Research: Photos

My dad has been building an extension onto the side of our house this summer, and in the process opened up and removed a section of the roof. These are a few images I've taken with my phone of the structure in the roof, might use them as reference images for architecture and textures within the abandoned house.

And a few of the images I took today:

Research: Images

Here are some images I like the feel of, all found on WebUrbanist.com







I'm especially liking the images from here [opacity.us] and here [Urban-Spaceman's flickr].

Dissertation... Hmmm.

I don't know what I'm writing about.

The other day, Henry posed an interesting question on FB:

What would have the most real world impact? Making a fringe game for social change that preaches to the converted... or making a commercially successful mainstream game and donating the profits to charity?

Maybe I'll write about the different motivations behind making computer games; for money, to send a message, to create a world or stories, to make something fun or to have fun in the process of making something.

Oh, I don't know.

Concept: Deceiving the Eye

Trompe L'Oeil, the art of painting images so realistic that they often fool the viewer, is something I find really ingenious. Images that deceive the eye have been used in all sorts of applications. Historically it has been giving flat ceilings the appearance of great domed architecture, and creating the illusion of spaces beyond walls in homes and on stage in the form of back-drops.

These days, the technique has been adapted and brought into the digital world for use in modern 3D video games, not just in giving the illusion of texture on the walls in the environment, but also in sky-boxes to create the appearance of open but detailed space above and around the player, and in texturing the player and other characters in the game to give the 3D models details that have not actually been modelled. It is not a particularly new or innovative thing to do and is generally "the done thing".

I'd like to employ the technique of trompe l'oeil within the game in a way that forces the player to take notice of it. During the Wings of Fate project that I worked on in the second year of CGD at UWN, one of the game mechanics suggested was one in which the player would be able to travel through a painting into a mini-game.

What I had in mind for this project is to have Julian-Beever-like anamorphic trompe l'oeil images on the floors of some rooms [set within an abandoned and graffitied home, as the mystery of an abandoned place seems to be quite inviting to urban explorers within the real world] that look like holes in the floor when viewed from certain spots, showing views into strange rooms that look out of place within the context of an abandoned building.

If the player were to step on these areas in the floor, they would fall through the floor and into another room or level. Whether a player would fall through a floor or not would depend on what stage of the game they are at - at times they will be able to step on the painting, or even, are not able to pass through the painting whether they want to or not, as if it were only a painting on a floor.

They will not be given any obvious signals as to whether or not a painting would cause them to fall through, and would have to explore and test these paintings, perhaps by throwing objects found within the house onto the floor, to progress. These painting illusions could be found not only in the floors, but also in ceilings and walls, and not just in the abandoned house but also in the strange levels as the way back into the house.

The idea I want to run throughout the game is the feeling of uncertainty and things not being as they seem; to create an intriguing environment so as to invite exploration and in some cases literally offer different perspectives of the spaces, but not so unsettling and confusing that the player would give up the interaction before exploring fully.

Learning Unity3D: Challenge C03 (Beginner)

Getting the scoring to work was kind of tricky, but I got there in the end.



I noticed yesterday that B20, B21 and B22 have been added to the Beginner's section, so I'm going to watch those now :)

Learning Unity3D: Challenge C02 (Beginner)

Done! :)



Now on to challenge 3...

Learning Unity3D: Challenges

Today I watched I01 (Raycasting) and I02 (Basic Animation and Events) in the Intermediate section of the Unity 3D Student site, so I've now seen all of the tutorial modules that have been put up so far :D

Now I'm working through the challenges. So far there are 3 to do, all labelled as "Beginner".

C01 (Beginner) - Destroy the wall with the box.



Enjoyed that, but it makes me want to add a cannon for the cubes to shoot out of..

C02 (Beginner) - Seesaw launch the box to destroy the wall.

