Unit 73 Sounds for Computer Games

5 different pieces of game music

Super Mario bros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnipB_8Br8U

This piece is iconic and catchy  and most people would recognizes it.Super Mario Bro's game uses a chime when the player collects a coin. Quickly became iconic and used in other platform games.

The legend of Zelda twilight princes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2D-EJoB0w

Beyond: two souls OST
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8etC9sXmTA

This piece is calm and sad and moves the player.

Shadow of colossus
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWB8P4jbsAA

The creator of this piece wants the player to feel adventurers and excited.

cooking mama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdksIxM4szs

Over the Hedge (Film) uses a firefly which flies around a characters head, and lights up when a character gets an idea, which is a parody of the light-bulb idea, and is accompanied by a "ding" of a triangle. The light bulb has been used numerous times, and has become iconic, and recognisable.

A game maker would use different pieces of music for different types of atmosphere for example the build up to a boss fight or a loading screen.It is useful to use music in game to create different emotions and feels at different points in a game.

Timbre = The character or quality in musical sound or voice as distinct from its pitch and intensity.
Timbre is the quality of a musical note of sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments.

Wavelength - Sound wavelength is measured in metres, and is the distance from any point on one wave, to the same point on the next wave.

Amplitude - The amplitude of a wave is the distance from the centre line of a wave, to the top of the crest, or the bottom of the trough. The greater the amplitude, the higher the energy it is carrying.

Frequency - The frequency is how many waves passing a point at a certain time. It is measured every second, in hertz (Hz). One wave every second is 1Hz, and so forth.

Decibel level - The decibel level is how loud a sound is, and is measured in dB. A watch ticking is less than 20dB, and a shotgun blast is over 140dB. Short term exposure at 150dB can cause permanent damage to the human ear.

Psychology of sound

Metaphor = Action/Sound. Visual or auditory representation of a separate action, experience, or idea. A character blows out (action) a candle in a bedroom to show death of a loved one.

Symbol = Object/Sound. Visual or auditory representation of another object. The candle (object) is in the shape of a ballerina to show grace and beauty

3D audio - 3D audio is improved surround sound technology. It features sound that not only plays from in front and behind, but also beside, and even above/below. 3D audio can be used with headphones, which act as surround sound speakers, playing sound in one ear, where the sound is coming from.

Surround Sound - Surround sound has 5 or 7 speakers, set up around the room. This makes the sound come from the speakers behind or in front, depending on what sound is playing, and where the sound is coming from, in relation to the center point (a person, or the middle of the screen etc). This gives an immerse experience from your own home.

Interactive adaptive sound - This is when music or sound effects adapt to the players inputs and game play. For example, the background music changes when the character stops exploring, and starts fighting etc. It also adapts to movement, for example, if you step on concrete to wood etc.


P1 exerciser

You can search the internet for free sample music and sound effects to use in you game, you can contact music producers and pay for there services or create your own music using adobe audition, audacity , sound forge  or other music creation software, you can also record your self's on instruments.

Free music samples and sounds

http://www.soundsnap.com/music_samples_single

http://www.freesfx.co.uk/music/

https://machinimasound.com/

SoundCloud

FreeSFX.co.uk

Freesound,org

SoundBible.com


Super Mario bros
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnipB_8Br8U

This piece is iconic and catchy  and most people would recognizes it.Super Mario Bro's game uses a chime when the player collects a coin. Quickly became iconic and used in other platform games.

The last of us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y97u-U0nvJM

The last of us uses calm high pitch and low base to create a dark and depressing atmosphere. During intense and scary parts of the game the music plays to create suspense and a unique feel to certain parts of the game. The title screen, opening of the game and the end credits  of the game feature a slow, string piece of music, which creates a dark mood.

Beyond two souls 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8etC9sXmTA

Beyond twos souls musics changes from slow, calm and sad to intense, fast and loud. The music changes the atmosphere of different parts of the game. Big dramatic moments that change the plot of the game or uncover secrets, has a slow, calm  tempo and intense action scenes, the music ramps up to a fast pace tempo.

