After two weeks of research and reflection, I decided to focus my research on film. At the same time I was confronted with a completely new problem: happy endings are somewhat important in evaluating a film, but not as important. At the same time, for many niche films and art films, happy endings can even ruin the atmosphere of the film.
I need to be more specific and precise about a category or branch of cinema before I can discuss this topic.
This week I’ve been tweaking the whole film to make changes.
I also thought about the whole story. It is true, as my friends say, that my stories are too long and difficult to finish. After ten weeks of lessons, I realised that there were a lot of boring storylines in my original design and I think I need to adjust and improve the script. I also tried to adjust the gender of the characters in the story, as an all male story is a bit monotonous after all. I changed the original boy to a girl and redesigned his look.
This week I have continued my work on the comparison of film and games, and for my thesis I may need a lot of information to confirm my final research direction. For this I have tried to look at the perceptions of the different professions in these productions and I believe that the perceptions and reflections of these practitioners can help me effectively.
In my research, I came up with an idea that fits my thinking. In a film, a character has an arrangement and a setting in the world of the film, and his actions are influenced by the plot of the first half of the film. Once the character is seen by the audience as being outside the original plot, it is a bad experience for the audience if the editor cannot explain it perfectly. In games, however, the player has more choice and can decide on many key aspects of the experience without conflicting with following the established storyline. Even for gamers, the ability to not follow the original story can be a catalyst for their experience. These two points can be seen as one perspective – character behaviour/choice is everything.
This collaboration is Star Trees, but it’s more about the bunny than the story. I think my team members are more like the main characters and we have been going through all sorts of difficulties over the past 5 weeks, from the very first and most painful stage of writing the script. From the first and most painful stage of script writing, to the iterative style and character design stages, to the final output and rendering stages. Each stage had its own set of difficulties and problems, but we overcame them all.
My role in the group was mainly character design and basic house design. For me, character design is one of my favourite and most frustrating aspects of every project, it determines the lower limit of a story and raises the upper limit of the story. My first design was not as good as I wanted it to be, but we were able to communicate and make adjustments in a short period of time to get a satisfactory character. I am grateful for the trust and support I received from my team members and enjoyed working with my character and scene team members.
Finally, I really enjoyed working with the group and hope that I will have more opportunities to work on 3D modules in the next collaboration.
This week George suggested I adjust the pacing of the end credits, and this sudden butterfly rise was a bit odd. There was no need to show too much of it. So I went for a different way of ending the film.
Having watched some of the videos on games and film, I realised that I had set my thesis concept too broadly at the beginning.
Games and films are the most common forms of entertainment in our time, and although it is often easy to derive similar satisfaction from these two different forms of entertainment, the logic and composition of their plots are often different. In fact, the logic and composition of their plots are often very different.
In cinema, a story with a ‘happy ending’ usually ends with the characters overcoming difficulties, achieving success and completing the ‘happy ending’, in most cases from a third-person perspective. in most cases the audience is brought in from a third person perspective.
In games, however, the situation can be quite different.
In the game, the player is seen taking on the role of a hero, traversing various difficult challenges and tasks. And the development and ending of the story depends on the player’s decisions. Unlike the film, the game’s ending can have multiple variations and paths because of the player’s choices. Each decision of the player affects the direction of the story and can sometimes even lead to a different ending. Therefore, because the audience is a participant, the plot has to be more logical and complex … at the beginning of the game’s design.
This example contrasts the differences in plot composition between games and films. In games, the players usually play the role of active participants, whose actions directly influence the progress and ending of the story. In film, on the other hand, the audience are passive spectators who cannot change the course of the story. But how to create a sense of atmosphere by just watching is a different design idea. So there is a clear difference between the plotting and logic of the game and the film, in the context of the audience getting a similar sense of satisfaction.
So I think that I need to specify a specific area for the ‘good work’ in my title, so that I can make some objective references. To get some reflections worth thinking about.
This week a demo video was completed on green cloth and then the finished robot arm was combined with the video via MAYA. Also adding some animations.
This week we started experimenting with importing animations into UE for rendering. However, we had some problems during this time and our files did not open properly on the school computers. Whenever we open a file, the computer crashes. We have changed many computers but have not been able to solve this problem. This also affected our progress considerably. Fortunately, Jixuan and Kaiyue were able to contact the classroom staff and with his help, we were able to get the rendering to work.
This week the mapping was done through Substance painter and I added some old textures to the textures
Looks a bit like the movie Pacific Rim 🙂
This week I have adjusted some shots that need to be corrected. I also adjusted the pace at the beginning of the story to make it more tense and tight.
Also George gave me some advice on how to handle the ending.