Task 4 - Planning

My Original schedule

My schedule:


Ideas Generation and Development:

Production

Presentation

Review

I feel like I read the assignment carefully as the final outcome of the project was quite good in my opinion and the tasks have what has been asked for. The Unit was clearly structured and was very easy to understand in the terms of its language. Also the assignments were clear on how they were connected to the Unit. The material on Moodle was quite helpful and I would use it to refresh my memory about what I had to do for my assignments.
I was aware about the deadline for this Unit but I don’t feel that I managed my time well as I did overshoot the deadline by a few weeks. I also never set myself short-term goals which may have assisted me in completing the Unit faster. When I came into the lesson, I would do work day to day instead of planning which could of helped also. I do feel that my research helped and ideas generation helped make a strong concept piece as I am quite pleased with the final outcome.
I was very confident with using Photoshop and Illustrator. I had used Photoshop a lot before the project so I knew what all the tools did, however Illustrator took some getting used to as it introduced some new tools, but I did eventually get used to it. I felt very comfortable while producing my initial sketches for my character. I researched for a few things to reference from while sketching it for example I looked up workers boots for the characters shoes. I was confident with using the DLSR camera hand the model I used for my photos was very cooperative. I didn't use all of the photos to their full potential as most of them were good poses but I never used them, so if I was to do this project again, I would possibly use one of the other photos. I feel that my tracing skills in Illustrator were good as I was able to easily add shading to the character, but I could maybe improve on my skills to make even more detailed tracing. 
Overall, I am very pleased with the final outcome of my concept and it came out better then I initially expected it to.




Legal and Ethical

Task 3 - Character Profile

Name: Erik McNeil

Age: 32

Personality: A unsociable, efficient character and doesn't talk a lot. Can be violent at times but uses his violence well on the battlefield.

Appearance: Medium built, black close shaved hair, chiseled facial features. Wears armor colored grey and blue with a light brown ripped cloak, augmented left arm and black, work boots.

Powers and Skills: No powers but in the suit, you can deploy a temporary shield to escape fire-fights. Good with stealth and is quick with make-shift cover.

Back Story: Erik McNeil, part of the I.S.M (Intergalactic Space Military)  and used to be a Major on the battlefield, until being exposed to deadly gases during the Pluto Cold War left him practically insane. He was taken out of commission due to his state of mind and put in the N.Y.I.C (New York Insanity Clinic) for 5 years. During his stay, he managed to rob the highly secured kitchen cut off his left arm, which had recently been replaced by augments. Soon after him being cleared as sane once more, he was called upon by the I.S.M to help confirm Science Base Jupiter's science squad as missing in action. Paired with the Foxtrot Rescue squad and heading to Jupiter's orbit, Erik receives various flashbacks driving him back, once more, to the insanity he was rid of.

Task 2 - Game Genre Synopsis

Halo 4's Blurb:

Shipwrecked on a mysterious world, the Master Chief returns to battle new enemies, deadly technology and an ancient evil bent on vengeance and annihilation. The universe will never be the same.

Enlist aboard the UNSC Infinity to join the Spartan-IV program and experience revolutionary Halo Infinity Multiplayer modes.

http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/microsoft-xbox-360/15444-halo-4-ntsc-cover-disc-scans.html

Resident Evil 6 Blurb:

The world is in turmoil . The C Virus has reached pandemic proportions.  The bioterror looks set to lead humanity into a terrifying end of days.When all the goodbyes have been said and all hope seems lost. One final struggle Begins. Alone or in four player co-op. The next chilling chapter of Resident Evil will rip your senses apart.

http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/microsoft-xbox-360/15327-resident-evil-6-pal-cover-discs.html

Mass Effect 2 Blurb: 

Entire human colonies on many worlds are vanishing. As Commander Shepard, you must assemble the galaxy's deadliest team to save mankind against impossible odds.

They call it a suicide mission.

