Fog Attempt

Okay, so after reading up on the different lighting patterns and techniques used in games to provoke a specific emotional reaction from the audience, I had a go at creating a creepy graveyard scene using fog. A bit cliche yes, but I thought better to start with something that is easily recognised and identified with as a genre.

I found a tutorial on creating fog using fluid effects to create fog, without it being too taxing on the machine.

So I started off following a tutorial which involved assigning a 3D tecture to the fluid effect, which ends up controlling must of the fog. Initially it looked like this, pretty grainy and not too great.

So I fired in a point light on top of a candle to generate some more atmosphere. The fog was too low down and seemed to be absorbing the effect of the point light before it had a chance to light up the gravestone.

Changed the render settings Max Sampler to try and get rid of some of the grainyness of the fog.  I thought maybe including a directional light to simulate moonlight would help bring some more visibility to the scene.The point light still wasn't going a very long way to lighting up the grave stone so need to fiddle about with the decay rate settings and intensity.

Increased the intensity of the point light above the candle. Still too dark, I'm not sure if the fog fluid is mucking up the lights or something, but the point of this tutorial was to generate a fog effect and for a first attempt I'm pretty pleased with the turn out. Increasing the bias would make the fog thicker and create a different effect but for the purposes of this tutorial I wanted to see how fog could add a horror-esque feel to an environment. Will probably try and create a larger scene with dispersing or perhaps even animated fog next time.

Lighting and Emotion

Lighting and Tension

Light is simulated by the manipulation of these following influencing factors;

Brightness/Luminance
Colour
Hard/Soft shadow quality
Direction
Variation over time.

Lights in a scene will interfere with surfaces and other light sources and introduces the effects of brightness and colour contrast, colour bounce and shadows. The temporal factor is believed to be key to the effect of this approach due to the nature of the eye and it's need to balance the projected colour in order to achieve white colour. For example, when projected with red colour, the eye will try to compensate with cyan to attempt to achieve white colour, causing the eye fatigue which in turn directly affects the participants stress level, and has a knock on affect on arousal. 

In a lighting analysis study conducted by Magy Seif El-Nasr, Simon Niedenthal, Igor Knez, Priya Almeida and Joseph Zupko for GameStudies.org; they analysed an array of films in order to determine a selection of patterns of lighting which could then be further broken down into the following categories;

• 1. Patterns which subject the audience to a series of low contrast images followed by high contrast images, and vice versa, (in terms of brightness or colour tone eg warm/cool) increase projected tension
• 2. Patterns which subject the audience to low affinity of colour, followed by high affinity of colour, and vice versa, (in terms of saturation/brightness/warmth) increase projected tension.
• 3. Patterns which subject the audience to a long duration of high contrast of high affinity colour (in terms of saturation/brightness/warmth) causes increased projected tension.

Typically, the greater the contrast in a visual component  the more the visual intensity or dynamic increases. The greater the affinity in a visual component, the more the visual intensity or dynamic decreases.  

When speaking of intensity or dynamic it is in relation to the emotional reaction the audience/player feels. The reaction can be emotional (laughing, crying, screaming) or physical (tensed muscles, covering their eyes or fidgeting.) Normally, the more intense the visual stimulus, the more intense the audience's reaction will be. (Block. 2001. The Visual Story - Seeing the Structure of Film, Tv and New Media.)

The above patterns have been embedded within games statically by manipulating of materials and lighting in levels. Horror games such as the "Silent Hill" series are a good example of how lighting patterns can be used in games in order to contribute to and enhance gameplay.

Survival Horror games typically create their emotional effect by establishing and maintaining a state of vulnerability in the players mind. This is usually achieved by keeping the player in the dark in terms of knowledge about whats going on - to maintain an element of suspense and tension. Visuals are used to enhance this feeling of vulnerability by keeping the object of terror, be that a monster or a creepy looming objective destination, at least partially obscured, enhancing the "thriller" aspect of the game. Obscurity can be produced by anything that blocks clear perception ie : darkness, fog and blocking by architectural objects (occlusion).

This particular genre of games appear to rely on contrast, be that the contrast of day/night, light/dark, and warm/cool. In the study conducted by El-Nasr et al, they found that both Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2 have a similar day/night cycle over the game as a whole. That is to say, it begins in the daytime, followed by dusk and night to be completed at dawn or sunrise. Typically, the majority of all action in these games takes place at night or in foggy moonlight, where there is little bright light sources and a lot of contrast and visual obscurity. Much of the action takes place away from natural light sources in the interior spaces, creating the feeling of tension and a sense of being trapped. 

