Story Arc

In the game club I have been attending the writer's round table. In the game design industry, there are artists and programmers, and sometimes writers. In the cases where there are not specific writers (smaller independant companies), the artists and teh programmers fill the role of the writers, so it is good to ahve this experience. Basically, we started with a picture that someone had drawn, and then came up with a game concept from that. We brainstormed and came up with ideas of what kind of story we could tell in the game and then submit our ideas for what kind of scenes would be important to gettin gthe story across. This is what I came up with for a story:

Prelude – Father and Squire
Opens with two sets of running legs (knee down), one clad in armor and the other in leather. Cut to what seems to be many pairs of running legs, all wrapped in cloth. Flash to full profile of a fully armored knight, visor down, running with sword drawn and his squire beside him. They come to stop in a clearing and the knight is huffing and puffing. He decides that this is where they will make their stand. Attackers look like zombies, setting the stage for the game being set in an alternate reality. At the end of the battle, the knight raises his visor and talks to his squire commenting on the fight. They turn around to head home. Fade to small room at night. Story is being narrated by a father (the knight) to his son as he drifts off to sleep.

Intro to Chapter Three: Cut Scene
The king addresses his knights, explaining the importance the upcoming Crusades. As he speaks of the evil people that his knights will be fighting, we get flashes of grotesque looking people doing violent things. After the king’s speech and all of the other knights have left, the king pulls aside the hero. He speaks to him as a father to a son, speaking about his past triumphs, glories, and honors. He looks forward to his triumphant return so that he can marry the princess.

Out in the staging grounds as the knight and his squire make ready to leave, the princess shows up in his tent to give the knight her favor. He protests the impropriety of her visit, and she remarks upon how he is as much an honorable knight as his father was. His squire is notably absent during this encounter. The knight and his squire ride off into the morning mist followed by more knights as the princess watches from the tent.

End of Chapter 4: Cut Scene
The hero has just delivered the killing blow, cut scene kicks in. It shows that massive battle of the hero fighting the King of the Infidels. During the battle, the Infidel King morphs into a big killing brute. The hero takes a blow to the head right as he delivers the killing blow. The hero falls to his knees and then passes out. He awakens to what sounds like the battle still raging and he stumbles about. He is appalled at what he sees: knights raping helpless women and beating and killing children in the streets. As he tries to stop a group of knights, on makes the comment “Not much like his father, is he?” implying that his father was not as shining a knight as he thought. As the hero stands in shock, his squire appears and escorts him back to the main camp. As he heads towards the camp, the hero looks back over his shoulder at the group of knights, and their faces seem to have changed to something more beast like.

Further Chapter Elements: Character Cast
The hero will have three more people join his group of himself and his squire. They will be a female bard (representing “Heart”); a big burly blacksmith (representing “Body”); and a young knight (representing “Soul”). Each of these characters will be like the squire (representing “Mind”) – not real. Each character will be a representation of the hero’s well being. As he is suffering from dementia at this time, the Squire will seem to be almost evil, with a very sardonic side. The Squire character will always be at odds with the Bard character; representing the classic battle between heart and mind. The young knight will be the manifestation of our hero’s doubt. He feels that he has be naïve this entire time and is no better than a young inexperienced knight. The blacksmith represents his physical well being. As he leaves the crusades to head home, this will be the first of his new allies, as he will need to heal himself and make himself better. As our hero recovers over time from his wounds, the blacksmith’s attacks will become more powerful.

Cut scene before the Final Battle
Our hero enters the throne room of the king after a long journey home. The king is holding audience and seems genuinely surprised and happy that the hero has returned. He goes to embrace the knight who in turn draws his sword to keep him at bay. The knight accuses the king of genocide, that the people the crusades were launched against were weak and defenseless. They posed no threat to the kingdom. The king refutes this saying that they were cruel viscous people who threatened the kingdom’s well being, their way of life. The hero responds back that it was the knights who were cruel and viscous and were under the employ of their cruel master, the king. The king laughs at our hero stating that our hero is just as naïve as his father was, and morphs into an evil ogre. Hearing that his father really was a true knight, our hero takes strength in this. To represent this, his four aspects of Mind, Heart, Body, and Soul all morph into golden knights and then merge with the hero. The final battle begins.

