Story Telling- Unit 74

Elements:

.intro/middle/end

.characters

Big Trouble In Little China

Intro- a Chinese bus driver is being interrogated and performs sorcery. Wang and Jack go to the airport to pick up Wang’s fiance but she gets kidnapped. Wang and Jack go down the wrong alley as two Chinese gangs get into a street fight, it is interrupted by three sorcerers. Jack and Wang heard about where his fiance was being kept and they go to try and get her back, the sorcerers take her again. 

Middle- Wang takes Jack to his restaurant where they meet up with Gracie Law, Eddie Lee and Egg Shen. The group infiltrate a brothel where they think Miao yin is being held. All is going well until the Storms fly in and take Miao Yin away to their master, Lo Pan. Jack and Wang manage to sneak past the main guards to gain access to their facility but quickly get captured by Rain. They get tied and beaten but finally meet Lo Pan who is now a crippled old man and tells them that he needs to marry a green eyed woman to remove a curse, hense the reason for kidnapping Miao Yin. Jack and Wang's friend come to save them but also get captured them selves. Lo Pan realises that Gracie Law also has green eyes so he intends to sacrifice Gracie to appease the emperor and marry Miao as intended. Jack and Wang manage to escape, freeing captured women on the way. Whilst Gracie is also trying to escape she gets recaptured by a horrid beast.

End- Wang and Jack meet up with Egg Shen and the Chang Sing, a gang who agree to help them defeat Lo Pan. They go to an underground cavern to get to Lo Pan's headquarters. As Lo Pan is trying to marry Miao Yin a battle starts between the two sides. Jack knocks himself at the very start of the fight and gets trapped under a large suit of armour. Jack, Wang and Gracie group up to chase Lo Pan who is now in his human form. They thought all was lost until Jack catches a knife being thrown at him and hits Lo Pan in the forehead with it, killing him. Thunder eventually returns to see his dead master and explodes because he feels like he has dishonoured him. Thunder tries to trap them all by collapsing the place but they get rescued by Egg who also drops a statue on thunder which kills him. The group all meet up and celebrate their victory.

Characters- 

Egg Shen is a sub character but the main characters of the film probably wouldn't have as much information on Lo Pan as they did if Egg Chen wasn't there for them.

. Jack Burton is the main focus of the film. He thinks everything will go his way and that he's great in all situations but in reality he cant even handle himself in a fight.

. Wang Chi is basically Jack's Sidekick but ends up doing most of the work. He's a main character because we follow both Jack and Wang throughout the whole film and none of it would have happened if they didn't go to pick up his wife from the airport.

. David Lo Pan is the main bad guy of the whole film, he is the reason for all of this happening so you couldn't have the film without him. He is an ancient wizard who was cursed to live as an immortal form and must marry a green eyed woman to gain his human form again.

. Gracie Law is a sub-character. She starts of helping our main protagonists but ends up being captured her self.

. The three storms are sub characters that work for Lo Pan, stopping Jack in his tracks wherever they meet. They only became the storms because of Lo Pan and have worked for him for many years.

. Miao Yin is Wang's wife. She is the one who originally gets kidnapped at the airport by The Lords of Death. None of the film would of happened if she wasn't originally captured. Lo Pan needs her because he must marry someone with green eyes to regain his human form. 

Plot- Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) wins a bet with his friend Wang Chi and accompanies him to the airport to pick up Wang's fiancé Miao Yin to make sure he honours the payment. A Chinese street gang, the Lords of Death, tries to kidnap another Chinese girl at the airport who is being met by her friend Gracie Law, intending to sell her as a sex slave. After Jack intervenes, they take Miao Yin instead. In Jack's truck, he and Wang track the Lords of Death to the back alleys of Chinatown, where they find a funeral procession that quickly erupts into a street fight between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese societies. When "The Three Storms" - Thunder, Rain, and Lightning, mighty warriors with weather-themed powers - appear, slaughtering the Chang Sing, Jack tries to escape but runs over Lo Pan, a powerful and legendary sorcerer and the leader of the Wing Kong. Horrified, Jack exits his truck, but finds Lo Pan completely fine. Wang guides Jack through the alleys; the two escape the carnage and mayhem, but Jack's truck is stolen. They each spend the rest of the film trying to get Wang's fiance back and jack's truck back. they each face different problems on the way.

Character motivation-
Jack- Throughout the whole film Jack says he is only helping so he can get his truck back from the gang that stole it. Whilst watching the film you can see that he has feelings for Gracie Law so that may of helped convince him but even at the end of the film he doesn't even stay for her.

Wang Chi- Wang's Fiance is who gets captured by the Lords of Death at the airport and swears that he will get her back

David Lo Pan is motivated to marry Miao Yin because it's the only way he can get his human body back.

The Three Storms are motivated because they have to serve Lo Pan due to also being cursed.


