Research Methods - Writing Task Week 4

Research Question:

How pre production concept art affects the creation of a memorable video game boss level?

Consider Other Questions:

-How did computer performance and capability effect creating art for a game?

-A concept artist can't work on their own, how does a concept artist come up with ideas?

-Why is communication with other departments necessary?

-What kind of medium processes does a concept artist go though?

-What inspired artists to create bosses in past video games?

-Why are memorable bosses memorable? Looks? Difficulty? Story personality trait? Fun level?

-Although some game mechanics are similar, how does the character and environment make the gaming experience different?

-What kind of references do concept artists use when considering a look for a boss depending on the game's genre?

-What is the formula that divides the boss from regular, disposable enemies?

-How does the unison of gameplay mechanics and character creation form a unique boss?

-How/why can controversial boss battles become memorable?

System for Organising/note-taking/weekly reflections or analysis.

. Evernote for Windows: captures all thoughts ideas inspirations, keeps track of all saved searches with Evernote Webclipper.

. Evernote for Android phones: Allows me to keep mental notes and ideas for exegesis while on the go.

Research Methods - Writing Task Week 3

Refining research question:

How has pre production concept art affected the evolution of creating a memorable video game boss level?

Uniqueness of boss levels between previous video games.

• How boss characters and their environments in past games differ from each other visually, scrutinising similarities and originality. Why are they memorable?

Brief history of game development in terms of concept art.

• Explore the evolution of concept art through backtracking video game history, considering the technological capabilities that were available then and now.
  
  

Thought/creative process of developing a boss and its environment.

• Exploring the fundamentals in character and level creation, keeping in constant communications with designers and how this affects the outcome.

The significance of concept art within the games industry.

• Researching how past artists' methodology, work flow and thought process is used towards developing concept art for games with differing criteria/genres/stories.

Search Terms:

Concept art, pre production art, video game history, boss level/character creation, art of the game.

Organisation:

Every reference found will have its details saved in a word document, with a date and location of when and where it was found.

Successful search terms will be written down along with important forums, blogs and professional websites

Also for Illustration for Design

Doing a packaging task for a wine bottle. Can you guess which wine company?
I quite like the way it turned out. If only I could be just as happy with my writing essays for my Honours exegesis.

Yeah I couldn't be buggered doing the poor guy's feet, but they'll be hidden behind the wine label.
Cheerio for now! I'll hopefully post more exegesis work here soon. Anyone got any ideas for motivating one's self to write an essay?

Good morning Gruffalo redesign

Before my day starts. Hopefully i get a final design done for my Illustration for Design assignment

Practice

Just came back from watching Tom Gleeson perform for the Brisbane Comedy Festival. Which made me want to practice realistic faces, which i should really work on improving. Hopefully i'll be able to make time to do more of these.
1hr to complete.

Illustration for Design - The Gruffalo

Working on my i4D semester assignment. Objective is to redo 2 characters from either The Gruffalo, Rapunzel or Count Olaf (Series of Unfortunate Events). This is one concept done for the Gruffalo.

Needs to be cuter because I only found out that it still has to appeal to the target audience >_>
The other one I'm working on is Count Olaf, which I'm pretty close to having a final piece sketched out.

Arvo stress release

Helps with the calming of he mind when I have to write lots. But so far my motivation to write is at an all time low...mainly because I'm really bad at it.

This is from yesterday ^_^

Bullet Revisted

By the way, not only am I working on my honours, Nic, Tyson and myself are continuing to improve Bullet, which was pretty and playable by the end of last year. We are trying to revisit some problems, replace and add original designs for the game's exploding items and a possible redesign of the menu.
Right, so here's a concept for the main menu, this will be applied to other menus, just with the change of options.
My thoughts are that when the menu goes into level select, revolver chamber will zoom in to show half the chamber, and each level's entrance is shown, lined up to each bullet set in the chamber. As the player flicks through the levels, the chamber will turn to view to the next level.
I'll do my best to explain through concepts...might be better to understand.

Just to Begin...

I'm sure no matter what age you are or what country you live in, if you're reading this you've most likely played a game at least once in your life. Whether it was when you played Dungeons and Dragons way back in 1975, button-mashing trying in Street Fighter in the 90s, or having your bowls emptied from shear terror as you play Amnesia, I'm sure at some point you have also played a game which consisted of a boss fight/level of some sort. They can frustrate you to the point of never wanting to touch the game again, or become the bane of your existence, either way they can easily become part of a game's development to create a climax and add to the emotion of a story. In upcoming posts I'll be exploring the successful and unsuccessful boss levels in gaming history, both mainstream and indie games, why they did or didn't work out, how they were memorably good or bad, and how certain games can exclude a boss and still win over gamer's hearts.

While researching things, I will also be trying my hand at creating bosses and their environments as my accompanying project to my exegesis.

Although I realise there are a ridiculous amount of games that have been made and played, I will focus mainly on the memorable, the loved, the hated and the accoladed. And I will try my best to be accurate in my findings, if there is something that I have written that is incorrect, feel free to inform me without hurling abuse ^_^

The Topic of the Year

If you so happen to be curious about what I plan to be working on and around this year, here is the gist of it, since I had to do a brief explanation it for this week's research methods class:

Theme of Research: Concept art in games.

Brief Description of Research:

Pre-production art in the games industry is a key component to creating an interesting gaming experience. Comparing boss levels in video games in terms of their visual and emotional impact, whilst discovering the creative process to developing a boss and its compatible environment shows the importance of conceptual planning in games.

4 aspects/concepts I'll be focussing on:

- Uniqueness of boss levels between previous video games.

- Brief history of game development in terms of concept art.

- Thought/creative process of developing a boss and its environment.

- The significance of concept art within the games industry.

I'm also beginning to buy more concept art books that'll go towards my research, so far I've bought

The Art of God of War III, The Art of Bioshock 2: Deco Devolution and The Art of Uncharted 2 Among Thieves. Still waiting on The Art of Resident Evil 5, The Art of Darksiders and a brand new wireless wacom tablet that will hopefully make my life a little easier ^_^

And due to my scan being a retard, scanning and posting will have to come later.

Bye for now, not forever!