Representational, Abstract, and Symbolic Designs

Representation

This image is a screenshot of the online game Perfect World. The virtual environment is highly representational of objects in our own environment. Visual traits help us identify what the objects in the game represent. For example, in the image, the pointy, gradients of green are plant life. The figure standing in a stance is a "person" to us because he has characteristics of human beings, such as arms, legs, and a head. The creature to his right has features of a wolf: gray fur, hind legs, snarling teeth. For the viewer, an environment that is representational of the real world creates a lifelike game, drawing them into this fantasy world that's not quite like Earth. A highly realistic game becomes a world where players can escape into a new place they can identify but not relate to fully for a new experience.


Abstraction

PixelJunk Eden is the exact opposite of the highly-representational Perfect World. . In this way, Eden is a more "pure" game that doesn't have many attachments to it. Visuals are reduced into simple, solid shapes. You can derive the abstractions from plant life or rock formations, but they are not exactly like them either. The players can interpret what the shapes and their environment are, or they could just play and engulf themselves in this completely new world. This abstract environment is also another place to escape to that doesn't hold any ties to the real world. It is an "abandonment of the familiar" for a focus on striking, colorful virtual worlds.


Symbolism

In this promotional poster for a film event, a film reel projector was abstracted into a symbol. It has that "ultimate simplicity" described by Dondis as it is only two shapes. Yet, specifics about the shapes and their juxtaposition to each other help donate what they are. However education of what a film reel projector looks like is required to understand and identify this symbol. A projector consists of a box with two reels sitting on top of it. The system allows for the passing of film through light in order to project an image onto a screen. In the poster, the bottom shape represents the box. Although it is not rectangular, its triangular shape denotes the lens protruding out of the box. Film reels are circular and the two circles placed close to each other represent them well. A person would know this is a symbol only if they have seen a film reel projector before. If they haven't, this poster would have just been a couple of abstract shapes.

Week 13: Visual Techniques

Final Fantasy X logo's visual techniques:

• Activeness
• Opacity
• Flatness
• Balance
• Boldness
• Spontaneity
• Intricacy

flOw logo's visual techniques:

• Diffusion
• Depth
• Accent
• Activeness
• Spontaneity
• Exaggeration
• Economy

Although they share a few visual techniques, flOw and Final Fantasy X's logos differ in their use of other techniques. They have activeness and spontaneity in common. Both the logos move the viewer's eye throughout the entirety of their image. Also in common is spontaneity. Both logos contain elements that look impulsive, free-formed, and organic. However, the differing techniques create distinct visual experiences for each. FFX's logo is intricate with its spectacular details in the background image, while flOw's is economical in its minimal use of elements, making the latter more clean and less detailed than the first. Another significant different is FFX's flatness versus flOw's depth. The flatness of FFX's logo creates an artistic feel to it, relating to the visually stunning graphics of the game it represents; flOw's depth is shown through the blue gradient in the background. It looks very similar to the colors of water—the game involves players "diving" through a sea-like environment. flOw's logo also shows use of exaggeration in the large O in its center, a hole that you just want to "dive" into. FFX's logo is very balanced in its appearance—resulting in a straightforward appeal.

Week 11 CONTRAST

Rhythm Heaven for the Nintendo DS is full of mini-games based on rhythmic exercises. For this particular mini-game, the player is supposed to fill up the robot with red liquid to the beat of the music. It uses contrast to depict how long the player should hold down the machine that pours the liquid into the robots. First of all, there is a constrast in scale. The smaller robot in the left image requires only four beats to fill up, while the larger one on the right takes eight. The only want to know that there are different sizes of robots is to have both of them presented in the game. Furthermore, their contrast in scale produce a contrast in time: four versus eight beats. Thus when playing, the player waits to see if a small or big robot falls onto the conveyor belt and acts accordingly.


The game interface of PlayStation 3's Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires does not use the technique of contrast effectively. When players look at the screen, they expect their character's largest health bar to be the largest, because the game revolves around the player's actions. Yet, as shown in the image, the enemy's life bar is the largest and at the top of the screen. The contrast in scale should be switched around in my opinion. And in general, the other elements are about the same size. Contrast in scale should be created in order to help differentiate between the elements and produce a dynamic interface, rather than a confusing one.

Implied Motion in Video Game Cover Design

In the cover art of the game Super Smash Bros. Brawl, there is implied movement seen through a number of elements. In the background, there is an explosion of light, bursting out rays that imply an outward direction. There is also overlapping of characters which explain their position on motion as they rush outward. The dynamic poses of the characters also support their movement in space. Life experience tells us that these are poses which depict action and energy. The use of relative size also represents implied motion. Large characters seem to be in the foreground and smaller characters in the background. This creates an effect of movement between the characters and through the space.