Managed to get the see-saw to do it [interestingly it doesn't work every time, you have to time it right otherwise it throws the cube either too far and over the wall or not far enough]. I'm also supposed to make the wall make a noise when it disappears. I don't have a sound picked out yet, so I'll need to find one quick, and then figure out how to do that part before I move on to the next challenge.

It's going well though. I think all the arty design work we've been doing made me forget how much I enjoy making coding work too.

Mind Maps and Scripting

Today I finished watching and taking notes of the scripts used in videos B00 to B19 in the Beginner's section of the Unity 3D Student site. I'm excited now, because I'm actually learning how to make stuff happen using scripts :D

Also started mind-mapping the inspirations for the actual game concept today. I was thinking about levels where the player would have to get to a certain position in a room so that an anamorphic image on a wall would become legible.

But then... it would turn out that the now legible writing is actually a riddle, that the player will need to figure out during the course of the game. Perhaps they'll need to read multiple clues for any of them to make sense.

That idea was kind of inspired by the Batman film I saw recently - the one with Jim Carey as Edward Nygma aka The Riddler.

Right, Plan of Action?

Mission 1: Here's the instructions we've been given for this summer...

Summer Assignment - Final Major Project

It is crucial that you begin the third year in the right frame of mind and with an ambitious yet realistic attitude to the work. Over the summer you are asked to decide whether or not you are going to work in a group. Group work is very highly recommended in the third year, but it is not mandatory, as some of you will have highly personal projects already in mind. You will be asked to pitch your initial ideas very soon after the beginning of term, so I would like you to begin the preproduction process over the summer, to be ready to provide an illustrated and written account of your ambitions for the final year. These projects will be formatively assessed at the beginning of the autumn semester.

And here's what I've got so far:

I fancy working on something that kind of doesn't make sense.

Something inspired by the transforming furniture and cool and crazy architecture I've been looking at a lot lately. I'm thinking, something that I would find as fun as I found wandering around Croft Manor; pressing buttons, making things move, exploring and making my way around.

Something that looks a little bit Julian Beever, sounds a little bit [Alice in] Wonderland, feels a little bit Indiana Jones and seems a little bit like a giant hamster cage in a mad scientists laboratory that's been "improved" with secret rooms of it's own.

Looks like I've just turned all the looking-at-cool-stuff-on-the-Internet that I did while on autopilot over the Summer into "important research for pre-pro". Nice one.

But before I get too excited over the possibilities, better learn to walk first. Time to find out how to actually implement hinge joints in Unity.

To start off with, I've watched the "Essential" Modules E00 to E09 on Unity 3D Student to get better acquainted with Unity3D, and actually did manage to learn a couple of things I didn't know already. So far so good.

Bend it, bend it, just a little bit o'...

... I don't know the rest of the words. For some reason I want to say "Tetleys Tea Bags, just a little bit o' " and then repeat.

Sooo, I had an idea today about what I want to do for the final major project. No one got back to me about my begging to make the best game in the world [except Todd, who said he had already made it], so I started thinking about what I would rather do if I had to work on something by myself.

I fancy working on something that kind of doesn't make sense.

Something inspired by the transforming furniture and cool and crazy architecture I've been looking at a lot lately. I'm thinking, something that I would find as fun as I found wandering around Croft Manor; pressing buttons, making things move, exploring and making my way around.

Something that looks a little bit Julian Beever, sounds a little bit [Alice in] Wonderland, feels a little bit Indiana Jones and seems a little bit like a giant hamster cage in a mad scientists laboratory that's been "improved" with secret rooms of it's own.

Looks like I've just turned all the looking-at-cool-stuff-on-the-Internet that I did while on autopilot over the Summer into "important research for pre-pro". Nice one.

But before I get too excited over the possibilities, better learn to walk first. Time to find out how to actually implement hinge joints in Unity.

Gyland: "Strange Stone Home Discovered"

If Gyland had newspapers, that's probably what they would have reported today.

Taking a little inspiration from some of the articles I read on dornob about modular buildings and other articles about modular dollhouses, I've added a building to Gyland made of 6 identical pieces.

