artists have a very distinctive painting style and tell their own story. Bierstadt used landscapes to tell his story and Carravagio used figures to tell his story.
The question is. What is the story that I want to tell?
Albert Bierstadt was a German-American painter known for his fantastic landscapes. He painted scenes with incredible amount of detail and romantic glowing light. His painting style is called Luminism.
Bierstadt wanted to give Europeans an impression of America. That's the story that he was telling with his paintings.
Carravagio on the other hand was an Italian master known for his bible themed paintings. He wanted to bring the bible to illiterate people by painting beautifull images.
Both artists have a very distinctive painting style and tell their own story. Bierstadt used landscapes to tell his story and Carravagio used figures to tell his story.
The question is. What is the story that I want to tell?
Closure
One of the most interesting things that Scott McCloud writes in Understanding comics is a chapter about Closure.
Closure is our ability to fill in the things we don't see. We use all of the information we already have to fill in the things we can't directly see or hear or smell. For example if you see a picture of a person's torso, you assume that the person also has legs and a head. Or that the house across the street has an interior and not somekind of swimming pool filled with vanilla-pudding.
Baby children have not developed that kind of perception yet. That's why peek-a-boo (kiekeboe in dutch) works so well. Children think their mother is gone when she hides her face behind her hands. When she removes them a child starts to smile because mommy is back. When a kid grows up he or she finds out that mommy doesn't dissapear at all when she plays peek-a-boo
Closure also applies to the empty spaces between panels in comics.
We automaticly fill in the space between images with our imagination. So the creators of the comic give us some information and the rest is up to us! That's interaction in a way. Take the image below for example, the comic doesn't give us the details but we all know what is going to happen to the guy being chased. The authors give us information and we give our own imagination back to the comic to create the story. That's a very interesting theory to use for my graduation project.
How can I give the players just enough information to let them make their own story? And create some kind of interaction between images and players?
Closure is our ability to fill in the things we don't see. We use all of the information we already have to fill in the things we can't directly see or hear or smell. For example if you see a picture of a person's torso, you assume that the person also has legs and a head. Or that the house across the street has an interior and not somekind of swimming pool filled with vanilla-pudding.
Baby children have not developed that kind of perception yet. That's why peek-a-boo (kiekeboe in dutch) works so well. Children think their mother is gone when she hides her face behind her hands. When she removes them a child starts to smile because mommy is back. When a kid grows up he or she finds out that mommy doesn't dissapear at all when she plays peek-a-boo
Closure also applies to the empty spaces between panels in comics.
We automaticly fill in the space between images with our imagination. So the creators of the comic give us some information and the rest is up to us! That's interaction in a way. Take the image below for example, the comic doesn't give us the details but we all know what is going to happen to the guy being chased. The authors give us information and we give our own imagination back to the comic to create the story. That's a very interesting theory to use for my graduation project.
 |
| We all know what happens here. |
How can I give the players just enough information to let them make their own story? And create some kind of interaction between images and players?
maandag 23 februari 2015
Narrative and art
First try!
More to follow.
Inspiring use of 2D paintings to tell a story
It seems that a 2D painting is just a 2D painting. We can trick people by making it look like a 3D image by using depth, perspective, athmosphere and light. But it's still a flag image in the end.
3D animators can make the most amazing shots with their software but can a 2D painting be more than a 2D painting? What about adding movement? Animation is something entirely different but there are some possibilities for 2D artists who don't specialize in animation. We can make our paintings look really cool, by moving them around, sometimes subtle movements can add great depth to our stories.
I especially like what the developers of Guild wars 2 did with their announcement trailer (and some other trailers) They took paintings of their concept artists and turned them into something more! It's best just to show you that trailer instead of talking on and on about it.
I believe this can be done even with Photoshop's animation tool and some smart layering while painting the image.
For the game mysteries most mysterious that my classmates Ernst-Jan, Joost and me were working on we also added 2D assets with a looping frame by frame animation that gave the world a little bit more life.
A shot example of this game can be seen here. I was responsible for the background art and animations as well as the character colouring.
https://vimeo.com/104927919
I think 2D animation can be used to like I said, breathe a little bit more life in images, reinforcing mood and story.
This is something that I would love to study and research for my graduation project. It's probably not entirely necessary but it will certainly give the whole project a visual boost.
I'm still reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, that book defenitely gave me some great angles and ideas for further research. More on that in the next post.
3D animators can make the most amazing shots with their software but can a 2D painting be more than a 2D painting? What about adding movement? Animation is something entirely different but there are some possibilities for 2D artists who don't specialize in animation. We can make our paintings look really cool, by moving them around, sometimes subtle movements can add great depth to our stories.
I especially like what the developers of Guild wars 2 did with their announcement trailer (and some other trailers) They took paintings of their concept artists and turned them into something more! It's best just to show you that trailer instead of talking on and on about it.
I believe this can be done even with Photoshop's animation tool and some smart layering while painting the image.
For the game mysteries most mysterious that my classmates Ernst-Jan, Joost and me were working on we also added 2D assets with a looping frame by frame animation that gave the world a little bit more life.
A shot example of this game can be seen here. I was responsible for the background art and animations as well as the character colouring.
https://vimeo.com/104927919
I think 2D animation can be used to like I said, breathe a little bit more life in images, reinforcing mood and story.
This is something that I would love to study and research for my graduation project. It's probably not entirely necessary but it will certainly give the whole project a visual boost.
