Environmental drawings

Below are some more environmental drawings i have done of Leeds Central Library to explore the space and to improve my drawing skills, so i can specialise in backgrounds and concept art in the future. I used a few different materials this time, i think charcoal has been particularly effective looking to catch the look of the dramatic arches in the library. I also used inks, and while i liked the effect, i found the media to be a bit too messy to capture well any detail in the space, however the darkness of the ink lended itself well to making the space look striking. I struggled in some places with capturing the correct perspective, and capturing all the detail of different features like railings, stained glass windows etc. which is something i would like to improve on in the future, however i am still happy with most of these drawings.

Library details

Part of my project is understanding and studying the details of an environment so i can utilise this knowledge and create my own concept art. As such, i found it important to study the details of the environments i was drawing. I chose Leeds Central Library as it has alot of grand, interesting architecture which i thought would make very effective drawings and may be useful knowledge for future projects.  I made some of the designs i observed in Adobe illustrator, as i found drawing them it was difficult to portray them accurately alot of the time.

Detail of some tiles in the library

Stained glass from the library

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Environments

I will be comparing and contrasting the environments of the Witcher 3 in the case studies chapter of my essay. The game has a vast environment, with many realistic, medieval-themed places. Much of the inspiration for these medieval towns came from real life Polish and Scottish places. There are even different cultures represented through the game, the people of Skellige being northern Irish, and the city of Toussaint being inspired by France/ Italy. Every aspect of these real-world places has been considered to give the game environments as much believability and realism as possible; be it the architecture in the cities or the vegetation in the countryside. You can see how diverse many of the environments in the game are from the screenshots below, which show just a few of the different areas within the game.

Assassins Creed game environments

No game series can compare with the breadth of historical detail within the Assassins creed games. Ubisoft strives to make their settings as historically accurate as possible, even hiring historians to ensure they are authentic and true to life. The series has recreated cities such as Rome, Paris, London, Ancient Egypt and Venice in different time periods, ensuring their worlds are rich in detail and extremely immersive to the player.

Ancient Egypt- Assassins Creed Origins

Paris - Assassins Creed Unity

Assassins Creed Syndicate- London

Assassins Creed - Rome

Library Drawing studies

Below are some initial drawing studies i have done of Leeds Central Library. These were effective in getting a feel for the space, however i found it difficult at points drawing from life, as standing while drawing for periods of time makes it harder to capture detail in the drawing and it may look messier. I did some quick sketches to see which features of the library caught my eye first, thinking that this would be an effective way to see what makes the scene immersive. In many cases, i found myself drawing staircases or arches first, as there are many of these in the library. 

Speedpainting

For the practical aspect of my project, i thought it would be beneficial to try and learn digital speed painting, as i have found that drawing environments is very time consuming and often doesnt produce quite as immersive a result as a digital painting could. I followed a tutorial, aiming to create my own immersive speed painting scene. I found creating the work below very enjoyable, and that using textures found online added depth and immersion to the scene. I intend to create some more of these types of speed paintings. 

Immersive Development in games

In the short space of time video games have been part of the entertainment industry, they have progressed rapidly in terms of the quality of their graphics. This has enabled game makers to create as immersive an experience as possible. The appearance of game environments has improved dramatically, but the early version of some games like Silent Hill were still extremely immersive, even without the impressive graphics we are used to today. The sense of fear in Silent Hill 1 might even be heightened by the poor graphics, giving a sense of the uncanny to the game experience.

Elder Scrolls Daggerfall - 1996

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim- 2011

Silent Hill 1999

Silent Hill P.T 2014

Environmental storytelling: Theme parks and video games

Through my research, i have discovered articles linking the idea of 3D game environment design and the theme park industry. Don Carson, who worked as an imagineer for Disney parks and as a designer for many other theme parks, wrote an article detailing the links between the idea of environmental storytelling in these parks and in game environments. In his article, he writes about how "In many respects, it is the physical space that does much of the work of conveying the story the designers are trying to tell. Color, lighting and even the texture of a place can fill an audience with excitement or dread." I find this idea of linking two seemingly unrelated industries together very interesting, and think it will be useful to illustrate the importance of environmental storytelling in game environments in my essay. Below are some examples of how environmental storytelling is used within Disney theme parks in order to make us believe we are visiting somewhere otherwise off limits to us.

