Final Project

For my final video I brought in some of the people from my DnD group in order to do a parody of how certain situation play out. In the video, my friend Josh rolls a d20 for some sort of check, gets a 1, and in the end flips the table we're playing the game on out of frustration.

The lack of dialogue contributed to the success of the project in this case due to the fact that I'm hardly the best actor and that I was coming down with a cold around the time the video was filmed. I synched the video up with audio from Reign Supreme's "American Violence" intro, which samples the theme from 300, giving the roll an epic feel. I also slowed down Josh's lament and my sadistic laugh for extra comedic effect.

The shoot and editing process went smoothly, and my only complaint was that I would've shot more clips of the die rolling and reactions from Josh.

Storyboard

Here is a simple storyboard for the final video.

My video is going to be based around a game of dungeons and dragons where a player rolls a 1 and flips the board out of frustration. Dialogue will be limited as none of the people I'm planning on using are actors, and there will be a lot cutting back and forth between shots in a rapid succession to make it a bit more action oriented. I also plan on using slowed down clips of the die rolling to increase suspense.

Video 1 Stills

Here are three video stills from the 10 shots project. These are three of my personal favorites, with the opacity changes, color correction, and general framing of everything. The general concept of an assassination attempt in Travers was going to be fun to act out, and everything went smoothly. My only complaint was the lighting in the building and how it gave everything a yellowish tinge, which I'll correct in my final video.

Mid Term Reflection

In the end, I was pleased with the results of the project. The digital drawings came out well, and with better character art and backgrounds the game could succeed as a visual novel with its layout and art style. As I add more mechanics the look will change and new concepts will need to be done, but for a very basic planning phase it works well. If I could do the project again I would add more to the backgrounds of the dialogue screens as they look a little basic, and could use more details. In terms of chronicling a game's development from concept to inception, the screens work well as they show the development of different aspects that will be fundamental to it once it is programmed.

Visual Novel Concept Screens 2

The last three images in the presentation were done as mock dialogue screens. The top two are from conversations that may occur during the game, and the last is a monologue from the main character's perspective. The text box was created by combining lines for a box effect with a transparent gradient, giving it depth on screen. As the lines of dialogue change, the characters' expressions will change depending on their mood and their reaction to your choices. The backgrounds will stay consistent, with day and night versions of both. Monoluges will be a series of static images that will change depending on the line of text.

Visual Novel Character Concepts

Here are the annotated designs for the four main characters of the visual novel. After doing the game over and menu screen I drew them in order to ensure that I had a grasp of what the characters would look like when I did the mock dialogue screens. I was mainly aiming for a variety of outfits and to make the characters look distinct. The arrows on the pictures point out things that will change when the art for the actual game is done.

The sketches came out well. The anatomy is off in some places and I might change Ned's name and remove his facial hair in the final design, but as of now the designs are solid and I feel they will do well for the project.

Visual Novel Concept Screens 1

Here are the first two parts of the mid-term project: The menu screen and the game over screen.

The Crossing (Tentative title) is a horror visual novel/ choose your own adventure game inspired by the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, the horror anime Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni, and to an extent the web series Marble Hornets. The main menu was mostly inspired by Higurashi's habit of doing close ups on the eyes of the characters which is used for a disturbing effect during a lot of the more unsettling scenes. The eye in the center combined with the splatters and red lighting in addition to do some dark edges on the side makes the composition look dark and unsettling, in the tradition of standard horror movie posters and covers.

The Game Over screen was more inspired by the Resident Evil games, whose death screens have a similar feel to them. Since this screen would only load in the event of the death of the player character, the splatters are much more prominent, and would make it the goriest screen in the game as due to the nature of the gameplay most of the violence would take place off screen and be implied in reactions and descriptive text.