Unit 6: Critical Approaches to creative media products - Assignment 1: Task 1 + Task 2

Critical Approaches to creative media products

Audience research is research which is purely focused on the audience. The kind of results that you gather are about the audiences preferences, interests, attitudes etc. Finding out their interests would help define what aspects I would like in my game.Quantitative research is very specific and narrowed down whereas qualitative research allows freedom for the in-depth responses.When using qualitative audience research, you are able to engage with a smaller audience to then gather in-depth information back. However, when going with the quantitative audience research approach, you are able to engage with a larger audience and collect a large sum of statistical,brief information back. Combining the two types of audience research really helps define what kind of audience in particular you are working with. Quantitative audience research can be gathered by using methods such as audience ratings and measurement panels whereas, qualitative audience research can be gathered by doing interviews and questionnaires. Audience classification is another route into audience research. It means defining your target audience, Socio-economic audiences is one way of audience classification. Socio-economic audiences are divided up into a grading system; A - Upper Class (Professionals, Doctors, Lawyers), B - Middle Class (Teachers), C - Lower Class (Nurses, Clerical), C2 - Skilled Working Class (Trades Person), D - Working Class (Semi-skilled and Unskilled) and E - unemployed, students, pensioners. This will help with the approach of deciding how much your product would be priced at. If you gain an audience in which the majority fall into the E class, then you would aim your products price lower due to the amount of income that they have. If you aim for your product to be a high price then you may want to target your audience further towards the top of the system. Psychographics is a term for consumers personality traits; personalities, beliefs and attitudes and interests. These are other alternate ways for gather information rather than just using gender and age to define your audience. I began to research what sort of audience ratings the film got. On "Rotten Tomatoes" website, this movie has a "Tomatometer:71%". What the "Tomatometer" is, is the percentage of how many critics would recommend the movie and in this case, 71% of approved critics would recommend the movie. 17 reviews has been counted on this site for the movie, 12 of them were fresh tomatoes and 5 were rotten. 59% of the audience liked the film and the remaining 41% didn't. The critics say "Killer Klowns from Outer Space's title promise darkly goofy fun and more often than not, the movie delivers". After reading up on the rotten tomatoes website,it gave me a good idea on how many people enjoyed the film and reading what the critic said, it gave me a good idea on what they enjoyed about the film. I have conducted two questionnaires in which use qualitative and quantitative data. The first questionnaire which I conducted was called "Killer Klowns Film Review". These questionnaires were put onto survey monkey which allowed for anyone to answer them. The first question which I asked was whether the people who answered the questionnaire male or female, 17 people were male and 2 were female.
The next question gathered data on how old the people were; 10 were 17, 3 were 18 and 5 were 19+.

The third question was asking the people for their opinion on the film, however I gave them a mutiple choice instead of allowing them to write down their thoughts, 3 people liked the film, 8 thought it was okay, 5 disliked the film and 3 hated the film. The next question adds onto this question, I ask them to write down the reason why they chose what they chose in question 3. This question delves in the qualitative research side as I am allowing them to answer in depth whereas the first 3 questions were quantitative questions which gave me solid and brief results which was what I needed to define my audience.

Above are a few of the responses I have back from the people who answered the question. As you can see there are similarities with some of the responses whereas a few others have gone into depth with their answer and added a few more comments. My next question was another qualitative question which allowed them to answer more in depth.

Above is an image of the results. A few of the results were very brief, I was hoping for the majority of the responses to be more in depth rather than have a few words which are the same.
My next question was asking whether the film was made well, 13 out of 19 people thought the film wasn't made well whereas the rest thought it was. This question was a simple yes or no answer. My seventh question I believe was the most successful at getting in depth responses. The question was "Do you believe the film was lacking in some aspects?".

The above image is a screenshot of a few of the responses that I have. Here are a variety of in-depth answers which contrasts against the answers I had received from the previous qualitative question. The last two questions are both quantitative questions. I asked if a game could made from the movie and the results were 11 people believed a game could be made whereas the other 8 thought it wouldn't work. I then asked at the end what sort of game would they possibly like and i gave them 4 choices. The choice which had the most votes was for the game to be a FPS and no one wanted a top down shooter game.

Overall, I believe this questionnaire was successful at gathering information about peoples opinions on the Killer Klown film. The majority of the people who took my survey were young and male so I feel as if I could have done with a few more females to average out the gender ratio and to have a few more older people take the questionnaire. The age and averaging out of gender may have made a difference or it may have not.

My second questionnaire was going into detail on, if I made a game, what would they prefer. The first question I asked was whether they preferred a shooter or a stealth game. The majority preferred the shooter version rather than the stealth version which is something that I wasn't quite sure on as my idea for the game was to be more stealth and assassinations then shooting. The image to the left shows the results of the first question.

This image to the left is a screenshot on the results from the second question. I feel as if the results from this question were heavily influenced by the other question as most people prefer first person shooters than third person shooters.

The results for this are varied. Although, the majority of the vote went for a horror/gory game which goes against what the film was whereas, the next highest voted choice was for the game to be funny and that is the genre of the film.

For the fourth question, I got great results. Relating back to the film, I got them to tell me what they would like from the film in the game. The majority of the responses I got back were very different. This gave me a real insight into what people wanted and it gave me many ideas to think about.

The next few questions were both questions in which the people had a choice of what they wanted in the game, what sort of perspective they would like to play from, what weapons they would like to use, if they want the game to relate to the film and where would they like the game to be. The final question which I asked was how much would they be willing to spend on a game. This question touches lightly upon the socio-economics side.


I believe I should have asked a few more questions based on the socio-economic side to find out more of my audiences background and then ask a few more questions which relate with the psychographics to find out more about the audiences personality. The balance between the quantitative questions and qualitative questions was quite even, a few of the results I got back were in-depth whereas a few weren't. The lack of in-depth answers proved to me the little interest that they had the film in overall.


Task 2:

Title: The Last of US

Genre: Action-Adventure, Survival, Horror.

Selection of Content: Dark, Apocalyptic world,

Construction of Content: Narrative

Narrative Conventions: Story Driven game, apocalyptic, need a cure.

Codes and Conventions: Health, Killing a horde of enemies, variety of use of weapons, third person.

Target Demographic: Young Adults


Title:  Thief: The Dark Project

Genre: Stealth

Selection of Content: Dark, first person, fantasy/middle-ages,

Construction of Content: 12 Levels

Narrative Conventions: Three organisations, protagonist pursues a life of thievery, wanted for failure to pay a protection fee

Codes and Conventions: Visibility gem, Health Bar, parts of the HUD disappears when items are not in use, First- Person.

