Storyboard

I have finally made a story I'm pretty happy with now!

Before this final story I had came up with a few others which weren't good enough.

But here's the script a story beforehand

Tetra talking about how she can climb to the top of the redwood and how she will show him.

they pass chris and he starts yelling at em, 

Chris: hey you still pretending to be going out? everyone knows you're gonna come out that huge closet together? I mean it's probably close to bursting with all those basketballs (gestures to tetra) and bowties or whatever crap you wear.(points at coats)

Tetra : Ugghh, is that all you got? Cause I bet you're gonna regret it when we turn out way smarter than you and end up being your bosses!

-Coats already starting to walk away-

Chris: eh, maybe Coats, I've heard how he talks, like a fenchy puff pastry. But look at him he's running away!

Tetra: ughh unhg!? oh! 

-she runs over to coats- 

Tetra: Come on he was on his own! we could have totally won there!

Coats: I don't think anyone was gonna win there, y-you know people like that. stuck in a mindset and won't budge.

Tetra: can at least TRY to change him, like, I'm sick of this! every time we walk past him. 

Coats: -hold his head- just gotta try to avoid him, can kinda see that mess of hair from a distance.

Tetra: yeah, hey! how bout i show you my tree skillz!

-Cut to a park tetra in a tree-

-Coats looking at a girl(Bex) making flirty gestures- 

Tetra: ey hey you looking? -is behind coats and he's not looking, Tetra is off screen- 

ARE YOU LOOKING!? 

-Coats is startled by tetra's yelling- 

Coats: ugh UGH YEAH!!

Tetra: Look I got to the top! And you promised me if i could you'd try to climb!

coats:...ah sugar lumps i did...ugh. 

-He looks at the tree worried and jumps for a branch, won't let go.-

Tetra: Aww das not even trying! 

-shot cuts to coats handing, tetra jumps down-

Tetra: Want me to push you up

Coats: N-no NO I'M FINE! I'll just...stay here.

Tetra: You are about 1 foot from the ground c'mon you can totes let go!

Coats: Have you seen my legs! they can't take a drop as big as that!!

-Tetra Sighs, puts her arms round coats- ok let go...

-coats does so and she puts him down-

-Coats Is on the ground and hugs tetra- 

Coats: No more tree's!! 

-ends up on his knees hugging her legs-

   

Tetra:..Uuhhhh...we can go to the suit shop...like..if that's better? 

-Coats Does a camp tee-hee giddy thing-

Coats: Eeee! really! YOU wanna go for once?

Tetra: Aahh uhh suure.

-It cuts to inside a suit shop coats looking at a full 3 piece suit-

Coats: One day...ONE DAY I will have you! 

Tetra: pppfttt yeah like in 30 years! 

-hanging off a clothing poll or sat on top of a high shelf, is yelled at to get off-

Coats: Stop that man! we're gonna get thrown outta here! But uhh, hey are there any suits here you'd wear?

Tetra: Ey are there any suits that you can like run around in?

Coats: N-no no! You don't do that to poor suits! Think of the silk ascots and ties! think of the velour!

Tetra: But think of ME running round the court with a tie around my head, being a friggen cool kid!

Coats:...tha..that's not cool :c mother you ruin everything!! wwaahh waahhh!! 

-fake sobs near the door-

Tetra: It's okay son, mother will never run in a suit, so long as you never get stuck in a tree again.

-They leave the store and end up passing Chris's house, Coats freaks out but Tetra wants to tell Chris off for his behavior before. Chris' sis Bex is there this time, as Tetra comes into there garden yelling Bex questions why, Tetra claims Chris is a bully-

Bex: So you think Chris is a bully?

Tetra: Well YEAH all he does is give us a hard time! Your whole house is just weird!

Bex: uh? So...ugh what am i then? If Chris is a bully what label you gonna give me then?

Tetra: Well..i dunno, ain't you a slut or something? I heard guys talking about you.

Bex: So, I like sex huh, woah how awful of me. 

Tetra: Well that's not awful but I mean Chris he-

-Shows coats talking to Chris, Chris head in hands-

Tetra: What the!? Why he, Coats?

Bex: Chris is gay tetra...And our mam doesn't like it. Pretty silly isn't it. 

Tetra: wWell how were we suppose to know! 

Bex: And how is Chris suppose to know you from first glance? What do you think he labels you coats as.

Tetra: He labels him as gay, even though it's a lie.

