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One key and recurring piece in my game will be these 'safezones' (placeholder name for now). They are areas to recharge and update the map of the world.

The architecture of it is inspired by Islamic architecture. I used the mirroring modifier to make sure my structure is as geometric as possible. I used lots of previous learned skills from this project and previous projects to help me in modelling this effectively with the time I had.

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Tim Burton is an American film director and producer who is famous for his gothic horror and dark fantasy films.

Going through the Tim Burton exhibition gave a lot of insights in his work method as an artist. One of the key things I noticed while walking through the exhibit is the large number of drawings and experimentation. The level of idea generation and range in the artistic medium he plays with is both interesting and inspiring.

One lesson I got out of the visit was that there is no limit to how many iterations of an idea i do and no limit to the range of topics I can do in an artistic work.

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This is my initial mindmap for this project. I had the idea that I wanted to do something peace related. In my mindmap, I explored personal, political and general themes relating to 'Peace', from socialism, religion and to gratefulness.

I was torn between whether I wanted to make another political piece or a piece thats more personal. After taking time to think it through, I came to the conclusion that it'll be somewhat personal related but for an audience since I aim to specialise in game design for this project.

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I made this moodboard after taking inspiration from the themes 'words and messages' from the brief. It somewhat links with the route of communication I want to go with. For instance, letters, books and written pieces are a form of communication throughout time thats used by many types of people, from poets, authors, scientists and normal people.

The middle portrait is of Fatima al-Fihriya, who is the founder of the world's first university, University of al-Qarawiyyin.

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I remember learning about al-Fihriya before and it inspired me how a muslim woman accomplished that in the Islamic golden age and influenced the birth of universities in the UK and around the world. Hence, I was wondering whether I should do a project on writings in the education setting and it's influence on modern society so that I can link her somehow. However, this theme isn't broad enough for me to explore at the beginning of this project and I can't think how I could create something game related to this, which is my specialism, so I don't think it'll work out.

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For my second moodboard, I wanted to branch off 'words and messages' and look into modern messaging and communication which is usually through the use of electronics and the internet.

This theme isn't stronger than my other two but I figured I could give this a thought since it relates to programming anyway.

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Human interactions is my third and chosen moodboard in my initial research. The mindmap on 'Peace' and the brief theme on ' words and messages' let me conclude in picking this. But I also picked this because I wanted the theme to be something I'll enjoy exploring, especially recently where I'm noticing and appreciating the everyday interactions and chats I have with other people.

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I think now it's Ramadan, I'm more focused on my religion and doing good and avoiding bad, it's helped me pause for a moment in my life to take time to appreciate the simplest things I've taken for granted; like my home, access to education and, most importantly, the people around me and the people I will meet. Which is why I want to explore this theme more in depth for this project.

When looking for images in this moodboard, I mainly used Pinterest since it has better looking images that Google images. Some key words during my search for imagery would be: human interactions, communications, perspective and friendship.

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In my peer review, they're mentioned that my strongest theme is 'human interaction' because it's broad and there's any routes I can take with it. I was thinking of picking this one too, and with the additional help from the peer review I figured I will.

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Research: Sky: Children of the Light by Thatgamecompany

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Research: Sky: Children of the Light by Thatgamecompany

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another reason I wanted to research this was because one time in this game, when I was in a really difficult map with a friend I made in game. At one point, on the last map, my character was so close to dying that I thought I wouldn't survive, but then my friend I made, came to rescue me and drag me out the danger. Even though it's a video game, I felt really grateful for them, because otherwise my progress of the whole game would've been lost.

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this is my sketches for my character design, in response to Sky: Children of the light. I wanted to use this chance to practice using rigging and 3D modelling in blender to improve my skills, in case i needed to use it later in this project.

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I knew i wanted to keep my designs simple, so it'd be easy to model and rig, but also to reflect the minimal base avatar (AKA moth) design in Sky.

In the top right is my current Sky avatar which I've used as initial reference for my sketches. I eventually came to choose the top left design which is simple, round and cute, almost like a doll or toy.

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Blender rigging study - for 'Sky' response

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Blender rigging study - for 'Sky' response

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Here I'm learning to rig a simple model and then animate it in Blender. These were my initial steps towards my response to my first research, Sky by Thatgamecompany, and also for my to develop my digital 3d skills. I followed along with a YouTube video to begin with so that I understand how the rigging skeleton works and how to make the body move with it.

