Art Direction - Compilation

31/08/2023 - 07/12/2023 / Week 1 - Week 15

Glen Owen / 0354952

Art Direction / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Taylor's University

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INSTRUCTION

Fig 0.1 Module Information

Week 2 Progress

    In week 2, we are told to play the game Among Us and Goose Goose Duck as we will make a comparison of it in a slide.  Ms. Noranis gave us the "freedom" to pick a member and form a group of 5-6 members. Since the majority of the class are all females, luckily enough there are some males so I managed to form a group of 5 member consists of male member. Ms. Noranis also told us that one of the member should be the "Director" and all of my groupmates are being an ignorant which makes me forced to be the "Director".

Art Direction Group #4 :

Glen Owen (0354952)

Sim Jian Xiong (0356498)

Caelan Ng (0342714)

Justin Averill Prasetya (0355048)

Fadil Puthiya Madathummal Peedikakandy (0354579)

    Me and my 5 groupmates compile their findings in Miro board although only 2 report their finding while the other 2 doesn't (I assume they didn't play it)

Fig 1.1 - 1.3 Among Us Gameplay (Week 2, 07/09/2023)

Fig 1.4 - 1.6 Goose Goose Duck Gameplay (Week 2, 07/09/2023)

    My personal experience when I play Goose Goose Duck for the first time is pretty chaotic because I didn't expect they would have a built-in mic/speaker in the game. This really caught my attention since Among Us doesn't have this feature in their game. The character in Goose Goose Duck are also goofy-like, but their killing animation amazed me because they reveal not only some blood, but some organs as well.

Fig 1.7 Miro Board Findings Compilation (Week 2, 07/09/2023)

    In the findings, we are to list down their pro and cons & comparisons. 

Week 3 - 6 Progress

    In this week, we had to show our presentation on the findings we found from Week 2. After we present our findings, our next task is to make a new game concept based on the findings we had and not to alter the original narrative of Among Us. In other words, we basically make a knock-off game of Among Us.

Fig 2.1 Findings Presentation (Week 3, 14/09/2023)

    Not only we make our own narrative, we also need to show some visual reference for our game. I assigned my team member on their task though 2 member didn't contribute in compiling some references.

Fig 2.2 Compiling References and Narrative Idea

Week 7 Progress

    In this week, we present all of our work and our progress on our narratives. 

Fig 3.1 Week 7 Presentation (Week 7, 12/10/2023)

    Ms. Noranis told us that the presentation can be refined a bit and make it longer. She also told us to make a weekly tracker so that we can track our task that I will assign to my members.

Week 9 Progress

    In this week, I held an offline meeting as the director with my member. One member isn't available while other one didn't come with the reason of "traffic jam" even though I already told him we had a meeting at 2 PM and be prepared at 1 PM. So in the end, only 2 members are able to join the meeting as we three refine our presentation. This is where I begin to divide tasks to my teammate as a director.

Fig 4.1 Weekly tracker (Week 9, 26/10/2023)

    From this tracker, I am responsible in making the impostor character turnaround, drawing the killing sequence and also compiling their work to make a new presentation.

Week 10 - 12 Progress

Fig 5.1 Impostor In-Disguise Turn Around (Week 11, 08/11/2023)

    I finally managed my time properly even though I am kind of late. I drew the spider inside the character that Sim Jian Xiong made and add some stitches to make it like the spider wears a kangaroo costume similar to the crewmate.

Fig 5.2 Death Scene #1 (Week 12, 15/11/2023)

    In Fig 5.2, the spider came out from the mouth and takes the crewmate's head as he brings it inside it's costume to eat the head as a meal.

 

Fig 5.3 - 5.4 Death Scene #2 & #3 (Week 12, 15/11/2023)

    In Fig 5.3, this death animation is referenced to the Mortal Kombat character " D'Vorah " fatality attack where she stabs the internal organ out.

Fig 5.5 Reference for Fig 5.3 - 5.4

Fig 5.6 Death Scene #4 (Week 12, 15/11/2023)

    

    In Fig 5.6, the character shoots swarm of spiders/bugs towards the crewmate's face as the spiders/bugs will eat the crewmate's face alive. This is a reference to D'Vorah as well.

Fig 5.7 Reference for Fig 5.6

Week 13 - 14 Progress

    I held 2 meetings in this week to see what my teammate have made. I was truly devastated when I found out 2 teammate didn't contribute much/did a bad job at their task. I was confused, baffled, flabbergasted. I gave them 4 weeks to do their task and their work are absolute crap since some of them are not fit with the style we are going for. Some of them aren't even able to submit their task in time as I always told them to submit it in the Canva slide we made. Since some of them doesn't submit their task in time, my main task got delayed.

