# Independent_Project
By Hannah Moseng Staff

### Padlet

https://manmetuni.padlet.org/andrewking17/ma-game-art-production-meetings-log-uacivwv7bonjrq7a

## Books

* "Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge: A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution" by Terence McKenna - This book delves into the role of psychoactive plants, including mushrooms, in human culture and evolution.

* "The Mushroom in Christian Art: The Identity of Jesus in the Development of Christianity" by John A. Rush - This book explores the use of mushroom symbolism in Christian art and its potential connections to ancient mushroom rituals.

* "Mushrooms, Myth, and Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe" by Carl A. P. Ruck, Mark Alwin Hoffman, and Jose Alfredo González Celdrán - This book examines the role of mushrooms, particularly the Amanita muscaria, in ancient European religions and mythologies.

* "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross: A Study of the Nature and Origins of Christianity within the Fertility Cults of the Ancient Near East" by John M. Allegro - This controversial book explores the hypothesis that early Christianity was influenced by fertility cults that involved the use of psychoactive mushrooms.

* "The Road to Eleusis: Unveiling the Secret of the Mysteries" by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and Carl A. P. Ruck - This book focuses on the ancient Greek Eleusinian Mysteries and proposes that the "kykeon" drink used in these rituals may have contained psychoactive mushrooms.

* Procedural Generation in Game Design - Tanya Short, specifically chapter 4
(Ordered from London library, due 17.07.2023)

* Procedural Content Generation in Games (Computational Synthesis and Creative Systems by Noor Shaker (Author), Julian Togelius (Author), Mark J. Nelson (Author).
(Aivalable at MMU library)

* Nvidia GPU gems
(Available at MMU Library site)

* Ebert, D., et al., 2003. Texturing and Modeling: A Procedural Approach. Third Edition. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/http://elibrary.lt/resursai/Leidiniai/Litfund/Lithfund_leidiniai/IT/Texturing.and.Modeling.-.A.Procedural.Approach.3rd.edition.eBook-LRN.pdf

* Wes Anderson: Book 1 (Close-Ups) Paperback – 15 Nov. 2018
by Sophie Monks Kaufman (Author), Little White Lies (Author)

* The Circle of the Snake: Nostalgia and Utopia in the Age of Big - Grafton Tanner
* The Hours Have Lost Their Clock: The Politics of Nostalgia - Grafton tanner
* Babbling corpse : vaporwave and the commondification of ghosts - Grafton Tanner

* Ghosts of my life : writings on depression, hauntology and lost futures - Mark Fisher
* K-punk : the collected and unpublished writings of Mark Fisher (2004-2016)
* The weird and the eerie - Mark Fisher

* Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to its Own Past - Simon Reynolds

* Time Shelter: - by Georgi Gospodinov (Author),

*

* On Nostalgia (Exploded Views) Paperback – 3 Sept. 2020
by David Berry (Author

* the future of snostalgia boym
* yearning for yesterday a sociology of nostalgia
* https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249680348_The_Modalities_of_Nostalgia

* Toffler, A. (1971) Future shock. London: Pan.
- MMU print book

**RETRO FUTURISM**

* Future Perfect: Vintage Futuristic Graphics - Book by Jim Heimann
MMU Library : https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/oclc/957648540

* The Metropolis of Tomorrow - Book by Hugh Ferriss
MMU Library: https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/56420403?queryString=The%20Metropolis%20of%20Tomorrow&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

* The Golden Age of Science Fiction: A Journey into Space with 1950s Radio, TV, Films, Comics and Books
MMU: https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/1101620703?queryString=The%20Golden%20Age%20of%20Science%20Fiction%3A%20A%20Journey%20into%20Space%20with%201950s%20Radio%2C%20TV%2C%20Films%2C%20Comics%20and%20Books&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

* Wonderful Future That Never Was, The (Popular Mechanics Magazine): Flying Cars, Mail Delivery by Parachute, and Other Predictions from the Past Hardcover – 1 Sept. 2010 by Gregory Benford and the Editors of Popular Mechanics (Author

* Imagining slaves and robots in literature, film, and popular culture : reinventing yesterday's slave with tomorrow's robot
About Robots and race in america
MMU web: https://mmu.on.worldcat.org/search/detail/922325455?queryString=Yesterday%27s%20Tomorrows&clusterResults=true&groupVariantRecords=false

* Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s

* The Retro Future: Looking to the Past to Reinvent the Future - John Michael Greer

* Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future Paperback – Illustrated, August 1, 2006 by John Dregni (Author)
!!!!!

* Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future
!!!!!!

