###### tags: `Uni work` `Games art` `Innovative Practice` # <19096503>1J5Z1022_journal (https://hackmd.io/@fd9CN8fTQKOfbEHhoj1LQQ/rJfTek5Mi) ### Innovative Practices in Games Art (1J5Z1022) ### Games Art BA(HONS) L5 ### Junaid Sheikh --- # Introduction Innovative practices refers to the ability to investigate how to reinvent a currently existing process of development and highlighting opportunities that bring a motion to innovate. The aim of this project is to understand how to do practice based research that could help to refine my skills. With the theme of time travel that was presented, I was in an interesting position to look at past eras in time for inspiration or to innovate a future society by learning from our current civilisation. --- ## Topics of research There are a variety of practices that have been used to create games since the beginning of the video game industry. All video games have had technical limitations to account for, so their art styles, programming for AI controlled NPCs and actions available to the player interacting with the game have been created with that in mind. There were multiple areas of research I decided to consider, as innovative practices in games art does not just relate to scientific methodologies, but also artistic and technical ones. I would look at the representation of social groups in video games, how they've developed and how they would be portrayed in the future. Below are some of the concepts I thought of while considering my research question. - The portrayal of gender roles in earlier time periods and the expectations of those gendered roles in ancient civilisations vs in the future. - Why some religions have continued to secure a following throughout centuries of historical events and some have faltered. - How old empires/ societies would be portrayed at a time in the future. --- ## Research Question After considering my concepts I chose to look at gender role representation and how they would be portrayed in the future. This is a relevant topic of question as the representation of gender has fluctuated in all forms of media, not just video games. Genders in video games have been binary in its representation, so I would innovate this topic of interest. ***Investigate how genders have been portrayed over the course of the video game industry and how this could be innovated.*** --- ## Concept After proposing a research question, I was able to concept ideas for a video game where I could explore gender representation in video games. Below are some concepts I created for video games where I could choose to tackle this research question. ### Game Concept #1 A game concept focused around a civilisation that has been brought to the modern era. That civilisation would be modernised and adapted to our current civilisation or a futuristic one, and through this, the gender roles would have changed. ### Game Concept #2 A game that will transport a person who has experienced hardship or has changed the world in a previous historical era into the current era. They will explore the current era environment, spreading some positivity and hope for people in our era while also allowing for people to understand past hardships that helped people get to the society we live in today. Notable examples: - Soldiers in historical wars such as WWI brought into modern society to see their efforts that created the society we live in today. - Historical figures such as Marie Curie, Abraham Lincoln or Cleopatra transported to modern society. --- ## Research I conducted my research according to the research points I outlined below. This would allow me to conduct relevant research that I could use for my own concepts for a video game based on gender portrayals and time travel. - Accuracy of games set in a historical time period. - The portrayal of architecture in the region. - Structure of the community, activities and lifestyles of the people. - Whether the region had a democratic, monarchal or dicatorial leader. - Themes of oppression, diversity and segregation. - Themes of unity, collaboration and growth through discovery. I began researching historical time periods, looking at the environmental representation and portrayals of characters from those eras. This was a baseline for conceptual research to inpsire my own concept. ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/S1suRaXEh.png) Pictured above: Conceptual timeline mindmap of ancient civilisations I wished to investigate. After consideration, I chose to look at Japanese media for inspiration, looking at their representation of gender roles in historical arts, anime, video games and manga which are popular forms of storytelling devices in Eastern countries. --- ## Research: Traditional vs Modern representation Historically on a worldwide scale, female members of society have assumed the role of supporting masculine leaders. In most civilisations women were those who tended to their homes, raising offspring and their spouse who in turn would go out to do laborious jobs or support the war effort as soldiers. ### Research: Traditional Japan In early Japanese society, the religion of Shinto encouraged female rulers as women were assumed to be more peaceful than men. Most women of this era were responsible for protecting the home and were expected to submit to their husbands or elders. The reputation of a polite, respectful and quiet woman was highly regarded. The Heian Era of Japanese history is regarded as the most prominent in cultural developments, believing it to be the golden age of Japan's history. In this time, noblewomen pursued creative disciplines, working class women worked in fields and created textiles and women with economic status would raise their children and tend to the household. However, women's roles stayed traditional, many lost rights and few received an