Theme of the day: work, work, work!! Visual Artists were polishing assets and finishing animations, getting ready to bring the game to life. We have some amazing elements, beautifully crafted for the various environments of the game. All of the characters have been given personality with their very own animations! Just wait ’til you see […]
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Day 9: Sprites & Production!
Visual Artists had their very last lesson this morning on how to turn their beautiful models into finished sprites, ready for game implementation. Gameplay Artists got a head-start into production mode, and they needed it–tomorrow is our first playtest together! It was amazing to be here today. There’s nothing like being surrounded by creative energy–everyone […]
Day 8: Animation // Heads-Up Display
The end of lessons is near! Today was spent stuffing a little more information into the remaining nooks and crannies of our brains. Phew! Everyone made it through–and with flying colours, I might add. Visual Artists learned the 12 principles of animation today, and got to describe some exaggerated character walks they each acted out […]
Day 7: Animation // Sound Integration
Today the Visual Artists team spent the morning learning the basics of animation. Throughout a lesson on the twelve-principles (which related to 2D hand-drawn characters as well as 3D), the students were introduced to the various subtleties of movement which give originality, personality and (most importantly) LIFE to a character or even an environment (eg: swaying […]
Day 6: UV-Mapping, Texturing // Importing Sprites, Adding Behaviors
We arrived Monday morning refreshed and ready to dive back into our respective software! After a brief meeting to review script/story changes, we were once again divided into our teams of Gameplay and Visual Artists. On the Visual Arts side, students were introduced to the concepts of UV-mapping and Texturing. That is to say; how […]
Day 5: Character Modelling and Level Creation
A few of the kinks in the game’s story were hammered out today as the group had some great discussions about gameplay, environments, and dialogue. There is still some work to be done, but we’re getting closer to having a clear picture of what exactly will be taking place as the player navigates through each […]
Day 4: Concept Art, Technical Drawing, Intro to Blender + Sound & Audacity
The day started off with a quick discussion about the story, which is being continually refined. As organizers, we’ve realized that in future workshops, we’ll have to build in more time for discussing the story and its transmediation (how it will be turned into a game). Luckily, all the 4.0 participants can arrive by 9:00, […]
Day 3: Iterative Design
Today we had two guests come visit in order to play, critique and recommend enhancements to our paper prototype. We re-welcomed Mohannad Al-Khatib (a veteran team member from past workshops) to give us his valuable opinions and feedback. Together, we chose to focus all efforts on a vertical slice of the expansive game to keep […]
Day 2: Design
In our welcome email to each participant, we asked that each prepare a story to present to the group; one which could either be original, traditional, fact or fiction. We spent the entire first half of today listening and discussing a wide array of myths, character types, games, books and science fiction theories. Some of […]
Day 1: Introduction
We hit the ground running today, the very first day of the Skins video game workshop! After a brief, introductory session, we watched a short video compiled by Beth Aileen Dillon entitled “Native Representations in Video Games“, which (as the title implies) showcases and critiques how Native characters have been portrayed in the last thirty-odd […]
