Friday, May 5, 2017

Woman's Comics (via Buzzfeed)

     Considering some of these are experiences from day to day life , I found these comics to be pretty humorous.They're similar to the some of the memes that are on the internet -- some that are are a bit too realistic or a bit too sad and yet are hilarious because everyone -- or a large amount of people -- can relate to the content. These comics are almost like a relief to the small, and big, struggles that are consistently faced by people and I think the fact they have settled into our internet culture quite a bit is pretty good.
     Overall, I enjoy their cartoon-y style as well -- relating back to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics -- because, even though a particular audience may not be female, these comics still contain the fact that everyone can read them because if the story isn't relatable, we can still see a good amount of ourselves in the characters -- whether it be through expression or physical features.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

The Bus - Paul Kirchner

     This one was real trippy... real trippy yet quite unique. I've witnessed these infinite loop comics on the internet, but I wasn't aware that someone would have created them in a series. Aside from the obvious artistic style, some of the things that occur also remind of some children's cartoons -- for example, the bus that compresses the car and, in order to solve the issue, the bus driver moves forward and the car.. uncompresses? But I guess it doesn't need to make sense to be entertaining.. in fact, that's what makes it entertaining, I suppose. 
     Even though these comics are simple, they've also provoked some thought -- just as to how the universe that these comics exist in function. All of these panels are seem like things that the artist just randomly thought of and decided to illustrate. They remind me of things that I'd see in my dreams, practically. In fact, I can honestly hardly compose my thoughts with these comics, they're so random. 
    The Exact Fare comic, however, is definitely my favorite comic visually. Bringing us out into space creates a large, expansive mood in the short comic and larger than life scenarios are incredibly intriguing to me -- even down to the scale of a large ice berg or tsunami wave -- terrifyingly large yet fascinating. 

Battle Angel Alita "The Last Order"

     I've been a fan of Japanese media, like many of the people that go to our school. So, when I found out we'd be covering some of the most influential pieces of comic book work, manga, it was a pretty good moment. Battle Angel Alita was definitely a great read that did shounen manga justice -- violence, action, some comedy, and a decent plot -- not to mention the great art style. This type of work is right up my alley and I'm definitely going to try to make more time to find and read some work similar to it. 
     The most outlandish part of this particular comic is around the middle of the comic series -- when older men find the kids in the lab and try to kill them all. It felt like these guys were made to give off this overwhelming amount of masculinity -- steroid strong, extra tall, and incredibly violent -- almost to the point it was hysterical. Then, one guy walks up to this poor kid and exclaims "You don't work out enough!" and bashes his head in with a dumbbell. Talk about some shock value. I can't even imagine what people thought back when this comic series was first made. Yet, the rest of the story seems to support that kind of violence -- considering the scientist was shown having previously blew his brains out among some other graphic scenes within the comic.
     

Stories from the Heavy Metal

     The first two comics of Moebius, at least in the series of comics that I read, both contained sudden, unexpected events which made me say "Huh?" or it caused me to share what I witnessed with my friends so they could laugh at the randomness with me. In Arzak, when who I assume to be the repairman is approaching what I assume to be a communications tower, I initially found it odd that he was being approached by many naked people as he was walking through the sand. Then, suddenly, this naked man appears and delivers the ancient hidden art: the contact break kick to the poor repairman, all while his junk was just hangin' out in the air. I laughed at those two panels in the comic for a good few minutes and showed it to a friend of mine and we both thought it was ridiculously funny. But by the end, when he fixed the cog in the tower which seemed to allow pterodactyl to fly, I was pretty lost. So, I'd like to imagine that this wordless series of images was what the creature was seeing near the light before he was brought back to life.
     The Ballad, however, seemed to feel like it had a specific audience it wanted to target -- considering the girl we follow through the short comic considers the man who wears clothes one who has "forgotten where God is." The author definitely seemed to want to make a statement with this woman who believed in spreading her beliefs to other people, much like many people of today. I'm personally not religious nor do I have anything against people who are, but, again, the sudden turn of events where she finds other people in the desert and is suddenly barraged with bullets I thought I was funny. A poor fate to meet for the poor woman, but it's the spark of some random, short and anticlimactic violence that gets me. Nothing about either of the events left very much of substance to remember, but they definitely served some sort of comedic purpose -- at least within my understanding. I'd be willing to learn whether or not they had some underlying representationalism or if the author simply said, "Eh, why not..." and drew it in the comic. 

