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Aria Trailer

I'm happy to show you my project trailer - Aria.


Aria is an interactive art projection using kinect to experience 4 minutes journey of growth, and to discover the unknown species of flowers and sounds that will randomly generate from the tree by doing simple gestures along the air and treasuring every moment of it.

Sound by Casey Hartnett
Programing by Trent Fealy

Air Tree Plan

Asset List

Concept Art

Schedule

Art(Jason)

 Sound (Casey)

New Interactive Project - Air Tree

Air Tree

Major Project Treatment and Flowchart

(RMIT AIM Studio: Master of Creative Media)

Air Tree is an Interactive projection installation presenting an audience with a virtual plant. It will be using Unity, Xbox Kinect, a Projector, a computer, Zigfu and an artistic mind.

The concept idea of Air Tree is to let you to interact with the virtual “tree” to experience the journey of growth, and to discover the unknown species of flowers and sounds that will grow from the tree. The project is inspired by the PS3 game – Flower.

And the beautiful use of patterns uses motion graphics in Erica Haowei Hu (Season) where he gives the viewer an incredible sense of growth and prosperity. I like the idea and feeling and beauty that come with constantly expanding natural constructs as they grow bigger filling a wider space. So I was thinking maybe it’ll be cool to make a project about growing a tree by bumping air to make it higher and higher up into the sky. The idea maybe a little cliché but I think sometimes it is better to tell a story in a straight forward manner.

This project will be interactive not only because I’m interested in interactive creative work but also I think it will be a great experience to get people to involve in it.

Due to the objective of Air Tree, player has to give air to the tree. I don’t want player to use a mouse or keyboard or controller. I want them to simply swinging their hand upward to let the tree breath. I strongly believe the simpler the gesture, the better it will work. Mainly because it is not a project about frustration and I think it is a great gesture to symbolize the idea of growing higher. It is also inspired by a scene in Totoro by Hayao Miyazaki in which two girls wave their hands up and down to grow a tree while Totoro sings along with them.                    

It was one my most memorable and favourite scenes of all time, and it is a movie that had a big impact on my childhood. So yes keep swing your hand high up to the air.

The motivation is the visuals and the sounds of the tree. Just like you are watching a firework’s show in the sky. Simple colours, patterns and sounds are strong enough to create a strong sense of joy and you will always want to see more. Therefore the art will be the main focus in this project. And I intend to do something similar to Ana Somnia’s work.

It will be a black background with white lined objects or white silhouettes, because that will make it possible to get enough work done to make the idea come alive within the time restraints. Also I want to do something in an abstract style that I did with my last few interactive project which mainly only used shapes and lines and patterns to build up the object’s form. Perhaps like the art style of James Jean.

In this project I’ll also focus on more randomization of different “flowers” that will bloom randomly on the journey of Air Tree. It is used to surprise the audience but also used as a reward for the audience. These “flowers” can also be interacting with hands. They are like toys hanging from the tree. They play sounds and behave differently when you touch it. Some may swing. Some may pop. Some may spin. Refer to “Game space metaphors” (Laurie Taylor). This Air Tree should be like a garden. During the Labyrinths linear play style, there should also be some freedom to the audience to explore. Like those “flowers” should be the maze like small puzzles. After you solve the puzzle the reward will be beautiful particles and spark around the air tree. So maybe the sense of progress will be stronger. I also intend to put the 4 season in the journey of growth to make the experience more engaging and less repetitive. At the same time, I believe the transition between seasons to season will also heighten the sense of progression too.

Sound

The sounds used in this project will be soft and quiet. And I will cooperate with a sound student for both music and Foley.  The ambient sounds will be echo-y like it is sound originating from within a wide open space. At the same time, the melody should give the impression that you are floating in space to highlight the theme – Air, which also builds up a stronger sense of the setting. Also the sound will always have long pulse randomly in between each set of chords to make it unpredictable as the Air Tree will bloom and blossom randomly. And those “flowers” will sound different according to their size and shape e.g. small flowers will have higher pitched music. However, it won’t be a long and full-on melody. It should be simple and match perfectly to overlap the ambient sounds.

