The Animated Self - Sounds

Various sound effects were gathered together from Youtube and other free royalty free websites, sadly the BBC ones that I had borrowed were all a little too calm (But I can most definitely use them for another project)… it was surprisingly hard to find realistic enough train sounds (Or clear enough ones for that matter, there were quite a few that sounded far too muffled as if they had been used for a really old show), and ones that sounded eerie and grating enough (I almost decided to simply import an audio version of a random Silent Hill 3 walkthrough so that I could use it's train squealing sound effect).

Thankfully I didn't have to record any screams (I had thankfully found a decent one as well as had some done for me by a friend, though they were a tad too humorous and had to be edited a little) since it was already 4am by then, I did however have to do the monster's screech, and while that was fun, I had hurt my voice just a tad when doing the lower growls, several clips were recorded and then mixed together with different effects given to each of them to create an inhuman sort of sound.

I was exhausted but doing the sounds has always been pretty fun for me, maybe I will get a chance to do some voice acting once we start collaborating with one another.

The Animated Self - Animating

Seeing that I only had two days to finish this up (So I had initially thought… well, we still have to submit the first version at least), I had to cut back on a lot of details, most of these scenes are just still images that are later on edited to have some movement in After Effects. 

As seen here the background, Felicity the central character, and the groups of people crowding around her are all separated into their own layers (The background was separated from Felicity just in case I needed to make any changes in details to it).

A little shadow was given to her body after on a separate layer, which I then
decided to combine for easier animating later on.

David gets a cameo for his contribution.

Nothing but straight lines for the first bit of the background.

Once I figured out a train interior design I was somewhat satisfied with,
I then started shading it in.

I then added in a bit more lighting.

I had to mess around a bit with Felicity's sitting pose, initially it had looked
like an exact copy of Chihiro's in Spirited Away, I also thought that
she looked a little too composed, and so I went with something that shows
more exhaustion.

Seeing how monochromatic everything already  is, I had to sketch out the crowd
in red so that I could actually see anything when I started painting over it.

I was considering adding in some blood details, but it would take away the tension I was trying to evoke… people however would probably still question why is it that woman in the bottom right is crying. To create better focus on the main character, I then painted a shadow over most of them.

The background perspective turned out to be a real huge pain in the ass,
I had to decrease her size and draw out a rough outline of her body to better figure it out.

After numerous attempts and references that weren't all that helpful...

After animating the head turning bit, I then started painting in her hair, it had originally simply looked like a blob without any volume whatsoever and it just looked so darn weird… (I think I had a gif for it, but for some reason it won't upload properly here, so I will just talk more), so I decided to take a bit more time in improving the movements of her hair sliding off her shoulder.

Another layer was placed over the last few frames so that there wouldn't be
a spastic change of hoodie shadows.

For the last scene where she reaches for her mother, I was clearly rushing with this bit and was thankful that the last section where she gets thrown from the sudden braking of the train had to be done quickly (So I didn't need to be too precise with the details on her).

I had originally drawn her arm frame by frame while copying and pasting
the hand, but in my rage I decided to scrap it and try something else.

The arm was instead separated into two sections, that I started to piece and position together for each frame, while it still looks pretty stiff and weird, I think it looks a lot smoother than the other hand drawn version.

I after that rushed to paint in each figure, coloring any transparent bits first.

I then once again did some quick shading.

I was suggested by my teacher to lessen the shaky movements of the train, which I will definitely do once I get some sleep… and fix up that darn white line at the top of the reaching scene… that's just my fault for not shading that sill properly.

The Animated Self - Horror Video Game Teaser Trailers

Siren/Forbidden Siren

This is a little over 30 seconds (But heck there are normally teasers that last for nearly a minute), this teaser shows a wide array of characters (And enemies), presented in that frantic and catastrophic manner to invoke confusion and fear, where no real hint is given of the plot itself, but does give us a taste of the terror we have yet to experience (There are very small hints of gameplay in there too, but it is pretty hard to tell them apart from the cutscenes) . What is interesting to note is that the title shown at the end is still listed as their working title, once again a reminder that a lot of changes tend to take place during the releases of these teaser trailers. 

Silent Hill 3

The voice over with the little girl wasn't actually something featured within the game, so this is another one of those examples of teasers where notable changes are later on made to the final product. While it is meant to be creepy, I'm glad that the game was a lot scarier than this little girl made it sound, haha. I still did find the arrangement of these clips nicely put together, especially for such a short duration, it actually goes along pretty well with what the dialogue, despite how cheesy it might be. 

Silent Hill 4 (Warning: A little 'screamer-ish' at the end?)

Silent Hill 4 continues the tradition of showing a compilation of really short but scary clips and images, this one however does focus on one enemy in particular, for those that had played the previous titles, seeing such a humanoid enemy (Well, a more humanoid than ever enemy) should pique their curiosities at the changes made for the 4th installment, and will most definitely excite them at what new scary changes they are going to make (Considering the presentation of this one). 

