Nightmare

On Monday we got given the task to create a character out of our chosen disciplinary. My second disciplinary is turning more towards nightmares than the broad 'Dreams'. It was really fun making the characters!!

But ok, so like the top left one looks like a sheet over a tomato. The skull concept reminds me of Ghost Rider. The star just. What. The right concept looks like a chili worm and the bottom right looks like someone experimented on Pikachu. The top right ...Idk. Just. I was on a drawing roll...buuuuut not a good one.

SO I want with the 3 horned character concept which I based on Gastly, who is a ghost type Pokemon (and one of my favourites!! YAAAS).

The 'horns'on the head represent part of a star while the head is like a moon. In recurring nightmares, there is a repetition of an item. For the character it can be seen as the 3 horns 'repeating'.

And because I'm hella original, my character is called Nightmare. His ability is giving people nightmares by flying through them. Flying through the victim gives Nightmare all the knowledge of what the victim is afraid of along with all negative thoughts the victim has had in their lifetime. The nightmares loop in said person's head, but it changes ever so slightly each time it recurs.

I couldn't think of a final coloured version, so VARIETY. Perhaps depending on how strong the Nightmare/ Creature is, will depend on the colour. Yellow being a pre chill nightmare, but the kind of nightmare that repeats an embarrassing event reflected from reality. Light blue being something the person is worried will happen. Dark blue is the same as light blue, but more realistic. Purple is about a loved one that has passed on. Red is what the person is scared of.
So I'd say mainly stay away from Purple & Red D:

Colour Palette

I had a quick look at colours for our game. I really like Ivan Laliashvili choice of colours, so I decided to colour pick from 2 of his paintings. As our game is set in places like forests, the colours would vary. From earthy warm colours to cool colours like water and grass. We are aiming to have a very beautiful game so colour picking is very important. The colours I picked are quite light and not too harsh. The darkness of the colours would vary though in terms of shadows etc. 

ReferencesIvan Laliashvili
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Loading-animation-1-399846010
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Magic-Kingdom-382158219

Character Moodboard/ Inspiration

I decided to look up cute little plant type characters to get inspiration for our character. I imagine our character being thin or quite round. Rounder shapes are typically more on the cute side than sharp lines and edges. A character I thought of straight away is bellsprout from Pokemon. It's capable of a lot and it's movements are quite interesting.

References
http://pokemonqrcode.com/bellsprout
http://pokemonqrcode.com/oddish
http://pokemonqrcode.com/bulbasaur
http://zestydoesthings.deviantart.com/art/Marvin-the-Mandrake-320045677
http://safebooru.org/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=1251271
http://c-louds.deviantart.com/art/radish-384453661
http://www.zazzle.co.nz/cute+radish+gifts
http://www.otakustudy.com/video-game/2012/07/nis-america-release-character-profiles-for-legasista/
http://rewatchingpokemon.tumblr.com/post/101634160380/dealing-with-anon-hate-like
http://iliketoothpaste.tumblr.com/post/56358190533

Concepts

Over the last few days, I've been working on character concepts & an environment concept for Team Sprout. I feel like the environment concept that I've done doesn't convey a side scroller look at all. Also this is what the end of a level is most likely to look like. This is due to the level starting off quite dead and as the character progresses, the environment slowly comes back to live. This is due to the character planting seeds and restoring the environment.

For character designs, I started off by using simple shapes and chucking leaves on top (middle & bottom rows) These designs are pre boring.
I then came across this image & thought 'Why don't I add NZ native plants to the characters??'
I drew some Koru & Pohutukawa flowers onto characters. I like these concepts the best! They were fun to draw as well.

Reference
http://probertson.tumblr.com/post/125576347404/succulent-boys
http://www.studynewzealand.eu/archive/1354917493/New-Zealand-Christmas-Tree
http://gonewzealand.about.com/od/NewZealandTravel/tp/Cheap-New-Zealand-Tips-For-Cheap-Travel-In-New-Zealand.htm

History

On Friday, we got given the task to show history ?? type thing. We had the option to do an animation or draw a still image. I went with a still image as I didn't have my tablet with me on the day and my idea worked better with a drawing....at least I think it did.
Our tutor showed us this funky mind blowing cube that apparently was spinning. It looked more like a cube eating itself over and over...
SO I thought of an old 'car' and a more modern car being connected in a box. When I showed others this image, they thought the more modern car was pulling the older car due to the 'strings'...it looked better in my head.

Origins of Dreams and breaking them down.

I need to understand more about dreams before I dive into more ideas. This blog post contains research and text from Strephon Kaplan William's 'The DreamWork Manual' A step by step introduction to working with dreams.
So I now know a few things about nightmares, but I've missed the obvious questions.
What is a dream? Where do they originate? How do we understand them?