Legal considerations
  Lot of music that has been made by a person or a team are copyrighted and need there permission to use in videos and other games. YouTube has a strike police if a video has music in it that has not 
be allowed by the producers of this music and that video will get a strike and the video will be took down. If a piece of music is used you will need to get the permission of the producer of that piece of music and keep with in the terms of use conditions. 

Codes and regulations
There are rules, codes and regulation you have to consider as you don't want to have to re make your game or go to court over copyright as it can affect the development and you can lose time and money. Health and safety has to be check and insured for any accidents with equipment or workers. Procedures to make sure that none of the pictures or art in your game is copyright and you game will need to be check and given a pegi rating. 

Trade union is Completion insurance that makes sure that when the product is finished it is delivered to the distributor and the payment will be sent from the distributor to the producer and this insurance keeps the independent developers protected.

PEGI or pan European game information is a video game content rating system for consumers. So when they look at getting a game for themselves or their children it helps to show if it’s suited for them or their children to play. This system is used in thirty different countries and is based on a code of conduct. PEGI is a stander set of rules for games developers to follow to make sure there games is suitable for publishing and does not cross any lines. The more offensive material the higher the pegi rating give to that game. 

Public liability is another consideration to make sure while your film or game is in development its doesn't harm the public e.g. A member of the public can sue you if they trip over or get hurt by any of the equipment you are using.  

ASA Advertising standards authority, regulates UK advertising across all media. So if you wanted to create an advert for your game or film, the ASA would check you advert to make sure it is suitable for television or online advertisement. Ofcom oversees all broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries in the UK and is government approved. The purpose Ofcom is to make sure that industry's named above keep to a set of rules to protect the public from harmful and offensive material. 

Ellen Paige was used in beyond two soles as the model for the character Jodie Holmes and in the game, The last of us the character called Ellie had a resemblance to Ellen Paige thought no legal action was taken against naughty dog there have been other cases where celebrities have sued game developer for being in there game without permission. 

P2 Concept art

Brief

The main character is called brainbox and i will design my character around this possibly use a brain or brain related design for the main character. For the level design I want to give a techy/modern look using circuit boards and hardware as inspiration. However I will need to incorporate lighter and brighter colours to appeal to both gender types. For the enemies of my main character Want to keep with the theme of computers I thought a virus or something like a virus.

The game will consist of  5  levels which are hard to navigate due to a limited view of the map, the player will have to navigate and find all the terminals and answering there given question to unlock the door to the next level. 

The first level with contain multiplication for example 6 x 6 or 5 x 10. The second level will be division 36 / 3, level 3 will have fraction related questions, level 4 will have percentages and the final level will have prime factors. Each levels questions will get progressively get  harder closer the closer the player gets towards the next level and if a question is answer wrong the player will get another one, if they get 3 questions wrong in a row they will lose a life. 

 

Image capture

 

Raster images are made up of pixels and also known as bitmap images and Vector images are made up of paths and are also called esp. files. Vector images use points / paths and create an image when all of these are connected together. Vector images offer higher resolution and look smoother and cleaner at all resolutions. Raster images look better at larger resolution compared to lower resolutions, but if the raster image is zoomed in it is easy to see individual pixels and colours in the images. Vector images are better suited for images like logos because at any size or resolution the image is smooth and clean. Raster images are used for digital photos and game textures as they render faster and look good. Lots of software allows for images to be edited, Photoshop is used a lot to edit, change images from vector to raster and the other way around.

Computer graphics are the art, style and theme that is used in different games for backgrounds, objects, characters, scenes and anything else that is seen by the player. There are lots of different art styles for computer graphics for example, military style games like call of duty and battlefield uses this style, Photo realism is also used by simulators and other games to make the game look as realistic as they can and text based game only use pixelated pictures and are mostly text.

A 2 dimension game is flat on the screen or monitor and player is limited to moving left, right, up and down, the player cannot move front or back. 2D sprites can be made in Photoshop and are fairly easy to make they are made up of pixels and depending on how many pixel make up the character the smoother and more detailed they can be. A 3 Dimension game are more time consuming and harder to make however the results and the graphics are far superior to 2d. 3d characters can be made in a number of software like blender. Depending on how detailed you want your character the more time it will take. Heads up display or HUD is used in lot of games, a HUD shows the player all the stats on screen that may prove relevant for him/her e.g. heath, shield, ammo, level, map, objectives and other players.

