2. Equipment
For my equipment I only have 2 things, my iPad and any PC, this
is because I'm doing an animation and don’t need any extra equipment like
lights or different camera lenses. I will be using the Procreate app on
my iPad to animate and also an Apple pen to draw with. I might on the side
do some brief sketches of all the characters and basics of the environments
so I can get a good idea of what I'm doing before I start so I don’t go in
blind and can effectively use my production time. I chose to use an iPad as
after researching art tablets for my FMP last year, I decided an iPad would
be best for portability, useability and it after reading reviews and asking
friends who had them it seemed like the best option. I don’t plan on
filming anything as people have done in the past as
I just don’t think it's necessary, what I'm doing its real to life and I think it
will use up valuable time that I could use animating.
4. Storyboard
My storyboard is a pivotal part of the process as it the foundation for what my final product
will look like, so for this I thought about the bets outline for the animation to follow. I
ended up choosing to have a cutscene style sequence where the two characters
meet, it's not very long and pretty straightforward, the normal version is in the bathroom
washing her hands in front of a mirror, she bends down and her reflection stays put, it looks
down at her and when she stands up and looks into the mirror is says hello and screams. I
thought this started the story well and gave a bit of information to what's happening in the
story and leaves the audience wanting to watch the rest of the trailer to find out more.
Then it goes into a series of black screens with text outlining the key elements of the game
for example the two-player aspect and for the scene after that I'm going to show the two
characters interacting. Another example is the boss fights. I want to show one of the bosses
so people can get an idea of the enemies, I produced the bosses design on the spot, taking
from what the audience decided the enemies to look like, she is an evil mage that uses
dark magic to fight. Another element I wanted to show was the fact you can switch
what side you play on/characters, I decided to show this by showing what the
gameplay would look like from that perspective, it will look like the normal work, but black
and grey, white lights and it will generally look drab. During production things might change
with the how the aniamtion looks, I might need to tweak certain things to fit in the time
frame and also if I decided that something doesn't look right that id planned, I want to be
able to change it so I can improve the project overall.
5. Storyboard - Explained
Over the next few slides, I have put the different frames I want to create. The first one features the main character washing her hands in a
sink, I chose to do this so it would give some background as to why she's in the bathroom and would have to look at a mirror. The next one is
very similar in that she's still at the sink and is drying her hands off, this is to progress the story further. The next is a back angle of her head
facing the mirror, she then bends down which is when we see the reflection, this is the main part of the sequence and was very important to
include. The next one is taken from a side angle and features both the characters as I wanted to show that there two separate people. The
reflection says hello and the other one screams ending the cutscene. I did this as I think it's funny introduction to the characters and this
situation, you are presented straight after with the goal of the game. We then go into the showing of gameplay, I wanted to show all the
aspects of the game so I decided to format it so that there would be a black screen with text explaining in short what each thing was. The
first one is the main storyline, helping your reflection escape, for the scene afterwards I chose to show the main character jumping from
ledge to ledge of the back of a building/back alley which was chosen by the audience, there isn't a specific reason for why I think that an
introduction to what the game is really important, and this is best place to show it. The next one shows the different ways you can play it;
the animated bit shows the other side that the reflections is on as you can play that character for the background, I decided to showcase
another one of the audience picked locations, the sewers. The 3rd one is about the ability to interact with objects and use them to help each
other out, for this scene I decided to show that in action at another one of the locations, a train station. In the bottom left you can the two
characters interacting, one of them is pushing a box through a window to the other one's side so that they can access the next part of the
level. I wanted to include this as is an important mechanic of the game. The 4th scene is one of the massive parts of the game, boss fights.
For this I produced a basic design for a boss, Shes a dark mage called Melina, she uses dark magic to fight and serves under the oracle, when
you fight her, she spawns a load of smaller enemies called minions. She wasn’t a planned addition, but I think she gives the game more
substance and adds to the lore. The 5th addition talks about the multiplayer side of the game, to show this I drew the two talking through a
window as it seemed like the best way to show them communicating, in the actual animation I might instead make a text box at the bottom
of the screen so it's clear whose speaking and so it can be seen properly. The last scene is a bit more wholesome, it's about just spending
time together, throughout the game there would be moment where they just talk about what happened and memories they have when they
go past a certain place.
