We're in the process of finalizing some of our designs, including environments and their possible User Interface overlays! We want to know what our possible environments would look like in context with the game screen. Below is the final office design by Katie Freeman. It will be eventually modeled in Maya completely by our modeler Jose, and the render from that will be painted over slightly to make it fit into our environment.
There are different versions shown below, a version with the UI and a version without, and then versions of those with a gray filter overlay that would bring the player focus from the background into the interviewed character. There are times we WANT to distract the player from the description of the criminal to make the game more difficult! But when we don't want distractions present, we want to keep the background from being too bust on the small space of a tablet screen. We will be experimenting with the effectiveness of different filter options!
Here is the environment with no filter and no UI. On the right you can see a Check-In doorway. It doesn't show anything through it at the moment, but this doorway is going to lead to a lobby of sorts where you can choose the character you interview next! As the game progresses, it will become a busy place with some interesting characters in it! The UI covers the doorway during an interview with the sketchpad mechanic, but that rolls away between criminal lineups so that you can either choose to get your next victim of crime to interview or you can explore other extra mechanics that we'll uncover later!
This is the environment with the filter but no UI.
Here's the office environment with the UI but no filter!
And finally, here is the office environment with both the filter and the UI in place. The only thing missing is some buttons and the character you're interviewing!
Our environmental color palette again for reference:
We're now in the process of finalizing designs for environment and characters. Here is the decided upon Capt. Walters' design by Katie Freeman, heavily influenced by Ido Yehimovitz. Next to it is a possible way to cut up the characters for rigging in Maya and animating. We might keep the legs and arms together though and just bend them with joints to make it look more natural. We're learning as we move along and will experiment with different methods!
Sketch
Artist is a heavily character driven game with ample amounts of character
dialogue and acting, which gives the project a unique opportunity to delve far
deeper into traditional character animation than a typical game would need to
do. Because of the zany and outrageous nature of the characters being developed
for the game, our animations will be heavily influenced by the style of
animation developed by Tex Avery. “In cartoons you can do anything” is a line
often quoted of Avery, and his animation style is evidence of this belief.
Known for creating characters such as Daffy Duck, Egghead, Porky Pig and
Screwball Squirrel, Tex Avery’s style ignores the laws of physics in favor of
giving his characters the ability to move in whatever over-the-top manner suits
them. Most prominently, Avery’s animation style consists of gags in quick
succession, usually building upon each other and becoming more and more
outrageous as the animation continues. NorthWest Hounded Police an excellent
example of how Avery used gags on top of gags throughout his short films as
well as outrageously exaggerated character movements and lighting fast timing.
Stylistically, he’s known for using techniques like dry brush, smears and
multiples in his animation. Drybrush is used to simulate speed and in this
technique, paint is literally smeared on the cell to give the illusion of
extreme motion blur. Smears are a rapid motion in which the character is
distorted in the middle of the motion to create an extremely cartoony and
exaggerated motion. Multiples are used to show frantic action and are similar
to a smear, except multiple copies of the same body part are used in place of
distortion. Finally, Tex Avery often gave his character’s limbs a “rubber hose”
feeling as opposed to grounding them in reality with the appearance that they
had bones in their bodies. These over the top techniques will heavily influence
the animation style of Sketch Artist.
The “Hook
Lady” character is one of the characters who will be interviewed by the sketch
artist, and her animations will be inspired by the old lady in “Red Hot Riding
Hood.” The Hook Lady is quirky and outrageous, and her motions will suggest
that she’s somewhat of an inappropriate “cougar” type. Her motions will be more
subdued than other characters due to her age and inability to perform
back-breaking contortions that would be plausible by younger characters.
Red Hot
Riding Hood
Captain Walters
Character
Description:
Before
joining the PPD, he was a decorated war hero who always showed great loyalty to
his country. Once he joined the police force, he quickly uncovered a conspiracy
tying the mayor and the police department to Don Carlo Escargo, which forced
him to make some tough decisions. In the end he remained loyal to the town he
swore to protect and revealed the conspiracy to the world. This resulted in the
jailing of many of the higher ups in the station and Walters jumped the ranks
all the way to captain.
Because
Captain Walters is a wise character who was capable of investigating and
uncovering a complicated conspiracy, and brave enough to expose it, his movements
will be inspired by Bugs Bunny. Bugs is as wacky as any other Tex Avery
character, but his motions always seem deliberate and he remains in control of
himself. Captain Walters is a leader, and for this reason he must remain in
control of himself while at the same time fitting into the outrageous world
around him, and for this reason bugs will be a heavy influence on Captain
Walters’ movements.
