Week 5 Journal

Week 5
26/10/07

Throughout last week, the team has been concentrating solely on the deliverables, which are to be handed in on the 31st Oct. The first thing that was done was to plan the literature survey. We set upon a set of titles for the survey and then took a section each and started to write. After a day of writing, the document and the different sections were edited together by Nick. Once this was edited together, the team wrote the introduction and conclusion and then the abstract. Once all this was together and the first draft was complete, the team read through it and made any changes that needed addressing. This was then sent to Claire Brierley before the meeting on Wednesday, so she could read through it and give us feed back.

The next stage was to write the rest of the deliverables. The academic pitch was written by Nick, this was then passed around the team for them to review and suggest any changes. After a lot of team meetings, where we discussed what we wanted to go in the design document James went and wrote the first draft. When this was complete and the team had reviewed what had been written, myself and Nick went and refined the document until we were satisfied that everything had been included. Finally, the milestones had to be decided upon. Nick had devised some milestone dates, which were discussed between the team and then document was written as a group

On 24th Oct we had a meeting with Claire Brierley who gave us advice about improving our literature survey and academic pitch. The recommendations were taken on board and we changed our literature survey and academic pitch accordingly.

On 25th Oct we had our team meeting with the supervisors. This meeting went very well as they were pleased with the progress we had made with our deliverables. Advice was given to us to improve the design document and plan. For more details, see the team blog.

For the next week, the aim is complete the improvements for the deliverables, and start to have team meetings as to how we aim to work towards the next milestone.

Week 4 Journal

19/10/07

After a meeting with the supervisors on 18/10/07, it was decided that we would have to focus our research on only one aspect of mise en scene, as there are too many variables for us to test in this project.

After a team meeting it was decided that we should concentrate on colour and lighting. We already had research into this area so continuing our research would not be a problem.

Journals

El-Nasr, Magy Seif (2005) INTELLIGENT LIGHTING FOR GAME ENVIRONMENTS School of Information Science and Technology Pennsylvania State University
http://faculty.ist.psu.edu/seifel-nasr/conference/Magy_JOGD.pdf

Week 3 Journal

Week 3

16/10/07

This week I have concentrated on reading the final journals and books which are listed below.

This week we also had another meeting with Dr. John Charlton, in this meeting he gave us some more resources to look at including extracts from a book on emotion. (For more details, refer back to the team blog)

The final thing I have been doing is planning for writing my part for the literature survey. This is what I will be working on over the next week.

Reading

1.

Gibbs, John (2002), Mise-en-scene: Film Style and Interpretation. Great Britain, Wallflower Press
Chapter 1. The elements of Mise-en-scene, Pg 5-26

This opening chapter from this book outlines what mise-en-scene is, and gives examples from films and goes into great detail about each aspect of mise-en-scene.

2.

King, Geoff. (ed.) Krzywinska, Tanya. (ed.) (2000) Screenplay: Cinema/Videogames/interfaces. Great Britain, Wallflower Press

Chapter 5. Vision and Virtuality: The construction of Narrative Space in Film and computer games

Chapter 6. Watching a game, playing a movie. When media collides.

Both of these chapters proved useful. Chapter 5 was about how space can be used in computer games and compared it to the use of space in film. This chapter can be linked with a previous journal, Composing Space: Cinema and Computer Gaming - The Macro-Mise en Scene and Spatial Composition.

Chapter 6 was looking into games cutscenes and how game designers are use film techniques to make cutscenes fill cinematic.

3.

Block, Bruce (2001). The visual story: Seeing the structure of film, TV and new media. Great Britain, Focal Press

This is a very interesting book and I feel that this will come in very handy when we start to look into making our own scenes using a games engine. It goes into detail about how to utilise each aspect of mise-en-scene.

4.

Game Theory Episode 25 - Design
http://www.gametheoryshow.com/index.php?post_id=264810
Date accessed: 14/10/07

This is a Podcast that had a interview with Activision games designer James Portnow, in one section of this Podcast he discusses the role that colours play in games design. Listening to this prompted me to look for Portnow’s Games Design Column.

5.

Portnow, James (2007) GAME DESIGN: The Effects of Colour
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7288&Itemid=50&limit=1&limitstart=0
Date accessed: 14/10/07

This article goes into why colour is an important factor in games design. We have already read into this and this document goes well with what has been read already

6.

Portnow, James (2007), GAME DESIGN: The Bifurcated Mind
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6652&Itemid=50&limit=1&limitstart=1
Date accessed: 14/10/07

This was an interesting article to read. It goes into the choice that gamers are given throughout the game they are playing and weather this can be used to greater effect. It asks the question weather the choice we are making is just a calculation:

“Recognizing the difference between choice and calculation is essential.”

This goes very well with the link that we found between film and gaming.

7.

The Valve Developer Community, Colour Theory (Level Design)
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Color_theory_%28level_design%29
Date accessed: 15/10/07

This article explains why it is important to have the right colour in games. It has a good example where it looks at a screenshot of Half Life 2 and explains what colours are used and why.

Week 2 Journal

Week 2

09/10/07

This week I continued with more journal reading which are explained below.

