Name: Emlyn Kinzett

Student ID: 3111246

Module Code: 102CR
Assignment Name: Portfolio 1
Attached: DVD containing all tasks

Signed:_______________________

Date:______________
Task 1 – Package Game Cover
I decided to develop a game cover for the Three Blind Mice scenario. I've interpreted it
as: “Amongst the mouse community, three very noble, blind mice were taken by the
Queen Cat and beheaded. Their dear friend, Army Mouse, is on a mission to seek
revenge!”

I therefore found an image [1] from Google which portrays this anger the fellow mouse
has towards the Queen Cat. This image is of a mouse holding a gun pointed at a cat's
head. This, in my opinion, portrays the anger I wanted.

I used Photoshop CS5 to create my game cover:

Before inserting the mouse/cate image, I first

found a 'template' of a PS3 game case. I
removed the original cover, but left the bar at
the top. Most, if not all, PS3 game cases
include this bar at the top. I then used the
paint bucket tool to fill the background in
grey.

I then pasted the image of the mouse and cat

onto it, aligning it in the centre using the
move tool. I had to remove the white pixels
from around the edges using the eraser tool. I
find this to be the best tool for the job.

I found a rated 18 image [2], and also pasted

that on the cover, removing any extra
colour/pixels. I decided to make the game a
rated 18 because of the violence within it.

The target audience for this game would be both males and females who are over the
age of 18, and who enjoy playing violent video games.

Image [1] from: http://www.graphicshunt.com/funny/images/mouse_attacks_cat-12102.htm

Image [2] from: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.next-
gen.biz/files/imagecache/article_content_360x270/Rated18.jpg&imgrefurl=http://kurras5.truefreehost.com/bbfc-
mirrors.html&usg=__ezE1nliHSODuNSmTuDTnHop2NVg=&h=270&w=360&sz=28&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=PVUQHJ2aNRqEyM:&tb
nh=133&tbnw=177&ei=oL04Tc32EdGAhAf2lNCRCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drated%2B18%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D764%26gbv
%3D2%26tbs
%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=488&vpy=113&dur=114&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=151&ty=101&oei=oL04Tc32EdGAhAf2lNCRCg&esq=1
&page=1&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0
Task 2 – Sketched Story Board
Instead of making a film/video of the Three Blind Mice scenario, I decided to create a
storyboard for a game.

The storyboard included in this Portfolio only refers to the last scene of the game,
where the main character, Army Mouse, finally comes face-to-face with his enemy,
Queen Cat.

I used a close-up 'shot' of the Queen Cat to help portray who's the stronger character,
Army Mouse.

The first two 'scenes' would be a cut-scene which the player will watch. Then they will
start fighting the Queen Cat. I decided to use words such as Bang!!!, Wham! and
Keerrsplat because these are typical words that are used in comic strips or cartoons.

After the fight is successful, it will cut to another cut-scene, zoomed in on the dead
Queen Cat. To add effect to the monstrosity of the battle, the camera will zoom out
from the Queen cat to see Army Mouse leaving the castle. He is victorious.
Task 3 – Font Selection
I downloaded the font decapitated from DaFont.com. This font has skull and blood
images on the letters, which adds to the violent nature of my game.

Because some of the images include a decapitated head, I feel it is suitable to my game
cover. The original tale of the Three Blind Mice is about Protestants who were
dismembered and executed by Queen Mary.

Also, my game is a rated 18 game, so a gruesome font like this suits the cover quite
well.
Task 4 – Raster vs Vector Graphics
A raster image, also known as a bitmap image, is a data structure representing a
rectangular grid of pixels. They are resolution dependent; they lose quality when scaled.

A vector graphic uses points, lines, curves, etc to represent an image. They are all based
on mathematical equations.

Firstly, I found a portrait image of myself, in raster form:

I then imported it into Flash CS5 and used Modify > Bitmap > Trace Bitmap to trace the
image.

As seen in the image above, I set the Colour threshold to 50 and the Minimum area to 20
pixels. This is the result:
As it can be seen, the image now looks more 'cartoony' than before.