    In the end, I take their tasks to my hands as I did extra task in the last week before the presentation begins. This time, I added the listed components as my extra work due to their poor work:

• Loading Screen
• App Icon
• Voting Panel

Fig 6.1 - 6.2 Teammate's Icon

    When I first see this icons that my teammate present, I only had one thing in mind, "crap". I thought they understand our stylization in the game but turns out they just don't listen to the presentation we discussed. I can tell that some are developed from Generative AI tool while others are just copy paste of the character turnaround and give a poor treatment to it. In the end, I decided to design the icon myself in the last day before the presentation day.

Fig 6.3 Final Icon (Week 14, 28/11/2023)

    I went for something clean and memorable so I draw it this way. It may look like Among Us but who am I kidding, almost every game app will look like this anyway.    

    My next extra task is now making the loading screen. I have assigned to one of my teammate but he draws it poorly and I have decided to take matters in my own hand.

 

Fig 6.4-6.5 Teammate's Rough Design

    Just looking at this makes me want to redesign it because how bad it looks. I design the new and refined loading screen based on some references that are available in the internet and it's Five Nights at Freddy's.

Fig 6.6 Five Nights at Freddy's 2 Teaser as Visual Reference

Fig 6.7 Final Loading Screen (Week 14, 28/11/2023)

    After I finished the loading screen, it's now making the voting panel since my teammate didn't made it. I spend 2 hours in making this since time matters and I don't have much time to make the final presentation.

Fig 6.8 Rough Idea of Voting Screen with Teaser banner (Week 14, 28/11/2023)

    After 2 hours of designing this, that's when my teammate becomes an asshole and decided to just give me his design when I literally told him that I need it an hour ago and he told me he didn't do it. I was very pissed since that he always delayed things and especially when I asked for the assets he designed. I am sick of when he told me "I should have ----" and "I should have done ----", like bullshit, I don't fucking care. If he had known this would happen then he could have just use it earlier. *sigh* Anyway, since he did the voting panel already, I decided to scrap my voting panel since I don't care about it anymore.

    Anyway, since I have all the assets and work in my hand, it's time for me to make the teaser. I made it like how games usually tease their games in Google Play so I did what they do and the results are pretty nice. I also use the assets that majority of my member worked on to make a tease on how the game will look like.

Fig 6.9 - 6.14 Teaser Banner (Week 14, 28/11/2023)

    When I finished this teaser banner, a thought came to me and I was like, "you know what, let's make a trailer for this game, what could go wrong?". So, I followed my intrusive thoughts and did the trailer in Capcut using their transition.

   

Fig 6.15 Game Trailer (Week 14, 29/11/2023)

     After I am done with all the extra tasks, it's time for me to make the final presentation. The reason I don't let my teammate do the final presentation is because some of them are bad at making presentation while some have broken English. When I did the presentation, I was very tired since there are a lot of things that my teammate didn't submit so it all had to be delayed until the day before the presentation. I keep mentioning them in the group chat as some of them ignores it. 

    Soon, the day of the presentation comes. That's when my teammate questions me how will we all present since there are a lot of slides. In this case, I did what I think is a smart move, I told them to present on what did they work on. In this manner, Ms. Noranis could at least see which member did majority of the project.

Fig 6.16 Final Presentation (Week 14, 01/12/2023)

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REFLECTION

    As the director for this project, it's very frustrating and chaotic if you have a teammate that can't be cooperate or does a poor work. Not only that, if one member haven't finished their work, that may affect with other members as well as it will make a delay in our work progression. Luckily, Sim Jian Xiong and Caelan Ng did the major things such as the character and background as that makes me relieve because I really need their work to progress on my work. 

    The other 2 members, Justin Averill Prasetya and Fadil Puthiya Madathummal Peedikakandy, however, did some minor work. For example, I told Fadil to make the background map at first, but the work he works on are not accurate with the style we want. I personally approach him and asks him if he use any AI work and guess what, he did. He told me that the background he made are half AI made which kinds of pissed me off. He also told me that he will be working on the icons so I was relieved at first, but when he showed it to me, I immediately became disappointed. I noticed how he does not do much work so I gave him a task which is to make a map layout based on Caelan's work, yet again, he declined as he told me it would be better to give it to Caelan to make the style more consistent. I tried to give other tasks, but I changed my mind as I doubt if the work will be AI-made again.

    Justin's work is fine, but it lacks of refinement. He is also the type of guy that somehow I can't get cooperate with. Every time I asked him to give me his design assets (Photoshop file, Illustrator file), he always gave me the merged version. When I told him to gave me a photoshop file, he told me that he made it in Krita. Come on man, Taylor's gave us free Adobe for this purpose yet you use Krita?  That's when he told me "I should have used bla bla bla". At this point, I am just tired.

    Something that pisses me more is that when I expect my teammate to work and submit it in a designated day, they simply went out to other place and show it in his Instagram Story which pisses me off.

    The learning points that I learnt from this module is that:

• Be cooperative with other member as your work will affected with other member
• Follow the style that the group aim to prevent any extra work
• Choose the right teammate (I got mine because I was forced to band with them.