01.03.10: YAwnnn.. its march

A VERY long day but the entire Sketchup map is now 100% from scratch with my own hand-drawn textures on everything. I have also added in one of my earlier character concept drawings but will probably draw fresh characters and add colour to them.

28.02.10: GOT WOODS!

I have reskinned the main faces of the map with my own hand-drawn textures. I think they're starting to create a unique cartoony atmosphere and final video could turn out really well. I have continued to use a scanned page of parchment as a background to each texture, so that the whole thing will feel like its on an antique page.

I have also been tidying up the terrain and figuring out ways to fill the landscape. I looked into how people had made trees for Sketchup and worked out how to apply a 2D image to a component which will snap to the camera and follow it; giving a simple illusion of 3D. I hand drew a cartoon oak tree as a start and managed to apply it as a png so that the white space around it would be see-through. I then went mad a planted a small forest, which through the magic abilities of Sketchup didn't affect the file size at all! I think the sunny glow of the fog is also helping to break up the hills and dissolves the map into the background well.

27.02.10: Is it too late to change my idea??

ITS OK I'm not being quite that crazy, but following an incredible opportunity to meet with the external examiner mid-year, I have had a few ideas which I think could massively improve my project. He seemed impressed by my hand drawn visuals and concept art and we discussed how it might make more sense to focus the rest of my time on what I was really passionate about, as I was slightly unsure about how to proceed.

As such, I think I have found a compromise in which I can create a lot of material by hand, while also generating a strong 'final piece' as I discussed with Jay last week. I chose at the start of the brief to make as varied a project as possible, while I have reached the stage where I need to focus in on one central piece to avoid the entire FMP feeling vague and incomplete.

I have therefore come up with an idea whereby I will be able to combine all of my work so far into one central video by elaborating on my Sketchup area; to include a range of environments and locations. I will then make a detailed video of the map and layer on a character in the first person view in Flash. From there I can have the character interact with objects or NPCs, demo the combat, trade in shops, use the map I have already made and even switch to minigames such as the carrier pigeon.

My other major decision is to alter the visual style of the game to match the etched cartoons in the pamphlets I have been working on. I think this could make the game world unique, more charming and widen the audience to include younger users and families. I can therefore hand draw all of the visuals and make the end product more personal, more of a showcase of my abilities and more original.

The images below show my developed Sketchup environment with terrain. There is quite range of options for fog and shadows and i experimented with a heavy white mist and the warm sunrise as shown below.

You can also see the terrain I have built up around the castle, which while bare at the moment will be filled with trees and other buildings. You can also see the textures I have started to design, such as the grass pattern, which I have made to look hand-drawn and complement the cartoony style of the program.
The screen-shots have also been taken with the thick lines around each angle swithced off. I think it looks interesting but maybe not better. I have also experimented with the style of the black outlines and with smoothing of edges, which makes a massive difference to the terrain.

24.02.10: Dissertation freedom!

The 8000 word dissertation is now handed in and I can focus more on the FMP. I worked the topic of the writing project to fit in with the FMP to make it easier to write as I was interested in the subject and so that it had more relevance. I assessed the use of history in TV, film and games and used the research to help inform my own historical referencing. I may make it into a pdf so it can be accessed online as well as having a copy at the degree show.

Speaking of online, I have started building a new website to showcase my uni and other work and to be more personal. I am designing it in the style of the pamphlets which really typify the era and visual quality of my FMP, which should make it more interesting to navigate; using flash to make some simple animation.

I have also printed a few more of the pamphlets and I think they work really well on the calligraphy parchment. Next up is my adventure in the unreal engine, which several people seem to be having problems with. I am going to look at 3ds max to see how easy it is to model in compared to Sketchup, but either way I intend to use 100% my own materials.

15.02.10: Gunz and Gunpowder

Over the weekend I have come up with a couple more ideas for pamhlets/drawings/prints. To get across the wide range of 100 weapons and other researched equipment I have accumulated, I will make several detailed pages of numerous objects. Drawing 5 or so a day, around my other work, I should be able to generate a simple design in the etched style for each object which I think would look really impressive in large groups. It could hopefully be a balance of quantity and quality, rather than a compromise, and illustrate my work in a really accessible way.

The guns below show the most elaborate pistols in the game, based on real weapons, in the etched style.

I have also made a start on the into sequence and have now worked out the order and content for the storyboards. They are however too extensive to do every scene in high detail, though I could draw each one simply if we feel its worth the time in the next tutorial. I have decided I could make a several-page pamphlet to inform the public on the events of the plot; news being a major topic for these publications.

I started with an interesting engraving I found online which shows two of the plotters inspecting their work in the cellars beneath the house of commons. There is a relatively famous poem written at the time and I could add the text beneath several images of the plot, trial and execution.

09.02.10: Random Devil

While searching the internet for Civil War pamphlets and propaganda in addition to what I've found in books, I happened upon this incredibly obscure and offensive publication. It seems to be part of a war between the mentioned John Taylor and an ironmonger, and in addition to offensive language including a swear word I now know was used at the time, they have added an insulting picture!

