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Showing posts from 2014

First Magic Performace at KDU - April 2013

I would like to give credit to Rich Ferguson and Chris Kenner for their inspiration for this effect.

Home schooling

I am strong believer of home schooling. Well I have not been home schooled; but during my time at primary school I will go to my neighbours house where she teaches me the same topics from school so that I will prepare to face school the next day. It even more interesting while I am in secondary school.I ignore or half heartedly focus on school as I spent hours after school not doing homework but go to the computer and learn magic and the wonderful mystery of technology. Well this help develop talents in me that I will not be able to obtain in school. I believe home schooling is where parents, child, and its community build a curriculum that fits the individual need. We can foster a new bread of children; the innovators that can challenges to world and improve it along the way. The video below is how one kid life change to home schooling. Home schooling may not be the only way to obtain this holistic approach to education. IF School system and teachers willing to redesign t...

Copyright Sign Update

I have talked with the team. They told me that they do not want the logo of company next to the copyright. After much thinking and I found out that the logo and copyright symbol is similar and will cause confusion so and I agree with them and remove the copyright sign. Now it just @ Alt F4. All right reserved.

Music for the title screen

Finding the right music for the title screen. First I try finding car chase like score. However after much searching I feel the music will to match with the title screen but can match the in game chase music. So look for music that feel that much greater will happen when to press start. The music should fit with the world without creating much distraction to the viewers and aid them to understand the world of the game. I found music that has fast space spin to it, that show it a chasing game. This music will work if the title screen represent the chase itself instead of pre-chase moment. We still use the music if we remove the animation and used a still image of the game. But I decided that, we go with the other direction because we can break conventional expectation of gamers. Need For Speed Most Wanted Police Chase Music Need for speed most wanted Cop Chase theme song Need For Speed Hot Pursuit Theme Song Vanesa Lorena - Pursuit Theme (NFS Rivals Soundtrack) Need For Speed...

Placing the Copyright to Title Screen

Understanding the copyright in terms of title screen. See what the past game has written on the title screen in terms of copyright. And also where they past the copyright in the title screen. Some examples below. Seeing this example and many more I have planning to place the copyright at ... And put this wording as the copyright. Logo.@2014 Alt F4.  Note : @ is just tempory replace of the original copyright sign. I did some editing and here is the example. The fonts should be white and background transparent. And and place into the title screen as such. I have 2 version. 1 under the press start or keep it at the side; bottom right.

Title Design Tweak

After analyzing our current title design and I wanted make some tweaks to make it more attractive and more better. Changing the color of the title screen. The colour below is to dull and blends into the environment. The goal was to make the title pop out. So I decided to ask the team to tweak the color. Make it more bright. Now the title words are more bright and will pop out. Changing the Badge of the title screen. I looked at the badge and feel it does not fit in the world. It looks too childish and the badge does have much detail. So I ask the team to change it. The change to me made more nicer. More real. And fits with the design of the car. Change from rendering the title in the game to putting in in Post-Production. Our current test shows that when render in game. It looks nice but towards the right side of the image near the badge feels blur. The title needs to be seen clearly, thus I decided to change in and ask the team to put in post. The title ...

Putting it all together And Tweaking the Animation

Checking to see what works and what doesn't. I wanted to know which music will fit with the video Plus we would like to add our company logo into the video. The Logo The Animation tweak is that and play with the time and some cars are removed. 3 Type of music. With links. Police Scanner http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=gZZzda4KMc8 Music http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=8qWePX39R40 Sound Effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=R5LMeivf5nY http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=R5LMeivf5nY Plus we wanted to put our company logo on the screen. Similar other games and movies. Before the title roles in we would show the company logo. Similar as below. However, we would neglect going into the story and jump straight into the title page. I put together video. How I put together the video. I used a software called Hitfilm to editing the vide...

Animation Update

Animation came in late last night. I think does a good job simulating traffic flow. Must add the title into scene and see if the traffic create unnecessary distraction. Some of vehicle I plan was removed from tech guy do to debugging problem of that vehicle asset.

