‘This weeks theme (and your sixth theme of seven) is C Y O T (Choose Your Own Theme)’

-Stuart Lilford

:: Research ::

The theme for this week was a bit of a curve ball, in that we got to choose our own theme. A nice way to end the weekly themes really. We were advised to use this weeks theme as a sort of trial run of what idea we plan to do for our major project next year. However, as I am pretty much set on simply creating a game ready environment good enough for me to hopefully land a job once I have graduated. I am set on this idea given the feedback I received from senior environment artists when I was searching for an industry placement. Where they told me that my standard of work on my portfolio just is not of a standard to receive interest from studios.

What this meant was that there was only a very tenuous link, being that I would like my environment whatever it is to be historical. Such as a Victorian era environment of some kind. Because of this I chose history as my theme and developed an app I would personally find very useful should it exist.

:: Idea Development ::

Like my ‘Voice’ prototype I wanted to make an app that celebrates just how much history in condensed in England. Only instead of doing this by providing audio for the user to listen to I thought it would be really cool to show the user visually what various locations looked like in different decades.

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I used to live in the town of Scarborough, and as historical images of Scarborough are far more numerous than the village where I currently live I decided to use Scarborough as my example for this portfolio. Now, the idea for the app would be to work anywhere in the UK, and allow the camera of the user’s phone to show them their area from times past, like a VR game. However I have no idea how to show this in the prototype. I ended up settling with using two different examples and just showing the same view in different historical periods, so that you can see the effect I want the app to create.

:: Production ::

As usual, I began in photoshop, as I wanted to make a nice home screen, (Fig.1). I used the same technique for this logo as I did for my Jack the ripper outline in my ‘Teamwork’ prototype, which gave me a very recognisable logo which also allowed me to make a faux sand coloured gradient for the background. I feel like using a gradient looks much more visually appealing than a flat colour and helps make the prototype seem more professional than without.

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Now my image for the app is as a live camera feed, however this would only result in a few slides, which I felt would not be enough for my prototype. So I also added in a method for searching locations without being there directly. (Fig.2). This gave me more to show while also allowing me to focus on the initial idea which is as a very simple historical resource, showing you what you are looking at looked like in the past (Fig.3)

:: Video ::

:: Feedback ::

– My Thoughts –

While I like the idea, and would find the app useful if it were to exist, I feel like I didn’t produce much during the week, and that the app is perhaps a little too simple. I don’t think the prototypes had to get more complex as we went along, but I do feel like out of all the apps this one being my last and also my most simple is something that doesn’t sit quite right with me.

– Chris’s Comments –

– Stuart’s Comments –

:: References ::

Ewart, A (n.d.) [Online Image]. Available online: https://www.picfair.com/pics/07700246-the-futurist-theatre-scarborough (Accessed 01/05/2022)

Google Maps. (20Google Maps. (2022). [Online Service]. Available online: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.2840581,-0.3918291,3a,75y,56.1h,84.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stqXO2gTHbtkSOWRo86wt9g!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en (Accessed 01/05/2022)

Hinchliffe, R (2018). ‘Newcastle Packett’ [Online Image]. Available online: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/big-wheel-on-scarborough-sea-front-1501286501 (Accessed 01/05/2022)

Payne, M (n.d.). ‘Sandside’. [Online Image]. Available online: https://www.scarboroughsmaritimeheritage.org.uk/maxpayne-gallery.html (Accessed 02/05/2022]

PicAdore (2010). [Online Image]. Available online: http://www.picadore.co.uk/canvas-gallery/photo/805/1920s%20Scarborough%20Seafront-photograph (Accessed 01/05/2022)