Final Exhibition

For me, games have always been a form of escapism. From being able to immerse myself and create my own fantasy world detached from reality, it has helped me cope with problems that I’ve been faced with throughout my life. 

Stemming from my love of games, I’ve always enjoyed drawing and designing my own characters to suit both existing and my own worlds I created. Because of this, I decided to showcase my imagination into my exhibition.

Therefore, my initial idea for the exhibition was to create an game world and bring it out into the real world to attempt to merge the two worlds (fantasy and reality) together. However, trying to convert a piece of art that is small and two-dimensional into something that is huge and three-dimensional proved to be one of my biggest problems. This is because even though digital can be manipulated to make it seem three-dimensional it is still on a two-dimensional surface.

Because of this, I had to rely on placing lighting intricately to give the illusion that it has some sort of three-dimensional quality to it. Therefore when I was placed in a large white open space, I had difficulty trying to achieve good lighting. Because I could not create the appropriate environment in this space, I moved into a narrower, darker space where I could truly experience how lighting would effect my piece. 

I had also wanted to show not just my characters design, but also my journey throughout the past year by the evolution of my characters and the story that was involved with them. Therefore, I wanted to have both of my characters fighting the creature. However, due to the complications with turning my digital pieces into a three-dimensional environment, I did not have enough time to complete a second character cut out. Because of this, if I had more time I would ensure that I created my second character so I could fully showcase my journey as a game concept artist. 

I had originally intended my piece to be purely printed out digitally to show my skill and focus on digital art. However, I found out the digital came out patchy due to the different lines on the paper. To fix this, I decided to paint my pieces with acrylic paint instead. I had also intended on having 3D pieces in my work, but I found out that the sculptures would be too heavy to be placed on the wall. 

I ended up solving this by changing how I placed digital pieces on my work. I instead cut them out based on the shapes, as well as only digitising a few of the pieces that are meant to stand out. 

Despite all of the problems I had encountered from my exhibition, I believe that I have still managed to complete what I had set out to do; making my own characters and environment into real beings. I also believe that my exhibition is also very immersive to the viewer by engaging more than one of the senses. As immersion has been such an important component for game worlds for me, I wanted to ensure that viewers could experience being a part of the world just like I do.

QR Code

     After viewing the Birmingham exhibition, I decided to use a QR code to provide viewers with information as to why the character is fighting the creature. This will help give viewers the ability to understand the context and be able to look more in depth at my piece once understanding its story. 
      In addition to this, my concept art sketchbook will be beside my piece for viewers to look through and discover my characters' journey through initial ideas to final designs. 

Link to PDF file

Blue Spotlight Experiment

- Annotations in sketchbook - 

Adding sound to exhibition

After visiting the Birmingham exhibition and seeing all of the environments, I had concluded that in order to make my environment truly immersive I would need some form of sound. Adding sound will also allow my piece to become more engaging from the outside, as people will be drawn to my piece from hearing the sound but being unable to see my piece from a distance.

Based on my environment in the exhibition, I had to look for potential sounds that would be suited in that environment. As my environment is inside of a cave/lair, some sounds would be:

• Ambient sounds 
• Echos
• Wing
• Water droplets
• Monster sounds
• Bats
• Insects

I began looking for audio samples of various sounds I could use for my environment from free audio sample sites such as Soundbible.com. 

Sound samples:

(Sounds for cave)

Wind
Wind2
Scary Ambiance
Water Droplets

(Sounds for creature - sounds must be snake-like with a hiss, or not too much alike a growl as it would not suit the creature.)
Snake Hiss
Monster Growl

However, individual sound samples would not be effective and I would have to place them all together in a repetitive and realistic fashion to create a long soundtrack for the environment. As I thought this would take too long, I decided to look for ready made and free videos of cave ambience (which are often used for players to immerse themselves in games such as Dungeons and Dragons) to see if any could be suitable for my piece.

Cave Sounds

For a cave sound, I decided to choose Dark Cave Ambience | Cave Soundscape | Echo Sounds and Water Drops by Ambient Relaxation. 

I felt that this video had all of the necessary sounds such as the echo, ominous ambience and water droplets which I felt was vital in the soundtrack. As well as this, the sound is not repetitive in a way that it is predictable, making it seem a lot more realistic for a sound. However, the video lacks a monster sound which I felt was important to give the creature a much more menacing appearance and make the sound less calming. 

Because of this, I decided to focus my attention more on creature sounds to make the environment resemble a monster lair rather than a simple cave from outside the exhibition.

I next looked at Monster Lair Sound Effects 10 Hours by Mythicalicalypso. I decided to choose this video as I felt the sounds created from this video could be the most suitable for my creature, compared to other videos which I felt were too much alike a mammals roar. The sounds from the creatures are also relatively spaced out enough so the sound isn't overpowering. 

