Cart CGD

Ramy D – Spatial Distortion
- Spatial Distortion to accelerate plot.
- Gateways can look THROUGH into completely different rooms. Ie: you can see a sphere through a doorway but only when looking THROUGH. The sphere is not actually PRESENT.
- The example can be found in some films such as “the Number 23, part 05 of 11”. Jim is up somewhere, the camera moves, and suddenly he is elsewhere. Continuous reality.
- PROGRAMMING TRICKS  NEEDS STORYWRITER. MODELERS. ANOTHER PROGRAMMING.
- Camera angles will be triggers. If you look at something a certain way, perspective changes and a key plot point is revealed. The world is malleable, everything changes gradually.
- Not looking for something visually complex but progressively detailed.

Mohannad – ART DIRECTION PITCH
- Very washed out, no obvious horror elements, grayscale
- Story Ideas; “Nature’s Evolution”. Humans are parasites feeding off the planet. Nature’s way to fix it is to slowly mutate our DNA to be closer to more valuable creatures/animals. People start developing weird deformations.
- “Consequences”. Wheelchair guy develops joints and bones to deal with his condition
- GAMEPLAY IDEAS: 4D painting that you can go into and live in. Static environment and characters except for minor animation cycles (eyes, water drips, etc.). Like modern warfare 2 ending “the museum”; acting out action scenes in “boxes”. Quiet other players, only bother you if you bother them.

Nancy – Tuesday: a tale of being terrible  http://netownsend.net/ccgd/

Pedro – PANEL KILL/BODY EXPLORATION
- Comic book exploration, like a choose your own adventure book.
- You can mix and match your characters ie: put Calvin and Hobbes into “Watchmen”. Mixing genres make the story more entertaining. Like exploring a comic book, moving panel to panel.
- GAME IDEA2: You are a ball of lights that “fixes” the body, repair dead cells, eliminate disease etc.
- Full 3dimensional space: locate yourself, control the white sphere and learn new movements with it. Collect points to get new abilities. Precise surgical tasks, like sewing arteries.
- Reference: Trauma Center Series, movements like flower.

KODAMA (Japanese for spirit)
- Grow your own planet. One flower into many, many trees, roots combine in the middle area
- Cute little white blog character. A specific happy/cutesy feeling, you are creating your own ecosystem.
- Little due holds a cloud like a kite and walks around to make things grow. Every time you restart, you make a new world.
- THERE ARE NO THREATS

Jonathan
- You are on the verge of becoming a zombie, you must take drugs.

Samir
- Playing with sound

EVERYONE WHO HAD A GAME IDEA, PLEASE POST IT TO THE GROUP!!

This page is dedicated to deadlines. People have things to do. This is where those tasks meet up to the normal calendar.

• Crowd of clones – action sequence where a giant mass of the CHARACTERS themselves
• The world is now three blocks. Each character has their own buildings in their own style but can wander into each others.
• Everyone should have something to model by next meeting (in two weeks)
• Everyone please get Maya 2008 and Ogre exporter working (Charlotte?)
• Toon outline can Ogre?
• ALEXI – SVN instructions on forum please?
• Ruby Gloom (everybody watch out)
• A disastrous event that all three witness and all three are trying to get to the city center. Getting hit by clones. Buildings fall and they open new passage ways.
• The city if bigger than you, you are not bigger than the city. The ANTI super hero. You have no power and the city works against you.
• Disorient the player by rotating the city as it crumbles.
• Interactions between the characters: different motives clashing. The 3 failures of mankind – the end of innocence (Kara – her fantasies are failing into industry), fall of nature (Gloria – a barren world), end of
• Avoid dialogue except for random expletives.
• ARTISTS MEETING Next Sunday July 5^th
• BALLS!! (transformers 2)
• Cassandra create a scale reference obj file.  Person, building, object etc.
• The chair of Computation Arts class for 400 levels.
• Charlotte warn her about Zbrush EMAIL.

June 14th, General Meeting 3

Concept Art show and tell:

Little girl – short hair, small barrette holding hair behind ears, orange/red hair, black tunic w/ lace slip, mandarin collar with lace on neck and sleeves, mary jane shoes, high socks, . Headphones,

Woman – (Gloria) Looney-long hair (past but), long black roots with brown hair, sweatshirt with collar cut off, fishnet stockings under flood pants.