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Maus -- Art Spiegalman

     The holocaust, being an event in time that we all learn about at some point in school, was certainly a catastrophic period of time. Everyone learns of the general details and Hitler's goals as well as seeing the time period from Anne Frank's perspective. It was a cool to see a different perspective of how the Holocaust affected someone's life.
    Vladek himself, as a character, is certainly someone who I'd not admire. Through the story, I saw that there was definitely some antithesis in behavior between Vladek and his son, and Vladek was on the bad side of the spectrum -- being an angry, bitter old man -- One who suffered through through the events of the Holocaust and maintained his own racist beliefs despite how racism impacted his own life. It's almost shameful that he behaves so stubbornly. Although this was his story, by the end I felt like I didn't really care about Vladek. I found that some of the other characters in his story were much easier to pity for, especially the ones who died. In particular, the portion of the comic when (forgive me, for I am bad with names) he gave his son to his friend's wife to watch after them until the killings were over but he, as well as the wife and the other kids she was watching, ending up killing themselves to prevent being captured by Hitler's troops. This event in particular struck a chord with me as it created this sense of great despair -- the sense that I was close to being able to witness a family of completely innocent people survive the kills and then be taken out on a whim suddenly. 
     Overall, however, I didn't very much enjoy our main character's too much because they themselves did not have much substance in my opinion. Consistently being dragged out of the story and in to the comic's present day felt like a constant ruin of immersion even though they both took place within the same comic.

Fat Freddy's Cat -- Gilbert Shelton

     Underground comics, in my opinion, was definitely one of the more underrated golden eras. It's refreshing to see artists who have created a comic based on an idea they've had, whether it's offensive, serious, silly or some combination of the three. Nowadays, many things are censored because they "trigger" people and releasing content as such will result in a large backlash from some incredibly sore consumers, ultimately silencing many ideas that might of otherwise been great or, at least, funny.
     Luckily, Fat Freddy's Cat is a comic that was produced in an era where it wouldn't have been silenced by mass media consumers -- it had a chance to reach its own audience without being put down.
     From the beginning of Part 1, I was already enjoying the comic. Starting off any comic with some bars by a talking cat that makes you want to say "Ooh, damn" is simply incredibly entertaining to me. That first segment said so much about the character of the cat and how frivolous the comic I was getting into would be. The first story, about the "Hee hee hee" drug, is a great example -- we, as an audience, aren't even entirely sure of the severity of this drug. All we get is that it turns people queer. From there, he goes on this mission to find the factory that's producing it and lands on the wrong planet, kills everyone there, realizes he landed on the wrong planet and simply says "Whoops, lol, sorry" and leaves. It's incredibly basic, which I think is a grounds to give everyone a good laugh because it isn't hard at all to understand -- yet not so ridiculous as to cause an upset because it's about a detective cat. 
     I appreciated how free this comic felt -- the lack of restriction is something that I wish could see a bit more today.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

RCAD -- 2017 Spring Work





     Above are a few screenshots of an Adventure Game project I worked on -- an Adventure Game that brought about quite a bit of stress and frustration. It was my first crack at creating a small game from scratch (within Unreal Engine 4) and I had an opportunity to learn a whole lot and gain more appreciation about the strenuous game-making process -- constant trial and error, with sprinkles of success -- at least at the beginning. I had a chance to expand on my skills as a level designer, character creator, character animator, and level artist, which were all exciting to tackle and slowly triumph over.



