I believe I created a good product that followed my plan well enough to succeed. I used programmes I was familiar with so as to make my job easier and deliver upon what I planned, There are areas I would improve upon however such as sound and graphical fidelity the game is a good example of what can be achieved for the chosen genre and provides solid entertainment for people looking to burn a minute or two of their time trying to beat their friends score. If I had more time and planned a little more efficiently I think I could make an improved version of this product however I am happy with the results nevertheless.
This is the logo I created for Tube Tv, The name of the company tube TV made me think of old tube televisions that were popular before widescreen and flat screen televisions based on this idea I decided the static and the lime green Fast forward icons from these old TVs would make a good basis as to what to base the logo on. This is the end result and it portrays the ideas I wanted well as it looks like an old VHS tape is being fast forwarded like I wanted.
In these images gameplay of the game can be seen.
This is an image of when a tree appears and stands idle waiting for the player to swing, if the player doesn't swing they will lose the game by running out of time.
Here the player has begun swinging and the tree is being cut.
Now the tree is beginning to fall and takes faster taps to chop.
The closer the tree is to falling the faster the taps must be.
When the tree finally falls it fades away and another tree takes its place to be chopped again.
Description of Game
Lumber Jack chase is a game created by my game development company ZipWare Games, We strive to make the best possible one button Mobile games around. We want to promote competitive scores around the world on a very simple to learn but hard to master game, The game is first person and centers around chopping down as many trees in your way as fast as you can before the monsters chasing you get to you, The sprites in the game are in an 8-bit style to fit the retro gaming theme of the logos of the company tube TV and ZipWare games. Despite the game being aimed at a younger demographic we believe the retro themes will entice older gamers fond of the retro gaming era to try the game also.
This is the logo I created for my game development company focusing on creating easy to play mobile games focused on a younger audience.
This is the app logo for Lumber Jack Chase, It is a simple image of a winking 8bit Lumber Jack. The logo gives people an idea of what the game is about and is clear and concise.
Teaser Trailer
Here is the finished teaser trailer for my game that I made using all my combined assets from Photoshop and Piskel. I created an animation in photoshop to create the animated trailer.
Too start off planning for the Lumber Jack Chase game I created a Mind Map in MindGenius outlining some of the ideas I came up with such as the style of the character and icons for the game and app icon.
Trailer Ideas
A teaser trailer is a short trailer for a game or other media product that is shorter than most other trailers and doesn't show much, teaser trailers are used to entice viewers into the idea of the product, Teaser trailers are used to essentially give a taste to the audience of the product but leave them wanting more leading them to have some excitement and anticipation for the games release.
In the trailer for Silent Hills the tone is set with dialogue beginning the trailer where a man is talking about his fathers mundane life and how one day he snapped and killed his family, This makes viewers wonder right off the bat, if the mans father killed him and his family, How is he talking to the audience? This sense of wonder has the viewer hooked and the game has a story only 40 seconds in.
The next scene shows the actor Norman Reedus in game putting a famous face in the trailer lets viewers now that the game will have a good cast and makes the target audience broader due to the fact Norman Reedus fans will be interested.
This Teaser Trailer was an excellent example of the way a teaser trailer can capture the audiences attention fast and hold it for the entire trailer. By taking inspiration from the way the mood was set quickly in this trailer I can create a good trailer for Lumber Jack Chase.
Story Board
Here is a Story board depicting the actions taken in game. The first image shows a tree appearing. Tapping the tree causes the axe to swing at the tree. When the tree falls players must tap faster and faster. The faster the player taps the tree as it falls the more points it is worth. When the tree finally hits the ground another appears and the cycle continues.
Stop motion animation is the name of an animation style that manipulates real world objects and capturing images of them one frame at a time to create the illusion of movement.
The smaller the increments of movement and in turn higher frequency of images taken makes for smoother animation and frame rate.
Stop motion animation is very similar to hand drawn or keyframe animation in that every frame needs to be captured, But, By a camera. Stop motion animation gives creators more freedom in the amount of frames they can use as many enjoy the quirks a low frame rate brings to stop motion animation. Stop motion makes objects move as if by magic and uses suspension of disbelief quite heavily in its execution.
Wallace and Gromit uses stop motion and Claymation (Clay Animation) to achieve its results. Wallace and Gromit are often regarded as British icons due to the animation being produced and widely consumed in the UK, Due to each second of film using 24 frames producing Wallace and Gromit films takes a very long time.
Hand Drawn Animation
Traditional animation, also referred to as classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation, is the oldest and historically the most popular form of animation. In a traditionally-animated cartoon, each frame is drawn by hand. Many animators, even those working in the industry today, choose to use the traditional drawn method. Others use computer programmes that simulate the traditional method such as photo-shop. The technique was the dominant form of animation until computer animation hit its peak. While the animation is being done, the background artists will paint the sets (Backgrounds) in which the drawn images or sequences will take place. These backgrounds are generally done in acrylic paint, although many were painted with watercolor or oil paint and some still are.
During production the animator will draw many various images of the characters and then take pictures of them on a video camera when all the images have been taken the sequence is created and enough frames are played at a fast enough frame rate to trick the human eye.
Animation in video games is a key part of the game that provides the experience and immerses the player in the game, Without animation in video games nothing would happen a game would be a collection f static assets that do nothing and would be very boring for players.