However, I felt like the cave-like environment would be lost using just this sound alone, as none of the ambience from the other video was present. 

Sound mashups

Because I felt both videos lacked what the other video had, I decided to experiment with mashing together videos in order to create a unique sound which I could use for my piece. 

To do this, I used a website called www.youtubemultiplier.com which allowed me to play multiple videos at once, while being able to make one quieter than the other. Being able to make one sound louder than the other allowed me to drown out some sounds which I felt would be too overpowering, making the sounds blend together easier. 

Mashup 1

The first mashup consisted of the two previous videos blended together, with the monster lair sound slightly lower in volume than the cave ambience. I believe this mashup is effective as it has both the monster sounds which I needed to make my creature appear more menacing, with the dark cave ambience around emphasising the cave environment. I also made the monster sounds quieter to emphasise the echo, making it appear that the creature wasn't the only one in the cave and there was in fact more hidden in the darkness, deeper in the cave. 

However, as these sounds aren't quite snake like, I decided to experiment with snake sounds with the cave ambience to see how they would blend together. 

Mashup 2           Mashup 3

From doing these sounds, I found out that no matter how quiet the snake sounds were, the lack of echo in the sounds made them stand out too much due to a lack of distance being conveyed. Therefore, I believe they would no be effective. As well as this, I felt the snake hisses were not as menacing as the monster lair sounds.
Because of this, I have decided to use the original mashup of the monster lair and dark cave ambience to create my environment. 

Aurora Lights

Multicoloured

A multicoloured aurora light is the most realistic aurora light setting. However, the lights seem too artificial and do not fit with the environment I am creating. 

Colour Changing

There are several settings which change colours in varying ways such as quick flashes or slow transitions. However, some of the colours of which it changes to does not suit the environment that the battle scene is taking place. The colour changing is also too chaotic and distracts from the main focus of the piece. 

Single Colour 

I decided to use a single colour light instead of colour changing lights which adds a calmer movement to the piece. Unlike the colour changing lights, it adds to the environment without taking the focus out of the characters. From only using one colour, I have learned that depending on the colour you choose, it can change the whole mood of the piece. Because of that, I experimented with the single colour choices the light had. 

Blue Light

The blue light creates a much cooler environment for the piece and emphasises the blue tones in the character and the creature. The movement of the light also resembles water, which could further emphasise the water/ice element the character and creature is based off of. However, the blue light seems very serene which contrasts with the intended mood of the environment. Because of this, the light is not very effective.

Red Light

In contrast to the blue light, the red light conveys a much more sinister mood. Rather than the blue being calm and serene water, the red light gives a much more dark and dangerous mood of flames erupting from the floor. As well as this, it blends in well with the red light underneath the creature. Therefore, I will use the red light in my final exhibition.

Green Light

The light also had the colour green as a light setting. While it retains the cooler colour scheme, due to the lack of green in the piece it stands out too much and therefore does not fit into the environment. 

Flashing Strobe Light Experiments

Whilst experimenting with lighting, I decided to try strobe lights to see if I could add more movement in my piece by a way of lighting. 

Fast and Slow 

The strobe lights could be configured in a way that changes the speed of the flashing light. The strobe light would change speeds from a fast to a slow pace, but both speeds remained consistent. 

Because of the consistent speed, the lights seemed too artificial to be added into the exhibition, no matter how fast or slow it was. However, when the light was on the creature's face it cast a light behind the cut out, making it appear much more menacing when the light flashed on. Due to the flashing, it also made it appear that the creatures was moving in and out of view.

Both 

To try and make it seem more natural, I decided to try two strobe lights of varying speeds, which hit different parts of the exhibition and made it seem more like lightning was hitting the character and creature. 

While this made it less static like having just one strobe light, the light pattern was still too consistent and predictable so it didn't seem natural enough to be used in my exhibition. As well as this, the environment for the battle was inside of a cave which meant the light would not be appropriate for the battle scene. 

Birmingham Exhibition

I also found an exhibition piece that was created using the game The Sims 4. At first glance, it is a bunch of sims sitting around the table talking, with video annotations detailing their conversation such as relationship, drama, etc. similar to a reality TV show. 

From watching a few minutes, a new episode appears with the title "This is my Simulation, And You Are Just Living In It!" 

Around are some seats where you can sit and watch the TV, but above those seats are plum bobs. After some thought, I realised the artist was trying to show us that we are in fact all just sims, and we living in a simulation just like they are.

This has taught me that games are as much of an art form as any other medium, and that even the simplest of installations can be effective. 

From this exhibition, I have decided that I will revise my exhibition and make amendments to make it much more immersive to the viewer, as well as provide much more information for the viewers to understand the exhibition to appreciate it fully.