* The Usborne Book of the Future: A view from the 1970s of the Year 2000... and beyond
I have the PDF

* Little Book of Vintage Sci-Fi By Tim Pilcher
4 pounds on world of books

## To Do

Look at Outlines:
- [ ] https://superyateam.com/2019/06/17/custom-depth-and-custom-depth-stencil-in-ue4/
- [x] Watch PONYO
- [ ] Watch a planet once more created by Moebious
- [ ] Watch more Wes Anderson films
- [ ] Watch True Detective
- [ ] Watch neon genesis evangelion
- [ ] Watch Metropolis
- [ ] Watch Only God forgives
- [ ] watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcdzdHoDvkg
- [ ] watch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372001/

### To Do Unreal

- [ ] Create a stylized sky box that also has night stars
- [ ] Download Maya bonus tools: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC-SISjGZuA

### To do substance painter

Create a paint peel effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnWvMys9xNk&ab_channel=WesMcDermott

### Continue here:
https://www.artstation.com/learning/courses/xPB/advanced-materials/chapters/ZWR/intro
master material last video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KvUfnrHcqM&t=29s&ab_channel=EvansBohl
24:48

## Timeline
- [x] Storyboard, block out the scene with cameras an boxes in Unreal Engine
- [x] Animatic
- [ ] Figure out what is is that needs to be in the shots, and what I can manage to scrap
(e.g. background of the Diner, is it necissery?)
- [ ] 3D Modelling
- [ ] Texturing
- [ ] Animations and effects
- [ ] Create promotional posters and drawings for my project. Saul Bass inspired, 80s inspired and Factory Record inspired
- [ ] Video editing
- [ ] Write-Up

## Inspirations

https://gamesartist.co.uk/medieval-laundromat/

Diner in Unreal Engine:
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/atompunk-post-apocalyptic-diner/questions

The Last Passage, Unreal Engine Short film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9cHN42nmmY

Moebious

Mike Mignola

Ashley Wood

Claire Wendling

Julie Dillon
Especially her use of colours

John Ken Mortensen

Simon Staalenhag
Everything from storytelling to colours to cinematography
Interview with Simon on VICE: https://www.vice.com/en/article/bj43m5/exploring-the-uncanny-sci-fi-dystopias-of-simon-staalenhag
Full labyrinth: https://www.simonstalenhag.se/labyrinth.html

**Simon Stålenhag puts a darker twist on his nostalgic sci-fi worlds:**
https://www.theverge.com/21539093/simon-stalenhag-the-labyrinth-kickstarter-post-apocalyptic-paintings-book

*Do you try to move on from nostalgia in The Labyrinth?*

"The pop quiz nostalgia of the first books — there’s that Volvo that I grew up with! — that thing is gone. There are some elements. There’s an ’80s telephone, there’s light switches people who grew up around them in Sweden will know. But most images don’t have that. The driving force for me, why I wanted to make books with stories, was to tell personal stuff that happened to me. The pop culture stuff is topping, something to kind of swallow the medicine."


Notes on a Case of Melancholia, or a Little Death Hardcover
by Nicholas Gurewitch

Keaton Henson

Ognyan Zahariev
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VyqYvX

Retro Futurism


**Neo-Futurism
Vaporwave
Synthwave**

Edward Hopper

**Solarpunk**: Dear Alice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-Ng5ZvrDm4
https://www.thelineanimation.com/

### Inspiration - GAMES

Firewatch

ABZU (Giant Squid)

Journey (Giant Squid)

Sword of the Sea (Giant Squid)

The Pathless (Giant Squid)

GRIS

Ratchet and Clank

Road 96

Lake
Environment artist from Lake and how they did vegttion:
https://blog.unity.com/industry/artist-highlight-jonathan-van-immerzeel

Among Trees

Ghostwire:Tokyo

Everwild

No Man´s Sky
For its style as well as usage of Procedural generation

Madworld
For the sin city - style

Cyberpunk 2077
For it's setting in time and futuristic ideas

Fallout

Fallout 4 : Nuka world

and Diamond city

Life Is Strange
https://80.lv/articles/life-is-strange-concept-artist-talks-about-art/

### Inspiration - FILMS

Ghibli themes: Corruption of nature and the spirits who live there
Ghibli, Princess Mononoke

Spirited Away

PONYO, especially the use of colour palette and the organic brush strokes as the background

Nausicaä, especially the sea of decay


Wes Anderson, his colour saturation and clean aesthetics
"is it the exact thing, or is it the feeling of the thing"
https://youtu.be/55b9tNpuKg8 (3:20)
**Auteur**
An auteur is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded and personal that the director is likened to be the "author" of the film, thus manifesting the director's unique style or thematic focus.

