Dissertation Project Proposal

Dissertation Title - Creating an Immersive experience through the use of lighting, sound and environment.

Brief Outline of Work
An experimentation with various mechanics and methods to create tense, atmospheric environments which directly affect the way the player feels.
This will lead to a final product created in unity using the various successful methods of tension creation.

Rationale
I have decided upon this dissertation for multiple reasons.

 1. At a basic level I feel that exploring immersion will be useful for most working areas of games design. A company creating a game will want a game that draws the player in, makes them forget they are playing a game and thus leaves the player having had a good experience. This is true with all types of games and so knowing ways to engage a player is a large portion of the games industry.
There is currently a job going in Cambridge - Frontier Developments LTD
They have a description of what they desire on GamesJobsDirect.com

 - Successful applicants must have a broad experience of playing games, and be able to demonstrate a good understanding of player mentality / psychology and gameplay mechanisms
- We are looking for designers who are full of creative flare and enthusiasm and have a passion for, and extensive knowledge of, games and gameplay

(http://www.gamesjobsdirect.com/jobs/1221765/game-designers.asp) 

I believe by undertaking this project I should be successfully proving I can achieve the requirements the company are after.

2. Software Knowledge. Throughout university I have worked in many different software. I wish to use my dissertation to better learn Unity. This covers the basic software to create a game and also to learn code to a better level. I currently only know basic code and even still I couldn't do too much more advanced scripts however I would like to try and change this.

 

 I would also like to learn more advanced effects in unity. A professional looking final product would be advantageous to me acquiring a job in the field I desire.

Annotated Bibliography

 

James Newman (2008) Playing with Videogames, London : Routledge.

 

 This book has a lot of information in it covering a wide aspect of games and player experiences. Newman talks of the gaming world both inside the games and outside. Specifically he talks about cut scenes, giving the player the ability to act out the story rather than take away from the action with pre rendered cut scenes. This is quite an interesting page (52), players may often skip cut scenes to jump straight into the action.

James Newman (2004) Videogames, London : Routledge.




Another Newman, in this book he goes into a little more detail as to 'why do players play'and he discusses the use of an invisible HUD as to not intrude a players experience. All in all this book looks like it will be an interesting read in regards to my project. He also looks into the various ways in which cut scenes can be used effectively to destroy the immersive experience and make it better.













Marie-Laure Ryan (2001) Narrative as Virtual Reality: Immersion and Interactivity in Literature and Electronic Media, The Johns Hopkins University Press.


This book is exactly what I was looking for. Literally filled from cover to cover with information on Spatial presence, immersion and one particularly interesting section on Spatio-Temporal Immersion. Ryan goes into great detail about various methods which writers use to put the reader 'into' the scene. (after a short extract)  'The reader does not watch the narrator watching Eveline watch the street through the window, but by virtue of the transitivity of the representation of mental processes, she directly perceives Eveline's perception'.







Barry Atkins (2003) More Than A Game: The computer game as a fictional form, Manchester University Press.


I picked this book up to find how the fictional narrative effects the way the player would experience the game itself. I found a really good quote which describes immersion perfectly - 'The conceit that one might somehow 'forget' that one is playing because there is no collapse into illogical lack of cause and effect'
Atkins talks of Half Lifes 'deformable environment' and how this helps create an immersive experience.

Michelle Menard (2012) Game Development With Unity, Course Technology PTR

This book I have been using mainly to gather research on Unity scripting and use of the software. I can imagine myself dipping in and out of this book to get a little more knowledge on various tools.
The tutorials in this book are extensive and extremely helpful.

Project Timeline

Milestone Deliverables

Both of the above subjects will be updated in the near future when i have a better grip on how the project will be set out.

Bibliography

http://www.gamesjobsdirect.com/jobs/1221765/game-designers.asp - Last accessed 05/11/12

Unity

So for my project I have been playing in Unity, mainly to get to grips again with the software but mostly to try new things (even if they are simple!)

In a previous Unity project I spent the time importing square planes with textures to create a simple world to explore, however this was very modular and in no way natural.
( Link to that game here: http://www.waterfrontgames.com/game/index/34 )
So instead I tried something new with the Terrain tool.
Following a few tutorials and a really helpful book - Game Development with Unity by Michelle Menard -  I began playing around with the tools available and sculpted a simple landscape.
I am quite happy with the results. The actual size of this map wasn't an issue as I was just testing and the textures again are all basic images painted on to the land.

After I had created the landscape I began considering features in the final game. The first, and easiest was water. With the software providing a  prefab I just needed to experiment with the basic settings. Nothing interesting here.

The next feature was a torch which the player can pick up. This was done by a short amount of code, initially fr the player to be able to pick up the object and secondly to make it so the player can turn it on and off.

I wont bore you with the code, but I will upload the test level as it stands at the moment.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Vodier/spookytest

As I described in an earlier post, a game can be immersive even with basic models. My example being 'Slender'. I will be working towards a standard of 3D model which represents how I can create models which are to the point with as few polys as possible. This will give my entire work a fluid feel. The textures on my test are not final, the torch for example needs more shadowing and materials!

To add that creepy feel I considered what is considered freaky if you were to be wandering around a haunted mansion. I came to the conclusion, music boxes or dolls. So I created a music box with a ballerina doll. Initially this was meant to be a final texture however I added a toon shader to the models and the original texture didnt look right, so I edited it and continued, not wanting to be bogged down on something that will inevitably change!
More on toon shaders after this.

As the doll thing stands now there is no music box per say but with a small animation the doll does rotate.
Add in a 'creepy' sound effect that as you get closer gets louder.
The final touch to this small creepy scene was a particle effect to make the air around look dusty and lonesome. This is the effect I was going for, un-nerving surroundings, a dark area and nothing can be seen but what you light up with your torch.
Using Game development with Unity I have looked into AI, I will be studying it a bit closer trying to get my head around the code so that the player has something to run from. But for now I am happy with my test results.

Toon shaders

I have added in a toon shader to all models and scenery (terrain) this gives the outlines of all the models a thicker black line. I really like this effect and if I can master the style in this game project I will be very happy.
So all in all I see this project boosting my unity coding skills, modelling skills and my abilities in Unity. Hopefully I will get a lot out of this project!!

Ross, Out.