Through my research in Unit 6, I decided to create an analytical review of the Coca-Cola Zero product. I found a create document that covers the process of how they advertised and provided the concept behind Coca-Cola Zero, from this address. http://advertising.microsoft.com/europe/coca-cola-zero-campaign
I quote from this website.
"Seeking to maximise exposure to Italian 18-34-year-olds, Coca-Cola’s Avatar-themed Coca-Cola Zero campaign used the reach and audience profile of Windows Live Messenger combined with the power of remessaging. The Messenger campaign reached an impressive 2 million users in the target audience, with re-messaging increasing this by 78% to 3.6 million."
This depicts the aim and audience number increase for the product. An amazing advertisement scheme that returned 78% increase to there 2 million user target, increasing it to 3.6. The most interest element of this reponse was how they advertised there product. Utilise the audience profiling mechanism of Windows Live Messenger, which is very similar to he same process that Facebook uses. It would seem that this form of advertisement is effective, primarily because it targets the specific audience in question for the product in mind.
It reminds me of the documentary I watched on Facebook which covered a large section of how Facebook earns its money through effective product advertisement, the use of demographic targetting for providing products was interesting, it seemed the concept behind it was to allow product advertisers to select specific options and provide them with a number of individuals that this advertisement would be targetted too.
It seems like this is a rather effective method, and shows with the increase in popularity within that sector of advertisement.
As with the coca-cola zero product, the campaign objective was, as I quote from the same source from the Microsoft Advertisement Dispository.
"Increase reach and exposure amongst a target audience of 18-34-year-olds "
I believe that they have hit this objective and with the concept applied I believe I might actually consider applying this method into our production work, perhaps using facebook as a advertisment medium, however our research document didn't show this as a interesting possible method, YouTube however provides an effective medium as its fame and media orientated approach would allow us to apply our video to the advertisement method, something that will be seen by many people especially on popular videos.
The interesting application Coca-Cola zero applied was this, quoted from the same source.
" The Coca-Cola Zero campaign used super-expanding banners within Windows Live Messenger to deliver its Avatar-themed ads to a target audience of 18-34-year-olds, with re-messaging used to drive awareness amongst an active online audience. "
The use themes for instant messaging devices could be sometihng we could look into creating and activivating our more creative side. The collcated results of this method was the following, quoted again from the same source.
"The Messenger campaign reached 4.4 million unique users, 2 million of which were in the target 18-34 age group
The re-messaging campaign reached 2 million users, with 1.6 million in the target audience "
In our recent meeting we had to get down and design our trailer. This was an interesting moment for the team, as the trailer is what defines our game, before it has even been released, and is something a lot of the team got involved with. Unfortunately Michael Prior wasn’t present, and was unable to provide his valued input with the trailer design. In this post I will be discussing the points we discussed and how the trailer will play out.
Challenging.... Artistic....
These are the words the team came up with to describe our game. They wanted something that fell into these categories, in order to sell our product and create a truly immersive game world. With these points in mind we knew we had to work with these key points with the plot line and ideas we put forth with our trailer.
So, what is our idea?
We had a few ideas brewing around between our tiny group. Previously we had discussed the possibility of utilising a education puzzle based environment. This was of a large interest to me, as it seemed a basic, yet very solid idea. However, it didn't have the enthusiasm of the team behind it. Alas, many other ideas where stretched out between our constantly active tongues. Curtis implyed that we create some kind of horror scenario, with the use of undead historical figures, however, the idea was very generic, presented not much in the terms of a educational story fashion, and scouting around the groups we discovered that the other two team where planning something similar. In an aid to be different and try something new, we denied the idea, and the team agreed.
Our Results from the Public
It wasn't until we looked at our target audience of which is 25 +, we knew that it was obvious something along a more interesting, mature and solid storyline was inviting. While this was our target audience, we also had a large area of interest from the younger faction, so we knew we'd have to incorporate some kind of adventure, into it to make it more interesting and interactive. Besides, who doesn't like interactice anyway.
Because of the statistics we have, we also know that our age range is quite young to old. A mixture of both, is always good, it means we are interesting a wide market area. I believe keeping the game mature, and aiming for an around 15 + would be a good sure way to make sure the game can be bought by all the market, I will bring my suggestion up with the team.
I will explain in our next meeting how I believe that making the age rating low and providing mature but educational content will attract more customers, and also not sour the name of Saltaire too much, with a violent aptitude, which we are not looking for in this product. We are looking for a logical, but creative outcome to a story, a game that requires thinking and on par interaction, whether the adventure is one of the mind, and providing learning in the form of something many can enjoy, especially tourists to Saltaire, of which Saltaire gets many.