Spider Man: into the spider verse
2.5D animation style

Spider man verse 2

KLAUS

Love, Death, Robots : So many different styles to explore as well as stories

Black Mirror S6 E3 Beyond the Sea
Colour saturation and retro futurism of the computers

Arcane
Tutorial on creating Arcane shaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xe6ddHvmho

The Midnight Gospel

The Kirlian Frequency
Free YouTube series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE6zWrYxGag

Tales from the Loop
Saturated colour stule and retro futurism, based on Simon Staalenhag

Only God Forgives

Blade Runner
Both the original and the new

Blue Beetle (not come out yet)

Alita

Brazil

Metropolis
Why metropolis is the most influencial sci fi film
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/metropolis-most-influential-sci-fi-movie-ever-made/

Sleeper Woody Allen

Meet the Robinson

The future is not what it used to be
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0372001/

### Inspiration - COMICS

The Fall - Jared Muralt

Neon Rising 2020

Wizard of OZ

Anything by Moebious

Frank Miller's Sin City

Captain Rocket

Astro Boy's floating city (PLUTO)

Jetsons

## For Pitch

**What is the topic of your research?**

The topic of my research is the magical world of fungi and Japanese Shinto traditions.


NEW: It is about exploration between stylized game art and realistic looking game art

**Why is this important?**

Because they are cool

NEW: To get a better understanding of how professional industry workers work.

**How does your work connect with wider contexts within Game Art?**

Exploring environment art, systems of foliage and effects. Becoming even better at 3D-modelling. (find examples of games that are relevant and using similar elements as the one I am trying to create?)

**Are there any key readings in the area of work? How will I conduct my research**

***Primary Sources:***
For example, going to Stockport for a little trip and talk about mushrooms with that lady. Taking part of local activities with that mushroom group in Manchester

***NEW Primary source:*** Reach out to professional artists out there on how they work. Interview and figure it out

I need to work in a professional design sprint methodology to complete my research.

Example:

***Secondary Sources:***

How I will conduct the research : Opening. will be theoretical thesis on the difference between stylistic style and realistic style. Why AAA companies and inde tend to go for one or the other. How it is important to optimize assets for games. Then the practical part will be the actual design process of the scene, and create the same assets twice, one style and then the other

**Who are the current practitioners already working in this field?**

Mushroom people, or game designers?

Unit Learning Outcomes for reference
1. Critically reflect on a body of work that demonstrates interdisciplinary competencies and how they relate to their individual practice.
2. Generate creative and innovative work through the application of the knowledge and skills related to storytelling.
3. Demonstrate collaborative and entrepreneurial skills, building professional networks and knowledge of the digital and creative sectors.
4. Provide evidence of wide ranging technical skills that support and inform their subject discipline

https://bloomstaxonomy.net/

### Session With Mark Thomas 31.05.2023

Start considering what it is I wish to show for the **exhibition**, installation and other things that need to be considered for the final

**RESEARCH**
Remember to have a more varied research background and *Reasons* to how things are and *why*

**FOR THE FINAL**
Critically reflective research journal 8000 words
Typical hand in: Portfolio + Reflection

**KEYWOARDS**

Research questions - context - research methods - Process (iterative) - collaboration - reflexivity

*Random thought:* To vary my type of research for folk-styles. Pick up knitting

**WRITING TIPS BY LORD VOLDEMORT**

"In this essay, I want to take a look at this specific research for the project..."
"Then I will take a look at this and show my experiences for this..."
- 1st person in this section
- How is this relevant between the research to my practical work "in this section I will reflect on the difficulties that I had"

"I am doing this because of climate change for example?"
-How did I decide on the team and the people I am working with

#### On Climate Change topic:

- what went well and what do I think I could have done better. Try do demonstrate how it could have been done different

**HARVARRD:** Consistency is the key

**WHAT DOES MY RESEARCH BUILD ON**
**ETHICS, what are the ethics around my project and will there ever be any issues**

- [ ] Maybe ask an AI for book reccomendations

### Meeting with Nathan Robinson 01.06.2023
What can I create for our world and how do we develop it further.

One aspect of the project is to look at for example the beginning of our world, a market stall and try to design this
- I am then able to research different mythologies and worlds to hide different types of elements into the scene. For example, As I wish to maybe bring norse mythology into our world, I could hide nordic designs in this Japanese looking stall. It would be a cool morph between the two of them. MAYBEEEE?
Environment artist: Talk to Jay at Expression Games again and ask direct questions on the workflow he goes through when he works

**Mushrooms?**
Comment from Hannah: Mythologies and folk tale was definetely created while some of these vikings and old Japanese people were on shrooms, maybe I could even find some actual research on this fact.

