FINAL ANIMATED INTRO

1.flv from Jimmy Nguyen on Vimeo.


2.flv from Jimmy Nguyen on Vimeo.


3.flv from Jimmy Nguyen on Vimeo.

4.flv from Jimmy Nguyen on Vimeo.

SCENES (STILL IMAGES)

 Those are just main scenes... The rest I have done in After Effect with animations

HOW DID I DO THAT!

I'm not that skillful in drawing, so drawing everything from scratch is almost impossible for me. To make it simpler and still effective, I composite the scenes with real images. Here are examples :
1) Get some resources

2) Composite into a complete scene

3) Outline

4) Turns into B&W and changes blend modes

5) Applied effect by using brushes (This is still images I showed my teammates, when I made animation I found some smoke footages)

STORYBOARD

I drew a storyboard as always starting an animation.

INSPIRATION

At the beginning of the project, Lockie told a bit about the intro animation, so I've been looking for animation inspirations since then. I got this one-man project, it's so awesome.


Nothing To Fear from Simon Russell on Vimeo.

Comment : the black and white are very contrast. It is simple enough to make, but still pretty.

LAST WEEK FOR THE INTRO

I finished all the sounds, ship designs and animations. Zach and Lockie also finished their parts. The game was then in shape, all important elements we planned were done. For the last week, Lockie and I wanted to do the Introduction for the game. Lockie told me swiftly on the story script and ideas.

PLANET EXPLOSION EFFECT

Lockie was the guy in charge of all planets, but he asked me to make an explosion animation for the Earth.

FINAL SOUND SETS

Thrusting sound set
Warning Sound Set
Planet Explosion
Ship Explosion
Switching
Meteor Hit
Power-ups
Selected sound

I made about 5-12 variations for each sound sets so my teammates could choose whatever they wanted

GENERAL ON AUDIO

In general, I collected sound from free sources... Some of them I cut off from a whole audio clip by using Audacity... Some of them I mixed.
At beginning I used the tool that Mr. Kah provided to us : on website bfxr.net
However, Lockie didn't like it since they were kind of 8-bit game, didn't fit for realistic style.
Here are all the free sources I used to find those sounds:

soundbible.com
www.flashkit.com
www.looperman.com
soundcli.ps
www.sounddogs.com
www.freesound.org
BBC Sound Effects Library
www.soundbyter.com

TO-DO LIST FOR AUDIO

About the audio, here is my to-do list:
- Thrusting -> 4 types of ships
- Backtrack
- Ship Explosions
- Warning
- Power-ups
- Switching menu sound
- Selected sounds
- Planet Explosion
- Meteors hit ship

BACKGROUND MUSIC

My friend - Long - he made for us the background music.
2-min background music
He made this version two minutes of loop music.


Feedback : Lockie asked for more variable, like in 20-30 seconds of 3 or 4 different parts of sound.
Long then remade it.

Final Background Music

WARNING ANIMATIONS - THRUSTING STATES

Lockie asked for the animation while the ships thrusting. I missed the rocket ship (black version) so Lockie fixed it by himself.

Nuclear ship

Electric Ship

Solar ship

WARNING ANIMATION - NO THRUSTING

Nuclear Ship Warning Animation

Rocket Ship Warning Animation

Electric Ship Warning Animation

Solar Ship Warning Animation

Just used some simple brushes to make the flash.

TILT ANIMATION

To be honest, I had no idea how to make a top-view ship tilted. It was a bit frustrated being stuck for few days without any ideas doing that. After that, I decided to model it in 3D and from that made a reference to draw.

 I could visualized it but to could not draw it. I don't know but it was really hard for me.

After hours and hours trying to "feel" it in 3D, I was still stuck at drawing it out. It was really problematic with the angle and rendering it. I then started it again in 3D with much better 3D model

It took me a whole week just to figure out how to deal with. The next class session, I discussed it with Lockie, he then said we got more important things needed to be done rather than tilt animations. So tilt animations were always just attempts.

NEW TASKS

After the first presentation, we got quite a lot changes we needed to implement into the game. So my task was updated :
- Tilt Animations for the ships (to show how the ship rotate around)
- Warning animations when the ships are getting close to a planet.
- Do the audio now

EXPLOSION ANIMATIONS

Nuclear Ship Explosion Animation
I turned the fire into green as a common colour for nuclear

Rocket Ship Explosion Animation
Used the hatch (#) brush to put a mask onto the explosion. The last frame I combined two explosion images and blend them together.

Electric Ship Explosion Animation
Still used the hatch brush plus the smoke brush as well, kind of better outcome. I chose the colour scheme that I thought it fitted the electric ship very well.

Solar Ship Explosion Animation
Big sponge brush, applied some self-made explode effects. Breaking the ship apart and fade out the animation.

TRYING EXPLOSION ANIMATIONS

I looked for some real explosion images. They have real fireball that can save much much time and also for better effect. All I needed to do was composite and tweaked them up.

Here are some trials tweaking up things

The 3-frame one was much better, but the below still had a cool effect though.

THURSTING ANIMATIONS

I thought of green for atom reaction so I applied for the thrusting. You the brush and mask in Photoshop to make these.

Lockie didn't like the thrusting too long, so I made it shorter.

Tried with free fire brushes online, the outcome was great. Lockie changed the ship body's colour into black after that. (I don't have that file)

Applied of an online tutorial of displace... Also used twirl effect

Thrusting made by myself, using spiral and motion blur

ROCKET SHIP CHANGED COLOUR

Lockie changed the colours for rocket space ship since he didn't really like the colour scheme for that one. I absolutely agreed with him since I didn't feel like it.

OUTLINE & RENDER - SOLAR SHIP

Pink Outline (I chose different colours from black to feel it different)

Final Outline for Solar Space Ship

Textured applied, better reflection and refractions than previous types of ships.
Final Solar Space Ship Concept

SOLAR SHIP CONCEPTS

At the beginning, I didn't know where to start with a solar-tech-based ship. I needed to implement the solar characteristic into the ship, but really didn't know how to.
I did think this was going to be the final solar ship concept... However...

This doesn't fit so well, I myself and my teammates feel it like a 5-star tourist cruise rather than a solar space ship.

Again, I practiced with my graphic tablet. Also I got some reference images for solar panels, so I could render it more properly with the high intensity reflection.
Feedback from teammates : they like the 5-petal flower idea, but when it doesn't work with top view. Therefore, none of those are chosen.

I got real problems with sketching this type of ship. So I went to a silent place and back to papers and pencils... Sketched something

Feedback : The pirate solar ships were for-fun ideas but my teammates like it. In 3D, it looks nice but not for the top view. The rest doesn't work out with top views.

It was a bit frustrated for me to draw the 3D view then top views through a lot of ideas. So I decided to design straight into top views for this final type of ship to save much time. The last one on the right was the final concept for solar space ship.