The cover art of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves also depicts implied movement. The main character's right arm and legs are in a blur. Just like when we see moving objects, we can sometimes see a blur of the object's shape in the space it moved through. Next are the falling objects, such as the gun and suitcases. From common knowledge of gravity and other scientific processes, we know that objects like these do not float in space, so when we see this image, we know they are moving through the air. Finally, the white snow engulfing the entire image also implies movement. It is moving through space in an energetic, flowing manner. The snow that seems further away blurs and gradually loses value. It makes it feel like the snow in the direct foreground will also fall down into the abyss.

Dimension/Depth/Space & Katamari

Developed by Namco Bandai, Katamari Forever is a PlayStation 3 game that has a complete environment within itself. To navigate through the game, a sense of dimension and size is necessary. Relative size is important to play the game because the objective is to roll up similar-sized objects into a ball. The more you roll up, the larger objects you can gather. Relative size also has a role in depth perception in the game. In the screenshot, the signs on the street appear smaller and smaller, a two-dimensional cue that they are receding into the background, becoming further and further away. The people in the screenshot also show signs of relative size. They look smaller as they recede into space. Linear perspective is also put into use. The lines for the little street or sidewalk curve together into the upper left side of the screen, into a vanishing point. More converging lines can be seen at the buildings at the top. Their base lines and other construction lines converge towards where the curving sidewalk lines are going. Another cue is overlap. The signs on the road are overlapping each other. Some look to be in front, while others behind. The rolling ball in the center of the screen is overlapping the objects on the blanket. The effect reinforces a sense of depth as it puts objects in front or behind each other. Finally, the game also simulates a texture gradient. At the bottom of the image, the white spots of the street's texture are spaced out and large. When the eye travels upwards, the texture starts becoming smaller and the white spots begin disappearing. The gradient's loss of detail reflects the human nearsighted vision, where objects are clearer when close, and blurrier when far. With the use of these depth and size cues, Katamari Forever creates a virtual world for players that seems tangible.

image source: http://ps3.ign.com/dor/objects/14333801/katamari-damacy-tribute/images/katamari-forever-20090814033434654.html
more info: http://www.katamariforever.com/

Video Game Design, Tone, & Color

In this image of a level in the Nintendo DS puzzle game Meteos, tone is being used to differentiate the objects from each other. By juxtapositioning lightness and darkness, our eyes are able to distinguising different objects, their edges, and changes between them. For example, in the top half of the image, the lightness of the sparkles and stick figures juxtaposed against the darkness of the outer space background creates a contrast great enough to separate the said objects. Tone is interacting in dimension in this image of Meteos. For example, the planets in the top half look three-dimensional because of tone. Their round shapes are reinforced by the highlights, shadows, and the tonal steps in between. Tone creates the illusion of round, tangible objects from the two-dimensional because that is how we perceive round objects in light.

Color is operating most dominantly in the bottom half of the image, where the player looks to the most. The object of the game is to align three or more blocks of the same color together. Once aligned, the matching blocks will become rockets that will shoot all blocks above them into space and back at the evil that rained down the blocks. Hue is most important in playing the game as players must match the different colored blocks together: blues with blues, greens with greens, and so on. The high saturation of the game's colors generate the fun, intense, and action-packed aspects of Meteos. Color interacts directly with shape during the game. The dominant shape of the game is the square shape of the blocks. Since all blocks are the same shape and scale, The element of color characterizes the blocks, as well as the shapes within them, such as the blue "teardrop" block or the red "fire" block. Matching color and shape is fundamental in Meteos.

image source: http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/DS/Top+10+DS+charts/feature.asp?c=9943
game info: http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/4LUrMFrGvMRuQiuHjKUozvSIhxhIoQxY

Video Game Design

image source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/8/9/9/i/4/3/0/o/Flower1FINAL.jpg

ThatGameCompany's Flower title for the Playstation 3 uses the basic element of texture effectively. The game presents highly-detailed environments that immerse the player in a natural world away from civilization. Players control the wind and sweep through meadows, fields, and other landscapes. The objective is to blow off flower petals, gathering enough to revive "dead" land patches. The designer used texture to replicate the natural environments. From the image, you can already see the individual blades of grass and the organic shapes of the flower petals. This type of texture is optical, not tactile. In other words, it is only simulated visually, not physically. In addition, the grass's texture provides a depth cue. You can see a "texture gradient" the grass diminishes into the distance. It gets blurrier and darker, creating an illusion of receding perspective. The texture provides a beautiful detail to the game and gives it a realistic touch. It refers to the grass's composition as it looks green and thin just like real blades of grass. This fake illusion is purely a visual, stunning experience for its players.