I literally just plonked them together with one of the textures already in the Standard Assets, paying only a little attention towards making sure they were lined up vertically, and that access to each room was possible. I think I'm going to have to make a few modifications to the module to make each piece link up better, and I'll probably look into creating some linking stair-modules so you can reach the upper modules from the lower ones.

The model of the house is kinda starting to take shape aswell. I've got the basic roof shape modelled, but the upstairs internal walls need to be shrunk down vertically so that they don't stick out from it. And then there's still all the UV mapping to do... Good thing this is just a side project.

The real world roof is getting there too, dad is aiming to get it finished for the end of the month. Here's mum and dad working on it. I did take some funny shots of a local cat chilling out and licking it's bottom while the parents worked on the roof in the background, but apparently mum didn't find them funny enough to display on her FB album...

As for the annoying sister situation: they're all annoying me a little less now. It could be because I'm starting to feel less distressed in general about life... or it could be because it's nearly 2 weeks until I get to go back to Uni...

It's probably both.

Soon, my pretty, soon...

In three weeks, I'm getting a divorce.

No, not really - but I will be going back to uni, and back to the freedom of having my own room. Who would believe a 15 year old sister could spend so much time nagging. True, she doesn't actually do it all the time... but she does it way more than I'm willing to live with.

Oh well. On the plus side, the experience will drive me to work harder at number 4 on the list I wrote back in January. Too much of my Summer has been spent experiencing hell and I don't fancy spending any more of my life like this.

So guys, my fellow CGDers, please help me by letting me help you make an awesome game this year so I can get a job earning enough for me to pay for a room somewhere with cool flatmates. Please.

I am actually dying to be back in Uni. The freedom. Oh my; the freedom. So what if it wasn't true freedom, in that I probably signed an agreement somewhere to work hard and abide by rules or something - it totally beats living with someone who nags me like my sole purpose in life is to do exactly as she says before she has to say it like I'm some kind of mind reader...

To the men married to nags everywhere: I feel for you.

Transforming Furniture and Cool Homes

My latest obsessions were inspired by a link a friend posted on Facebook [my, does that Facebook get around. I've been hearing it referred to on TV as if it were an everyday part of British life.. So it's official, then].

Tranforming Furniture

I've kind of picked a really rubbish picture to illustrate. It's a .gif and it worked better when it was actually moving.. Check out Dornob for tons of better pictures of weird designs, and not just of the transforming variety.

Stylish transforming furniture is super cool. Maybe I just think it is because I've been living in 3-bedroomed houses in a family of 7 since 1996, with 4 girls squidged together in one room on two bunk beds for the majority of the time, or maybe it's because it makes me think of secret laboratories and hidden rooms. Or both.

I started figuring out how some of it works/could and even made a lame cardboard mock up out of a Cream of Mushroom Cup a Soup box. I think if I had the time and room to work in and my dad would let me borrow some of his tools, I could probably knock up something cool. But if that fails...

Dolls' Houses

Okay, so my recent project of building a virtual version of my house is probably quite like building a virtual doll's house. It makes sense I guess.

- I had Polly Pockets when I was little. I made a little flat out of paper for one. I think it had an elevator, but how I managed to come up with that and make it work I don't know.

- In a big bucket of sand I sculpted a haven for woodlice when I was around 5-7 years old, with some damp wood for them to munch on. They loved it.

- In DT at school I made a Barbie-sized plywood chair, complete with foam padding and light blue material covering [didn't quite get around to gluing the arm-leg pieces onto the main chair piece though, for some reason].

I'm fairly sure wanting to create little environments and worlds was probably one of my motivators for getting onto a CGD course in the first place.. But why stop there when I can create awesome little houses out of actual physical objects! ...Haha.