What I find also beautiful about firework is they only last for a short amount of time. Every explosion of each firework feels special and memorable which bring us to the embedded message behind the project. A message centred on ones ability to influence their nature, however an inability to fully control it. The Air Tree will slowly die in the end. The only influence you have is how fast it will die depending on how much “air” you gave it. We just have to accept the fact and learn to let go and enjoy the moments in time when it was alive. Plus, watching something get old and crumble is part of the beauty of life. And that is the message I want to send to my audience.

So the plan of Air Tree is to let you to discover and enjoy the journey of growing the tree up to the sky by doing simple simple gesture and treasuring every moment of it.

Other similar Project references:

Puppet Parade

https://vimeo.com/34824490

Night Bright

https://vimeo.com/29193895

Funky Forest

https://vimeo.com/3872687

tweetpositive project

https://vimeo.com/34373798

Nervous Structure

https://vimeo.com/35508462

Space + Environment

Space and environment is one of my favourite element in film or interactive project or game. Without a good environment is like food without a tasty flavour. It is the key to bring a story alive, is by creating a great world.  A stunning space and environment can easily engage me into the story.  A good environment will not only be pretty but also help to set the mood to heighten the character and situation. A good environment will also tell an embedded story itself.

Bioshock did a great job by using environment to capture the setting of the story.

The design and outlook of the environment are not only pretty and well thought. They use poster, sculpture and video projector skilfully to shape the setting of the world without using any long and clumsy or too much dialogue.  It tell us about some key characters, the style, the time.

Form + Image

A Kaleidoscope is one of the best examples of interactive form and image that I have enjoyed so far. The whole visual experience is created by simple colours and shapes contained within its scope and they create stunning patterns and forms. They can be quite abstract and their abstraction catches people’s eye and makes them wonder what it is they are actually looking at. The audience just needs to simply rotate the scope and the beautiful patterns will start dancing in front of their eyes.

I really enjoy the continual transition from pattern to pattern, it is just gorgeous. And now technology is more advanced, I am constantly shocked by how amazing the generative animations are getting these days. It is amazing seeing the structures generated by autonomous systems such as 3d fractal patterns creating something so beautiful and complex that it puts one almost in a trance. Just the simple idea of all of the little patterns and details which would take someone forever to reproduce can be created on the spot is amazing. This generative art style has lots of potential in the future of visual interactions.

 

 I know there are a lot of people who have already experimented or based work on these ideas but I still can’t imagine how amazing the results could be if we grew virtual trees which were not only an animated 3d mesh, but by generative fractals and each time you grow the tree, it will look different. I believe this “autonomous systems” will be a golden opportunity for the future sandbox games, because it can give more randomness to the environment. And I believe that this is something that sandbox could really improve on – to make environmental changes in more of a situational sense rather than a spacial sense, e.g. seasons or weather (Like moss growing in the city when it has rained too much).  

Nevertheless, after seeing all this cool autonomous system visuals, I started to feel excited but also a bit scared of its potential. It is like when artist first see the Photoshop. What if autonomous systems can also generate high quality rigged characters and creature blueprints with random gender, skin textures, hairstyle and fashion? Does it mean we won’t have a need for any more 3D artists? Or I am just worrying too much, and autonomous systems can never take the place of an artist and they are merely a tool to save time.   

Time + Perspective

When time + perspective are skilfully thought out, it always gives me goose bumps. Like a flash back of a character revealing what you had always wanted to know in their past. Sci-fi set in the future time perspective shows how earth has changed. If used well, time shifts and perspective shifts can create an amazing dynamic, like watches though different people’s perspective to tell a story in different angle, sometimes turning a villain into a hero or visa versa. But when used poorly, it will lead to confusion, disorientation and it makes the story too long and too clumsy.