     Another project I worked on -- Sculpting a character. This guy is paired with a modified Camaro '67 -- which I may upload after I take better screenshots. This character project gave me a chance to dabble into Zbrush, which began to feel like Photoshop after I got used to it. I still have to texture this guy as well and I'll update the photos when that is completed.

So much more to do~

Friday, April 7, 2017

Brainstorming -- Battle Arena

For my battle Arena, I definitely want to continue the theme of the Zahaurant track, having the arena be located within some sort of desert-mountainous area. Because there will be upwards of 16 players, I don't want too much to be going on within the map itself -- the main mechanics of the level I want involve some barrels that respawn that players can knock into unsuspecting players as well being able to trigger some form of environmental hazard -- maybe a player is able to cause a large boulder to fall in a specified area after they've gotten a certain amount of kills.

Reference 1

Reference 2
As far as overall mood, I want to go for something along these lines but with a bit more technology. There's definitely going to be a.. corporate space that this track will be in -- probably another testing grounds created by Zahaurant. There'll be specified spawning areas, which have a chance of being denoted by large pulley doors.

First Concept Sketch

First Storyboards Sketch


Thursday, March 16, 2017

Distance - Arcade Trailer


     Distance is a Scifi themed Arcade Racing game and its attract trailer does a great job at showing off the best parts of the game. The trailer shows what makes this style of racing stand out from other racing games and makes the game look incredibly dynamic, face paced and exciting.

Monday, February 27, 2017

A Contract with God - Will Eisner

     This story felt incredibly pitiful to read due to the nature of the character change brought on by the grief of the main character, Frimme Hersche. I'm not religious myself, but I understand the feeling of betrayal that Hersche felt, at least to an extent. I haven't had a loved one die because of a betrayal, but it's definitely harsh to deal with. To have the source of this pain come from God, someone who is all might and would have no reason to go through such an effort, must feel incredibly terrible -- like he went out of his way to make it happen. I almost felt like I was the one who got betrayed just reading the story -- which was great, from the perspective of a viewer, because I was able to relate, to an extent, on the misery that Frimme was feeling.

     Then, Frimme became an entirely new man -- a man who acted selfishly and without remorse for his actions. Witnessing him put on this new face, literally (he shaved his mighty beard) and figuratively, I felt like I lost the connection that was established between him and me. The rise in billing, the lies told -- all to create a new, more valid contract with God and be struck down because of the process it took to get him to this goal. Once, I read "Humans are incredibly selfish, aren't they? We only cry when someone dies because we will miss the things they did for us and how they made us feel." Now, I know this is blasted out, but there are a few aspects that I agree with, to a small extent. Although, in reality, we develop care for others and will act selflessly for the people we love, there is a portion of us that feels sorrow because they did the same for us -- they gave back to us. Imagine acting out for someone else and not receiving the same treatment -- I'd be willing to bet that after time and time again of this kindness being abused or ignored, it will die down and if, God forbid, this person dies, you (someone in general) wouldn't feel as bad, relative to if the kindness had been returned. I believe this to be some sort form of greed -- not in a terrible sense, because I think that it should be expected for people to treat each other with genuine kindness, especially to those acting in this way towards them.

     This aspect of greed, though, I believe, is what the story was about. Frimme lost his adopted daughter. Betrayed, he went against the common word of God, "doing things that were previously unspeakable," all to create a new contract with God because of what happened to him. Frimme acted selfishly in order to achieve a selfish goal and was smitten. This, at least, is how I analyzed my feeling of pity towards this man -- a man who lost the only person he had and ultimately died himself because of how he reacted to it. 

