DAI 323 Week 7 Visual Hierarchies

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/dishonored-your-guide-to-navigating-the-mean-streets-of-dunwall/

In this image, from the video game Dishonored, we see the visual hierarchies of color, spatial layout, and shape. As shown in this image color is the primary visual hierarchy designed to set it apart and make it obvious. There are three colors, each used to designate a different type of object. Yellow, the most obvious and eye-catching color attracts the player’s eyes to enemy locations. Blue is used to identify environmental objects such as security systems and watch towers. Green is used to show the location of items such as weapons and food. Shape is also an important factor in this image. Without being told what the colors represent the player can immediately tell by the shape of the objects what is a person, what is an item, and what is an alarm. The items are very small in comparison to everything else, the enemies can be identified by their shape because it is obvious that they have legs, arms, and a head. Finally, spatial layout is important to this image. The use of color to highlight objects and enemies allows the player to judge their location based on spatial depth, in other words the player can tell what is closer to him than other things. 

http://spong.com/article/22642/Batman-Arkham-City-Enhanced-Detective-Mode-Detailed

In the video game Batman: Arkham City two of the four primary visual hierachies – color and motion – are used to attract the player’s attention. In the game when the player activates “Detective Vision”, as seen in the above image, the color hierarchy becomes the focus as different things are categorized by different color. Enemies with ballistic weapons are orange while other enemies are blue, and melee weapons are yellow. While the color hierarchy does become the focus when in this mode, it still supplements the visual attraction of movement. The color makes the movement of enemies more obvious and eye catching, enabling the player to easily track the movement of their opponents in the middle of a large fight as well as diverting focus to the nearest enemies that move towards them to attack. Even when a player’s attention is driven to the orange enemies by color, immediately when another enemy approaches the movement draws the players’ attention. 

DAI 323 Week 6 Top-Down Visual Processing

This image, a screen shot of gameplay from the new video game Dishonored by Bethesda and Arkane Studios, is an example of Top-Down visual processing in my intended area of study: 3D animation and design. In this image the player is using an ability that allows them to not only view enemies through the walls, in order to give them their positions, but also allows the player to see where the enemies are looking. By both using this ability and learning how the enemies react to sounds, the player gains enough information to plan how they will either move without being seen, or take down their opponents.  This image depicts Top-Down processing because being able to visually see all this information causes the player’s eye movement to become goal directed, “Where do the enemies walk, where do they stop, what environmental objects can I use to hide or distract?”, these thoughts constantly go through the player’s mind as they move through the game, and this results in the eyes focusing on their goal and key locations, where they can go and where they shouldn't, creating a mental path in the player’s mind as well as a visual path that they follow that is constantly changing based on the behavior of the enemy, which supports the new model of visual processing: Active Vision.

DAI 323 Week 5

This poster for the movie Edward Scissorhands succeeds in leveling and sharpening. Immediately upon looking at the poster the viewer’s eyes are drawn to the face on the far right side, showing a large degree of sharpening. This clearly shows that the focus of the poster is the face and creates a sense of imbalance and stress in the image, drawing the viewer's attention, which is the goal of any movie poster: To capture the attention of people.

For me this movie poster, for the film I Am Number Four, is a clear example of an image that fails in leveling and sharpening. While the text and the face behind it are both attention grabbing and leveled, that is also what causes it to fail. The viewer is subconsciously unsure of where to look, either the words or the face, there is no clear focus in the poster and that makes it difficult to give it attention and makes it more likely to be glanced at and forgotten. The only attention grabbing part of the image is the orange color, but that does not hold the viewer's attention.