Disney Epcot Mexican Pavilion

Tomorrowland Disneyland

Frontierland Disneyland

Environmental drawing - Leeds City library

For the practical aspect of my project, i will be drawing environments from life. I have chosen Leeds City Library as a location to draw, as it has quite grand and captivating architecture that would be nice studies to draw. I want to specialise in environmental concept art, so i think it is important to explore and study every aspect of an environment, so in the future this knowledge could be used and adapted to create concept art for fictional worlds. I want to study how the different details, textures, materials etc all bind together to create an immersive scene, and hopefully capture this immersive look in my drawings. Below are some of the photos i took of interesting aspects of the library which i will draw.

Dead Space

Deadspace is an immersive game for many reasons. Most game's user interfaces are non-diegetic, meaning they are completely removed from the fiction in the game. The makers of Deadspace didnt want to have a typical Heads Up Display to tell the payer information, so they built it into the game instead.The interface in Deadspace is 'diegetic', meaning that everything is part of the gameplay, for example, the way we can see the health we have on the back of the character we play as.
The game is also very immersive due to the use of environmental storytelling. In the screenshot below, we are told how to kill the creatures we are attacked by in the game, but not through an immersion breaking tutorial box. The instructions are given to us in the form of bloody writing on the wall, presumably left by someone before we got here. The environmental storytelling here tells us how to kill the enemies, and immerses us further by having us believe there have been other people here.

Dear Esther environment design

I watched a video talk by Robert Briscoe, environment designer for ‘Dear Esther,’ called ‘The Art of Dear Esther: Building an Environment to tell A Story.’ Briscoe describes how he studied impressionist paintings in order to take the qualities which made them immersive and apply them to his work. He describes how the light in these paintings have a soft and atmospheric quality, which creates engaging and evocative scenes. He further analyses that these impressionist paintings “Only create enough detail and fidelity within the image to bring across the emotion of the scene.” Dear Esther is a really immersive game with captivating environments, some of which i have shown below.

Contacting concept Artists

In order to gather primary research, i have been emailing a few different concept artists and game environment artists to ask them a few questions about creating immersive environments. I have emailed them initially to ask if its ok if i forward them a few questions which will help with my research.

-Ben Lo - concept artist in the game industry - Mass Effect andromeda, bioshock inifinite
-Mike Snight- Environment artist, lead level artist at irrational games
-Michał Janiszewski - Senior Environment Artist at CD Projekt RED
-Andrzej Dybowski - Concept artist for The Witcher 3, Metro Exodus
-Marek Madej - Senior Concept Artist at CD Projekt Red, worked on the Witcher 3
-Derek Weselake - freelance concept artist

Immersion in 2D art

One of the problems i have encountered is connecting my practical idea of making 2D concept art to my case studies which are all 3D game environments. A part of what makes game environments immersive is the interactive quality, which obviously wont be present in my 2D artwork. In order to make my own immersive 2D concept artwork, i am doing some research on what 2D artwork i find immersive. I think the lighting and composition in the paintings below creates a sense of atmosphere and adds to how immersed we feel when viewing them. These aspects will be helpful to keep in mind when i go about making my own environment art.

Salvador Dali - Moments of Transition

Edward Hopper- Nighthawks

John Atkinson Grimshaw - Reflection on the Thames

Rene Magritte - La Belle Captive

Edward Hopper- Summer Evening 

Vincent Van Gogh - Cafe Terrace at Night

Bioshock- Environment

Immersion through lighting, attention to detail in regards to the 1940s architectural style and decor, soundtracks using songs of the era, feeling of claustrophobia as if you are actually in an underwater city.

COP3 Proposal

Title?: How are different techniques used to immerse the player in video games?
How does the environment affect the immersion of the player in games?