Superman, the World's Mightiest in: the Test of a Warrior

     I haven't really read many of the classic DC Superman comics and this felt like a pretty casual comic to begin with. From what I hear from my friends and movies/shows/videos about the man of steel, I understood Superman as a selfless person who would go out of his way to help those who need it. Because I really only knew of Superman in the most modern context, it was cool to read of one of his tales of selflessness from back when comics were only 10 cents.
     
     Judging from the title, I expected something a bit more dramatic and grandiose, something that would've been challenging for even Superman himself. Looking back, I realize I might have thought this because of many contemporary superhero movies where there is always some incredibly powerful threat posed against the people who are supposed to fight it off. Instead, the comic was about Superman helping a Hun-Sha, a man in an Indian tribe, survive this Test that was rigged with traps by a someone else in the tribe. Were the contents of this comic dramatic back in this comic's time? I'd imagine so because technology wouldn't have been able to simulate what it can today, but in the scope of the power of Superman, at least as I know him, it seems like a rather minuscule task.

     Those were my thoughts on the story of this short comic -- I enjoyed it but it didn't seem very daunting or dangerous -- I didn't feel like there was a huge threat, although, relative to Hun-Sha, the threat was lethal. I appreciated the message that this comic sent, though, in that you should not plot against others if you do not want to have it come back and harm you. 

Sunday, February 26, 2017

The Struggle - Spiraling Energy Particle Effect


    
     I was able to achieve most of my original goal with creating a spiraling energy particle -- The particle consists of a burst of energy that occurs when the particle starts, the erupting spiraling energy and then some fireflies to add to the magic. In order to get the energy to spiral, I had to create a blueprint with 5 points that rotated around an axis while the ribbon particle turned on -- originally, I wanted to just use an animation from Maya but the .fbx import was giving me some technical issues. For the video, however, I had to copy the particle blueprint set up, not the blueprint itself, over to the barrel explosion in order to have the particle activate properly. The fiery explosion is not a part of the particle for this assignment, but rather my spiraling energy was an addition to the explosion.

Blueprint for the Spiraling Energy

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Little Nemo in Slumberland - Winsor McCay

Being taken away by clowns to a land that you can only reach when you're asleep sounds like a nightmare. Sleeping Nemo, however, was "saved" by the rise of the sun.

Those were some weird first impressions I got of the short comic. Overall, though, the entire comic felt like it was a wild ride that was yanking me all over the place -- to a land with mushrooms, flying horses and kangaroos, and incredibly long-legged flamingos. Winsor McCay definitely did a great job at making this comic feel like a dream often does feel, at least for me whenever I happen to fully remember a dream -- random and quite peculiar.

Nemo's dream of appearing in the middle of an ocean with large creatures is the dream that stood out the most to me -- it was a nightmare. I began to feel bad for Nemo for constantly being pulled into this Slumberland where everything is unpredictable, which means that his enjoyment of this alternate realm could go either way. This, to me, made it seem like Slumberland defeated its own purpose occasionally, which was to provide an enjoyable dream while the victim was resting. I understand the need for some contrast in design of the story, but this event was counterintuitive to the impression that the term "Slumberland" gives me, and I think many other people well.

Friday, February 24, 2017

Understanding comics - Scott McCloud

Understanding comics quite the enjoyable read; the comic was both enlightening and entertaining. Many of things Scott McCloud mentioned gave me a new way to look out how drawings and words are juxtaposed together, although they serve the same purpose, granted they yield differing results. 

I really enjoyed the portion of the comic where he was explaining how simplicity is what brings attracts an audience because of our tendency to project ourselves onto everything we see. Part of the information in this portion felt like information that just sits in the back of the mind, but once it was explained further, it was just eye-opening. One thing I've noticed with social media, for example, is that the stylized, less realistic artists tend to have more followers than those who do incredibly realistic paintings or figure drawings and it felt great to understand that it happens because people just subconsciously relate more to a less detailed, therefore less defining, characters. 

Then, when he took it one step further beyond a face being simple two dots and a line and explained that "F A C E" is another way to draw a face, being that writing is a form of art, I felt like I understood the connection between literature and art more -- and better yet, how they can be combined to create something that is truly amazing.