Target Demographic: Young Adults (Majority Males)



Title: Lost Circus

Genre: Stealth

Selection of Content: Dark, Cold, Carnival/Circus, fantasy

Construction of Content: 3 Levels

Narrative: Protagonist Abandoned in unknown place, uncover whats happened with the place and the odd doll, escape

Codes and Conventions: Health, Stamina, Visibility, Third person, variety of weapons

Target Demographic: Teens/Young adults



Media Text:

Media Text is information in which can be viewed by the public. Examples of this are; Advertisements, Posters, TV Commercials, leaflets, magazines, etc. The Last of Us for example has advertised using trailers and posters but also advertised on the PlayStation home page which is a strong contender for when wanting to advertise a game, place an advert on the gaming console itself. The content that is displayed in the trailer and the age disclaimer at the bottom of the advert at the start, shows that there is violence and that the game is aimed towards and adults/teens. The dull colours and the derelict world really emphasises the apocalyptic theme within the game and the start really emphasises this. Below are three examples of the advertisement they have created for the game, the last one is the reveal at E3 which is a huge event where future games are showcased.

Thief: The Dark Project was a game which was first advertised in 1997 E3 so, the graphics to the trailer isn't the best compared to what we watch now. The game is very dark and again contains violence so this game is towards towards adults/teens.

Lost Circus: The way I would go ahead with advertisement is how The Last of Us had advertised their game. They advertised using video commercial/trailer and advertising the game on the platform that it is made on. Both games above have been advertised at E3 which really gained a lot of attention so that is something that would really be beneficial. However, considering it is a relatively small game that would most likely be released on PC, for it to be advertised on Steam would be a plus.


Genre:
A system has been developed to file through all of the different types of films/games/programs and this system is known as Genres. When it comes to video games, there are lots and lots of different genres and this helps the players find games which they prefer playing easier. Some genres are a lot more generic than others, for example; Shooters, FPS (First-Person Shooters) and TPS (Third-Person Shooters). Lots of other genres consist of; RPG, Puzzle, Simulations, Platforms, Sports, Strategy, Dance/Rhythm, Survival Horror, Fighting, Action, MMO, Fantasy, etc. [1] More than one genre can be used to describe the game, The last of Us is an action-adventure, survival horror game, ARK: survival evolved is an Action-Adventure, Survival, open-world game. Defining the games more narrowly helps narrow down the search for what the players are looking for/interested in. My game fits into a few of the genres that the Thief: The Dark Project fits into more than The Last of Us as the Lost Circus is dark, cold and Fantasy based.

Selection of Content:
The selection of content is, what are the creative points of the game? What are the colours that have been used, the tones, the fonts used and the sounds? Furthermore, why have they chose that content? For the game series "Dark Souls" they have used dark colours and tones throughout their games and this reflects upon the story and the nature of the game. My game is going to contain dark colours and tones which is similar to Thief: The Dark Project more than The Last of Us. The colours contained within the The Last of Us are quite still quite bright but that just makes the game environment appear beautiful despite being in apocalyptic world whereas where in my game, I want to portray the darkness that looms over the circus and the story.

Construction of Content:
The construction of content is what the games layout is, whether the narrative is prominent or not and how the game is constructed. This meaning if it has levels, what is guiding the player through the levels, is it the story, or is it something else. In this case, what is guiding my player through the levels are quests. The first quest would be to investigate the area they have awoken in and then to investigate the strange music and so on. Again, this is then similar to the Thief: The Dark Project game than The Last of US as Thief has levels.

Codes and Conventions:
Codes and Conventions are the visual elements to game, such as the HUD. Semiotics is a big play for this subject. Semiotics is a study of symbols and the meaning behind them, this relates to the HUD. For example; In Dark Souls 3, The red line at the top symbols health, the blue bar symbols your mana/magic/attunement and the green bar symbolises your stamina. When the bar is empty it means you are either dead *red*, Can't use anymore magic *Blue* or you can't run for a certain amount of time *Green*. Even in ESO (Elder Scrolls Online), the HUD contains a red line at the bottom which is your health, the green bar in the bottom right is your stamina and the blue bar in the bottom left is your mana/magic. These 3 colours really help gamers define what is what on the HUD. What my game is going to have bits and pieces similar to both games, such as a Health bar, variety of weapons and a HUD which disappears when items are not in use.

With coloured bars being an indication to what they are used for, symbols can also be used. For example; in the game "ARK: Survival Evolved" they use a variety of symbols in the bottom right for your character. Usually, the names would not be hovering over the symbols however, the names help new players understand the symbols. The symbols help the players quickly read what they symbolise rather than reading actual words to find out what is wrong with their character.

Target Demographic: Target Demographic is who you are trying to make your game appealing to. This could be a particular gender, age, background etc. Games which are photo realistic are more appealing to adults than children and children would more drawn to games which are bright and colourful. Furthermore, when finding your target audience, it is ideal to do lots of market research. If you half heart the market research, you may end up in fault for not appealing to one sex more than than the other when actually you want it to appeal to both. My game I would like to appeal to both genders and teens/adults. The Last of Us appealed to both genders of gamers however I believe to think that Thief: The Dark Project appealed to more males than females.

[1] http://www.thocp.net/software/games/reference/genres.htm

Unit: 66/67 3D Modelling Assignment 2

Assignment 2: Be able to devise 3D models

Client Brief/Own Brief:

The Client brief is for the game to relate to the movie "Killer Klowns from Outer Space". The brief can be interpreted in many ways and is left open for us to do so.

Below is a link to my blog which contains my own briefs and ideas for the game. It includes three different game brief ideas and model ideas.

http://amyjadeflanagan.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/killer-klown-game-brief.html

Below is my Padlet link. My Padlet contains lots of ideas for the models that I am going to create to be put into my game. It contains a few ideas for the environment, the weapons, the enemy models, colour schemes and generates the atmosphere that I want to create.

https://padlet.com/wall/474zsva3c91u


Video Link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVyA79MkTuI&feature=youtu.be

Legal & Ethical Considerations:

 Killer Clowns in the Media: In late 2016 around October time was a huge "craze" of Killer Clowns. The craze originally started off in America and then it began to spread to the UK. With this craze, it left the subject of creating a game about the film "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" sensitive. Therefor this being a sensitive subject it may be difficult to gain public interest. Many news reporters and the general public has reported many sightings of people dressed up as clowns, many were suspected to be wielding weapons whereas few others were dressing up to genuinely scare others.
The link below is a reference to where the craze started and where it spread to. Furthermore, of suspected people dressed up as a clown and potentially holding a weapon.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/10/12/killer-clown-craze-united-kingdom-canada-australia/91936098/
This link below is another example of the news reporting sightings of killer clowns in the UK.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37612735

Age Rating: Legally, the game would need be appropriately rated. PEGI have a system which The age rating that I would give my game is a 16. I have read up on the PEGI ratings system and looked through each of the PEGI age ratings to see which one best fits the game idea I have in mind. PEGI 16 is a rating which allows violence/sexual activity which is how it would play out in real life. PEGI 18 on the other hand takes it to the next level to the point where this violence becomes gross violence, something that would make the player "feel a sense of revulsion".

Religion: The game taps into the religious side slightly as in the brief I created, I had the idea of a spirit in a doll. The spirit would be a young girl which was killed by the enemies in the game (the Killer Klowns) and she seeks revenge however, she helps you out so you do not end the same way as her. There are many different views upon ghosts/possession and dark spirits. As possession/ghosts and dark spirits are a sensitive subject, understanding the full potential behind the three and defining what sort of "spirit/possession/ghost" this is, is quite difficult. After doing some research, possession usually falls under the definition of a "demon" and devising the dialogue for the young girl, I would not want her to use the wrong terminology.