What is a dream?
-A dream is a manifestation of images & sometimes sounds which show common & uncommon interrelations.
-A dream is a mirror reflecting some aspect of life or the unconscious.
-A dream is a call to living more fully than can be lived just at the conscious level.
-A dream is the creation of night.
To start of with a dream, we have the remembered dream which is filtered by some ego process- 'Remembering Ego' which brings the dream into the waking state, but already begins to change → As dreams are unclear - the consciousness tries to piece it together to make sense of it, even in a way that wasn't dreamt. →→→→→Distorting the dream to the conscious ego's will. Partially when a dream is worked with, it will reveal things the ego does not particularly want to face.

"The outer world is no less perceived through assumptions than the inner world is perceived through assumptions". Objectifying unconscious assumptions through the process of consciousness.
It can be important to know what stimulates dreams. Whether it's through past experiences or what the dreamer hopes for the future.

For objectifying a dream (Breaking the dream down in it's concrete form).
-What are the major symbols & what are the relations between symbols?
-What issues, conflicts & unresolved situations are in the dream?
-What are the positive symbols etc in the dream?
-Does it relate to other dreams?
→ Objectifying a dream would also benefit to breaking down a nightmare.


Types of Dreams
-Nightmares/ Anxiety Dreams
-Great Dreams →Reflect on major experiences
-Ordinary Dreams →The every day kind of dream loaded with inner & outer life issues
-Skunk Dreams → Dream in which we do something bizarre that we do not do in public outer life.
-Confirming Dreams → Mirrors something significantly, a new step we have taken in our lives
-Predictive Dreams → Either future events or help cause them to happen
-Psychic Dreams → Involve spontaneous perceptions across time & space which could not be based on outer knowledge.
-Lucid Dreams → Describe the dream state in which the dream ego experiences itself as exerting will power & free choice
-Waking Dreams → Are outer life experiences which are viewed & worked with also as symbolic, or non-literal, experiences.

Group Work! SPROUTS

For the interactive paper, we formed groups to create a game for the remainder of the year. I formed a group with Taylor, Mikayla, Joanne & Tea & we are caller TEAM SPROUTS :D

Yesterday we brainstormed ideas and rather than having separate ideas, we choose the idea of sprouts right off the bat. This is because we found some sprout hair clips and they're pre cute & we wanted to make a cute game. From there we had loads of ideas regarding sprouts and the environment. 

We decided to make the game fully natural, with nothing man made. As the game must have a humanoid main character, our hero will be a humanoid type plant/ sprout kinda guy. We also want our character to be gender-less. Jo wrote down all our ideas and compiled them together. 

Our general idea is that a lil sprout dude needs to replant the forest to save his kind. He will collect seeds and water to help them grow and fight off pests such as snails and slugs. As we had a looooot of ideas, I'm not entirely sure with which idea we're going with just yet, but that's the jist of our game to be :)

After our brainstorm sesh, we each went off to make a moodboard, draw up a few character concepts and environment concepts. The moodboard I've created is more closely linked to the colours and style I imagine the game. The designs in this moodboard are simple,. but very beautiful. We want to make our game purely 2D, so we can focus on the story and making our game very appealing. 2D is also our strong point and we feel like it will be better portrayed in 2D rather than 3D.
I will most likely get the character and environment done in the weekend. I've started an environment in my book, but will most likely take it into paint tool sai to brush it up more :)

Our theme is fantasy, so we are able to change up the environment - with out of this world kind of designs. Ivan Laliashvili shows interesting fantasy environment concepts. The trees almost look like they have natural carvings on the bark. I think it'd be quite neat if we implemented this idea by having natural Maori carvings on the trees to better link it to being a NZ game.

References
http://tyvik.deviantart.com/art/Environment-Concept-349531184
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Flora-and-Scene-Designes-545349113
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Morpho-Goons-Environment-568620774
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Underworld-sidescroller-concept-art-495617010
http://domen-art.deviantart.com/art/Concept-art-for-2D-sidescroller-495616936
http://pyroxene.deviantart.com/art/Sagramore-MMO-background-gfx-1-256612930|
http://fgfactory.deviantart.com/art/Environments-627483972
http://jurgitaart.deviantart.com/art/2D-environment-520575262

Ivan Laliashvili
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Loading-animation-1-399846010
http://ivanlaliashvili.deviantart.com/art/Magic-Kingdom-382158219

Dreams & Nightmares

Humans are unable to see thoughts, memories, dreams & perceptions.
I thought having a look into dreams/nightmares would be quite neat.

It's not much, but it's another step forward!
Just as I dove into psychology, a website called medicalnewstoday.com mentioned how we are unable to physically see mental processes such as thoughts, memories, dreams and perceptions. I instantly thought how neat it would be to look more into dreams and nightmares.

