Final Concept Art for "The Imaginative Travels of Johnny Head-In-Air"

The Lava Crossing Scenario.

 Some Updated Character Concepts for the "Masters of Flight" game section

 and an environment concept art piece for the same setting.

Lastly I produced a creative version of how Johnny will see his school after successfully navigating through the previous game sections.

The Final 4 Concept Section Examples

Section 1: Masters of Flight

Section 2: High Speed Chase

Section 3: Untouched

Section 4: The Lava Crossing

Concept Art Development

In the game design I document how the project is split into 4 narrative game experiences. In each of them the environment will transform around the main character into stunning fantastical worlds and one must navigate oneself through the sections.

1st Section: Masters of Flight

2nd Section: High Speed Chase

3rd Section: Untouched

4th Section: The Lava Crossing

Inspiring Cinematography

Closely relating to my chosen project some recent movies serve as great reference. Particularly "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" has some great moments blending between the real world and Mitty's imagination. The direction is fantastic in some of the sequences and produces visually stunning content in a movie where one might not expect so. I would like to integrate this idea into my project concept. The goal is to exceed expectations as people will compare it to the original story of "The Story of Johnny Head-In-Air" and taken by surprise when the environments transform into aesthetic environments through the main characters perspective.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)

Imagining alternative realities in general is a very human trait and other successful films such as the recent "Lego Movie" provide evidence for a great casual market potential. Dungeon & Dragons and roleplaying is widely recognized as a very geeky niche area, the imaginative steps of children everybody can relate to however as everyone has gone through them and will be able to draw personal connections to common topics such as jumping form object to object to avoid touching the floor (the lava game) or navigating oneself through the environment from a car window.

Early Concept Sketches for a Narrative Game Inspired by Johnny Head-In-Air

After choosing the main story premise for an innovative narrative experience I started to sketch down some ideas of how Johnny could view the world. The experience will be based on typical children's imaginations and merge imagination and real world situations.

I imagine him to view the clouds as fantastical creatures and story representations.

In some further sketches I tried to exaggerate and dramatize the perspective of a child and create into the sky rising structures with interesting compositions

And in the sky itself there would be space traffic or fantastical elements to further stretch the imagination. Below are some spacecraft concepts that Johnny could be imagining.

Interactive Storytelling - Investigating Multimedia and Interactivity to Create Innovative Narratives Based on Children's Literature (2nd Semester Presentation)

The main focus has shifted since the first semester's presentation due to very similar website and application findings of my original project idea and now instead solely focuses on the interactive narrative design to create an innovative application based on classic children's literature. The idea is to use multimedia possibilities to enhance the narrative flow and provide an interactive experience.

Good choice of literature is essential for a flourishing project development and in regard to personal origins and childhood memories, thorough research into German children’s literature was undertaken. I thereupon rediscovered a classic German children's book "Struwwelpeter" with which I share many childhood memories and particular the story of Johnny Head-In_Air led to great inspiration. Therefore the concept development will focus on the view of Johnny's daydreaming and merge the real and imaginative worlds in my project.

The Story of Johnny Head-in-Air

As he trudged along to school, It was always Johnny's rule To be looking at the sky And the clouds that floated by; But what just before him lay, In his way, Johnny never thought about; So that every one cried out "Look at little Johnny there, Little Johnny Head-In-Air!" Running just in Johnny's way Came a little dog one day; Johnny's eyes were still astray Up on high, In the sky; And he never heard them cry "Johnny, mind, the dog is nigh!" Bump! Dump! Down they fell, with such a thump, Dog and Johnny in a lump!

Once, with head as high as ever, Johnny walked beside the river. Johnny watched the swallows trying Which was cleverest at flying. Oh! what fun! Johnny watched the bright round sun Going in and coming out; This was all he thought about. So he strode on, only think! To the river's very brink, Where the bank was high and steep, And the water very deep; And the fishes, in a row, Stared to see him coming so. One step more! oh! sad to tell! Headlong in poor Johnny fell. And the fishes, in dismay, Wagged their tails and swam away.

There lay Johnny on his face, With his nice red writing-case; But, as they were passing by, Two strong men had heard him cry; And, with sticks, these two strong men Hooked poor Johnny out again.