I'm still reading Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, that book defenitely gave me some great angles and ideas for further research. More on that in the next post.
donderdag 19 februari 2015
New painting.
maandag 16 februari 2015
Prisoners dilemma (with zombies)
My classmate Jim and I collaborated on some tests.
We found a common interest when we were trying out his test.
He did a little test called prisoner's dilemma where two players are caught for some crime and they get a few options. Rat the other player out and win your freedom + a share of the loot, but the other player gets a 3 year sentence. If both players are silent they both get their freedom because their is no proof. When both players talk they both get a 1 year sentence.
So the choices the players made had a big consequence for the other player.
Players based their choices on what they would actually do. But what if the players received a little bit more information before making their choices. A role perhaps. Is the character a pickpocket who lost his parents, and is the other player his sister? That changes the game quite a bit. Characters are making choices based on their role and information which results in funny roleplaying discussions. I played the thief for example and my classmate Ernst-Jan was his rich sister. And he ratted my character out because he thought it would be a good learning experience for my character, a while in jail. So giving players a role or character often results in cool dialogues within a game.
The consequences were not that bad though. If I had to spend 3 years in jail it would be way worse than only suggesting it. So the players need more punishment if you really want to make them have a dilemma. Because now the players can rat eachother out just for fun, without risking anything.
That's when we came up with a small game for 4 players. The setting was a rather obvious zombie apocalypse world where players choices could mean the end of the other players. We wrote a small branching storyline with different phases. In every phase someone would have to leave the game because of choices made by other players. Sounds OK on paper but did it work?
We gave players roles and characters to make people interact with eachother, that went well. People based their choices on their characters. But there weren't enough choices and there was no way they could know what would happen if they made a wrong or right choice. Also there was not much room for improvisation or dialogue. So back to the drawing table.
Some other questions are:
Can I make people interact with eachother with a videogame?
Does a game like this need images to support the situations?
We found a common interest when we were trying out his test.
He did a little test called prisoner's dilemma where two players are caught for some crime and they get a few options. Rat the other player out and win your freedom + a share of the loot, but the other player gets a 3 year sentence. If both players are silent they both get their freedom because their is no proof. When both players talk they both get a 1 year sentence.
So the choices the players made had a big consequence for the other player.
Players based their choices on what they would actually do. But what if the players received a little bit more information before making their choices. A role perhaps. Is the character a pickpocket who lost his parents, and is the other player his sister? That changes the game quite a bit. Characters are making choices based on their role and information which results in funny roleplaying discussions. I played the thief for example and my classmate Ernst-Jan was his rich sister. And he ratted my character out because he thought it would be a good learning experience for my character, a while in jail. So giving players a role or character often results in cool dialogues within a game.
The consequences were not that bad though. If I had to spend 3 years in jail it would be way worse than only suggesting it. So the players need more punishment if you really want to make them have a dilemma. Because now the players can rat eachother out just for fun, without risking anything.
That's when we came up with a small game for 4 players. The setting was a rather obvious zombie apocalypse world where players choices could mean the end of the other players. We wrote a small branching storyline with different phases. In every phase someone would have to leave the game because of choices made by other players. Sounds OK on paper but did it work?
We gave players roles and characters to make people interact with eachother, that went well. People based their choices on their characters. But there weren't enough choices and there was no way they could know what would happen if they made a wrong or right choice. Also there was not much room for improvisation or dialogue. So back to the drawing table.
Some other questions are:
Can I make people interact with eachother with a videogame?
Does a game like this need images to support the situations?
Working with Twine
For my research I tried an application called Twine.
Twine is an interactive storytelling app. It's also open-source! And the great thing is, you don't have to be a programmer to understand this program! That's actually great for me because my programming skills are not exactly top notch.
So I wrote a little story in twine about survivors in an alien attack. I wrote it in dutch because that's my first language. And I usually have a problem writing and thinking in English.
The story is about two brothers locked in a basement with a few other alien attack survivors. Twine is made for one person experiences but I tried to create story for two players. This little game focusses on tough choices and interaction between players.
But did the players think the same? Not really. Joost, one of my classmates thought that there could be a little bit more interaction between players. There was not much room for interpretation.
He suggested that I made a test in which I described situations with images. Players then have the possibility to discuss their choices, focussing more on interaction between players instead of interaction with the game.
My classmates also suggested a rock paper scissor system. In which both players make a choice and the computer picks one of the answers based on variables.
In this game there was a narrator describing what's happening in the game. But it would be nicer if the players had more to say. More dialogue. Maybe there won't be a need for a narrator because the story could be told with images leaving things open for interpretation.
This little test was focused on interaction outside the screen. That didn't really work out in this first test. My classmates wanted more dialogue, where players do weird voice overs. Like in the Yahwg. (that game I talked about a little while ago)
So fun for a first test. And great feedback! So off to write some more tests, maybe something with images this time!
Twine is an interactive storytelling app. It's also open-source! And the great thing is, you don't have to be a programmer to understand this program! That's actually great for me because my programming skills are not exactly top notch.
So I wrote a little story in twine about survivors in an alien attack. I wrote it in dutch because that's my first language. And I usually have a problem writing and thinking in English.
The story is about two brothers locked in a basement with a few other alien attack survivors. Twine is made for one person experiences but I tried to create story for two players. This little game focusses on tough choices and interaction between players.
 |
| My story in Twine (dutch) a branching storyline. |
But did the players think the same? Not really. Joost, one of my classmates thought that there could be a little bit more interaction between players. There was not much room for interpretation.
He suggested that I made a test in which I described situations with images. Players then have the possibility to discuss their choices, focussing more on interaction between players instead of interaction with the game.