Not even the main character is actually shown clearly in this teaser (Save for one for very brief scene where he is getting attacked by her), the distorted noises used for her definitely makes this one of the scarier teasers around (Akira Yamaoka always was the master when it came to that), it is a really nicely done one where no dialogue is at all required.

Shadows of the Damned

This teaser focuses a lot more on what enemies will be seen in the game as well as the gameplay itself (Albeit very briefly), it has a pretty b-horror feel to it overall and is definitely a lot more action oriented as compared to the rest (Actually, this is dumb, I should be honest, this is a Suda51 game, and most of the time they tend to be hilarious and perhaps politically incorrect). It gives a pretty classic and brief introduction as to who the main character might be, with some really rocking' music playing (If only for just a moment) to set the tone and mood of the game.

Alice: Madness Returns

When it comes to horror game teasers, there are possibly two methods in presenting them, one is to show a montage of really short clips that normally evokes some sense of panic, or to simply focus on one enigmatic scene…

It definitely gives off a different effect, instead of causing frantic confusion with really short clips that only gives its audience a face view of things, I believe one single scene does allow the audience to better familiarize themselves with the important character/s (At most the protagonist, I am putting it down as important character/s as some teaser trailers do sometimes focus on the villain instead… or even a side character that's just there to set the scene). Alice: Madness Returns had been a long awaited sequel at the time, and so these 

Noticeably the following teasers do get a little longer as we start to better familiarize ourselves with the main character, and so a little more insight is given into the game as well, with new lines, new scenes, but just enough to excite us as the release date nears… Though this game actually uses originally done animation for its teaser trailers that are never featured in the game itself, the design of Alice is also incredibly different to the final one seen in the game.

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Reflect - Changes to Final Product

So I made quite a few changes to my idea in the past few days due to time constraints, and so I don't think that I was able to keep a consistent art style for this one, as I ended up doing some of the drawings and animation in a much simpler style (I think the only thing that remained consistent was the hard brush I used throughout, haha).

Initially I had wanted to do my presentation in the form of an animated scrap book, where the animated illustrations would also be placed into them, I realized however that it would take some time to tweak it to my liking (Such as how the next image would appear as the page is turned, I really didn't want it to just suddenly pop out of nowhere once the pages have been flattened. Still, I was glad I made my first attempt at rotoscoping, I might be able to use this for another project in the future, so it is not all for naught.

I hadn't realized that the black pages would make it so difficult to see
the outlines of the turning page, so I was glad that it turned out pretty well
considering the wild guesses I made as I blindly traced over them.

After cleaning it up a bit more, all I did was stretch the image so that I wouldn't
waste most of the space available on the sides of the screen.

I kinda liked how it looked, but I felt that so much tweaking was still required,
and I was starting to get really exhausted and confused trying to find the right
layers in the thousands that I had made.

While we were advised to avoid using Powerpoint and be a little more creative, I decided after awhile to use it to arrange all the images and little animations I had done, it also makes the timing for each one a lot easier to control, I really didn't have enough time to estimate how long each one should last and so as always, Powerpoint was a big help to me.

I had also realized how silly it was to waste so much space in repeating animations (With less than ten frames sometimes) for nearly twenty seconds, and so after testing out to see how different the gifs looked in terms of quality to a video or normal JPEG image, I decided to export most of them as gifs. Some of them might be a little pixilated, but otherwise they shouldn't be that bad… (I hope)

I am still considering whether I should put in some music, the only thing so far that I have actually put in is a sound effect for one animation, I might go in that direction (I really wouldn't  want to pick a piece of music that would irk any of my classmates), gathering other sound effects for the other images and animations shouldn't be all that hard.

There are still two more I hope to do, but right now it's time I switched back to my other project. Will I survive and have all these finished by Thursday? Stay tuned.

Limbo

Limbo is a puzzle platform video game (It doesn't actually fit any of the well known horror game genres, but I would consider it as one due to it's eerie art style and subject matter) that was released in July 2010 as platform exclusive title on Xbox Live Arcade, though thankfully ports were made later on to the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Windows. It was the first title by indie Danish game developer Playdead (While the second project is presently in the works, not much is known about it at this time).

The game is a 2D side scroller, incorporating the physics system Box2D to govern the environmental objects and the player character. The player guides an unnamed boy through incredibly dangerous environments and traps as he searches for his sister. Players are actually expected to fail numerous times throughout this game before finding the correct solution, hence this is why the developers called the style of play "trial and death" (Poor thing…), using interestingly gruesome silhouette-like imagery for the boy's deaths (Poor, poor thing…).

God, this is Heart of Darkness all over again...

The game is presented in black and white tones, using lighting, film grain effects and minimal ambient sounds (The soundtrack available only lasts for less than 20 minutes too, but Jesus, listen to the "Rotating Room" track when you get the chance...) to create an eerie atmosphere often associated with the horror genre, since the pre-release of a development screenshot, the game's art style and presentation has actually managed to stay consistent though the development cycle.

