BAF: Futurlab

The first talk of the second day at Bradford Animation Festival's Game section was featured by Futurlab members Callum Roberts, Chris Goff, and Jack Hamilton. They are a indie based company based in Brighton, and have been going since 2003. Their most successful and recognized game was Velocity, for which they are preparing a sequel which was released on PS Vita, PS3, PS4 and Steam. Velocity 2 is a top-down and side-on 2D platformer, with clean, pixel based art. This was to create a style that looks great but is also fast and easy to adapt between artists to ensure consistency. My favouraite part of the talk was about character design by Jack Hamilton, (the long haired fellow.)

The game features female lead Kai,who at the end of the first game became fused with the Quarp Jet. The idea was to use this technology to create a bio-mechanic look on the character, and while still look like the character from the first game, look iconic and predominant. Hamilton showed many stages and iterations of development of the character from hair styles to costume, the process was lengthy but fantastic. He looked at exploring the exaggerated designs that were far too over the top, but stated that even though he knew these wouldn't be used they were essential for some small details and elements might work and become part of the final design. He also talked of contrast and colouring, making the character stand out form the background that changes from dark to light. this was achieved by the dark costume that is outlined with a bluey electrical tinge. I loved viewing Hamilton's work and the rest was just as outstanding.

 The villainous Vokh were designed with three words in mind: Beautiful, Imposing, and Angelic. They are space faring creatures who desire perfection, ascension and domination. They are very snooty, consider themselves of more importance than others and have no problem  making it clear amongst other races.

Red was used as an authoritative colour,  the higher status of the character the brighter and more red he had in his costume. This was also apparent in the environment design of their planet, I think this was a very clever idea that brought a visual sense of culture amongst these creatures. I also liked how they are designed to be taller than people, and build their camps and bases when invading planets above ground level, in what looks like a small watch tower, as all this was done to emphases their 'looking down' upon other races.

The final piece of concept art was about another race, a friendly, submissive, intelligent, humble species called Jintinda. These guide the player on their adventure and have an amphibious appearance, living in a swamp like planet with water and land much like earth. These used more circular, rounded patterns and shapes in their design as apposed to the angular sharp edges in the Vokh to give them a calming, non-threatening appearance. Their faces were designed to have familiarity and simplicity, with 'tenticle hairstyles,' this allowed each character in the race to be easy to differentiate between but also instantly knowing what race and character they are.

A piece of software Futurlab used was called Alchemy, which allowed the quick sharp effects of a pen with straight to computer and Hamilton praised it for not having an 'Undo' button. I instantly know I've find this very frustrating as I always make mistakes and sometimes by accidentally making a mark when I didn't even mean to press a button.

The Environments were made to stay coherent with the characters, so they would fit their natural world. This ment the Vokh had angular, sharp, abstract white buildings  with red patterns which looked very art deco and geometric and the Jintinda had rounded, soft, swamp-like landscapes to fit their amphibious appearance. If the Concept art of the environment was of high enough quality it was often directly translated into the game. Though the cut scenes they made as short as possible, adding as much information into a short space of time so they were exciting and they player could quickly get back to playing.

The animations were set at 60 fps, so the movements were soft and created smooth transitions. Even the game was 2D, a 3D model of the character was built as tests were faster accomplished using 3D software. Another very interesting point was when the fact that animators often have a mirror on their desk, so they can pull faces and see exactly how they look, which I found very exciting as this is what I do when story-boarding my comics.

This talk was very educational and aspirational for me as the concept design element was heavily talked about. It was also very nice as the amount of detail they go into with their characters is similar of what I do for mine, so it's nice to know I'm on the right tracks.