Using Light to Indicate Areas of Interest....

As stated in my previous post, using light as a method of visual sign posting is extremely effective. So I though I'd use it in my scene as more that just a means of lighting up the room, but to show specific areas and evoke a certain mood.

Clearly, this attempt didn't go down to well. The light was far too harsh and extreme. The contrast between lit and unlit areas was far too great.

Second attempt went down a bit better with the addition of two floor lamps and using spotlights. It cast long looming shadows, which I liked because looming shadows are supposed to indicate a feeling of unease, and as Topher's work raises some severe moral dilemmas (though maybe not for him) I found this quite fitting. However, the rest of the room is pitch dark apart from one area in the back right corner where I added a point light to break it up a bit and show that the TV was a source of light. This didn't have the effect I was after as it just looked strange because the TV screen was still dark, but the surrounding area was lit...

Next attempt definitely illuminated the room...but it's far too bright for just two spot lamps which are pointed in a specific direction...
Also I increased the irridiance on the TV screen in attempt to make it seem brighter as a source of light in the background but it ended up too bright and looked odd.

AO. Included another lamp over by the dresser area as another source of light.

Lmap on dresser has two point lights inside, one that casts light and shadows, and the other which only casts light. I like this more, although the long looming shadows by the desk are lessened majorly...
Going to have to trawl through some more tutorials and experiment with global and caustic illumination and try out photons to get the effect I'm after. Also have to include more light sources.

Visual Sign Posting in Games

A technique many games make good use of, is visual sign-posting. A notable example being Journey from ThatGameCompany. The game begins without context in which the only apparent objective is to approach the large mountain on the horizon which has a bright light atop it. The use of light to highlight areas of interest in games in highly effective.

This subtly suggests to the player that this is the direction in which the must proceed. Simple sign posting such as this makes the player feel as though they are exploring the game world based on their instincts and their own choices, as opposed to the designers intention. Mysterious ruins scattered throughout the desert landscape provide hints at the back-story of the game.

Mirror's edge, though an older game, makes good use of the colour red to define the intended path to the player. It indicates objects which can be climbed/run over etc. Though a clear path, such obvious visual sign posting as this can have the effect of making the player continuously aware that they are playing a game, as climbable objects in real life are not simply all the same colour. It can even reinforce to the player all the current constraints that the game imposes on their play, and furthermore, makes them at all times aware that they are following an intended path. Journey's approach to visual sign posting felt much more natural. A slight breeze pointing you in the right direction, whereas Mirror's Edge's approach is more like a sharp prod.

Dear Esther, from Thechineseroom received much critical acclaim due to its innovative approch to environmental storytelling and have even been the spark of yet another debate about what constitutes a game, and whether or not games are art. The lead artist, Robert Briscoe spoke at the 2012 Game Developers Conference about adding history to the environment through the implementation of details such as old shipwrecks, to build a past and not just a present, and stated that this helps to define the reality of the game world.

Both Journey and Dear Esther use this technique excellently in that the implications of a time long past is soft and subtle enough not to remove the player from the game. Light was important in Dear Esther, as it was in Journey. Especially in the caves, the light represented a path to follow, furthered by the glowing patterns and writing on the walls.

Game Environment Analysis - Houses in Heavy Rain

Embedding Narrative in an Environment

Designers use a technique known as "embedding" to place symbolically influential props/objects in the environment as an alternate means of storytelling, meaning they don't have to rely on flashbacks and cut-scenes as much. Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain (2010) makes good use of this technique. The plot of the game revolves around a father, Ethan Mars, whose youngest son Shawn is presumed to have been kidnapped by a serial killer known as the "Origami Killer". At the beginning of the game, the player assumes the role of Ethan Mars before any of these events have taken place. By exploring Ethan's house, the player can learn a lot about his personality and his current lifestyle. Books on architecture and bridges can be found all over his house, which indicates his interests and possibly his job.

Props, Textures, Colour and Lighting. 

In his bedroom there is a note left on the floor from someone we presume to be his partner, but by examining the photo (fig1) on the dresser of Ethan's bedroom the player learns that it is his wife. The bunk beds (fig 2) in the room next door indicate that Ethan has a young family and possibly two children. Ethan's house is large, bright and colorful which are all indications of a friendly and happy environment. The area downstairs(fig 3) in the house is quite quirky and features an open plan raised seating area with pillars/columns. This suggests to the player that Ethan is quite wealthy and due to the information already gleaned from the books around his house that he may have in fact designed the house himself. This idea is further solidified when the player inspects the office downstairs and discovers that Ethan is in fact an architect.