Gender/Race: If left all the clowns to be male and the main character to be female there would be many interpretations into what this means. The interpretations could either be seen in a positive light or a negative one. For example, the female is no longer a damsel in distress which needs to be saved, furthermore she is the main character and not a supporting role to a male. A negative could be seen as, if the enemies are all male then it means that there would be no female villains and would then place a bad name on men as if they are the only ones that would kill and women would not. The enemies are going to be mixed race and mixed in gender. I have took into consideration the race of the main character and she is going to be a British young female whereas the race of the enemies and the young spirit is mixed.

Specifications: 

When wanting to import my own textures that I create for the landscape in Unreal Engine 4 and for models in Maya, I figure that it would be best to save the images as "Save for Web" or "Taiga" as this would then keep the resolution and it would reduce the file size. Another consideration is to keep the poly count down at a nice number due to the amount of models that it going to be implemented within the game. I wouldn't want the poly count down too low due to the style I would like my game to portray. The constraints that I have is time, making the models, texturing them and them importing them and placing them in Unreal consumes a lot of time so I the pre-production planning would come in handy and would help me keep focused on what I want to create and not just creating/texturing models from no-where.

Killer Klown Game Brief

Killer Klown Brief:
AI:
Enemies Chasing you (Killer Klowns? People?)
Concept Art:
Image Planes for Maya
Character Sketches
Landscape sketches
Building ideas (Circus Tents/Fountain/Lamp Post/)
Intractable objects (Glass shards/Doll)
Models:
Maya models;
Clowns
People
Weapons

Killer Klown Game Ideas:

Idea one:
Story: You are Killer klown which has crash landed on Earth. Your ship is broken and you look around the Earth for bits and pieces which can help rebuild your ship. As you are searching around, the humans see that you are no ordinary clown. You have killed a few humans to retrieve a few of the pieces of your ship and the other humans have witnessed the crime. You are being hunted by the Humans and you must collect all of the objects before returning to your broken ship.
Player: Clown (Bobo)
Objective: Make your way to the forest where the ship first landed to find the remote and call for a ship to go home in.
Humans are going to hunt and attack you.
Weapons: You found a Candy Matter gun on the ship, the only way for you to collect ammo is by picking up candy pellets. The gun shoots out blue/pink/purple bullets of matter at the clowns.  

IDEA TWO:
Story: You are a human and you have made your way onto the ship which has set off to the Killer Klowns home planet. You are a human who is curious as to who these Killer klowns are, why they invaded Earth and you are curious as to how to destroy them.
Player: Human (Male/Female)
Objective: Make your way through the circus tent and through the planet to find the place where the head killer klown lives.
Weapons: You found a Candy Matter gun on the ship, the only way for you to collect ammo is by picking up candy pellets. The gun shoots out blue/pink/purple bullets of matter at the clowns.     
First Area: You are inside of the Circus tent, there is a podium in the centre with balloons trapped in by the pointed ceiling, confetti on the floor and all sorts of gymnast equipment left lying around and a door way is visible at the edge of the room. Furthermore inside of the room is your first weapon. You can pick up the weapon and is has a full ammo clip. You can explore the different rooms in the circus tent however all they contain is a few killer klowns and ammo.
Second Area: Open planet map filled with trees which have bows on them and bushes which are bright and colourful. You can explore however you will attract killer clowns along the way to so you have to shoot them. Third Area: Boss circus tent, bright red and yellow, huge killer clown inside which tries to kill you, you eat some of the cotton candy on the floor and your health doubles up. 

IDEA THREE: (Preferred Brief)

3D immersive, third person shooter. Can be played with not needing to shoot at all. The clowns will have specific roaming areas, the player can either be stealthy or wait for them to walk on by or the player can use their weapon and shoot them up. All of the clowns have no eyes so they will be dependant of their hearing. The sight sensory will be lower than the height sensory.

Age Rating/Audience: 16+.
The reason behind why the game is targeted for 16+ is due to the type of game I want this to be. Dark,Creepy and Spooky. 

Environment:
Carnival *Haunted look*
Abandoned Circus Tent
Hall of Mirrors
Dark Forest

Colour Scheme: Dark tones of all colours, dark yellows, reds, blues, greys, purples and whites.
Protagonist: You (Female) Shirt, jeans and boots. (100 Health). Character Name: Elva
Antagonist: The Killer Clowns: Some may just be stumbling clowns wearing straitjackets which try to bite you. (Takes off 10 health) (Black, white and red colour scheme)
Some may be holding a melee weapon to hit you with. (Takes off 20 health)
This allows the player to experience different types of enemies so it’s not the same thing over and over.
Models:
Trees, Bushes, Fences, Wagon, Mirrors, Path, Ferris Wheel, Circus Tent, Torn cloth, shooting weapon, lamp posts, podium, tiny doll, knives, killer clowns, glass shards.

Tiny Doll: There will be a Tiny doll which follows you from the moment you jump out the wagon, this tiny doll is the one that set the protagonist free in the back of the wagon, furthermore, once hurt, this tiny doll will heal back some of your health when given clown blood. The story behind the tiny doll is that the clowns which possess over the abandoned circus tent killed a teenage girl which now possess the tiny doll.

First Level: You wake up in the back of a wagon with a weapon beside you, you hop off the wagon and you are inside of the carnival area. You hear music playing from inside the circus tent. (The player can then explore the area if they wish too, they can pick up glass shards which are auto added into your ammo slot.) You then enter the tent and then the entrance becomes blocked off.
(I believe this entrance is quite interesting considering it leaves a sense of mystery as to what happened and why you were in the back of a wagon. The music from inside the tent is a hint to player as where they have to go next, giving them a weapon early on is also a hint to they will need to fight something off)

Second Level: Enters the circus tent, everything looks torn and broken. A lot bigger in the inside than what it looks like from the outside, you run into a few clowns which are zombie clowns, they try and kill you with their melee weapons. Looking for a lever which opens up the hall of mirrors which is connected to the tent.
(The circus tent links in heavily with the idea of a carnival and clowns, the fact it looks abandoned adds more on to the sense of mystery and uneasiness, the fact the entrance closes means that the player now knows that this tent it not occupied by people and actually there is more happening that meets the eye.)

Third Level:  You head down to the spot light which then activates a light for the room, it’s a large room full of mirrors and killer clowns and you are running around shooting these clowns but also trying not to run into a dead end. You then are in search for another level which opens up a door and leads back to the carnival, through the forest and then you run and find a car in which you can escape in. (The hall of mirrors adds a sense of objective to the game, you now know that you need to escape however it is not as easy to escape due to the hall of mirrors being a maze. The clowns added into the maze makes it difficult for the player to escape and survive).

HUD:
Clown Blood *appears as glass with blood on*
Ammo: Collecting glass shards *appears as a glass shard with the amount of ammo next to it*.
Stamina bar: Appears in the top left of the screen. Runs out after 15 seconds of running *regens*.
When heavily injured screen starts to turn red.
Music:
Atmospheric, Horror-spooky theme. Noise plays when picking up an item. A giggle plays when you give glass with blood on to the doll. Gurgling and growling from the killer clowns are heard when you are close by to a clown.