PROVE THEM WRONG.

http://www.covergalaxy.com/forum/microsoft-xbox-360/8923-mass-effect-2-cover-ntsc.html

Blurb Ideas: 

Idea 1)                                                                                                                                                        

Stranded by your traitorous team-mates, you are left to fend for yourself, orbiting the recently abandoned Jupiter colony. But you are not alone. Jupiter's science base, overtaken by the deadly mutations created there, are all around. Watch your back every step of the way.

Don't lose your sanity.

Idea 2)                                                                                                                                                        

Betrayed...

Lost... 

Alone... 

Surviving the orbit of Jupiter has been a struggle since the mutation outbreak but that's the least of problems to the Ranger left alone to insanity.

Task 1 - Game Setting Research

Sci-fi Survival Horror

A first person shooter based in the orbit of Jupiter.

The Antagonist

Demonic, ruthless

http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/File:Halo-4-didact-kolby-jukes.jpg

(Halo 4, The Didact)

Good designed, armored enemy. 

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/180dxnftsugb1jpg/original.jpg

(Resident Evil 6, Ogroman)

A mutated enemy. Good use of ripped skin and gore.

http://i67.servimg.com/u/f67/16/17/14/89/sean_m10.jpg

(Halo Wars, The Arbiter)

Bulky build, well armored. Energy sword staff, heavy melee weapon.

The Protagonist

Clothing: Rugged look, armored

Character: Soldier, Early 30's.

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/01/Kingdoms-of-Amalur-Mass-Effect-3-armour.jpg

(Mass Effect, Shepard)

The color scheme goes well together and the design of the helmet looks simple but good.

http://s.cghub.com/files/Image/345001-346000/345683/948_max.jpg

(Halo 4, Rogue armor)

The helmets visor has a larger field of view compared to the previous image.

(Protagonists demon)


Environment

Good for a backdrop, or sky-box outside a station window.

http://wakpaper.com/id155023/cl-s-fantastique-syst-me-solaire-jupiter-satellite-1920x1200-pixel.html


Good for the top side of the orbital base.

http://no-agents.deviantart.com/art/Space-base-173893566



Escape pods/ships.

http://azot-2013.deviantart.com/art/Space-Ships-concepts-363552195

Textures Exercise

HA2 Task 1 - Technical Glossary

Pixel and Resolution

Pixels are little squares/rectangles that, when enough of them are together, form an image on a computer screen. Resolution is the quality of an image, for example an image of a TV show would have better resolution than a image made using paint.

Vector and Raster Images



Raster images are created on programs like paint and Photo-shop. Photo-shop has a variety of tools at hand but the quality of the images isn't too good, the images will always have rough edges and look pixelated. Vector images can be made on illustrator. The program lets the user make smoother lines in which Photo-shop won't. Illustrator is better for more detailed images like portraits of people.

File Formats and Uses

BMP File: The BMP file format, also known as bitmap image file or device independent bitmap  file format or simply a bitmap, is a raster graphics image file format used to store bitmap digital images, independently of the display device.

PNG File: Portable Network Graphics is a raster graphics file format that supports lossless data compression. PNG was created as an improved, non-patented replacement for Graphics Interchange Format, and is the most used lossless image compression format on the Internet.

GIF File: The Graphics Interchange Format is a bitmap image format that was introduced by CompuServe in 1987 and has since come into widespread usage on the World Wide Web due to its wide support and portability. The format supports up to 8 bits per pixel for each image, allowing a single image to reference its own palette of up to 256 different colours chosen from the 24-bit RGB colour space. It also supports animations and allows a separate palette of up to 256 colours for each frame. These palette limitations make the GIF format unsuitable for reproducing colour photographs and other images with continuous colour, but it is well-suited for simpler images such as graphics or logos with solid areas of colour.

TIFF File: TIFF (Tagged Image File Format) is a file format for storing images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and both amateur and professional photographers in general. As of 2009, it is under the control of Adobe Systems. Originally created by the company Aldus for use with "desktop publishing", the TIFF format is widely supported by image-manipulation applications, by publishing and page layout applications, and by scanning, faxing, word processing, optical character recognition and other applications.