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The most difficult part in rigging was trying to make the right body parts move when I rotate each limb of the armature. Since I parented the model and armature through automatic weighted, meaning the body part will move based on weight it is set on a specific limb (it's difficult to describe this). Being of the weighted setting, it lead of other parts of the body to move along with a limb when it's not meant to, for instance the left arm may move if I try rotating the right legs. So to adjust this I just select my model and go to the top left and change from object mode to weight mode. This makes the above view where it's like a therm imaging, but instead how red it is here means how weighted it is for the specific limb of the armature. So if I only wanted the lower left leg of my model to move then, I'd only paint that legs red after selecting lowerleg.left of my armature from the top middle panel.

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I then got to animating my model. This part i struggled with while following the tutorial on this because the person in the video used a different setting which I didn't have. So it took me almost an hour to figure out how to keyframe the movement of my model. For this I had to keyframe each limb instead of just selecting it all and key framing it. It took long for me to understand and do, but I eventually realised this is how 3D animating it.

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After rendering the frames of my blender animation, I took the frame files to after effects where I just placed each frame after the other to make it into an MP3 video file. I struggle with using aftereffects, because it's not something I'm used to so I had help from my friend with navigating through it.

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13 thursday march.

This Thursday, we got given the chance to use and experiment with DSLR cameras. Though this doesn't link fully to my route of digital art and game design, I figured it would be a good skill to learn for later applications.

Before we began using them, we were given basic info on ISO, aperture and shutter speed.

ISO is how sensitive to light our camera is set at. For instance, a low ISO, is less sensitive to light so in a bright setting, it shows an image clearly but in a dark setting, you can barely see anything. And a high ISO, more sensitive to light, shows an image normally in lower lighting but too bright in a bright setting. Also the quality is better on lower ISO than it is in higher ISO.

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Aperture is how dilated the camera hole is. A bigger aperture will focus on a larger area and will lead to more intake of light. A smaller aperture will focus on a smaller area and take in less light.

Shutter speed is the how fast the shutter of the camera closes in a second. A low shutter speed leads to an image being blurry and a high shutter speed leads to a clearer image of an object in motion

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At the beginning we were slowly figuring out the camera and getting used to the settings. We decided we wanted to visit several places to practice our shoots.

There are several series of similar photos here where we were playing with the settings to see what result they gave. Some high in brightness and others really low in brightness.

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These series of photos were my favourites. We explored the around the college to get lots of images. I like how the DSLR cameras were able to capture the real environment of out college.

My most favpurite would be the bottom right image which I took in the media studio of the green screens. I like the eerie feeling it gives.

My second favourite would be the one of the cigarettes in the sand thing, the composition came out perfect.

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I really enjoyed using the DSLR camera however most of these images, I don't think I'll use in the development of my project since I'm already set on making something game related instead of fine art or animation related.

But this workshop really helped me in understanding how to use a DSLR camera and I ended up loving it too.

I love how it catches the realistic essence of the subject, unlike normal cameras which tend to distort images. However with DSLR, if i see something pretty in real life, and take a photo with DSLR, it will come out exactly as how I saw it (as long as I know how to use the settings).

This is the sort of camera I'd use to capture moments with my friends and family or just a general human environment, because of how realistic it is. I would remember exactly what it was like to be around those people if I were to look back on these images after a long time.

The only cons about these is that it takes a while to get skilled at because of the settings.

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After having taught myself how to rig and animate for my response, I began doing the 3D model of my character in Blender. I initially followed a YouTube tutorial to help me get used to different keys and also learn a few tips to understand better.

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This is me working on my 3D model while following the tutorial. However, when I began rigging the model for animation, it didn't move how I wanted. I tried to fix this in weight mode but there was a problem in the armature because all the limbs didn't link up properly, so I had to end up ditching this model.

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I initially followed a tutorial on modelling a character to help me in this. But I think following the tutorial was what lead me to make a design that wasn't my vision and also didn't work the way I wanted in the rigging process. The tutorial was only about modelling a complex and not rigging which might be why my first model didn't work out.