Model Ideas:

The two images of above are melee weapons in which the enemies will use and wield. The image of the doll is a reference to how I would like to model the Tiny Doll in which follows the player. The clown to right is a reference to how I would like to design one of the clowns in which cannot use his hands.

This image to the left is reference image as to how I would model the entrance/exit to the carnival area in the first level. I think it adds to the creepy/strange level and of course it is a clown which fits perfectly in with the theme of my game.













Above is a reference to the sort of atmosphere and layout of how I would like the first level to look like. The dark clouds and light fog creates the spooky atmosphere. Furthermore, the direct path in the middle with carnival stalls and the carousel surrounding the path is the idea I had for the layout.

Unit 69

Drawing Concept Art for Computer games 

The use of concept art is to essentially generate ideas for videos games, animation, movies and so on. It is an illustrative form of ideas in which you want to implement into your game. For example, you create how your characters will look, what they will wear, what objects you want in your environment etc. It is also considered to be visual development. Particularly in games, it is a great way to see whether the designs are fit for purpose, whether they match up to what the clients brief says. With environments, it is a great way to see what the level design would look like and what sort of atmosphere/mood is generated. If too many people feel something which doesn't correspond with the brief then a new idea is most likely generated. Furthermore, with the ideas being in a illustrative form, it is easier to draw/sketch the ideas than to already model them. 

Here are a few of the stages of the development to creating the final piece of what I had mind. This is the first stage, adding in the basic areas and a few of the objects in, deciding on the placement and working on the placement of the spotlights lighting.

This is concept art of a level I have designed using the program Photo-Shop. I have tried to create a creepy atmosphere by using dark colours, spot lights and torn cloth. The lighting really emphasises on the dark doorway near the centre of the image. The reason for this is so the player is more focused on where to go and the dark doorway adds a spark of suspense as to what is lurking in there.  

The darkened edges of the images and the darkness of the stars added more of an atmosphere to the place. The stars at first looked out of place and did not fit in with the image well and the darkened edges added a dramatic effect and really emphasised the lighting which lights up the doorway and the curtains. Although the darkened edges feel a bit too heavy in the room and doesn't look quite right. Below is the final design.

Below is concept art of an environment from the game Dark Souls 3. This area is recognisable from the game, it is one of the first areas that you as the character enter. A lot of the colour tones and shades are fairly similar and dull. This creates a dark, weary atmosphere. The scaling of the building in comparison to the character is huge and this creates a daunting vibe as if the building is hanging over the player, as if it is taunting the player and trying to consume them within the darkness of it shadows it is casting. The faint glow of embers next the fountain adds a faint light to the area however, what it illuminates is quite a dark subject. It shows a cluster of body armour of which must of been worn and then in the far right corner is an image of a fallen knight with swords throughout the armour, this adds further darkness as more death is displayed throughout the lower half of the image. 

http://www.iamag.co/features/the-art-of-dark-souls-iii/

Below is an image of concept art for the enemy called the Harvester from the game Elder Scrolls Online. What this image displays is a course of images in detail of the design for the enemy. There are close ups which really shows the design up close and shows what sort of design they wanted they created. The front and back view of the enemy gives us a good idea on what the enemy will look like from different perspectives and also the closes will show what the even the smallest part of the enemy will look like. The colours and tones add a great touch to the image as it gives off the vibe of a dangerous enemy in which wields the power of magic, the dark tones throughout really reflect upon the personality of the enemy that it is evil and dark. 

https://www.videogamesartwork.com/games/elder-scrolls-online

This is another image of concept art from the game Elder Scrolls Online. This is an image from the Dark Brotherhood DLC and it includes what the character armour is in light, medium and heavy and then what the different weapons look like in the dark brotherhood style. The characters in the middle display clearly the different armour from an appealing angle. The colours which are chosen as the base colour for this armour reflects on the name of the armour style, the "Dark Brotherhood". As a bit of background information, the Dark Brotherhood is known for killing another whilst hiding in the shadows, the dark tones of red reflects the colour of blood and the dark grey tones help to hide the wearer within the shadows. 

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/dlc/darkbrotherhood

There are a few stages into creating your final piece of concept art. First off, a few different quick, colourless sketches are needed to jot down the ideas that are rushing around in your head. These sketches may include different angles of the character/object. 

For example; 

Then stage two consists of choosing which sketch you like the most or which the client likes the most and then adding a palette of colour to the image. The roughness of the colouring in acts as a guide of what sort of mood and atmosphere you want to create. 

Stage three consists of adding in the outlines of the object, well in this case adding in the outline to the bike, the wheels, the character, her clothes etc. Furthermore, this allows you to add more colour on top and detail of colour into the areas where you have roughly painted over before. 

The final stage is adding lighting to the image to create the mood and atmosphere and to make particular parts of the image stand out the most. 

http://www.creativebloq.com/creativity/4-steps-creating-concept-art-extra-depth-101413175

Above is just one method of the different stages of concept art. Others may choose a different way of creating their concept art. 

Unit: 66/67/68

Applications of 3D

Architectural Design:

3D is applied to a lot of different subjects such as games, product design, TV, film, education, architectural designs, animations etc. When it comes to applying 3D into these different subjects, they are all used in very different ways. A lot of architectural designs rely on 3D models and animations. The reason behind this is so that a person is able to view what this future build will look like from every angle. Furthermore, the 3D model really covers the scale of objects. It also allows the people that are viewing this architectural idea a good idea of what it would look like in reality.

This video clip is a great example showing what a 3D architectural animation looks like. The colours and the different perspectives it offers really gives the viewer a taste of what it will look like in reality. The scale of the people compared to building also adds a great effect to how big this build will be. If this was a 2D animation of how the build will look like, we wouldn't be able to see the true scale of the objects and buildings, furthermore, we would not be able to look from other perspectives in case something needs to be changed, into a better design. This video did not only cover the overall designs of buildings, but it also included animated people and considered how the environment would look to. The animation really livens up the whole video and adds a great overall environment.

Product Design:

Product design also uses 3D software to create models which allows the user to get a good feel of how the product will look when it is it finished. It all comes back to the scale of the product, the colours, the size, the size of the components and so on. Drawing 3D sketches is one point of gathering a good idea on how it will look like from different angles, however it would cover all the angles as much as a 3D model would. Furthermore, a 3D model can give you accuracy moreover than a 3D sketch of a design for a product.

This video clip is a someone's portfolio of products that they have created, designed and rendered in. They have included different perspectives of what the products would look like, the size comparison of the components, colours, lighting and so on. This portfolio is a great example of a bunch of different products which have been 3D modelled.





Games:

Games are heavily reliant on 3D models. 3D models are now used for most games whether they are cell-shaded type games or photo-realistic styled games. What game developers create with 3D modelling software are the characters which are contained within the games, objects, weapons and environmental objects. The models are essential to how the game plays and looks overall. The character models are needing to follow the sort of styled game you are going for. Whilst using the 3D software for creating models for a game, they can also create the animation for those models with the software. For example, Maya.



