Research

Through this research I'm gonna explain some of my choices when it comes to why my animation will be based around what it is based around, and also why it looks the way it does. Certain aspects have had more thought put into them at the current moment in time so there's a slight chance that they'll be more in depth. Bare with me.

When it comes to the question of why I've decided to go for an interactive space ship animation the answer is pretty simple, I just thought it was cool and would be halfway achievable, that being said I am able to do a wide variety of research when it comes to games that are set in space just due to the sheer amount of games that I've personally played that fall under that category.

Space Ship Design

I'm blessed when it comes to the subject of ship designs as I have a copy, a slightly outdated copy admittedly, but a copy nonetheless of Kerbal Space Program. If you're unfamiliar, in KSP you control the space program on the planet of Kerbal. As main man/lady it's your job to build and launch whatever you can in hopes of reaching far off planets. As a result I can design the ships for my animation in an easy to use 3D hanger and launch them to see if my farfetched designs will actually take wings and fly under their own merits. It's not a big deal, in reality I could design a giant turd for the animation and no one would tell me that it shouldn't fly but I'm hoping that this extra effort goes noticed and makes the animation that bit less bad.

Design 1 - 

I find this design to be distinctly average, it's not awful but it doesn't really stand out either. From testing I found that it was air-worthy which is something but the design was more of a stepping stone in that it reacquainted me with the game and how to design things properly. I did like the wing configuration on this craft as well as the air intakes in front of the engine. I feel that the use of the canards in front of the wings gives it a sci-fi-esque feel which is ultimately what I'm going for with this animation.

Design 2 -

With this design I tried to make a more farfetched looking craft which I think I certainly achieved. It's so farfetched that it's practically impossible to fly as well, I think the configuration of the rockets and the wings doesn't really work, however, so I don't think this design will see any further development. 

Design 3 - 

The third design is hands down my favourite and one that I plan on furthering for my animation. I enjoy the way the rockets are strapped to the wings as well as the design of the wings themselves. I also think the spoiler configuration looks really great, regardless of whether or not spoilers are entirely useless in the vacuum of space. The large cockpit and front windscreen would allow for an easy shot of the pilots inside which is pretty integral to my animation.


One thing that I can't add to the ships through the use of KSP is weaponry, which I plan to have a lot of in my final animation. I've got a rough idea of how I want the weapons to look, however, so I'm going to draw on other examples for further inspiration.

I think something along the lines of these 2 designs would work well, they're pretty simple yet could fire over-the-top huge shells or something like that. Due to the compact design they could fit easily on the wings or fuselage itself.


Environment Design

When thinking about how I could design the background for my animation there's not too much to really think about, it's gonna just be distant stars and some closer planets. To show that I've put slightly more than just the bare minimum into thinking about this though I'll include some images that I'll take inspiration from when creating my animation.

The above images are from a mission in Halo: Reach where you pilot a space ship and attack an alien fleet. I think more than anything these pictures showcase decent lighting, especially when there's an explosion, such as on the second picture, or when a ship flies across screen and the trail it leaves, such as on the first picture. It's not too easy to show with a still image but the final picture shows the ship boosting and the surroundings blur as a result, I think this would be a decent inclusion to my animation as it adds an element of depth and goes some way to make you feel as if the ship is actually speeding up rather than just moving slightly faster across the screen.

These two pictures are from Kerbal Space Program again and I feel are very fitting when it comes to showcasing a space background, in essence it's just a bunch of dots for stars and a sun but the way that the sun highlights the contours of the planet is rather beautiful, if I could manage to recreate something half this good looking I'd be very pleased indeed.

Art Direction

When it comes to the topic of art direction I've got a pretty set idea of what I'm going to do. I've always really liked the style of a particular youtube animator that I'm subscribed to called GonzoSSM, as I'm going to show in the following pictures he uses pastel colours at varying levels of brightness to highlight his drawings and the outcomes are always incredibly aesthetically pleasing. I'm lucky enough that the particular animator that I plan to base my art style off is a fairly frequent streamer on Twitch.tv. If you're not familiar, Twitch.tv is a streaming website where people can stream primarily games for an audience. Gonzo's stream consists of him playing the odd video game as well as him doing art for donators and occasionally showing his production of animations.

The above pictures show Gonzo's progressions towards filling in his already completed line art. As you can see he makes great use of highlighting using different shades of the original fill colour. I find his technique to be incredibly aesthetically pleasing and will be trying my best to make my animation stand up to this, though undoubtedly his years of practice will cause his finished product to be leagues above my own.

The above pictures showcase slightly more in depth the stages of how Gonzo colours his drawings. You're able to see better how he picks ones shade at a time and just draws thin lines along the contours of the line art to add layers of depth and make everything look a lot less flat.

There are a couple of pictures taken out of full-screen mode which go to show how I can easily go about interacting with Gonzo live on stream and ask questions which is incredibly useful for my progression through this animation's research and design stages.