I experimented with the settings and set the Colour threshold to 100. This was the
result:

It is obvious that the image is not as clear as the one above it. There is less colour it
because of the higher colour threshold.
I then imported a scenery image into Flash CS5 and used the same process on it:

I first set the colour threshold to 100:

This is the result of the bitmap tracing:

The image now appears to have been painted rather than it being a photograph. It looks
more like clip-art.
I then changed the colour threshold to 50 and this is the result:

This graphic looks more like a photograph than the above one, where the colour
threshold was 100.

After experimenting with the bitmap tracing it is clear that the colour threshold
determines how realistic the graphic will be. The graphic will look more like a painting if
the colour threshold is higher.
Task 5 – Photoshopped Storyboard
To Photoshop my sketched storyboard, I scanned it in and opened it up in Photoshop CS5.

The tool I mainly used during the work was the brush tool. I outlined all of the major
lines of each scene, then filled in certain areas with colour using the bucket tool.

I used the text tool to replace the hand-written notes on each scene.

For scene 4, I used the shape tool to create shapes for the action words. I used a simple
star-like shape for the Bang!! word. I created a lightning bolt, and made copies of it, to
put around the Keerrrsplat word.

I find that the detail in the drawings has been made more clear by using Photoshop to
edit the storyboard. Plus, in most cases, the scenes seem to be neater because of the
computerised editing.
Task 6 – Photo Manipulation
It was our task to take a picture of the Lady Godiva statue and then place a picture of
ourselves, or a friend, on the back of the horse of the statue, using whichever tools we
liked.

I took three pictures (they can all be found in the Task 6 folder) of the statue and
decided to use this one for the photo manipulation:

I decided to use this picture because I felt it would be the easiest to place this picture
of myself onto the back of it:

I used the Lasso tool in Photoshop CS5 to select myself (on the left) and cut me out of
the image. After 'extracting' myself from the above photo, I needed to remove any extra
image parts/pixels. I used the eraser tool, with a small size and set the hardness to
100%, to remove these unnecessary parts.

I then selected the final image of myself and pasted it onto the horse back of the statue.
I used ctrl-t to resize the image so that it fit in nicely with the Lady. I used the blur tool
to blend 'me' into the image, so I had the same texture as the statue. However, the
image of myself was too light, even after blurring. I used a small, black, soft brush with
a low opacity to darken the light areas of the shirt. This made the image seem slightly
more realistic.
Task 7 – Short video/game
I decided to make a short video/animation of my video game, based on the storyboard.
The animation refers to roughly 4 scenes from the storyboard.

Firstly, before any animation creation went ahead, I had to create all of the images (or
find some images) that would be used in the animation. After all the images were ready,
I used Adobe After Effects to create my video/animation.

I found a 3D room (actually a jail cell) and edited out the bars in Photoshop. I then drew
part of a mouse's head and placed the image of a cat from Google in front of where the
bars were.

The scale tool was used to add the effect of zooming in on the cat's face. This is done
over a couple of seconds. Then, after it has zoomed in on the cat's face, the cat sweats.
I had to draw the sweat drop first, then insert it into After Effects. I copied it several
times and animated it, to make it appear that the cat is sweating.

The video then fades into the fight scene, where the action words appear. I created
each word separately in Photoshop and imported them into After Effects. I altered the
timeline of the animation to make each one appear slightly later than the first. I used
the colour wheel to constantly change the background colour of a given time. It's at this
scene where the main music kicks in, to indicate an exciting scene.

After a few seconds, the music fades out and the camera moves from the top of the
screen down to the bottom, revealing the dead cat's body, which is flashing. I used the
fade option here. I also included a heart beat, to indicate the cat is deceased.

After the cat disappears off the screen, the text The End comes from 'above'. I used the
scale option here again, but instead of starting the text/object off small, it started off
big and gradually got smaller over a few seconds.

The whole animation lasts for 25 seconds.

Task 8 – Stamp
This task was to create a smudged stamp which can be included on my graphical work.