Jack and Wang start the film off as friends who have known each other for many years. They play card games every so often. Their friendship grows as the film goes on, eventually becoming better friends.

Emotional themes- Jack's emotions are anger and loss. At the start of the film, him and Wang are forced to abandon his truck in the middle of a gang fight and he spends the rest of the film trying to get his truck back.

Wang feels loss due to his fiance being kidnapped. He will do whatever it takes to get her back, killing many enemies throughout without feeling any remorse. 

Unit 78- Digital Graphics for Computer Games
Aims- Be able to generate concept ideas for computer game graphics


Print Media Graphics, In-game graphics, Concept art graphics- see previous exercises for P1


Client needs- The client needs are what your client wants from the game you're making, such as genre and art style for example, once the client has given their brief i will create my own for my slef to improve upon the given work and make it as good as possible

Audience- This is who your game will be targeted at and who will hopefully be buying your game.                    




Thumbnail sketching- You do these to make sure every aspect can be perfect, just small sketches to get an idea of how you want things to look

Visual Style- see previous exercises for P1

Composition- Positioning of objects within a frame, what this tells the audience and what it makes them feel


Typography- This is what fonts you are using and which ones will be the most effective for you and for certain aspects of a game, so the font will mimic the mood








Technical Considerations- see previous exercises for P1

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Concept Art

Level 3 games design- understanding hardware technologies for game platforms
Unit 20
Task A

1. Introduce and explain what HCI(human computer interface) in the context of gaming is.

2. List and explain the following interface devices: controllers, joysticks, keyboard, mouse, wheel&pedals, motion sensing input device, motion controller, voice controller

. Include examples and references

1. gaming HCI's:
.keyboard&mouse- these are used for pc gaming and precise aiming in games. they can be used for other tasks on the computer aswell.

.xbox one controller&xbox 360 controller- althought each controller has a slightly different design from eachother they still do the same things to navigate you through each consoles menus and control you in the games you play

.ps3 controller&ps4 controller- these controllers follow the same concept as the xbox controllers, they have the same functions but have been slightly adapted through the years

.wii remote&wii u remote- the controllers for the Nintendo wii are actually motion sensor controllers and follow your movement through the motion sensors, the wii u has another controller with a built in screen to do extra activities following the main game

2. controllers- these are the way you move about menus and games for almost every console











Joysticks- A specialised controller designed for games like flight simulators and so-on, things that need 360 degree movement









mouse and keyboard- generally used for all computers whether it be browsing the web or playing games

wheel and pedals- specifically designed for driving or racing games so you can get the most realis
tic feeling








motion sensing input device- this device basically turns you into the controller, it senses your movements and uses that to browse the menus and play the games




motion controller- for this you need the controller and a sensor near the controller to detect your hand movements and so you have extra buttons on the controller to get more movement









voice controller- the xbox one for example has voice control built in to the headset to you can use it to turn it off/on, start games and so on







Task B- understanding hardware and technologies for game platforms



NES controller                                                                                                 PS4 controller

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Computer Games

Aims: Understand theory and application of digital graphics used for computer games

Image resolution- If you take an image you can then transfer it over to Photoshop. From here you can look at the pixel dimensions and see how many pixels there are from top to bottom and left to right

Image quality- Basically the resolution of the image is the quality of the image. It's just the number of dots in any given space. the more pixels you have in an image the higher quality it will be. The image to the right is from the original mega-man. As you can see the individual pixels are quite easy to see compared to the game below (fez) which has much more pixels on the screen, creating a clearer image.

Intensity- Each pixel inside an image has a number that determines how bright it is and/or what colour it should be.









File Extensions- A file extension is what we use to identify and change the way we save files for different editing software and so on. For example a tiff file can be used for mobile games because it compresses images without losing the quality. I used this image because this is the standard icon to show jpeg file extensions and how you will be saving something.







Compression- Simply, this is when you make a file as small as possible while also trying to lose as little quality from it as possible. Going back to my previous example, tiff files will compress images but will keep the previous quality.










Image Capture- This is when you use different methods to capture an image whether it be with a photo, screen recording software, screenshot, scanning, etc. I used this image as an example of screenshotting, if you press the PrtScn button you can capture anything that is on the screen and then go on to save it to your computer.




Optimising- To make something as effective, perfect, or useful as possible. It can also be said that you write or re-write something to maximise efficiency and speed in the retrieval, storage or execution of it.



Storage of Image Assets- This is a very useful way to tore things like textures, graphics and text styles so you can easily access them. It is important to correctly name the file so you can find it at a later date, for example if you have the texture for a tree in a certain level then you could name it "tree level one" or something like that, this stops you getting confused between different textures for different levels. You also need to bare in mind the size of the file, if a file is too big it can cause problems when you try to transfer it. I used the image above because as you can see the person has got several different versions of thee same thing but each one has been named differently.

killer Klowns from outer space

Ice-cream men try to sell ice cream to couples who are at a drive-in but get boo'd away.

