The previous week was a success, the MetaHuman technology was really enjoyed and it seemed to stick to the concept.
The courtroom concept was also enjoyed and it sparked many more questions that led us to further see what this concept could evolve into.
However this week I worked half on the AI theatre project, mostly as a secretary sending emails and half on another project within the studio.
AI Theatre - Week 7
The opportunity to go to Oslo through and Erasmus grant to perform tests on the stage and work closely with the clients arose from a conversation with our teachers and the clients.
We made a presentation for the clients and scheduled a 2nd meeting for that week. Basically presenting the clients with our proposal to go to Oslo and the proposed dates of testing and what we would be testing. They were enthusiastic to the idea and told us to pursue this plan, they told us to create a document with the testing outline, and what was the most crucial aspects to test with.
I sent multiple emails this week to the clients with the outlines, sent a proposal to Saxion's International Office to request the Erasmus grant with an explanation of the project and how we qualify for the requirements.
This was a week long back and forth email chain asking for updates and hoping we get approved. Between week 7 and 8 there was a vacation. The secretary job continues in week 8.
Freelancing - Week 7 & 8 Ideate, Prototype
I freelanced for project Digital Twin Cities, to read about their project you can access their blog.
In short, they created a small city game with the goal to raise awareness of 15 minute cities. by placing down necessities in a city and try to raise the score of available necessities in a 15 minute radius, represented by 3 hexagon tiles distance. They needed concept art to figure out what was outside the map borders and how to illustrate the aura that the necessities give up in order to illustrate the 3 tile hexagon distance.
The reason I was assigned this task was because the artists in their team were mostly 3D artists or more technical artists. They were aware I enjoyed doing concept at and that I had it as a learning goal.
Before I started, I got familiarized with their art style, this was in order to understand their color choices and shape studies as I knew they wee going for a stylized look, but also matching the architecture of the Netherlands.
The playing field was a Hexagon as their tiles were also hexagonal. Which reminded me of the fort-like Dutch cities like Fort Bourtange. These cities are not super big, are mostly surrounded by water and they are elevated. They have access to land through bridges.
I also asked what the camera was like so I could understand how much of the playing field and outside areas was visible, it would be a sort of top down view from one angle, so I knew there would be a limit to how far the camera could move, this meant he outside environment didn't have to be too detailed or extravagant. This style easily illustrates the border of the playing field and also make the outside be quite simple, with a river and some green fields and maybe a dock as decoration. At the point of drawing this, houses were illustrated with Magenta, medical buildings were green, stores were blue and education buildings were red. other then that roads were the connection between the buildings, with a hexagonal tile 90 degree roads were not possible so that also had to be established in some way, the easiest way was to have roundabouts when 3 roads converge. Their priority when it came to concept art was how to illustrate the aura that the buildings gives. As I mentioned before, Medical buildings were green, stores blue and schools were red. There were multiple ways to illustrate the colors mixing. For the RGB mixing we have the following Red (School) = 1 point Blue (Store) = 1 point Green ( Hospital) = 1 point Yellow (red and yellow mix) = 2 points Cyan (green and blue mix) = 2 points
Magenta (red and blue mix) = 2 points
White (all mix) = 3 points
So you wanted to have the map be white in the end. this looked quite clean. But this mizing isn't as recognizable and doesn't look as nice.
For the rainbow mixing we have the following Red (School) = 1 point Blue (Store) = 1 point Green ( Hospital) = 1 point Orange (red and yellow mix) = 2 points Teal (green and blue mix) = 2 points
Purple (red and blue mix) = 2 points Brown (all mix) = 3 points
This method is more recognizable and more colorful. but its a lot of colors for all the points. And brown as the 3 pointer color doesn't feel like it truly represents the best state of the city.
These were the first concepts.
The next concept I made was more detailed and closer to what I envisioned the project looking like.
I also provided the following feedback as a note for the next iteration as the previous one still followed the RGB mixing method..
RGB Mixing. "Aura/Glow + outline Overlay".
I spoke to Maria, Stan and Mark about maybe having just 4 colors. colors that can easily be recognized as "bad" and/or "good".
Cause right now there is a "secondary math" of needing to know what color does this mean. also right now. the roads with 2 points can be either magenta and or cyan. however they have no differences as the complexity of the game is just to give roads points no matter what facility is next to it.
And also, having just 4 colors makes the shaders needed for the "aura" "glow" effect of the hexagons less complex and there wouldn't be a need to mix them for instance.
In this case.
Points
0 = Red
1 = Orange
2 = Yellow
3 = Green
This is more recognizable, it's used in many other city builders and is a more global visualization of good and bad.
We also discussed that having the glow/aura on at all times will not look as good. but we understand why you'd prefer having it on at all times. Maybe a way to meet in the middle is that all the roofs of the buildings could change color depending on how many points they have + still have a toggleable overlay with just one button press, as a way to make it more obvious and visual to some people.
After delivering this I had to start working back on the main project.
AI Theatre - Week 8 (continues to week 9)
After the vacation we got together again and refreshed our memory on the project.
Sadly we got the news that the Erasmus grant was denied as there was no component of working with another school in Norway, which was a requirement we were not aware of. After quickly asking the clients for help in regards to this aspect, they said they couldn't help us on time, especially since the allocated time for the trip was getting closer.
We had at this moment given up on the idea of going to Oslo, it had already taken a week away of planning to find accommodation and flight tickets, the more we waited the more expensive things got. Because of this we gave ourselves some more time to prepare for some tests.
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