WK12 Movement and Motion

Portal 2 Diagram
From: HalfLife2.net

This is a diagram from the Portal 2 game; there is also an animation of the Aerial Faith Plate in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE3B9uGnVlA . What is interesting about this image is that there is implied movement that is obvious to the viewer. There are arrows and lines that show direction from several launching pads known as Faith Plates. It shows different objects being launched and their direction of movement. The middle-most plate with the largest objects move toward the lower-left part of the diagram, which leads to the title of the diagram: Aerial Faith Plate.

A Feature of the Nintendo Power Magazine.
From: Zeldac.com

This feature from the Nintendo Power Magazine is about the upcoming game The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. The layout of these two pages give an impression of implied motion. The blue streak from Link's sword shows movement and direction with diagonal stress. There is also minor event perception of the sword's implied motion. Someone can think that the sword is slicing the word "Legend" into two parts because of the way the text and image is set up; however, there is no real event, only crooked text and an image in a layer behind the text. Link is the main feature of this game, because he is the main character; therefore, it is only right to catch the eye of the reader with him and his sword, leading in implied motion to "YOU ARE LEGEND."

WK11 Dimension/Depth/Space/Scale

Dimension, depth, space, and scale are key factors in Mirror's Edge. This game requires the player to run and run consistently for whole minutes at a time, jumping from rooftop to rooftop, in order to escape those who are hunting her down. The art in this game is very minimalistic, without too much detail and putting emphasis on gameplay. However, because of the style of the game, dimension of walls, buildings, structures, and miscellaneous objects need to be clear. While being played on a 2D surface television, the graphics are made to be in 3D with multiple perspectives. Therefore, the distances between the runner an object or goal need to be scaled accordingly, and the sizes of buildings need to be accurate so the player can map out an escape route correctly; depth and space are accentuated through the objects on the 3D plane, like police men, poles to lunge over, ladders, and doors.

The 2D artwork on covers and posters need to reflect these details, as minimal as they are. The buildings face down into a vanishing point. Policemen and helicopter are small in the distance. "Swoosh" effects of her movement and the shining action lines around the main character also show Linear Perspective. Police show scale to the size of a building. Proper shading, texture, and color provide dimensions to faces of buildings.

http://images.wikia.com/mirrorsedge/images/a/a2/Faith_chase.jpg

It is harder to see scale in this image because of the lack of reference (such as people). But there is still a Linear Perspective.

http://www.geekshow.us/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/mirrors_edge_logo.jpg

There are also depictions of the main character in a crowd of people, which is accurately given dimension by shrinking the crowd into the distance by vanishing point. People are not on top of each other and feet are not stepping on each other.

http://i.neoseeker.com/mgv/1-Redemption/1/13/mirrors_edge_guide_cover_display.png

WK10 Tone and Color

TONE
This is the gameinformer.com website front page. The website itself uses high contrast themes and well organized layouts. The logo itself is in a dark grey (not black), with a light blue accent. The current website as of November 3rd 2011, uses shades of grey in the main task bar--these are examples of usages of tones. The three main and most popular sections--News, Reviews, and Previews-- are highlighted in a midtone dark grey, and to the left of it is the "Platforms" tag (that lists the current electronic gaming consoles) which is highlighted in a lighter shade of grey. The rest of the bar is in a really dark shade of grey, which looks almost black (according to Photoshop, the color hex is #181512, not #000000 black). This subtle grey-black makes the website seemingly sophisticated because of the usage of a complex grey color than just straight black. The main text is also not in black, and uses a dark shade of grey; the text is still legible but again, makes a subtle difference of sophistication than typical black text on white background. The feature article is boxed in a light grey which complements the dark grey text and allows the text to still be seen. The bar at the very top with the "Join" and "Sign in" links is also not completely black; although it has a black base, it has a subtle grey pattern over it; this pattern makes the site look more "tech-savvy". The usage of black is mostly avoided in this front page.

COLOR
This minimalism-like theme uses accents of color (other than the images used). Links are highlighted in blue, the "more" links are boxed in blue with white text. There aren't any colors than the single shade of bright sky blue except for the single link for the "Home" tab, which is highlighted in the opposite color bright orange. This blue accent corresponds to the blue accent on the "i" of the gameinformer logo. The usage of this color is to catch your eye; the blue is used on tabs on feature articles, arrows for drop-down menus, and the hyperlinks as stated before. This usage of single colors is to catch your eye, to mean progression through the website, and transport the user from page to page via these little blue links.