El-Nasr et al state that the lighting patterns identified above are most often experienced in time through the exploration of virtual space; that is to say that they are reliant upon the players movement from one environment to another. Most game environments are currently built with static lighting which allows for little variation in order to account for state change or tension, and can often bring the player out of the narrative context and in doing so, break the immersive emotional power of the game.  

Dynamic Lighting

Simulated lighting in virtual game worlds, like light in real space, has an effect on the emotional experiences of players. The established link between visual sense and emotional response shows that game designers have a vast array of powerful tools at their disposal with which to create and manipulate moods and atmospheres, as well as being able to directly affect the mental state of the player. Like much of environmental narrative approaches, many lighting techniques used in game have already been established in traditional media such as theater, film and architecture. Game designers have adopted these established techniques and practices and applied them to the game world to enhance the sense of aesthetic space and control the player experience by  determining the materials and scene lighting to generate a particular feel and atmosphere for each game level.

"While many lighting principles can be borrowed from film and theatre lighting design theories, the interactive nature of games distinguishes them substantially from film and theatre." - El Nasr et al ( http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/elnasr_niedenthal_knez_almeida_zupko )

Games are dynamic and interactive, therefore they are unpredictable in terms of lighting as the freedom afforded to the players will interfere with the player positions and cannot always allow for realistic lighting or perfect reactionary lighting effects which are relevant to the narrative context..  This is where Dynamic Lighting comes into play. Dynamic Lighting is a simulated illumination which is calculated in real time, enabling reflexive and relevant lighting calculations which can account for interactive real-time variables such as player positions, narrative context and camera movement. An example of a game which uses this type of lighting is Skyrim from Bethesda. 

The lighting changes with camera movements (if you stare into the sun, there is a glare, and shadows change depending on position.)
This use of dynamic lighting enhance player immersion in the game world and allows for more dramatic content and emotional experiences in comparison to methods which rely on static lighting.

Lighting is a complex process. Moving the position of or changing the colour of one light could change the entire perception of the image/environment, or it could have no perceptual change at all in relation to the current colours used in the image and the context. Vast and minute changes in an environment, and its relative connotations, can be achieved by changing the parameters of colours, positioning and angles in relation to the textures, colours and materials within an environment. Dynamic Lighting therefore requires a dynamic system which take into account all these variables and produces the right effect in relation to the current narrative context and game state. 

Typical...

After having a discussion about backing files up and how I'd never suffered a hard drive failure in my life....my less than 5 month old laptop hard drive decided to give up for no reason last night. It's now been put into a repair shop to get looked at and should hopefully be back in working order with a new hard drive installed by next week. Most of my files were backed up, with a few exceptions. So for folk reading this, back up your files, sudden death of the hard drive for inexplicable reasons does happen, and I couldn't be more gutted for it.

Anway, issue getting dealt with, onwards to more work and practically living in uni for the foreseeable future...

Supervisor Meeting 25.02.13

Met up with Ryan today and had a chat about work. To be honest I hadn't managed to make much progress since last week due to laptop problems but hopefully that's been resolved now. I had managed to watch Requiem for  A Dream but I hadn't made many notes on it's relevance to the project as I got too into it, so another watch may be needed!

Looked at the colour scripts from UP intro to see how effective the use of colour was in terms of conveying mood and atmosphere in a snapshot moment.

I told Ryan that I'd decided to keep Heavy Rain as one of my case studies because despite it being more of an interactive cinematic experience based on choice and consequence than a game which uses environmental narrative as effectively as Portal or Bioshock, I still felt it made good use of colour and contrained some of the influencing factors identified in my critical framework criteria. This is particularly true in relation to the comparison between Ethan's house in the beginning of the game and the one he inhabits throughout the rest of the story. The lizard trial room also reflects his current state of mind, so would be useful to examine with the framework in mind. I just have to make sure that I'm analysing it in terms of what I'm actually looking for in my project, and make sure it has the correct aspects.

The main action points for this week are;

Make sure I'm considering symbolism and deeper implicated emotions rather than looking at things at face value i.e Red indicates danger etc.

Ryan suggested I watch a film called What Dreams May Come which involves a heaven made out of paint, which sounds cool so I'll need to see if I can get hold of that, in addition to the other movies I've not managed to get hold of yet.

Ryan said he wants to see a practical response to all the research I've been doing, which is fair enough because I've kinda been neglecting the practical side in favour of reading more about the psychology behind the theories so I'll need to try and actually put those techniques and theories into practice and write about them.

