DAI 323 Contrast Blog

Successful Contrast

This screenshot from the video game Alan Wake is an example of successful contrast. In this atmospheric game the contrast between light and dark is heavily emphasized, but there are other forms of contrast in this image that makes it a successful example. It's contrast in depth and scale allows the viewer to see that the forest ranger is further away than the main character, located on the left side. The contrast in shapes shows the differences between people, benches, doorways, railing, and paintings in this image. And the contrast in color identifies the red on the floor and windows as blood leading to the ranger. This image is an example of a game that has been carefully made, with much consideration given to how to approach a suspenseful atmosphere using multiple contrasts, the most important of which is the contrast of light and dark.

This image from the game emphasizes the use of contrast that identifies the enemies from the rest of the surroundings. As the enemies are covered in darkness, their appearance is black and fuzzy, showing both a contrast in tone from the background of the building, and in focus. This image also again shows contrast in depth, with the main character appearing taller than the enemies and building which shows that he is closer to the foreground than everything else.

This screenshot from the television show South Park is an example of bad contrast. While it does succeed in using contrast between depth and scale, such as the size of characters and lockers in the front to those in the background, it fails in its use of contrast of color and tone. The failure of this image is the great difference of design style between the giant bird and the children. The tone of colors in the bird is completely different compared to the rest of the scene. The tone and design style set it apart from the rest of the scene and makes it obvious that it does not belong there. Despite that, this was the point that the creators wanted to make, that this is completely random thing that does not belong here. However, from just this image, to someone who doesn't know the show this seems to just be badly designed, though well drawn.

DAI 323 Week 12 Navigation

http://www.gamedynamo.com/article/showarticle/4326/en/xcom_enemy_unknown_pc_digital_pre-sale_gameplay_walkthrough_video_and_screenshots_unveiled

In the video game XCOM: Enemy Unknown, from Firaxis Games, the user navigates through the 3D space of the game by controlling each member of their squad through the different levels. With this game, I imagine that the navigation problem that had to be overcome was balancing between movement and actions. When the player moves a character they can move within a large area split into two zones, the first zone being where the character can move and still perform an action, and the second zone shows where the character sacrifices their action in order to move a greater distance. This means that unless the two zones are made visually distinct, the player will not know where one zone ends and the other begin. This problem was easily overcome by highlighting the zones that each squad member can move during their turn and shows you the path they will take with a luminous blue line that leads to the highlighted spot that the player wishes to move to. When a character begins their turn the first zone is shown outlines in blue, and beyond the blue zone is the yellow zone. Another problem that the user may encounter while navigating the environment is defensible cover, where the user can move their characters in order to protect them from damage. However, this problem is also easily resolved by the use of a shield symbol which shows which direction they are protected from and how much protection the cover offers. If the shield is blue than they are protected from attacks from the direction behind the shield, but if it is red then that spot is not safe. This allows the user to navigate through the 3D space easily while being aware of their surroundings.

http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/05/28

In this comic strip, from the web comic Penny Arcade, the user navigates through the panels by both following the speech bubbles and following the panels. Some big problems for users reading comics are when it is confusing who is saying what, and when the speech bubbles are not presented in the correct order because it would cover important parts of the image. The main reason that this would occur is when the artist either does not keep in mind the space needed for the bubbles or when the artist is unaware of how much text will be present in each panel. In this comic strip, however, the creators solved those problems in a very simple, three part way. First, and foremost, they left enough open space at the top of each panel for multiple speech bubbles so that they did not cover up the characters faces. Second, they connected speech bubbles to limit the number of arrows pointing to the speaker. Third, and most important to the understanding of the dialogue, they made sure to order the speech bubbles in order of when the dialogue is to be read. This means overlapping speech bubble borders and stretching the bubbles’ arrow to ensure that it is clear who the speakers are. This comic assumes that the reader knows to read it from left to right and up to down, and it orders its texts and panels to move in that direction as well.