JPG File: JPG is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital photography (i.e. images). The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable trade-off between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality, and is the file type most often produced in digital photography.

PSD File: PSD file is a layered image file used in Adobe PhotoShop. PSD, which stands for Photoshop Document, is the default format that Photoshop uses for saving data.  PSD is a proprietary file that allows the user to work with the images’ individual layers even after the file has been saved.  When an image is complete, Photoshop allows the user to flatten the layers and convert the flat image into a .JPG, .GIF, .TIFF or other non-proprietary file format so it can be shared.

PDF File: PDF (Portable Document Format) is a file format used to represent documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating system. Each PDF file encapsulates a complete description of a fixed-layout flat document, including the text, fonts, graphics, and other information needed to display it.

EPS File: EPS (Encapsulated PostScript ) is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format. In other words, EPS files are more-or-less self-contained, reasonably predictable PostScript documents that describe an image or drawing and can be placed within another PostScript document.

AI File: AI (Adobe Illustrator Artwork) is a proprietary file format developed by Adobe Systems for representing single-page vector-based drawings in either the EPS or PDF formats. The .ai filename extension is used by Adobe Illustrator. Early versions of the AI file format are true EPS files with a restricted, compact syntax, with additional semantics represented by Illustrator-specific DSC comments that conform to DSC's Open Structuring Conventions.

Compression
Lossless data compression algorithms usually exploit statistical redundancy to represent data more concisely without losing information. Lossless compression is possible because most real world data has statistical redundancy. For example, an image may have areas of colour that do not change over several pixels; instead of coding "red pixel, red pixel, ..." the data may be encoded as "279 red pixels". This is the basic example of run-length encoding; there are many schemes to reduce file size by eliminating redundancy.

Te Lempel-Ziv (LZ) compression methods are among the most popular algorithms for lossless storage. DEFLATE is a variation on LZ optimized for decompression speed and compression ratio, but compression can be slow. DEFLATE is used in PKZIP, Gzip and PNG. LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Renau) is used in GIF images.

Image Capture Devices

Tablets: Front: 1.2 MP, 720p HD
Rear: 1.2 MP, 720p HD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface

iPads: Front: Video recording, VGA up to 30 frame/s with audio, VGA-quality still camera, 0.3 MP.
Back: Video recording, 1280x720 up to 30 frame/s with audio, 960×720 still camera with 5× digital zoom, 0.7 MP

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_2

Phones: Front camera: 2.2 MP (1080p video recording)
Rear camera 13.1 MP back-side illuminated sensor with LED flash

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Xperia_Z

Scanners: 

• Resolution: 9600 x 9600 color, 48-bit color depth

http://reviews.productwiki.com/canon-canoscan-lide-700f/

Cameras: 5760 × 3840 (22.1 megapixels)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_5D_Mark_III


Optimizing

Optimizing is what you do to increase the computing speed and efficiency of (a program), as by rewriting instructions.

Storage and Asset Management

Digital asset management (DAM) consists of management tasks and decisions surrounding the ingestion, annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets. Digital photographs, animations, videos and music exemplify the target areas of media asset management (a sub-category of DAM). Digital asset management systems (DAMS) include computer software and hardware systems that aid in the process of digital asset management.
The term "digital asset management" (DAM) also refers to the protocol for downloading, renaming, backing up, rating, grouping, archiving, optimizing, maintaining, thinning, and exporting files. The "media asset management" (MAM) sub-category of digital asset management mainly[quantify] addresses audio, video and other media content. The more recent[when?] concept of enterprise content management (ECM) often deals with solutions which address similar features but in a wider range of industries or applications.

Adobe Illustrator

1. Shapes and Text - EGI Avatar

2. Pen Tool - Pen Portrait

3. Type Tools - Tongue Twister

4. Bezier Curves