Also need to have a bit more of a go at my dissertation because right now I'm looking at it in fear and only doing very very bitesize chunks as it's been overwhealming me. I think I'll start by bulking out my case studies in relation to my new critical framework and see where that gets me.

Colour Psychology

To tie in with the "states of mind" project idea I posted about previously, I've been looking into certain aspects of psychology in relation to light, colour and surroundings and  trying to identify the key areas to research into in order to better understand the relationship between the environment and how it can affect and reflect a person's mental state. I have found a couple of useful journals but most of the ones which sound like they would really help me, do not have Abertay on the list of recognised Institutions with access to the journals. So I've got in touch with a friend of mine who is studying Psychology in Glasgow and have asked her to recommend some journal sites or books I can skim through to get a quick overview and a deeper understanding of what I'm hoping to implement and achieve.

Supervisor Meeting 18.02.13

Met with Ryan yesterday to chat about how the presentation went and address any issues I had.

First off I need to produce a bunch of ideas/doodles/sketches to convey ideas for the 4 rooms project - how they can tell a story or incorporate themes, in terms of the story of a relationship idea it would be love/hate etc.

I'm also going to be looking into the psychological effects of light and colour, which is something i've always been interested in, and watching a few films that use colour to reinforce the central themes and ideas of the movies. Looking at colour scripts would also be a good idea.

An idea that we stumbled across that I'd really like to explore is the idea of "states of mind". The idea behind this is that each room would be a representation of a different psychological state - depression, joy, anti-stress etc. I actually really like this idea but one of the things I need to watch out for is that I don't just end up creating a "box room" and throwing a lot of props inside it to illustrate the themes. I know that the caves from Dear Esther would be a great example to look into in terms of abstract representation of a declining state of mind, but I'm not sure yet just how literal or abstract I want the "rooms" to be, or even if they can be all structured rooms or feature cave-like structures too. So that's something I need to think about, research and explore.

I've mainly been focusing on studying other games for case studies in relation to my framework, but Ryan suggested I also look into films which make good use of light/colour as being an older, more traditional medium, the core theories will have been established in them, and then adapted over to games (which is a point I have examined briefly in a previous post in relation to how narrative technique for films does not translate over to games very well as they involve spatial exploration and choice, rather than being explicitly shown something important like in films.) He suggested I look at Apocalypse Now and Requiem for a Dream for some good examples of a film which uses lighting to effectively convey it's central themes.

In terms of colour, some films I can look at are the Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which Ryan said has a painterly quality in his scenes so I'm intrigued to have a watch of that, if I can find it.

Finally, I'm also going to try and get my hands on Susperia from director Dario Argento, who uses colour to illustrate delusion and paranoia, so that fits right in to the "states of mind" idea.

Finally, I'm also going to try working with Vray, which I've never used before but is a powerful rendering tool, especially for photo-realistic lighting setups. Depending on how literal or abstract I want these rooms to be, it'll be worth looking into either way.

Semester 2 Pitch Week

So I just had my semester 2 pitch presentation session and despite a few nervous blunders loosing my place in my notes due to the darkness of the HMC cinema... I think it went pretty well!

Hons pres3 lmcs_0901821 from mcsheff90

Notes to go along with slides available from: https://www.box.com/s/w8ezkmzw9llln0amc1q9

On to feedback, my notes are a little erratic here and I think thats due to the after effect of nerves and it being too dark to see what I was writing (I should have put the lights back on...)
The staff seemed pretty pleased with the progress I'd made in terms of developing the project idea, and in my attempts to improve my technical skills themselves. One thing they picked up on was that they suggested I continue was looking back at previous works and comparing them to the recent media tests I'm doing now, and critiquing them both in terms of progression and development.

The only criticisms were that I needed to soften the edges of the lighting/shadows (which is an issue I picked up on in my previous blog post Lighting Tutorials.) And that I needed to think about the reflectivity and colour bounce of the lights on the shiny wooden floor of the first scene (with the lounge chair and circular window) So I'll be again looking into fixing these issues in my next tests.

I've also to look into how lighting is connected to mood and story, and clarify how that's going to come across in my design, so a study of lighting in narrative games might be a good idea. Robin (I think) also suggested I look into spatial design and how form/space and architectural theory. It was suggested that I watch Stephen King's "The Stand" to see how film sequences display this.

Brian suggested that I choose a story/novel and design an environment around an iconic event that takes place within it.