- One thing I could research is the difference between stylized environments and realistic looking environments. How is the workflow different from each other/or similar
- **PROBLEM: WHAT IS MY RESEARCH QUESTION** - Ask Andrew if this would be a correct approach

### BBC Radio session 08.06.2023
Makerbox
[e-mail]

equal-marked-princess.glitch.me
manual: github.com/bbb/adaptivepodcasting.github.io

Freesound

### On Climate Change topic:

**MUSHROOM BOARD JONSARA RUTH** Eliminate trash and chemicals. ——— A piece of mushroom board, created by Ecovative Design in upstate New York, has sat on my desk for the past six years. It has moved from the desk in my design office to the desk at my school office and back again. This product shows how rapidly growing spores of mycelium can be used to replace Styrofoam. Mushroom board is grown from an organic process found in nature. It can be molded into any shape or thickness. Ecovative uses vegetative waste material to create the structure for the board. If mushrooms replaced Styrofoam, we could stop using petrochemicals to make packing materials that create tons of trash and never leave the planet. Styrofoam is not only toxic to the planet, it’s also coated with chemicals that are harmful to humans. We could instead grow insulating material using the energy of the Earth. Package insulation is a huge industry. For furniture alone, shipping bulky items across continents requires tons of packing material. What happens to these packing materials at the end? They are thrown away and create landfills. With mushroom board, packaging material could be added to gardens. At the end of its life, the material could go back to the Earth, nourishing the soil in the process. Beyond testing this as packing material, Ecovative is experimenting with creating airtight, insulated structural walls and grownin-place building installations. It is also looking at replacing toxic spray foams, which are horrible for human and environmental health, with a mushroom spray that could fill gaps of any shape— and it’s naturally flame-retardant! This product is very exciting, as it combines cutting-edge science, technical engineering, and manufacturing know-how. Ecovative is also approaching the rollout of these products in a smart way. It is experimenting with firms in many different industries at once, including packaging, acoustic panel, and insulation companies. Mushroom board is about eliminating trash and chemicals. It’s a return to the Earth, but in a forward-thinking way. It shows that great strides in science don’t need to be artificial or synthetic.

Jonsara Ruth is assistant professor and founding director of the MFA program in interior design at Parsons the New School for Design, and she leads the Brooklyn-based design collective Salty Labs. k Ecovative Mushroom Board sample 12 4
Green, Jared. Designed for the Future : 80 Practical Ideas for a Sustainable World, Princeton Architectural Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/mmu/detail.action?docID=4514028.
Created from mmu on 2023-06-01 17:23:43.

### Myths
"For those who beleive them to be sacred truths, recounting and listening to myths is a process of communication with the metaphysical world of gods and spirits, at particular times and under particular circumstances in accordance with ractices required by their beleifs" (Schilbrack, 2002: 176- Christopher Flood)

## Change of Topic 07.06.2023

**Modular methodology for procedural tooling**

Create a process and methods and a type of system that other students should be able to follow in the future

Setting up a Japanese market stall with all different elements that can create different combinations for the market stall.

Inspired by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, I want to have a celebration of different styles for a lot of the elements


### Meeting with Nathan 09.06.2023

What is real procedural games?
Minecraft

Returnal is less

Why would I make this and how is it relevant as a gems artist?

time saving tool!

*Can investigaitng procedural help save time when building video game enviromnets?*

first challenge: figure out the styles and define them. Also research the possibilities of how one actually does this
70% will be textures and shaders

1
like Sable - Moebius style
Create a shader that is like this

Reach out to Shedworks!

2
outline like spider punk
Create a 3d model, then bigger then invert the material so its only visible

3
Gwen pastels
exploring these more

## Materials

UE4 SpiderVerse Style Shader 5$
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPIvaL7XiyI
https://tonjimenez.gumroad.com/l/rVfQO

Basics
https://www.artstation.com/learning/series/6E/creating-materials-in-unreal-engine?fbclid=IwAR3YBGqKjSWwkqBl7sqY9axRq0mTFLrw7AqcjBNw-o--eG1mt4XEPnm6lfM

With a Material Function, I am allowing myself to call the events I am creating later in a Master Material

The Master material is allowing myself to re-use function I have already created so I don't have to keep creating new materials for everything

Now, Setting up a Material instance from my master material, I can change up the maps that I have set up as default as well as changing other setings which I can create myself

Setting up a material function that I can then call in my main material, to create an instance that I will be able to modify easily. The pros of this is that I am allowing myself a lot of possibilities to create changes in the material instances rather than having to set up new main materials each time which will take up a lot of data

Calling the material function in the main material

The material instance with all the possibilites to make changes quickly

The reason to why I am creating a seperate MF to change the opacity is that there has been quite a lot of bugs if I am adding the opacity functions to the original master function. So in this Opacity material function, I am calling the attributes from the original master, just adding the functionality of opacity in case I want to play around with this at some point.

What I realised after following a full 30 minute tutorial on displacement and tesselation to move materials around with the material instance is that these functions has been turned off from UE4 to UE5 and is no longer available to use. This image showing the POM is then useless

### Cell Shading
**OR TOON SHADER**

From Matt Aspland on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwZH4jCO4ZM&ab_channel=MattAspland

Material Domain: Post process and the only thing visible is then emissive colour.