However, I did learn a few shortcuts to my modelling which I got used to when following the tutorial, which ended up helping me later on

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This is my first model, which I ended up ditching. The model is shaped similarly to my design, however it doesn't look cute enough so I'm glad I didn't go with this.

The reason it didn't rig properly and look nice may be because the tutorial I was following complicated lots of things.

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After letting go of my previous model, I retried modelling but this time I kept each body part separate instead of joining them into one object so that I'm able to animate it properly.

It took a while and lots of ditched blender files, but I eventually made a close-to successful model that moved properly after rigging.

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Cute hello emote.

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This is my response to the game Sky, where I focused on modelling, rigging and animation in Blender. It's not perfect but I think it fits the cute and friendly style I was going for.

I coloured in my character after modelling and rigging it. It only took a few minutes since I've had previous experience in colouring models due to my previous art project, where I also used blender.

I like the outcome of this, and maybe in the future of this project, I might 3D model a character for my game. I want to keep whatever character I make to be simple and cute, because I really like this art style and in a game, it will be pleasant and wholesome.

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To begin my response to Lushirou, I asked my friend to help me with getting reference photos. This photo and the next one were the ones I chose as reference to help me draw hands and eyes.

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These were my initial sketches and drawings while I was thinking of an illustration that may evoke an emotion in the viewer, like how lushirou does.

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Since Lushuirou initially paints her illustrations, I decided to do the same. However, I didn't know which kind of paint she uses so I did mine in watercolour because it's what I'm used to and would take less time than using something like acrylic.

Unfortunately, this one didn't come out how I wanted because I may have used too much detail, despite Lushuirou being simple in her designs. The only thing I like about it would be uncomfortable feeling it gives you.

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In lushuirou's work, she tends to reply less on colours and more on the subject. After doing my responses, I was impressed in her way of coming with ideas like that because I found it difficult to do so without relying on colours which I've been used to in all my projects that it's a part of my style now.

In this illustration, I've used colours to try expressing power and suppression of power. This piece seem more symbolic than about human language, this is because the themes of power and oppression was what came to mind when I used the image of my friend's hands poses this way. In some way, this image can symbolise some of the negative aspects of human interaction, where people may compare themselves to another individual to figure put the power dynamic, either intentionally or unintentionally. A toxic trait which we should abandon and aim for humility.

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After painting my illustrations in watercolour, I took a photo of both and took them into photoshop to remake them. Lushuirou, uses procreate and she touches up on her work but for me I decided to redo them digitally because I wasn't too happy will my paintings.

I mainly used the charcoal brush (shown in image on left) for painting in photoshop because it gave a grainy texture, somewhat similar to lushuirou's.

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Out of the two illustrations, I prefer this over the eye one because this one fits the simplicity of lushuirou's work compared to the other, in terms of aesthetics.

As my own artist, I can't exactly replicate lushirou's style. However, I tried to convey the emotion I want felt through my own style while using her key motif.

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In terms of aesthetics, I don't really like this piece and it may be because I used low saturation colours and lots of different shade, meaning I got carried away and forgot about how I'm meant to keep it simple to fit Lushirou's style. However, this piece does seem to evoke an uncomfortable emotion since one of my tutor's mentioned it was uncomfortable to look at.

Though if I could redo this piece, I think I need to remind myself to not overdo it both in colour, detail and how the finger touches the eye - I could've kept it so it's just touching it and not poking into it.

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Here we got taught how to use the intertwine tool, a new feature in Blender.

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Here I learned to use the pixelating tool which turns your image into a pixel art.

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Since I want to make an outcome that's related to games and game design, I want to begin using Unity which is a game engine used by many famous game developers from the makers of Genshin Impact to Monument Valley. The reason I wanted to use it is because I know it's used by professionals so I wanted to get acquainted with it in this project so that I don't struggle to use it in the future. It took lots of time setting it up, making it a hassle. I got the editor and hub however to actually code a game, I'd need an external app called Visual studios so that I can script C#.

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To begin using Unity and getting used to it, I followed a YouTube tutorial on making a 2D game. I learned how to use a tile map and using the inspector and what scenes are.

I had used a game engine called Godot before and the interface is somewhat similar to unity however Unity is just a bit more complex. But knowing how to use game engines before gave me a small advantage in navigating unity.

The setting and character scene in this screenshot of Unity aren't my own. I imported pre-made sprites and tile maps to just help me with following the tutorial. However, I wasn't going to use them for myself. The links to these are in my bibliography.