This video clip displays a man creating a video game character which is going to be a part of a real-time game. This is a video which has got the speed increased to show how he has used a 3D modelling software to create the desired character that he has wanted to sculpt. The program allows him to rotate his character to be able to see the model form all perspectives. This helps him see if all of the proportions are right and correct.

Animation/Films/Tv:

3D animations require 3D models which are then rigged using a 3D software program. 3D animation really draws in the viewer due to the colours, models and lighting. 3D animations have now replaced the old style of how animations were made. The way animations were made before 3D software, it was drawing the animation frame by frame. Now with animation, you can use rigging on your 3D models. Rigging is essentially the skeleton of that object. A skeleton has joints and bones, animators are able to adjust and change the pose at which they want the model to stand as/sit as and so on.
When it comes to films and Tv, they use 3D software differently. Game of Thrones is a good example as they use 3D software to create visual effects within the episodes. Green screen is often used to also create 3D backgrounds for the scenes within films and TV episodes.

This is a great example of showing how animation were done before animators could use 3D modelling programs. Throughout the video, it shows us how they would first create a frame and then how they would add colour to that frame and then add into a scene.



Both videos shows a great contrast between how animation is made now and how animation was done back then.




This video clip is a short animated 3D film.This is a great example of a result from making a 3D animation short film by using 3D modelling software.












This relates back to the example of TV shows using 3D modelling software and green screen to create 3D visual effects within episodes of a TV series.

Time spots:
5.16-6.00







Displaying 3D Polygon Animations:

API which is Application Program Interface interacts with GUI components. An example of an API is Direct3D. Direct 3D graphics are used to create 3D graphics for games and other uses. It is an API which works with the Windows OS and is a low-level graphics API in which can also take advantage of hardware acceleration such as graphic cards. It is used to render 3D objects without sacrificing performance. OpenGL stands for Open Graphics Library and is another API which was originally developed by Silicon Graphics in 1991. It is said that the OpenGL is widely used, it supports 2D and 3D graphics and can be used on a variety of computer platforms. The high visual quality and performance helps produce and display brilliantly compelling graphics, whether 2D or 3D. SceneKit is another API which is specific to an OS. SceneKit is an API which is specifically for Apple. What makes this different form OpenGL is that, with SceneKit you do not need to input deatil into the rendering algorithms it has, you only need to do a descriptions of the scene's content and then describe the animations/actions you want the SceneKit to perform.

Graphics Pipeline:

Modelling

The graphics pipeline for Direct3D 11 is "designed for generating graphics for realtime gaming applications". The diagram to the left displays the orders of stages on how the pipeline works. Altogether there are 10 stages that it goes through; Input-Assembler Stage, Vertex Shader Stage, Hull Shader Stage, Tessellator Stage, Domain Shader Stage, Geometry Shader Stage, Stream Output Stage, Rasterizer Stage, Pixel-Shader Stage and Output-Merger Stage. The Input-Assembler gives data to the piepline such as triangle, lines and points. Then the vertex-shader stage processes the vertices and takes a single input vertex and produces a single output vertex. It carries out procedures that are to do with transformations, lighting and skinning. The geometry-shader can get rid of/create one or more primitives. What I mean by the term primitives are; 1 vertex for a point, 2 vertices for a line and 3 vertices for a triangle. Furthermore, it supports limited geometry amplification and de-amplification.
The stream-output stage connects with the memory and the rasterizer. It streams the primitives from the geometry shader and delivers to the memory which is on it's way to the rasterizer. When the data is streamed out of the pipeline and into the memory, it can go back around and back into the pipeline as input data/read-back from the CPU. The rasterizer stage prepares the primitives which were streamed from the stream output for the next stage, clips them and then determines how to call forth pixel shaders. The pixel-shader stage generates per-pixel data (colour) for the primitives. The last stage is the output-merger which then combines the many different types of output data to generate the final result. The three stages in which I missed out were the hull-shader, tessellator and domain-shader stages. These 3 shaders are all tessellation stages. They basically convert high order surfaces to triangles.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476882%28v=vs.85%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

Rendering techniques:

When it comes to rendering, it means changing a model into an image, however because this image is a model (3D) , it would include textures, shading, lighting, viewpoint etc. Parallel rendering uses parallel computing which is many calculations that are all carried out/executed at once. The reason behind why parallel computing is used is due to the complex scenes which can be created that are scientifically visual. For example; Radiosity.
Radiosity is a method of detailed analysis of light reflections. This is one of the complex visuals that are included within parallel rendering. There is an equation in which radiosity uses; Idiff = IePd(Ue+Un). Un is Normalised Surface normal, Ue is Normalised Vector Pointing from surface to light source, Pd is Diffuse reflectivity of surface, Ie is intensity of light source and Idiff is Diffuse light intensity.

As you can see above, the radiosity has added a softened light effect into the room and has also add a realistic light effect to the scene. Furthermore, it has created shadows within the room which are subtle and soft. Ray tracing is a technique which generates an image by tracing the light generated on 3D graphics. What it tries to do is simulate a path of light rays which bounce around the world, then they are traced through the scene. 

Rendering Engines:


There are various amounts of  rendering engines which are available. A rendering engine is software in which reads pixel data from a file system and then draws text and images on the screen (map the pixel data).
I have found a website in which tests and compares a few rendering engines. How they test them is they create a scene within blender and then they render the scene. The numbers in the bottom right are actually how long it took for them to render. The lower the render time the better the rendering engine was. For this scene in particular, you can notice differences within the scene. For example, if you look are all of the green end tables, some are textured, some are quite plain, and they are all different shades of green. This scene also tests how the indirect light would work within the scene.

This comparison is a great example to show there are different types of rendering engines which work all different and it shows the capability on how they can handle certain scenes. 

https://www.blenderguru.com/articles/render-engine-comparison-cycles-vs-giants/

Geometry Theory/Mesh Construction:

When it comes to 3D modelling, you first start off with a choice of different shapes in which you can use. However, how these shapes become models is a different matter. With the polygons, you are able to adjust and change the shape by editing where the vertices are place, which angle the edge is tilting, adjust the size of a face on the shape and so on. A mesh is a collection of; vertices, faces and edges. In Maya, you can switch between what mode you view your model in, there is a wire frame mode, shaded mode, shaded with hardware-rendered texture, wire frame on shaded, default material etc. Furthermore, there are different model types; Polygons, NURBS and Subdivison Surfaces. Polygons allows the user to model a surface by building it up and reshaping it and so on. NURBS lets you easily create curves using its tool, these curves can then be created in models. Subdivision surfaces allows the user to edit surfaces with minimum overhead data. Here is a preview of a few polygon primitives. These are also a few of the common primitives which are used within 3D modelling software.The image below displays the primitives in their shaded mode.

Below is an image of three polygon primitives in wire frame mode. The wire frame mode allows you to keep easy track on your models within the panels view. Furthermore, you can change the colour of the wire frame for each model, so it is even more easier to keep track on where all of your models are.


































This is an example of a model that was created using NURBS. To create this they used a CV curve tool (Control Vertices). NURBS are Non-Uniform Rational B-splines. NURBS are most commomly used by designers who model for industrial/automotive designs. The reason behind why they use this is due to the smooth forms that they can create. They can also be converted into a poly mesh.