An academic website described it briefly as a devil creature 'voiding' the ironmonger, and it would be difficult to be more personally offensive! I thought it such an unusual and entertaining publication that I have made this copy, the style of which also being different to what I have worked on so far.

09.02.10: Styles

I want the pamphlets to be really varied to make the project diverse and to challenge me. Ive therefore gone for some different styles with these latest images, including a crude woodcut of a village corporal punishment scene and a much more detailed copy of a painting of Prince Rupert; a leading royalist character in the game.

I have also created a spiral of wheellock pistols to reflect the style of the mechanism, with a description to fit in with the range of blacksmith and gunsmith pamphlets I have made. These should inform the player about the equipment as it becomes available in a more entertaining way than a simple status update.

07.02.10: Typography

From several books I have found examples of pamphlets which focus entirely on type, and I think they really opitimise the early printing style. I found several new and appropriate fonts online to look like early typeface and correct styles of handwriting. I then worked on spacing and sizing the layouts to mimic the style as best as possible. I also tinkered with weathering techniques as before, to make it look like the words have printed badly, as well as taking occasional letters from words and altering them to look like they have slipped on the rudimentary printing presses.

I have now completed a piece of propaganda for either side of the conflict; copying from actual historical sources, as well as a wanted poster from a slightly later period which I have altered to fit with the age. I have also incorporated the portrait of Fairfax done earlier into a recruitment poster for the parliamentarian army, using text from their training manuals.

As these pamphlets could appear a little plain without imagery, I have added smudges and markings to look like excess ink from the press.

06.02.10: More Pamphlets!!

Since last Monday's tutorial and feedback session, I am feeling really good about the slightly altered direction the project is taking. Flash will take a bit of a back seat so I can focus on creating these leaflets to display my research visually. I have fallen into the trap in the past of focussing too much time making things intricate in Flash where it isn’t necessary and losing marks because of it.

However, these images take about 2 hours to draw, then another hour or so editing and adding text in Photoshop which is a really efficient use of time. I’m happy with the result; trying to replicate the etched style of the age while also conveying useful and relevant information and they should hopefully add an entertaining angle to the audience.

The three pamphlets here show an attempt at a portrait which I find much more challenging as they have to look quite precise, another gun upgrade and an advert for traders. With the pistol, I used an incorrect perspective on the barrel, in order to be informative. I found this technique used frequently in such printed work as with the gunner's quadrant earlier.

I have also experimented with printing them out, using types of baking paper to get an aged look. Their greaseproof properties unfortunately meant the ink printed badly and wouldn’t dry so instead I went round a few art shops in town and found a range of beautiful parchment style A4 paper. I have seen and handled a few documents from the time period throughout my research and the printed finish is quite convincing. I am also weathering the Photoshop images so that they look like they’ve been printed using basic technology and not come out perfectly.

Single-page printed ‘pamphlets’ and the printing press were an emerging medium during the Civil War and provided a revolutionary way to reach a mass audience where before one was dependant on word of mouth. As such, this style of publication has huge significance to the game world and I now intend to make them more of a game-play feature. They could appear periodically as new information is made available to the player; from mission and event updates to newly available shop items and upgrades. They could be collected from locations or delivered by the carrier pigeon perhaps, which I have already developed as a concept.

03.02.10: Unreal!

These images show my relative successes importing into UT3. The wall and gatehouse section worked from the Stokesay map and the new windows are have been refined, halving the number of faces, while adding the crenelations and detail to make them more realistic.

The lighting makes the most of all the angles, which is the main feature of the game engine I

wanted to exploit. Strangely, the models import as one 'brush' of bsp shapes congealed together,

rather than a 'mesh'. On the plus side I am able to texture each face in UT3 but it might be

better to convert in into a mesh in 3D Studio Max - my next challenge!

02.02.10: Pamphleteering

The mid-year presentation is now out the way and I think it went ok! It made me look at what I have achieved so far which was really useful as I'm working on quite a range of material simultaneously and it would be easy to loose track or not focus enough on an area.

During feedback with Jay, we came up with an idea to illustrate my extensive research visually. I love the special and limited edtion versions of games and they're becoming more popular and elaborate, such as with Far Cry 2 and Fallout 3 releasing concept art books, DVDs and themed boxes to contain them in. I am therefore going to create some special edition content for New Model Army which will illustrate the research I've done into characters and equipment, while presenting it in an interesting way.

I will print out a range of pamphlets and printed material in the style of the era and on aged paper to give the examiner and audience something tactile and fun rather than just digital work.

I have also started on a new 3d Environment. Using a Sketchup plugin, I am now able to export content and import it directly into UT3. My large Stokesay model is too complecated to export as it has over 2000 faces and if one of them is white instead of blue in Sketchup it wont work in UT3.

ONE OF THEM IS!!

I am therefore starting on a new and more managable environment for Unreal, based on an Oxford University 'quad'. These intricate stone rectangular areas also appear in monasteries and could look really good in the Unreal editor.