image source: http://files.myopera.com/Seiter/blog/shadow-of-the-colossus-20050927025333795.jpg

Shadow of the Colossus by Sony Computer Entertainment Company is based completely on scale. For the majority of the game, players control a young man who must defeat colossal creatures in order to save his loved one. The giants tower over the boy and his horse. As is the requirement of scale, the hero and the giants are constantly juxtaposed to each other. The players find themselves facing the giants head to head. They stand dozens of times taller than the human, blocking out the sun. They are truly larger than life and seem impossible to defeat because of their sheer size. The giants make the players feel small and insignificant, as opposed to other games where the enemies are usually about the same size or smaller than the human. Each giant becomes a puzzle in themselves as we must figure out a way to climb up them and attack their weak points without getting harmed.


image source: http://www.gameguru.in/images/echochrome-1.jpg

Echochrome is a game developed by Japan Studio and is almost entirely derived upon the element of dimension. The object of the game is to maneuver around a three-dimensional puzzle using only camera angles and getting your mannequin-like character to the spots where dark blurry human figures are, as shown in the image. The puzzles are made entirely of line (another element), and solving them requires rotating the camera perspective around to allow the walking mannequin to continue on its path. Physics depends on illusion. Players have to create the illusion that the figure will fall onto the platform below or use perspective to block a gap in order to to keep on walking. The type of perspective used is linear, making the two-dimensional appear three-dimensional. The simple, converging lines look like solid objects because of the linear perspective.

Syntactical Guidelines & Video Games

image source: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2j177yh&s=4

The LittleBigPlanet "popit" menu puts Syntactical Guidelines to good use. I believe the strength lies in the organizational grouping of the various objects the player can use. For example, in the image, all the "sound effect" shapes are grouped together. Another way that the menu is successful is because it uses balance to organize and present itself. The menu is a rectangular shape and all the images within it are aligned to a grid. For the player, this provides a predictable layout from which to find the items they need.










image source: http://arcadeberg.com/files/2009/04/eso_hud.jpg

This videogame does not have good design and does not use the Syntactical Guidelines well. There is just too much information on the interface. The designer used too much stress for all the different menus. For example, the character window (top left) and map (top right) are both highlighted with a bright blue. There are also other bright blue points on the screen. The stress put on all these objects does not make any of them stand out anymore. It does not use Balance and Imbalance properly either. There is no sense of stability as the menus are all scattered. All the points of interest cause too much imbalance, creating a screen full of clutter rather than an understandable interface.

Visual Information & Language

This image is the album cover for American rock band Mae's sophomore release "The Everglow". The theme of the album is a story. The first track is an audio clip called "Prologue" that introduces the viewer to the album, then the songs follow, and finally ends with the "Epilogue" track, just like a book. Using that same theme, the album cover successfully fulfills the overall theme of the album. A young boy stands on a yellow brick road, facing away from the "camera". In his left hand is a small, black bag. He is ready to start his journey. A bag in hand signifies being ready to go, as you have all your things packed with you to help you along your journey. His body language of facing away from the camera is visual language that he is looking towards the future, which is the broad area of the background. He is standing on a yellow brick road which alludes to the yellow brick road in the novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz". In the novel, the characters are constantly looking for that specific road in order to progress further to reach their personal goals. Just like in the novel, the little boy is following the road for his journey. We can tell it has just begun for him because the road is cut off behind him, as if it was its beginning. The boy is looking ahead at a looming, dark wooden gate with the words "The Everglow" sprouting from it. The gate symbolizes the start of a new place. It marks the boundary between "here" and "there". The light shines from behind it, as if there was a brighter, larger world beyond it. He looks like has just encountered the gate, and will go through it to start "The Everglow" journey. A green mist clouds around the bottom of the image and blackness surrounds everything. It is symbolic of a chilling atmosphere and mystery. It is telling us that the journey ahead of the boy is unknown, but he will still embark on it. Finally, the entire image has a "stage-like" quality to it. The gate and brick road look like props, and the boy is an actor. Again, going off the "story" theme of the album, the play-like quality of the image represents his story that is about to be told on this "stage".

