Oscars Winners 2016

Best Picture

Nominees 

Spotlight

The Revenant 

Bridge of Spies

Mad Max: Fury Road

The Martian

Room

The Big Short

Brooklyn

Winner: Spotlight

Best Actor

Nominees

Matt Damon

Bryan Cranston

Michael Fassbender

Eddie Redmayne

Leonardo DiCaprio

Winner: Leonardo DiCaprio

Best Actress

Charlotte Rampling

Brie Larson

Cate Blanchett

Saoirse Ronan

Jennifer Lawrence

Winner: Brie Larson

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees

Tom Hardy

Christian Bale

Sylvester Stallone

Mark Ruffalo

Mark Rylance 

Winner:  Mark Rylance

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees

Kate Winslet

Jennifer Jason Leigh

Rachill McAdams

Alicia Vikander

Rooney Mara

Winner: Alicia Vikander

Best Director

Nominees

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

George Miller

Larry Abrahamson

Tom McCarthy

Adam McKay

Winner: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Best Visual Effects

Nominees

The Revenant

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Martian

Ex Machina

Mad Max: Fury Road

Winner: Ex Machina

Victorian Bed Model

My horror game project is set in a Victorian-like time period, in an upper class house. This means I can use candles and lanterns that emit dim light instead of brightly lit bulbs, I find a darker environment more unsettling, also the furniture will use darker materials such as mahogany and dull woods accompanied by dark red carpets and dull wallpaper.

I'm still unsure about what all the rooms will be, I want them to be different but also have a pattern with each other. I'll start by making a bedroom because it'll have the most reusable assets.

By the end of the project I want to have a huge array of different Victorian models including; beds, tables, chairs, bottles, and accessories such as grandfather clocks. I'd like to render each model out and put them all in a collection for anyone to use.

Starting with the bed. Here are some of the images I took inspiration from.

Heres the model so far.

I'll texture it shortly and I'll post it soon along with another model I work on, it'll most likely be a grandfather clock because I can really go into detail with it.

Cross Product

I learned about cross product earlier and despite struggling to get my head around it when Ant explained it, I found out its really quite easy in practise. Above is my scrabbled mess of a working-out sheet, hopefully its understandable to everyone.

Here's how I work it out:

Since there are 3 values, (x,y,z) you can single out one of them and use the other two. So to work out 'x' I can use 'y' and 'z'. The diagram above shows it the best, well better than I can explain it in words anyway.

Unity Programming Project #2

My plan for this project is to create rough levels that I can use as a template while I get the code to work properly. I'll keep the models to another post so I can go into detail about how I made them and how I textured them, but that's for another time. To ensure the code works I'm just going to use plains with walls in the Unity engine.

I've drawn up a diagram of how I want the game to work:

The diagram shows a top-down view of the games layout, with 4 medium sized rooms connected by 4 narrow corridors. The red line is a trigger, and will randomly select a room layout, (I plan on making upwards of 15), I have used this corridor as a trigger point because the player will not be able to see the two rooms from this position. The green line will do the same thing, but for the other two rooms.

This 'changing room' mechanic is the main feature of the game, the player should get a feeling that they're going in circles. The other main feature is similar to slender, where you are constantly being followed by something.

The hardest thing about this whole project is going to be the changing room mechanic, I'm going to test it by having about 8 rooms with different box-layouts to see if I can get it to look good enough. The following slender-like monster isn't too much of an issue.

Other than these two main features I may add some collectables so players really get involved in the rooms and panic more, but I'll leave that for later.

This is what I have right now, I'll leave the walls invisible so I can see the triggers in action without having to move through the level.

New Video

I spent some time recording and editing some gameplay from Counter Strikes new operation, it's mainly just to see how some of the effects look on the new levels, and so far they all look pretty good. I thought I'd upload it and show it off here.

I'm happy with the effects I've learnt over the past few months even though I've barely scratched the surface. I'm always making projects like this, most of which take more time to actually record rather then edit, anything else I make I'll post in a blog as usual.

Heres the link to the video: New Video!