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Here I've collected a few tips and info about game design. It isn't a structured research but it is to help me with the sort of mindset and thoughts I should have when approaching this project.

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Due to some issues with Unity, I decided to change the Game Engine I use to Godot instead. Godot is also a free open-source game engine, however it just doesn't have as much of a user base as Unity and it's isn't good for making big game or 3D games. It's generally used by beginner game devs and game hobbyists.

I've chosen to work on Godot because I've used it before and I'll be able to use it at home since I have it on my laptop, but I can't do this with Unity. The downside of me using Godot is that it doesn't use C# unless I download an extra thing, but if I do this on my mac I'll have to do it at home to and I can't. I wanted to use C# in this project to help me get used to it before Uni. Instead I'll have to use GDscript which is Godot's own programming language and it seems easy enough however I won't be able to use GDscript on anything else except for Godot.

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To begin getting used to Godot, I followed a tutorial by Brackeys, a YouTube and game dev that has made tutorials for Godot users. I've used this exact tutorial before when I first used Godot, but this time I'm using it to refresh my memory. The assets in this aren't mine, I had to use someone else's free assets as a placeholder while I practice in making the game.

It was easy to follow along to and I slowly got used to different aspects of it and the basic way to begin a Godot project. The key thing I need to keep in mind when I use this for my game is that I need to be organised in laying out all my elements from my scenes, scripts to assets. I tend to clutter a lot, my college Mac desktop is a good example, so I'll need to keep myself in check.

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To make this platformer -following the tutorial - i had to download free assets from online which I've credited in my porject bibliography.

Here, i was finding a way to export my game file but it proved to be difficult and complicated. It made me question if i could make a simple ganeplay for my project or not. I was thinking over this and decided that perhaps my Godot use could just be a part of my material experimentation.

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In the platformer game, i learned how to make sprite animations for my 'player', 'coins' and 'platforms'. I also learned how the camera works and how to make it follow my player around the map. I learned how to make my player jump, to move them left and right. At the end of this little platformer, I learned how to make a counter for how many coins I had obtained in the current level.

The key thing to learn to be able to do these things is the use of different nodes and how to use the inspector, the column on the right of Godot UI.

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The main character in this game is a robot/android. It'll be a 2D top-down game.

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story about a ghost of an old mansion. The mansion has a new human owner and they live in it, however the owner is going through depression and a hard time in life. The ghost wants to help them get better but they're invisible to the owner so they can only discretely lead them to clue to books and events that will teach the depressed owner a valuable lesson to help increase their mood.

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Here I've collated a bunch of images from different games or imagery to fit my game design ideas.

I was thinking of going with my idea 2 mainly.

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this is a snapshot of one of the things I was doing to practice getting used to Godot. I was learning how to make a top down rpg on a map, since I wanted to know the basics to a top-down game since one of my game design ideas is one.

In this image, I'm creating a collision polygon shape around the map so that when my player comes into contact with the edge (i.e collision shape) it will prevent them from moving off the map. And if they move to a specific part off the map into another small collision shape, it will automatically move them onto the next map/level.

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this is a really basic tileset which I made myself in photoshop to create this tilemap in Godot. It was so I understood how to make a tileset if I ever needed to.

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since my key character in idea 2 was a ghost, I made a prototype ghost sprite in illustrator. I was trying to make a pixel art piece however, I could only draw in vector and then use the pixelate setting to pixelate it a certain amount. The downside to this is that I can't individually edit the pixels which I would've liked to do.

I was also meant to animate with but I gave up because the program wasn't going how I wanted so I figured if I want to make a pixel art sprite, I'd do it in a software that allows making pixel art by reducing the canvas to pixels and when you draw on it, it doesn't create a blurred effect.

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during spring holiday, I experienced a big stump in my project work which was bad because I aimed to do some Godot work at home to advance my skillsets in it but I didn't. However, one key benefit I got out of it is that the break from thinking of my project gave me a mind refresh and I've come up with a better game design idea than Idea no.2.

moreover, I figured I should be more realistic in my approach to my project so I ditched the idea of making a prototype in Godot. Instead I'll focus on a game design document and game art elements to convey the concept of my game.

