Hickner, Cars, and Sculpting!

So I learned a really good piece of advice from a very knowledgeable, talented, and kind man, Mr. Steve Hickner:

"When someone gives you a note on what to do, do the spirit of the note, not the note itself."

Mr. Steve Hickner had visited my Thesis class AND gave a presentation to the Computer Animation and Game Art Department about staging and other cool ways to make our films read better. 

This was a person's notes on what Mr. Hickner talked about last year (click for link) to Ringling Students, but it was pretty much the same this year with current students' work. Still very valuable today!

I was fortunate enough to get a one on one meeting with Mr. Hickner! We discussed really cool ideas to help sell my work in my thesis film. Alot of it had to do with staging, dynamic camera angles, and pretty much good filming techniques. One of the things I was struggling with was having flat camera shots because I was trying to show gameplay in 1st person view. But Mr. Hickner made me realize that when making something like a trailer, the most important thing is to show off what looks cool!!

Soon after my meeting I got really inspired and went to the library. A notable DVD I picked up was Citizen Kane, which I hear is great for learning film language.

Then I got hit by a car on the way home as I walked the crosswalk.  Lol. It was slow progress after that for a couple of days.

~~~

After my talk with Mr. Hickner and my teacher Ed Gavin, I'd decided to include more of my Hero character and LESS of the ghostie summoning scene. You only see the pet ghost once in my trailer, so why waste frame time. 

I've changed some of my trailer scenes to look more like this:

• Solve Puzzles Scene

• Fight Monsters Scene

• Upgrade your Magic  

Here are some really cool 3D sculpts and photos I want to use as inspiration for me as I work:

• Colored Models from DarkSiders 2.
• Sculpts from DarkSiders 2.
• Darksiders 2 Environment Art
• An artist that my teacher, Martin Murphy, suggested: Ilya Nedyal
• Another artist Marty suggested: Kevin Johnstone
• http://www.pitut.com/leather-desk-chair-design-and-unique-forms-of-monster/
• http://www.designboom.com/weblog/read.php?CATEGORY_PK&TOPIC_PK=2255
• http://hatboy.tumblr.com/tagged/Illustration

Progress:

• Big Ghost Skull
• 3 hours working on it so far. My estimate was: 7 for worst case scenario. 5 for most likely. 4 for Optimistic. I'm a little rusty in Zbrush, so hopefully I'll be alot faster in the future. Done with this sculpt for now, and moving on to the body.

• Column Statue Face
• It looks funny right now. lol. But the plan is to put it at the base of the column arch. Still working on this one.

Trivia: There is 1800 frames in a minute.

Day before Steve Hicker Crit

Progress

• Almost finished blocking out dungeon room. I plan to get it into my trailer for tomorrow's crit. RAWR!
• With the way this room was designed, a person should be able to navigate it from beginning to end. But only with the "puzzle" part. The ghost battles will be scripted, so they won't be able to actually fight.
• I plan to minimize the library room, and make it one of the rooms in this environment. It will have a secret passageway that will lead to the Throne Room. The Throne Room will stay more or less the same, but will definitely go thru a reduction in size as well, since the Library room is not there anymore.

• Piranesi is my HERO.  <3 I've found my direction for level layout!

Piranesi!

Library Activities

• Picked up 3 Piranesi Books. (Great stuff!)

Progress

• blocked out more of the dungeon room.

Notes

• Play using xbox controller to test area. It helps with designing a fun room.
• Checked out Pivotal Tracker. Not sure if it'll be useful for me.
• Need to make a to do list page. Not sure where the best place for that will be. (pivotal tracker?)
• Make long hallway, a prison area, where ghost attack you!

Library Activities

• picked up Uncharted 2 art book.

Post 1st Crit

ASAP Thing to Do:

1. Finished environment room layout/blockout.
2. Record audio for intro & laughter part.
3. Model Important Assets.

Library Activities:

• picked up Coraline.
• picked up Harry Potter movie 2&3 for dungeon reference.
• picked up Harry Potter "page to screen" book.
• picked up Corpse Bride art book.

1st Faculty Crit

The crit went very well!

I presented a PDF slideshow of what my world was going to be like, what my production scope was, what my hero asset would be, and my revised art direction for the game.

Hero Asset

Art Direction

 Had some suggestions on better camera positions. But overall the attitude of the faculty was that they liked what I had this time alot better than last year's animatic, which was more of a linear trailer. My animatic now plays alot more like Orcs Must Die: Reveal Trailer. With a more energetic shot sequence and informational slides in between.

The Action Plan

1. Work on finishing layout of Dungeon Room and Throne room.
2. Start modeling style appropriate models.
3. Watch references that were suggested in crit (Tim Burton movies).
4. Work on all the crit notes.
5. Make an asset list.
6. Learn some particle work in UDK.

The Struggle

Having some trouble coming up with good blockouts for my level. Not sure what to make. Will keep doing research...