Texture are used to add detail and realism to the environment, objects or characters and are one of the most import steps in game development. Texture mapping is an application in digital graphics. Text graphics is the font and style the text is used in the game. Different fonts and colours can change the way text and objectives look. Game packaging textures are how the packaging and case for the game looks, this is useful for advertisement and appeal to increase sales.

Concept art

I created theses’ in Photoshop and saved them in named folders to make them easy to find.

   

_{Main character: max}

 

 

 

 

First boss

 

                               

 

 

 

Second boss

 

 

 

 

Final boss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diamond

 

Heart/heath

 

 

 

 

 

Weapon upgrades

 

 

 

 

unit 78 brief

The main character is called brainbox and i will design my character around this possibly use a brain or brain related design for the main character. For the level design i want to give a techy/modern look using circuit boards and hardware as inspiration. However i will need to incorporate lighter and brighter colors to appeal to both gender types. For the enemies of my main character i want to keep with the theme of computers i thought a virus or something like a virus 

The game will consist of  5  levels which are hard to navigate due to a limited view of the map, the player will have to navigate and find all the terminals and answering there given question to unlock the door to the next level. 

The first level with contain multiplication for example 6 x 6 or 5 x 10. The second level will be division 36 / 3, level 3 will have fraction related questions, level 4 will have percentages and the final level will have prime factors. Each levels questions will get progressively get  harder closer the closer the player gets towards the next level and if a question is answer wrong the player will get another one, if they get 3 questions wrong in a row they will lose a life. 

unit 78

Copyright:
copy right laws gives the creator of some types of media rights and control how there type of media is used and distributed, music, books, videos and software can all be covered by copyright laws.

Liable:
liable is when some is hold accountable/responsible for an action or an action that leads to the harm of someone  or the destruction of an object. For example if a manager installed new equipment into the work place it would be his/her job to make sure the equipment is safe, if this doesn't happen and a employee is harmed by this new equipment the manger is held accountable/responsible.

Libel:
libel is when false statements or accusations are made against someone which ruins there reputation or damages there career.

How are female characters viewed in videos games:

There are lots of differences between male and female character and how they are shown in video's games. in a lot of games there are rarely female characters that are a main part of the story and contribute to the game. They normally end up being damsels in distresses and are depicted as week. The massive call of duty fancies has never used a female character that's contributes to the main story of the game, there story's mostly consists of lots of male solders and the parts of the different games that have females in are ether weak civilians or shown in stereo typical female roles.

The rare few games that feature a female character as a main character or the character which the player plays as are shown to be beautiful and have perfect bodies and where reviling cloths, for example the popular tomb raider series. The first tomb raider character had enlarged breasts and a perfect body or representation of what a perfect body should look like.  






       

Artistic styles

Cell-shading -Cell-shading is used to represent the style of cartoon or comic book and is used in a lot of Japanese's games e.g. Naruto, dragonballz, afro samurai and others. Bright colors and faint outlines to give the look of a hand drawn cartoon effect.   

Photorealism -Photorealism games are games that are made to look as realistic as they can, this type of style is the most demanding as it takes a lot of work, facilitates and time to produce a game of this type. Crisis 3, The C.O.D franchise and battlefield franchise use this visual style and are military type games.

Exaggerated -Exaggerated uses photorealism and exaggerates it or over does it like in takken or dragon ball z where the characters have over sized muscles and big outrageous hair styles.

Abstract -Abstract uses geometric shapes and bright or subtle colours depending on the mood and feeling the game wants the player to feel. Geometry wars uses lots of vibrant neon colours and works at a fast pace.

Military-Military games such as battlefield and call of duty use military theme visuals to give the player the feeling of being in a real battlefield/war zone. Lots of detail go into the weaponry and vehicles to make them look as real as possible, in battle field you can change entire terrines with rockets and other weapons

Plastic-Plastic games such as de blob uses vibrant paint based color's with lots of shading a light effects to make objects and characters look like plastic.

Black and white -Black and white games on uses black and white colors they types of games that uses just black and white are most platform. This is used to give games a horror feel.