GamerVFXerAnimationer #5

Games: Assassins Creed developers Ubisoft have recently revealed that there will be no major instalment of the series coming in 2016, which is a relief for the gaming community in general for many reasons. Assassins Creed has never failed to impress, graphically its up there with the best looking games and the gameplay itself isn't half bad either, but with a full AAA title coming out every year since 2009 the excitement seems to have dyed down significantly.

The games always seem to have something missing, always bringing up the question of what the game could have been if they had spent just another few months polishing it. This year gap will do so much for the series if Ubisoft can capitalise on it, releasing teasers that actually excite the community would be a good way to go about it.

Just think, if Ubisoft can create the likes of Black Flag and Unity in just one year, a title with twice the development time could be in contention for game of the year.

VFX: Deadpool was a massive hit at the box office, breaking many records and surpassing almost everyone's initial expectations, but I'm not going to talk about Deadpool as a character today, and focus on Colossus.

To act out the scenes for Colossus it took a man reaching almost 7 feet tall in platform shoes and an additional headpiece to get close to the height of the steel-skinned monster. The face was based on another actor, and the voice acting done by another, if you think that having 3 different actors working on one character is extreme then you'll be surprised to know that it doesn't end there. Some of the motion capture was done by another actor and the facial recognition done by the fifth, its extraordinary that it took 5 different actors combined to get Colossus looking as Colossus should.

Digital Domain was the company put to the test to create Colossus and personally I think they did an amazing job.

Animation: I always like to find smaller animation projects to talk about for animation, and try to show something different that I personally think looks unique and nice. I struggled to find a full video of 'The Loneliest Stoplight' and couldn't find much information on how it was made, however the look of the video is really simplistic and I really like the look of it.

Created by Bill Plympton, The Loneliest Stoplight shows different scenarios of a stoplight at a 4-way intersection. It's set in what seems to be a desert, presumably to give off a more barren feel. Its one of those videos that gives character to an object with no feelings, many incidents occur around the lights that convey the fact that the light is helpless to everything.

The art style is really nice, its simple and very cartoon-like. I'll link the trailer for the video below.

The Loneliest Stoplight

Unity Programming Project

In my last post I talked about an idea I had for a game that would develop my skills in programming, the idea was a 2d puzzle game in a world of three colours, black, white, and grey. I don't have a name for it yet, just the basic characteristics of the game. You play as a ninja similar to the character in N+ except you can change from black to white by clicking the left and right mouse buttons, you need to be the opposite colour to the background to survive, there would be areas called 'grey-zones' in which you can be both colours. The art style is again similar to N+ using bold colours and sharp edges.

This was going to be my next Unity project for the next few weeks, until I remembered the game jam coming up next weekend, I think I'd rather spend the weekend making this, or a variation of this, and spend the upcoming weeks on another game.

So I was thinking about making something different for my next project, and finally had an idea when playing Amnesia. I really enjoy horror games, and especially liked working on Wolfs Rest a while ago. I can also use any models I make in my spare time such as the gramophone I made, I'd be able to model, texture, and program all in for one game!

I'm aiming more for a psychological horror that plays mind games on the player, an effect I really want to code is procedurally generating levels. It was used in a Unity game called 'Where am I?' where anything behind your field of view could change completely, so if you did a full rotation the room you were in could have completely transformed. I'll find a video that shows gameplay and link it below.

Link to gamplay

Updates

Recently I've posted about numerous projects both outside of college and inside, and now I've realised that its too much. I'm putting off some projects to work on others, and simply leaving some for too long before picking up on them again, I feel I have bitten off more than I can chew, picking more favourable things such as mapping over things like texturing, even though I set out to put texturing at the top of my to-do list.

I'm going to focus on getting through the top of my to-do list before delving deeper into the projects further down. From now on I'll have a loose schedule on work in Matty's, Ant's, and Mike's work along with the other things I work on throughout the week. Maybe I'll have more than one blog on Matty's work one week, then more than one for Ant's the next. The main thing is that I'm getting enough work done on each topic, and then I can work on my own projects.