Bugs as
Maestro – over the top but in control
Don Carlo Escargo
Carlo
Escargo is the boss of the Plattsville mafia, but is actually a snaelien in
disguise. The snaelians are a secret alien race that disguise themselves as
humans to conduct business and create havoc on the town of Plattsville. Because
of Don Carlo Escargo’s secret status as a snaelien, Droopy Dog was chosen as
the inspiration behind his movements. Droopy is somewhat of an anomaly in the
Tex Avery world in the sense that he is very controlled in his movements and
its subdued by comparison to the lunatics around him. For this reason, he fits
will as the inspiration for Don Carlo because as a member of a secret alien
race masquerading as human, it would be logical that he would move in a manner
that is different from the other characters around him. His more controlled
body movements would also be logical for a character posing as a mob boss
because the controlled manner of motion becomes a symbolic extension of the
control he exerts on the underlings is his mafia operation.
Droopy Dog
Buck
Buck is a
member of the mafia serving under Don Carlo Escargo, and is a crass redneck
bumpkin with no sense of refinement. Because of this he and his comrades, the
country crew, are looked down upon by the other member of the mafia and have a
difficult time being taken seriously. Buck’s character movements will be
inspired by the Big Bad Wolf character that appears in “Red Hot Riding hood”
and “Northwest Hounded Police.” Wolf is the epitome of Tex Avery’s style, and
is as crass and unrefined as Buck, making him a logical choice.
Magician
The Magician
is a slippery villain hired by Don Carlo Escargo for his amazing ability to
change disguises and perform daring escapes with his feats of magic. He is
impeccably dressed, complete with handlebar mustache, and is never caught.
Daffy Duck, arguably one of the most over the top and outrageous characters in
the Tex Avery world, was chosen as the inspiration for the magician. Daffy’s
body defies the laws of nature by behaving in ways that can only be achieved
through a body devoid of bones and filled with magic, making him a worthy
inspiration for our slick magician.
Daffy
Madame Sharpe
Madame
Sharpe is a tall French woman with an abnormal love of cheese, and a deadly
ability to wield knives. As a femme fatale her motions will be inspired by
Jessica Rabbit, a character who was inspired by Tex Avery’s “Red.” Jessica
Rabbit has Red’s sex appeal but moves in a slower, more deliberate way which
suits her status as a villain in control of her criminal enterprise.
Jessica
Rabbit
Technical Considerations
The Tex Avery style of animation will create unique challenges due to the
nature of the rigging that the Sketch Artist team is exploring. Our current
approach is to create a 3D rig using a 2D character image mapped to a flat
plane. Because Avery’s style is so flamboyant with a heavy use of drybrush,
smears, and multiples, we will need to explore ways to build the ability to
accomplish these stylistic characteristics into our rigs. Because our
animations will be static and not player controlled, we will have the ability
to render them and this gives us the opportunity to manually create some
effects, like drybrush, in post.
We are currently looking at South Park’s rigging style as a possibility to
solve our specific aniation challenges. South Park uses 3D rigs for 2D
characters, similar to what our team will need, and has set up their rigs to
use replacement animation. With replacements, multiple versions of the same
body part are created such as an open hand, a closed fist, and a finger point. At
the appropriate keyframe, the hand is replaced with the drawing in the
appropriate position. This technique of using replacement animation is also
used in stop-motion films to give rigid puppets the ability to make facial
expressions that would otherwise be impossible. We are currently exploring the
possibility of using this technique to overcome some of the challenges that our
rigs will present when trying to capture Tex Avery’s style in our animations.
We will also have characters that will need to deform to achieve the “rubber
hose” look that is characteristic of Avery’s style, so we will need to
determine an appropriate resolution for our image files in order to accommodate
the stretching without having pixilation occurring due to low resolution on the
textures.
South Park Replacement animation Rig
We are still in the process of choosing and deciding the best color palette for our game, but we have a base set!
Character Colors
The characters will be varied in color, but mostly they will all very vibrant and bright to make them stand out on the background.
Environment Colors
The background will have some very bright colors here or there, but will mostly be composed of blues, browns, grays, and other muted tones. Bright colors will be extremely noticeable on purpose to draw the player's attention to things in the background, usually as part of our game mechanic to distract the Sketch Artist from the person they are interviewing to make the game more challenging!
The entire city has experienced a blackout of all recording devices and TVs, and crime is running rampant! With nothing to take pictures or record with, witness testimony is the only way to pick out our criminals and serve them justice!
So where do you fall in?
The Sketch Artist has been hired to help identify perpetrators based on witness feedback because of the sheer volume of criminals being brought into the City Police Station every day. You, the Sketch Artist, are to listen to the victims of crimes as they describe who they saw, draw a picture based on the description or write notes on your sketch artist notepad (tablet touch screen), and quickly pick out the correct criminal from a lineup.
If you choose correctly, you might even earn a doughnut!
Our world is filled with crazy scenarios, surprises, and lots of distractions. Dive in and discover hidden plots, mysterious criminal masterminds, and maybe even a conspiracy or two!
Our capstone rapid prototype included some colored characters. This was during the process of trying to get our game to the next development stage. They are an example of the type of characters we plan to develop in the future, though they will be closer to the style of Ido Yehimovitz in the future. Art by Katie Freeman.
