Friday 30 October 2015

Narrative: Quick Storyboard

Here is the storyboard for our project. Just finishing up the ending sequence now so that will be edited in later on during the day. 



















Fixed Up script Narrative Project

There where a few errors in the original script so this is the newer version.


Monday 26 October 2015

Narrative Script

The narrative project script. There may be a few things I need to rewrite but for now this will be the basis for my story boarding. 


King Kong vs Godzilla: B Movie Review






King Kong vs Godzilla (Kingu Kongu tai Gojira)
1962
Ishiro Honda 

Long before we had the abysmal Alien vs Predator, or the somewhat comical Freddy vs Jason, We had  King Kong vs Godzilla. Bringing together the gods of monsters for one, somewhat epic battle in traditional Toho movie fashion. If you wanted to see an epic fight between two of movie histories most famous creatures....this film is not it. You will however be treated to an amazingly comical hug fest between two men in big rubber suits.





This movie, for its time would have been something to marvel at. A battle between two of cinema's greatest monsters. Instead however we are treated to 90 minutes of badly dubbed American voices that spout off great lines like " The corns never lie" and referring to someone as a "dumbbell", Miniature tanks, that although are incredibly funny to watch upon first viewing are incredibly obvious later on, or to someone who is used to this kind of genre by now, and around 15 minutes of actual screen time for both King Kong and Godzilla, around 9 of which are of them together. 

In traditional Toho fashion, this movie did not have that high a budget as you can clearly see from its lapse special effects and its lack of noteworthy actors (or anyone who can act). Which makes it fit perfectly in with all the previous Godzilla movie's. The miniatures that have become a staple in the early monster movie's return. In possibly some of the funniest that I have personally witness in a while. The image of tiny RC tanks shooting poorly timed fireworks at a man in a suit, had me tearing up for longer then I would like to admit. It continues on with small model planes, super imposed into different shots and toy trains with cardboard cut outs of people inside. It goes on and on. The lack of special effects budget, or technology back in the early 60's gives this movie incredible amounts of charm but fails to save it entirely.


Not to say that this movie doesn't have some redeeming qualities. The Monster suits, although basic and rubbery, had an appeal that is incredibly difficult to place. Adding to the overall charm that there battles has. The way there arms flap around, thanks to the suits restriction in movement, and the goofy faces make the characters memorable. In order to combat some of the restrictions some scenes where switched to stop motion, like in the original King Kong movie, showing Godzilla kicking King Kong. A feat that would have been hard to pull off. The transition itself, although incredibly obvious now, wouldn't have seemed seamless to audiences of the time.

The sound design was also excellent. Reuniting me with the classic Godzilla roar that was lost for so many years ever since the abysmal failure of the 1998 American attempt, which killed the franchise for some time. Stock background music really made the fight scenes a more epic and grand feel then the original Japanese cut of the movie.


The final fight between our two monster's is something that stays with everyone after watching this movie. It plays like on big wrestling match. Outrageous events, weird combo moves and some incredibly funny scenes to relate back to the genre's cheesy history. Two scenes stand out massively, the first being King Kong being carried on giant balloons towards Godzilla then tumbling down a hill, plowing straight into the big green Lizard. Taking it with him. The other scene is one that everyone has probably seen in Gif form on the internet.
http://imgur.com/gallery/RpYTz


These scenes, along with the overall classical feel of the production makes this movie as fun as older Godzilla movies and many other B movies of the time. Its cheesy nature, being assisted by the American dub, puts this picture into the hall of greatest B movies of all time.


Why is this a B movie?
  • Cheesy dialogue: a staple for the B movie Genre
  • Low profile actors with some returning from older Godzilla movies
  • Part of Godzilla film History, renowned for classic B movie material
  • Incredibly obvious use of RC tanks and trains
  • Poorly made King Kong and Godzilla suits (very obvious its a costume)
Redeeming Qualities
  • Amazing Sound Effects
  • Finally get to see King Kong and Godzilla fight 
  • Monster costumes, while cheap, are incredibly appealing and memorable
  • The Squid creature was incredibly well animated for the time
  • Its a really enjoyable, fun movie. Not for how terrible it is, but for how it shows the amount of love people have for these two characters. 





















Friday 16 October 2015

Character Game Night: 13/10/15


Our First board game night of the year was a real treat, introduced to two games that I would love to be able to get my hands on for future events.

The first of the night came in the form of a board game called Takenoko. A game for 2-4 players where each player has to try and achieve a random selection of objectives before the others, racking up as many points as possible before the end of the game.




This game was beautiful, the artwork involved was charming, the board pieces were well crafted and the little panda figurine was a great addition to the game. From the art on the box to the individual designs, this game was truly spectacular.

In terms of game play, its not exactly basic but its incredibly easy to pick up, each player is tasked with completing 7 objectives, each of which are randomly chosen from 3 different types of cards, each which have there own theme.

