Feedback from the client - 20/03/2014

Diary week 17/03/1024 - 21/03/2014

Feedback from the client

This week we had some feedback from the client, and it wasn't all good, in the sense that they disagreed with our idea of using teenage characters in a fire fighting game. So, we basically had two different options: keep the characters and change the entire concept of the game, or keep the game idea and recreate a new set of characters.

It wasn't exactly pleasant, especially because we were quite far down the game production, but we did understand their point of view, The Fire Department did not want children attempting to fight fire, that was not the message they intended to convey through this game. 

So this being said, and time being very limited now, we had to regroup and reorganise ourselves.

We have come up with the idea of creating a fireman character that will actually fight the fires in the house, and for this, I had to come up with some very basic concepts, in  less detailed pixel art.

This is what I have produced for this:

front view of fireman

side view of fireman

  In order to create this, I have done some research into Devon and Somerset Fire rescue service uniform,  so I can reproduce as accurately as possible the badge and colour scheme.

Johny jump cycle - week 6-13/03/2014

Diary week 6/03/2014 - 13/03/2014

Jump cycle for Johny

My task for this week, was to touch up the main character after it was modified during the animation cycle. The jump cycle was created by Tom, and I was handed over the Photoshop file, with all the individual frames. Because of the individual warping done to the arms, legs, etc, the whole character has lost resolution dramatically, so basically, I have traced around and repainted each individual frame.

The final result looks like this:

However, after this was done, we had feedback from the client, and we might have to redo the entire set of characters. So will hold up work for the walk cycle until things are being clarified.

Pixie in Pixel art - 17-21/02/2014

Diary week 17/02/2014 - 21/02/2014

Pixie in pixel art

My task for this week was to create a pixel art version for another character. I have chosen Pixie, as she is my favourite out of the ones remaining, besides Johny. I feel that she has the most character. Using the same steps as in the previous week, when pixelating Johny, I have come up with the following version for Pixie. 

Pixie pixel art version.

For the game, I have saved this file as a .Tiff format, as wee needed the transparency aspect of it, when importing it in the game engine. (the programming team are using Game Maker Studio).

As I had some time left, I have also created a pixel art version of the Football girl as well.

Below is what looks like:

Football girl pixel art version

Johny - walk cycle 10-14/02/2014

Diary - Week 10/02/2014 - 14/02/2014

Johny - walk cycle

For this week I was asked to do touch ups on the sprites created for Johny's, (the main character) running cycle. I have worked on two instances, but while doing that, I have realised that, because the first 3 frames were mistaken, (the arm placement was wrong), I will probably have to redo all the frames, so I have stopped until the whole sprite will be redone.

However, here is what I have done for key frame 5 and 6.

Johny frame 5 running cycle

Johny frame 6 running cycle

                         

So, due to the extra time I had, I thought that it might be a good idea to design an idle position for the character as this will be needed as well at some point in the game. And this is what I came up with.

Johny idle position

I really enjoyed this, and I am starting to find it easier to create Pixel art. As long as I follow the rules and keep the consistency with colours, and sizes, everything should look as desired. One extra tip that I have learned when creating the idle position, was to define the size of the head, torso, arms, legs, etc, as when the character turns to face the player, it should keep the size consistent. Hopefully I have managed to achieve that.