Visual Thinking Research

(left image: my dad's markings, right image: my markings)

The first puzzle I chose to solve with my dad is The Cat. The goal of the puzzle is to count all the different triangles within the image of the cat. We went about the puzzle in similar ways. First we counted the obvious large triangles because they were the first that caught our eyes. Then we had to find all the smaller triangles. With our eyes and pencils, we dissected the triangles to find triangles within them (e.g. the two triangles within the cat's triangle eyes). We spent most of our time at the cat's "tail", where many small triangles were hidden. Sometimes we had to look at some areas twice because some areas seemed like rectangles when they were really quadrilaterals. The biggest challenge of this puzzle was the fact that the image uses Gestalt's grouping principles of proximity and similarity. It was a little difficult to break apart the groups because our minds would constantly keep grouping them back together. In the end, we found 20 triangles total and were correct!




(left image: my markings, right image: my dad's markings)

The New Star Puzzle was the next puzzle we chose. The objective is to create another five-point star that looks exactly like those on the page but it is larger than the others and does not touch any of them. My dad and I approached this in different ways. I dove right into the puzzle, lightly drawing all the lines of a star I could. When I hit another star, I would re-orient the page and try to create another one. On the other hand, my dad used more mathematical, methodical methods. First he measured the lengths of the stars with a ruler, making sure they were equilateral. Then he drew all the straight lines in between stars that he could. He was trying to find that center pentagon from which to draw the new star from. In the end, only I could come up with a star. Even though it was wrong, I now understand how powerful Gestalt's principles of perception are to our visual understanding of the world. It was difficult to find a hidden star because the cluster of stars on the page were grouped together so strongly on the basis of their similarity and proximity.

Feature Channels, Visual Search, and flOw

Santa Monica, California's ThatGameCompany released flOw in 2007. In this game, players control a white, glowing snake-like creature in a aquatic environment. The objective is to become larger by "eating" other marine-like creatures and evolving into other forms in the process. Feature channels distinguish the different aspects of the game. The first channel introduced is color. Two small, circular creatures have red and blue colors respectively in their center, as shown in the screenshot. We learn that the red creatures dives us deeper into the next "layer" where more challenges await, while the blue creature ascends us into the previously played "layer". These two creatures use three feature channels in our visual search for them as we progress. Their distinct colors, small size, and circular shape define them. Enemy creatures use the same feature channels to distinguish themselves. They may be large or small, possess unique colors, and have individualistic shapes. For example, in the screenshot, a small circular enemy floats below the creature the players control, while in the background, a wheel-like creature awaits. Another feature channel used in flOw is depth cues. As seen in the screenshot, the blurry creatures seem distant. This depth cue tells the player that they are in the next "layer". The feature channel motion is used as well. The two small red and blue "navigators"move at a relatively slow pace in the game, making them easier to find and "eat". On the other hand, enemies may move fast as we encounter and attack them, creating excitement and contest within the game. The creatures' speeds of motion tell the player what kind of a threat they are. Thus, feature channels are used by game designers to create a fun, interactive environment in which to challenge the player.

image source: http://ps3media.ign.com/ps3/image/article/766/766102/flow-20070220032201003_640w.jpg

Top-Down Visual Processing & Big Bang Mini

Big Bang Mini, a Nintendo DS game by SouthPeak Games, closely relates to the top-down visual processing of our surroundings. This "fireworks shooter" requires our visual attention to progress through the increasingly challenging levels. Top-down visual processing is driven by attention to our goals. In the case of Big Bang Mini, our goal is to shoot down the enemy characters at the top screen by flicking the stylus in an upward motion, and at the same time, we must remember to move the "ship" at the bottom screen out of harm's way from the debris and collecting the points from defeated foes. Because of its action-packed gameplay, player's eye movements vary greatly in speed and fixation length. For example, in the screenshot, to accomplish the goal of killing the blue enemy at the top, we must gauge when and where to fire the fireworks from. This may require a longer fixation at the enemy as we analyze its movements and location on the screen. Yet simultaneously, other enemies are firing down at the ship. Quick eye movements are necessary to ensure that the ship is safe; if not, our attention is directed to the bottom screen where we must find a safe spot to move it. Then, our eyes dart across the screens again so that we can decide what our next move will be. "Feature detectors" allow us to focus on the task at hand, such as aiming at the blue enemy. In that case, blue becomes more sensitive to our sight as it sends stronger signals than the other visual cues of the game. Frequent linking and re-linking of visual information allows us to accomplish our cognitive and action goals. Big Bang Mini combines both cognition and action in its fun-filled, colorful gameplay.

image source: http://www.cubed3.com/tmpmedia/jesusraz/bigbang/Big_Bang_Mini_010.jpg