A comet flies across all of them and then over a farmers house who gets excited

The farmer goes searching in the darkness and finds a circus in the forest, an arm reaches out the side and takes his dog from behind his back.

Two teenagers get arrested for being "drunk and disorderly" and the police man becomes very violent towards them

A couple from the drive-in goes searching and finds the circus

The couple are sucked into an elevator and come across a giant room with a large electrical device in it

The next room they go to they see lots of pods hanging down and they open one to see a face inside

A clown walks in and they accidentally drop something so the clown chases them, they get into the car and more clowns come after them

The couple go to the police station and start to tell their story but sound ridiculous to them.

The clowns go around the town and start capturing people in these cocoon sort of things

One of the policemen takes the couple to where they saw the circus but wouldn't let the woman go

A clown rides to a biker bar and they start to destroy the clowns bike, the clown then punches the mans head off

The policeman and the man(mike) go to the drive-in and find a car filled with the cotton candy stuff used to cocoon people and someones glasses

The police station is getting distress calls from everyone in town but refuses to believe them

The woman at home starts to undress for her shower, the popcorn that was shot at them when they were originally chased falls from her clothes and starts to move

A clown puts on a shadow puppet show at the bus stop and the shadow eats them when the policeman see them this time

One of the clowns shows up at the police station and starts messing the policeman who doesn't want to help people about. the clown murders everyone in the station and the good policeman comes and ends up seeing all of it

The bad policeman is used as a puppet to tell Dave what the clowns want to do, which is to kill everyone

A group of clowns show up at the female antagonists house (debbie) and capture her in a giant bubble

The group chase the clowns to an amusement park where they kill a man with acid pies

They enter the circus and come to a door, whilst turned around the two ice cream men fall into a ball pit and disappear from the others

Mike and Dave go through the same door as earlier to the room full of the cocooned people but there's more now, they find Debbie and break her out of the balloon.

They were found by the clowns and chased until they end up on a giant podium, surrounded by clowns.

The ice cream men then crash through the wall and start speaking through their megaphone and the clowns think that they are some sort of leader and move aside for Mike, Dave and Debbie to get past.

The group get to the truck but it wont start, then a giant monster clown is lowered from the ceiling and Dave distracts the monster until they manage to escape.

Whilst the group are outside Dave is being chased by the monster and runs out of ammo for his pistol, the monster grabs him and lifts him up. Dave then take his badge and stabs the clown's nose

The monster then drops Dave and explodes, this blows the circus spaceship up as its trying to take off.

Everyone outside see's this happen and assume that Dave is dead

A clown car drops from the sky, almost completely destroyed from the explosion, everyone is prepared for a clown to emerge but it ends up being Dave.

My top 10 games

Gta v- this game starts off showing the old crimes of Michael Townley and Trevor Phillips. this would end the crime spree as far as they knew and would end they're friendship with the "death" of Michael. the two would reunite when Trevor hears of the recent robbery which Michael was apart of. GTA V is very photo-realistic whether it be the characters, vehicles, animals or just the fantastic looking environment. 

Overwatch- the story to this game is told through written backstories and "hero shorts" which are
short clips showing what some of the heroes are like. Overwatch is a mixture of a lot of different artistic styles but mainly takes influences from anime and cell-shaded.

Just cause 3- a small set of islands is under the control of a vicious dictator and Rico Rodriguez is sent to liberate the island. This game would be photo-realistic with the characters and animals but the explosions and fighting in the game are extremely exaggerated 

modern warfare- The story takes place in the year 2011, where a radical leader has executed the president of an unnamed country in the middle East and an ultra-nationalist movement starts a civil war in Russia. The conflicts are seen from the perspective of a U.S force reconnaissance marine and a British SAS commando, and are set in various locales, such as the United Kingdom, the Middle East, Azerbaijan, Russia and Ukraine. The multiplayer portion of the game features various game modes and contains a levelling system that allows the player to unlock additional weapons, weapon attachments and camouflage schemes as they advance.

modern warfare 2- this is a photo-realistic game, they most likely modelled the characters around real soldiers and tried to make the battles feel as realistic as possible

modern warfare 3

god of war (2016)

Games without a story

Tetris

Pong

Fifa

Pacman

games consoles

My gaming machines- then and now

Playstation 1 specs-

. Released on the 3rd december 1994 in japan and proceeded to be released in 1995 for north America, Europe and Australia.

