Legal constraints

My video game character was inspired by a variety of different assets and actual characters. However when creating my character I include my own ideas as if they are the same as another companies then legal actions could be taken. for example if my character was the same as a robot out of I am Legend then it would be classed as copyright. My character took inspiration from a film called Robots and the character was Bigweld who moves around via a big circle wheel and is very fluid with his movements.

However my robot has clear difference as mine has guns on and can fly, however the way that he moves with the spherical bottom is what I took from that and so I had to make sure that when designing it was different. Where as in the film Rodney is a kind famous robot who loves to have fun! The reason I based my robot around him is because he is different from what you would normally expect and as a side kick I wanted It to be fast, powerful and actually useful which is why he can fly, has a map on him and also can store treasure collectibles. The way I imagined him to move was fast like Droidekas from Star-wars as they are different from the stereotypical futuristic robot with legs and human like abilities however in relation to Droidekas, mine is not similar but it helped me when thinking about my robot. Finally, all my assets on the robot such as the guns and the propeller ears were made from scratch and were original ideas.

Proposal

The assignment brief is to create a futuristic environment using a 3D software called Maya. I have decided on a Utopian time square feel which is very slick and refined. I came to this idea from my researching future set games, movies and models.

My project will be a section of a city based in the future about 600 odd years. In it I will include a shop front, assets such as a bin, bench and street lamp which I have designed myself to create and fit my future virtual reality. My centre piece however will be my skyscraper which will be mainly glass top which will contrast to the advertisements on the other buildings and the main road/ path way will run through the middle of the building indicating a CBD. I will use games such as Mirrors Edge and their environment design to help get ideas and I will find/ create my own textures to show my Maya skills.

However, because I have looked at a lot of different trademarked and copyrighted games obviously I cannot copy. I will not be using any downloads and my city will be made from scratch so I will not be plagiarising. However just to be safe and give credit to my inspirations I will reference all of my inspirations in pre-production to consider the legal side. But if I happen to use any templates I will have to double check that they are not trademarked. One problem I know that I wont have is ethical issues as all of my buildings are fairly recognisable and doesn't link to anything that could be untoward.

My target audience for my assignment and future will be 16+ as I feel younger audiences would have been interested in bright colours where as mine is organised but also dense at the same time, additionally there will be small details that will appeal and be quite amusing/ cool for older audiences to understand. The glass and the billboards will communicate the future feel that will appeal to my target audience. Additionally, my environment will fit into an open world game type and an action game due to its openness and gamers would be able to scale great heights and also interact with the future environment and the world would interact and adjust to you such as bilboards changing as you get closer. 

In order to make my project I will have to use various skills in order to complete my 3D city model. For example when creating the skyscraper I will have to extrude and alter my shape which will likely be a rectangle, and then use shapes and the co-ordinates to get the correct positioning and alignment. One of the main skills I will have to demonstrate is texturing which will be a key aspect to make it futuristic and realistic. Finally, I will show the skill of adding more edge loops which will refine my objects to make them more realistic and refined (rendering).

In order to successfully complete my project I will need a wider range of resources. for example I will need specific software programmes such as Maya and Photoshop for obvious reasons such as to actually be able to create a 3D environment. I will also need High speed computers or at least reliable computers such as a Mac so that it can store my project and run Maya. I will also need a scanner to scan in my drawings which I will need paper and utensils for.

This project is not going to be completed in one day and so I will have to spread it out over a longer period of time and try not to fall behind on any work be it on blogger or practical, but I will also have to take my time and don't take short cuts in case they prove problematic in the long run. To make sure I don't fall back I will set myself marginal goals that I hope to achieve by the end of each session.



The proposal allowed us to evaluate our brief and collect all that we need to do to lay it out in my head. This was extremely useful as I was able to really visually see and plan out in my head what I needed to achieve. I was also able to explore a lot of the limits I could take for example looking at legal constraints meant that I knew my limits. Furthermore it allowed me to be more efficient by making sure I was on task at all times and I could always refer back here. Here I also reviewed how long it would take along with what I needed to complete it meaning I could once again get sorted. Another thing you evaluate in this is your target audience as its almost like a pitch and so from this I decided on a set idea and so I wasn't messing around between ideas once again wasting time and in the real world money.

Planning Document Design Pack

Production Log

Road to my Maya creation!


15/10/15) In the first lesson in which we started our Maya Creation, I started to draw a few rough sketches to get a wide range of robot ideas and listed some of their key characteristics, I liked or that they all had in common. I then decided on my final idea and went for a spherical based robot that could fly, act as a guide and also a storage space for this game.

20/10/15) Because I didn't complete my drawings the first lesson I had to finish them off here by drawing them on *special graph paper* and because my creation model was going to be 3 dimensions I had to draw a front, side, top, bottom and back view all drawn to the same scale so that I could scan them into Photoshop and realign where necessary. Then once I was happy with the size and rough design/ plan of my robot I opened Maya and made a horizontal plane by creating a turnaround which I could import my designs onto to act as guide lines when modelling.











22/10/15) in order to make everything to scale and give me the best visuals for my design I had to calculate the resolution of my image back in Photoshop and then transferring this into a set size in Maya by doing a simple calculation.


03/11/15-05/11/15) I lesson 4 and 5 I began to start making my sketches have a body by adding built in polygons such as a sphere to act as the main support for my creation. After having implemented more of a structure to my character I was able to rasterise my image by adding more edges and vertexes to give it a more spherical aesthetic and I began to start adding minor details by using the extrude tool and duplicating various layers and adjusting                                                         them slightly to make it look more realistic and complex.




10/11/15) I went in

to even more detail this lesson by looking at key limbs and connectors for my robot and added more edge loops which made it a more futuristic as it looks like welds and seals that keep my robot together and have various




17/11/15)  In this lesson I attempted to make my own shape being a wire, this proved quite difficult to get the right shape for it as it didn't look realistic due to its random bends. I also re did my neck for my robot as it didn't seem to fit in with my robots feel. I did this by adding in lots of rectangles and rotated them which I found to be particularly effective. in my neck there is an opening behind and this is where I wanted to add in wires to show my attention to detail!

01/12/15)   this lesson I focused on finding out and figuring out what purpose if any my robots arms should have and I thought that because my sidekick acts as storage and a map/ advice in where to go and as a result doesn't fight as much apart from the ray gun which I also added that lesson, I gave him speakers which is where not only sound comes out but also an imaginary hologram for when in the campaign you would get sent a video message.

Last lesson I had to attempt to try an UV map my model and by doing this I had to use a texture that helped piece bits together. This proved to be very hard and so you have to cut you model into sections such as the body, head and arms. You can then either use UV Shell where it selects the whole shape and you can distort it and change the UV pattern that way, or for more detail I had to just use the UV and its almost like changing the vertexes.