education. During the Heian Era, aristocratic women would impact Japan's culture through writing, art and poetry. A female author, Lady Murasaki, wrote the novel ***'The Tale of Genji'***. She learned how to write by eavesdropping on her brother's lessons, as education was limited at the time. At this time, women are credited with the development of **Hiragana**, a Japanese writing style. Arranged marriages would provide status and power to children of those families, even if they were female. In the Kamakura Era, women began to be taught martial arts from a young age with expectations of protecting their homes. Some of those women trained to be samurai, aiding male warriors in battle. Female samurai would protect their homes and families during wars when men would enlist to fight. As Buddhism spread, the status of women declined due to Buddism picturing women as evil. It is important to note that in Feudal Japan, marriages required equal social standing with the aim of improving political alliances. Romantic love was not a consideration in arranged marriage and was instead treated as a relationship between a feudal lord and their subject. Multiple female warriors have followed the path of 'Onna Bugeisha', choosing to take charge and break the bounds of female representation. Empress Jingū rose to the occasion following her husbands death. She was pregnant with the future emperor when she wore men’s clothes and rode into battle with other samurai into battle to which her successful tactics allowed her to continue to rule as an empress, subduing revolts and fighting off invasions for the next 70 years of her life. --- ### Research: Modern research In modern society, some of those roles still remain predominantly male or female due to natural capabilities of certain genders, but modern men and women are given the opportunity to pursue any field of work to achieve their life goals and sustain their lifestyles. Women are not expected to marry for political alliances and are encouraged in finding the right partner they can romantically engage with to raise children with the right ideals. There is no inherent desire to have children under the notion of military and political strengthening, instead countries now utilise trade and cultural appreciation to benefit from globalisation. The modern Japanese man and women follow different traditions compared to western countries, a lot of which stems from ancient traditions where elders would be spoken to with respect. The Japanese language has three writing systems called Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, each with their own formal and informal expressions of language to address a superior or subordinate within the workforce or to show respect to an elder or person who has established themselves as successful. --- Using PureRef, I wanted to create a moodboard of gender roles in Feudal Japan and in modern times to compare and understand how gender roles have developed since then. Below is some of the artistic representations that have portrayed Japanese men and women of Feudal Japan, serving as a storytelling device for the roles they played in history. ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/H1jDuZ4E3.png) *Pictured above: Female representation in Feudal Japan.* ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/ByBNbS44n.png) *Pictured above: Male representation in Feudal Japan.* ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/B1m5rBVVn.png) *Pictured above: Representation of gender roles in modern Japan.* --- ## Research: Gender representation in video games I chose to look at various video games to see how genders have been portrayed as part of the game's lore and whether those roles have been inspired by real life representations. ### Zelda: Breath of the Wild Zelda is a video game series involving a Princess and their loyal subject who vow to destroy an evil force that exists in the kingdom they reside in. In earlier Zelda titles, the Princess Zelda is considered a damsel in distress that Link, the character you play as, has to rescue due to various enemies that pose a threat to the Princess or to the kingdom. However in Zelda: the Breath of the Wild, the Princess' story is given new light, portraying her as a sort of magic force that can repel the villain, Calamity Ganon. Princess Zelda became a more important part of Link's story and the quest showed development in her character. Link as a character also saw some innovative redesigning, changing their old masculine frame and look for a more gender neutral appearance in the newer installments of the game. This is a key development in the Zelda series, as the game franchise have made conscious efforts to reinvent the 'damsel in distress' genre of games that used to be popular into a more inclusive game that appropriately acknowledged gender roles. ## Research: Time Travel represented in video games I chose to look at a recent video game release that explored ancient Japan and included themes of time travel to understand how the culture of the time was portrayed and how I could use this to influence my concept of time travel. ### Pokemon Legends: Arceus Pokemon Legends is a recent addition to the Pokemon franchise that chose to explore influences of ancient asian civilisations. The video game franchise typically created games in a contemporary/modern setting and took inspiration from current era countries to represent its various regions in each game, so in Pokemon Legends, a new refreshing take was brought to the table. The game involves a young protagonist being sent back in time to create the first pokedex, which brings the player from a modern era civilisation to the ancient civilisation of Hisui. The game is based on the island of Hokkaido during the Muromachi period, an early era of Japanese history. The game represents