To me, dreaming is still a fuzzy thing. I barely have clear dreams that I can remember, but only fragments. When it comes to nightmares I remember them quite well. Recurring dreams also came into play. I had this one nightmare that would recur a few times, but small things about that nightmare would change. So it would still be scary each time as my unconscious mind wouldn't know what to expect with each change as it recurred.

Recurring dreams may be your mind’s way of telling you something. Do you have the same nightmare over and over again? Loewenberg suggests looking for underlying messages in recurring dreams so that you can rid yourself of them.

Recurring nightmares
-Repetition of an item
-Slight changes with each recurrence
-Links to experiences e.g. attack, accident, traumatic event
-Associates with fear, anxiety & distress.
-Nightmares occur more with children than adults

Notes
-Lucid Dreaming → Having control of a dream.
-Apon awakening our thoughts see our dreams as something bizarre
-First dream of the night = 5mins long. Last dream of the night = 45mins - 1hr

IDEA
A boy is at sea in a boat during the day searching for something. It changes to night time and there is a lighthouse. The lighthouse's light loops around which signifys the first nightmare. Each loop of the light represents the recurred nightmare. Something about the scene, be the lighthouse or environment would change.
The significance of this is that the little boy is scared of the dark- being the dark itself or what lurks in the dark like monsters 'monsters under the bed or in the closet'
I would take into consideration the length of dreams - the first dream is 5mins long and the last is nearly an hour long. Taking this into the animation and translating it into 1minute long, the dream part of the boy at sea in daylight would last 10secs, while the rest is a nightmare, being 50seconds. Yay for ratios.

This is just an idea, but I feel like it needs more properties of nightmares/ dreams within it. I've only just touched on nightmares, so I need to look deeper to better incorporate it into animation.

My tutor suggested looking at Carl Jung & Sir Sigmund Freud as well as surrealism to get a better understanding and hopefully more ideas!

references
http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/nightmares-in-adults#1
http://www.clinicaladvisor.com/web-exclusives/determining-the-cause-of-recurring-nightmares/article/224569/
http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/9-things-about-dreams?page=3

Taylor's Memory

On Monday we got given a small brief by one of our peers to do a one second animation of said peer's favourite childhood memory. Taylor and I paired up and her memory is of her sister, cousin and herself dressing up as Teen Titan characters. The would go to their Nana's house and film themselves and watch them. I animated them watching their own footage whilst the smell of their Nana's cooking wafted into the room.

A Look into Psychology

My mind is been very blank regarding what discipline I want to go with. I have interests in different things, but none that I have lots of knowledge in. So I've decided to go with something more abstract and something I don't really understand at all..which doesn't seem like the obvious choice.
I've decided to look into Psychology - I'm not entirely sure if this is what I want to go with, but it's getting more and more interesting so I'll keep looking into it and hopefully something will jump up and smack me in the face.
Psychology is very broad, so I'm having a look at each branch to better understand what exactly psychology is. (I honestly didn't know what psychology was before I looked into it now)...

Psychology is the science of the mind and behavior. The word "psychology" comes from the Greek word psyche meaning "breath, spirit, soul", and the Greek word logia meaning the study of something.

Clinical Psychology →
Concentrates on the intellectual, emotional, biological, psychological, social, & behavioral aspects of human performance. The scientific study & application of psychology in order to understand, prevent & alleviate psychologically- caused distress or dysfunction (disability) & promote the patients well-being & personal development.

Cognitive Psychology →
Investigates internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, learning & language (how people think, perceive, communicate, remember & learn). How people acquire, process & store information.

Developmental Psychology →
The scientific study of systematic psychological changes that a person experiences over the course of his/her life span. Human development. Includes any psychological factor including motor skills, problem solving, moral understanding, acquiring language, emotions, personality, self concept & identity formation.

Evolutionary Psychology →
How human behavior has been affected by psychological adjustments during evolution. An evolutionary psychologist believes, for example, that language or memory perception are functional products of natural selection.

Forensic Psychology →
Applying psychology to criminal investigation and the law. Includes understanding criminal law in order to interact with judges, lawyers etc within the legal system. Forensic psychology involves the ability to testify in court, to present psychological findings in legal language to the courtroom, and to provide data to legal professionals in a clear way.

Health Psychology →
Observes how behavior, biology & social context influence illness & health. A health psychologists aim is to improve the patient's overall health by analyzing disease in the context of biopsychological factors (how the brain & neurotransmitters influence our behaviors, thoughts & feelings). 

I'll look into more branches in another blog post

Tome, Weapon & Steampunk Items Feedback

On Tuesday, I also got given feedback for the tome I created as well as the weapon and steampunk items.
Lena suggested showing the feather dagger to look more sharp and pointed as it is quite round at the tip. Also showing a texture on the feather would be helpful as it isn't obvious that is is tough or hard..looks more like something that will tickle someone to death rather than poison them.

