Shooot Academy
SHOOOT Academy aims to impart essential digitial media skills to the next generation through Festivals and competitions to bring their work to a wider audience.
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Contact Us
SHOOOT Secretariat:
Creative DigiSphere International Pte Ltd
info@creativedigisphere.com
What is SHOOOT Academy?
Summary
SHOOOT Academy equips participants with all the essential skills needed to power ahead in games and virtual worlds.
The camps start off with imparting the fundamentals of using and exploring the brave new world of avatars, or digital representations of people. This includes touching up your appearance, getting around, communicating and collaborating with others, controlling your camera views, managing your vast inventory of items and finally understanding how virtual currency works.
Next, we will give you hands-on experience in creating anything you can imagine, virtually. You will master how to create and modify basic objects, assemble them, add a new dimension of realism with textures and finally bring your creations to life with interactive scripts.
Film your own Blockbuster movies or simply showcase your digital creations using Machinima (Machine + Cinema) techniques acquired from our camp. Set your own stage in Games and Virtual worlds, develop compelling storyboards and scripts, and engage in rigorous pre-and-post production to polish your works and make them shine!
Finally, for aspiring game producers and avid gamers alike, you can gain fresh insights on game design elements and dimensions usually taken for granted when enjoying a great game. Learn how to develop your own game concepts and characters, design challenging and fun levels and environments, manage and plan for the entire game project, and pitch your game prototype to the world!
Download Course Syllabus Description
|
• Full Course • Virtual World Module |
• Machinima Module
• Game Module |
Using Virtual Worlds 1
In the brave new world of avatars you first need to know how to be one! This covers the first steps for students venturing into the virtual world. Basic knowledge to get started with their avatars which includes choosing basic customization and changing of appearances, controlling their movements, the camera views and talking to other avatars are included in the content.
» Avatar customisation
» Communication
» Camera views
» Movement
Nobody wants to be boring, particularly when the world is one that boasts of living your imaginations. To add some essential powers to their avatars, students will learn how groups function, advanced communications, and managing their inventory. These include joining groups, adding friends, communicating with others, learning what the inventory is all about and using the items in their inventory, how they can attach or change items, bling up their avatars with special items, learn the basics of navigation in the virtual world and how the virtual currency works.
» Friends and Group functions
» Inventory Management
» Avatar Attachments
» Navigation
» Virtual currency
In a world where one could possibly build anything under the sun, one is often eager to start making a creation of his/her own. It is not as easy as it seems and there is much to learn in various aspects that are daunting to new comers to acquire on their own but lucky for us experts are on hand. To begin, students will be introduced to the tools of the trade and how they are used. They will start by learning where can they build, how to create basic shapes, assemble objects, handle, link and manipulate them.
» Building Blocks of Virtual Worlds
» Create basic shapes
» Assemble objects
» Linking objects
» Cutting and hollowing objects
» Creating your first item
Now that we have built the basic structures we are ready for the paint or cover job. And don't belittle this process, in this case called texturing, as it often determines how realistic and of course attractive your virtual creations are. Can you imagine your leather sofa without the leather? Eww! Building on the skills they developed earlier, students will now learn how to make their creations achieve desired appearances. Creating and uploading textures, and manipulating the physical attributes of objects, they will also learn advanced techniques as well as picking the right tools to help them create props and items that they will need in any project.
» Using textures
» Colors and Transparency
» Modifying textures
» Uploading your own textures
Ever thought of having your sofa greet visitors? Or an adorable plushie which calls out your friend's name when it 'sees' them? These and more can be achieved if we touch up our virtual builds with some imagination and interactive scripting. In this stage, students will now learn the final fundamental skills to building in a virtual world: how scripting (programming) in virtual world works and how they can inject basic interactivity to their virtual items using basic scripting. A basic set of useful scripts will be given and students will be taught how they can apply them to objects and modify them to suit customised needs, to lay icing on the cake for their virtual creations.
» Advanced Building Techniques
» Introduction to Scripting
» Adding Interactivity to your objects
Everyone enjoys listening, reading and watching good stories Students will be introduced to the arts & sciences of Machinima and how they can tell their stories using its tools. Creative writing, storyboarding and basic scriptwriting processes will be shared and working as a team they can start to develop their own stories and productions through the exercises. This quintessential stage gives them a grounding on story concept and development which is critical in developing meaningful digital productions of their own that they can be proud of.
» Creative writing skills
» Elements in a good story
» Storyboarding
» Basic scriptwriting
» Preproduction planning
Even though using Machinima everyone can be a film maker, it doesn't mean it is easy to make good films. Besides a good story aspiring Machinima film makers need to master some techniques to develop works which captivate audiences. These includes finding the right sets, audio, casting, controlling camera views and movements as well as recording the production right. This intensive stage will cover the film making processes involved in creating their digital productions.
» Setting scenes
» Camera techniques
» Creating animations
» Recording audio & footage
» Other Tools
Editing makes a world of difference to productions, it may seem like just a matter of arranging your shots so it makes chronological sense, however good editing is so much more. It could set the timing and pacing of your film, transforming it from slow and boring to fast and suspenseful! Things like subtitles and audio effects can also be added to help the film create its desired understanding and impact on its audience.
» Editing Scenes
» Visual effects, titles and sub-titles
» Noise filtering & Sound effects
» Voice-over and recording
» Compression and formatting
If you pride yourself for having conquered all major titles in the know to be a qualified game critic, designing a game would make you appreciate how difficult it is to please you! We will be grounding students with the founding principles required in practical game design; providing them with structured knowledge from which they can readily apply when developing their game ideas. Important design elements covered include game mechanics, game structure, player engagement and character development. At the end of this session they would have their concept development and character development "workouts" to take-away and be ready for the next steps in game development. For aspiring game producers and avid gamers alike, this introductory game design class will shed fresh insights on game design elements and dimensions they had taken for granted when they enjoyed a good game.
» Game Mechanics
» Game Structure
» Player engagement
» Character Development
Now that you have experienced the "ah-huh!" moments in game design 101 lets gear up for your first game production! After a warm-up session in game development students will now sweat it out in a full workout on game design by going through the exhaustive mental exercise for their GDD (for the uninitiated it means Game Design Document, the "secret manual" which your game production follows)! Before that students would also learn about the different dimensions in level design without which a level ceases to be fun (and therefore becomes meaningless!), setting their game world and developing a difficulty curve reasonable for players to scale. After going through the most tedious ride in the session, the GDD, students would also learn about crucial project management items involved in producing as well as how they "sell" their games and develop their first prototype for the world! At the end of this session students should be equipped with the essential getup to begin their expedition to the hard-journey conquest of developing their first game.
» Level design
» Environment design
» Difficulty curve
» Game Design Document
» Project plan
» Games Pitch and prototype demo