29. Ari/Ira
One the main characters of the story, she
leads a normal life, she attends university
doing an agriculture course until her reflection
comes to life and asks to be freed from the
mirror, she must find an oracle that’s said to
hold magical powers that can free her
counterpart from the world beyond the
reflection called the Shadow World. She'll
have to fight magic wielders, dark mages and
powerful wizards/witches in order to reach her
goal all the while getting to know her new
counter-part. Will she free her new-found
friend or be defeated and lose her forever?
Ira, the opposite of Ari in every way, has
become sentient and realises her reflection is
in fact another version of her. She sees the life
she lives on the other side and longs for the
better world and a better life. She seeks out
help from Ari and the two go an adventure for
a mysterious Oracle who's said to free people
from the Shadow World. Will she be able to
find freedom from the world that holds
her hostage or fall in the face of defeat?
30. Melina
One of the 5 dark mages that protect the
Oracle, she wields 6 golden rings that enable
her magical abilities these, include
teleportation, invisibility, stunning Ari/Ira with
flashes, she can also use the ring themselves
to cause damage by throwing them at the
player. Aside from that she can also summon
Silver and Gold Mages to keep her alive, in
order to kill her you have to kill all the mages
she summons and dodge her attacks. Her boss
battle takes place on the first level, the back
alley. After traversing the level and killing the
minions you get to a fancy red door that leads
to her lair. Her lair is stocked full of old books
and sorcery equipment that stretches for what
looks like miles. After meeting with her and
trying to reason with her you fight her and are
given the next location to go to.
31. Gold Mage
Gold mages are a level up
from Silver Mages, they are
trained in advanced magic
and their attacks do more
damage. They can be
summoned to assist Dark
Mages in battle and will heal
them to keep them alive.
They won't appear when
outside of a battle and take 4
hits to kill. They attack using
spikes of magic as displayed
on the right. They are taller
than the player and wear
gold and black hooded
cloaks.
32. Silver Mages
The Silver Mages are a
universal enemy that will
show up and attack you in
both realms they can be
summoned in boss battles by
the 5 dark mages and are a
common sight around the
area you play in. They attack
you on sight and use balls of
magic to damage you as seen
on the right. They're
generally small and don’t do
a lot of damage. They also
only take 2 hits to kill and
wear a black and silver
hooded cloak.
34. Music - What genre?
When looking at music for my concept, I wanted to stick with the arcade, pixel art theme I have by using 8-
bit music, I think this will suit my concept pretty well and compliment the art style. I had originally
considered music of my own taste but quickly realised that it wouldn’t fit at all and would probably be really
distracting for the viewer.
8 Bit is only the surface level of the genre I'm choosing as it's not so much a genre as it as a more of a layer
you put over a song to make it sound different. I think this would work best as it matches the rest of game
and just generally, I think it would sound the best. Also, when you think of pixel art
games you probably think of 8-bit music and vice versa.
When looking more specifically at genres, epic music or cinematic sounding music is what comes to mind.
This is because I think it would really match the vibe of the concept, set the tone for the game and get the
viewer excited and curious for the game. I also think that it could add to the trailer overall and add a new
layer to it, the game is supposed to be an adventure game and the music should complement that. Also,
when I imagine the trailer in my head this is the kind of music that plays, I just need to find the right track to
fit it.
Other genres I'm considering are ambient, synth and funk as just keeping it to this genre will be limiting and
if I find something that I like and that I think will work I'm going to use it.
To be able to do find the music I'm relying on a website called Epidemic Sound. I have used this in the past
for previous projects and they have a good range of royalty free and uncopyrighted music, so it'll be good to
use for my current project.