Anyway here's the progress of my projects so far.

Mapping: I have most of the texturing done at this point, and need to just add props like litter, bins, lampposts and windows. Its going to get put on the backburner now while I work on other projects, but I'll work on it when I get time.

Video Editing: This is the main reason, (along with the texturing) that I made this post, I haven't made enough effort to progress the video despite watching countless tutorials. I know all the techniques I'm going to use and I can already picture an outcome, but I just haven't done it yet. This is going right to the top of my list, it's something that will help with my video editing skills for future 'in college' projects and will develop my skills along the way.

Coding: I've still been revising some maths and programming, but haven't chose a project to start putting my knowledge into. I finished asteroids a while ago so now's the time to start a new game. I had an idea from animex that I may have posted briefly about a few days ago which looks likely to become my next project, I'll post about it very soon.

Industry: I had a plan to post 'GamerVFXerAnimator' every week to show what I had learned about the industry, looking at my recent posts it looks as though I'm overdue a new one. This time I'll keep it on track as a weekly recap as its extremely important to me if I ever need to look back through the industry.

Modelling/Texturing/Other: Modelling is still important to me, I enjoy it as a hobby which makes getting models done for projects easy, texturing is something I've been putting off up until this point. With the museum scene in the works I'll have to really get some texturing done, and not just the simple textures I can do at the moment. 

Anything I haven't posted about here is either not important enough to work on, or is something I will already work on in my spare time.

Hopefully this clears some things up.

Mapping Idea: pt2

Recently I've been playing Stalker and really liked the setting of the game, so much so that it subconsciously changed my mind on the setting of my map. This happens to me too often, I start a project with the final product in mind and then completely alter it until it barely resembles my initial idea. Anyway I've started adding some textures and have changed the map layout slightly to make the level flow better.

Its difficult to see the layout changes between the two from the images above so I made a clearer one on photoshop.

The main changes are the new route to B from T spawn, and a new connector to A below the previous one. These are simply to make life for the enemy team easier and to make the map fair, the last thing I want is an unbalanced level because the community will simply hate on it.

Other changes include cutting off the A routes for T players, pushing the A to connector to middle back to favour the T players, and made both A and B sites larger so the CT players can defend from more angles.

I've started working on basic aesthetics for the map, but I feel as though that should be shown in another blog when the entire level is basically textured.

I recently posted about making the statue of liberty and how it would be difficult to make, however I had an idea to make a model, (maybe a statue, maybe not) and include it in the map as decoration. Maybe a vent, or building of some for the players to look at.

On the topic of models, I've started texturing my Codsworth model and should have a progress blog on that soon, its just really proving difficult. I think that texturing is definitely something I need to knuckle down on and get perfected.

Virtual Reality

A few days ago I had the pleasure of using a virtual reality headset for the first time, I thought I'd go through how I feel on VR and some benefits they could bring, along with some game ideas as well.

My Opinion: I really enjoyed the brief time I had using the headset, I thought it fit well and the focus wheel was useful for clearing the image. When matched with a pair of headphones you  really get sucked into the game, the volume was low so I could here the instructions, but if it was turned up I would have completely forgotten I was where I was. As for any nausea, I couldn't feel anything, I only used it for about 2 minutes so I can't really say much about it.

Overall I liked the whole experience, I think VR is something that can change the way we do day to day tasks, and can add a whole new layer to the gaming and video world.

 

Uses in the Game Industry: VR has already began to enter the gaming scene with Oculus leading the charge. Youtube Gamers have really generated hype for these products, with Pewdiepie and Markiplier both making incredibly popular videos on VR games, if people that make millions playing games are giving a product high reviews then sales will increase massively.

VR in games has little to prove, soon games will be made solely for VR and if they are good enough then VR headsets will sell. 

VR is here to stay, soon it will begin to make its way into everyday tasks and entertainment, and in the near future there will be VR shows that are immersive as anything. I really doubt that it will fade away any time soon, just look at what people said about game consoles years ago and how far they've come.

Animex!