. units sold- 102.49 million

. Media- CD-ROM

. CPU- MIPS R3000, 33.8688 MHz

. storage- memory card

. input- Playstation controller, dual analog controller, DualShock

. best-selling game- Gran Turismo with 10.85 million units shipped

. successor- Playstation 2

Playstation 4 specs-

. Released on november 15/29 in 2013 for North America and Europe and it came out on 22nd February 2014 in Japan

. units sold- 40 million units

. media- BlueRay and DVD

. CPU- semi-custom 8-core AMD x86- 64jaguar 1.6 GHz CPU

. memory- 8gb GDDR5

.storage- 1TB hard drive

. display- HDMI

. graphics- semi-custom AMD GCN Radeon

. controller- DualShock 4

. connectivity- 802.11 b/g/n Wireless, Bluetooth 2.1, 

USB 3.0, Ethernet 10/100/1000

. online services- Playstation Network

. I enjoy the ps4 because its an easy platform to connect with your friends and other players and its a great way to play good quality games. the games i play are Overwatch, GTA V and call of duty.

- ps4










- ps1

Impact of computer games on society

Negatives:

Excessive playing time- spending extended periods of time playing computer games can have a negative impact on your education or in the workplace. this can happen if the player does not get enough sleep.





Social isolation- if a player spends too much time playing games they can put themselves at risk of being isolated from the rest of society. this will then have a negative effect on their social skills.


Costs- because gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry prices keep going up year by year whether it be new games (including the more expensive collectors editions)
, platforms and equipment. it can also be the case if your child wants all these new things and you just cant afford to keep up with it. electricity, internet and other hardware costs all bring up the price and make things even harder.

Positives:

Hand-eye coordination- hand-eye coordination has been seen to improve for surgeons and sports players after spending time playing a game. their reactions times improve as well and all this is achieved without putting risk on the person if they have to practice.

Brain training- brain training games are mainly made for hand held devices so they are readily available. these are used because they make learning more enjoyable and people seem to focus more when learning in a game format.

Thinking and strategy skills- war and football manager strategy games heavily rely on taking your time to make the right decisions to get the best outcomes. these strategies can be related to real world situations and used to improve upon what you are doing.

Overwatch

Overwatch is a team-based multiplayer game that heavily revolves around teamwork and team composition. the game was developed and published by blizzard entertainment.

Genre- first-person shooter





Overwatch is a great game and heavily promotes teamwork and playing as a party. the thing that keeps this game so refreshing is the selection of 22 different characters and the variety that this brings; such as combining special moves and abilities.

The one thing that could let this game down is it's complete lack of campaign mode. This limits the amount of solo play you can do in the game. Blizzard is countering this however by gradually releasing "hero shorts" for each character which gives an insight into how the hero came to be and their backgrounds.

The heroes are broken down into 4 different classes- Assault, defense, tank and support. the assault class primarily focuses on dealing high damage at a fast pace and generally has low health. the defence class generally has abilities that help defend the capture points or payloads and normally benefits the team as a whole as well as containing the snipers within the game. Tanks are high health characters that are meant to take hits for their team and have very limited range. Finally the support class contains the healers of the game, these characters can normally heal them selves and have abilities that greatly benefit their time; this comes at the cost of having very minimal damage.

Unit 78: Digital Graphics for Games Design

Computer Games Graphics

Concept art- this is when you are basically brainstorming ideas for the development of your game such as the designs for characters, vehicles, weapons etc. Concept art is also used to show a game that may have unfinished graphics or parts of the game that are due to change.

The piece above was concept art for the game "The Last Of Us"

                                           Character concept art for a character in mad max

Texture art- manipulating a sort of background to give you the feeling that one texture is different to another without you actually being able to feel it. for example in this screenshot from gta v you can see that the tree would feel different to the rocks that are next to it.

Background graphics- this is just whatever is in the background of a game such as a wall or the floor or a mountain in the distance. in this farcry 3 screenshot you can see the characters which are apart of the foreground but also the mountains and trees in the background.

In-game interface (the heads up display)- the "HUD" in a game is the display that you see in the screen which gives you information that will help you throughout whatever you have to do, this includes ammo, health, xp, map, compass, etc. this is the hud for call of duty: black ops 2, it shows their ammo count, the mini map and the score for the game mode that they are playing.

Print media art- this is the art work outside of the game that will help to sell it, such as game packaging, the box cover, manual, label and posters that advertise the game. 

Pixel art- the type of artwork for your game and the characters inside it. first there is 2d sprites which are a flat image.

There are also 3d isometric sprites which give more potential with direction in games.

Types of digital game graphics

Raster images (BMP, GIF, TIFF, JPG)- this is a sort of lower quality image that if zoomed into you can see each individual pixel that it is made up of

JPG- this compresses the data to be much smaller in the file 

BMP- bit map pro

GIF- you normally use these for simple logos, icons or symbols, these images are great for creating low resolutions images for websites

Vector images (PSD, WMF, FLA, AI)- these are images that take up little memory but can scale up perfectly no matter how far in you zoom

PSD- the default format that photoshop uses to save data