In game, time can be play around with even more. E.g. turn base game. Player can take forever to decide what the next action is even while the battle is going on. Everything stops until you make your decision. Lots of new games also have a day night cycle which gives a stronger sense of progression in time which is great. Like some event will only happen during the day and some only at night. Also the aesthetic difference in time can be used to create a new dynamic in setting/environment, e.g. going to take out a boss in a post-apocalyptic future. However, sometime it is frustration to wait for the in-game time changes. Like MMoRPG, - Final Fantasy XI. You need to spend 15 or 30 minutes to wait for a boat and boat will be closed when stormy weather. But on the other hand, it creates an extremely victorious and memorable moment to player due to the rarity of some event.

(Nerd Alert! - Remember the first time i saw the Rainbow in FFXI, i feel as good as  i was a real rainbow in my life.)


Another time + perspective thing is also the classic “slow motion” which is now too popular in lots of movies and games. Yes… some people hate it and think they ruin the film and it is lame. But I think it is amazing to see all the little tiny details occur during a small snippet in time that we cannot usually see in real life, building appreciation of the moment captured in the small time frame in aesthetic and context. Also the music video by Kanye West “Power”… I don’t like Kanye West but I am talking about the music video. It applies such an effective use of the editing of motion to match with the rhythm of the music, also the “power” of each motion seems amplified as the moment each movement comes to its conclusion, the build up just enhances it greatly.



Also it is interesting to see game like the Rainbow six patriots, players will constantly be switching perspective from the police and the patriot.

It is interesting because like what their trailer showed. You start off playing as the civilian living in a normal life, with a wife and kid and all of a sudden you are kidnapped by the patriot and they force you carry a bomb to the city or else they are going to kill your family. Then timeline jumps to a scene when the police find out there is a bomb carrier planning to attack the city. You immediately switch to the police’s perspective and try to stop the attack from happening. The Player already knows what the patriots are planning and also the civilian’s back story. Players will have sympathy towards the civilian and as a result will try harder to finish the mission. It is a more interesting way to set up a situation than the old war games in which you are simply ordered to recruit a target with just text or cut scenes to describe who they are and what had happened. I think it has great potential to play around more interesting perspective in future gaming. There are tones of single player game did used interesting time and perspective to shape their story, like WarCraft, Resident Evil. Player will not only see the story though one point of view yet maybe from different character’s eyes and different time and merge into an amazing story or stories. Transition between different perspective also need have a deeper design like Rainbow Six Patriots. Think about when to switch it, how it switch and why to switch. Not just finish a chapter then cut to other perspective, create some new that flow.

Agent + Behaviour

Players like the sense of controlling something, to change, build and manipulate things. Sometime just giving a little creative control to the audience will make a big difference in their gaming expierience. It does not necessarily have to be a sandbox game like Sims or Black and White to achieve it. Some players simply like to choose the character’s hair colour or pick their class for some aesthetic identity. They will feel more immersed into the character. (Eg. Character customization, skills tree in most of the new role-play games.) Customization will make the character that they create seem more meaningful and have something they can call their own. Games like Fable are a good example. Your character’s outlook will change due your moral decision-making and actions. Watching your character’s outlook and fashion change and how the villagers behave towards you as the story changes. It just fun to watch. I think it would be great to see more behavioural consequences that will affect the virtual characters in the future of gaming, like Fable and Skyrim. What happen is if your character gets bitten by a vampire the consequences will be your skin turning pale, eyes turning red, villagers will be scared to talk to you or try to hunt you down. It is great because not everyone will enter the vampire’s cave and get bitten. This random event did surprise me and gave more meaning and individualistic attributes to my virtual character. There is much potential in this style of gaming and I feel benefit gaming to do more things like this. Eg. Your character will lose one arm if you lose a main boss fight and then you will need to attach an artificial arm which will not function well under rain but has a higher defence. Even limiting their character’s outlooks and let the progression of the game slowly shape their style, like do they shave often, do they drink a lot of potions, do they got attacked a lot, etc. I think it is fascinating to see how your character changes by the actions/decisions you make in game and as such the world and NPC will behave differently to you.   