Today has been an interesting day to say the least, being able to listen to some of the best in the industry for hours. Although it's not what I had first anticipated, Animex has been quite the experience having both its positives and its negatives.

Positives: almost everything about the speakers, they obviously understand the industry and to hear some insights on their lives and achievements was amazing.

Negatives: The way the day was set out, I'm not a huge fan of sitting around and listening for long periods of time, not that the speakers weren't good, just I'd prefer it another way. I like to learn and try and learn and try and so on, it helps me memorise the work better, I'd have loved to sit in a room with a speaker and try some work for myself, but that's just me and my opinion.

I feel as though I'm being too negative about the whole event when in reality it was just presented in a way I'm not keen on and didn't know about beforehand.

The speakers clearly understood their professions incredibly well and changed my mind about the whole game making to publishing process, something I've always assumed is as simple as making a game and then posting a download link as soon as possible.

From now on I'll be taking the whole thing in a completely new way, ensuring that once I have completed a project, I can go through and fix any small errors and tweak anything I'm not happy with. I'll also try to link my game to an event in the year, such as a summer game being released in the summer, and a space game being released close to a popular movies release date. I'd much rather a thousand people play my game rather than a few dozen.

I think the best way to show my learning is to implement it into the work I produce, instead of writing lines upon lines about it then scrapping the whole idea.

Overall Animex was a fun experience, it wasn't what I expected and didn't suit my style of learning, but even so I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I was able to use new equipment such as a VR headset and spoke about potential work with Aardvark Swift.

I'll talk more in depth about some of the experiences very soon.

Mapping Idea: pt1

I've recently started a project outside of college that involves the Hammer SDK engine for Counter Strike: Global Offensive. It's something that wont get in the way of college work and is purely a hobby, but I thought I'd post some of my progress here. 

The goal of this project is to have a functioning map that I can post to the community and can play around in. 

Scene: I'm edging towards an eastern-European town with old clock towers and colourful houses, along with old cobbled roads. I also want it to be set on a autumn morning with a cold atmosphere.

 

Layout: I have used photoshop to make a working layout, at the end of the day I want the map to work in competitive play, so having the angles and vantage points evenly placed is equally important as the look, if not more.

Here is the map I drew out. 'T' is the area where the attackers spawn, their goal being to destroy either 'A', or 'B' sites with an explosive. 'CT' is the area where the defending team spawns, they will defend both 'A' and 'B' from the enemy team.

I wont go into detail about how the game works and plays out, however if you are interested in it I'll provide a link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DywcK-vLbqE

I'll try and get the next part out in the next few days, and then another in half term, rest assured that if I'm not posting about it, its due to other work being more important or I just don't have enough progress done for another part. I will get this project finished whether it takes 2 months or 10.

Another Model and texturing

I've started texturing a few models recently, starting with a rather easy picture in a frame. It's just a test thus far to see if it looks good, for future pictures I'm going to render the model with the picture portion having the majority of the space, this should keep the image quality good for those viewing it in-game.

It's simple looking and easy to do, just make a cube, drag the shape out, inset both of the larger faces, delete the area within the inset, and then bridge the gaps.

After doing this model I thought I'd start on another, this one being more like my r2d2, and Codsworth models, I wanted another robot that I could cover in details.

Heres the start of my Claptrap model, its not finished quite yet and has some qualities I'm not happy with, (the arms especially) but soon I'll have it finished and textured.

This is most likely going to be one of my last robot models, I want to branch out and try other complex creatures and objects, maybe a boat or a skyscraper. Who knows?

Starting the Museum

My idea for displaying my models is to have a museum-like level in Unreal that people can walk through and see everything in more detail, going through files and opening countless models isn't the best way to judge them. I could have a collage of images showing my models, but again it's not good enough.

I try to put as much detail as possible into my models so that they look good from any angle. It is for this reason that I'm going to make a museum level in Unreal and place the models on podiums with the correct lighting and shadows.

So far I have started making the museum and haven't got too much finished, however I can expand it as much as possible depending on how much I make.