When I spoke of my idea to design 3 or 4 rooms which each conveyed a different mood/atmosphere, Robin suggested that instead of them being disconnected rooms showcasing moods, that they be connected and tell a progressive story, such as the story of a relationship - where the first room would feature a table and chairs and symbolise a first date, then it would progress on to the boudoir bedroom and could end in a marital suite or a scene of the aftermath of a fight or breakup. I quite liked this idea.

All in all, I was pretty happy with the feedback and suggestions I got. I think it came across in the presentation that I'm more sure in what I'm doing now, and I'm not floundering nearly as much as I was last semester.

Lighting Tutorials

In the lead up to the 3rd progress presentation, I've been doing a few lighting tutorials to improve my skills in that respect, since one of the things the lecturers picked up on in my last presentation was that I needed to spend more time developing my technical skills and bringing my lighting and texturing skills up to scratch.
Ryan lent me the Advanced Maya Lighting and Texturing book by Lee Lanier so I tried a tutorial he suggested from that to see how it went.

These are some screencaps from the finished scene. I followed the tutorial step by step but the LightFog attribute didn't work when I rendered it, as there is supposed to be a stream of light flowing in from the window, casting a shadow of the shape of the window on the floor. I am unsure if this is because I rendered in mentalray when the tutorial instructed to render in MayaSoftware. I had to render with mentalray because my laptop displayed error messages when attempting to render with maya software and wouldn't complete the render. I tried to see if this was related to an unloaded plug-in but has no success. I will attempt to fix this using the uni computers and then re-install maya on my laptop as it is pretty buggy and tends to crash a lot more than is normal.
The shadows in this scene are also quite crisp and clean cut when they should be a lot softer due to the candlelight lanterns used as light sources. Again, I followed the settings step by step and rendered in mental ray as opposed to MayaSoftware and as this is the only difference I can think of, I'll try tweaking the settings and rendering on one of the uni computers.

In addition to this tutorial I also created a small dining room scene. I used similar settings as I did in the first tutorial from the book Ryan lent me, and tried to get more comfortable with texturing with bump and normal maps to enhance the look of the dining room table, floor and walls etc. I also made a glass shader which looked great when viewed from some angles but from others it made the inside of the glasses appear black.

The LightFog effect again didn't work, and instead created a grainy effect outside the window that looked like a blizzard. The light emmited from the sportlight shining through the window in an attempt to simulate moonlight is too harsh and has clearly defined edges. Similarly the shadows again need to be softer as they have hard edges despite the soft light being emitted from the candles and ceiling lights.

As stated previously, I will attempt to render these scenes out again in MayaSoftware in uni, other than that I'll try and tweak some settings to see if it makes a difference in mentalray. I can't spend too much time on it though as I want to get started on some more media tests involving a short series of vignettes, which will recycle the same assets with small additions and tweaks to create new stories in the same scenes.

Critical Framework

After speaking to Ryan last week I went off and read a few project dissertations and proposals on similar research projects to help identify my critical framework criteria. I also took notes from various GDC conference presentations that I'd looked at, and drew up a list of what I thought were influencing factors in environmental narrative.

Ambient:

Colour
Lighting/Shadows
Materials/Textures
Space
*Sounds. (No sound will be used in final environment.)
Framing
Geography (Vistas)
Architecture

Narrative;

Player Created Space
Scenes, Events and Vignettes

Props;

Artefacts
Decals
Effects
Posters and Graffiti

Navigational;

Beacon
Signpost
Trail

I'll be using this framework criteria to analyse scenes in games to see how effectively they can be used in conveying narrative.

Compiled the info into a mind map to make it a bit clearer:

Supervisor Meeting

So I met up with Ryan on Friday and spoke about some of the issues I was having with my project, one of the main ones being that I wasn't actually sure where I was heading with the final piece of my project.

After a good discussion Ryan helped me narrow down what I could do with my final piece and I'm feeling much calmer about it all. We agreed on a few action points that I would complete as milestones before this Friday 8th Feb.

1) Work through a tutorial in the Advanced Texture and Lighting book Ryan lent me, and try out 3-4 different lighting setups and comment on what the lighting says in terms of the narrative effect.

2) Refine the Project Aim and decide whether or not to keep the characterisation element within the environment (as I had previously focused on showing character through the environment, but Ryan suggested that this was more to do with personification rather than environmental narrative.)

3) Have a go at further defining the Critical Framework by identifying the criteria for analysis in Environmental Narrative

We also had a discussion about what my final project piece could be and I'm currently playing with the idea of designing 4 different rooms, each intent on conveying a different mood/atmosphere, utilizing the techniques of narrative storytelling. This could involve experimenting with animated lighting, so I'm going to be looking for tutorials on that in the book and online.