Post processing input of 0 so we wnat the post processing input of a scene texture

If A is greater than 0.5, we are going to be using the normal colour (full brightness) and if less than 0.5, we will be using half brightness

Making sure the sky box will not be affected by the cell shading effect

The way this material works is with a post process wollume where I call a specific material array in the render features

### Outlines

Tutorial by Evans Bohl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KvUfnrHcqM&t=29s&ab_channel=EvansBohl

Material Domain: Post Process
Blendable location: Before Tonemapping

Kernel

Detect edges

Defining the thickness of the lines

Fixing the issues of how the the lines are being read in corners

Detecting objects near and far away

### Edge Wear and Curvature
Creating Materials in UE 4 by Kem Yaralioglu,
but who then got his way of making it from Mark Serena:
https://markserena.com.au/post/ue_screenspacecurvature/


**CELL SHADING, TOON SHADING, STYLIZED STROKES PAPER EFFECT, DETAILED MARKS, HATCHING, OUTLINES**

## ZBrush

When opening a new document, click on "new document" to clean things up

Get the main shapes working at once with little geometry before starting on details

Main settings to play around with:

Use these brushes for Stylized rock
Mallet and TrimSmoothBorder


Process image:

## Stylized Style

"Challenges of creating stylized graphics

The challenge of stylized game art is conveying to the player what the assets, environment, and characters are typical with fewer details and put emphasis on the shape, color and form. Everyone knows what a birch tree looks like, you have probably seen one in real life, a movie or a photo. You can only imagine what a stylized birch tree could look like and this will vary widely depending on the pursued style and artist.

Stylization refers to a visual depiction, which represents an object without a full attempt and accurate representation of an object’s realistic appearance. This can include simplifications in shape, lines, color, pattern, surface details, functionality and relationship to other objects in a scene. Which is why stylization is most commonly used to describe an art style that has more cartoony features than a semi-realistic style that usually adheres to realism in details rather than simplifications. As stylized graphic are so varied, there’s no single set of guidelines in creating an art style for games. I divide stylized game art into two categories: Over-exaggerated stylization and Minimalistic stylization."
https://80.lv/articles/realistic-vs-stylized-technique-overview/ - 12.06.2023

presentation about stylized style:
https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spring20/cos426/lectures/Lecture-16.pdf

## Market_Stall

Own Drawings based on screenshots captured in Ghostwire:Tokyo


## Exploring methodologies for creating stylistic shaders

### Meeting with Andrew King 13.06.2023


SABLE Book: https://www.lostincult.co.uk/sable

Materials: Use the branch node "if..." to call functions

HTCL?
Create shaders or parametres that people can move themselves and create their own art styles

NPR: Non Photorealistic Rendering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-photorealistic_rendering

Examining procedural methods for modular stylized game assets

Shader Ball: Research and create my own shader ball

### Meeting with Andrew King 20.06.2023



* Explain more details of what I have currently explored when I am creating function materials, and calling them in master materials to then let me easily implement them in material instances
* density node?

Do:
- [ ] Set up an example letter I can send to industries
- [ ] Set up a design system of how I can show my research, look at the handout by Andrew King about procedural shaders for this

#### Letter for the people in the industry

Dear [Game Studio Name],

I hope this letter finds you well. My name is [Your Name], and I am currently a master's student in Games Art at [Your University]. I am reaching out to you because I am conducting research on stylized shaders in Unreal Engine 5, and I believe your studio's expertise in this area would be invaluable to my project.

I have been following the remarkable work your studio has produced, particularly in terms of the captivating and visually striking stylized shaders in your games. As an aspiring game artist, I am fascinated by the intricate processes and techniques that contribute to the creation of such visually stunning visuals.

With my research, I aim to develop a set of rules and systems for creating stylized shaders in Unreal Engine 5. I believe that gaining insights from professionals like yourselves would greatly enhance the quality and depth of my research. Therefore, I would like to request a few moments of your time to discuss the following aspects:

I understand that your team's time is valuable, and I would be more than willing to accommodate any scheduling constraints. Whether it's a phone call, video conference, or an in-person meeting (if feasible), I am flexible and eager to find a method that suits your convenience.

Additionally, I assure you that any information or insights shared during our discussion will be used solely for academic research purposes. I am committed to maintaining confidentiality and adhering to any non-disclosure agreements your studio may require.

Thank you in advance for considering my request. I genuinely appreciate your willingness to contribute to the academic community and foster the growth of aspiring game artists. I eagerly await your response, and I hope for the opportunity to engage in a valuable dialogue that will help shape my research in a meaningful way.

