Research Report

SIT253: Mission Unlocked

SIT253: Audio and Visual Production

Lecturer: Dr Greg Bowtell

Author: Victoria Thenia, 219007874

Introduction

This report consists of my research findings related to the project concept that I have chosen, which is a PC game. The concept of the game and its components, such as assets, will be discussed in detail throughout this report.

Game Details

Title: Mission Unlocked

Platform: PC

Game summary:

An action/adventure game played in 3rd person pov of a male secret agent (spy). After his 12 years of career as a spy and successfully completing hundreds of missions, he has finally gained the trust of his leader to be given the ‘most challenging’ mission…

Target Audience

This game is directed to PC gamers that love to play action and adventure games on their free time. This game can be played by both male and female aged 18 above.

Background

My game concept is mostly inspired from Men in Black (MIB) movies. I have always been interested in spy movies, which is why I came up with the idea of creating a game of this particular theme. I chose action/adventure for the genre, because there are many existing successful action/adventure games similar to the one I want to make, like Batman: Arkham Asylum and Resident Evil (Capel 2020).

Game Concept

For the place setting of the game, I have an idea to create a headquarter similar to the headquarters in Men in Black: International as shown in the photo below.

image
Source: moviemaps.org 2020

I want to make the headquarter futuristic-looking, so this photo is a great reference to be used for my design. For the outdoor setting, I want to create a modern city setting packed with tall buildings that players can explore as a part of the mission in the game, which will somewhat look like the one in the video below from the Marvel’s Spider-Man PS4 game.

Source: IGN 2018 (YouTube)

Since the settings are already easier for me to visualize, I have came up with the 3D visual and sound asset ideas for the game. The table below shows the list of visual and sound assets that I will be making:

No.Visual AssetsAudio Assets
1AgentMenu song
2PistolPhone ringtone
3Case FileGunshot
4HelicopterBusy street
5Computer/machine sounds
6Helicopter noise
7Elevator music
8Car driving sound
9Car crash sound 
10Headquarter bgm
11Camera clicking noise

I will be using GIMP and 3DS Max to create the visual assets, Audacity and GarageBand for the audio assets. I am not too familiar with 3DS Max and I have never made any 3D animations before, so I decided to look up for a beginner’s guide to 3D animation. According to Lin (2012), other than the software and the operating system requirement, mouse selection, hand position, way of viewing, and options selection are also important in 3D animation, since all of these factors affect the speed of learning and getting used to the tools available in the software, and also the animation process. I’ve also found a beginner’s guide video that I will be looking back to.

Source: TopHATTwaffle 2017 (YouTube)

I will be using 3DS Max to create mesh for my visual assets. After creating the mesh, texture has to be added. According to imvu creator (2018), to create texture for the mesh made in 3D animation software like 3DS Max, it requires a 2D photo editing program, which is why GIMP will be used in this project, and also for texture resolution, according to Unity (2018), authoring texture to the power of two increases texture efficiency.

I will firstly start with making the male agent for the visual asset, since it is the main character of the game. The outfit for the agent will made similar with the ones worn in the picture below taken from MIB: International, which is a white-buttoned shirt with a black tie, a black suit/blazer, and a black trouser.

Agent M (Tessa Thompson) and Agent H (Chris Hemsworth). Photo: Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Entertainment
Source: Giles Keyte/Sony Pictures Entertainment

Pistol will be the main weapon used in the game. Handgun is the most common type of weapon used in action games, so I believe that gamers that are already familiar with action games won’t find it difficult to play. The design of the pistol will be very simple and will look like regular pistols used in real life.

semiautomatic pistol
Source: Rama

This visual asset will be paired with the gunshot audio asset, which I will be making using Audacity. To create the sound, I will use some materials and objects and record the sounds produced, and then mix them in Audacity so that it sounds like an actual gunshot. This is a sample of what I expected the end result to sound like:

Source: Adam Monroe 2015 (YouTube)

I will do a similar way to create the other sound effects for my audio assets, such as busy street sound, computer/machine sounds, helicopter noise, car driving sound, car crash sound, and camera clicking noise. To support the feeling of a crowded city, I have an idea to create a busy street sound as a background music (bgm), which will consist of pedestrians talking and walking noises, and car horns. For the other audio assets like menu song, phone ringtone, elevator music, and headquarter bgm, I will have to use another music maker application, GarageBand, since I will be needing music instruments to make them, which the plugins aren’t available in Audacity.

The computer/machine noises will be used as the bgm for the headquarter along with the headquarter bgm. I also have an idea to have an elevator in the headquarter, which is why elevator music is included as one of my assets. Car driving and car crash sounds are the audio assets for one of the tasks in the game where the players have to ride a car to go somewhere or to chase a criminal or enemy. One of the things that the players will carry in the game is a mobile phone, which will be used to take photos of clues and to receive calls from the headquarter, so the two audio assets for this are the camera clicking noise and the phone ringtone. Just like most games, I will be making a menu music that fit in with the overall visual and emotions/feelings of the game. I expect to make something like this:

Source: Chris Loxham 2015 (YouTube)

The other two visual assets that I will be making are case file and helicopter. Case file consists of the list of tasks that the agent has to accomplished in order to complete the given mission. The helicopter will appear later in the game in one of the tasks, in which the players will have to ride the helicopter, and this asset will of course be paired with the helicopter noise sound asset. I am taking design inspirations from the two pictures below for these two visual assets.

Can I Have My Case File?" | Law offices of Alexander Ransom
Case File. Source: Alexander Ransom 2018
Aerospatiale Gazelle Helicopter 3D Model $20 - .3ds .obj .c4d - Free3D
Helicopter. Source: 3Dguarantee 2020

Conclusion

In conclusion, my project concept is an action/adventure, spy-themed PC game targeted for both female and male PC gamers that love to play Action/Adventure games on their free time. The main inspiration of the game idea is MIB movies. The two main settings of the game are the headquarter and the city. The visual and audio assets are made based on the game settings and the game’s story line, and they will be created using 3DS Max, GIMP, Audacity, and GarageBand. The next step is to create a moodboard, project timeline, asset list, and more for my digital folio. All of my progress in this project will be documented in my folio.

References

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started