In my extended essay, I intend to research and explore how different techniques are used to immerse the player in video games. Of particular interest to me is how the environments in different games affect how immersed the player feels. My main focus at the minute is on horror games, but i also intend to focus on other games which i feel have very immersive settings and have some horror aspects, such as Bioshock. I think it will be interesting to explore how different aspects such as lighting, sound, and surroundings come together to create an engaging experience for players. Another aspect i am considering researching more on is other forms of immersion in games, such as the use of features like noise detection in Alien: Isolation, or the game Nevermind, which requires you to be connected to a heart monitor device, in order to monitor how scared you are, and alter the gameplay according to this.
Video games are arguably the most engaging media available, due to reasons like the fact that you are in control of your character, you begin to feel personal responsibility for the actions that you take, an effect other media like film cant possibly achieve on the same level. I think another interesting angle of immersion in games to explore would be how decision making in games further engages the player. For example, in games like Telltale's 'The Walking Dead', 'Heavy Rain' or 'Dishonored'. Each of these games allows the player to make choices that can drastically change the outcome of the story, and bring an element of personal responsibility to the player's experience, further enriching the game and making the player feel more immersed in the story. The fact that your actions have consequences in the game brings about a whole other level of immersion to the player.
I would also like to talk about VR in my essay, as this is arguably the most immersive gameplay experience possible. VR technology increases immersion by fully surrounding the player in the virtual environment and incorporating tracking of the player's hands and body movements. These 3 elements come together to create a powerful suspension of disbelief in the player, immersing them in the game world more than ever before. I think this will be an important angle for me to explore when considering how different technologies promote immersion in the player.
Practically, i would perhaps like to explore the idea of creating my own concept art to create my own engaging game environment or model 3D environments in Maya, and test which of the environments i create are the most engaging to a number of people. I have also considered making some short test animations, perhaps some different environments or sentient spaces with different features to see how immersive these are to an audience.

Study Task 8

In my practical work i conducted different stop-motion tests in order to better understand why stop-motion is
so effective as a horror media. I used plasticine as well as an artists manikin to do different tests and see what
peoples responses would be and which they would perceive as the most unsettling. I explored this in order to see
how far the theory of the uncanny and uncanny valley applies to stop motion, and what this means in terms of how
we perceive it. From the responses i got, i was able to determine that the plasticine models, particularly the test i
did in which the plasticine transforms into a tentacle like object, were perceived as the most unsettling. When I
asked why this was the most unsettling, the answers i got ranged from the fact that the actual shape of the
plasticine was disconcerting, to the tentacle like motion and the jerkiness of the stop-motion itself. There were
also observations that the human anatomy-like shape of the plasticine evoked discomfort. There was some
discomfort expressed with the manikin stop-motion tests i did as well, some feedback I got was that it appeared
creepy because it shouldn’t be moving and its movements were unnatural and jerky, and made it appear as though
the model were haunted. This reinstates the article in which Matt Kim suggests that “Stop-motion is simply an
evolution to puppetry, eliminating the presence of the puppeteer. Unfortunately, that also makes the puppet appear
autonomous, maybe even haunted.”(2016)

I found that by speeding the framerates of the tests, the feedback i received changed. When the tests were sped up
to 24 frames per second, the general feedback was that this was more unnerving, as the objects moved in more
erratic and convulsive ways. However speeding the framerate to 48 frames per second almost everyone I asked
agreed that this was  too fast to distinguish any real movement or to have time to react to what was happening on
screen.

From my practical work i feel i am able to conclude that stop-motion appears to most people as unnatural and
unsettling, however this can be due to a range of factors from the character design, textures used, motion
performed and the smoothness of the animation itself. My findings are in keeping with the uncanny
valley theory; the relationship between the degree of an object's resemblance to a human being and the emotional
response to that object. Because the objects I made out of plasticine were strangely familiar, vague shapes, and
not just the familiarity of the artists model, I feel they elicited the more negative and unsettled effect in viewers.
If given the time and opportunity, i would like to apply more different effects to my stop motion tests, and
conduct more tests. I would also like to have shot the tests in different locations to observe how this may have
changed how it is perceived by others. I feel that my findings have proved that stop-motion is an inherently
uncanny and effective horror media, however I would have liked to have carried out more tests in order to
reach a clearer conclusion.

Horror/Stop-motion colour palettes

Below are some colour palettes I have made based off various stop-motion animated films. I wanted to see if there was any relationship between the type of story being told and how colour may change how we perceive it. I think the use of colour is particularly effective in 'Bobby Yeah.' The contrast of the blues and vibrant reds is very atmospheric and contributes to our feeling of uneasiness while watchng. I also think the blue tones used in 'The Sandman' achieve this effect too, with the contrast of his yellow eye making it stand out and look particularly eerie.