Should you require any further information or have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via the provided email address or phone number. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Warm regards,

[Your Name]

### Visualise Methodology Research Mockup

Should have a simple layout that can look good when it will be duplicated many times for print down a wall for example

Web

A4

### practice Based research

*The Problem*
How can one create stylized shaders that can be compatible with various shapes of assets in Unreal Engine 5 based on different styles

*The Context*
Seeing how stylized styles have risen in popularity with the growth of games and animations, I want to create a professional tool that explores different styles and is user friendly

*The Method*
Practice based research exploring how shaders work in Unreal Engine, trying to mimic styles of media I like

*The Outcomes*
A series of methodologies showcasing the shaders, explaining how they work and their nodes, a a shader complexity screen of showing how strong the shaders work for optimized gamification and a final render scene where these shaders are being showcased.

## PCG : Procedural Generation

"We want generator tp make something a human would make, or more precicely, something we didn´t expect would be made, a spark of genuine creativity. We want to be pleasantly surprised. This "Pleasant surprise" disarms the pattern-matching apparatus and steers us away from the quagmires of boredom and chaos, but it also happens to be very hard to accomplish with any consistency."
(Tanya X. Short - Kenny Backus ch2. p. 13, Procedural Generation in Game Design)

"*When spawning pieces of your environment, randomly rotate static objects to make them seem less similar to one another.* For example, if you have three types of rock, rotate them randomply, and clump them together in irregular patterns. The player will have a very hard time picking out patterns without closely studyiong the forck formations. Compare this to having the same three types that are evenly spaced and always presented at the same angle"
(--,,-- ch2. p. 19)

"The key to creating satisfying aesthetics is the creation of a collection of guides and rules that enable you to maintain a coherent look and feel across an entire project. This requires the development of a language that you will use to communicate the themes, sense of place and story of your game to the player. When working as a solo developer, these rules also serve as a guiding principle that will help to ensure the work you are producing today matches the work of the day before, or the days to come. The aesthetic guides you put in place set parameters within which you know you can safely experiment and imporvise without creating something completely inappropriate for your game."
(--,,-- ch3, Liam Welton. p.23)

"Modularity is the use of discrete units, called *modules* ´, to assemble larger structures, which we´ll call *gestalts.* Our motivation for investigating modular design comes from the combinatorial magic that modularity conjures. We desogn a few modules, along with an assembly mechanism, and we inhertit a plethora of gestalts for free. And gestalts are what matter. They´re the artifacts our players encounter and care about, be they dynamic puzzles, dungeon levels, or dialog trees. Modularity multiplies our work, often bearing novel results in the process."
(--,,-- ch 4, designing for modularity, Jason Grinblat p 29.)

"The many domains of potential design expertise can be reflected in algorithms we use to build our games. Where one designer chooses to generate a mountain range, another experiments with generating a brush-stroke and a third interrogates the variables in generating a suitably challenging opponent. The skills of the designer and the artist can be applied across a stunning variety of procedural generators.
From *Rougue * to *Minecraft*, the most famous examples of "procedural games" apply generation to their explorable physical spaces. We therefore begin with procedural level design."
(--,,--, p.55 - II (roman chapter number) Procedural content)

# Nocturne Oasis : The Phantom Diner of Tomorrow

## Change of topic 28.06.2023


* Wes Anderson
* Simon Staalenhag
* American Diner
* 50s vibe - Retro Fururism
* Early Hitchcock films
* Bowie elements?
* Solarpunk

A Wes Anderson inspired short film in Unreal Engine that can be viewed in VR? Set in me and Nathans world of course. Future dystopia, robots have taken over bla bla humans don't exist...
Not necessarily need to be too Japanese Shinto traditions anymore, but could be some nice framing used with the torii gates for example.


### To do:

Write a story with the help of Oliver Bishop perhaps and Jorge Walsh

Cinematography help by Ali Asadi
Maybe also get help with colour gradient and editing from him when the video is finished

Reach out to Gabriele for some architecture tips?

Reach out to Adam Cain for tips on my worldbuilding?

Reach out to that dude Nathan works with on tips on prop design

Robots: start drawing them!
And scenes

**NEED TO DO:**
figure out the research question

### To Do Modelling :

- [ ] Diner (at least the front of it)
- [ ] Phone Booth
- [ ] Cacturs
- [ ] Robot
- [ ] Light Pole
- [ ] Cool Phone inside phone booth
- [ ] Add a cool submarine to the background

overlay shots and analyse simons and wes anderson

inspirations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHJxri2N4HY

Wes Anderson's ad for Sony Xpedia
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xpma7x

!!!!!
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/5XDb91
!!!!!


https://www.factmag.com/2023/06/22/fact-premiere-equip-neurotrance/

https://www.factmag.com/2023/06/28/art-gaming-what-elements-should-every-game-have/

**SOUND:** Empty diner, but noises of people eating

**TITLES and QUESTION**

How Retro futurism can be inspired by Wes Anderson and create a new genre?