Cut scene after the Final Battle
The kind lays dying at the feet of our hero. He says that he launched the crusades because he could not justify a war. His daughter wanted a larger kingdom and convinced him to launch the crusade. He dies and at this time we notice that the princess was there for the entire battle. She sheds no tears as she walks over to the throne and sits on it. She says that he father was a simpleton and was weak. She makes her first royal command and it is for the guards to arrest the hero. No one makes a move and our hero looks long and hard at the princess before turning around and walking out of the castle. You can still hear the princess/queen yelling for him to be arrested.

Finally! My grades for the first week!

It was very annoying and frustrating waiting for my grades to get returned. My teachers have until Sunday night to give them to us, but why do they have to wait that long? Especially if it is just the first week and the assignments were small and simple?

Anyway ... my grades are as follows:

Art History: 98/100 points for a total of 98/100 (98%)

Image Editing for Games: 90/90 points for a total of 90/90 (100%)

Introduction to Animation: 95/100 points for a total of 95/100 (95%)

Introduction to Game Development: 70/70 gor a total of 70/70 (100%)

The Introduction to Animation was the course that I botched my quiz. This week around I took a lot of notes on the lecture, but I feel like I missed some of the information that was on this week's quiz. So once again I am fretting on what kind of grade I got. My instructor had this to say about my idea for the animated short:

David, a very funny story to start out the description, and it really helped to set the tone of the project. I don't know that the cat's line in number seven is going to be a hit with audiences, as it really is an inside joke between you and your niece. However, I think you could replace that with just awkward silence or some kind of internal thoughts that everyone would associate with cats. Regardless this will make a great animation and I'm looking forward to seeing the character design.

With that being said, this week I had to create a character sheet of one of the characters in my short. Well, I could do Pauline who is tide to the train tracks, but I would need to do a front, side, behind and action pose. How fun would that be to draw? So I made a character sheet of the other character, PICKLES! And so that is the picture that is up on the blog. Yes, the action pose is of Pickles laying down ... I was going to do the butt licking pose, but I want to save that for my short!

Yup. Definately different this term.

So, my first week of the new term is over, and I am starting to get my grades back. Yes, I did bomb my one quiz, getting only 5 out of 10 questions correct. I did get 29 out of 30 correct on my other quiz, though. I have gotten my grades back on most of my discussions in all 4 classes, and I got docked a point because I didn't give enough detail on a subject. Wow. I never missed a point in all 3 of my classes in the previous term. I will have to step it p a notch.

So ... I have just spent 2 hours working on my first animation. It is to be just a bouncing ball. So, I have added a little background and a somewhat looking sandy beach. This will also be my first attempt to posting such an animation, so ... here goes nothing!!!


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Well ... guess what? I couldn't figure out how to load it. Perhaps my brother who is a lot more smarter than me can assist me. I'll have to give him a call here in the near future once I get all of my homework for this week done. I still have to do a character sheet of Pickles. So, like my Frankenstein 13 sheet, I will need a front, back, side and action pose. I ahve to be honest and say that the most action we get out of Pickles is her sleeping!

Anyway ...

I will post my grades once i get them all. Take care all!

A new term has started

And boy it feels different than the last. In my last term, 2 of my courses felt like sluff classes from the get-go. Looking at the syllabus for my classes this term, well ... it's not that I am worried, but one of my classes the final project is 50% of my grade. A lot of my classes are low scoring classes, so if I mess anything up I can be in trouble.

I may have botched up my first quiz this term. Last term, the one class that had weekly quizes all of the questions were in chronological order according to the blook. This term I ahve 2 classes that have quizes, and the questions include information from the lectures. So the first quiz I took I was not quite prepared for that, and I will find out my grade for it tomorrow. So when I took my next quiz in the next class, I was more prepared this time, and missed one question out of 30. So I am feeling good about that.

The big thing that I have to do this term is make a 10-30 second animated short using flash. For my first assignment I had to write an outline of what it is to be. Here it is:

“Why cats cannot be rescue animals”

I have a niece who just had her 5th birthday, and she has a cat named Gus. We asked her if Gus had gotten her anything for her birthday, and she looked at us and scrunched up her face and said: “Don’t be silly. Cat’s don’t have pockets!” And the way she said it, she said it as if that explained it all. With that in mind, I dedicate this to her and all cat lovers.