Rockstar-Rockstar the game development have there one style of games as they uses the rage engine developed by Rockstar. Rockstar games are violent and gritty. GTA5 and max pain are good examples as they are different genres but look similar because they both use the rage engine.

 

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language most appealing to learning and recognition. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing, letter-spacing, and adjusting the space within letters pairs. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. In modern times, typography has been put in film, television and online broadcasts to add emotion to communication.

 The various visual elements, known as elements of design, formal elements, or elements of art, are the vocabulary with which the visual artist composes. These elements in the overall design usually relate to each other and to the whole art work.

The elements of design are:

Line — the visual path that enables the eye to move within the piece ,  Shape — areas defined by edges within the piece, whether geometric or organic, Color — hues with their various values and intensities , Texture — surface qualities which translate into tactile illusions,Tone — Shading used to emphasize form, Form — 3-D length, width, or depth, Space — the space taken up by positive or in between negative objects, Depth — perceived distance from the observer, separated in foreground, background, and optionally middle ground

Examples of file extension:

mp3 music files

avi video files

txt text files

doc word document (Microsoft word-open office )

jpeg image/picture files

exe executable (programs)

wav sound files (sound effects)

File compression is a process that reduces file sizes to save hard drive and memory space. Zipped folder is a common way of compressing files and data. The file extensions for zipped is .zip, it is commonly used to upload files online for other people to download because it keeps the file small to make it easy and fast to download. Specific software Is need to open specific file extensions, a .gmk is a file that can be opened in game maker but would be able to open in the same form in a different program.

There are two types of file compression. Lossless file compression is used for image and text files, this is useful to save file space and no data is lost. However when lossy file compression is used, data can be lost. Extraction is used to uncompressed compressed files, this is used to convert the file back to its original size. Using compressed files limits what you can do, so uncompressing  the image to its original size is handy.

 

Image optimization is when an image is compressed to the most visually acceptable, image for saving memory. The power of two is when the width and height of a image is at the same value.These values are import to make sure when 3D modeling textures fit and render properly. When the size of a texture is stretched to fit a model by the program this is called interpolation.  

 

Thumbnail sketches are drawing quick, abbreviated drawings. Usually, they are done very rapidly and with no corrections - you can use any medium, though pen or pencil is the most common. Thumbnails sketches are usually very small, often only an inch or two high. The audience is the people we are aiming the game at for example a 2D game like sonic the hedgehog would be aimed and 7+ and then the designers will build the game around the set age of the audience and set the game up so it is staged so a person in that audience can understand it.

 

 

 

 

 

What are computer game graphics

Computer graphics are the art, style and theme that is used in different games for backgrounds, objects, characters, scenes and anything else that is seen by the player. There are lots of different art styles for computer graphics for example, military style games like call of duty and battlefield uses this style,Photo realism is also used by simulators and other games to make the game look as realistic as they can and text based game only use pixelated pictures and are mostly text.

A 2 dimension game is flat on the screen or monitor and player is limited to moving left, right, up and down, the player cannot move front or back. 2D sprites can be made in Photoshop and are fairly easy to make they are made up of pixels and depending on how many pixel make up the character the smoother and more detailed they can be. A 3 Dimension game are more time consuming and harder to make however the results and the graphics are far superior to 2d. 3d characters can be made in a number of software like blender. Depending on how detailed you want your character the more time it will take. Heads up display or HUD is used in lot of games, a HUD shows the player all the stats on screen that may prove relevant for him/her e.g. heath, shield, ammo, level, map, objectives and other players.

Texture are used to add detail and realism to the environment , objects or characters and are one of he most import steps in game development. Texture mapping is an application in digital graphics. Text graphics is the font and style the text is used in the game. Different fonts and colors can change the way text and objectives look. Game packaging textures are how the packaging and case for the game looks, this is useful for advertisement and appeal to increase sales

Raster images are made up of pixels and also know as bitmap images and Vector images are made up of paths and are also called esp files. Vector images use points / paths and create an image when all of these are connected together. Vector images offer higher resolution and look smoother and cleaner at all resolutions. Raster images look better at larger resolution compared to lower resolutions, but if the raster image is zoomed in its is easy to see individual pixels and colours in the images. Vector images are better suited for images like logos because at any size or resolution the image is smooth and clean. Raster images are used for digital photos and game textures as they render faster and look good. Lots of software allows for images to be edited, Photoshop is is used a lot to edit, change images from vector to to raster and the other way around.