These example are from the software Maya. These two images on the left are an example of using the extrude tool. The first image on the left is; i selected the far right face of the polygon and then selected to use the extrude tool. Then by pulling the yellow arrow (was blue before, but when you click on an arrow it highlights it yellow) you are extruding that face outwards the right. You are able to extrude any face in any direction. However, if you extrude a face and push it inwards it will then extrude into the box. You can model a box in various different ways. If you press F9 you will be in vertex selection mode.If you click on a vertex, you are able to move it around by using the arrow keys. Another mode is edge selection mode (F10). With this, you are able to select what edges you would like to move around, resize, delete etc. When you hover your mouse over the edges of your model, they will be highlighted red.
F11 is the mode for selecting faces, which is the mode I used for selecting the highlighted orange face in the images to use the extrude tool on. The last mode which is quite significant is the object mode (F8). This allows you to move the model around as a whole, rotate it and resize it. When you are in object mode, the model will be highlighted green, when you are in the other modes, your model will be highlighted in blue.
The image at the bottom is a reference to box modelling. The shape below was a cube however, I have used the vertex selection tool to model the primitive into what I desired.














3D Development Software:
There are many different 3D development software in which is available for designers. Considering there is a variety of 3D modelling programs, it allows the designers to choose the correct software for them and their purpose. The different 3D modelling programs also vary in which tools they have and what they cover.

3D Studio Max;

3D Studio Max 2016 software is supported on 64 bit OS's such as; Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 whereas 3D Studio Max 2017 is supported on; Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows 10. It requires 64-bit intel or AMD multi-core processor, 4GB of RAM minimum although 8GB is recommended, 6GB of free disk space for the install, and a 3 button mouse (left, right and middle button). 3D studio max is a software program which designers use to model, animate and render scenes. It supports DirectX11 shaders and has tools for particle animation, crown generation and perspective matching. This is commonly used for games, films and motion graphics. Below is an image of the 3D studio max HUD.

Maya:

Maya is another 3D modelling software which allows for designers to model, animate and render in scenes. Maya is a 3D modelling program that I use so I know what is on the HUD and how to access the different areas of Maya in which will suit my needs. Maya has next-gen display technology and has tools in which can handle complex data. Maya software requirements are windows 7,8,8.1 and 10, Mac OS X, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and CentOS 6.5 Linux OS, 64-bit Intel/AMD multi-core, 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 4GB of free disk space and 3 button mouse.

Lightwave:
Lightwave is another 3D modelling program which is supported on Windows and Mac. For windows machines, Intel/AMD Athlon 2 Processor or better, 64-bit system RAM 4GB, 32-bit system 2GB minimum, 64-bit Windows vista up to Windows 10 and 32-bit Windows Vista up to Windows 10. For MAC OS, Intel Processor, 64-bit system RAM 4GB minimum and Snow Leopard 10.6 or better. A few of the feature that they have are; Bullet (Constraints and Motors), Importance Sampling (Better, cleaner renders), Match Perspective (Plate matching in minutes), Genoma 2 (Fast, flexible rigging), Edge Rendering (Improvements), Interactive Dynamic Parenting (Parent with ease) and Enhancements (Feature Improvement).

Constraints:

There are constraints however to developing in 3D software. One of those is the poly count (Polygon Count). If there is a high poly count, the game may just freeze over and not work due to how much needs to be rendered in. On the other hand, if the poly count is low then it will be able to run a lot smoother. There are also limitations which are in place. For example, when it comes to the app store, their limitation is the maximum size of the app which you are allowed to send to be reviewed and placed within the store. The maximum size of the app before February, 2015 was 2GB, after that time period it is now 4GB. Another constraint is the rendering time. If you create a scene with a high poly count, high quality textures, lighting, shadows etc, the rendering time will be quite large. This could possibly be cut down by a small amount dependent on the rendering engine you use.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/02/12/ios-app-size-limit/

Assignment 1: Unit 70

Game Engines

What is the purpose of a Game Engine:A game engine is a software program where you create all of the games essentials such as; the physics, the environments used within a game, animation and much more. Game engines are used to create game assets and can be used across many different platforms. All game engines are very specific on what their game engine can be used on. For example, Leadwerks is a game engine that is dedicated to making PC games, the games developed from this engine can be used on Linux, Windows and Mac. Game engines allow "Modding" to an existing game. For example, Ark Survival Evolved is a game which is still currently in alpha and they have created a SDK for anyone to use in the Unreal Engine. This is a prime example of allowing users to develop more for a game which is already up, running and being used. This Dev Kit allows users to explore the games core and experiment with what is within the game. They change how items appear visually in game or create new objects in general. Game engines have a lot of different tools in which a game developer can use. Each game engine has different tools to the rest. For example, CryEngine has an exclusive sandbox tool in which is exclusive to them. Some game engines have hundreds of different tools in which the developers can use whereas other may only have a few tools in which you can use. Furthermore, game engines are forever updating to a newer version. The reason behind this is so that the developers can find it easier to make, create and develop games. Introduction to 3rd party software is a great example as to making it easier to develop games and a great example to them updating the engines.

Leadwerks:

Leadwerks is a 3D game engine in which was created in 2006. It specifies in game development only for PC games. If you use the Leadwerks game engine now, you will be able to directly upload your game to Steam Greenlight by using the Leadwerks Game Launcher which was an early access title in 2015. Between 2006 and 2013, Leadwerks game developers were only able to use their games on two operating systems, Windows and Mac. A kick-starter campaign in 2013 allowed the game engine to produce and launch games for Linux too which made it available all round. Over the years they have been able to expand on how their developed games are able to be published and where they can be used.

The image to left displays a few of the games in which were created using the Leadwerks game engine. These games may not be well known however it just goes to show that developers are successful in creating games using this engine. Furthermore these are games which have been published onto the Steam Greenlight which has been made easy due to the Leadwerks game launcher they have. No approval process is needed if they use the Leadwerks game launcher. 

Havok/Havok Vision Engine: 

In comparison to Leadwerks, Havok has worked with the top, well known developer studios and publishers such as; EA, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard, Sony Computer Entertainment, Ubisoft etc.. The Havok Vision Engine supports features such as Object-Oriented Design, Save/Load system, Geometry Handling, Debug Console, GUI, Explosions, Weather, Mirror Effects, Lighting and Shadows effects, Texturing, Shaders and tons more. The Havok Vision Engine is a great engine for MMO developers due to the tools that it has. In comparison to Leadwerks, the Havok Vision engine and the SDK's Havok have work with games that are looking to be played on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Nintendo 3DS, Android, iOS, Mac OS, Linux, Wii, PlayStation Vita.

Havok have 4 different SDK (Software Development Kits). The 4 different SDK's are Havok Physics, Havok Destruction, Havok AI and Havok Cloth. The image to the left shows the 4 different SDK's and what they contain. These 4 SDK's have been used in various games. For example, Havok Physics have been in the Assassin Creed series and Havok Destruction has been used for the The Last of Us.

