Project Report

The project that I created was intended as a demonstration of how light and colour can be used in environments to help evoke emotions (most obvious ends of the spectrum being happiness and depression), and also be used as a guiding tool for the player.  A single large environment was created for this purpose, as we wanted a very polished final piece, rather than a collection of smaller, less polished scenes. This had a major downside in that the project could only explore a limited number of colour selections, lighting techniques and styles. I feel that had we perhaps gotten our idea sorted at an earlier date, we could have perhaps explored these to a certain extent, before deciding to bring one further to a highly polished stage.

In terms of the aim of the lighting in the scene, I feel a good attempt at the was made, however due to technical difficulties with lighting in UDK certain aspects of the project were unable to be fully realised in the given time frame. For instance, due to problems with having static and dynamic shadows at the same time causing major performance issues, only one type of shadow was able to be used. This meant we chose dynamic shadows over the static shadows, as it was felt the day/night cycle was more crucial to the scene and allowed for more experimentation with lighting through motion. This did however mean all the static lighting in the rooms of the house no longer cast shadows, which definitely reduced their quality in my opinion.

A dynamic dominant directional light was used in conjunction with sky textures to mimic a moving sun, which acts as the main light in the scene, for other lights to be placed on top. Each light in the scene was positioned to lead the eye of the player in the direction of the next important point along a path, with light being left absent in offshoot areas that had very little path before ending. One of the best examples of this within the project is in the main entrance area as the player goes up the stairs from the lounge.

They are given 2 options – a left or a right staircase. The stair on the right is barely lit, only with what little light comes through the shuttered windows, while the stair on the left is light from below and above. While time ran out to conduct user testing, it is hoped that this use of lighting will make the player choose the left path, as they would feel it is the more inviting of the two.

One of my light design ideas I unfortunately ran out of time to add into the level was the fade to white when the player jumps off the church tower. Currently the player simply reaches the hole in the wall at the top of the tower, and jump down into the garden, where they can choose to explore further, but i feel the fade to white would have added a nice lighting element to the project, and a discernible end point

As for the use of colour, a lot more time ended up being spent on fine tuning the colour of the light rather than the colours in the scene itself, which is something I would have liked to have developed further, and feel would have greatly improved the project. This is not to say it was not something that did not have heavy consideration behind – The use of a Mediterranean style house was intentional as they are often coloured with yellow hues, which help provide a sense of warmth, especially when a strong light is applied on top. This sense of warmth and comfort was continued throughout the textures of the first half of the level, which should take place in the section between the morning and evening lighting

Garden Texture - Mainly warm oranges and reds, to reflect the sense of warmth

This project could have greatly benefitted from incorporating some quantitative experimental research, examining and using light and colour in more abstract spaces, and gathering data from player testing. Currently the research project examines the use of light and colour within a complex, realistic environment, where many other artistic factors jointly play a part in creating the mood, atmosphere and player navigation. By experimenting with the use of colour and light in very simple environments, devoid of pre-conceptions as to the function of the room, the time of day/year, etc., a better understanding of how colour and light work without these elements would have been achieved.

Post Holiday Panic

Well I had an amazing holiday, unfortunately i'm now regretting at least a portion of that fun because just as I feared I got very little work done in the last few weeks. I did however think of two more rooms to possibly add to the project artefact - A study and a bedroom - as well as how I can potentially use the colour and lighting of these rooms to expand upon the narrative of the environment. The "story" I described before was  quite vague, just about the symbolism of a journey through life, from birth to death. Keeping that original thread going, I thought a good way to evoke emotion would be to add these two rooms, and make them representative of key events in the player characters life.

In all honesty the mise-en-scene will probably play a large part in conveying this particular bit of story, but I am still confident that the proper use of light and colour in these two rooms will be crucial to both drawing the players attention to the key elements of the scene, and achieving the correct mood in the rooms in order to attempt to give the rooms content the right emotional association. 

This is a quick representation of the bedroom concept, very roughly modelled in Maya and painted over in photoshop.

I wanted the mood in this room to be quite sad, to represent the player characters loss of his wife. I've tried to use dull, muted blue-grays on the walls  to suggest this sadness, I chose pink for the bed-sheets as pink is often associated with love. I used a thin sliver of light from the window to bring the colour to attention, as a way of showing the room was not always so sad.

The lack of light in the room is intended to emphasize the sadness, by dulling the colours, and what little light there is will be to focus attention to the bed and picture. Overall I want it to be a lot darker I think, as the room is meant to be representative of a dark memory

For the study room, I found the colour choices a bit more difficult, I wanted to create a sense of loneliness and depression, requiring lots of grays, but also dark green to symbolise wealth, hinting at the function of the room. The Pink bed sheets on the sofa are a call back to the bedroom, to try and indicate that the player character sleeps here now, and in his grief has immersed himself in work. The light in the room will come mainly from the window which will be close-curtained in gray opaque fabric. I'm toying with the idea of having another light source next to the sofa, bringing the pink to a more saturated colour, for a similar effect as the bedroom.

Originally I had planned the new room order as Garden > Entrance > Study > Bedroom > Bell - Tower, but upon reviewing the flow of the emotional atmospheres evoked, It seemed odd to have the study before the bedroom, as the loss of the characters wife is the reason for him moving into the study and immersing in work. However reversing the two rooms creates quite a dramatic contrast between the entrance and the bedroom, so I have begun thinking another room could be neccessary as an intermediary, possibly a living room with a more neutral quality to it.

While I feel these additions to the project are certainly worthwhile in terms of improving it, there is a part of me that worries the project is getting bigger than originally intended, and I do not want to sacrifice quality for quantity. However I feel I am up for the challenge, the proper modelling of the environment is the part I have been anticipating with excitement, and my best work seems to come out of setting myself big, challenging projects I really want to do.

It never hurts to have a back-up plan however, so I've been thinking that should this prove too much, I could  cut some by changing the concept from symbolic of a journey through life, to just being the end of the characters life. Doing so I could keep the bell-tower, bedroom, and study as they are, remove the extra room (possibly living room) and the garden, and changing the lighting in the entrance to be more gloomy. But that is a change I hope I dont need to make, as I feel the current idea is much stronger, and as i said I still havent had a chance to catch up with Fraser since the holidays, so these ideas will be under discussion and could very well change.

But my first worry is to find the motivation to work again after such a long period of relaxation. With the deadline about a week and a half away, I'm quietly confident I will get a decent amount done, but most likely not as much as i had hoped when I thought I had a whole month to concept.