Preview from Uncharted 3, it reminded me a possible environment for the game, with the old rustic, victorian look.
Joey came up with the final idea, taking inspiration from Indiana Jones, Uncharted and some areas of adventure based games, like Tomb Raider. The idea was to have the player be a treasure hunter, and have to wade through the crypts under the Salt Building, to find a special treasure. I immediatily caught on with the idea, and a few of the others did, with some speculaton from Stuart however. Nevertheless we all inputted our improvemenets to the idea, Curt implied we could make ourselves key NPCs in the trailer, like myself could be the tech savvy assitant, like how Lara Croft has her tech savvy side kick to help her during adventures.
Tomb Raider inspried our idea. The Clock work tools at the back give us an idea about the steam punk/technology of the game level chambers.
We nodded and liked the idea, it was a sort of easter egg. Joey also mentioned that we could improve the adventure aspect to be more interactive, similar to how the story of Uncharted goes, by providing puzzles as well as a way to manipulate the environment, to get people thinking. This was a good idea. we was onboard with this concept, and alot of ideas where zooming around, by the end of which we all had a decent idea on how we wanted the story to go, however we haven't solidfied anything as of yet, least not until micheal returns for the next meeting.
The Name
We took into context the value of the good name. The general idea was to relate our name to the our plotline, which was similar to games like Uncharted and Tomb Raider, with a more artistic element of Steam Punk implied, and photo-realism, involved with flash back of events and locations around Saltaire. We decided in relation to opening this for sequel and more of an adventure series we would go with the name, Saltaire Chronicles: The Wine of Titus.
The name was a freefall choice, due to the basis that the storyline was thought out during the initial planning stage. The group pitched in and chose a lot of names that related to the plot we had. Each member of the team selected 4 name ideas each and we decided for the sake of making voting easier, that each member would then select their favourite.
I myself selected the name of The Vault of Titus, trying to play on the element of treasure and a mysterious element involved.
Joseph Brown was the one who came up with the idea to Saltaire Chronicles, in which he came up with two secular ideas, naming one The Golden Alpaca and the other the Wine of Titus. I have to state now that we all liked the idea of Wine of Titus due to the basis that Titus banned alcohol in his village, and having a scared bottle of wine that is rumoured to grant the drinker immortality, seemed quite interesting as a reward for the player at the end.
Stuart , chose the name of Salt, Rock, Shock which was a play on the puzzle based idea we selected, as I stated we based our idea of the name, and built around it, however Stuart was basing this name on the previous idea we had before the new one was introduced. This idea was favoured by us all until the story plot line, Joseph introduced was seen more favourably, and therefore this name didn’t realistically work well with the atmosphere we had.
Finally, Curtis selected the name of Titus Exhibition, this name was interesting, however to me it seemed to imply the use of the Exhibition building, and our project trailer was focused around the Salts Building, the others agreed on this concept. After a rather one sided vote, it was obvious what name and plotline accompanying it we was selecting.
Job Roles
The job roles where not discussed heavily, we mentioned in the team that any Photoshop work should be taken care of by myself and Joseph Brown. However we decided it was best not to fully discuss who would be taking care of what, until Michael returned and we could properly discuss this with him and we decide the best roles for each of us to take, based on our skills.
It is probably the case though that we will need to take multiple jobs to the lack of use, realistically we will be looking at the follow positions that need to be filled.
-1 – 2 Photoshop Developers
-2 – 3 Modellers
-1 Sound Manager
-1 Animator
-1 Effects Artist
Of course, mixing and matching the jobs would be most likely the correct course to go down. This would be based on the areas of expertise each of our members had.
Story/Plot Development
Before we move onto to discussing each point, such as artistic style and genres, I feel the need to discuss the plotline for our trailer. We decided our game would be heavily based around adventure, but primarily about solving puzzles (To involve that educational feel). The start of the trailer will begin with an overlook of the Salt Building at night; the concept of the ideas is that the player takes the role of a treasure hunter, searching for the lost treasure of Sir Titus Salt. With his trusted assistant, he ventures into the depths of Salt Building into an old tomb that contains a powerful artefact that is said to give its user immortality.
The player will have to solve and wade through numerous puzzles that relate the Salt Family and Saltaire as a whole, while being stalked by the stone lions that are the guardians of this secret. The player must fight to survive, and as he delve in deeper and darker, the way out becomes harder, with no choice but to press on.
In the end, the player is gifted with the wine, but just as he grabs it, he hears a growl and it flicks out of game. The aim being that the lions had finally caught up with him, for a final showdown. This is the generally storyline for the game as a basic guideline, and we will discuss a more in depth story based development for the trailer, once Michael return
The plotline is to try to introduce historical aspects about Saltaire, as educational phenomena it was the sole idea that we implement a lot of the history of Saltaire in our fictional storyline. This was to broaden the area of design and also to incorporate a more real story line behind our original concept.