What’s more, I think creative control helps to bring audience’s attention into a world or object partly because of the responsibility it entails. They feel enveloped amongst the situations they are in and therefore they want to know more about what the outcome will be. It may as well be because of the curiosity of consequences, the unknown and the “path not travelled”. The audience will usually be more concerned about the stories or actions if they know their decisions do matter. Games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Witcher 2 are good examples of playing around with decisions and choices. It’s effective because players will talk more and share more about their “own” stories endings and evolution, much more so than linear story games and. They will also be questioning the other choices and outcomes sometimes causing them to want to replay the game to find out what COULD have been. This proven story can be fun when you can decide what is next. There was an old card game called “Once Upon a Time” produced by Atlas games in 1994. It is a game about making up your own stories according to the random cards withdrew and your friend can have a chance to interrupt you and take charge of the story. It is interesting because the story may not make sense but all players will be engaged in it, encouraging emotional investment. The same few cards can also create different stories each time you play. Furthermore, Simulation gaming like Sims, Harvest Moon and Minecraft gave even more in-game control to the player which is also extremely addictive to some people too. There is no story or main goal of the game, players just keep playing around in the virtual world, living out their own master plan. The cool thing is during their random actions the in-game AI actually starts to slowly shapes their own stories and goals. It is something new that games are doing more often now, and it has great potential to be even better in the future.

However, it may lead to unsatisfied outcomes due to player’s expectation. And constantly needing the audience to make choices will create frustration and annoyance in some players. It is important to know how to balance it because the old fashion sit back and relax storytelling styles are still great. The story structures are easier to control and story flows better. Too much freedom for players creates difficulty in players organization and the games are much harder to construct. Confusion and a sense of feeling lost will always happen if agency is badly designed. Basically, it is great to be in charge of something but not everything, it should not be as hard as real life and the outcomes should be surprising yet acceptable, then agency and behaviour will become fun.

Storyboard of Anne & Beanie

Read from left to right.

Storyboard - 1

Storyboard - 2

Cutout Short Animation

This cutout animation is a student mini project done by me and Angela Pinilla, music done by my friend Jake Marks Bayley. It took us around 14 hrs non stop to finish this 1:35 minutes video but I am pretty happy about it, since it is our first frame by frame cutout animation. But of course it can be better. Like the transition to night time need to slower and the rain need to be longer, or even show a few day night cycle to indicate the time passed. And i have to admit that its hard to keep my patient going for so long. The rain and wind blowing the scarecrow are just way too annoying to animate.

Overall, i love the dog, the girl, the little grass, the light, anything in this production and wish to do more when i have some free time.

Environment Sketches
I did some more environment sketches for the last 2 scene which is the electricity switch of the fake sun and the stairs path up to the light bulb sun.


I draw more wires and electric boxes to stylize the environment more which were inspire by some old Hong Kong architectural. I am pretty happy of the visual so far and will do more refine after the storyboard with will be finish by next Friday.










Below are some Googled images about Hong Kong electricity structure.

Environment Thumbnail Sketches

The new environment design is now change to the bluish green colour. Also now the environment background will replaces as tall empty buildings with thunder poles on the roof and more electric towers, machines and wires instead of the junks and car in the old version. It helps to indicate the importance of electricity in this world setting. Also i think the poles and tower and wire create a stunning visual background by their lines and curves. They keep the environment still visually attractive yet more atmospheric and able to capture the setting of the game - the awful need of electricity for light and everything. Last thing, i intend to keep the environment open and empty to highlight the loneliness and the hopeless atmosphere. But then the scene will get more chaotic and intense to challenge the player yet also express the difficulties Anne and Beanie experienced though the whole journey.