How Wes Anderson can be an inspirational help in game development.

### AI prompt to get myself started

Midjourney has been very helpful and it is exciting to see the growth of how powerful it is from trying it out for the first time around Novermnet, to see where we are standing now in June/July

A wrench

More robots

A cool phone inside the phone booth

### Meeting with Nathan 29.06.2023

Storyboard , blockout

Each scene needs something

What can I live with and what I can live without , very important to have an understanding of what I can loose

Start with key pieces

What makes a scene

The robot

If I am doing some game element, what are they, if it is player interactive, what would it be

Maybe move the camera slightly

Maybe click a light to turn on the diner light and then the video actually plays , then the mouse disappears

Openin shot: the robot standing i front of the diner, the player then has to drag the sun under the horizon to make it nighttime and the video will start playing.

## Blockout_Storyboard

I am lucky, because with camera movements withing UE, I am able to create symmetrical camera movements that would be very difficult otherwise when creating a film

Play with camera size and make this fit to different "periods"
Daytime can have one camera size, and night time can ahve another

Capture the essence of Wes Anderson, no need to copy his shots by shots

Costumes and set design that look theatrical

Storybook

Symmetry and the framing of mise en scene

## Story

**Flawed misfits**
Is a common theme and character traits for Wes Anderson's stories and characters

The main robot protagonist is walking through the desert to find the famous diner they have heard so much about.

SHOW: Maybe a poster on the ground that flies away with the ad of the place

Slow walking, hot sun. dst flying. Slow steps as they are getting closer to the diner.

They see it is deserted, absolutely no one there as they were promised in the poster. they look at the poster again and sees that it has another opening time they were not expecting. they go to the phone booth and has a call. The viewer does not know what they are talking about as it is in a robot language. They go outside the phone booth to the diner signs and stands there while they are waiting for the diner to open.

Fast blink to night time and our robot is opening up their eyes and see the diner light slowly turn on

Sound is suddenly heard from inside and we have voices and whispers and clinking in glasses. It is clear that someone is finally

## Sound_Design

Be bold, and make a statement when necessary
Otherwise, be subtle

Not much sound

## Character Design

Use of the primary colours simply, yellow, red and blue

## 3D_Modelling

LightPole

Tried to model in VR, but creating hard surface geometric models in painting for VR was very difficult. Will only use this software for when I am trying geometric shapes


## Tutorials

Matt Aspland on YouTube

## Posters and postcards (have retro stuff to show)

Factory Records: 8VO
Ground-breaking design collective comprising MARK HOLT, SIMON JOHNSTON and HAMISH MUIR which rewrote the book on graphic design.

"8vo design were an integral part of the Factory design family. Principally designing for label stalwart Durutti Column, 8vo also created some of the legendary Hacienda birthday posters, whilst still finding time to set the tone for late 80s design in the United Kingdom."

- extract from Inside Factory Design: 8vo at partypeoplemovie.com

## Nostalgia
"The word ' retro' has a quite a specific menaing: it refers to a self-conscious fetish for period stylisation (in music, clothes, design) expressed creatively through pastiche and citation. Retro in its stric sense tends to be the preserve of aesthetes, connoiseurs and collecors, people who possess a near-scholarly depth of knowledge combined with a sharp sense of irony. But the word has come to be used in a much more vague way to describe pretty much anything that relates to the relatively recent past or popular culture." - p. 12-13 Retromania pop cultures addiction to its own past - Simon Reynolds

"Nostalgia as both word and concept was invented in the seventeeth century by the physician Johannes Hofer to describe a condition afflicting Swiss mercenaries on long tours of military duty. Nostalgia was literally homesickness, a debilitating craving to return to the native land. Symptoms included melancholy, anorexiam even suicide. Up until the later years of the nineteenth century, this malady (in retrospect, obviously psychosomatic) remained the concern of military doctors, because maintaining morale was crucial to successful warfare.
So nostalgia originally referred to a longing to return through space, rather than across time; it was the ache of displacement, Gradually it shed these geographical associations and became a temporal condition: no longer an anguished yearning for the lost motherland but a wistful pining for a halcyon lost time in one's life. As it became de-medicalised, nostalgia also began to be seen not just as an individual emotion but as a collective longing for a happier, simpler, more innocent age.

...

#### The Modalities of Nostalgia , Michael Pickering and Eily Keightley 2006
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249680348_The_Modalities_of_Nostalgia
Nostalgia in the modern sense is an impossible emotion, or at least an incurable one: the only remedy would involve time travel" - p.25

"Svetlana Boym, the author of*The Fuure of Nostalgia*, talks about how it's even possible to be 'nostalcig for a prenostalgic state of being'. And it's true that when thinking wistfully about golden periods in my life, they all share this quality of total immersion in the now: childhood, falling in love, or phases of total in current music."