Unreal Engine:

Unreal Engine has come a long way since it first started. The platforms in which the first Unreal Engine supported were Windows, Linux, Mac OS and OS X, Dreamcast and PlayStation 2. Unreal Engine 2 which was released in 2002, expanded the horizon more on which platforms games could be released on, Windows, Linux, OS X, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and GameCube. There was a huge jump from Unreal Engine 2 to Unreal Engine 3 in graphical terms and platform terms. The Unreal Engine 3 took full advantage of lighting, shadows, gamma correction etc. The platforms in which were available to develop games for were Windows, Linux, OS X, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Android, iOS and PlayStation Vita. Not all of these were available when the engine was released, over the years the availability of platforms had grown. Of course, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 development couldn't have been added in 2004 as they were not thought of. Now Unreal Engine 4 is available to use, however they have narrowed down their availability to develop for other platforms. The reason behind this is due to what platforms games are being made for. They only have development for Windows, Linus, OS X, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS and Android. The Unreal Engine has advanced so much over the years, releasing many different versions in between each release which make game development a lot easier for developers to use their engine. The time to do change things within the engine has been reduced dramatically the newer the version.

"[In older engines], if you wanted to change the relationship between your weapon damage and how long it'll take to kill a creature, you may spend a couple of days iterating, but if you have to spend a lot of time waiting for a build every time, you're talking one change, waiting 15 minutes for the compile to complete, and then play the game, get to the point where you can test it, test it, exit the game, change, compile... Now, since all of that can be done very quickly within the tools, it's 'Make the change, play, when it compiles, finish, shoot the guy, and then escape, make the change, play'. The iteration time is down to 30 seconds instead of 15 minutes. Our ability to kind of roll through and see how the game is playing out is much faster."


— Alan Willard, writing for Kotaku[80]

Unreal Engine Graphics Difference:

Unreal:

Unreal was developed using the first Unreal Engine. This image is evidence of what the graphic capability the first Unreal Engine had.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3:

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3 was developed using Unreal Engine 2. Comparing to the previous image you can see the graphics have gotten better. 

Batman: Arkham City 

This game was developed using the Unreal Engine 3. You can see in each image the graphics has took a step up. Furthermore, you can see that the lighting and shadows are more contrasting giving the game its suited atmosphere.

Ark Survival Evolved:

This game is still currently being developed using the Unreal Engine 4, they have also released an "Ark Dev Kit" for Unreal Engine 4 so the public get a chance to access all that is within the game. You can see that this engine has far more superior graphics than the older ones.


Frostbite:

Frostbite is a game engine which is specifically for EA. The most popular games in which are made using the Frostbite engine are Battlefield and Mass effect. DICE were the ones that created Frostbite due to development of the game "Battlefield Bad Company". DICE developed the game Battlefield 1942 which was a huge hit for them and the battlefield series themselves. Battlefield 1942 was released in 2002, from then on they created 27 other Battlefield games (a good few number of those were add ons/dlcs for the main games such as Battlefield 4 and Battlefield 4 final stand). The Frostbite engine has been developed to a third stage. The most recent version is Frostbite 3 and the first game in which was developed and released using this version was Battlefield 4. The Frostbite engine includes development in audio, scripting, animation, cinematics, AI, physics, destruction, visual effects, rendering and much more. They also have 3 very unique tools to them, FrostEd, Backend Services and Runtime. Runtime supports models/data/code which are developed for games made for consoles can be used also for iOS and Android. Backend Services is a system in which can handle a large amount of raw assets and components for their games. FrostEd is a widely used program so that all the different working departments (Artists, Programmers etc) can develop a stunning, high quality games/experiences. The reason behind why this engine is best made for the games like Battlefield is due to the large scale interactions in which these games contain. These games are also unique due to the Frostbite Engine.

This screenshot to the left is an image of Battlefield 1942 game play. This game was developed using the first version of the Frostbite engine. This gives you a general idea of what other games looked like which were developed using the Frostbite engine in that time.

This is a screenshot of game play from the game Need for Speed : The Run. This game was the first game to be developed using the Frostbite 2 engine version.

This screenshot was taken from the Battlefield 4 - Official GamePlay (E3 2013 Game Reveal) video and it was the first game to be developed using the newest version of the Frostbite 3 engine.




http://www.dice.se/about/
http://www.frostbite.com/about/history/


CryEngine:

CryEngine is another game engine which is used by many game developers. What I believe the reason is to why game developers might use CryEngine is due to indie-development fund they have. It is where people/developers are able to donate a certain amount of money into the fund which goes towards a project in the making. CryEngine then decides which package a particular project gets. As I was looking through the indie-development fund selected projects, one project had done a Q&A. This was one of the questions that was asked:


"Q: Why is this game being developed on CRYENGINE?

A: We are using CRYENGINE because of the sheer amount of detail this game engine can produce on screen at once with minimal performance issues. It is an extremely powerful tool that allows us to create a high quality looking game on such a low budget. Survival games have never looked this beautiful."

This is another reason as to why developers may use CryEngine as well instead of other game engines. The features in which this game engine has are set into different sections, Visuals, Sandbox & Tools, Characters & Animation, Platforms, Audio & Physics and performance. A few of the visuals features are DirectX 12 Support, Physically based rendering, Real-Time dynamic water caustics, Tessellation, 3D HDR Lens flares, Efficient Anti-Aliasing, Volumetric fog shadows, new particle system and so much more. For sandbox & tools, a material editor, FBX support, Level design, Track view cinematic editor, flow graph, designer tool and CryEngine Sandbox tool. Character & Animation features are, character technology, procedural motion-warping & high-end IK solutions, parametric skeletal animation, geometry cache, multi-layer navigation mesh, advanced AI system and physicalised character customisation. I could go through and tell you much more about all the features that are available to use however the list would go on and on. Here is a web link that tells you all of the features in which are contained within the game engine.

https://www.cryengine.com/features

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZuNKzpXqBY

CryEngine 1:

  This is an example of what the game graphics looked like using the first CryEngine version. This image is a screenshot of the game "Far Cry". CryEngine 1 was developed in 2001 -2004.









CryEngine 2:
This is an example of what the game graphics looked like using the second CryEngine. This image is a screenshot of the game "Crysis".

CryEngine 3:

This image to the left is a screenshot from the game "State of Decay". This game was developed by using the CryEngine 3. 