Bex; maybe Chris thinks Coats was the same as him, to afraid to speak up. If you met Coats for the first time What would YOU label him as.

Tetra: eh I i can't put a label on him! He's...he's got to much going awn!

Bex: exactly...

And the plan i had before the finalized story, I had a longer version where Chris ended up finding them in a clothes store. same story just dragged out. 

I wanted to show Tetra and Coats in both of there preferred environments.

Very rough sketches on paper.

The journey

After being told we were to give a small presentation about our journey through MA and what we plan to do for the final semester, I went on to try and think how i ended up here and say it in an understandable way.

So...

I had initially started looking into female characters in games.
The first thing that was pointed out while comparing males with there female counterparts was that female characters are more often sexualized.

Which in turn made me instantly want to design and model characters with no possible sexualization.


At first i was going to make higher poly characters, around 10K after being interested in 'Borderlands' style.

But seeing the low poly count and sharp shapes in black water gospel, with there amazing textures using a heavy amount of black lines, I lowered the poly count, using mostly alpha's for the detail such as mouths, hair and eyes.




And because I rigged 3 character that i felt would be easy to animate due to there low poly count.
I had my first go at a walk cycle.

I realized i was not a big fan of manual animation.



I then looked further into the more negative traits seen in media, knowing what sort of things to avoid. Things like only having 1 female character in a group of main characters.
Female roles that are used mostly to drive a male character, such as killing the female off or most there dialog revolving around trying to make a male cheer up and become a better person.

And at this point i was doing the essay, my subject, ’Are sexualized women needed to make a mature game popular?'
And with that essay I came to the conclusion of no, female characters do not make a game popular and nor to males.
Game play is what sells a game, visuals in general will also differentiate a game, however characters with personality will make the game more memorable, quotable and overall more enjoyable.

So it became more important to me to design women with more diverse personality traits and looks to them.

And at this point I had noticed it wasn't just female characters who were being poorly written and under developed.
Male characters also tend to just be lumped into a singular trope, they may still get majority of the attention in games so statistically more likely to have more well written and diverse, but a lot of them seem to have the same stereotypes.


This lead me to want to create men and women who weren't the typical game character personality, I wanted them to emote and have feelings, not revolving around revenge or strength.
I wanted males who could share feelings without being considered not a 'real man' and having females who didn't want to show skin or show emotions or have a typical game girl body and be considered not a 'real woman'

Feelings don't make a character weak, they simply make them human, relate-able, and far more interesting.

After the second essay the animator Candy Guard was most useful, she said that anthropomorphic characters let you make content about gender roles without making it to obvious.
She also mentioned personality being more important than the design, as her animations were very simplistic, but you wanted to see the characters interact with each other anyway because they were written well.


So i ended up having 5 characters who wouldn't fit into the stereotypical role usually found in games.



I had my adventurous tomboy who likes to be considered one of the guys.






A feminine male who has a love for fashion and is incredibly skittish when it comes to conflict.






Another male character who had the general masculine features, aggressive and closed off emotionally, he was also gay and felt it threatened his image if it got out.





A 2nd female character who was shy but fairly open about her sexuality and permiscuois but was shamed for doing so.






And finally a 3rd female who looks very masculine and cave man like, a cold and uncaring woman because she's been treated like some sort of freak show because of the way she looks.





Originally i was going to make a game idea with these characters, but a lecturer in drama was asking for 3D models for his students to work with using motion capture data as they wanted to try a new form of acting education.
As games are using the mo-cap technology more and more it will be useful for students to learn how to act in motion capture studio's.

It's also a completely new way to act for students as they may have to try and move as thought they are the cartoon characters shape, bigger hands, shorter legs etc.

This opened up a new way to showcase a story using my characters interacting with each other. Filming the students faces while doing these animations so i can add details
to the characters faces on top of the gestures made with there body.

So for this to work, I had to learn the program motion builder, as you had to set up a special rig in this program so the skeleton knows which bone is a thigh, an arm etc. So it can move with the drama student.

Now i have 2 of my 4 characters ready to be used with the drama students. I just have to come up with some form of narrative that I'm happy with, for them to act with and be directed.

I will try to come up with a story that involves a lot of body language and gestures which also shows characters that are likable and fun, yet branch out from the stereotypes. So both me and the drama class get something out of it.


So for my final 3rd semester I'll be creating and animating a story, I'm going to have to create the 3D environments which will depend on what the story's going to be. I have up to 5 possible characters to use