For the steampunk item, Mikayla noticed the 2 magnifying parts of the goggles and said a neat idea regarding them. As the goggles see into the near future, the magnifiers can see further into the future, but the range of sight is smaller. I like this idea is it puts a use to this part of the goggles and isn't there for decoration.

Horror Environment Concepts + Feedback

I've been meaning to post this for the last few days!!
On Tuesday we were given the task to draw 4 horror game environment concepts. I drew my ideas up fast, so they aren't thought out very well. They had to include a sunflower and a baby flower rattle.

This concept is quite boring and doesn't have much going for it. My tutor Lena, suggested playing around with the lighting. E.g. light coming in from the window, which will cause the sunflower to simply be a black silhouette. Taylor said the sunflower can cast a creepy shadow. My own thoughts on it include, shifting the window over, so it's not in the center, more toys on the ground and perhaps a different angle of the view.

When I think of a baby rattle or toy, I begin to think of other related baby things, in this case a cot. Lena suggested making it more clear on which direction the attack on the cot is coming from. I said that I wasn't sure if someone attacked the cot or if it was the baby that wreaked the cot. So I understand that showing a clear indication of the direction of the attack would help the player better understand the image and what happened. Jerwin said that the sunflower on the wall makes it look creepy. Mikayla suggested having the image crooked on the wall or even on the ground, showing that it has fallen off. I really like this idea, but I reckon it can definitely go both ways. - A messy room with something untouched can add emphasis to each thing depending on the way you look at it. A fully messy room can shock the player.

I took the previous concept and changed it up more. I originally wanted the hands to be coming out of a big shadow, but didn't get around to drawing it in. I added shadow to add emphasis which looks a lot more interesting than the previous concept.

This concept isn't much of an environment concept, but I went with it. Tea suggested that the flower that the baby is holding would be dead, while the sunflower next to it would stay alive. This is a neat idea as it suggests that the baby is possessed or some sort of demon or not from this world.

Jellyfish Animation

Today for class we had to come up with an animation over a funky background being some wateeeeer. I imagined some jellyfish minding their own business near the surface when a wave kinda pushes them down causing them to tumble about in the water. Poor jellies ♥

Tower~

Tower made in unity! I thought I understood it, but when I came back to doing it again today...I stuffed up. BUT I sort of understand the parenting now!!

Book Club

On Monday, our task was to change an already created comic into a different story type thing. The thing I changed about a character are the faces.  
I chose Boku Wa Tomodachi Ga Sukunai and this is what I came up with. 

Hypertext Exercise

We need to create a tome, steampunk item and a weapon. I've mixed my tome and steampunk items together. In the letter, an item is mentioned which is the steampunk item. The reader gets a warning through the tome and the steampunk item is there along with the item to help get them through their journey.

Here's what I wrote in the tome if you can't read it clearly:
Please don't go astray within the thorn maze, for it has a mind of it's own & you must stay on guard!! I barely made it out alive & sent my hawk here to deliver this message & item for anymore that dares to journey through this path. I've left an invention of mine that will help you through the maze. Good luck & stay on your toes!!

These googles will grant you sight into the near future and will help you determine your destiny! Change the future for the better with this crafty accessory and help make the world the world a better place.

As for the weapon, I incorporated a feather with a dagger. Feather are soft, where's this one definitely isn't.

These feather daggers are hard to come by as the feathers are extremely difficult to find. You don't want to miss out on this great weapon! The sharp teeth of the feather rip into the enemy whilst poison spreads out from the centre of the feather. We still don't know what creature this feather comes from, but there is no antidote for the poison, so be careful! Guaranteed to slay your enemy within minutes.

Animating the taste of food

In class on Friday, we had to animate the 'taste' of food. Our tutor gave us lots of different options to choose from and I chose Green Tea Pocky. I found it difficult to animate as I was using a mouse with my right hand..and I'm a lefty D: I pictured it a bit differently, but this is what my right hand did...it has a brain of it's own D:
The pocky was calming and smooth like waves, Then the biscuit kind of interrupted that, being the weirdly shaped bouncy things I drew. The animation as a while sucks cos yeah, my right hand wasn't co-operating ...

Transdisciplinary Animation Project

This term we have to write a Creative Brief for a Transdisciplinary Animation Project. We need to mash animation with another disciplinary and I honestly don't know where to start.

I really like what Dane come up with music. With the animation crossing over one another then back to the same speed and then crossing over again. I'd like to use music as my second disciplinary, but I would not know what to look for and I don't know much about music. Saying this, we do need to research our second disciplinary. Although I'm not sure how far we have to look into something in order to say 'Ah yes, I will go with this disciplinary!' If it doesn't work out, then I would lose a lot of time.

I need to think of options at least and quick...it's already week 3 now...