I'm pretty sure it'll be a full blown hobby eventually, but at the moment I'm thinking about making and publishing a book for kids who were/are like me. I could make one about Castles. And one about Fairy Hotels. And then when I'm rich because I've sold billions of copies, I can get onto the next project:

Cool Homes

Basically, my plan is to create a cool home for me. I've been spending a lot of time browsing the pages of WebUrbanist, and if I have learned one thing from them it's this: homes don't have to look like any of the houses you've ever lived in before.

I would probably have a secret laboratory, as well as a workshop and study [although they might be integrated with the lab]. An indoor gym and outdoor assault course like Lara Croft has in Tomb Raider III would probably be cool, and I'd have to have a party room or hangout area for friends to come chill in, and I would have other cool [a secret cinema?] and useful things in my house [like, um, an Internet connection and plumbing and electricity]. And it might be situated in a tree. And part of it would be underground. It would probably end up being the kind of place someone would walk into and say,

"... What?!"

Unless they were kids, in which case they'd probably just want to live there. And I would be like,

"NO! MY HOUSE! Go and buy all of my books and make friends with constructors and you can figure out how to build your own awesome house."

And then they would, and we'd all live happily ever after, each in our own houses. The End.

New House: First Floor and Stairs

Showed my sister Yvette and her friend Shannon what I've done so far.

Yvette used to love play Tomb Raider when she was little, and she is loving seeing our house take shape on a computer. Haha.

I haven't actually done any UV maps yet, and there aren't any windows. I've just applied a texture in Unity to help you see where the walls are as you wander around. Gotta say, it's looking a lot tidier than my actual house.

We have a lot of random stuff in our house, this shot doesn't really do it justice..

I think Yvette said she wants me to put Lara Croft into it, so she can run around shooting stuff in a place that looks like our house. Cough... although... I don't think I can really deny the fun in the idea..

New House: Ground Floor

Here's how the ground floor looks so far:

The First Floor will probably be trickier because of the angles of the roof.. I'm thinking I'll model the First Floor separately then put them together later. Haven't actually finished modelling the ground floor, still need to raise the internal walls, do the windows, the actual floor and the ceiling. And then after the modelling there's the UV map... and then texturing...

I wonder who will finish the place first, me virtually or my dad for real.

Nerd It Up

Soon after the last post, I went to my dad and asked him if he knew where a microscope was. I knew he had one, turns out he has two, and within the hour I was peering through the eyepiece at some mould I'd scraped off my bedroom door.

I'm so glamorous.

And now, I'm thinking about illustrating science.

If there is anything that Bill Bryson has made clear to me in his book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, it's that despite how much humans have learned, there is still a lot out there left for us to learn. Even the stuff we do know is a bit foggy. Whether it's illustrating species, explaining phenomenon, or presenting theories, there's always something to do. Which means... I'll always have something to draw.

Here's some I did earlier. What do you think?

I think I like painting bugs and stuff. One time, when I was younger, I painted a snail with nail varnish to make him pretty.

Maybe I'll utilise my CGD skillz to create interactive informative stuff. It doesn't even have to be interactive stuff, I could model skeletons, or draw bugs, or do cartoony learning aids like I would do for myself back in school...

Just an idea. In other news, I've actually now gotten my dad to give me the plans and elevations for our house as it will look when he's finished the extension. So, as soon as I've had some food, because I am very hungry, I'm going to get to work on them and start building the place up in Maya.

Feng Shui the mould away! [This has nothing to do with Games.. yet?].

I don't know why, but ever since I was little I've been a little into astrology, zodiacs, fortune telling, faeries, runes, and all kinds of old mystical stuff. The human imagination is a fascinating thing. I should probably start a research blog about it, since I return to it so often. I wonder how many people actually make a comfortable living off of it. Anyways, recently I've been focusing on Chinese Astrology, with it's Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches and Yin and Yang and Five Elements and Feng Shui and Four Pillars of Destiny.