As many have said before, this game has been classified as an example of video games as art, much like the works of ThatGameCompany, the game breaks away from the usual norms implemented into video games we normally see in larger franchises (Though of course we still love those kinds of games, don't get the wrong idea), going for a more unique and unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty in design (Which is most definitely present in this game). 

The decision to go for a more minimalistic style was a clever and creative one, considering how it allows the players to deal with threats within the game in a surprisingly different manner (For one, by having better eye sight and keeping you more on your feet than ever before), it really did allow the developers to focus more on the gameplay design, and much like Okami, avoiding more detailed/realistic graphics was really a blessing in disguise, considering how well received the art style was for this game.

And I'm pretty sure that this game was able to get the special kind of reaction it wanted from its audience, especially with its interestingly open and ambiguous story and eerie but rather enthralling, absolutely atmospheric setting.

While not much is given about the storyline of this game, save for the tagline "Uncertain of his sister's fate, a boy enters Limbo" and of course the title itself, those are probably enough to hint at where this actually takes place, as well as perhaps explains the open ending to the game… oh wait what am I saying? They obviously aimed to make this game open to interpretation from the very beginning. 

As he looks for his missing sister, he encounters only a few human characters, who are either aggressive and wants him dead, runs away, or are dead (The latter are the most helpful of them all, just a heads up), strangely however there are practically no more humans seen about in the second half of the game...

Inspirational stuff, these art games...

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Kuon

This full blown image on their site gave me a heck of a shock the first time I found it.

Kuon is a really underrated survival horror video game developed and produced by From Software (The same folks who brought you Demon's Souls and Dark Souls) in 2004. 

Oh yeah no surprise there...

The game is based on an ancient type of Japanese horror story called kaidan, in its broadest sense, kaidan refers to any ghost or horror story, but it has an old-fashioned ring to it that carries the connotation of the Edo period Japanese folktales, and so this term is no longer as widely used in Japanese as it once was; Japanese horror books and films such as Ju-On and Ring would more likely be labeled by the katakana hora (horror) or the standard Japanese kowai hanashi. Kaidan is only used if the author/director wishes to specifically bring an old fashion air into the story (Such as this game, which is quite a rarity, even among all the japanese horror games we have seen thus far).

The setting takes place in a dark and gruesome mansion in the Japanese town of Kyoto where mutated creatures and other horrors lurk. The game is set during the Heian Period (794 to 1185) of ancient Japan, most of the game follows the protagonists as they explore a feudal Japanese manor at night (Oh god why?!), as well as an old mountainside temple. The main antagonistic forces or the game are various forms of undead, including ghosts and resurrected corpses, but the latter aren't just your typical zombies, they are horribly mutated monsters created from fusing several dead bodies together.

There are a total of three playable characters featured in the game (The third one however will only be unlocked once the chapters involving the first two characters have been completed), throughout the game the characters encounter a pair of mysterious twins, often found singing a dark aria, the player eventually learns that they are the manifestations of two evil mulberry trees (Kids… right?).

While it most definitely has a fantastic ambience to it, it is once again the game mechanics that causes the overall grade for the game to fall short (The running feature seems almost pointless, so as long as you have the utmost patience when it comes to your characters walking throughout the whole thing). 

Nonetheless, it is most definitely an entertaining game with really interesting (And dare I say beautiful) visuals, the creature designs are pretty darn amazing, while they might not seem like the most creative ones at time, the designers have done a great job in bringing out the creepiness factor for each and every one of them. The atmosphere is just so darn amazing, especially when one normally might consider that a gore-fest staging might ruin the eerie mood and tone (I mean, tunnels flooded with blood and rooms filled with severed body parts are scary, but it definitely does not give off the same feeling of the unknown like a deserted factory or hospital will, with no signs of the true horrors that are hidden within until it is too late...), and folks should simply give this game a try just for the experience.

Now if you will excuse me, my laptop has been behaving weirdly throughout this whole write up… I think it's time to restart it before moving onto the next subject...

The Animated Self - A Small Intro into Teaser Trailers

A teaser campaign is an advertising campaign which typically consists of a series of small, cryptic, challenging advertisements that anticipate a larger, full-blown campaign for a product launch or otherwise important event. These advertisements are are "teasers" or "teaser ads". A teaser trailer for an upcoming film, television program, video game or similar is usually released long in advance of the product, so as to "tease" the audience.

Movie teasers are usually made for big-budget and popularly themed movies. Their purpose is less to tell the audience about a movie's content than simply to let them know that the movie is coming up in the near future, and to add hype of the upcoming release. Teaser trailers are often made while the film is still in production or being edited and as result they may feature scenes or alternate versions of scenes that are not in the finished film. Often they contain no dialogue and some have scenes made for use in the trailer only. Some teaser trailers show a quick montage of scenes from the film.

"Well way to ruin the whole movie! Teasers these days give away 

waaaay too much." ~ Some Youtube Guy