Left, (fig 1) Wedding Photo. Right, (fig 2) Bunk beds.

(fig 3) Downstiars 

(fig 4) Garden

The back garden (fig 4) of Ethans house is very spacious, neat and well cared for. There is also a colourful child's play area complete with climbing frame and chute, which again tells the player that Ethan has children who are happy and well looked after.

This bright and happy living environment starkly contrasts with the house Ethan later lives in two years after one of his sons Jason is killed in a car accident (fig 5). This house is much darker, and has a lot more neutral colours and tones in comparison to the bright and colourful hues in his previous house. The textures on many of the surfaces such as the peeling wallpaper and poorly conditioned wooden door frames are dingy and make the props look like they are old and decaying. There are cardboard boxes (fig 6) all over the house which tells the player Ethan has only just moved in and away from the previously happy family home, or that he hasn't bothered to unpack yet, which is an indication to the player of his lack of motivation and depressed state of mind. The back garden(fig 7) to this house reflects the atmosphere of depression and decay as the grass is unkempt, dead looking and patchy with muddy puddles
everywhere.

(Fig 5) Ethan's Dingy House

(Fig 6) Cardboard boxes

(Fig 7) Unkempt Back Garden

The effective use of props, colour, texture and lighting as a storytelling technique can make for a much more personal and meaningful play experience as each player brings their own thoughts and experiences to the table. In an interview with David Cage, the creator of Heavy Rain, he mentions that;

 "We really wanted the player, through his actions, to tell the story and for these actions to have consequences. We tried to do our best in the writing to have an interesting and strong proposal for gameplay and for narrative in every single scene in the game. That was challenging because we don't use mechanics, we don't use patterns in the game. What you have to do and how you are going to do it is pretty much different in every scene. " 

This, I feel, aptly describes their approach with Heavy Rain. The game is designed to be a personal experience with many different ways of play and choices to make, and the game environment plays a big part in this. The player may decide what objects to look at/interact with and therefore decides just how much information they will absorb from the narrative subtext implemented into the environments. This in turn leads to different plot paths and ultimately, an ending which is entirely dependent on the player's approach throughout the game, which is in turn motivated by their interpretation of the physical make-up of the environment and the props with which they interact. 


-David Cage Interview available from; http://www.fastcompany.com/1558681/heavy-rain-creator-david-cage-reveals-secrets-his-photo-realistic-serial-killer-ps3-game

Well it's been a while...

It's been longer than I'd like since my last update. This was due to project proposal madness. Finding out that the majority of my research wasn't as relevant as I thought was definitely a blow but it meant I still had some time to restructure. Now that's handed in and I just have to cross my fingers and hope that I've done everything right and expressed my project aims and research effectively without somehow managing to plagiarise someone else's work, which I'm petrified of.

I went back home for the holidays, which is another reason my posts have been stunted as my home is now an internetless void, which was a horrible Christmas surprise...

Anyway, onwards to some more work. My next post will be a compilation of game environment analysis and contrasting some of the techniques undertaken by the art teams involved in their creative approach to environmental storytelling.

Prop concepts

A bunch of prop concepts I forgot to post!

Keeping all the video game merchandise localised in one place hints at Topher’s need for control and order in certain aspects of his life. The multiple computers is intended to be suggestive of a “render farm” and that Topher’s work requires a lot of processing power, further conveying the importance of his job. The books will be a mix of various scientific novels/journals and books for recreational reading, implying his interests and intellect and his desire to keep up to date with the work in his field.

Some ortho views of his bed. The duvet is crumpled and left unmade to show that he's untidy, indicating he's got more important things to do and that he's a bit lazy in that respect.

Supervisor Meeting!

So Yesterday I had my first meeting with Ryan Locke, who'll be my honours project supervisor from here on in.
After chatting with him and going through my big book o' quotes, I realised I've been going off on a tangent a bit more than I meant to. I've been collecting information more relative to the changing forms of narrative and how it's affected by interactivity, rather than putting more focus on the environment side of things, which is what my project is meant to be all about....

Unfortunately this means quite a large chunk of the research I've done is now pretty much obsolete...

 but better to realise this now than next week, 2 days before submission :|

So I need to refocus and eliminate the references and quotes I've got which are less relevant and restructure my proposal.

Chatting to Dayna and Ryan helped me nail down a list of games, in addition to Heavy Rain and Bioshock, which are really powerful examples of environmental storytelling, so I'm going to get my head down and look into them more extensively.