My classmates also suggested a rock paper scissor system. In which both players make a choice and the computer picks one of the answers based on variables.
In this game there was a narrator describing what's happening in the game. But it would be nicer if the players had more to say. More dialogue. Maybe there won't be a need for a narrator because the story could be told with images leaving things open for interpretation.
This little test was focused on interaction outside the screen. That didn't really work out in this first test. My classmates wanted more dialogue, where players do weird voice overs. Like in the Yahwg. (that game I talked about a little while ago)
So fun for a first test. And great feedback! So off to write some more tests, maybe something with images this time!
zondag 15 februari 2015
a few sketches to finish the weekend with
I made a few black and white thumbnails. I got inspiration from Coral Reefs and architects like zaha hadid and Calatrava.
Just some sketches to get going.
Just some sketches to get going.
A story to an image
I decided to do a little test for my research project. Can I tell a story with images? Is it the same story for everyone? Or does everyone have a different interpretation to the image. And do I want people to have different interpretations about the story in the image?
The image I chose is a digital painting that I posted a few times before.
I posted this image on my facebook profile and on numerous facebook groups. I chose this platform because I wanted to have as many reactions as possible.
The thing I wanted to know from people was: What's your interpretation of this painting? What is going on there? What's the relationship between those people and the structure.
I asked people to write their story down in the comments, hoping to receive some reactions.
And I did! In fact I received messages from over 120 different people! Some people were more serious than others of course, but still I was very surprised with the number of people that took the time to comment.
Reactions did vary heavily. From philosopher's quotes to "this reminds me of that game or this movie reactions"
Let me show some examples below:
"What once was their race's first space habitat now lies broken and desolate on the surface of a war-torn planet. The scouts gaze into what once held a powerful fusion reactor, supposed to light the entire habitat. Its light rekindled by the rising sun, where it once shone upon millions, it now shines on only three."
"An ancient beacon site. Before light transportation was invented they used masive molecular beams cannons that fire huge data packages on the atmosphere. Here lies some of the central rings, this place looks quite now but seems like when the machine was destroyed releasing a massive wave of energy that made the area radiactive for quite some time."
"A lost world, with a shining light that will bring them to something better. The travellers hesitate."
"Astronauts stumble open the worlds greatest discovery, a portal that will lead them on a journey to infinite universes. The portal is known as "The Destination". A portal with infinite possibilities and infinite journies that would take infinite life times to experience. The question is, are the brave enough to step inside this Destination? Who knows what journey awaits them on the other side."
"Standing in awe before the alien machine-god"
"The eye of a giant robot"
"They just arrived at a new planet, wich seems abandoned. While exploring they stumble on all kinds of broken down buildings and structures, this is one of them. They don't know what to make of it, what it could have been.. They approach it with great caution."
Just some of the many short stories that people came up with.
Another interesting thing happened! People started to discuss their interpretations with eachother and came up with their own collaborated stories!
"I think, wow Leon must have had a free hour to work , what I real think: Some people checking out an old SciFi crashsite, probaly lost their parents in the accident. The one at the left is named Bob for sure."
"I don't feel bad for Bob, he's got a kickass floatsy robot sidekick."
"The woman on the far right is jealous of Bob's drone."
"She's by herself, plotting a dastardly murder while the others are distracted by the stupid uninteresting ringthings."
Of course those people were just having a laugh but I thought it was quite interesting.
A conclusion is that everyone has a different view on a painting, but I think the stories varied so much because the image was not clear enough. I don't think it's a bad thing but there are things that could have been done better. Maybe the spectators need more information. If the astronauts were holding weapons or were running away from the round structure the story would have been quite different. There was not much clarity about the situation in this painting. Is it dangerous or are those guys quite alright?
So giving the characters a little bit more information, a little bit more of a back story. This is something a great artist named Lennart Verhoef suggested. He suggested to show more interaction between the characters and the object in the painting, that way the story would be more clear.
Even though all those different views and stories are very interesting.
Stepan Duquesnoy a gratuated student from my course suggested to work more with visual narrative! Good thing I'm reading framed Ink and Understanding comics at the moment. But you don't learn by just reading, you have to apply the theory to your paintings. So that's a good thing for me to do.
Stephan also suggested to dive a little bit more into the history of storytelling with art. Looking at Bierstadt or Carvaggio for example: Bierstadt wanted to make european people fantasize about America. And Carvaggio wanted to bring the bible to illiterate people, by creating art.
So I have to look at what I want to tell the audience. What do I want them to experience.
My classmate Jim asked me if I want to make people come up with their own stories by looking at my artwork of if I want to tell my own story with artwork. Because that's a pretty big difference in my opinion. That's something I need to find out but this is a good start.
In the end this little test turned out to be way more usefull than I thought it would be!
My classmate Jim and I also did some other tests regarding storytelling and tough concequenses. More about that tomorrow.
The image I chose is a digital painting that I posted a few times before.
The thing I wanted to know from people was: What's your interpretation of this painting? What is going on there? What's the relationship between those people and the structure.
I asked people to write their story down in the comments, hoping to receive some reactions.
And I did! In fact I received messages from over 120 different people! Some people were more serious than others of course, but still I was very surprised with the number of people that took the time to comment.
Reactions did vary heavily. From philosopher's quotes to "this reminds me of that game or this movie reactions"
Let me show some examples below:
"What once was their race's first space habitat now lies broken and desolate on the surface of a war-torn planet. The scouts gaze into what once held a powerful fusion reactor, supposed to light the entire habitat. Its light rekindled by the rising sun, where it once shone upon millions, it now shines on only three."
