Week 1 Finding a group and discussing a preliminary intent to cooperate.

The process of finding a group:

Finding a cooperative group is a very complicated and a little bitter travel for me. Because I have to understand the course demand firstly and find cooperative partners with the right temperament with each other secondly.

After putting our interests on the padlet, I found a girl from game design who has the same interest in mythology. We first had a simple conversation, I found her very nice, but the content of the topic made me feel the work she wanted to do had little connection to animation. So I put the collaboration on hold.

Fortunately, another student who learns in VFX need 3D animation students to help him finish a Wushu animation. And I have learned Wushu for four years in the university which is an advantage for me. So with exciting motion, I found him and we discussed the division of the work. In the first week of contact, I found that our personalities were somewhat incompatible and we could not reach an agreement on the discussion of a certain matter. This made me feel stressed and depressed.

Later I found the girls I worked with for the first time and asked them about their current work. I realized they really needed my help with modelling and animation. Plus they had a nice team atmosphere, and I joined them. In the second half of this blog post, I will document the tasks for the week.

Reflection in the VFX group:

1. Don’t be in a hurry when communicating. There is respect in hearing someone out.
2. Work according to your ability. Working beyond my capacity only makes me anxious.

For example, we had a disagreement about martial arts references.

He found:

Acting as an action guide for the team, I point the movements of this reference are irregular, incoherent and do not show the beauty and professionalism of martial arts. Firstly, the girl in the reference was dressed in a wrong way, and secondly, it was obvious that she was not stable and flexible. And as a reference for animation, this video is processed twice, with acceleration and deceleration, and the rhythm is not good in animation. So according to his required length and action, I spent much energy finding a suitable video among many videos, and use Pr to cut the fragment:

But he stuck with the original reference and has strongly opposed motion during our discussion. Because he liked the style of free and easy. Out of respect, I agreed with his idea and helped modify the original reference action. Although I brought it up with him as an aesthetic issue. And on a larger scale, it’s the director telling the audience what beauty is.

Just as the famous actor Chen Daoming said: “Why do I look down on many directors? Now you look at our costume dramas, just look good. The better the girl looks, the more he’s likely to dream at night. Now that the audience is not judgmental, he has accepted that the more voluptuous the better. People’s aesthetics have turned history upside down. How can we understand aesthetics so superficial, who brought this way, this is cultural regression.”

When we create our works, we need to consider the professionalism of the field we focus on. Like the successful animation Finding Nemo, the team hired professional biologists to teach them about fish knowledge to make the animation more reasonable. Before the production, the Frozen team went to Northern Europe to learn about local conditions and customs. Good work must respect the facts, not just express their own ideas.

Working as a team, everyone wants to make the best work they can. I feel like I’m trying to help him perfect his work, but maybe he loves his story and character so much that can’t accept different sounds. Our relationship was more like fitting his need than cooperation equal.

Recording the tasks for this week in the Game and VR group:

The first discussion: We clear and definite the course task, and made a diagram to show everyone’s task which is preparing for the brainstorming. Make sure everyone can meet the course requirements. And in below, there is a timeline to show our plan.

The second discussion:

1. Every major’s advantage: help us to know each other well.

Game design: Design, gameplay, narrative setting. Gameplay design, narrative design, the fusion of the two. Feel the wholeness of the story. Come up with a plan. Blender, Modeling, 2D animation drawing, code Unity, UE4.c4D, import Unity.

Vr: Unity VR, AR interaction, simple controller and object interaction and delivery, drag and click effects, 3D animation, model binding, music clip, C+, Interactive feasibility, Toon Color.

3D animation: 3D, complex animation, simple modelling and binding. Action design. Map. The main software used: Maya, Ps, Pr, AE. Character or scene design (together). Cutscenes.

2. brainstorming

• Primary goal: Gameplay integrity.

• Core: Solving puzzles through interaction.

• Playing method:

1. Red-green colour blindness, looking for colour, the world gradually enriched. Black and white start. Look for the colour process. The process of colour change can be animated.

2. Threshold: Escape room: Music – Sound wave Rendering mood mute class – cannot exceed a certain sound.

3. Avoid sound sources, World War II, to safety. Look for the source. Beep beep. Blood volume display.

• Backstory:

Solution 1: Greek myth story: Eurydice https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%AC%A7%E5%BE%8B%E7%8B%84%E5%88%BB

Escape from hell. Naihe bridge, do not turn back.

Scheme 2: China rabbit Edward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miraculous_Journey_of_Edward_Tulane

Solution 3: world war ii, camp, a boy wearing striped pyjamas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Striped_Pyjamas_ (film), Anne’s diary, com

Plan 4: Bridge of souls, extinction of the earth, awakening from the dormancy, looking for the remaining materials of human survival, so as to understand the story of human beings.

• Conclusion:

*Background Story- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane/The Diary of a young girl

*Main Character: Rabbit? The Girl?

*Game design:

1. Interact with the world to continue the storyline(interaction such as change color, teleportation, trigger, etc.)
2. Create animation clips about the story

*Progress in the present:

1. Discuss about interaction design and background story design
2. Design about combination of interaction and story
3. Character design, background design, etc.
4. Study of programming for interaction