Spider - Legend of Bryce Manor

Portal, 1 &2

Journey

Dear Esther

Shadow of the Colossus

Resident Evil 4 (totally not playing that, zombies are a no-go zone for me)

During the meeting, we spoke about symbolism and how it can mean very different things to different cultures or in different context. Looking at churches in particular, which are extremely powerful symbols and are often the foundation and nature of a story. In Resident Evil or Silent Hill, the church is a symbol of control and corruption, whereas in Final Fantasy 7, Aerith is laid down in the church under a beam of brilliant light, which is an entirely different symbol of something magnificent and poignant. With these idea in mind it might be useful to explore how symbols are used and interpreted with the context.

With all of this to consider, it's time to make a new to do list since the old one is pretty much complete/redundant. 

Meeting with Dayna

On Monday I had a meeting with Dayna, who isn't my project supervisor but he's interested in interactivity and storytelling so he seemed like a good person to speak to! Also he saw me tweeting about my project and offered to meet up in uni and have chat about it. I had a meeting with Ryan (my supervisor  yesterday which I'll talk more about in another post.

Dayna pointed me to a whole load of GDC conference pdfs and presentations which will be massively helpful to me research, not just in the proposal but will form a good chunk of the foundation of my dissertation, so that was definitely worth while.

He brought up stuff like the secret rooms in Portal 2, how the player is rewarded with these little pieces of narrative for exploring the environment fully. He also suggested I look at Spider - The Legend of Bryce Manor from Tigerstyle games, so I'll need to give that a look in soon!

He also said that I can use PHD Dissertations as a reference which is something I wasn't sure if we were allowed to do, but this works out great because I found a really relevant doctorate dissertation online.

Dayna also suggested I look for some of Randy Smith's (Tigerstyle Games) written work as it would be helpful. He said I should find 2 to 3 people in the field who's views on environmental storytelling I agree with, and reference them.

GDC 2010 - Game Environments

Smith and Worch state that a game environment;


a) Constrains and guides player movement through physical properties and ecology (the relationship between living things, in this case, the player - and the environment)

b) Uses player reference to communicate simulation boundaries and affordance

c) Reinforces and shapes player identity

d) Provide narrative context

Environmental Narrative is mostly concerned with the latter two.

1. Constrains and Guides

Looking at the opening scenes in Bioshock from 2KGames, the level layout of a decaying new years party gone wrong demonstrates the idea that "an environment constrains and guides player movement through physical properties and ecology". The physical properties are represented by walls/stairs etc and the gameplay ecology is made up of enemy and item placement. 

Smith and Worch say that "we can also see that a game environment represents access and that the restrictions on access create decisions and meaningful play"

They use a diagram to convey this utilizing a level in Bioshock as an example, I'm going to use my own example from Heavy Rain and apply their principles to it.

The above is concept art for a scene during the "Lizard Trial" in Heavy Rain, which if you've read my previous blog posts you'll see a lot about as I've examined it in terms of play and monitored others as they played through. It preserves the same themes as the Bioshock example in terms of decay and decadence.

 

The above is a very simplistic diagram of a top-down view of the room. Using simple shapes and colours, I identified the physical properties of the environment by highlighting the walls and objects in thick black lines. The gameplay ecology is made up of item placement, and the items which you can interact with are represented in the diagram by the green circles. The objects outlines in red are the key areas of interest that you must interact with in order to further the story at all.

However this example differs from Smith and Worch's Bioshock example in that you can choose not to take part in the trial, and wait for the countdown timer to end, instead of taking action and utilizing the props in the room. 

Nevertheless, we can see that a game environment represents access and that the restrictions on access create decisions, (you can select which objects to use, and have varying results, or choose not to partake in the trial at all), which in turn creates meaningful play. 

2. Communicate Affordance

Through visual references or "affordance", the area itself communicates with the player. From what we've gathered from playing through previous trials, the monitor on the table represents a task to undertake, and the player can quickly understand that they are meant to sit in the chair and initiate the trial.

-Communicate Simulation Boundaries

When it comes to simulation boundaries, Heavy Rain presents a large variety of interactive actions but they are always within the context of the situation. For example, the scene in which Ethan and Shawn at at the park and Ethan is attempting to bond with him, there are various actions available to help ensure Shawn is cheered up, and various objects such as swings and seesaws to help you out. However, at no point is Ethan able to just ignore Shawn and go off and play on the swings and seesaw on his own. He needs to interact with Shawn first to identify what he wants to do. Therefore the player quickly comes to realise that while they have a certain amount of freedom regarding choice and consequence, the interactions must be in context, and the player comes to understand the simulation boundaries. 