Genre
We decided that we wanted to incorporate a adventurist genre with use of puzzling, taking elements from horror (in correlation to the lions) that works with our story design, because we are using elements of all three of these we will have to take into context how unique how design will be and incorporating multiple genres will suit us well.
We are taking inspiration from many different elements, such as Uncharted, Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, researching into those areas to help define the characteristics of the story.
I think a tomb raider idea works very well, people love an interactive adventure and when coupld with puzzles it opens up the world for a more intriguing setting.
This video of Tomb Raider 4 gameplay gives a great insight to the type of end product I am looking for, the incorporation of puzzle and adventure elements.
The use of tombs and exploring forgotten locations is often present in these games, and since we are basing ours in an underground chamber, beneath Saltaire, I believe it creates a great ambience for the player.
That is why I believe a Puzzled Based Adventure type game, is the best method to go with. Employing adventure and education in an interactive environment.
I did a little research into this particular genre to see what kind of market they recieved. On this basis, I have to say I have loved the Tomb Raider franchise since I first got a playstation, back when I was around six. Coupled with this, I have always appreciated the artitistic and unique style. However, thast my opinion, and in order to better sell our product, I needed to see how our inspiration competitors did, and learn from this. I found a great article that gave me some insight into the lifetime sales of Tomb Raider.
Unfortnatly, this seems to be a rather worrying element, there has been a steady decline in the units sold as the years have gone on. Whether this is down to decline in interest, expecting of more from these games, or even just a lack of enthusiasm on the developers side, it is defintely something that the team and I need to look into, at some point.
However a similar game to Tomb Raider, Uncharted 3, statistics state from this website.
"Sony’s Uncharted 3 Drakes Fortune shipped 3.8 million on its first day of sales on Nov. 1, the company announced today."
This means that uncharted as sold more in one day that five of the Tomb Raider games have sold in a year. Fantastic statistics, and it probably be worth looking more into Uncharted for some ideas on how to progress with our game.
Areas of Discussion
The Areas we discussed for the main idealism for the game and style generated and bullet pointed below.
-Set under the Salts Building, where an old tomb that holds the last and greatest treasure of Sir Titus Salt.
-The incorporation of Lions as protectors guardians, which relates to their history as keepers of peace, incorporating their duty to protect the treasure of Sir Titus Salt from the unworthy seems key here.
-Puzzles to solve as the player progresses each level, this also builds on the adventure and progresses the storyline.
-Subliminal images of Saltaire and Surrounding Areas, in Black and White Imagery.
We discussed numerous areas of the trailer. Mostly style, environments, and effects that help to benefit the overall look and design, and complement the plot line. We decided due to our results from our queries begin returned as a even mixture of Past, Present, Future, that we would set the time in the present, but because the player is delving into a tomb over 200 years old, the element of past and present would mix, with traps that are far to modern for Titus’s era, steam based gizmos and enemies. Where thinking the Dwemer from Skyrim, here, which were a bunch of dwarves that had clever devices and enemies that had technology far beyond their era. (This also relates to our steam punk idea for adding in this sort of element).
We already know that from our results we would be basing the concept around Salts Building. However we felt that we didn’t really want to do the interior of the Salts Building, due to our initial idea being that we wanted to incorporate a tomb based idea. We decided to make the tomb under the Salts Building, and this allowed us to incorporate the lions since they are sat primarily outside of the Salts Building itself.
Now that we were satisfied with the environment and how the general style was going to look like, we decided on characters. We never did solidify characters, but we did discuss that we wanted to place ourselves somewhere in the fold, Joey stating that I should be in the assistant of the player, due to my technical background, and this would work out as Easter Egg, adding the developers into the fold of the characters.
Apart from using the stone lions as the protectors, and adding us into the fold, I would personally really like to see the spirit of Titus Salt, and his children be involved as a part of the plotline, well not all but some historical figures that tell a little part of the history of Saltaire and of course our fictional storyline.
On this area, it will probably be a good idea to discuss the artistic style. We wanted to go predominantly 3D with this, to try and tell a much better story, and to express more creativity. We wanted to add a lot textures taken from the surrounding area to try and keep the current feel, however for the inside of the tomb we may need to explore a more old and worn out location. However, I do like the idea of a cross between old ruin (Egyptian) and the incorporation of a steam punk based environment, as I have previously stated.