Oh! you should have seen him shiver When they pulled him from the river. He was in a sorry plight! Dripping wet, and such a fright! Wet all over, everywhere, Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair: Johnny never will forget What it is to be so wet. And the fishes, one, two, three, Are come back again, you see; Up they came the moment after, To enjoy the fun and laughter. Each popped out his little head, And, to tease poor Johnny, said "Silly little Johnny, look, You have lost your writing-book!"

Please find the presentation with more detailed information and narrative design thoughts below.

Interactive Storytelling from samheisler

Inspirational and Innovative Digital Children's Literature

Have a look at some of my favorite and most creative digital children's literature I came across during my research. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore were originally produced as animation features, but work fantastically well trnasformed into an interactive children's story.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

(Moonbot Studios LA, 2011)

Alice in Wonderland is one of the first releases in terms of iPad applications and remains one of the best and visually striking in my opinion.

Alice for the iPad (Atomic Antelope, 2010)

Grimm's Rapunzel is one of the few 3D interactive Pop-Up Books I came across and has a nice children's friendly vibe to it with it's colourful and contrast high visuals. 

Grimm's Rapunzel - 3D Interactive Pop-up Book (StoryToys Entertainment Limited, 2013)

And lastly I selected the Tale of Peter Rabbit for it's clean digital adaptation. It very much upholds the feel and character of the original book and proves that simple and clean can also be a great goal to aim for.

PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Loud Crow Interactive Inc., 2011)

Inspiring Narratives through Innovative Storytelling

Some Thoughts on Innovative Storytelling

What defines an innovative narrative?

Innovation in technology

Innovation in content

focus -> journey -> contrast -> connection -> pay-off

Compelling content

Games allow a level of control

Interactive entertainment is becoming the most dominant market and the largest number of "new gamers" are "non-gamers" and represent the growth sector

Interesting narrative examples:

• House of Leaves
• multi-layered
• plays with shapes on the page
• pace (few words versus many on a page)
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead by Tom Stoppard
• Man with a movie camera by Dziga Vertov
• Bad Day on the Midway by The Residents
• Deus Ex Machina
• Voyeur (HBO)
• choose who to follow and witness a developing and overlapping story
• Dark Souls
• XCom: Enemy within by Fire Axis

Reflective Summary

Project Goal

“For this module I will focus on exploring 3D methodologies to facilitate, speed up and improve the output of concept art. Through research, exploration and particularly practical tasks I hope to find the best work method (for me) to incorporate into my workflow.”

Main Themes

1.       Painting on Top of Line Work

2.       The Perspective Grid

3.       Generating 3D Thumbnails

4.       Basic 3D Model as a Starting Point for Concept Art

5.       Modelling with Reference Images

6.       UV Mapping and Texturing

7.       Camera and Lighting Experimentation

8.       Rendering

Integrating 3D Methods into my Workflow

Identified Advantages

- Particularly useful for architecture and "man-made" structures (buildings, cityscapes... )
- Flexibility for iterating on designs

- Scaling, mirroring and duplicating

- Great for repetitive objects in scenes
- Unlimited perspective possibilities

- 3D thumbnails

- Zoom lens

- Wide angle lens
- Adjustable lighting

Possible Difficulties

-Detailed models take time

-UV mapping and texturing is time consuming

- Often harsh boarders and static look

Conclusion

Throughout the semester my skills have improved in several areas. I have gained both a better understanding on digital painting and lighting as well as improved my 3D skills with experimentation in several areas that were very new to me at the beginning of the semester.

I plan to continue using 3D models to quickly solve difficult perspectives and find the best layout for the main elements of the scene. They are an easy way to speed up and facilitate the workflow.

Furthermore the creation of 3D thumbnails strengthened my concept art decisively.  The opportunity and flexibility to navigate through 3D space to find the best perspective and composition in the scene is a huge advantage over basic 2D concepts in which one must start from the beginning again.

Integrating lighting into the scenes is also a very useful aspect. Especially when attempting realistic lighting reflections on different materials. Once modelled these aspects definitely save a lot of time and are only logical to integrate into the development process.

For smaller projects I would however avoid UV mapping and texturing as it can be quite time consuming. For final detailed illustrations textures can be a very useful aspect though as it solves both the basic perspective and lighting issues one might encounter.

Lighting Experimentation & Reflection on the Day Version

Hey everyone! 