Panda cards task you with collecting a certain amount of bamboo which can be collected by moving the panda around the board, eating as it goes.

Farmer cards involve growing different amounts of bamboo

Tile cards require certain patterns of tiles to be on the board to be achieved.

With different actions that can be used each turn, this game was a lot of fun to play, definitely something I will be looking into picking up some time soon, especially now that I know there is a kind of deluxe version with even more rules and actions to complete.































The second game we played was a card game called Revenge of the B-Movie, a relatively simple card game which involved trying to create and sell a movie. Each person is given 5 cards, each of which have either positive or negative cult points.

The aim of the game is to create one or two movies which at the end of each round can be sold to generate points, however other people can sabotage your movie by placing negative cards into your film.

Throughout this game we had some amazing combinations of words, like Attack of the were bunny or revenge of the peaceful, 50 foot, lawyer from the center of the universe, and so on...

A fun game to pass some time, but unfortunately it is incredibly hard to find online so I doubt ill be picking it up anytime soon.




Looking forward to the next session of games to see what interesting things we get to experience.













Final Five Poses: Maya Rig Posing





The final five poses we needed to complete for Alan's lesson next week. I didnt realise just how fun these would actually be to complete, although it does take a lot of time, its worth it in the end to see what you can do with characters.

Will definitely be experimenting some more with different rigs to see what I can do.





I have also included the 5 poses on there own so you can have a closer look at each one individually.






Thursday 15 October 2015

Maya Lesson 4: Action Poses


Here are some of the poses I chose to use for my rig. The fifth one is coming a little later on. 
 
 
 
 
 









Wednesday 14 October 2015

Lip Syncing Part 4: Tongue, Eyes, Blinks, & Brow


Lip Syncing: Adding Phoneme's & Viseme's


Lip Syncing: Jaw Bounce


Rough Group Script for Narrative project.

The rough script that we pieced together as a group... In some parts it is a little disjointed and might not fit very well for the story, so I am planning on storyboarding from what we have already, while adding in scenes and cleaning things up to try and convey our theme a little better then what we already have currently.
 
 
 

Friday 9 October 2015

Character: Environment Influence's

Some small influences for the different worlds that would be a part of my game world.


Character: Inital Idea Outline and Mechanics


The cards I randomly chose are the following three;

  • Life
  • Literature
  • Strength 

Initially when thinking about these cards I had no Ideas. Nothing was coming to me, until I started to think more about creating a world, rather then focusing on the mechanics. Once I began thinking about this aspect and Idea eventually formed.

Genre: 2 and a half D. Action plat-former


My initial Idea was based around a center Hub world, The world tree or the Tree of Life, which connects different planes of the universe together. (If you've seen Thor then you will know this) One of these universes belongs to the creatures and characters created by mortals in myths and Fairy tales. These characters are bound to there world and cannot leave except through the original books that there stories where written in, which are kept safe by a reclusive group of  Lore master'a who have lived at the base of the tree since the dawn of time.

The Idea of the game will be centered around the Last of the Lore masters having to traverse the different worlds through the use of the tree in order to save the universe from an ever powerful being and rebuild the dying world tree, with the aid of different Fairy tale characters summoned through their books.

This idea is the strongest idea I have imagined and will be the one I would like to focus on and flesh out a bit more. Mainly on the story side..

Mechanics

The main mechanic of the game will be to summon different characters from Literature through books that the player collects throughout his adventures. Starting with 3 main characters. Each character will have their own strengths and weaknesses that can either aid the Lore master or hinder him in battle along his journey

Alice ( Alice in Wonderland) : Can summon illusions from Wonderland, Effective conjurer... Will consume Random plants and vials found in different locations, resulting in different negative effects.

Red Riding Hood: Can use her hooded cloak to glide to hard to reach locations, Grannies basket provides food to heal companions..... Terrified of wild animals, will refuse to fight.

Ichabod Crane: Can create platforms, stuns enemies though electrical contraptions... Will refuse to fight spiritual enemies.


Collectibles

Different Collectibles to find throughout the game.

Different story pages for stronger characters like Captain Ahab, Big bad wolf etc etc.
World Tree Bark used to restore the World tree to its former glory.
Concept Art
Models




I will be going back over this Idea and refining it more and more over the next few days, to try and come up with a solid story line and iron out some of the plot points. I have also come up with a few deigns for 2 of the characters which I will be uploading shortly..










Head Modelling Tutorial's 1,2 and part of 3

After the hour or so I spent doing these tutorials, some more advanced modelling is a lot more fun then I thought it would be when I started. While moving tons of vertices around isn't that enjoyable, seeing what it creates in the end is rather rewarding. Time to move on a bit further and hopefully finish this set of tutorials in a decent time span.