Credits
Obviously for the credits, we only discussed what would be implemented but not how it will be implemented, personally I would like to see the names and jobs roles used through the bulk of the trailer, like in Metal Gear Solid, was a introduction to the creators, rather than blanking out or placing it at the end, like a rather generic design.
Analogue is the concept of producing physical sound, through th methods of impriting (cutting even) sound onto disks. Analogues is considered to be a warmer and real sound that performs a better overall quality than a digital alternative.
The most important feature of Analogue is that it is real. Unlike digitial, it's sounds produce waves, rather than digitally created via special software, and for that matter, created using real instrucments (although digital can perform the same concept).
There are two main formats of Analogue sound, one format is Vinyl. Which is the old way of imprinting groves onto a alluminium disk, coated in special black liquid. It is replayed by a pin running through the groves and replaying the sound. Another format is Magenetic tapes, which magentically imprint sound onto it, one downfall however is you scratch the suface of this disk, the area skips that particular area.
Personally, I am in favour of Digital, due to the basis that it is quick, of a high enough quality for my standard, and compresses down well to work in video games or projects without overdrawing it.
In this lesson we gathered in teams to plan and discuss the ideas for our project. We mades notes and ideas on a piece of A3 about what is possible for our project and how we plan to handle it. We covered a few concepts, such as font, graphics and things that we would include into the trailer, this as well as making sure we covered the idea we had.
We have selected to go for a past tense sort of scenario (think bioshock), we have taken aspects from many other games, such as the animus idea, going into the past when Salts Building was a school, and having the player do puzzles from room to room, and learning more about the history of saltaire, while trying to fight against the evil Titus Salt.
The idea is to provide a very popular puzzle based environment, take inspirtation from popular games like bejeweled, with this mind we have also worked with an adventure scene, with a bit of story to add some flare to the design of the game trailer.
The characters we have decided to use, is ourselves as well as some characters from the past. Our characters are avatars, guides that help the player along his path to finding a solution to destroying Titus Salt. And restoring freedom and peace to Saltaire, we have decided to give a unique elements and voice act our characters ourselves, such as ..
Rob the Wizard
Stuart the Goat
Curtis the Boss
Micheal the Goldfish
Overall the group particpated well, I believe we still need to discuss this more and work on the mindmap to get a foundation laid out, and the lack of one of our vital team members, set us back further than the other groups. We would like to continue this is time allows with the particpation of Joe Brown, next week.
In todays lesson we discussed the elements of Sound in Computer Games. We covered how sound is used to create ambience and set the feel for the game, we also discussed elements of sounds and how they are created either sythetically or with the use of real life objects, such as the job of a foley artist.
Sound is recorded for many elements, and referred to as samples, these samples are mixed and modified in a computer program and used in different areas of environments, such as floorboards squeaking and doors opening, bullets firing.
It helps in environments as well, such as when you are playing through an FPS, the sound of shooting helps to define the location of the enemy, or if you are being fired upon, the element of hearing the sound after the flash, aids the user in ambience and elements.
In todays session we was listening to music from different tracks and genres to help get a better understanding of how music helps us feel. There was mixed emotions that poured from each track, but each was defined by it's principle, the first song, "Killing in the name of..." was a rather upbeat, high tempo song, that used alot of heavy sounds and symbolises in my opinion with anger, frustration and taking this out on the world, rebelling against an authoritve figure and rules.
I'll relate to another song, that I like. I am an avid Fan of metal music, Disturned, Avenged Sevenfold, Sevendust, Devil Driver, the music I listen to, provides a rather heavy and deep tone, but one song, i'll cover for this is Seize the Day by Avenged Sevenfold. This song is rather deep, and sad, like a repentful notion, like regret is felt throughout the entire song, the height of the pitch and tempo in parts of the song provide more timbre in the texture and ambience of the music, and creates a more felt sound giving of more emotion in the voice of the artist.
For our research into our 3D Environment, it was required that we do some audience research, using the technique's we learnt with Quantitative, Qualitative research, we was tasked with creating a questionnaire as a team. The questions I asked on my particular questionnaire were rather specific. Options that allowed me to drive the audience into creating the product that I wanted to do, this was a good way to gain postive feedback, and one that could be easily calculated and formatted into presentable data.
The team did well, and each of us came up with a different idea, however, I must say that due to Curtis's absence at the start his level of questionnaire work was short and not beneficial, he was asked to expand on it, and is something I as team leader will help him with in order to push him up and keep in with the rest of the team and not feel left behind. Joseph created a unique form and some aspects from his work where taken to add to mine, which was voted in the end by the team as the final form to use for the surveys.
