I’m not planning to focus on creating
complex mechanic for my game project I want to put more emphasis on the game
world, aesthetic level design. Doing so I won’t be able to induce players’ involvement
and interest in what is happening on the screen through gameplay. That’s why I
want to put a lot of emphasis on camera movement and positions to make every
scene emotional and involving.
Creating emotional reaction with a camera
is something that filmmakers mastered over the years.
For the next few weeks I plan to learn about some of the camera tricks used in cinematography. Of course I realize not every trick will be easy to transfer to the game. Most films focus camera on characters, their acting performance, facial expression and body language. Shots can present characters from different angles and different distance often putting focus only on parts of the characters’ body; face, eyes, hand, etc. For my game project I don’t intend to model a character with human like face, or expressive face. And I’m not sure how well I will manage to animate its body, but I don’t think I’ll be able to create complex animations. So naturally I can’t rely on convening emotion through main character expressions. That’s why I want my main character and focal points of scenes to be always in frame. This way, putting more emphasis on the relation between the protagonist and the world it finds itself in.
For the next few weeks I plan to learn about some of the camera tricks used in cinematography. Of course I realize not every trick will be easy to transfer to the game. Most films focus camera on characters, their acting performance, facial expression and body language. Shots can present characters from different angles and different distance often putting focus only on parts of the characters’ body; face, eyes, hand, etc. For my game project I don’t intend to model a character with human like face, or expressive face. And I’m not sure how well I will manage to animate its body, but I don’t think I’ll be able to create complex animations. So naturally I can’t rely on convening emotion through main character expressions. That’s why I want my main character and focal points of scenes to be always in frame. This way, putting more emphasis on the relation between the protagonist and the world it finds itself in.
I don’t want to make cut scenes. I don’t want to take away players’ control over the character for one moment. I’m thing of arranging camera that will always follow the character, but change position and distance from it to best capture what is happening on the screen. I want the camera movement to be fluid and elegant. I prepared some example of camera flow I’m thinking about:
1. The camera is close to the protagonist as he approaches exit of the corridor. The position of camera emphasis being in close space and close distance to the character makes it easier to empathise with it.
2, 3. The camera is pulling away from the character
to show how small he is in relation to the environment it travels.
4. The camera zooms in to the character as
he approaches structures. It stays on the low angle, so that players can see
the environment from the perspective of the main character. Showing how big
those structures are from its point of view.
As for the “bad example” I don’t want a
camera to drastically change position from frame to frame.
Research:
I found this composition and framing
tutorial for beginners. It gives some good advices about camera position in
relation to characters and how to use it to provoke specific emotional reaction
in viewer.
Composition tutorial:
Creating emotion with camera movement:
In next post I will analise some research materials and write about it.
Nice ideas man, i like how you are breaking the barrier of cutscenes and just researching composition within the Gameplay itself. Perhaps i will look into this myself!
ReplyDeleteCheers, Jack. Good luck with your research!
Delete