Title Screen Update

Change font and color of title screen. To make even more brighter and in theory stand out even more. I might request changes on it. The white highlight may change to a different color. Animation is not in place. My tech guy is having a problem with his computer. He got few option to solve it. It may create minor tweaking on the project. Tweak. Less traffic Shorter animation time. Repeating may occur. People may figure the loop. We wanted create a stimulation of forever no loop. But if too short animation might be able to pull it off. That about it. Hope he can solve the issue soon. IF not, plan B. Google Sketch Up will be used. Anyway here our title screen.

Preparing the Animation for title screen.

Understanding the technical limitation. Base on my tech guy. It take 40 ++ hours to render a minute worth of video. Therefore I have to be mindful on time of the video and also lock the animation down with no changes. If not, my tech my tech guy will have to re-render the video to account for changes. This will slowdown progress on the project and his other work and we may miss deadline. Conveying the purpose of this animation. The idea is to show little movement in the highway to make it believable. To bring player into the world. John Lasseter said that every small detail might be notice by the viewer but will make the viewer believe in the world. Believing the world allow them to fully commit to the character and to the story thus making more immerse game experience.. Seeking inspiration and reference to make the animation. Grand Theft Auto [GTA] The game shows the simulation of traffic at different situation. It has the situation we need; which is a highway ...

Music Inspiration And Updated version of Title screen

While watching SWAT on Tv and I got inspired for background music or theme music of the title screen. Link to description of the movie. S.W.A.T. So he is the sample and direction we are going for in terms of music. This Title screen has been added the words. And Basic mood and tone of the title screen has been establish.

Progress

How the idea expands into a more refine conceptual product. Sketching the basic layout. Playing with time the image will be rendered.Improve on framing as the  sketch up file export above is at different aspect ratio for the project. The time of day the image is taken is locked and framing looks better.  However, the background of the image is not what I intended. It should show a more highway feel compare to housing street. The highway feel is set. Must add more object on the road, like car,  bike, trucks. The position of the car is okay but can  be improved.   Waiting to add title and press button and company rights on the image. My Final composition for this week. I added a more detailed background image,  and how I will plan to put the wording to the image. The lighting is wrong. But this is  for concept of faming the objects in the image.

The Game Plan

This is the plan I will use to schedule the progress and eventual completion of the title scree. Week 1 : Preparing a mock. Giving them a conceptual look of the final product. Week 2 : Improve on the image. Tweak and finalize the framing. And lock down the name of the game. Week 3 : Look into lighting and mis en scene of the image . I will tweak and finalize the tone and color of the image. Week 4 : Back Up Weak. In case anything fail and goes off schedule. Also feedback time and tweaking. Through this project I will be presenting my idea and changes in Sketch Up 3D. This is for 2 reason. Visual show the idea to the group. If there is any technical issue arises with my tech guy. I will have a back up of the progress. Sketch Up 3D is a powerful software and it can do all that I need for this project. After preparing the image, I will export as an image file and edit it using Hitfilm editing software and include the press start animation and music. If Sketch Up 3D is...

Framing of the Title Screen

The content of the frame. Can be found from previous post. A press start display. Some cases Option Continue Game Credit Copyrights of the game from the game company. More information about start screen technically can be found As for now I planning to make the start screen with no animation and only including start button and copy right of the game company. I am doing this because in my own understanding the information should clear and simply, that its a start screen where player's must press the start button to proceed. While focus on this primary objective I plan to include the copy right of the game company so that any information export from the game at that point on is against the law. [ Depends on the use ]. And give credit to developers of the game. Information presenting Start Button Copyrights of the game from the game company [Number plat of the car] Secondary Information Expectation & Hyping of the game. Graphics Game pla...

Making a Start Screen Part 2 : The Concept

Idea Genre Street Racing Police / Cops chasing Street Racers & Smugglers  Tone & Feel Highway in American At night. Got nice scenery : Mountains, Trees.  Got billboards and sign boards. Got cars going by. Mostly trucks and transportation vehicle. At night a lot of illegal racing. Drag Racing. Police scout and monitor the safety of the highway by hiding behind billboards.  Content How to present the start screen. 16: frame. Resolution playing around 1080p or 720p. Might have some animation. Background music. The animation will be added upon progress of the initial template. Plus, most Racing Games does not need any animation from its start screen. More detailed elaboration of the project will come from further post. Eg: My Job I will frame the image. I will set the tone and mood of the image, If animation is place, I will determine which portion of image will be animated. I will try to improve...