"An ancient beacon site. Before light transportation was invented they used masive molecular beams cannons that fire huge data packages on the atmosphere. Here lies some of the central rings, this place looks quite now but seems like when the machine was destroyed releasing a massive wave of energy that made the area radiactive for quite some time."
"A lost world, with a shining light that will bring them to something better. The travellers hesitate."
"Astronauts stumble open the worlds greatest discovery, a portal that will lead them on a journey to infinite universes. The portal is known as "The Destination". A portal with infinite possibilities and infinite journies that would take infinite life times to experience. The question is, are the brave enough to step inside this Destination? Who knows what journey awaits them on the other side."
"Standing in awe before the alien machine-god"
"The eye of a giant robot"
"They just arrived at a new planet, wich seems abandoned. While exploring they stumble on all kinds of broken down buildings and structures, this is one of them. They don't know what to make of it, what it could have been.. They approach it with great caution."
Just some of the many short stories that people came up with.
Another interesting thing happened! People started to discuss their interpretations with eachother and came up with their own collaborated stories!
"I think, wow Leon must have had a free hour to work , what I real think: Some people checking out an old SciFi crashsite, probaly lost their parents in the accident. The one at the left is named Bob for sure."
"I don't feel bad for Bob, he's got a kickass floatsy robot sidekick."
"The woman on the far right is jealous of Bob's drone."
"She's by herself, plotting a dastardly murder while the others are distracted by the stupid uninteresting ringthings."
Of course those people were just having a laugh but I thought it was quite interesting.
A conclusion is that everyone has a different view on a painting, but I think the stories varied so much because the image was not clear enough. I don't think it's a bad thing but there are things that could have been done better. Maybe the spectators need more information. If the astronauts were holding weapons or were running away from the round structure the story would have been quite different. There was not much clarity about the situation in this painting. Is it dangerous or are those guys quite alright?
So giving the characters a little bit more information, a little bit more of a back story. This is something a great artist named Lennart Verhoef suggested. He suggested to show more interaction between the characters and the object in the painting, that way the story would be more clear.
Even though all those different views and stories are very interesting.
Stepan Duquesnoy a gratuated student from my course suggested to work more with visual narrative! Good thing I'm reading framed Ink and Understanding comics at the moment. But you don't learn by just reading, you have to apply the theory to your paintings. So that's a good thing for me to do.
Stephan also suggested to dive a little bit more into the history of storytelling with art. Looking at Bierstadt or Carvaggio for example: Bierstadt wanted to make european people fantasize about America. And Carvaggio wanted to bring the bible to illiterate people, by creating art.
So I have to look at what I want to tell the audience. What do I want them to experience.
My classmate Jim asked me if I want to make people come up with their own stories by looking at my artwork of if I want to tell my own story with artwork. Because that's a pretty big difference in my opinion. That's something I need to find out but this is a good start.
In the end this little test turned out to be way more usefull than I thought it would be!
My classmate Jim and I also did some other tests regarding storytelling and tough concequenses. More about that tomorrow.
woensdag 11 februari 2015
What did I think about framed Ink
That Rhymes!!
I started reading a book called framed ink, by Marcos Mateu-Mestre a week ago. I bought it because I wanted to know more about storytelling with images. This book is all about that. Too be honest, It's has been worth every minute reading it. I feel like I've learned very much.
Mateu-Mestre gives clear examples supported with great black and white images.
He talks about: Composition, Lighting, Camera angles and movement, scale, continuity and all kinds of things I never even thought about before.
Some examples. The most important character or object (the focal point, the most important part of the image or shot) in a scene can get the attention by for example hitting him/her/it with light, by facing him/her/it to the camera and make other characters look away. By putting the lead character on an eleveted position, or by creating a visual path that leads the eye to the character.
A focal point can be also be made clear by doing a color variation that makes the focal point stand out. Or to increase or decrease the values on and around the focal point (higher contrast, lighter, darker)
In this image I made a while ago, the focal point is recognizable (I hope so). I tried to make it even more clear by making the structure almost spiral into the focal point. Starting in the far left corner and ending in the lightest part of the painting. other elements of the painting point at the small characters in the lower part of the painting, creating some kind of story between the big structure and the characters.
I used a fibonacci grid for my composition (almost literally). The grid is being used for a very long time now. The old painting masters used it, and modern filmmakers also use it for their shot composition.
In film a focal point and good composition is most important, a spectator needs to see what's going on in a matter of seconds before the shot is over. If the composition is all over the place the audience can't figure out what the shot is about. Or they might miss the important part of the shot.
In film, composition is used to give the audience clear and readable shots. In art it's used to make the viewer look at it as long as possible.
So composition is an essential part of images and storytelling with images.
Lighting is also an essential part. Mateu-Semestre uses an example: If you have to make two movies: one disturbing horror film and one childrens movie, and the only set you have is one room with a table and two chairs. The only way to make that work is by using lighting. Darkness automatically suggests a more dangerous situation than a nice sunday afternoon, with light falling through the windows.
Anyway. I could go on and on about this book, about camera angles, and continuity in images. But I'll save that for a next post.
Reading this book was defenitely usefull. The important question still remains: Can I use storytelling with images when I want to face players with tough situations. Will images help with that? Or can a game do without? Can one do without another, or are artworks just a nice visual layer to the story. Does the game rely on art?
I'm going to find out in the next few weeks when testing a few prototypes.