It's a lot more complex and interesting than the Chinese Restaurants would suggest, where most people only ever come into contact with a list of 12 Animals. I'm not saying I believe in any of it, but I'd like to sometimes. Probably because I enjoy [and therefore spend so much time] reading about it...

As for Games stuff: Not done a lot. I have been pining away for uni because I miss the lifestyle, and my room here is horrible, cold and mouldy [literally]. I reckon my recent obsession with Feng Shui is just part of my drive to get rid of the mould. The sister I share my room with deals with the mess much the same way as I've read scientists in the past have dealt with strange phenomenon they can't explain: She ignores it. Instead of trying to minimise as much as possible the kind of environment mould loves, she buries her nose in a biology textbook and pretends it doesn't exist. But look what it does to my boots after only a week spent under the bed!!

The picture doesn't do it justice well, but they're supposed to be plain grey. I was raging. My sister probably doesn't care much because most of her stuff hasn't been that badly affected, and she doesn't want to have to do anything about it. I think I'd be more forgiving if she wapped out a powerful microscope now and then to examine the stuff that's started growing on the sides of the furniture, but alas, no...

Maybe I'll tell her that if she gets a microscope, I'll get a telescope and we can share them between us.. At least it would give me more stuff to look at in the RL, and she can feel more like a real scientist.

Gyland: Fire Oranges

The sky is pink again, and I've now got those fire oranges in. Giant ones.


Next addition could be giant snails with fireworks attached, inspired by Ollie Elliott...

Like a Headless Chicken

You may be wondering about the title of this post. Or maybe you're not. In any case, you probably won't be by the end of it.

Gyland: Oh, has it only been a day since yesterday's post?

So, what happened was this:

Which then turned into this:

Which then... uh.. became this...

Which inevitably resulted in this:

That's red biro hand-drawn circles on a scrap bit of paper painted with watercolour paints. Apparently there are only so many straight lines a girl can handle in one go.

In other news, I haven't developed the Morse Code game idea any further since I last thought about it. One of the WOF programmers, Dan Wynne, sent a few of us a message a few days ago about a game he wants to make based on a town like Dudleytown. Not sure what's going on with that right now, I think Dan's on holiday so I'll have to ask Pete what plans is.

I felt a little zap of inspiration today when someone I know posted on Facebook that Tetris is the reason kids drop bricks off of bridges. Made me laugh. I was thinking of a game based on the 'lives of Tetris block characters when they're not busy being dropped', but I don't know how long that idea is going to hang around for.

I also watched this recently:


Reminded me of a request made of me by a friend to make an inspirational martial arts film over summer... Except I don't know how I'd even begin...

I guess I'd have to start with baby steps. Maybe I'll watch some of the old Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers for inspiration, since it was a childhood favourite... Or I could use one of my friend's own fight scene films as reference for choreography and recreate it with some snazzy cartoon characters in place of the human fighters. Haha. Ooh! Maybe I'll use some of the old flash characters me and Ben were working on. Maybe Squeak and Headphone Jack...

I don't think this is going to be quite what Mr Ware meant when he requested an inspirational martial arts film.

Gyland: Skylines

I've been searching for a tutorial online for creating your own skyboxes by hand. The results were horrendous. Tons of pre-made [and probably really good quality] skyboxes, plenty of instruction on how to implement them, a few that show you how to make them by taking images within 3D software of terrain you've modeled yourself [but less good due to lack of distortion]... But absolutely nothing along the anamorphic distortion or warping of 2d images to create seamless boxes that don't look boxy.

I even saw someone post on a forum that it was basically impossible. Is this what we've come to? Tools created for the masses to make things easier for them, stripping them of the need to work things out for themselves, resulting in masses who seem to believe that working it out humanly is impossible and that it can only be done by computers? Ridiculous!

Check this out.

Looks messy, huh? But I know it can be done, and I'm not the only one - I'm sure there are plenty of modern artists that understand how to make it work, and it's only a matter of time before I join them... Ooh.

There's that mad-scientist feeing again. Excellent!