I decided to carry out some more lighting experimentations which led to a day version of the little Mediterranean town scene I presented in the previous post. To start off let's go through the lighting process for the initial concept quickly and continue with the development process of the new version afterwards so that I can explain some thoughts and challenges.

The Lighting Process

During the texturing process I was already playing around with basic lighting. As you can see in the top left image I therefore created a physical sun and sky in mental ray to have a closer look at the texture quality and atmosphere of the scene.

For the final concept I wanted to create my own lighting though and I therefore removed the physical sun and sky again. I now started to add different light sources to the scene. 

Ambient Light

For the overall atmosphere of the scene I added 3 ambient lights. I decided to go for a night version of the scene and gave these a blue tone. One of the ambient lights was hereby the main light source which received a higher intensity than the others. This allowed more realistic lighting with greater value difference in the scene.

Spot Light

Then I went on to the street lamps that need to produce a local light. The spot light with its adjustable cone angle was ideal to create a clear and defined light source. The main difficulty was the preservation of the scene's balance and unity by adjusting the colour and light intensity to not stand out too much.

I also applied "light fog" to the spotlights which creates some more depth in the renders. However I had difficulties to apply this setting to both spot lights in the scene and for some reason only one the two applied light fog's would render out.

Glow

The spot lights created light, but the actual light source was still missing. I therefore created a simple polygon shape and applied glow with a suiting opacity and colour to fit the lamps light source. The overall atmosphere was building up nicely and I decided I was almost ready to render out a final image to paint over for the final concept art.

Point Light

Lastly an extra point light was added to the lamps to create a bit more warmth and light to the lamp area. At this stage I chose the camera position and composition for the final render of the night scene.

With the advantage of being able to change the complete lighting and camera position in 3D scenes I decided to take a new approach and create further artwork to this scene. First of all I decided to go for a day version and therefore removed the lights forming the lamps.

Skybox and Light Source Adjustments

Then it was time to increase the intensity and lighten up the colour on the ambient lights. At this point I also lightened up the skybox colour and added a slight glow to it but the result was not very satisfying. As one can see in the 2nd picture on the right image sequence the skycolour worked well but the whole scene is still dominantly in the shade.

Emit Photons

I had also added a directional light at this point and found myself playing around with different settings like depth map, ray tracing shadows and emitting photons. With emit photons enabled a nice effect in the scene occurred as can be seen above in the 3rd picture of the right image sequence.

It almost took a rain-look like effect with slight illumination of the scene and an overall bluish tone.

However I found this too similar to the already produced artworks mood and colour scheme.

Lighting Decision

I decided to go for a very basic and bright Mediterranean feel with almost completely white lighting in contrast to previous darker versions and their dominating blues. (See image below) 

Here is the comparison between the render and the final artwork.

Reflection on the Day Version

Mood and Composition
To emphasize the positive and inviting atmosphere and mood I added colour through lively vines growing up the sunny side of the right building. These have very saturated greens and yellows, yet low colour and value contrast to their surroundings.
The vines also surround and frame the main building and create a nice colour contrast between the greens and the reds of the windows to guide the eye more effectively towards the main building.

High Value Contrast
However the main aspect that draws one's attention to this building is the high value contrast of the bright building on the shady background. This high value contrast and composition creates an interesting image and I think the lighting of the added elements turned out very well and strengthens the image as a whole.

The Painting Process with Time Limits
I have improved my painting speed by setting myself time limits on recent studies and artwork. For this project I gave myself an hour to update the rendered image. It still feels sort of rough but works as a whole which is important. Future steps would include further detailing and cleaning up but a client should be able to recognize in what direction the painting is going at this stage.

I started off by searching for images of wines and once finding some good reference started to painting in the main roots. I then applied a photo texture of vines and transformed the perspective to create the core wall of vines over which I painted to correct the perspective furthermore. This methods saves me lots of time and is a very useful procedure as long as I am in control of the added images and not the other way around. One of the main challenges hereby is to achieve believable lighting and avoiding too much detail early on.

Image by Jay Taylor (2011)

And most importantly, the design must come from the artist and not the added images. I've previously found it quite difficult to stay in full control of my artwork and often encountered problems to achieve the desired affect or integrate images without having them change the design or stand out too much.
It is key to develop one's drawing skills before relying too much on a method like this. The result was very satisfying for this project though as it turned out just how I imagined it to and has little to do with the original image as one can see above.