The above video demonstrates some actions many video game characters need to function properly and the process of doing so, Every character needs a walk cycle to move around the game environment realistically and capturing videos or using reference photography as references helps the creator create realistic movement for a character. This is just one stage in the development process, when all the vital movements have been added to the character the developer can then work on adding optional animations such as idle stances or quirks that make the character feel human like scratching an itch or laboured breathing.
Mocap is one of the more popular ways video game animations are developed, Mocap is a productin process that involves stunt actors or the voice actors of the characters themselves donning full body suits with nodes attached that track their every movement and turn these movements into readable data on a computer that can be used in 3D software. it is much easier to animate fast complicated movements through mocap due to the fact it is being performed by a real human and is thus realistic.
As can be seen in the above video character assets can be mapped and then tweaked to add detail through mo cap leading to a cleaner better performing asset in game and making the characters movements seem more life like and fluid
Animation in Television
Animation in television is a much more convoluted and tedious process due to every frame of the animation process needing to be hand drawn and animated. This fact leads to needing a team to keep on top of projects companies like Disney and Pixar have thousand of employees also due to this fact as they have to release films to make money so the more fims they wish to release the more projects they need to complete and so on and so forth.
5 minutes of footage in hand drawn animation can require up to 10,000 single frames to perform well, Voice actors must also be hired for animations in television due to the fact the only other source of sound is computer generated which sounds very robotic and inhuman when used for speech.
Gertie the dinosaur is one of the eariest pieces of keyframe animation in history, It is important to the history of animation as it is the first animation to focus on a main character, people were not used to being able to see the emotion and actions of a character move in real tie and it came as quite a sock to the word when the creator of Gertie the dinosaur, Winsor McCay, Took "her" on tour around america.
Pixar Animation Studios, is an American computer animationfilm studio based in Emeryville, California. Pixar is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Luxo Jr., a character from the short film of the same name, is the Pixar mascot.
Luxo Jr and Luxo Sr, Characters starring in Pixars first ever animation
The studio is best known for its CGI animated feature films created with Render man, its own implementation of the industry standard render man image-rendering application programming interface used to generate high-quality images. Pixar started off with Luxo Jr, in 1985 Pixars first animated short was created shortly after the newly created Pixar studios was formed. Pixar have since animated up to 16 feature length fully animated films and have won countless awards over this time.
Examples of Pixar created animated films.
Pixar took inspiration from Disney to animate and has a similar art style to the company, They often work together on the same projects leading to many animated movies becoming Disney Pixar productions.
Pixar use computer technology and stop frames of drawn art that is then imported into animation software to achive their results. The company was created in 1974 by Alexander Schure. Alexander Schure recruited computer scientists who shared his ambitions about creating the world's first computer animated movie. In 1982, the team began working on special effects to use in film sequences with Industrial Light & Magic.
Disney
The Walt Disney company, commonly known as Disney, is an american diversified multinational media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney studios in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16th 1923, by Walt Disney and Roy O. Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, The company has products such as films, Animated shorts, Toys, Clothing, television channels and theme parks. The company also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio, the Walt Disney Productions. Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theatre, radio, music, publishing, and online media.
Walt Disney was entrepreneur, Voice actor and Cartoonist. He worked as a commercial illustrator after being interested in drawing as a boy and eventually moved to Hollywood with his brother Roy. O. Disney and set up the Disney brothers studio, Later to become the Walt Disney Company. Walt created the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, Now the mascot of the company and possibly the most well known animated character worldwide.
This video shows the 30s production process used by animation companies around the world, As can be seen the production process is very long and needs countless hours of conventional animation techniques such as drawing, tracing and painting to be realised.
The term illusory motion, also
known as motion illusion, is an optical illusion in which a static or single image
appears to be moving due to the cognitive effects of interacting color
contrasts and shape position.
Illusory movement is hundreds of years old and is used in many different types of animation such as the one above. Which uses a lined piece of paper or card to break the image up so the eye perceives constant movement
Frame rate (FPS)
Frame rate is the speed at which the still images change from one to the next. A frame rate of 1 image per second will not trick the viewer into seeing motion as the break between the images is too long and the brain can process the images one by one, At a frame rate of around 10 FPS the eye cannot process the images singularly and thus the illusion of motion kicks in as the brain blurs multiple single images into one fluid animation. Despite 10 FPS being substantial enough to trick the eye single frames can still be sensed due to 10 frames being just enough to trick the eye most media uses 24 frames per second which is more than enough to trick the eye and will always trick the eye into detecting constant movement.
Beta Movement
The beta movement is an optical illusion, Described by a man named Max Wertheimer in 1912, whereby a series of static images on a screen creates the illusion of a smoothly flowing scene. This occurs when the frame rate is greater than 10 to 12 separate images per second. It might be considered similar to the effects of animation. The static images do not physically change but give the appearance of motion because of being rapidly changed faster than the eye can see.
Persistence of vision
Persistence of vision refers to the optical
illusion whereby multiple discrete images blend into a single image in
the human mind and believed to be the explanation for motion perception
in cinema and animated films. This works on theory that the human eye retains images for a a fraction of a second in memory leading to the viewer seeing multiple images.
Suspension of Disbelief
Suspension of disbelief is the ideology that the viewer suspends what they know in reality to enjoy animation. An example of this is in stop motion animation, An inanimate object such as a Lego figure in the below example moving on its own is impossible however the viewers reaction to these kinds of media suspends their disbelief as they give into the wonder of the situation to enjoy the media product.
