Interactive Narrative - Character Design

The design of the main character is an important part of this project, as it should look good and appeal to the user. However, as the character will appear throughout the narrative I feel that simplicity will be the key to it's design, as this will make it easier to draw repeatedly if necessary. It will also help when it comes to animating the character as a complicated design would result in complicated animation.

First of all I decided to just start sketching out a few random designs for different cats using a graphics tablet. I love the way you can set the pencil mode to smooth the lines you draw in Flash, it just makes everything look a lot more clean and crisp.


Of course, these ideas are really just doodles, I wouldn't have the character actually looking like any of these in my final project.

I decided to try and develop the design of the cat drawn in orange, as this next image shows.
I like this last development of the kitty, he looks a lot sharper and more detailed, while still retaining the simplicity that I was going for. Here he is, full sized!
I need to add in some shading to the final version, but other than that this is the final design for Ry the cat as he will appear in his first adventure.

Colour Experimentation

I have edited this photograph of a flower using Photoshop in order to change the colours. The petals of the flower are now a bright, garish purple, and the centre is yellow in order to compliment this. I have also made the background slightly orange, as it is a warm colour and so are purple and yellow, so I thought I would stick to this theme.


The colours of this photograph also have a theme of warmth, using the complimentary colours blue and orange. The original of this image was very dull, cold and dreary so to contrast I tried to make it the opposite.

Interactive Narrative - Cat's Journey

I have decided to make my interactive narrative project about the story of a cat at night time. The user will play the role of a cat on his way to the weekly 'cat meeting' and will have to make various decisions on the way. At first I thought I would like the user to have the option of picking from two different characters, such as a male and female cat, with each of them having a different story. However, upon further reflection I think I may be over-complicating my idea, as this would be even more time consuming and involve a lot more images which I will have to draw. I have to take into consideration that we have a very short time scale for this project, so one character will probably have to be sufficient.

Unposted Videos

Final Pixilation video



One Shot Film

Interactive Narrative - Ideas

Just brainstorming a few ideas for my interactive narrative project. Some of these are a bit weak or boring. At the moment I've decided on the idea of a cat's journey at night time. Hopefully I won't change my mind.

The Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is a compositional rule used in most areas of visual arts and design, from photography and painting to graphic design and cinematography. The rule states that any image, a painting, photograph, or whatever else it may be, can be divided into nine equal parts. This is done by placing two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines onto the image. Important elements of the image should be placed along these lines, as this can make the image more interesting, visually appealing and can also portray a certain theme or mood associated with the image.

The Rule of Thirds is demonstrated in the short video shown below.



As you can see, the statue has been placed (somewhat roughly) along the second vertical line.