Sunday, February 19, 2017

The Arrival - Shaun Tan

This comic left a pretty big impression on me. I haven't "read" a story that contains no words up until this reading, yet the story was still very well told through the compositions and gestures of the characters within each frame. Without the words, not to say that words can't be encapsulating, I was able to fully focus on the meaning of each picture -- The lack of words actually allowed me to stitch together my own dialogue of sorts, which I think is an interesting "feature" of this unspoken art. Through the various expressions and tones of the characters and in the colors, I was able to feel what they were feeling -- The frustration of the our main character as he tries to explain what bread is -- the sadness of the old man who went to war and came back to his home, destroyed -- the terror that the farmer remembered as he explained how he got to the city that our character had to travel to. This story re-emphasized the power of expression and tone in story-telling, which I believe will help me as an artist.

I also appreciated the breakdowns of the events that were occurring as well -- they were forming their own sentences that, without one of their panels, would be incomplete. For example, when our character asks the man pasting advertisements on the wall if he could help in return for... something (I assume money), I didn't understand the interaction that was going on until they shook hands and our character began to place the ads on the wall (albeit upside down). 

This story pretty much brings a new meaning to the fact that a picture can speak. [Credits]

My Particle Effect -- Research

For my custom particle, I intend on creating an energy beam, or clusters of energy, that swirl around a radius that expands as the particles move upwards. I'm hoping to emulate a vortex-like effect, more or less, that comes from the energy sphere on top of my barrel when it is going to explode.

Along with this spiraling energy, I want to create particles that fly off and then sizzle/ smoke out whenever they collide with a surface. So, all in all, there are at least 3 particles -- as of now -- The spiraling energy, the sparks, and the smoke from the sparks upon collision.

So far, I'm just focusing on how to get particles to move in a spiraling fashion and I've learned about the point and line attractors from This Post. The sparks and energy are most likely going to be procedurally generated while the smoke will be a flip note.  

The video below, more or less, at least illustrates the motion of the particle that I am aiming to create. It does not detail all of the effects that I want to happen.

This here is another video that shows the direction I want to head in


Wednesday, February 8, 2017

Exploding Barrel Project


Everyone's favorite tale draws to its conclusion. Enjoy.

Here's the code, nerds

Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Race Track [P1] -- Gray box Edition

     Alright.
   
     So, I'm thinking for my race track idea that it takes place in a desert. Ultimately, I'd like for the level to contain a good amount of straight shots with a few round elements (i.e. Turnabouts, Drift spots, bounce pads) to emphasize the idea of a design that consists of rectangles and circles. Within this desert-area, there'll be some kind of factory that produces some of the things that will be found on the track, like some barrel depots and the bounce pads.



Color Palette
      Within this level, I'm hoping to place a canyon in that will collapse upon a trigger event, a large, wide drift semi-circle for the player to perform some sick mechanics, a collapsing bridge, and, again, some bounce pads that will project the racers upwards and forwards.

Thumbnails of views  1-3

Thumbnails of views 4 - 5
5 features the jump pads
     I'm mostly hoping that players will get that feeling of intense urgency, i.e. in the collapsing canyon in which it will seem they are barely able to make it, but in reality, they have a pretty high chance of doing so.

Some Inspiration: 




Thursday, February 2, 2017

Explosive Barrel Concept v1.0


Left - The Barrel hasn't been triggered yet and the colors remain cool.
Right - Barrel is triggered and the colors quickly become a warm red - the rectangular extensions fall off to aid in indicating that a change within the barrel has occured.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Jam's Plays: Spiky Block HD Remaster GOTY Player's Choice Reboot Ultimate 4K Edition [P1] [Final]



     In this all new adventure taken on by the Legend himself, Jumping Jim, explore the vast depths of the abyss as you avoid these totally radical spiky blocks and collect coins.