The environment is now heavy inspire by

“Rain Town” by Hiroyasu Inshida

I think Rain Town has a very similar setting to Anne and Beanie where a little girl and robot in a empty lonely world. I really like the reflection of Rain Town but i think i should focus more on electric wire and darkness more. 

Character Thumbnail Sketches - Anne

Refining the main character - Anne.

Still experimenting the colour and the fashion of Anne. Because i really want to be sure she will stand out from the whole game but at the same time, she should fit in the world. And right now i think she does stand out but maybe a bit too much.

Here are more refined thumbnail Sketches of Anne.

I decide to pick the orange worker cloth version and the red hair. Mainly because it is the complementary colour of blue which stands out the little character from the complicated background. As i mentioned, i was scared it will be too colourful that wont fit in the world. But I finally still decide to make her colour sharper and saturated because she takes the most important role in the game, and it is important to let player to know where the character is since the game will intend to have lots of long shot. Therefore, the character will be quite hard to see because of its size. More the less, the colours reflect mood of the character and bring a stronger impact from the cold dark environment.

Character Thumbnail Sketches - Beanie 

Beanie is Anne's best friend who carry Anne around and help her to lift up heavy object. Beanie is a large and squarish mechanic elephant. Compare to Anne, Beanie has a great contrast to her because of its scale and his geometric body shape. I intend to exaggerate both characters therefore it can

clearly capture their own personality and their animation behavior.

Beanie is old, slow yet loyal, kind and helpful. 

Thuumbnail Sketches of Beanie

Second refinement of Beanie

I added tones and shadows to the new thumbnail sketches not only makes it prettier yet i'm try to test the mood between the world and the character. As you can see i change from the old sepia colour to blue and now to bluish green which i think is the best for the scene. I figure the old sepia did looks good and have the Shaun Tan sweet children story feeling, However, i tried the bluish green colour and the image immediately capture of the lonely and gloomy mood of the story. Then another problem started to me worried about if the character blend with the background.Then i came out with an fantastic idea. I added some kid colour pastel drawing on the elephant's metallic body. It not only helps to stand out from the background but it also builds up more characteristic to Beanie. It visualize the innocent and hope that he carries around in this dark world.

Individual Project Brief 

Anne and Beanie

• Synopsis: A 2D side scrolling, Interactive storytelling mini adventuristic PC game.
• Platform: PC
• Style: Monochromatic, Sepia, apocalypstic,2D cartoonish style.
• Aim: To create an eye catchy and charming virtual diorama which tell a story or stories.
• Brief: You will control a little character to explore happiness from a lifeless abandon junkyard. The game will encourage you to interactive with all the little things in the scene and though the progress you will sympathize the story behind this space and maybe your little "self".

MoodBoard

Machinarium - by Jakub Dvorský

Machinarium the 2D puzzle game.

Wall E

Concept Art

Story:

A little girl called Anne who just turns eight. She is pretty much alone in this gloomy colourless world where the sky had completely covered by dark smoke and clouds. Don't even think about a drop of sunlight. This place is a heartbroken place wheres trees had burned into ashes and city had broken in to nothing but tones of junk. All Anne wishes is something bright... something can bring her joy and fortitude back to warm her heart. Perhaps a functional light bulb? 

And so... there the little girl with her big heart searching for those little lights and try to build a "sun". Isn't she crazy? 

No... maybe a little bit foolish or naive, yet all she looking for is a bit of light ... even if it just a temporary fragile plastic.

Control:

Simply move the mouse and right click to navigate the character. And Left click to interactive with objects.

Gameplay Goal:

Search for light bulbs which hidden behind junks. Collect all 10 of them to finish the game! Simple!


Software Engine:
Unity + Photoshop + Pencil.

Animation of Anne and Beanie (RMIT student project 2009)