3. Reinforces Player Identity

"The environment shapes and reinforces the identity of the player." Smith states that identity is shaped by both performance and context. Essentially, that games ask players to assume an identity, contextualize this identity within the game environment, which in turn often implies or encourages social conventions and behaviours. The contrast of textures and colours of the environment in Heavy Rain before and after Jason's death, help to convey a state of decay and overall depression and at times - desperation, which makes the player feel more secure in the justification of their difficult and at times, morally grey choices.

Again, the Heavy Rain case study works well here as it is all about social factors such as relationships and presents you with the boundaries of what you would be capable of in an unthinkable situation.

Heavy Rain forces the player to make impossible decisions and presents various moral dilemmas to the player. Their choices and actions in relation to these dilemmas shape the path of the game, making for more personal and meaningful play.

In contrast, the environment in Portal makes you feel like a test subject (which you are) The simple shapes, textures and clean cut lines, in conjunction with the restricted colour palette lends itself better to a puzzle game. We can see that the environment contextualizes experience and exerts influence over the identity of the player during play.

4. Narrative Context

The game environment generated from a fictional storyline can convey;

• The history of what has happened in the setting
• Who currently inhabits it (if at all)
• Their living conditions
• What may happen next
• The practical purpose of the area
• The mood

When environmental narratives are fully utilized to their greatest potential, no external influence is required to anchor the plot, the world speaks for itself as the player progresses through it.

5. Environmental Storytelling

That's why Heavy Rain is such a good example, the environments are so compelling and intricately designed that they speak volumes about the current events taking place, and even help to symbolise the current state of mind of the character and in turn, influence the state of mind of the player who assumes the identity of the character. The majority of the mood and story are expressed and deduced through the rich textures and props, and often need no further explanation.


Original Lecture available here; (http://www.worch.com/files/gdc/What_Happened_Here_Web_Notes.pdf)

Environmental Narrative - Online Lecture

During my travels across the internet I found a lecture online which was actually, shock horror, relevant to my honours project. It focused specifically on narrative environments for games and is the first of it's kind I've managed to come across. Every other source I've found has either been more relevant to films or more inclined towards narrative in general, rather than environment-specific.

The lecture was presented at the GDC 2010 conference from two speakers, Harvey Smith - Game Director at Arkane Studios and Matthias Worch - Senior Level Designer at Visceral Games

Details can be found here http://www.worch.com/2010/03/11/gdc-2010/
and although I'm, going to go into detail about their lecture and apply their knowledge to my own research, the slides and speakers notes can be found directly here http://www.worch.com/files/gdc/What_Happened_Here_Web_Notes.pdf


The lecture examines game environments as a narrative device with focus on player interpreting/pulling information, in opposition to traditional fictional exposition.

The session is divided into five sections;

• 1. Game Environments- Lays the foundation and looks at what a game environment actually is and what it represents.
• 2. Environmental Storytelling - Define it, and looks at examples
• 3. Practical Techniques - 
• 4. Systemic Environmental Storytelling - The two main forms of environmental storytelling, designer-authored and systemic. Presenting techniques and ideas.
• 5. Conclusion

In following blog posts I'll be covering these chronologically and relating them to my own research where I can.

More books...

Got an absoloute bible out the library today, a massive book called Mastering Autodesk Maya by Eric Keller with Todd Palamar and Anthony Honn.
It has quite a few chapters dedicated to lighting with mental ray so I'm going to be delving into that to improve the lighting in my room scene.

Methodologies.

The key theories I'll be looking into will be Structuralist theory and Semiotics. Structuralism is the theoretical framework that is used to understand language in relation to a larger system or structure.  It is also used in conjunction with film theory to emphasise how films convey meaning though the use of signs and conventions, based on social and cultural expectations. Semiotics is the study of signs and the various connotations those signs may have within specific cultures and societal groups. The reason for adopting these particular theoretical approaches is because the environment I want to design must rely solely on visual cues to imply backstory and character, signs and connotations will be a fundamental part of my project.  

Tuesday's to do...

I got two new books out the library to help brush up on my practical skills in modeling assets and environments for games;

So today I'll be powering through some of the tutorials in Maya for Games, and making notes on game-specific modeling techniques.

Heavy Rain - Art Department

Some pretty pictures to follow (none of them mine though...)  as this blog has become a wall of text...

Started researching the main artists involved in Heavy rain and their stuff has blown me away. Seriously, it's brilliant. Its both inspiring and disheartening to look at..and was part of the reason I was so demotivated...

François Baranger - concept artist

Morgan Yon - concept and 3D environment

Stéphane Dufournier - characer and 3D artist

Benoit Godde - Graphic Artist and Illustrator