There are lots of different types of image capture, from taking a picture with a phone or digital camera downloading a picture or image of the internet or scanning a image into a computer. In game development being able to have a real life picture of a building or object can be useful for development. Picture of buildings and landscapes can be used to design environments for the game you are developing. Using usb cables and sd cards from digital cameras and phones makes transferring images easy and quick. Pictures like brick walls or plaster can be used to add texture to buildings and environment in your game by overlaying the image over the image of the object or building, this adds realistic detail and texture.

 Elliott

Unit 1 documentation

Unit 1- Documentation

Facilities/hardware/software/personnel
Game maker       Free to use in college- RRP is £500
Photoshop           Free to use in college- RRP is 19.99 per mo
Paint                    Free to use in college- RRP
High spec computers    free to use at college- will cost around £2000
Specialist
Artist/musicians and others   £100 to £150 per day

Week 1-day 1
Today i will create my plan and complete all documentation -
customer, design brief and target audience.
development, main character, enemies.
jump/landing, weapon and character sounds.
level quantity and layouts.
Screenshots and documentation of how I made the game.

Week 1-day 2
planning- Genre- Platform game- Main character- max
The main character has to kill dodge and avoid other monster progressing through the level to collect diamonds and weapons. Diamonds need to be collected to progress through the level and complete it. Weapon are used to help the player different monsters and bosses. Collecting these objects will increase your overall score. The game will consist of 5 levels and 3 boss levels and they will get increasingly harder.

Week 1-day 3
Planning sprites in paint and start to create the sprites in Photoshop.

Week 2-day 1  
Finish final design for the main characters a bosses.

Week 2-day 2
Import the main character and boss sprites into game maker.Then convert them into objects.
Start to create walls, flooring and backgrounds in Photoshop.

Week 2-day 3
Import all sprites into game maker and start to create the basic game physics for the main character and other sprites E.G. Gravity and Movement.

Week 3-day 1
 finish and test all movement and coding for the main character and other sprites.
Then start on the level design adding in the background, walls and platforms I created n Photoshop.

Week 3-day 2
Create the game mechanics for the 3 boss levels and level design into the main 5 levels.

Week 3-day 3
Finish boss levels and add background, weapons and movement sounds.

Week 4-day 1
Finish game and test all aspects and parts of the game to make sure they are working correctly.

Week 4-day 2
Complete documentation adding all screenshots and explaining the procedure and stages of each game and how i create them in game maker.

Week 4-day 3
Present my game and documentation on how I made each part of the game to my client/tutor.

Risk assessment/heath and safety
No food or drink near equipment-Avoid damage or breaking of facilities.
Set amount of time on computers-Eye damage and back problems.
Room is safe to use -Wires and other equipment that can be harmful to personnel.
Noise level-Ear damage and deafening when working with sounds.
First aid facilities nearby-Prevent injury

Clearances
I will check all pictures and information/research I get of the internet making sure i haven't breached any copyright laws that, that information or picture has.
I will create a contract with any specialist or personnel containing the amount there going to be paid and the specification of there work which will be signed and date by me and the specialist/personnel.

Contingency plan
If i become ill or are unable to continue work until a later date I will inform my client and work out an extensions or another plan to keep the client happy.
I will create a chart and check all the facilities i am going to use and report any broken or damaged equipment before i use the facilities.This will protect me or any of my personnel from being blamed for any damages that was not  caused by my personnel or me and can help me report any that is caused and get it fixed or shorted out.  


Mood board



     

Task 1 Create relevant Pre-Production documentation for Wayne’s Maze or Platform game. You can refer back to the work you have produced for this Unit so far. Examples of relevant documentation: • Production – Script, storyboard, mood board, production schedule, •  • •  •  • Note: You must be as creative as you can. For example your mood board could be created on Animoto, Cam Studio or Wink.