I started reading a book called framed ink, by Marcos Mateu-Mestre a week ago. I bought it because I wanted to know more about storytelling with images. This book is all about that. Too be honest, It's has been worth every minute reading it. I feel like I've learned very much.
Mateu-Mestre gives clear examples supported with great black and white images.
He talks about: Composition, Lighting, Camera angles and movement, scale, continuity and all kinds of things I never even thought about before.
Some examples. The most important character or object (the focal point, the most important part of the image or shot) in a scene can get the attention by for example hitting him/her/it with light, by facing him/her/it to the camera and make other characters look away. By putting the lead character on an eleveted position, or by creating a visual path that leads the eye to the character.
A focal point can be also be made clear by doing a color variation that makes the focal point stand out. Or to increase or decrease the values on and around the focal point (higher contrast, lighter, darker)
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| Applying composition techniques to my own paintings |
In this image I made a while ago, the focal point is recognizable (I hope so). I tried to make it even more clear by making the structure almost spiral into the focal point. Starting in the far left corner and ending in the lightest part of the painting. other elements of the painting point at the small characters in the lower part of the painting, creating some kind of story between the big structure and the characters.
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| Fibonacci grid |
I used a fibonacci grid for my composition (almost literally). The grid is being used for a very long time now. The old painting masters used it, and modern filmmakers also use it for their shot composition.
In film a focal point and good composition is most important, a spectator needs to see what's going on in a matter of seconds before the shot is over. If the composition is all over the place the audience can't figure out what the shot is about. Or they might miss the important part of the shot.
In film, composition is used to give the audience clear and readable shots. In art it's used to make the viewer look at it as long as possible.
So composition is an essential part of images and storytelling with images.
Lighting is also an essential part. Mateu-Semestre uses an example: If you have to make two movies: one disturbing horror film and one childrens movie, and the only set you have is one room with a table and two chairs. The only way to make that work is by using lighting. Darkness automatically suggests a more dangerous situation than a nice sunday afternoon, with light falling through the windows.
Anyway. I could go on and on about this book, about camera angles, and continuity in images. But I'll save that for a next post.
Reading this book was defenitely usefull. The important question still remains: Can I use storytelling with images when I want to face players with tough situations. Will images help with that? Or can a game do without? Can one do without another, or are artworks just a nice visual layer to the story. Does the game rely on art?
I'm going to find out in the next few weeks when testing a few prototypes.
Faster than light
It's been a while since I posted anything for my graduation project. I have been busy though! A lot of reading for the most part. I have read several books in the past 2 weeks.
-Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu - Mestre
-Understanding Comics by scott Mccloud
-Dream worlds by Hans Bacher
-Color and light by James Gurney
-And several art books from movies and films I had laying around. Not too much text, but nice images and designs with commentary!
I've also been watching some movies and Tv series that deal with tough settings and choices that have big concequences.
The walking dead for example. More about that later.
First something about a little single player game that I spent some time playing.
FTL or faster than light is a game made by Subset Games and focusses on space combat, strategy and making choices.
There's a big arsenal of ships you can choose. Each one requiring different strategies and focusing on different weapons. Missiles, beam weapons, lasers. You name it. That's not important though. At least not for my research.
The fact that it's a tactical strategy game which requires planning and managing is interesting. The fact that it's in space, even more so.
So in this game you start out with a spaceship with a few crew members (which you can name yourself) You jump through hyperspace in different star systems. Each location you jump to will give you a randomly generated situation. A merchant selling his wares, a pirate with the intention to steal your liver, a rebel fleet that's right on your tail or a slave ship trying to sell you some crewmembers.
Take for example the last situation, a slaver ship is currently waiting in the location that you jumped to. They give you a few choices, ignore them, buy one of their slaves, shoot them to bits or try to teleport onto their ship to free some slaves and quickly fly away. The last option is available when you have crew teleporter on your ship. Which can be bought, though some ships have it installed by standard. When you decide to attack the slaver ship they might try to give you a slave for free if you leave them alone.
The point is, each situation gives you a certain set of choices. You can decide to help a ship to get rid of a giant spider infestation. Either by attacking them with you crewmembers or burn them out with a fire bomb. The last option only being available if you have a fire bomb weapon installed on your ship. If you try to attack the spiders with your crewmembers you risk losing them. But if you use the fire bomb you risk destroying the whole ship instead of only the spiders. So choices have concequences. And choices made previously in the game can give you more options later in the game.
You gain scrap by solving situations or destroying ships. You can use the scrap as currency to buy upgrades, helping you jump through other star systems untill you have to defeat the Rebel boss ship.
You can't buy every weapon in the game so you have to think about your strategy while playing.
The fun bit though. I had my crewmembers. My Pilot named Cpt. Indecent for example. He's my tough leader. My crewmember handling the guns named Feng Zhu and a few other crewmembers. All with a lot of experience and skills in their own field, going on a space adventure together. This is what happens I run into a small mining colony currently facing an unknown disease. I can either choose to send my crew in and calm the sick people down, or choose to ignore it and leave. I chose to help the colony, like the hero I am! I sent in my crew to tend to the sick people and prevent them from rioting. I succeeded but the game told me I lost my beloved captain Indecent. So the choice I made had a very big concequence for the rest of my playthrough. with Captain Indecent (with maxed out piloting skills) gone, who was going to pilot my ship? Without him my ship would be vulnerable to enemy firepower. I found a good replacement eventually by hiring a mercanery with good piloting skills. I had to pay a price though, and he was nothing like captain Indecent. I felt a little sad afterwards.
