Art Direction

 

Art Direction

30.08.2022-29.11.2022 (Week 1-Week 14)

Hussain Waheedh (0344870)

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Art Direction - Final compilation and reflection

INSTRUCTIONS:

Module Information Booklet PDF

The Lecturer for the Module is Ms.Anis. On the first class, she asked us to form groups among the class and play the game Among Us to understand and familiarize with the game. She also told us to play another similar game called Goose Goose Duck. We were later given instructions on our first group assignment which is to make a presentation of the analysis of the two games.

ASSIGNMENT 1:  GAME ANALYSIS

The first assignment/task that we were instructed to do was to make a presentation by analysing the two games; Among Us and Goose Goose Duck. For this task, we were grouped together among classmates. My group members are Chai Yi Xuan (leader) and Lim Jia Yet. We created a MIRO board to update our works and progress and then started working on the break down of the two games, first observations, pros and cons...etc. 

During week 1 We did the observation of the two games after experiencing both the games;

Figure 1.0: MIRO Board JPG

On week 2, we moved on to identifying the wants/needs , pros/cons, must-have, nice-to-have...etc. After that we compiled all our observations and findings and presented our understanding of the two games on the next class.

Figure 1.1: MIRO Board JPG

Here is our presentation slides of the Game Analysis task:

Figure 1.2: Game Analysis Presentation PDF

ASSIGNMENT 2: NEW ART DIRECTION

For the second task, we were instructed to come up with an alternative game that could solve the cons of both the games by including missing/faulty features and improving on other aspects of the game.

On week 3, we worked on the stylisation of our game to define how and which categories of stylisation we will base our design on. Here is the MIRO Board slides of the stylisation.

Figure 1.4: MIRO Board JPG

After that we created the moodboard to find visual references and other materials for our design.

Figure 1.5: MIRO Board JPG

We discussed various options for the name, style and ui. We finalised to use Space Agents as the game's name as it is both catchy and on point to describe the game. After that we split the tasks to each member. I was responsible for creating the map environment. Jia Yet was doing the UI and Yi Xuan did the characters. And we split the task interfaces among ourselves later.

Below is our groups proposal for the new game:

Figure 1.6: Game Direction presentation PDF

FINAL ASSIGNMENT: DESIGN EXECUTION AND FINAL PRESENTATION

After the proposal, we began executing the designs. We did most of the works individually and held online meetings every week to check on updates and discussions. I sketched the map layout. Below is the visual references for the map.

Figure 1.7: MoodBoard JPG

We decided to do a 2d isometric design style for the environment because it is visually and compositionally very balanced and aesthetically appealing as well as very popular among latest game trends. The sketches below are the 1st and 2nd attempt on drawing the main structure of the map. The first one is very detailed with lots of rooms but to. stay on our timeline, we had to reduce the number of rooms to 3. So the 2nd attempt sketch is the final idea we used for the structure.

Figure 1.8: Map sketches JPG

I then sketched a more detailed map with the design style and props applied. The map is supposed to be a not-too-futuristic space ship.

Figure 1.9: Map sketches JPG

It was my first time designing isometric style in illustrator so it took a while to get used to the style and complex grids but it got better over time. Here is the first design attempt.

Figure 1.9: Map design progression JPG

After showing the design to Ms.Anis and discussing among our group, we decided to colour code each room individually with a different colour code for easier navigation and visual aesthetics. So I applied neon shades of orange, purple and Ryan to the three rooms respectively. Below is the first attempt at colouring.

Figure 2.0: Map design progression JPG

After finalising the colours, I then proceeded to design the props for each of the three rooms. The three rooms are the control room,  weapons room and communications room. So each room has to have items, props and furniture that suits with the operations that happen inside that room. 

We also tested the design using the character to see if any light adjustments were necessary but the design works well with the character design with enough contrast making it look very recognisable. So we decided to keep it that way.

Figure 2.1: Map design progression JPG

Below is the final map design completed with props for all the rooms.

Figure 12.2: Final Map design JPG

After doing the map, we worked on the task interfaces. We shared our assets in the MIRO board so we used elements from each other to make all the designs and task interfaces consistent with each other.

Figure2.4: MiniMap design JPG

Figure2.5: Task interface design JPG

Figure2.6: Task interface design JPG

Figure2.7: Task interface design JPG

Figure2.8: Task interface design JPG

FINAL SUBMISSION: 

Below is the final presentation of our game.

Figure2.9: Final Presentation PDF

FEEDBACK

Week 3: Good presentation. Precise.

Week 6: Good ideation. Start working on the sketches.

Week 9: Ms.Anis suggested we keep the design more consistent as individual works appear to be different

Week 13: Good design outcome and well presented.

REFLECTIONS

EXPERIENCE: I was anxious at first day because I felt like I was the only one who doesn't play Among Us. And I couldn't even install the game to test it out and when I did I couldn't understand much. So I was very nervous but when we grouped up, my group members said even they don't play that game so I was relieved. I had a tough time during this semester with so many other modules and assignments piling up. I expected this semester to be easier but it was much harder than I expected and it affected my work flow. But overall I think our group did pretty well. All three of us were from different specialisations so we had our differences when it came to designing. I think if we discussed it earlier we might've come up with a better outcome because split every task equally among members from different specialisations has consistency issues and mismatching styles and preferences. Also having to design online individually also affects that. But we did discuss later and came up with solutions for that and shared the assets to make the final work very consistent and solid. So I am very happy with our work. Yi Xuan and Jia Yet were very helpful and coordinated the game design very neatly.

I'm also very happy Miss Anis was our lecturer. She consults with the groups every week to check progression and gives very good feedback and suggestions.