12/11/12 - Research and Pre-production

So, since our last session our group has begun expanding on the idea of Mad Lads in their respective areas. Tim and I are the animators/modellers for the team so we have been conducting some preliminary research into those areas and the styles we could use to fit with the ideas we have.

Animation Research

Influences

-          Plants vs. Zombies (The Zombies)

-          Alien Hominid (The enemy gangstas)

-          Castle Crashers

-          Battleblock Theater

-          Dad ‘n Me

-          Dr. Bosconovitch (Tekken Tag Tournament 2)

Key Concepts

-          Comical Style

-          Emphasis/focus on the limbs

For the running animation of the inmates, we were thinking of a very loose comical/characteristic style, similar to the running style of that of the zombies in Plants vs. Zombies. The animation styled used will be simple 2D skeletal system; the emphasis of the animation will be on the motion of the limbs instead of the facial animation. As the animators we want one of the main focuses to be comedy style of the running and the silly stupid animations.

In the notes above you can see we were considering what games had a style that we thought was well-suited to Mad Lads. Given that the group had decided we would be using 2D characters we looked at more cartoony styles such as that in 'Plants vs Zombies'. Having decided what the style would be we then began to think about what specific animation events would be needed for the game.

Animation Events

-          Idle

-          Idle to Running

o   Rigged differently to different build types

-          Running

o   Styles

§   

o   Jump over Obstacles

o   Crashing into Obstacle

o   Falling over Obstacle

§  Small, Medium and Big (Obstacles)

-          Vomit

o   Subtle

o   Projectile

-          Attacking

o   Throwing Projectiles

o   Dropping bombs/candy etc.

-          Hit/Impact Animation

o   From front

§  Bomb

§  Projectile

§  Slip Up

§  Stumble

o   From Behind

§  Projectile

-          Eating

-          Drinking

-          Relay Switch

We planned out as many different events that we could think of, adding to the list each week as we thought of more or new ideas were presented by the team, for example the idea of racers being able to attack eachother was not originally in our list. Once we were satisfied with this list we moved on to the next order of business, something we felt would be very useful: Reference videos.

Reference Video Needed

-          Running

o   Small, Medium, Big

-          Hit Animation

o   Behind

o   Front

-          Vomit

o   Different Variations

-          Attacking and Dropping

-          Idle

-          Obstacles

o   Jumping

o   Crashing

o   Falling

-          Relay Switch

You can see above the list of reference videos is smaller than that of the animations we felt were needed, this is because we condensed some of the actions like the hit animations into single actions as it would be unnecessary for us to have a reference for each instance, one would be enough. Also of note is that at this point we decided we would be creating 3 character rigs for 3 different body types; Small, Medium and Large. With this list we then took a camera and began recording these reference videos, some of which i have uploaded below, please ignore any giggling on our parts, whilst still a serious process, trying to act like a cartoon character was pretty funny.
 

Small Character Obstacle Crash and Jump animation

Front Projectile Hit animation

Small Idle, Idle-to-Running and Running animations

From this point we began what would be the longest part of our pre-production: looking into the software we could use to actually create our animations. We focussed mainly on software that was implemented into Unity itself such as uMotion 2D and SmoothMoves Animation but sadly these particular examples while completely suited to our needs, would have required us actually purchasing the software which was out of the question.

12/11/12 - Mad Lads!

So before i add anything else to this blog, i should probably write a bit about the game that was selected by the panel last week so you have an idea of what we should have created by the end of the module.

Simply put, Mad Lads is a race management simulator. The original idea was to have it set in an insane asylum where the bored employees would race them around the grounds giving them drugs and alcohol for an a competitive edge. As was mentioned in the last post however, we had to drop this theme as it was a bit too much for the [adult swim] brand. So as it stands now, Mad Lads is set in various prisons where the wardens have created teams to race in a worldwide tournament, and in this iteration the drugs and alcohol have been replaced by sugar packed drinks and candy.

The game will see you managing your team as they partake in relay races around the world. With racer trading, interactivity to help your characters through the race and the ability to customise your characters through cosmetic DLC, we all feel this game has the potentially to be really fun.

As an example to work from we were given the name of a similar game called 'International Racing Squirrels', a management sim that sees cats creating teams of squirrels to pit against eachother.

I think everyone took this game as a good example of how not to make a management sim. There was just so much going on that it felt incredibly overwhelming and the races themselves were quite tedious. 

So from this we decided to include a certain amount of interactivity to the races themselves and, where this game has no 'race view', we would have a side on camera that followed racers around the track with a scrolling background.

05/11/12 - Pitch week, no more Dubstep Dragons, and Position assignments for our chosen game concept

Today was the day we (or more specifically, our project managers) pitched our ideas to a panel of game industry people, as we would a panel of potential clients, for feedback after which they would select the one they wanted us to pursue. It was a very interesting and in some respects humbling experience to hear these experts critiquing games I had helped design. Their insight was quite inspiring and showed us all how well they knew their professions. 

To present each idea our manager would go up and show a powerpoint presentation, showing the rip-o-matic and talking through the game concept, after which the panel would respond with their thoughts.

For both Dubstep Dragons and White Van Man, the main critique was that our games didn't fit the '[adult swim]' brand, which i agree with, though more so with white van man. They reasoned that an american audience would for the most part be completely unfamiliar with the stereotype of a 'White Van man', which is true as the game had all the classic references to pubs, bad workmanship and drink-driving. Which brings me to another issue the panel had: Censorship.

Both Straitjacket Racers and White Van Man had utterly unsubtle references to drug-taking and alcoholism that would see our games shot down in an instant were we to present them to [adult swim] for real.

As for Dubstep Dragons, the concept myself, Dean, Tim and Wayne had been working on over the last fortnight, and which i had become rather fond of, was sadly not chosen. The panel said they really loved the concept, though as mentioned previously it apparently was unfitting of our clients request. On top of this they felt they couldn't get a good idea of how the game would look,  they also thought the top-down perspective wouldn't be great on a mobile as the screen would be too small to distinguish individual characters, and finally they said that if we were going for speeds similar to the WipeOut games then top down perspective would be really really unsuitable.

In the end, the game that came out on top was StraitJacket Racers! The panel loved the look of the game, they thought it fit the [adult swim] brand and thought it was great that the game was a 'racing managerial' game than a simple racer. The only conditions that they had were that the references to drugs and alcohol be taken out or exchanged, and that we change the name to something other than Straitjacket Racers.

And so, 'Mad Lads' became the focus of our game design project! We thanked the panel for their input then went to our respective groups.

Our first order of business after the game had been selected was to pick our roles for the project. As with when we were being put into group, i was a little unsure and ended up putting myself down as an 'Animation/Modeller' as we were required to put at least two skills down. This led to my being paired up with Tim Nguyen as my Co-Animator. Together, the two of us would be doing all the animation for the game; quite a daunting task for me especially as i felt i had no skills to really draw from besides my past experience using the free 3D Modelling program Blender several years back.