1. Train zooming along in wooded, mountainous country
2. Pauline tide to the train tracks screaming for help
3. *zoom out* Pickles sitting along the train tracks next to Pauline, twitching her tail about
4. *zoom in on Pauline’s face* Pauline begs Pickles for help
5. *camera on Pickles* Pickles remains seated, but lifts her leg and starts licking her backside
6. *camera on Pauline* Pauline growls and frustration and yells at Pickles for help
7. *close up of Pickles face* Pickles stops licking herself, look up at Pauline and says “I can’t help you. I don’t have pockets.”
8. Full shot of Pickles, Pauline, and train getting closer. Pickles walks off-screen as the train barrels in on Pauline who has question marks popping up all over her head.
9. Fade out and we hear a big SPLAT as Pauline gets ran over by the train.

Thoughts?

And my final grades are ....

Computer Applications: 160/160 for a total of 1408/1450 (97.10%)
Success Strategies: 202/230 for a total of 1649/1705 (96.72%)
Introduction to Drawing and Perspective: 1020/1040 for a total of 3352/3500 (95.77%)

For a grand total of: 6409/6655 (96.30 -- an "A")

!!!

My art project got divided between my character sheet final and my story board final. This is what he had to say about each:

Character sheet final
Daivd, This looks good. Progress! The shading turned out really nice. Great touch. Good details. Nice contrast. The write up helps sell the design and shows critical thinking skills. That extra effort along with the attention to detail on shading took the grade from a B to an A. As you move forward I am pretty sure you know what you need to work on. Details. Draw with you see. Proportion. You made great progress in these areas so I am confident that with more practice you will get there! It has been a pleasure working with you! Thanks for the hard work!

Storyboards final
David, This is great! It made me laugh. It kept my attention. Your illustrations were consistent and solid. Suggestion on that end is to try and add more contrast to your shading so there are even darker lines. That will help add emphasis and style. That will come with practice. This solution shows great effort. Excellent progress. And a great ability to tell a unique, funny and engaging story! Well done. Your hard work paid off. You earned this A!! I wish you continued success.

I am feeling very good for myself for doing this well. I was so very afraid of falling flat on my face. And what is even better is what he said about telling a unique, funny and engaging story. I am already reading my books for my next term classes (which start on Tuesday) and my Introduction to Animation book is really stressing the story and the characters (duh, right?). Anyhoo, I will start jotting down my ideas for characters and stories and keep them in a file so that when the time comes, I have plenty of information to draw upon.

Anyhow ...

I need to go and read some more of my books. I love you all and wish you all the joy and happiness in the world!

Last Week of School

Here it is the last week ... no, the last DAY ... of school for this term. I feel that these last 9 weeks have been spent very well. Each week was a trial for me, to over come wants and desires over the needs. I WANTED to watch TV, but I NEEDED to do my homework. I WANTED to play video games, but I NEEDED to get my drawings done. I think once or twice I gave in to the WANTS and put the NEEDS off, but I always finished my homework before it was due to be turned in.

My grades for week 8 are as follows:

Computer Applications: 128/160 for a total of 1248/1290 (96.7%)
Success Strategies: 370/370 for a total of 1447/1475 (98.1%)
Intro to Drawing and Perspective: 60/60 for a total of 2332/2460 (94.80%)

This last week in Art is worth 1040 points with my character sheet being worth 400 points, my storyboard being worth 550 points, my postings worth 30 points, and my critiques worth 60. So, by my calculations, if I was to take serious hits on my drawings, I could lose 125 points on each and still come up with an "A" in the class. The postings and critiques have always been good for me, and in this pweeks postings, my instructor give me this comment:

David, Like I said at the begining of the term you have some crazy creative writing skills. Your postings were stories, rich and full of energy. I really appreciated that level of effort and admired the talent so know that you have a double whammy on skills here...you are going to become a solid illustrator/artist and you have some natural talent with writing and storytelling so develop those skills. The combination is unique and will open doors. I wish you success.

It is times like this that I am glad that I did not go to school to be a chef. Sure, I could have come up with something that looked and tasted great, but I would probably be short one or two fingers by now.

Also, in my Success Strategies class we had to write a paper on our reflections of the course; what are we taking from it and how will we use it with our plans for our future and careers. I got a 340/340 score, and the teacher placed the grade as "A+" in the grade book. This is what she had to say:

David - I'm glad that you are including your wife in your goal planning. This is so important! Excellent job with this paper! I really valued what you wrote on each of the applications of each topic you selected. I'm glad that you can apply what you have learned in this class to your career, education, and personal life. Well done!

So, I have done pretty well for myself. It feels good to know that I have not let anyone down and have isntead made people proud. I was truly terrified that I was going to fall flat on my face and disappointed everyone, but instead I have extremely well!

Thank you all again for being there for me. You all get "A+" from me for being supportive.