35. Music - Options
In order to determine what would be best for my project I used the search
tool on the Epidemic Sounds website to search for 8 Bit music and I found a
playlist called Retro Arcade that I thought would be a good starting point.
These are what I found:
• Option 1 - Message Between by William Benckert
• Option 2 – Racing Heartbeats by The Big Let Down
• Option 3 – Ultimatum by AGST
• Option 4 – Helios by Lexica
• Option 5 – Call Waiting by Future Joust
• Option 6 – Glitching Through the Sky by William Benckert
36. Music – What track?
Each of them have the theme that I want but all have different elements that make them
unique and after listening to all of them I've decided to use Ultimatum by AGST. I think it
fits really well with the atmosphere of the game and adds another layer to the experience
of the trailer. I also think the way it sounds just really meshes with what I'm creating and
the way it trails off at the end fits really well with what I'm planning to do for the end of
the trailer, it makes a really good conclusion for the trailer. It's almost like it was made for
my game which is rare and I'm really glad I found it. I really liked it because of the length of
the track, its separated in 2 sections almost so it'll be easy to shorten it to fit my trailer.
The next step is going to be figuring out where will be best to start to track from as I'm not
going to be able to use the whole track unfortunately and after listening to it more and
more, I've decided on 3:06, it’s the final part sequence and includes the ending I wanted.
I've chosen this time specifically as it’s the perfect spot to start the trailer from and its long
enough to accommodate the ending which is really important. When I come to edit it
togther things might change with the length of the animation if the music goes on for too
long, in this circumstance I will prolong the ending by holding the duration of the title
screen and also prolong the the release date frame, hopefully by doing this it will be long
enough to create the effect I want.
38. Production Schedule
Date – week start What I'm doing Notes
06/04/22 Animating For today I'm going to start the animation, I will be most likely to cut down time so I can focus on other aspects, take what I did
from the experiments and use those instead of animating new sequences as ill have a lot to do and it will take a while
to reanimate them. For the first week I will focus on what I did for the storyboard, doing 3 blocks of the story board a day as I
think that will be a sufficient amount, this might change when I come to actually animating though. The first 3 scenes of the
cutscene is where I want to start, I think I might be able to fit more of this section this week as its not at all complicated and will
be pretty easy to animate, so I might consider starting the secondary part of the animation.
11 – 27/04/22 Catch up work During these 2 weeks we will be off for easter, I'm going to use this time to catch up on any work that I haven't completed thus
far that needs doing. I already have work that needs doing over this time so hopefully I won't overwhelm myself. If I have time I
will also work on the animation.
27/04/22 Animation This week will continue where I left off with the animation, going to 3 blocks a day maybe more if I can manage it. At this point
hopefully I will have either finished the first section and be starting the next bit or finishing it up and moving on, either way this
week I'll be starting the text and gameplay animations. I think I'll be able to do the first 2 text and gameplay sections and start
the third, if not ill start it next week.
04/05/22 Animation Again, I will be continuing from where I was last week, hopefully starting the 3rd text and gameplay thing, ill again try and do 3
of them but it might change as each of the scenes are different and have differing elements I need to consider. Around this
time, I will also start thinking about the posters, these aren't something that I want to plan massively, ill plan the concept but
there more for me than for the project, if I don’t get time to make them then it's not a big deal and they can be missed out.
13/05/22 Animation This week ill be starting from where I was last week. At this point I think I'll be nearing the finish of the animation, ill be doing
the final 4 sequences, I might be able to get 3 done this week and then finish it up next week. If I end up finishing it this week
instead I'll be starting to go back and tweaking things, finishing up anything that I've left and just generally tying up loose ends.
30/05/22 Animation This is the final week of production, at this point I will do the final sequence and be finished with the animation, during this I
will be finishing up things that I wasn’t able to do last week, going through all my work making sure that everything is on my
website, and everything is spell checked and clear. If I have time, I might do poster that I come with on the spot, this is just to
make the concept clearer and give it more substance but again it's not necessary and it might not happen.