Man – (think Edward Norton from fight club) geeky but strong. Suit and tie. Has an office pass around neck, nice sweater vest, watch, dress shoes black. Beige pants, blue plaid tie.

ENVIRONMENT: The City of Gaud

HEART FOUNTAIN (see concept art)

Surrealist style but also composed of pieces from the past. Pieces of temples/churches embedded in the other buildings. ie: swings that have stained glass windows on the bottom.

The city is their ‘minds’. Its messed up (surrealist – they see what they think something should look like)and pieced together of things that used to be important from their past.

Artistic Director Votes – Send email for nominations. Will have poll vote on the forum.

Next meeting: Artists next week. General the week after next. Try to include JOS into artists meeting (set up new doodle).

Jos technical drawings. Comic style – realistically proportioned but “chunky” hair (that can have bones) and stylized faces.

South Park quotation of the day: “Are you sure?” “I’m HIV positive”.

ALEXIS’ NOTES

Finalize character design!

Charlotte drew the little girl.
Cute @ 1st, but mischeavous, skulls on the dress. All in black.

Nancy drew the girl in boys & girls clothing. The man has lots of accoutrements : buttons, happy faces on his tie.

Sean wants more lace. Sekcs.

Nic’s girl wears a tank top & a skirt. Also drew the crack addict. She is old, hairy lip, fat, sandals, shirt w/ “Hot Stuff”.

Sean : The girl walks you to the graveyard. Imagines her as introvert. Likes the idea of short hair.
Crack addict : failure of nature. Shit rots.

Crack addict : ~30s, she sees crazy shit.

Playground is about Dilly Dali-ing. City of Gaud.

Truck is an …. ambulance? tanker truck?

June 7th, Visual Artists Meeting
Sharah, Charlotte, Nick, Moh, Nancy, Alexis

Nick: Shows comics examples. Brings up the ideal of surrealism. Real things get mangled ie: a lamppost vs. a twisted lamppost with veins.
• We enjoy complex toon/cell shading (think afro samurai, prince of Persia – the most recent). This works the best for all three characters.
• Can we, in ogre, get the black outline?

Moh: Wants a stylized reality. Real but something is off. Shows paintings – white and washed out.
• Materials look real, but angles are off, plus cell shaded outline.
• The style itself can have visual meaning, humans into endangered animals. It’s the environment’s way of adapting. We are the parasite and the circle of life is trying to bring us backwards.

Opening scene: The same event witnessed by all three characters. Ie: a truck crashing into a school
• Man: sees truck out of control crashing into school through window
• Child: a truck crashes into her school
• Woman: wandering through the street and CAUSES the truck to go out of control
• ALL: People scream, the sky goes dark suddenly. Even though it is midday.
This game has to end somehow. WRITER’s THOUGHTS?
• Different endings: all die or all take the truck and drive into the sunset.

Note: all these people are dying. City is crumbling all around them. Just try to avoid it, but can’t. Escaping the city = escaping death. Can you? Perhaps…(psst. Take the truck!)

Who would you statutory rape? Male: Kid who plays Jacob in Twilight? Female: Miley Cyrus – Alexis’ choice, minus the accent.

CHARACTER DETAILS:
Man:
• Typical, boring business man. Implied in his intro that something is off about him. Maybe he’s stealing from the company? Maybe he’s suicidal? Never know.
• Vision: everything is washed out white and grey. Certain key things are slightly more colorful.
• Otaku. Plain and pasty. Looks like he hasn’t slept in a while.
• SKILL: Stronger than the other characters. Can move things than the child and woman can’t.

Child:
• Little Girl is “gothic” and listening to headphones. Her entire scene she is listening to music no matter what horror happens. Avoid voice acting, yes!
• Vision: She sees things dark in more extremely colors of, for example, an warm palette of oranges, reds and blacks.
• Remember, she is around 8. So no extreme goth. She wouldn’t be wearing makeup or have dyed hair. Just looking like she is on her way there with dark clothes .
• A little overweight perhaps.
• BELIEVES IN VAMPIRES!
• Sees everything from a ‘looking-up’ perspective.
• SKILL: Tiny. Can get into places that the other characters can’t.