Unity Engine:
The unity engine is most well known for its multi-platform support. It supports iOS, Android, Windows (Phone), Tizen, Windows, Windows (Store apps), Mac, Linux/Steam OS, WebGL, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, 3DS, Oculus Rift, Google Cardboard, Steam VR, PlayStation VR, Gear VR, Microsoft Hololens, Android Tv, Samsung SMART TV and tvOS. This engine is by far one of the largest supporters of multi platform. It is also more than just an engine, it has Unity ADS, Unity Analytics, Unitiy Collaborate, Unity Cloud Build, Unity Performance Reporting, Unity Multiplayer and Unity Certification. Now, more about the engine itself. The Unity engine is one of favoured game engines. Without supplementary liscense, game developers gain access to:
Animation:
Retargetable animations, full control of animation weights at runtime, event calling from within the animation playback, sophisticated state machine hierarchies and transitions and blend shapres for facial animations.
Graphics:
Enlighten-powered real-time global illumination, physically-based shading, refelction probes, curve and gradient-driven modular particle system and intuitive UI tools.
Optimisation:
Advanced memory profiling, umbra-powered occlusion culling, asset bundling, level of detail support, build size stripping and multi-threaded job system.
Audio:
Real-time mixing and mastering and hierarchies of mixers, snapshots and predefined effects.
2D and 3D Physics:
Box2D with a comprehensive range of effectors,joints and colliders and NVIDIA PhysX 3.3.
Scripting:
C# and Javascript, Native Visual Studio integration and AI features with advanced automated path finding and Navigation Meshes.
They have a play mode which is a powerful development tool for rapid iterative editing. This play mode allows the game developer to press play and interact with their game in the look of when it is in its platform-specific final build. This play mode also allows the developer to pause the game and alter any values, scripts, assets and much more and then instantly see results. Like the other game engines, they have an assets store where you are able to purchase assets for free or for a price.





Rendering:

As previously stated when noting down what tools each game engine has, each tool is very specific to what they do. With the CryEngine, in the rendering section they have Realistic Vegetation, Real-Time Local Reflections, Motion Blur and Depth of Field, Efficient Anti-Aliasing, 3D HDR Lens Flares, Tessellation, Real-Time Dynamic Water Caustics, DirectX 12 Support and Physically Based Rendering. Each section has their own part in rendering. The definition of rendering in general is a process which outlines a 2D or 3D image/model with light, shadows and colours. A term which is used is "My map hasn't rendered in properly" or "these trees aren't rendered in", this means that the objects out in the distance is taking time to process the lighting and colours which are involved with that object in particular. With some objects it may take longer for it to "render in". Unreal Engines features with rendering are quite similar to CryEngine. Unreal Engine 4 supports DirectX 11 and DirectX12 rendering features, it supports HDR reflections, tessellation, thousands of dynamic lights, shading, materials, IES lighting profiles and more. The physically-based shading in particular is a hot point for Unreal Engine as they have added a new material pipeline which gives the developer more control over how you want your characters and objects to look and feel like. Even though Leadwerks is not a game engine which is widely used, they still have quite a few features similar to what Unreal Engine and CryEngine offer. They offer a large-scale vegetation system, this system doesn't store each instance in memory. They use a modern shader pipeline which allows the developer to instantly view their results from the shader code they have created without actually leaver Leadwerks. They also have an OpenGL 4 deferred renderer which produces high quality cg render than real-time graphics. What deferred rendering is used for is, to provide realistic lighting to a scene and create dynamic soft shadows. What they use this with is real hardware MSAA which is a high quality anti-aliasing method. Leadwerks say that "These techniques combine to produce startlingly sharp and vibrant renders".


Animation:

When it comes to animation, we would want everything to be quite realistic. Animation in a game is what brings the games to life, this could be from every strand of hair on the characters head moving how it should in correspondence to the action or watching the grass move wildly when your character runs through it. A game with a lot of animation (to me) brings the game to life. Photo-realistic games have heavy amount of animation whereas other games you wouldn't need it so much. CryEngine has something called Character Technology which allows game developers to create realistic characters and animation for games in real time. Character Technology offers screen-space sub-surface scattering for all supported platforms, lifelike iris parallax mapping for truly realistic eye representation and new unified shaders for character shadows and hair. The Unity animation system provides setup of animation for all elements, supports animation clips created within the Unity engine, humanoid animation retargeting, simplified workflow, convenient preview of animation clip, transitions and interactions created, management tool, different logic for animating different body parts and layering and masking features.

https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/AnimationSection.html
https://www.cryengine.com/features/characters-animation


Audio/Middleware/Physics:

Audio creates the atmosphere in a game along with the environments of course, however the audio can symbolise many things. For example, picking up an item, a hint of something dangerous is nearby, something you have done has activated another thing and so on. CryEngine allows the developer to choose its middleware in which you use to create audio. Before CryEngine introduced "ATL" (Audio Translation Layer) they only used single audio middleware, now they have introduced ATL in the newest CryEngine, developers are now able to use multiple, compatible audio middleware. CryEngine provide 5 different audio controls; RTPC's (Realtime Parameter Control's), Environments, Switches & their states, Pre-loads and Triggers. Unreal Engine 4's audio system is different compared to CryEngine. They have 5 different sections for the audio system; Audio files, Sound Cue Editor, Ambient Sound Actor and Sound Attenuation. Sound Attenuation is allowing the developer to lower a sound in volume as the player moves away from it. Ambient Sound Actor is a looping or non-looping sound which plays at the beginning or when the player spawn in. Also, it conforms to the real world, so if you are close to it, it will sound loud, if you are further away from it, it will appear as a softer sound. The Sound Cue Editor allows the developer to create interesting sound cues. There are many nodes which are supplied through the sound cue editor; Attenuation Node, Branch Node, Concatenator Node, Continuous Modulator Node, Crossfade by Distance Node, Crossface by Param Node, Delay Node, DialoguePlayer Node, Doppler Node, Enveloper Node, Group Control Node, Looping Node, Mature Node, Mixer Node, Modulator Node, Oscillator Node, Random Node, Soundclass Node, Switch Node, Wave Param Node and Wave Player Node. Unreal Engine 4 lead in with middleware integrations. Unreal work with NVIDIA, Autodesk Gameware, Enlighten, Umbra, Oculus VR, PhysX and more software. Leadwerks sound section allows the developers to skip to any time within the sound, emit a sound from any entity, automatic channel management frees up unneeded channels and 3D sound spatialisation. Compared to the other game engines, Leadwerks do not have a large amount of tools for the sound department. The Havok Vision Engine has middleware integration. The software which is compatible is Autodesk Kynapse AI, IDV SpeedTree, Quazal Net-Z, NVIDIA PhysX, Bullet, Havok Physics, Scaleform GFx, FmodEx, XAUDIO, OpenAL, Allegorithmic Substance Air, CriWare, NetDog, Xaitment AI and Pixellux DMM.

Artificial Intelligence:

Artificial Intelligence also commonly spoken as AI is a system which gives an object the ability to do things without the player needing to take control over it. The most common linked AI is with the enemies within the game. CryEngine have an advanced AI system in which allows characters to respond intelligently to the surrounding game environment and handle their behaviour along with hearing and sight. Unreal Engine 4 is similar with the aspect of adjusting the AI's sensory behaviour which makes them smarter. They also have dynamic navigation mesh updates. The Leadwerks engine works with Navmesh pathfinding with crowd avoidance, character controller movement integrated with physics and pathfinding systems and you can set entities to chase another object. This is different compared to the other two engines where you can change their sensory behaviour which would have and greatly affect how the AI plays. The Havok Vision Engine AI is similar to the other AI systems the other engines contain. It contains Pathfinding, Decision Making, Scripts and basic framework for custom AI-Extensions. However, they allow 3rd party AI integration software such as Autodesk Kynapse AI, Xaitment AI and Spirops.

https://www.cryengine.com/features/characters-animation
https://www.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine-4
http://devmaster.net/devdb/engines/vision-game-engine