Making a Start Screen Part 1 : Understanding What is a start screen.

Start Screen What is it? In terms of console. Technically To determine which controller the player is using. First controller to press start will sign in first. Can determine the storage device as soon as press start. Add On Show gamers what to expect from the game. To prepare the gamer for the game. Hype up the game. What does it content? A press start display. Some cases Option Continue Game Credit Copyrights of the game from the game company. More information about start screen technically can be found from this website. Press Start

Great Inside about the World of Cinema

Steven Soderbergh - The State of Cinema Video & Transcrip t He talks about Art and its purpose. Why are we compel to narrative. Business of Cinema. What films are made and are not and Why? What can we do about it? Great talk. Will definitely watch it a second time to get a better inside on Cinema. Hope your enjoy it. blog.sffs.org/home/2013/4/steven-soderbergh-the-state-of-cinema-video-transcripthtml And more simple breakdown of the talk. I recommend reading this after watching the talk, to get the essence of his speech. http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/watch-steven-soderbergh-state-of-cinema-speech-transcript/ Steven Soderbergh in my opinion is a terrific director and inspires me to excellent in the art of cinema. Thank you Mr. Soderbergh.

The Wrap Up

The Idea Making its way to Alt F4 History. First we started with what is a credit page. Why do make it. Who do we make it for. How to make a credit page. What approach are we going to take to make a credit page. How much work is needed to make the credit page. The first lay out of the credit page. Distributing the roles to make the credit page. Finalizing the game plan to make credit page by deadline day. Improving on the project. Tweaking the idea. Stripping it down to essence. Final checks of the project Making final tweaks and content checks to make it presentable to an audience. Introducing Alt F4 first successful project "T he Credit Page "

Final Version of the Credit Page

Picture and Disclaimer Update

However, This not complete because there is a spelling error or precisely context error. I did check it through various spelling checking software. However the word I originally wrote was wrong in context. It typed it wrongly. The word "rabbis" should be "rabbits". This shows human proof the project before launch.

Adding the Disclaimer

The original idea for the disclaimer is to be a classic Disclaimer. Example can be seen below. At minute 7.17 can see the example Link for the video at 7.17 However, Andrew has prepared the video before seeing my comment and his approach works much better so we ticked with it. The sources for the disclaimer. First I found a template from this website.  Template THE DISCLAIMER Here is a standard motion picture disclaimer... "PERSON'S NAME OR PRODUCTION COMPANY" is the author of this motion picture for the purpose of copyrght and other laws. This motion picture is protected pursuant to the provisions of the laws of the United States of America and other countries. Any unauthorized duplication, distribution and/or exhibition of this motion picture may result in civil liability and criminal prosecution. Characters and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictitious, and any similarity to the name, character or history of any person is entirely coincidental...

Picture Update

The last member picture are updated. Version 1_As Plan Version 2_More Informal fits better with the rest.  Not in right frame. Version 3_Just right Version 1_ Okay. But not much focus on his face Version 2_ Close Up on face. Perfect

Version 2_ The Logo is here

I found that video quality in blogger is not good so I decided to upload in youtube. Plus logo is already in place. The sample music is also done.

Version 1 of compilation

This is Version 1 of the credit page. One member picture is missing. The logo is not added in but the design done but in time for rendering. Will re-render soon. Will add disclaimer at last part of the video. Time is finalize music and synchronize it with the video.

Progress_The Photo's Are In

On Monday the team took the photos needed for the credit page. Unfortunately one of our members was ill and his pictures is rescheduled to be taken on Thursday instead. Will update soon. We decided to change the formal picture of the team and change and be informal. We decided to change the aspect ratio of picture also. Instead of one 4:3 and one 16:9 to both of them being 16:9. Now we contemplating about where to place the person name and job description. Example can be seen below. Below are the images I took for the credit page. Test shot of the location  Ryker posing as me. Test Shot_Ryker My turn. I did not like the framing. Still not liking the framing. Test Shot_ To check if the image has go lighting. Approved shot. Test Shot 1_Simple and formal. Test Shot 2_Not much changes. Test Shot 3_Okay. But I can see some on else in frame. Test Shot 4_Okay. Still can see some on else in frame.  But not ...