Woman:
• Vision: Multicolored, bright. Overexposed.
• Deterity is off. She trips and wobbles. You can’t control her sometimes.
• Asian junkie around 30 years old. Skinny (gaunt. Messy hair.
• Coke whore makeup perhaps? Over the lines lipstick in a gaudish pink
• SKILL: She’s a thief. Can pick locks and get into places the others can’t/ won’t. Like homes and cabinets.

ARCHITECTURE:
Think GAUDI. Think GIGER. Think Paris metro signs. This world is ‘art-deco’ composed mainly of organic shapes. This implies the city can be in the future, can be Barcelona-esque, can be alien. A see-saw for example will be a twisty curve instead of a straight bench linking the two seats.

CART CGD meeting May 31st, 2009

Everybody please add their name, email and phone contact information of the google document CART CDG contacts list in google docs.

- New doodle with ‘yes, no or maybe’ for having a creative concept meeting. Must decide style so that artists can move forward. Concept art and examples should be posted to blog and/or forum.
*Can Nancy have access to modify/moderate forum? SHADI? All artists have to share their work to discuss specifics at a separate meeting.

- Programming team is done. All have libraries, just need to get things to start working. We can now have water, video textures for cut scenes are now possible (if pre-rendered – SHOULD be pre-rendered since it is easier).

Organization: start a mailing list for JUST the artists.

Moh shows concept art of wheelchair-fat man in Zbrush. Freaky!

Discussion INTERACTION?:
• Concept is so far very story intensive – like myst. Must develop interaction. Programmers will begin to design puzzle/interaction and the story will be written accordingly.
• We like the concept of scale (really big or really small – not necessarily physical size. Think being a general vs. being a random little foot soldier). Mix of action and puzzles, physical puzzles are of interest.
• Option of Interactive Cinema? No goal, just experience the world. Think Heavy Rain, think flower. Is this a good option?

Discussion: The game – adjusting the theme the address the issue of lack of game dynamics.
- We all like interactive cinema with focus on design and story with ONE really neat and interesting interactive twist.
Thought: Playing the same event, the same game, through the eyes of several different people. As individuals, you can change things. You can, perhaps, work together?
- Something is attacking is world. You never see it. It’s your mind, your world, crumbling.
- Something neat but almost impossible! – - You play the game as several characters and as you change characters, your original actions are recorded and you can watch, as this new character, the actions you have already done. See your deaths!

SINGLE PLAYER CO-OP : play as three characters, all within the same 4 blocks during a disaster, they see each other within each others . They all experience the world differently, they all have different goals: to find family members (parents/loved one), to survive, to save the world, to have fun in your last minutes? They all see a different threat: war, creatures, random breakdown of society within itself?

What is the disaster? Assume it is the apocalypse – the four horsemen. Mid-day, the world darkens, things explode with green fire etc. You have no idea. You’re mind is crumbling.

What is the goal? All three characters have interactions AND they can die at any time.
First person is important to be immersive. But third is needed cause you have to recognize the people later. Chosen 3rd person but with recognizable traits (can look down and see hands and body) AND a small introductory movie.
Three opening sets: School (for kid), Office/Homeless (for man), Starbucks (for woman). Non typical characters.

Joke of the day (South Park): “Do you like fish sticks?” “Yes…” “What are you, a gay fish?”

Gameplay: goal – to survive. Characters can help or hinder. The exact same situations can be solved differently ie: kids can get into smaller spaces (vents), the men is stronger and can push things, woman is both mid strong and mid small (?). Everything will be physical can carry things in hands to use or move one at a time. Puzzle will be solved through moving things, exploring things, avoiding things, breaking things.

Elements that are of use will be subtly highlighted by either sound or slightly lighter color – think Half Life (a creaking see-saw? A pile of bricks? Perhaps I could use them…). You can almost pick up everything. All will have mass stat. Need to break a window? Anything will heavy enough mass will work – note, all characters can handle different mass.
Think of puzzles that happen school, office, street, starbucks…a city. Level design is crucial.