I decided to create a simple smudged stamp in Photoshop CS5. I used the shape tool to
draw a shape, which I filled in grey. I then added yellow text to the centre of the stamp:
102CR Smudged Stamp
Emlyn Kinzett
Games Technology
Coventry University

I then used the smudge tool to smudge the stamp. This gives the effect that the stamp is
torn or damaged, as the edges are rough.

After completing my stamp, I added it to my game cover and the photo manipulation.
Task 9 – Critical self reflection
After working very hard on all of the Portfolio tasks, I feel I have completed all of them
to the best of my ability.

Before starting this module, I had no experience at all with image editing software,
except for Paint, but that doesn't really count, does it?! Therefore, some of my edited
images, such as the game cover, are not to a very high standard. However, I have met my
own personal challenges to develop my Photoshop skills. This was my main goal and I
feel I have achieved that.

To be honest, I completed these tasks with 3 days to spare. I would have preferred to
have them completed a week or so in advance to the deadline date, but I did not
manage my time wisely. This has been a lesson for me in time management.

I, personally, feel the tasks set were challenging enough. This might be influenced by my
lack of editing skills, both with animations and images, however. Nonetheless, I found
the tasks actively engaging and most of them required a good amount of concentration
and effort to get right.

I would like to see some more photo manipulation tasks, as I feel that is one of my
weakest spots. That alongside animation creation.
References

Task 1 – Game Cover

[1] Graphics Hunt: Funny Mouse Attacks Cat. Available from
http://www.graphicshunt.com/funny/images/mouse_attacks_cat-12102.htm,
2010. [Accessed
17/01/2011]
[2] Google: 18 sign. Availabe from http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.next-
gen.biz/files/imagecache/article_content_360x270/Rated18.jpg&imgrefurl=http://kurras5.truefreehost.c
om/bbfc-
mirrors.html&usg=__ezE1nliHSODuNSmTuDTnHop2NVg=&h=270&w=360&sz=28&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=PVUQHJ2
aNRqEyM:&tbnh=133&tbnw=177&ei=oL04Tc32EdGAhAf2lNCRCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drated%2B18%26hl%3Den%26biw
%3D1440%26bih%3D764%26gbv%3D2%26tbs
%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=488&vpy=113&dur=114&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=151&ty=101&oei=oL04Tc32EdGAhAf
2lNCRCg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=30&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0, 2010. [Accessed 17/01/2011]

Task 4 – Raster vs Vector

Scenery:
Pixdaus: Nice scenery. Available from http://pixdaus.com/?sort=tag&tag=nice%20scenery, 2011.
[Accessed 17/01/2011]

Me:
Facebook: Emlyn Kinzett. Availabe from http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?
fbid=411416218910&set=a.433662898910.219157.656513910, 2011. [Accessed 17/01/2011]

Task 7 – Animation/Game/Video
Room:
Google: empty 3d room. Available from: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?
imgurl=http://thumb11.shutterstock.com/thumb_small/157960/157960,1230586428,1/stock-photo—d-
illustration-of-prison-interior-empty-room-22575121.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-
59116132/stock-photo-empty-frame-on-the-wall.html&usg=__sAn_QiVm2HK4-
I_0axbfLjNQVGI=&h=88&w=100&sz=2&hl=en&start=52&zoom=0&tbnid=qGc1uDXYwMtpzM:&tbnh=72&tbnw=82&ei=JUc9T
cvKEKeShAeRrtXuCg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dempty%2B3d%2Broom%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D764%26gbv
%3D2%26tbs
%3Disch:10,1326&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=335&oei=5kY9TYjKBYPPhAfN7aWXCg&esq=14&page=3&ndsp=24&ved=1t:429,r
:17,s:52&tx=32&ty=30&biw=1440&bih=764, 2011. [Accessed 17/01/2011]

Scared cat:
Shutterstock: stock-photo-a-cartoon-cat-with-a-scared-expression. Available from:
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-53684554/stock-photo-a-cartoon-cat-with-a-scared-expression.html,
2011. [Accessed 17/01/2011]

Cat & Mouse:

Graphics Hunt: Funny Mouse Attacks Cat. Available from
http://www.graphicshunt.com/funny/images/mouse_attacks_cat-12102.htm, 2010. [Accessed
17/01/2011]