DES302 Blog 4:

Week 8 progress update!

Hello and welcome back to blog 4! We are at the 3/4 stage of the project (entering week 9) where everything including my mental health is starting to crumble, so come along for the ride! :,)

As per usual, we will be using the "Three Whats" reflective cycle created by Rolfe et al (2001), and curated by the University of Edinburgh (2020). I love this cycle so much, it's simple, efficient, fun to use, and not complicated at all <3

Rolfe et al (2001)

What?

What's been happening??

I have properly started getting visual components ready to build my prototype! This has involved a lot of pixel art in photoshop, and slowly losing my mind over finding 95% transparent pixels that mess up the final export :,)

There are 5 "demo player" characters I have created still images for, with one idle animation complete. The other four also need idle animations, I also need a simple walking animation, and at least one or two of them performing a fight move to showcase the boss fights.

This is what I'm working with so far: the demo players are visually based off of my friend's D&D characters (with permission), based on prior sketches I created:

Art by me

There was also a slight issue with the characters becoming blurred since I was working on such a tiny canvas, so I had to scale them up 10x to be crispy enough to use.

Just today I have figured out how to idly animate a pixel figure, focusing on dividing the arm movement, cape movement, and idle breath/bobbing as separate components to feel a bit more realistic/fluid. Although breaking apart all my previous work was a little terrifying, it was a learning process to understand how I could make these components work together. This is my first proper attempt at animation as well, so what could go wrong?

Initially I aimed to keep it within 6 frames, but then realised my goal of having each 'bob' being 2 frames would not loop the gif properly when sitting on an odd number, so I reduced the frames to 4. This is probably a good thing, as not only does it reduce the amount of work, it also simplifies the movement much more.

Eventually I ended up with an exported gif which seemed fine from Photoshop, but when I opened it, turns out it created some random white pixels to fill next to semi-transparent squares. Even though I am using the pencil tool, with colours set to 'nearest neighbour' occasionally colours still do blend outside their squares - especially when moving or erasing certain pieces. You can see some of these added pixels around the sword hilt, shield, and legs.

Failed attempt 1/9 aaaaaaaa

It took 9 attempts to clean up everything properly, making sure each pixel was fully filled in :,)

At least I know what to look out for when making the next character GIFs, plus we have a final polished GIF to use:

Working attempt 9

Only 14 more character animations to sort. Plus a few idle NPCs... and some monsters... and some environments... Me right now:

Good, A. (2024, June 24).

There's also the report lurking in the background that I need to get working on for checkpoint 2. Everything I've been doing needs to be documented and refined into a report which is due within a month, and blogged about, but first I'm focusing on getting real components sorted for my project so that I have things to report on in the first place.

So What?

So what am I going to do about this situation hmmm?

If there's one thing I'm learning fast, it's how much I need to get just stuck into work. Once I have the components I need, the real prototype can take form, but a lot of work is needed to get to that stage. This week will be spent doing as much work as I can to counter for the last few weeks of lacklustre performance, and feeling overwhelmed. I have learnt that I am my own worst enemy in this. The hardest step to take is always the first one, once I have momentum going and a rhythm, then we're getting somewhere.

It took me around 5 hours to fiddle around with that first character animation today. That was also a test run and learning at the same time, so the next few animations should go far smoother. By the end of the week I want all the main player character animations complete, with an environment well underway. Then next week I can start compiling a scene together for the first real look at what the app could be.

While focusing on the concept art is the major task at hand, I must also remember to focus on storytelling/showcasing the idea of my prototype. Remembering to include the daily task & social mechanics of the app, and how these will tackle burnout in students. Sticking to the plan and staying on track will help me through this.

Now What?

Current objective: survive.

What have I learnt from this experience, moving forwards?

As said before: I am my own worst enemy and biggest critic. At the end of the day I need to simply stop overthinking everything and (in the wise words of Sol LeWitt's letter read by Benedict Cumberbatch) "Stop it, and just DO!!"

Letters Live. (2016). Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse - Read by Benedict Cumberbatch.

From now on we will simply "DO" more. No more caring about what people will think, or 'oh my skill aren't good enough'. We don't have the luxury of time to worry about that enough anymore, now is the time for work!!

If I could do things differently, I would have had this self pep-talk therapy blogging session about 6 weeks ago, but here we are. I am still proud of how far I have come to date, and don't intend on backing down so close to the finish line. So I might as well create something I'm truly proud of and happy to release into the world.

I will chip away at tasks at every point in time I can get, but also remembering to take a leaf out of my own research book of burnout: remembering to shake things up if motivation is wearing out. If one task isn't working out then great I'll simply do the next one and come back to it. Progress is progress, and that's all I need to focus on right now.

I will be back in the next blog with some exciting things to share, and that's a promise.

See you in the next one... :)

References:

Good, A. (2024, June 24). Thumbs up to the thumbs up crying cat meme. The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/memes/thumbs-up-crying-cat-meme/

Letters Live. (2016). Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse - Read by Benedict Cumberbatch. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnSMIgsPj5M

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The University of Edinburgh. (2020). What? So what? Now what? The University of Edinburgh. https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/what-so-what-now-what