After this was selected and the team was ready to begin surveys on our project, we printed off 30 copies, and set out. We hit a few problems, realising we had one hour to get the questinnaires completed, we decided that to cover more ground and save more time, we'd split up into two teams, I accompanied Micheal as we covered the library and surrounding areas we filled out our forms and got alot of good feedback from the student populance and tutor populance. In meeting Joseph and the team we were sad to realise some of the public where unsupportive, one even ripping up one of our questionnaires, which was a massive blow to our numbers, and some even ignored us completly, this was dissapointing as we would have assumed that most people in the local area would be up for helping out students with their projects, especially one that effects them and their surroundings profoundly.
However minus the hiccups, we managed to get a good 27 solid responses, and in returning the following week where able to tally up the results and present them in a format, that allows us to gain an insight into our results. Our first idea was to break all the questions down into columns and then input the responses for all 30 results, rather like a relational database. How ever we quickly realised how unefficient this method would have been, especially with the question size, and amount of input, it would have been a long and ugly process.
We later decided we would break it down, in a much more simplified way, using questions as headers and placing the results underneath, we also took onboard Stuart's idea, which was to seperate Male and Female, so we could get a much better understanding of our target audience and what the difference in detail between the two genders where, so we could later apply thus audience profiling to any future products.
The outcome was well, and we was able to see that the environment we are to make will be based on a futuristic environment, we would apply this in a 3D Walkthrough, rather like architectural building walkthroughs, which I think would be great, and a task worth particpating in with. We could also tell from our results that Classical Music was more favoured, I have to say we will likely mix music, which is posting over Modern Pop and Classical, to fit in with our more futuristic setting, but that is something to discuss with the team.
http://www.robinsondesigngroup.co.uk/
The business Robison Group, provides a great insight into the architect buildings, because we are building furturistic substainable buildings, we would like to look into the Hong-Kong arcitectural desings, and designs from Dubai which hold a great insight into the buildings and designs that are present. The Robison group provides a few design specifics that I would like to incorporate in the final design, which would benefit our final project, such as the Shanghai International Automobile City (http://www.robinsondesigngroup.co.uk/project_details.asp?ID=37) whioch can be related to Saltaire, as you can see this looks alot like a furutistic environment and I could imagine Saltaire representing something like this, especially with its history, maybe the river and canal could provide Saltaire of the future with a substainable environment.
It was also mentioned by Joe that we may want to look into Steam Punk, I agreed and so did the team, as well as a futuristic design, we looked into Steam Punk style games, such as BioShock, the style and design input here works perfectly, providing a furutistic environment, but set in the 1920s base, it provides a clear input and design interface into what we would like to aim for, taking the architectural designs from Robison and using the Steam Punk 1920s style of Bioshock we can meet in the middle and come to some unique, and powerful design.
In the end I learnt alot about this process, not to mention how to deal with the public and how to set out a proper marketting survey, but to also build out and create a more detailed and worth while insight into the target audience, and the set backs with the uncooperative members of the community didn't set me back a bit, knowing that the majority of individuals where genuinely interested in our final design. This motivates me to continue.
So, this year has begun with being split into groups, for our final project. I was placed into group two, and given the role of team leader, my team consisted of, Joey Brown, who was selected for his ideas and concept designs, as well as his 3D skills. Stuart Wade was chosen for his concept art, and to help promote his communication capabilities. Micheal Prior, who was added to the roster for his ability with 3D and idealisms, Curtis Stoyles for his ideas, and photoshop work, and finally myself, obviously for my ideas, concept art and to help promote and improve my communications skills in a leadership manner.
Our first task, consisted of select our team name. It is important that a name is concise, straight forward, I believe a little witty as well, easy to say, it was stated that a name should not be more than two syllabals this helps to make sure that the name is easy to pronouce, and understand when spoken. So in our teams we sat down with a sheet of A3 paper, and began the process of brainstorming our ideas. It was suggested that we add at least three names, of course most in my team came up with many more, which of course I was rather pleased with, as this showed enthusiasm towards the project undertaking.
I put forward more than the suggested three per member, and the one that recieved the most votes was Explosive Matrix. I had a feeling that this would be the one chosen, and one that appealed to me, so I was happy when this was the selected name. Although I will admit it was difficult logo concept, and didn't have many ideas brimming at the time, so I knew there was going to be challenge with the final conceptual idea's.
The other names that where selected by the group where as follows, Holy Turtle from Micheal, which I thought this particular name was intuitive, quite funky and I thought was rather unique. I knew Micheal had an idea of where to progress with this name, with his enthusiasm was well noted.