Another example. I made a ship with boarding capabilities. I teleported my 4 crewmembers to the enemy ship. It was a Lanius ship though. The Lanius don't breath, instead, they suck all the air out of every room they're in. They also had a stealth system installed on their ship. I thought: If I'm quick I can take their crew out before I run out of air. Nice plan you would say. It all went well for a bit, the enemy crew was almost dead but I was running out of air so I decided to teleport my crew back to heal them in my medbay. Just when I pressed the teleport button the enemy ship booted up their stealth system. I wasn't able to teleport my crew back because I couldn't see the enemy ship! I lost all 4 of them and I was basicly done for the rest of the game. It was a terrible experience. I killed my crew because I thought it would be a good idea to teleport them to a ship without air support. I'm now thinking twice when faced with a situation like that.
The randomly generated situations part is a great thing about this game. It's a single player game though. Can it be played by multiple players? More people discussing about choices and decisions?
Probably! It's a real time strategy game though, so one player has to do all the moving around and management of the ship. The situation is a bit similar to this war of mine, the game I talked about a little while ago.
Still usefull to me in terms of gameplay and situations. The game is also really well written, resulting in funny situations. Choices you make during the game usually have concequences for the rest of the playthrough, and that's nice. Even if you plan your whole playthrough from start to finish there is still a big chance that you will randomly lose your crewmembers or get an insanely strong weapon that changes your entire strategy. So it's mostly improvising in the end!
Can I make such an experience for multiple players? I'm also writing a little playtest as we speak dealing with situations for multiple players. So more on that later.
-Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu - Mestre
-Understanding Comics by scott Mccloud
-Dream worlds by Hans Bacher
-Color and light by James Gurney
-And several art books from movies and films I had laying around. Not too much text, but nice images and designs with commentary!
I've also been watching some movies and Tv series that deal with tough settings and choices that have big concequences.
The walking dead for example. More about that later.
First something about a little single player game that I spent some time playing.
FTL or faster than light is a game made by Subset Games and focusses on space combat, strategy and making choices.
There's a big arsenal of ships you can choose. Each one requiring different strategies and focusing on different weapons. Missiles, beam weapons, lasers. You name it. That's not important though. At least not for my research.
The fact that it's a tactical strategy game which requires planning and managing is interesting. The fact that it's in space, even more so.
So in this game you start out with a spaceship with a few crew members (which you can name yourself) You jump through hyperspace in different star systems. Each location you jump to will give you a randomly generated situation. A merchant selling his wares, a pirate with the intention to steal your liver, a rebel fleet that's right on your tail or a slave ship trying to sell you some crewmembers.
Take for example the last situation, a slaver ship is currently waiting in the location that you jumped to. They give you a few choices, ignore them, buy one of their slaves, shoot them to bits or try to teleport onto their ship to free some slaves and quickly fly away. The last option is available when you have crew teleporter on your ship. Which can be bought, though some ships have it installed by standard. When you decide to attack the slaver ship they might try to give you a slave for free if you leave them alone.
The point is, each situation gives you a certain set of choices. You can decide to help a ship to get rid of a giant spider infestation. Either by attacking them with you crewmembers or burn them out with a fire bomb. The last option only being available if you have a fire bomb weapon installed on your ship. If you try to attack the spiders with your crewmembers you risk losing them. But if you use the fire bomb you risk destroying the whole ship instead of only the spiders. So choices have concequences. And choices made previously in the game can give you more options later in the game.
You gain scrap by solving situations or destroying ships. You can use the scrap as currency to buy upgrades, helping you jump through other star systems untill you have to defeat the Rebel boss ship.
You can't buy every weapon in the game so you have to think about your strategy while playing.
Another example. I made a ship with boarding capabilities. I teleported my 4 crewmembers to the enemy ship. It was a Lanius ship though. The Lanius don't breath, instead, they suck all the air out of every room they're in. They also had a stealth system installed on their ship. I thought: If I'm quick I can take their crew out before I run out of air. Nice plan you would say. It all went well for a bit, the enemy crew was almost dead but I was running out of air so I decided to teleport my crew back to heal them in my medbay. Just when I pressed the teleport button the enemy ship booted up their stealth system. I wasn't able to teleport my crew back because I couldn't see the enemy ship! I lost all 4 of them and I was basicly done for the rest of the game. It was a terrible experience. I killed my crew because I thought it would be a good idea to teleport them to a ship without air support. I'm now thinking twice when faced with a situation like that.
The randomly generated situations part is a great thing about this game. It's a single player game though. Can it be played by multiple players? More people discussing about choices and decisions?
Probably! It's a real time strategy game though, so one player has to do all the moving around and management of the ship. The situation is a bit similar to this war of mine, the game I talked about a little while ago.
Still usefull to me in terms of gameplay and situations. The game is also really well written, resulting in funny situations. Choices you make during the game usually have concequences for the rest of the playthrough, and that's nice. Even if you plan your whole playthrough from start to finish there is still a big chance that you will randomly lose your crewmembers or get an insanely strong weapon that changes your entire strategy. So it's mostly improvising in the end!
Can I make such an experience for multiple players? I'm also writing a little playtest as we speak dealing with situations for multiple players. So more on that later.
maandag 2 februari 2015
That thing called guilt
After a day of researching I feel quite guilty. I haven't created anything today. Not a painting, not even a pencil scrawl. And that kind of makes me feel sad. It's very hard for me to research without creating anything.
I'm sure some of my classmates feel the same. So usually my way of creating things is either building a 3D model. Paint on paper. Or create something with photoshop.
