Cross Discipline Collaboration: post mortem

Over this past Trimester, I have been working with other students in other disciplines (in other words cross discipline). This was one of my assessments as well, being able to work with others, however I really enjoyed the process of working with and commissioning work and would do so again in the future without any binding assessments.

The two collaborations I worked on were the Lindisfarne Viking Raid Animation that Damon and I worked on together and commissioned the Audio from a student named Dan. The other collaboration was with a Game's group who created a game called Towers Through Time, where Damon was commissioned to create the assets, however he then commissioned me to create some of the assets also.

Lindisfarne Viking Raid

Both Damon and I collectively commissioned Dan (a fellow SAE student in Audio) to create the audio for our After Math Project. We set up a few meetings were we discusses what our vision was and what the story of the Lindisfarne Raid was, as well as speaking through text message, emails and in other classes at University. We gave him a deadline and kept tabs on the progress through text and google drive.

The project came together very quickly at the end and I personally feel it was very successful due to the attention to detail both in modelling and audio.

When it came to the audio process however, it could have gone smoother if Damon and I had given Dan a final version of the video earlier so that he would have had a better understanding on timing and what sound effects to use, as initially we gave him a draft video to go by, then later on we gave him the official version and so he may have had to re do some of the audio (however if this was the case he was too polite to mention this to us).

Next time I probably would try to create more of a 'story' by getting Dan to add in singing over the top to add a eerie effect. But this was a small detail that was not necessary for the project at the time.

This whole process of working with other disciplines has taught me the importance of mood boards, art bibles and reference images and audio. As without these it is near impossible to explain what your concept is to someone else. In the future I will definitely tackle these differently and elaborate on them more for a efficient and effective overall art bible.

Towers Through Time

https://faulknerj.itch.io/towers-through-time

This was a bit of a back and forwards (using a middle man) kind of project, for me anyway. As stated above, Damon was the initial commissioned artist for this project, however he then commissioned me to create some assets for the project as well. Damon had told the team that I was creating content, which they were fine with, however did not mention me in their credits (which I was ok with). I would assume situations like this would happen regularly in the Industry, where someone would hire someone to do something, and they would then hire other to do those things for them (speaking very generally).

The game style was pixel art, and so Damon and I used MagicaVoxel to create the assets.

MY ASSETS

Post Apocalyptic Tower

Futuristic Tower

Prehistoric Tower

Damon talked completely on Discord with the Game's team and he then updated me on what was happening, relaying what they had told him (like a chain of command). All tracking was done though Discord and referring back to their art bible and time sheet.

The game turned out great, especially considering how it looked as a demo when we first saw it (the towers were plain boxes and the villains were dots floating across the screen, and the environment was just white). One of the biggest reasons why our end worked so well was their excellent art bible and asset lists they provided. This made it incredibly easy to simply just make exactly what they were after without much hassle.

The only struggle however was that they were slightly unclear when this was due, and they gave some contradictory answers as well as not answering some questions at all. However this was not such a problem as it all came together in the end as most things do.

If I personally was to do this again I would probably have involved myself more in the project and actually made myself heard. But as a practically first time working with other disciplines, it went rather well.

The importance of art bibles and asset lists definitely became an even stronger drive for me after this project after experiencing how simple it was to create content when I knew exactly what they wanted and how they wanted it. Again, in the future I will definitely strive to create better art bibles.

Overall, the next time I work with others I would like to concentrate on my dream of creating a Viking themed game, and would hope to commission people from all disciplines to be a part of the production. But we shall see what the future holds.