Chaotic Moose, from Joe Brown. This name again was unique, and his design ideals, reminded me a lot of Manard Moose, I think a lot of thought when into the design asthetics, but I have to say I was not a fan of the name itself, I didn't think it expressed much in the terms of game develop studio, which is why I voted against this particular name. A better alternative could have been Chaotic Pioneers, or Dev.Moose, something that related somewhat to development, which would have been more founded.
Stuart Wade's was Cybertronix. He had a little help from the team in developing this name, and we believe it represents more of a gaming environment, and a little bit of a tech software development environment. Still it was one of the more favoured names, and his design idealism, was brilliant, if not second to none. I have to say now, out of all the logos this was my favourite.
Explosive Matrix came to me through my recent work with 3D Graphics Programming, working with Matrices and Vertices, gave me inspiration with the name, select matrix as a 3D term, one familar with the asepct of programming in a 3D Environment. Explosive, this word was to add a air of gaming to it, most by giving a general concept of gaming enthusiasm.
Below is the tally sheet of the name ideas and those in our group. Unfortunatly, Curtis Stoyles could not be present for the task, due to unforseen circumstance, so we had to leap on without him, and hope to catch him up and keep him informed, when he returns. This had provided us with a disadvantage towards the other groups, intially we had one less than the other two groups to begin with, and without Curtis, we are down to four members, meaning we have to put the extra effort in, and hope he makes hasty return.
As you can see many idea's where spread across, and we had more than a few names which we wanted to use. The selected favourites which we was tasked to develop into a logo where as follows.
- Myself: Explosive Matrix
- Micheal Prior: Holy Turtle
- Joey Brown: Chaotic Moose
- Stuart Wade: Cybertronics
So, it came down to design, with my brain lacking in any idea of how I was going to achieve an effective logo. I sat down and began to think about what made me come up with Explosive Matrix, as a programmer, I knew in 3D Graphics that a matrix was used, especially in OpenGL to help render 3D Vertices and Points. So, taking that into consideration, what is a "Matrix" usually inmagined as, minus a world created by machines where humans minds are linked too, so they can harvest humans as batteries, a Matrix is a 3D Cube, least, represented as one. I took this into context, so numerous thoughts now hit me. What was a cube? Rubix Cubes, Computer Towers, were somewhat cuboid. I even tried to influence the Mathematical Matrix Symbol to incorporate a more general approach to the matrix and make it more funky, and simplistic.
I tried to keep in mind Simplicity and memorisation. The memory had to be easily recognisable, digestable in one bite, and easy on the eyes. Not too detailed and taking in context those with difficulties in sight as well. For this reason I chose bright colours, to help make it stand out, and tried to avoid too many details. See the two concepts sheets below, with annotation to get a better idea on what ideas I came up with. The final concept was the logo I dubbed, "Literal Matrix" for it's literal matrix mathetical routes.
With these ideas, I expanded on them a little, taking into context certain aspects, I even had a practice
at creating one of the logo templates, coming up with this design attempt.
This design, was the breaking up logo, and was my first attempt at creating the logo itself, of course this is nothing like the chosen logo and was merely select as a method of attempting to incorporate a 3D logo. In the end this logo was not selected as the final product. What I like about this logo specifcally though, is the incorporation of physics and 3D. Gaming is particular is more renowned for the aspect of 3D Models and Physics and because of that is one of the reasons decided to see how this particular design would play out.
So with the final logo selected, and a new design being developed in photoshop I began to create what I invisioned on paper, I was generally happy to admit that the literal design that was selected, I was more than pleased about, it was a simple design, and one I thought would work both professionally and one I knew I had the skills to develop with little to no problems.
I set up photoshop, with the following setting.
- A6 Page Format Size (? cm and ? cm)
- DPI - 72 - This format allowed for a neutral depth in pixels, and when it came to printing, allows us to
print with a good crisp standard.
- The end file was saved as .png for good compression and tranferability, and so it reacts well if placed on
a webpage or alternatively a video game case or tech product.
Below was the final product, I will talk through the development steps afterwards, and then dicuss a little bit on the designs and inspiration and move onto comparison with a professional example.
The final product, I have to admit now that I was rather very proud with this particular logo design, it to seems professional, simple and eye-catching. The feedback I recieved of the tutors as well confirmed my own thoughts, and I can quote. "That look very professional...", "Simple, Stylish, I like it" where amongst the words said about my design.
The inspiration for my design stremmed from two locations. One being the matrix used in maths. If I can direct your attention to the below image, so you can get a better ides of what I am trying to explain here.
As you can see from above, a matrix is a group of numbers, as large as 4x4. They are encapsulated within
a square brace [ ] and often represent a square, they are used in 3D mathematics to calculate vertices and quadrants, and a key asset to 3D Mathematical Development.