But can I use that for my research. Can I tell stories with my images? Are my paintings quite good enough. In my opinion I still have much much to learn. Composition for example. When you look at movies no camera angle or arrangement is a coincidence. There is a whole theory behind composition. The old masters did it and people are still doing it. Even in games. A good composition can tell the story for itself. And that's a thing my paintings lack. So can I learn this? Because that is what I really want. After school I'll probably try to become a concept artist or someone who creates worlds for videogames or film, so I need to make my work stand out. A graduation research would be the perfect opportunity to research these things. But I still need to keep interaction in mind though! Because just images will never be enough.
So this would be a question to ask myself
How can I pull people into my game without using spoken word. So how can I make visuals speak for themselves?
I'll probably have to change my thesis again. But this would be a good place to start, when I learned a thing or two and practised a bit (there is the fun part) I'll try to come back to my initial question.
How can I make people interact with eachother and face them with tough choices that can possibly have negative outcomes for the rest of the group.
And how can I make people interact with eachother without using too much spoken and written text.
So the use of visuals is a must for me if I really want to function in this project. Some people research by reading articles. And some people just need to create things.
So lets make some fun and something good will hopefully come out of it.
After practising, sketching and reading, I'll probably need help from my friends to see if the images tell their story without me having to explain what's happening.
Afterwards it's up to me to come up with some core gameplay elements, keeping interaction between multiple players in mind. Then come up with a clear visual style that I can use for production.
So it's on to research, composition, color, light, values and shapes to tell my story.
It will probably be pretty hard. But at least I'm researching while creating things. And that makes me happy.
I'm sure some of my classmates feel the same. So usually my way of creating things is either building a 3D model. Paint on paper. Or create something with photoshop.
But can I use that for my research. Can I tell stories with my images? Are my paintings quite good enough. In my opinion I still have much much to learn. Composition for example. When you look at movies no camera angle or arrangement is a coincidence. There is a whole theory behind composition. The old masters did it and people are still doing it. Even in games. A good composition can tell the story for itself. And that's a thing my paintings lack. So can I learn this? Because that is what I really want. After school I'll probably try to become a concept artist or someone who creates worlds for videogames or film, so I need to make my work stand out. A graduation research would be the perfect opportunity to research these things. But I still need to keep interaction in mind though! Because just images will never be enough.
So this would be a question to ask myself
How can I pull people into my game without using spoken word. So how can I make visuals speak for themselves?
I'll probably have to change my thesis again. But this would be a good place to start, when I learned a thing or two and practised a bit (there is the fun part) I'll try to come back to my initial question.
How can I make people interact with eachother and face them with tough choices that can possibly have negative outcomes for the rest of the group.
And how can I make people interact with eachother without using too much spoken and written text.
So the use of visuals is a must for me if I really want to function in this project. Some people research by reading articles. And some people just need to create things.
So lets make some fun and something good will hopefully come out of it.
After practising, sketching and reading, I'll probably need help from my friends to see if the images tell their story without me having to explain what's happening.
Afterwards it's up to me to come up with some core gameplay elements, keeping interaction between multiple players in mind. Then come up with a clear visual style that I can use for production.
So it's on to research, composition, color, light, values and shapes to tell my story.
It will probably be pretty hard. But at least I'm researching while creating things. And that makes me happy.
The one ring and tough times
It's so hard for me to stop painting and drawing all day and actually do research. I'm very lucky I have some good books to read and some games to play because looking at articles all day long is really not my thing.
So about games. Every once in a while I visit the van Melle family, to play a pen and paper role-playing game called the one ring. Most of you must have heard of the concept pen and paper role playing games. If not. I'll try to explain very briefly.
A pen and paper Rpg when you sit around a table, playing as a character, with one person being the game master. The players play as their characters and the game master is the narrator as well as every other person in the world we're playing in. Our adventure takes place in Middle-earth (the hobbit, the lord of the rings) A little while after the battle of the five armies. My classmate Ernst-Jan is the so called game master, or dungeon master. The storyteller basicly. His brother and sister, his dad and me are the players. We are basicly a mismatch of characters (a dwarf an elf and two humans).
Our choices and actions our being resolved by throwing the dice. So if I want to jump off a cliff (which would generally be a stupid idea) I would have to roll the dice to see how dead I am. Bad example but gets the point across I hope.
Anyway, we're playing the game for about two years now, and each time it's incredibely exiting. Because it allows us to create our own story. Our choices affect the world of middle-earth as well as all the people in it. But the best thing about it is that we each have our own vision about what the world looks like. Just like reading a book. We're basicly creating whole worlds in our heads. Would the game be different if each situation was described by a very detailed artwork. Yeah it would probably be different. Instead of imagining what it should look like we basicly get it presented on a silver well drawn plate.
Because I'm into painting environments and stuff I decided to sketch out one of the evil castles where my poor character was being held captive and tortured for over 2 years.
The funny thing was, this was totally different from what the other players and Ernst-Jan had in mind. So it's safe to assume that everyone has another image in his head while reading of playing the same story.
Still. Pen and paper roleplaying is a perfect example of working as a team but still keep your characters personal interests in mind. The good part of roleplaying is, you can literally do anything. within the setting and the rules of course. I mean if my friend would say. Im going to fire this nice bazooka. The game master would say: dude, we're in Middle-earth. So what the hell?
Also, the game master can basicly do what he like. Is a player acting like a douche? The game master can simple decide that two nearby trolls can't really cope with the existence of the tough acting character and resolve this problem by simply pulling him apart. Bye player character. So there is a lot of freedom in roleplaying games but the fun factor and the immersion of the game kind off depends on the game master. We are lucky to have Ernst-Jan as a game master as he does a great job at this. But a game master can ruin the game for you if he doesn't know what he is doing.