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The research on emotional intelligence on this was a heavy influence on this game. The '4 domains of emotional intelligence' by Daniel Goleman, helped me in figuring how what kind of game I need that would relate or develop emotional intelligence.

One key feature of my game (which I wrote down somewhere else instead of this paper) is a linking feature where throughout the gameplay of your game adventure, you are physically linked to your teammates and this feature aims to play with the 'domains' of emotional intelligence. I may develop on these later on in my project.

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Since this project has some personal elements to it, because I had chosen the theme due to my current experience in life. I decided wanted to include islamic art/architecture possibly in my game's visuals because it can link to the puzzle aspect of my game and also since I want to learn a bit about the art in my religious culture. Islamic art heavily relies on geometry and maths which some of my puzzles will be, hence I figured that I should use it's visuals for some parts of my game.

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This is my second moodboard which I also like because it reminds me of DnD which my game idea is similar to. However, I won't be going fully with this. Instead I will include aspects of lore (backstories), old structure/ruins and a fairytale-like forest map.

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This moodboard may help in how I want my environment visual to look like for my game. My game may not be realistic 3D but I still want environmental and natural features like mountains, forests, lakes and etc. One key thing to focus on would be lighting in an environment because they always help in the make or break of the aesthetics.

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I may not use this dystopian theme because it's a bit overdone in games. However, i considered making a ruined setting for my game, because you won't know the importance of life and people until you are in the absence of them. I want to try to make my target audience for my game find joy in the human interactions and appreciation of our presence since we always tend to focus on the negatives of what we've done. I may focus on a dystopian aspect in the lore or backstory of the world in my game.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc-gPhFlbgo&t=5s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdfzpkmmLqU

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Since my final idea for my game is set in a 3D world. I wanted to do learn how to make a player move in a 3D space in Godot. So I used youtube to help me with that.

But due to the time left, I may not complete this fully. This is purely for experimentation and to develop skills i may need to use in future. Moreover, this will help me understand the basic limitation of using 3D for my game, so I know what I can do and what I won't be able to do.

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following along with the scripting for the Godot project.

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1 - Controls. making it so that the object moves in a direction correlating to the WASD control directions.

2 - cursor. making cursor disappear on screen when game is run. the cursor is used to change camera angles instead.

3 - direction and angle correlation. the direction controls is attached to the 3D camera nodes so that the orientation of WASD controls change when the orientation of the camera changes so that they're synced.

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used WASD to move around and the cursor to change camera angle.

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If i have NPCs in my game. This video shows an example of how an npc would move around a map. It's route is randomised. I followed a tutorial for this.

In my video game, I may not use NPC enemies but maybe creatures npcs to interact with around the map in order to get resources or a benefit in return.

(NPC - non player character)

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This one shows the randomised routes a possible NPC can take around objects.

Doing this tutorial helped me figure out I can add 3D objects in my Godot game. Which helped me in advancing the previous tutorial where I learned how to move your 3D player object with directional controls on a 3D plane.

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Random movement of npc (around objects, process)

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Random movement of npc (around objects, process)

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Here on, I show the steps where I combined the two tutorials I learn.

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Here I'm laying out the 3D object on the plane, which will be my obstacles. I combine lots of what I learned. The main thing i briefly got stuck on was trying to get the correct collision shape (where an object can't pass through another object if they have a collision shape node applied to them). I got it right after a couple trial and errors.

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I'm using the controls (W A S D) to move around the obstacles.

One thing I wish I could've added is a jumping control, but I didn't have enough time in the session to do so.

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Some quick research before the production stage of my FMP

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The circular structure in the middle will be a 'aura sphere' (also placeholder) where you can activate it from void (colourless) to glowing. The colour it emits will depend on your group. The strongest glow, which is white, will bring about the most benefits to the players, but to achieve a strong glow, the players have to have been working working equally and helping each other equally. otherwise, the ball will glow the colour of the player(s) who contributed the most among the group.

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I wanted to do a brief poster as a intro to my game. So I also wanted to include some environment to the visuals. So in blender, I did a quick tutorial on how to make grass in blender.

The grass wasn't how I wanted it but it was the closest I could come to with my vision.

I had to make a plane. Then add a hair effects in physics setting. I could adjust how much strands per space and the dampness and length of strand. One limitation it that I could've make thick strands.