This was the inspiration, I wanted with this design to stay true to the concept of a matrix but still make the logo funky, fun and eye - catching.
Development design was generally quite easy, I took inspiration from the centerpiece of the logo from my Tutor Chris Dewey no less. He did a small lecture on logo design, accompanied by a story of how he developed the Play.com logo. I remember specifically he spoke of circles being a more femnine aspect, and representing unity. I wanted to incorporate this aspect, as well as the basis that I have realised circles are a common factor in most logos, and wanted to to use them in hopes that I would gain the same kind of concept, design.
I also decided that I need to create a more manly aspect to the logo centerpiece, after all, we are a games development team. Without sounding too sexist there. I decided to add some spikes to the logo to create a more male and gaming aspect about it and it made the end product stand out just alittle bit more, instead of looking like some sort of plain logo design.
Through the course of the project I have developed Batman further and taken him into a context which was different from his usual heroic self. Batman has long been one of my more favoured heroes, simply because he doesn't rely on powers but on wit, strength and deception. But in a more conceptual focus, Batman provides a great essence to take pitch from, the character itself is beautifully designed, providing a great interface for any super hero to be based upon.
It is often I take inspiration from this character when developing my own, and I chose Batman as my character to develop simply, because he is so well designed, the idea, the concept and the understanding behind Batman, as well as the costume and way he is pressed across is a great backbone for any Anti-Hero character to follow.
Batman to begin with started off as a rather happy, cheerful and charismatic individual, which often could be seen in a rather comical sense and didn't show any essence of the darker side of today. He was rather scrawny and used a lot of gadgets and repellents to help him fight, oh.. and his boy wonder Robin. Of course, let us compare him to the Batman of today, you can see that he is a rather darker and more bulky in muscularity and demeanour. Nothing like the Batman from the early days, with this Batman is also a lot more like Marvel Hero Punisher, with a darker and leaner context within him.
Through this development I think that is the more interpretation of Batman that I influenced my character design and through the research of Batman I discovered the traits that signify the character depict a lot about him. Such as a passive attitude, a willingness to save other people, a dark persona and appearance, the ability to fight, seems to be rather intelligent individual, likes to use a range of gadgets in order to accomplish the task.
From this I have taken many aspects, such as his passive and rather dark attitude, and his ability to fight with my version of Batman. I have placed him in a large trench coat, which is something that is more common from the Hero Punisher, which is something I have taken many aspects from. I have also taken into account that I wanted my character to be in the World War 2 era as opposed to the normal fictional modern city of Gotham which is applied to the original Batman.
At first I was going to select a noir style, common in the Batman series "Gotham Noir" and which is more traditional in the old 30s type concepts. But seeing as mine was at the same time as old, it was rather conceptual on the basis that it was very action orientated, rather than detective and it seemed rather rustic and post apocolyptic as opposed to city based, Sherlock Holmes/Dick Tracey styled themes. With this in mind I decided to go with a more colourful, modern based theme and try to relate it to the common Batman comic styles.
The layout I chose was rather similar to a comic layout, I tried to keep the border lines relatively thin, and attempted to allow enough room for it to be overflowed to try to keep a molded concept, where it seems to interact between frames which is something that seems to be quite common in todays comic books, in trying to create not just frames of art, but a whole page of artistic concepts.
Target Audience is something I had to take into consideration, while I believe that the old Batman most likely attracted the younger generation at the time, the modern Batman of today seems to peak interest of people of all ages, I decided that I wanted to take Batman from this kind of area and place him in a more adult sector, which is familar with such concepts as die hard, punisher, kill bill even in some concepts of violence. As I made Batman more violent in this concept, I have to take into considerations age ranges, for this I reccomend 16+ at least, as I have taken quite a violent, war based concept with my new design.
Overview: For our Unit 13 - LO5 we was required to create a portfolio of our work and provide some details on our skills, attributes and interests, which would go towards creating our final CV. We had to also show awareness of different sectors within the industry for future reference.
Over the course of the project for Unit 69, we was required to plan, design and develop storyboards within the industry. After some selective research into trailers, storyboards and characters, we where challenged to choose a character from the previous project we has done during our induction. I first selected Stewie, but in the difficulty of trying to find information and background on the character, I decided to switch to a more challenging piece, which was to create a storyboard based on the character Batman.
With my character in mind, we was told to practice drawing them, and try to take them out of context, go crazy with our designs to find something unique, something that was our own. I came up with the following designs.
These are my quick design sketches or trying my hand at alternating the appearance of Batman, the top full one, is sort of a replica of the 1999 Batman cartoon. (See Right) I also attempted to create a more robitic batman, and see if I could attempt to create man in a more droid based individual, while it worked, it didn't really fall into the storyline I wanted, mostly because it fell more down the RoboCop line and wasn't out of context enough for my liking.
