Design & Development
Week 9:
Asset Review
Thursday 28th April 2022
WEEK 9 -
TO DO: THE FINAL ASSET REVIEW & TESTS!!!​
PURPOSE FOR ASSET REVIEW
As Lead Artist, I have been responsible for the testing of assets and ensuring everything works in the space the way they are required to. The purpose for this review and test is to ensure our newly designed User Interface works well in the space in terms of art style and visual appearance. By the end of today, I should have made a quick informed decision regarding the final UI designs. As well as this, I recently changed the design of the snowflakes to appear differently in the space, as Kiera and I feel as though this could be enhanced. Alongside testing the UI, I will be testing the different snowflake appearances in the environment too.
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WHAT WILL I BE DOING?
Using the handful of User Interface designs I made this morning and my new snowflake designs, I will be overlaying my designs within an environment mockup to test their appearance. I will then be briefly evaluating this and come to a final decision, which I can send to Kiera ASAP.
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GOALS FOR THE DAY​
The goal for today is to come to a final decision regarding User Interface.
ASSET REVIEW
​EXPECTATION OF ASSETS:
The User Interface should enable players to do the following:
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BEGIN button - enable players to begin running the server.
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PAUSE button - enable players to take a pause/time-out during gameplay if needed.
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REQUIREMENTS FOR DESIGN
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Must be intuitive
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Must correspond with art style of other assets
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TEST 1
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WHAT AM I REVIEWING?
ART STYLE/DESIGN OF UI
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PURPOSE FOR TEST:
The purpose for this test is to evaluate the consistency kept between all assets. The UI designs should have been designed in line with the guidance provided from the Art Bible and therefore, must match with the rest of the environment design in terms of colour and drawing technique/style used.​
DESIGN TESTS:​
EVALUATION
In terms of art style of the designs, the technique used is the same and overall looks very cohesive! The design works great together and the style ties everything in together nicely. In terms of the colour tint/colour adjustment I applied to both designs, I feel the whiter/cleaner looking designs works best to keep the art style consistent, and overall looks much more appealing. Because of this, I can conclude that is the better design between the two. I also really like the design of both buttons, as they do a nice job at representing their purpose - a nice little touch.​
TEST 2
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WHAT AM I REVIEWING?
ARRANGEMENT/POSITION ON SCREEN
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PURPOSE FOR TEST:
The purpose for this test is to evaluate the most accessible and appropriate arrangement for the UI, to make navigation easy for players and to create the best composition for our projection. From this test, I will be able to identify a suitable arrangement for User Interface which I can pass on to Kiera, who is scheduled to implement these assets into two servers.​
UI COMPOSITION TESTS:​
PROCESS:
Using the chosen UI designs, I experiment with a series of positions/compositions on screen. I adjusted the scale of the buttons throughout, taking into consideration the size of these as they'd be projected onto a wall, rather that appear as small as the screens do below. I thought about what would be easiest to navigate, and produced different arrangements taking into account how players will interact with them too.​
EVALUATION
I have thought about what would work best for players, and how they'd interact with the UI. As a result of this, I have chosen the last UI screen to be the most appropriate. Thinking about how players will be interacting through gesture, we don't want the position of any interactive elements to cause strain or discomfort, and this display requires minimal effort to interact with. With the Pause button being in the left hand corner, players will be able to guide the bird to the bottom of the screen rather than stretching to reach the top. Similarly, the Begin button works best in the centre of the environment and seems more like a 'menu' page, so players will know to interact with this from intuition. As for the scale of the UI, this screen best represents a suitable size for each button, being just a bit larger than one of the trees. We don't want the UI to take away from the beauty within the environment whatsoever, and it's only present to allow players to take that timeout if they need, considering things like arm strain or discomfort - it is not a necessity.​
THE FINAL UI DISPLAY​
TEST 3
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WHAT AM I REVIEWING?
NEW SNOWFLAKE DESIGNS
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PURPOSE FOR TEST:
The purpose for this test is to re-evaluate the appearance of the snowflakes in the environment. I have created a large range of snowflake designs, taking a different approach from Asset Creation during the Easter Holidays. After testing the series of snowflakes, I should come to a decision based on which design works best in the environment, amongst the other assets.​
SNOWFLAKE DESIGNS:
SNOWFLAKE TESTS:
EVALUATION
Already, by placing the different designs over the environment, I can see which work best and which are too low in opacity or too light in colour. Creating the snowflakes digitally was certainly better than hand-drawing them, considering how small they'll be and how much of them players will actually see - this helped me to achieve thickness and a more distinct shape. In terms colour, the more grey scale snowflakes work best in correspondence to the other assets, however these show up a little less than the coloured snowflakes. Also, the designs with outlines are much more distinct than those without.​
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For this second test, I scaled the size of the snowflakes down to further evaluate which design works best. Just from this test I can see that the lighter coloured designs get lost in the markings of the mountains and therefore, will be disregarded. However, the darker snowflakes stand out more and even scaled down, still resemble what they're meant to be. Also taking into consideration the art style, the snowflake in the centre of the mountainscape is most effective.
FINAL SNOWFLAKE DESIGN:
UPDATING THE ASSET LIST/TABLE
With these new designs set in stone, I will be updating our asset list with the final decisions and comments!
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ASSET LIST:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ZyvR8A07sM6TfMOPH8mUQ88wrrn4Me_ystsSdrEiY0/edit?usp=sharing
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FINAL ASSETS HERE:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HDX9PIO_BN93u01D5I0TNK_XCqRlvKASwvuac21ubb0/edit?usp=sharing
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NEXT STEPS
The next steps I have to take to further development will be to send Kiera the necessary PNG files for each UI button and snowflake design, which she will integrate into the environment, with their required purpose. As we have come to the decision to have two screens, therefore, two servers, each server will require its own Begin and Pause button, but we can talk to James about allowing one button to interact between both screens.​
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For the remainder of the week, I am scheduled in to film the documentary, gather clips and edit until the end of Week 10. This is a huge part of our marketing/promotional material, as it gives players and potential users insight to the development process and gives us the opportunity to showcase our passion behind the idea, as well as us as a Team. Documentation for this can be found here:
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Documentary