ancient Japan well through artistic design for map and rawness of the terrain providing the sense of an untouched, wild world for the player to explore. Pokemon Legends turned the tables on players, making them experience a life before cities were built and requiring the player to utilise stealth to escape from risky encounters rather than the player being the instigator of an encounter. The theme of time travel is prominent in the story, as it is the cause of the issues that arise around the region, and its the task that the player is made to resolve in order to restore peace to the people of ancient Hisui. --- ## Concept Development After researching about themes of time travel and gender representation in various forms of media, I began concepting ideas for characters that would exist in a modern/futuristic Japanese civilisation. I wanted to respect the traditions of Japanese culture, so I saw it fitting to use the design of Yukatas as a source of inspiration and to show the culture continuing to live on in the future society. I decided on concepting a video game about time travelling Samurai, Onne Busheiga and other warriors of Japan that have transported themselves from Feudal era Japan to modern/futuristic Japan, with the same desire to rule and protect their kingdom. --- ## Process: Character Art Workflow Method I began concepting some characters, creating silhouettes as a blank canvas for further development of my concepts. When designing silhouettes, I made sure to keep to the traditional clothing styles of feudal era, while interpreting the clothes to fit a more modern fashion style/modern armor. Samurai plated armor were quite durable, and it was likely that plated armor would be able to stop bullets, so I decided to take a stylised approach to designing different characters. ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/Hk8cGXKBh.png) *Pictured above: Character silhouettes, designs vary from masculine, feminine and neutral designs to have a variety and create inclusivity.* --- After creating silhouettes, I selected a few that stood out, and chose equal representatives of male, female and neutral gender character designs. These would be developed into sketches that I would later use for creating final designs for characters. ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/SJSHmQKSh.png) *Pictured above: Male designs for Japanese characters.* ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/HJxEEQtB3.png) *Pictured above: Neutral designs for Japanese characters.* ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/rJqvE7Yrh.png) *Pictured above: Female designs for Japanese characters.* --- ## Process: Character Concept Art After producing sketches, I selected one of each group of sketches, making sure to have one male, one female and one neutral character that I could use to represent different gender portrayals of Japanese characters. ![](https://hackmd.io/_uploads/r1Cfr7tr2.png) *Pictured above: Concept Art for a female, neutral and male character, wearing stylised Japanese Yukatas.* ### Creating Shaders After developing character art, I decided to research technical methods for developing environments. I looked at the process of creating shaders in unity, as previously I would custom make materials in Adobe Substance Painter. Creating textures for 3D models in Substance Painter is quite easy, but requires a lot of separate data files in order to import textures into a game engine, so creating shaders in game engines is a more efficient way of creating texture assets that can be applied to various 3D models in a scene. Using the node system in unity, I was able to create custom textures and apply height to flat textures while also creating custom modifiers for offsetting the mapping of textures and through the use of noise, I was able to create distortion and create elements of randomness to the pattern. ![](https://i.imgur.com/fnQqCmz.png) *Pictured above: Workflow of different modifiers that create a textured stone pattern.* ![](https://i.imgur.com/ZfYZFuo.jpg) *Pictured above: *3D model with an applied shader.* --- ## Investigative Workflow After looking at shaders, I was able to learn about the use of Motion Capture and 3D printing. Motion capture is the next step after producing a 3D character, allowing for the creation of custom animations. Motion capture is a great way to produce fighting animations, interactions with the environment and capturing facial expressions. This would be the next step after developing 3D assets as it would allow for me to bring my characters to life in the game environment. 3D printing is a great way to visualise how a model looks. Creating 3D models on screen, even with scale modifiers can be difficult to understand in context, so being able to 3D print models would allow for us to understand how a character looks in 3D as well as provide a canvas for designing the colour scheme for the models. 3D printing can be beneficial when testing how colours on a model looks in different lighting effects without needing a game engine to add these changes. Various game studios have 3D printed models in order to paint these and scan them in later for colour mapped data. This would mean that painted textures would already have been applied properly without the need of creating UV maps for every model, saving time and creating a more efficient workflow for character and environment design. ## Further Development plans Due to constraints, I was unable to progress further in producing my game assets. If the opportunity to develop this project further was presented, I would have liked to 3D print my work in order to paint models and collect different data sets for these characters, create my own motion capture data for my characters' animations and import these into a scene to see how these would work.