This moodboard is for my interactive design project to explore some of the different graphic styles I am interested in. In particular I am keen on science fiction and fantasy genres, which could be incorporated into the design, however looking at some more basic graphic images and styles such as pixel art would be more suited to the task.
The fonts I considered all had some character to them and some examples such as the 'cubic' font in the lower right corner might be effective as it is a simple design with straight edges that could look professional for header text.
I also looked at some other work including sketches and concept art, which is one style that could be used, giving it a hand drawn feel, however this would be very complex and might not work well if done poorly.
Simon Cornish is an
independent animator, illustrator and scriptwriter who provides the Mental Roy character
illustrations for a monthly column in 3D World magazine as well as writing other
articles and reviews.
Originally starting
with a chemistry degree where he worked under a Nobel Prize winning professor,
he moved on to a motorcycle instructor business to fund his animation degree. Cornish
produces work in a variety of fields including visual effects, 3D CGI and
animation working for and having worked with a variety of companies including
Future Publishing and related magazines, producing illustrations and writing
articles for them as well as a variety of other projects he has worked on for
different companies.
One particular reason I
like his style is because of the simplistic, comical work he produces. In
particular his Mental Roy character illustrations are very varied and in some
cases of a mature nature that are very effective at conveying a message whilst
maintaining the same style and character traits.
For my animation project I wanted to create something with a narrative that could be told in an unusual manner and make it quite cinematic with a variety of camera angles and shot types to give it a film like feel.
This animation made with Tom Roberts (http://thomasmroberts.blogspot.com/) was an experimentation with depth of field and layers to have a character move from the background to the foreground of a scene smoothly.
The first test of my final animation with a character falling through a vertical environment that has initial camera angles intended to build up to them falling. My intention is to incorporate more characters on his descent that the person passes by to add more emphasis to the depth of field and have a much more dramatic conclusion with timings for areas being improved for maximum effect.
Task: Create a interactive space using digital stills and HTML/CSS which visitors can explore.
After looking at this brief my first step was to research existing examples of this medium, particularly for the way navigation had been incorporated and the objective of the whole interactive space.
Some examples like the ones below taken from Youtube, had a video setting the situation followed by a multiple choice option that redirected to the appropriate video down that selected path with it, depending on the storyline, ending in success or failure leaving the other routes open to attempt.
I have decided to base my interactive space on a 'dungeon crawler' type experience with the end target being to reach the treasure situated within the environment. All of my digital images will be made in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop as I believe this will give me the most freedom to produce a suitable looking environment that matches my intentions. I looked at a variety of games based in a dungeon environment as well as things that could act as puzzles or obstacles throughout the adventure as well as researching old text based adventure games such as Zork that had simple typing interfaces to explore an imaginary environment with a lot of options being accounted for.
Dungeon and Dragons and was also something I considered when designing my dungeon environment as I wanted to add an element of chance into my adventure, however could not find a possible solution to this with my knowledge of HTML.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent was one game I looked at as a features a variety of puzzles and challenges that I thought I could incorporate as well as having a dark castle setting that I wanted to base my digital stills on.
Another game I looked at was a turn-based game called Dungeons of Dredmor. The reason I looked at this was to get an idea of a dungeon type environment in a low graphic format. Also I looked at this because the turn based element of it meant it was easy to get an understanding of options that could be given to a user such as movement, attacking or using an item.