Okay, but.. all in all, this process of creating animation for an object in a scene was pretty fun -- I enjoyed the result. Unreal's timeline, however, is not very efficient at allowing it's user to quickly enter keys to the timeline and duplicate or shift them around accurately -- the process, relative to what I've experienced with timeline's in Maya and Blender, is much slower than it should be, granted I understand the fact that Unreal is not program meant for animation primarily. Aside from that, the process was pretty smooth -- the hardest thing being that I had to make sure I wasn't mixing up my X and Y curves in the timeline because re-entering the values takes a bit too long to do -- longer than it should.

I'm going to call these blocks Sleps. Avoid them -- they'll kill ya.


Friday, January 27, 2017

Game Design II Jams Plays -- V-Core: Stuck in Graybox [P1][Final]



Oho, man. Back at it again -- Playing the Legendary V-Core Alpha HD Remastered GOTY Player's Choice Collector's Edition tutorial stage.

A little about the game's "narrative" : You're on a spaceship that got heavily damaged by some space debris while you were asleep (you were super tired, so you didn't wake up from it :) ) and you just need to escape from the spaceship because.. staying there is not advisable!

Release Date: Sometime in the future, maybe

Monday, January 16, 2017

V-Core - Tutorial Level Design Layout I



V - Core - You are a character that is in space ship that has been violently vacated (most passengers have been massacred) by passing-by space ship that hacked through and raided the vessel. You were able to successfully hide during the invasion, but realize that as the invaders were leaving with their findings, they have prepped your ship to blow up and you must escape before you are removed from existence.

   Within this tutorial level, there are 4 main game features/mechanics that the player will learn to avoid/utilize  in order to get through the level. The stage starts off with an incredibly simple jump obstacle that requires the player to jump in order to get past and they player is then immediately tested upon their skill to jump to get past the spike pit on the floating platforms which will teach them to time their jumps. A little later, there is an introduction to spikes that the player must jump over, otherwise they will be set back. Along with this, they must learn to utilize the jump pad as well as obtaining the Teleporter Activators in order to progress. From here on, the stage focuses on these mechanics with a few changes to previously defined mechanics (spikes become retractable and a platform is movable, which both require the player to time their movements).

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Platformers in Video Games - Rayman: Origins


     
Rayman: Origins - Tutorial Analysis

     

     
     Tutorial levels serve to teach new players how to play the new game they have at hand. They often include a simple level along with instructions as to how to operate the character the player will be manipulating.

Rayman: Origins', designed by Michel Ancel, has a tutorial level that is a simple, yet effective stage. It starts off with simple jumps and escalates into environmental changes and enemies that require specifically timed movements. This includes small earth pillars that collapse and require to player to jump off before they fall off the map to giant moving rock pieces that require the player to wait until the rock won't crush them to pass. There are even a few enemies that must be defeated before the player has an opportunity to pass. Throughout the first stage, the only instructions the player is given are the ultimate objective of the game and how to attack, once the ability to do so is received later on in the stage.

This overall pacing of the level is, again, quite slow but ramps up as the map becomes a little more populated with enemies and jump obstacles to ensure that the player must think before their next move, especially if they have never played the game before. Although it is still the tutorial stage, the player is still punished for making poor decisions by dying and being forced to resume the game at a previous checkpoint, which enforces the idea of quick, yet careful thinking, as the game presents itself as a quick paced game.

The tutorial doesn't integrate much of the Rayman: Legends Tutorial Layout story, as all that the player is told is that they must collect enough of an item of which is presumably obtained through the entirety of the game. There is another instance where Rayman rescues a damsel in distress, but her purpose in the story is not elaborated upon aside from the fact she gives Rayman the ability to attack. This tiny integration of story within the tutorial stage allows the player to be at least aware of some events that are going on without having to focus on remembering all the details of the world and being able to focus on simply mastering the mechanics.