3D Character Assignment: Usagi, The Silent Wastelander

Character Design for 3D Class- This is the character turn around, to be made into a model within the coming month.

Destruction Inspiriation

One of the best destruction scenes in animation, Ghost in the Shell directly inspired the famous hotel lobby scene in The Matrix with all the pillars and the like. Being able to create destruction of this magnitude would  be awesome!

Exploding Slot Machine Test

Watch me DIE!! over and over again in this Damage and Explosion Test!

It's both painful to be around AND create! 

Level Intro Emulation- Mario Kart

One of the best racing series in the video game industry is of course, Mario Kart. Because of their amazing, colorful designs, one of the things they have in abundance is their very expressive levels. So, every time you enter them, they show you all the landmarks or great parts about the Tracks! While I love Luigi's Circuit the most (for personal reasons) the whole game is a great example for showing tracks.

Exploding Barrel Design

Programming for Artists has been an interesting expereince. While it has served as a major point of frustration in my days here at Ringling, it has also brought on very complex problems that feel worthwhile exploring and solving. While this is the case, it's also extremely enjoyable to get back to drawing and designing things that I may have in my level. With that being the case, We'll move on to the matter at hand: 

The Exploding Slot Machine! 

Many games like Mario Kart, which have a very fun, and quirky aesthetic to them, have cool and strange objects that are part of their level design, which give personality to their games. For my level, I want to have a cool, exploding slot machine, that can slow you down as you hit it, and even damage you! 

Slot machines are very strange, since their function has evolved immensely with the rise of touch-screen devices. Now-a-days, you'll only see touch slot machines in high-end casinos. 

For my specific slot-machine, I went a little more traditional- with handle and all. Here's a few of my inspirations: 

First Beat Sheet

One of the first of many beat sheets, detailing the level that we're creating in our Game Design class! They work sort of like thumbnails, as well as storyboards, for our levels, showing how the course would be played.

Racing Car Level Research

For our Game Design II class, We're creating levels based on a similar theme: Pinball Machines.

The games we're making, are Racing levels, which have destruction based gameplay. Thanks to this, I'm able to show one of my most favorite chases that were made using GTA V. 

This too, also gave way to seeing an interesting mod that highlighted a very cool mechanic I wanted to use for the game level, one that's been tried and true for many of the racing games in the past, particularly the MarioKart Series. 

While MarioKart itself does not have any of the realistic cars, and sleek, photo-like look of GTA, it does contain something slightly better. Imaginative courses, that even come to par with our own. One, for example, is exactly our own theme: The MarioKartDS course, Waluigi Pinball:

Waluigi Pinball shares the same themes as the level we're designing, but also has a casino like feel, on par with waluigi's own greedy nature (with the Wa in Waluigi, literally meaning evil). It is why many of the colors are blues, purples, yellows and reds, all having a dark tint, or high saturation. This is a similar color scheme I want, but not one so...Evil. 

The primary idea of the level is to have Neon lights predominantly showing in most of the level, leading the player, as well as giving encouraging, and not-so-encouraging statements to the drivers. The concept statement would most likely be: 

"Bright Neon Lights Blind You To The Dangers On The Track!" 

Lights would be used to hide, or obscure the player's sight, so that they would have to be careful as to not fall into any of the pits, or find any of the traps that would destroy their vehicle instantly!

The rough level so far, would consist of many sharp turns and falls, as well as jumps that would ramp(hehe) up the action more than a simple, static course would.