Week 8 - 3D Space Aesthetic Research

September 20, 2017

Week 8 - 3D Space Aesthetic Research

As I have been onto building the rough 3D environment, it is now appropriate to have a look at inspiration. Ant told me not to go into too realistic aesthetics, which are great for industrial and architectural visualistations, but not so good if to create a space where someone wants to feel safe and comfortable, while going through their loved ones (or their own perhaps!) digital memories.

This means in a 3D modeling sense to use low poly object, as the amount of object faces are lower than on a high poly model. This gives me less detail to work on, and hence the environment and object can look unrealistic, cartoonic and storybook like.

Low (Top left) to high poly (down right)

This can be used if the user wants to retell his/her memory as a story, rather than a 1-to-1 experience.

Example 1 - That Dragon, Cancer!

I already posted this example a bit earlier on this blog, but I still think this is a great example. The developer of this game lost his son through cancer and is telling his son's story through a game. I played this game myself, and the use of pace, lightening, no facial detail, low detail of the objects gave room for empathy and imagination. It was not an open world game and had a set storyplot to go through, so the player is 'forcibly' guided through the game.

I think the aesthetic was a good choice in this case, because it is a story with good, but mainly negative/sad memories. And using high polys would made the player uncomfortable within the scenes representing the sad memories of the family (e.g. hospital scenes). It was therefore more metaphorical, but the message still stayed the same.

Example 2 - The Last Day of June

Another game I found, however this is a fictional story. It is about an old guy who lost his wife in a car accident. He is trying to rewind time to prevent the accident.

This game is heartfelt, and uses pace, soundtrack and hazy lightening for the nostalgic, but also lonely atmosphere at certain scenes. Low poly was also used in this game, and the proportion of the character's bodies and the environment make it more cartoon like. This would be too cartoonic for my project, so I probably will take inspiration for the colour theme and lightening from this example.

Example 3 - Orwell

Another game, this one is even more abstract. A game that is looking into surveillance and government security, the topic of this games was not really what I am taking inspiration of (even though it is important for the topic of my research project, we're still talking about digital data!). No, what I really found interesting was the use of 2D for the characters. And low 3D poly for the environment. This was like a mashup of Super Mario Bro's from the 80's, and mix it with the early stages of 3D environments of the 90's (Tomb Raider anyone?). How's that for some nostalgia?