It takes a while to get started. There are all kinds of forms and statistics to be filled out before the fun starts. And there are always the rules that sometimes hold you back.
So basicly. A pen and paper roleplaying game give you a set of rules and statistics but otherwise complete freedom to create stories together within a setting.
On to the questions, because a pen and paper roleplaying game needs a game master.
Can the game do without? Can a computer system do what a game master does? Can players make their own story? Can they work as a team to reach their goal?
I still want to make a game where players are being faced with tough choices, without having to go trough all the rules and statistics that come with a pen and paper roleplaying game. But can I make them interact with eachother just like in a roleplaying game? And can I manipulate their choices by visualising the situations they're in with artwork?
I'm reading a book called framed ink. It's about drawing and composition for visual storytellers. So can I tell my audience a story with visuals? How can I do that? I'm sure this book will give me some insights about that.
to summarize about roleplaying games:
Pro's: Great way to imagine stories. Working as a team to solve problems. A lot of freedom
cons: Heavily dependant on the Game master. And there are a lot of rules to keep in mind.
Tomorrow I'll talk about Telltale games. Probably about their game of thrones game because they are releasing episode two tomorrow.
So about games. Every once in a while I visit the van Melle family, to play a pen and paper role-playing game called the one ring. Most of you must have heard of the concept pen and paper role playing games. If not. I'll try to explain very briefly.
A pen and paper Rpg when you sit around a table, playing as a character, with one person being the game master. The players play as their characters and the game master is the narrator as well as every other person in the world we're playing in. Our adventure takes place in Middle-earth (the hobbit, the lord of the rings) A little while after the battle of the five armies. My classmate Ernst-Jan is the so called game master, or dungeon master. The storyteller basicly. His brother and sister, his dad and me are the players. We are basicly a mismatch of characters (a dwarf an elf and two humans).
Our choices and actions our being resolved by throwing the dice. So if I want to jump off a cliff (which would generally be a stupid idea) I would have to roll the dice to see how dead I am. Bad example but gets the point across I hope.
Anyway, we're playing the game for about two years now, and each time it's incredibely exiting. Because it allows us to create our own story. Our choices affect the world of middle-earth as well as all the people in it. But the best thing about it is that we each have our own vision about what the world looks like. Just like reading a book. We're basicly creating whole worlds in our heads. Would the game be different if each situation was described by a very detailed artwork. Yeah it would probably be different. Instead of imagining what it should look like we basicly get it presented on a silver well drawn plate.
Because I'm into painting environments and stuff I decided to sketch out one of the evil castles where my poor character was being held captive and tortured for over 2 years.
Still. Pen and paper roleplaying is a perfect example of working as a team but still keep your characters personal interests in mind. The good part of roleplaying is, you can literally do anything. within the setting and the rules of course. I mean if my friend would say. Im going to fire this nice bazooka. The game master would say: dude, we're in Middle-earth. So what the hell?
Also, the game master can basicly do what he like. Is a player acting like a douche? The game master can simple decide that two nearby trolls can't really cope with the existence of the tough acting character and resolve this problem by simply pulling him apart. Bye player character. So there is a lot of freedom in roleplaying games but the fun factor and the immersion of the game kind off depends on the game master. We are lucky to have Ernst-Jan as a game master as he does a great job at this. But a game master can ruin the game for you if he doesn't know what he is doing.
It takes a while to get started. There are all kinds of forms and statistics to be filled out before the fun starts. And there are always the rules that sometimes hold you back.
So basicly. A pen and paper roleplaying game give you a set of rules and statistics but otherwise complete freedom to create stories together within a setting.
On to the questions, because a pen and paper roleplaying game needs a game master.
Can the game do without? Can a computer system do what a game master does? Can players make their own story? Can they work as a team to reach their goal?
I still want to make a game where players are being faced with tough choices, without having to go trough all the rules and statistics that come with a pen and paper roleplaying game. But can I make them interact with eachother just like in a roleplaying game? And can I manipulate their choices by visualising the situations they're in with artwork?
I'm reading a book called framed ink. It's about drawing and composition for visual storytellers. So can I tell my audience a story with visuals? How can I do that? I'm sure this book will give me some insights about that.
to summarize about roleplaying games:
Pro's: Great way to imagine stories. Working as a team to solve problems. A lot of freedom
cons: Heavily dependant on the Game master. And there are a lot of rules to keep in mind.
Tomorrow I'll talk about Telltale games. Probably about their game of thrones game because they are releasing episode two tomorrow.
zondag 1 februari 2015
New paintings and some time off
I made these two paintings while taking a break from research.
I've been watching some documentaries and youtube shows and I read some interesting books.
I focused a little bit more on storytelling with environments.
Tomorrow I'll try to share my experiences with a pen and paper roleplaying set in the Lord of the rings universe. It's very intersting for me because we are conjuring up stories without looking at visuals while playing. Why does this work and why doesn't it? I'll try to go a bit more in depth about that subject tomorrow.
I've been watching some documentaries and youtube shows and I read some interesting books.
I focused a little bit more on storytelling with environments.
Tomorrow I'll try to share my experiences with a pen and paper roleplaying set in the Lord of the rings universe. It's very intersting for me because we are conjuring up stories without looking at visuals while playing. Why does this work and why doesn't it? I'll try to go a bit more in depth about that subject tomorrow.
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