The centre pieces are for smaller models like swords, kitchen ware, bottles, and other small objects. 

I'm also thinking about modelling some unique picture frames that could contain some photoshop artwork. This would add to the walls and make the whole level feel more enclosed, I don't want it to look bare and empty for obvious reasons.

R2D2 Inspired Model! And Texturing Idea!

I spent a few hours this afternoon modelling some random small objects, but I thought since I hadn't properly modelled something intricate and detailed in a while, I'd spend all my time making something impressive. 

I first browsed Google images looking for some inspiration, deciding on the statue of liberty. I began making the base and got fairly far through it until I realised that the actual statue portion would take far too long, I'm going to try again in the upcoming days.

After another browse of Google images I settled on R2D2, and got to work on making a new version of the droid. As I often end up doing with models like this, I added extra detail and random gadgets here and there.

Over the next few days I'm going to really get into texturing this and my previous model, (Codsworth) so they finally look top quality.

My idea for these models is going to be a museum like scene, with one room and multiple models showcased for the player to see. I think it'll be a better way to view them, instead of just going through a folder. I'm torn between Unity and Unreal, but personally I think Unreal will do a better job.

Heres the Codsworth I made a few months ago:

Zombie Game Improvements

Last week I started working on an arcade-like style 2d game in which the player has to last as long as possible running from a horde of zombies, and avoiding numerous obstacles along the way. Although the project was made for a gamejam, but I said before I'd continue down the road, so here I go.

So I started by completely restarting the project.

The idea is based on copter, and temple run as my project takes inspiration from both games, copter for the continuous obstacle course and increasing speed, and temple run for the following horde that never slows down and will inevitably kill you eventually.

The aim of my game is re-playablility, there isn't a goal to reach, you just try and make it as far as possible and get the highest score you can. Flappy Bird used this message and that was the most popular game on the app store for well over a month.

As of now im going to code a killzone that moves left at a constant speed, with a horde overlay. This should look nice when the final product is finished.

Inspiration for vfx

Right now I have two very different projects to work on, one being my college film which is going to be much more of a skit that uses effects that are not noticeable, while the other is my gameplay edit, which uses vary noticeable effects.

I have made a short edit on gameplay that is currently being uploaded, (Blogger is taking a while so it may come out tomorrow morning). And have been looking around at some videos similar to the two I'm working on.

First: Professional Counter Strike team's best plays in the year, edited by SiCKO. I use his tutorials all the time and have done for a while now. Even though its all in-game, he knows how to record the best angles and build up footage,

Second: A short film recorded and edited by a member of Funhaus. I like shorts like this not only because they're entertaining, but also because the outcome is achievable by almost anyone, none of the people involved are actors in any way, nor are they directors, editors, etc.

Despite the acting being pretty bad, they film keeps its humour thanks to the plot. The stories are always spontaneous and unusual, so much so that the acting itself is overlooked. They use stupid plots that are hard to keep up with and just end up being funny.

Masking in After Effects

We were working on after effects yesterday, mainly using the masking tool to make a lighsaber.
To begin, we downloaded another groups short clip where someone leaps towards someone else with a lightsaber, our job was to add the effect to the saber, so it actually resembled those from the Star Wars trilogy.

 I imported the video to After Effects and created a new composition, then I went to the layer tab and created a new solid, making the colour white. I then used the pen tool to trace around the lightsaber in the first frame and clicked the stopwatch icon to create a keyframe.

Clicking the stopwatch creates a keyframe, which allows me to change the shape of the pen tool on each frame, if you don't create the keyframe then the shape of the pen tool will not change on every frame. I made this mistake on my first attempt and had to re-do 25 minutes of work.

You now reach the time consuming part, changing the pen tool on every frame. It's not difficult at all and is hard to mess up, just trace the lightsabers movements.

When you reach the last frame you should have a white box that moves around like a lightsaber, but looks nothing like one. Make 3 more layers of the mask and feather each one more than the last, for example, the first should have 20% feather, the second 40%, and so on. add a bold colour to each layer and you should have this effect.