"Nostalgia became associated with a defeatist attitude to present andfuture, appearing tacitly to acquiesce in the temporal ruptures ofmodernity by its very assumption of this attitude. Nostalgia was alsoconceived as seeking to attain the unattainable, to satisfy the unsatisfi-able. If a dogmatic belief in progress entailed an ardent longing for thefuture, nostalgia as its paired inversion entailed only an ardent longingfor the past. It is, then, as if nostalgia arises only in compensation for aloss of faith in progress, and for what is socially and culturally destroyedin the name of progress.In longing for what is lacking in a changed present, nostalgia for a losttime clearly involves yearning for what is now not attainable, simplybecause of the irreversibility of time; but to condemn nostalgia solely tothis position leaves unattended not only more general feelings of regretfor what time has brought, but also more general questions for how thepast may actively engage with the present and future." - The Modalities of Nostalgia , Michael Pickering
Emily Keightley 2006

"Nostalgia can be both melancholic and utopian." --;;--

#### The Cinema of Wes Anderson - Bringing Nostalgia to Life

"Thinking of Anderson’s films, such as his early tour de force Rushmore (1998), one may immediately call to mind an extreme close-up shot of an actor, perfectly centered in the frame, displaying little to no emotion, or a vivid sense of nostalgia conjured by such signifiers as carefully
curated furniture, costumes and scenery, paintings, photographs, and music that create an Andersonian “mood” for the film, or even Anderson’s penchant for obsessively detailed diorama-like displays such as the cross sections of the boat in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) or the Bishop family home in Moonrise Kingdom (2012)." page - 1

## Meeting with Andrew 03.08.2023

When I'm reading and doing quotes, I need to make a connection of my own takes of the reading and how this inspires my project or moves my project

**LOOK AT VISUAL DEVELOPMENT**
Look at the visual development of how I and other people can achieve this
textures, models, materials and colours in a stylized style
bubblegum pastel colours

end: a modular kit on the full diner

**Retro futurism in modern media and where to fit in a realtime game engine**
Simon Stalenhag has a hazy desaturated like old photographs look, We Anderson is completely different

**Retro futurism**
What exactly is retro futurism? Retro futurism is not the old films that came out representing the future in its won time like Alien, retro futurism is how we look at the future from now, trying to see ourselves in that time now. META

**AI**
https://diffusionbee.com/
only on mac

For next week: try texturing to see if my models and textures are working for the ideas I am aiming for

## Getting help from people within the industry: Jay Donovan

Use the second diner, like a big burger

Find references: How does stitching and dust actually build up - rust research on metal for example
- games benchmark: games with a similar vibe or aesthetic that I look up to
- Blockout - general boxes in Maya and Unreal - get the proportions and lighting general working

Pipelane 1st pass-2nd pass-3rd pass
example, get basic colours down before detailing. just to get an overview of the general vibe

do not be precious about my own work, be open for changes and moving things on

## Meeting with Andrew King 08.08.2023

When I am modelling robots and other assets, using procedural wear and tear and rust effects to the model can look cool, but is it natural for the way the robot would be moving and where the worn edges actually would get worn? Right now, it might not actually be looking natural on the robot.

Rule of Cool
Sometimes, it doesn't need to have meaning though and can simply be cool

## Interview_Questions

* Were you able to apply your affects withing the material shaders, or did you have to use a post process volume to achieve it
* Do you have a recipe of your current work flow when starting a new project and starting from scratch to the final images you post on ArtStation

## Exhibition

Start thinking about and planning the space and equipment I wish to have/use for the exhibition

A retro desk with other retro elements where there is one monitor showing an animation of a robot sitting and putting a pair of VR goggles on. on the desk is the VR goggles that the viewer can put on

PLAY : A short animation video inspired by Wes Anderson. Taken place in me and Nathan's world

**Who do I want to invite?**
* Simon Stalenhag
* Wes Anderson

## Random Ideas

- Stylized vs. Realistic: Create a scene of a Japanese market/food stall. People are able to explore it "freely", have some strong constraints on the scene. With a simple button, they are able to jump between the realistic style and the stylistic style. There could be a feedback button at the end, which one did you like the most

- Cell Shading Technique for the Stylized graphics, toon shaded models

## Bibliography

Schilbrack, K. (2002) Thinking through myths : philosophical perspectives. London: Routledge.

Visual Aesthetics in Digital Games: A Comparative Analysis Between Photorealism and Stylized Graphics
Pedro Lopes Negrão de Lima
https://repositorio-aberto.up.pt/bitstream/10216/143676/2/575483.pdf