Upon receiving the first task which is due on the 31st October, the team started to discuss ways in which this could be completed. We have started this by narrowing down our research to areas that we feel are important and we now feel we are getting closer with a pitch idea.

This week I have concentrated on reading documents about mise en scene and the subjects that this raises such as lighting techniques in games.

On 09/10/07, the team had a meeting with John Charlton. This was the person who we were advised to speak to in our first team meeting with the supervisors, for full details on this discussion see our team blog.

Journals

1.

Anthony, Reverend (2007) Bioshock’s storytelling flaws
http://www.destructoid.com/exploring-i-bioshock-i-s-storytelling-flaws-46498.phtml
Accessed 4/10/07

This is a document that goes into great detail about the recent game Bioshock. It raises a point about cutscenes and weather they should be interactive or non interactive. It goes onto explain that the cutscenes can remove players from the experience if done incorrectly.

It then goes into the mise en scene in Bioshock. It talks about the visual clues into the story that the player can see if they explore the world in Bioshock thoroughly.

2.

Anthony, Reverend (2007) Fun isn’t enough: Why video games have to move beyond simple escapism
http://www.destructoid.com/fun-isn-t-enough-why-video-games-have-to-move-beyond-simple-escapism-30905.phtml
Accessed 4/10/07

This Blog raises some interesting points. The first of these is that it suggests that gamers always remember sad moments in games more then they will remember happy moments. This is an interesting point as it suggests that sadness is a much stronger emotion then happiness. It also gives a few examples of how emotion can be evoked using simple ideas such as having to protect a vulnerable NPC throughout the game, if this NPC was to die suddenly, the article asks how would that make you feel.
It also has this quote which describes how games can be used to stimulate emotions.

“But consider the attributes of video gaming, as a medium. Video games can use text in large quantities without receiving copious amounts of criticism. Video games can use lighting, cinematography, mise en scene. Video games can use music, and video, and illustration. And, most importantly, video games are interactive. Video gaming, as a medium, is the single most inclusive art form ever created. Not only can it use the tools of filmmaking, illustration, literature, and music, but it actually forces the participant into the situation instead of allowing him to act as a passive bystander”

3.

Seif El-Nasr, Magy, Niedenthal, Simon, Knez, Igor, Almeida, Priya, Zupko, Joseph (2006) Dynamic Lighting for Tension in Games
http://gamestudies.org/0701/articles/elnasr_niedenthal_knez_almeida_zupko
Accessed 6/10/07

This article spoke about how lighting can be used to evoke emotions from a game player. It has some very good quotes which I have included below:

Games simulate many elements of traditional media, such as plot, characters, sound and music, lighting and mise-én-scene.

…“game aesthetics” as a sensory phenomena that the player encounters in the game: the visual, aural and haptic (and embodied) experience of gameplay (cf. www.gameinnovation.org), while the other defines it as an expression of the game experienced as pleasure or emotion, with focus on the “aesthetic experience”

According to psychology theory, the prototypical aesthetic experience is one in which attention is firmly fixed upon the components of a visual pattern, excludes the awareness of other objects or events, is dominated by intense feelings or emotions and is integrated and coherent

…just like light in real space, simulated illumination in virtual space has a direct effect upon participants’ emotional experiences. Knez and Niedenthal (forthcoming) have demonstrated that warm and cool simulated illumination conditions have differing emotional and performance effects upon players

Currently, game developers and designers adopt cinematic and animation lighting techniques to enrich the aesthetic sense of the virtual space and the gaming experience. For example, game lighting designers manually manipulate material properties and scene lighting to set a mood and style for each level in the game.

This document goes very well with The Expressions of Colours journal, as this article explains about different coloured lighting and the effects it can have on the gameplayer. This article also the type of experiment that they carried out and the results that they got from them

4.

Jones, Mike, Composing Space: Cinema and Computer Gaming - The Macro-Mise en Scene and Spatial Composition.
http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/research/conferences/imaginary-worlds/composing_space.pdf
Accessed 7/10/07

This document goes into great detail about the macro mise-en-scene which I have been reading and watching about in previous journals and videos. Below is a selection of quotes from the document which I found interesting.

The process of designing and producing a 3D game is both aesthetically and practically that of creating a macro-mise en scene containing the entire imaginary world. During game play individual frames will be ‘composed’ by the camera/player but the larger macro-mise en scene remains fully intact and the player/viewer’s awareness of it as a composition is never diminished.

…the Macro-mise en scene. The audience may be viewing the narrative/story/experience through the hard borders of a visual frame but there is no illusion or pretence of the frame presenting any sense of a totality of vision because of a larger composition constructed for the viewer through spatially specific sound. The viewer accepts that the frame is just a small part of the composed scene, not the scene in it’s entirety.

All this would imply that, if it can be argued FPS gaming and the worlds games construct holds at its core an ideal of immersive realism, then Half Life 2 is a game that confirms Bazinian ideas of long-take mise en scene as the best embodiment of cinematic realism.

Other things which the document talks about is how important sound is to the macro mise en scene because it helps make up the scene around the player.

During this last week my journal reading has become a lot more focused on the important areas of the project, such as macro mise en scene and more focused details on mise en scene such as lighting and the use of colour. Over the next week I am hoping to decide (as a team) a final area of investigation for this project and start to writing up the literature survey.