The finished products, personal review

After completing this project and looking at my completed works, I feel as if I have done a pretty good job for a newbie. However, there are some aspects of it I would have preferred to turn out a lot better. The Amaray case was a good success in my opinion. It managed to turn out exactly how I imagined when I chose the theme. I spent a long time tweaking the small things, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I am most proud of the render of Viola on the front cover, I had used the magnetic lasso tool to select individual parts of her costume to change its colour. I removed the orb she was holding and replaced it with one with more detail. I am very proud of this part of the task.

The logo creation I spent some time on, mainly the design stage. I wanted to create a logo that relied heavily on the pen tool for nice, curvy shapes. Sadly, I couldn't really get on with it very well and never managed to create the sword shape I was hoping to make. I eventually used text and brushes to create the main part of my logo, the brush was used to create a shadow effect around the text. I used the pen tool to create the small star that features in the middle of the logo, the only part that has vibrant colour. I felt this created some good emphasis on the logo, and helped it look much more professional.

The disk label I felt was my biggest let down. I had imagined this brilliant design in my head that was going to wow people when the disc box was open and felt I ended up with a poor design. However, I did try my best and I felt that is what counts. Being unfamiliar with the program and its features let me down with this one.

The trailer was also a plus, I felt it was a big success and turned out similar to what I had imagined. I missed a few of my lessons with this software, so relied on youtube tutorials for basic things. Luckily, I had used similar video editing software previously, so picked things up quickly. I managed to make my trailer exactly 1 minute long without sacrificing anything I felt was important.

Overall the project was a success, some areas need to be worked on if I was to do something similar in future, but personally I feel as if I have done well.

The Trailer

For my game trailer, I have downloaded two videos from youtube.com of Soul Calibur 5 gameplay for use in my trailer. I snipped exciting parts of gameplay to be used, carefully considering which clips will go where.

Initially I was going to use several games for the trailer, but eventually I thought if I stuck to one, it'll look more realistic and less "thrown" together. I considered using Soul Calibur's own trailer but chose gameplay and cinematics instead. I chose high quality clips to reduce pixelisation in the finished product.

It starts with the age rating and professional reviews, and the gameplay starts with character selection. I added some text to the clips at the start to emphasise the gameplay, to try and get the viewer to want to play it. I chose white text with a black shadow so it can be viewed on any background. Once the text stops, I chose high action shots of the character's "Special Moves" and merged these together quickly to keep a high adrenaline feel. After these shots it fades to white, shows the developers logos before showing the games logo and release date.

I found a fast, rocky song (Royal Republic - Tommy Gun) to accompany the trailer and opened it in Audacity to edit the song so it fits the timing. I chose the intro and the chorus and clipped it down to size.
It was then added to my trailer when the gameplay begins.

I wanted this trailer to look professionally edited and high quality. I am relitively pleased with it as apposed to the disc label, but still didn't come out the way I planned. I would have preferred it to look much more exciting but my video editing skills are indeed, lacking.

Disc Label

I have been playing around with illustrator for my disc label to achieve the minimum. I wanted it to look fairly professional but it still looks fairly "newbie".

I imported my logo onto it so it can be recognisable to the audience. I used the text wrap to create the legal info round a circle like any game disc would. I played around with many background ideas including several fantasy style images and chose a plain background to keep it simple, as my case was a complicated design. I then proceeded to find a spooky type image to create a clipping mask for it, keeping with a "mystical" theme. I chose to use a star as my clipping mask as my logo features one in between the text.

I am in fact a little disappointed with the disc label as I expected it to look much more professional and achieve a "wow" factor. However, I didn't get on very well with illustrator as I did with photoshop. I found the pen tool incredibly fiddly to use, I had to practice over and over to achieve a nice even star. I found making the template in illustrator much harder than in photoshop so I felt my experience with the program let me down with quality. I hadn't worked with vector based images before and it became difficult to not use bitmaps on the label.

In future should I need to use illustrator again, I would familiarise myself with the tools much more before attempting a task such as this.

Logo Creation

I attempted several different ideas for a logo, including a sword type shape. I eventually came up with two drafts. I have chosen to go with a wording type logo with shadow manually drawn into it.
I added a gradient star between the two words to add some imagery to it, so it looks like a real logo.

Here is my chosen logo. It wasn't as fantastic as I expected it to be, but I am quite pleased with it.
Next I will be importing the logo onto a disc label to create the game disc.

My first logo, which I tried to draw a sword, I felt looked far too unprofessional and somewhat childish. I noticed I had set my goalposts too close and went back to the drawing board to draw up basic ideas on what I feel would be suitable. I looked at google images for inspiration on current logos for all sorts of companies including games and toys. I chose a text based logo as I preferred simplicity over a complicated, overly produced looking one.

Draft Close to Completion

I located character renders from Soul Calibur 5 which I chose to use as the base of my characters for the cover. I spent a few hours changing Viola by altering the colours of her dress, shoes and hair roses. I cut out the orb she was holding and replaced it with a separate orb found elsewhere.

 

Here is the Original Viola render, untouched.

Here is the Viola altered by me using alteration masks and adjusting the hue on individually selected parts. I made the orb a separate object so it can be moved and changed separately. Some of the original parts have been kept such as the lace around the bodice, gloves, garter, hair colour, tights and cape. Everything was using the magnetic lasso tool to individually select parts.

 

 

I have also added the title of the game in using a custom font from the Kingdom Hearts series. I chose this font as I wanted a sharp magical style to represent the games genre. 

Prioritising tasks...

I decided in choosing the anime fantasy game as I feel it'll be more appropriate for all the tools I will be needing to use, I chose a background and cut it in half to make the back and front cover backgrounds.



I will be looking for appropriate fonts around the internet to represent the title of the game, I felt a custom font will help with the appearance of the cover to give it it's authenticy. I was toying with the idea of placing a banner across the top such as an "xbox 360" or "Playstation 3" banner, but have decided for the time being to keep it in its bare state and may consider this later in time.

Ideas and thoughts

My project is to create a DVD/Game cover art along with its CD and teaser trailer.

I have already considered a few ideas for my project, I was leaning towards creating a game case.
I managed to find an online template for an Amaray style case in photoshop format from http://dubsanddupes.com which should save me time in creating my own.

With my game I was wondering whether I should choose a childrens style game with a more cartoony and fun approach featuring animals, or a more grown up approach to a fantasy anime style game.

Samples for images should be easy to find around the internet for either idea, such as art websites or editing characters from existing anime or tv shows.

I will be searching for characters for both ideas and choose which I feel would be best.