Fantasy FPS Mockup – VFX Midterm Project

Boss scene for Chapter 1 of my unnamed Fantasy FPS

Can’t believe I’m almost finishing my first year here at BCIT! This term I have a Visual Effects class. It’s probably worth mentioning again that I’m taking Digital Design and Development, hoping I’ll end up making spiffy websites and such. After Effects was a program I’ve always wanted to learn ever since I knew that it was possible to make video/movie FX thru it.

As a side note, this is my first ever blog post about school! I am finally coming out of my cave and sharing a glimpse of what I’ve been doing for the past year.

 Game starts with my character finding himself waking up lying on the floor, clueless…
What happened?

For our midterms, we had to make our own FPS game mockup that used 2D images and video in a 3D environment. It took quite a while for me to decide on what kind of FPS to make, especially since our teacher pegged Duke Nukem I and Doom(1993) which are really…. Not my style. I almost felt like it was an impossible task! Seriously!! You can imagine how its like in class–it’s a geek’s world with a 5:1 boy to girl ratio. Discussions become amusing tho, I must admit.

It is revealed that the mansion’s under attack by the South Witch Queen’s minions!

After looking thru countless stock photos, I settled on a fantasy FPS. If you know me, this wouldn’t surprise you. I really like fantasy genre anything, period. The only RPG games I used to play were fantasy games, and most of my artwork from when I used to draw were surreal/fantasy, so yes, this made perfect sense. As with everything, I aimed to imitate how RPG games started out with the main story and then some battle scenes.

A better view of the room I created using the 3D feature in After Effects.
Player heads out the door.

Ghost child that warns my player “Be prepared or die!” signalling the start of the gameplay.
A goblin then comes.

Piece of cake! Not even a scratch.

Here I showed the treasure aspect of the game. Yay shiny moneyz

And then just when you turn, a very scary troll comes to attack!!

Last but not least, just when you think the game is child’s play, a lesser witch comes to block the door to the North Wing! Oh no

But of course my player is boss so he STILL LIVES

Finally, the mockup ends in front of the majestic door of the North Wing where Zeia awaits…

First off, some of you may be curious where I got those crazy names. Adiel? Zeia? Very fantasy RPG game -ish, I know. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the exact name library I used, but I’m pretty certain I chose Nordic names. However, there are lots of other websites like Behind the Name which work, and this one actually has an app version. Fantasy Name Generator looks pretty good too.

This sounded cool when I read it in my mind with emphasis on the T and K.

The hardest part about this project was working with the 3D environment, especially when I was still new to the xyz orientation, rotation, etc. It was challenging but I actually enjoyed the process of it all.

The * looking marks are where I positioned my Lights, while straight dotted lines are planes of textures like the Walls and Tables. All of the objects like the fireplace, guns, candles and brooms are completely flat 2D planes, but since they are 3D stock it’s not obvious at all, especially if I position them in the right perspective according to my Camera. Working on this on my 13-inch Macbook Pro was painful… So I wrapped it up by staying in the lab a few hours after school to work on a glorious 27-inch iMac!

What my AE work area looked like. I separated my Rooms into two compositions because the screen perspective went nuts after I arranged my layers.

You can view the rendered video below. Thank God, I got a perfect mark from my teacher, Ramin Shadmehr, and he left me a comment: “very nice work anne, very nice”. For some reason, I totally read that comment with his voice.

Hope you enjoyed my AE Fantasy FPS Mockup walkthrough! Before I made this, I thought it was going to be super difficult (even impossible since I’ve never used After Effects before this class). However when I look at the result now, it all seems simple and actually quite easy… Life. We really can surprise ourselves with how much we’re capable of doing, especially when we push ourselves beyond what we can imagine. 🙂 Sounds like that Thomas Edison quote – “If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.”