Shop Font

I finally made a front to the paper shop, including cutting out all of the tiny windows (twice! Digitally afterwards).

I wanted the interior visible from outside and the front to lift like a curtain. After trying this digitally it might look better if it were to part in the middle like a curtain. At the moment I am undecided and need to play with it more in After Effects, but I am pleased with the shop front overall and hope it fits nicely into my showreel.

Paper Playtest Ideas

Ideas for the paper play test! Initial ideas are to print each of the level designs in full (I will make two or three possibly) and print each of the menu screens. These can be pinned on the wall or displayed on a table, and people can rearrange them as they see fit. That is the whole idea of course! Seeing what a user would prefer to play with, or understand better.

Another idea I just had is to make a iPhone frame, to slide up and down the printed levels. This way I can test whether the game would work better portrait or landscape. 

 

A further idea is to let people draw onto the level designs, to see what people would expect from a maze/path building gameplay. This way I can see what people would find fun, difficult, or easy, and try and make it more exciting. 

I will need to develop level ideas now, to have them printed for February. I was planning on doing the animation first, but this is one of the things I was referring to in my last post about rescheduling.

Christmas Show - Inspiration

In regards to my personal development, particularly my plans to put on an exhibition next term, I have put some work in the NUCA Christmas Show. As the entry doesn't have to be Christmas themed I made a shallower, smaller version of the shop to submit. I thought about submitting a print of other parts of my project but the depth of the box frame seemed ideal for another shop, and it will be nice to see how it will work as an exhibit.

I hope this experience will be helpful, it has definitely been enjoyable getting back to using paper again.

EDIT: In doing this I was inspired to make an alternate menu system which takes place completely inside the shop. I had been thinking about this earlier while making the first menu system, and feeling it needed to be more coherent. After showing a few people and getting some positive feedback towards this I have set out making an alternate system today, as an idea of what could be done. It can also be seen here http://www.rosieball.com/Site/Showreels.html

Paper Shop - Complete

I finally finished the paper shop set the other day and took many photos.

I also made some mock ups with the man in the shop, made from separate photos of each limb put together in photoshop.

Update - Late April

Paper work is going well, I have quite a few positions and pieces for the old man character and lots of tiny paper jars. I have found a reasonably sized cardboard box to build the shop in and I've made some of the shelf units and the door. I have though a lot about how the counter will be (one pieces of flat paper, or a folded pieces with a surface top) and how the shop front will appear when animated. I have intested in a high quality camera over the easter holiday and I have been looking more at After Effects. Animating the level segments is not going so well, Flash does not alow the colour to behave as I would like because it is vector. I have also tried using some other animating programmes like Pencil which is simple and effective but crashes a lot. Traditional media has also proven largely unsuccessful so far, I tried making a flip book of the swimming boy but I was going about it the wrong way. I am still enthusiastic to try more at all of these areas and make something that works. Since making my site rosieball.com I am keen to see how I can mold the sweet land page to become my portfolio for assesment. As for a showreel the shelf unit experiment from the previous post could be used for this.

Game Concept Portfolio 2

In order to meet the brief requirements my 'portfolio' needs to be a creative and imaginative display of everything I have produced, emphasising the stylistic themes of my project and embodying them. I am planning on making a display case in effect, a large image of a shelf displaying all visual aspects of my game idea. This may be interactive. Here is an initial mock up I have made..

Update - Easter break

So at the moment I am at home working on my portfolio document to hand in and I have completed my PDP to date with updated CV, and built myself an up to date portfolio website. I have been taking a little break from working on my sweet land game, but I have not stopped thinking about it whilst working on my other areas to hand in. Before we broke up for Easter I played with Adobe After Effects for a while and I thought about the advice Sharon had given me. I am now planning to finish drawing the paper pieces I need for an animation (the old man body parts, the jars, the shop set, possibly some cut out buildings to make a street scene) and photograph it, then move to After Effects to animate them. I aim to finish this by hand in date May 26th.

In the meantime, whilst at home for Easter I am working on my document as I have said, and also aiming to film some paint/marbling inks in a transparent container to see how liquids behave and then possibly animate over the top when I return to Norwich.

Overall I am on schedule and can afford myself a rest these few weeks of Easter, whilst still working mainly on my blog and documents for submission.

Paper Cut-Outs

First try at making a paper cut-out set today, went well and I hope to continue this set in a cardboard box and make an animation from it. So far I have taken some photos and also digitally coloured some...