This image was anither pratice at trying to find a good way to draw batman, after having some trouble with the jaw and mount of the character I decided I would develop a character that cover most of the face and allowed me to focus on the actually character itself, rather than the long details.
These are my final chaarcter designs, I have chosen to go for a rather rustic looking bartman, instead of all the high-tec gagetery, I have select a more Post-Apocplyptic element, with a scarf covering his face, and goggles to help him since the dusty envrionment. With this I also managed to creaft a new storyline. Batman works a s a world war 2, mercenary fighting for the side that pays the most.
And below is the final design, I am rather happy with the outcome of this, at first I have to say on paper it didn't strike me as anything decent, but once I got it in Photoshop, and started to apply the different concepts, it quickly turned into something I am rather proud of, and would happily recreate again.
I used a wide array of concepts, for this, such as applying filters like CutOut and turning up the attributes to create a more stand-out effect for what I really wanted to accomplish. As well was using images from numerous sources to help added the effects, such as the fire and explosion which I found was too time consuming to attempt to do in Photoshop myself, unfortunatly.
I now begin my evaulation on this project and look back at the development process and discuss what I liked, and what I did not like, what I would do differently, and of course explain the tools and concepts I used to end up with this final design.
What did you like about this project?
I particularly liked the design and creativity of it, it allowed me to explore a depth of imaginative concept drawing that I haven't delved in much before, it also allowed me to futher my skills and attempt to do something that bit more challenging in order to get a better outcome and something I am rather proud of creating.
What I like about the actual storyboard, however is mostly the colour contrasts and how interesting the mode of colours make it, dragging your eye to the scenes, that interest you, such as for example my favourite scene, the last one. Which I found very cool, and all I simply did was apply a cutout to that scene, increasing the Fideility to increase the thinkness of the lines, and also the Simplicty to create a more abtract designed look. Finally, I applied a plaster effect with a red tone, to get the view that I wanted, it was mostly by trial error, and worked out very well.
What don't you like about the project?
Other than the fact it's incredibly time consuming, mainly the basis of which my design was on. Originally I attempted to recreate Stewie Griffin, but in realising that in doing soo I was limiting myself and possibility of increasing my skills (As well as the fact there is so little history on Stewie Griffin), I opted to create a more defined approach, and went for Batman. Of course this proved difficult to replicate, and although the re-design was to my liking in a story wise aspect, I believe I could have developed him a lot more, and worked more on designing him, and the aesthtics of it.
This of course, is something I would like to work on more, if I had the chance to do it again.
What difficulties did you face?
There are numerous difficulties, one was actually drawing a design that worked, which is suprisingly not easy, even with an idea, trying to get the aethetics of it correct, proves difficult and time consuming, also trying to become more familar with the painting side of Photoshop, its all well a good learning how to manipulate images, and apply various filters and effects, but it becomes really difficult when you try to use Photoshop in a way that the professional concept artists do, it is quite a challenge to learn how to move the brush better with a mouse. (Should have use a graphics tablet really...)
What tools did you use when creating your project?
Well, apart from the pencil and pad of paper, we had to use the computers and the program called Adobe Photoshop (For your reference, Photoshop CS3). You can purchase a copy of this program from the adobe website, at www.adobe.com if you require it.
Comparison
I have compared my work to that of a professional example. I have chosen to compare this to an example of Batman I found online, apart from the basis that the comic here is based on the actual Batman while mine was based on my design of Batman, thier is still alot of concepts which they use in the artistic and layout side of the story.
The layout isn't overally that much different from my own layout, and seems to provide a structure quite simple and basic. The use of figures and colours are pretty static in my opinion but work well for this basis. Compared, to my use of colours I have gone for a bright range of contracts and gradients to be used throughout. One thing I do like about this though is the use of movement, and stylising. Such as the sweeping of batmans feet in the second frame which are complimented by the use of sweep stripes in order to repict movement, I myself use this in one of my frames and something that seems to be a standard practice when creating comic/storyboards.
This depicts the aim and audience number increase for the product. An amazing advertisement scheme that returned 78% increase to there 2 million user target, increasing it to 3.6. The most interest element of this reponse was how they advertised there product. Utilise the audience profiling mechanism of Windows Live Messenger, which is very similar to he same process that Facebook uses. It would seem that this form of advertisement is effective, primarily because it targets the specific audience in question for the product in mind. 
It seems like this is a rather effective method, and shows with the increase in popularity within that sector of advertisement. 
It seems like this is a rather effective method, and shows with the increase in popularity within that sector of advertisement. 
