Research

In today's lesson, we looked into semiotics and how it's used with themes of games, movies, and myths.

Semiotics

Semiotics - The study of semiotics is feelings, sounds, and imagery, it tells us to see more than one thing in something, expand and see more than its one worth like how it might sound or what feeling it gives a person when they see it.

Semiotics comes in three varieties: 

- Icon: an object that bears a resemblance to another object; for example, an apple symbolizes an apple, a pistol depicts a gun, and a London map portrays London.

 
- Index: This indicates that the item has an implicit logical relationship with it; for example, hunger is indicated by a growling stomach, and fire is indicated by the smell of smoke.

 
- Symbol: is a sign that is not associated with an object; for example, a thumbs up denotes a work well done. We frequently learn from society, which is how we relate to one another. 

What is Mythology

Mythology shaped the world, with people telling stories of what they have seen or what they believe is true from generation to generation. Every culture around the world, like native Americans, Greeks, and Romans, tells myths about how supernatural forces control the world, how God-like beings control the world from in the sky, or how they try to explain unexplained phenomena. We humans are taught about the human conditions we go through in life, like courage, love, greed, war, and corruption. 

Some myths throughout time explain what happens after death and what heroes face as monsters, but most of these stories are seen as truths, and these stories help shape our world.

 

The other way people say myth is that it's a false story and not to be taken seriously. Still, throughout history, myths have been taken seriously, mostly by generations and generations of people who've heard these stories. But most people have told these stories again and again.

The word myth is Greek for Mythos meaning the word Myth, but that world is a special word that has two primary characteristics significance and staying power. The significance is that the subject is important and how the world is going to care for it, and the staying power means that these types of stories last centuries or sometimes millennia.

Secondary Research Mythology and Sun Wukong

For my secondary research, I looked into the myth of Sun Wukong the Monkey King. The video talked about Wu Kong's story about how he came out of a stone egg mixed with the energies of heaven and earth, which alone tells us that Sun Wukong was a divine monkey with mystical godly powers. His story also tells us how he wanted the knowledge and the secrets to immortality. After traveling and learning 72 transformations and cloud somersaulting allowing his to travel 100 miles, he was also taught magical spells and martial arts.

The Myth Journey To The West continues after the main story about Sun Wukong and his imprisonment. This story tells us how Wu Kong has to help Tang Sanzang with his journey to the West. After Tang Sanzang freed Wu Kong from his imprisonment he bowed his head thanking Tang Sanzang for his appreciation of freeing him, and swearing his loyalty to him, this right here shows morality.

 After freedom of Wu Kong, Tang Sanzang places a golden headband on Wu Kong's head for his loyalty, after the journey a white dragon shows up and snatches the horse swallowing it whole, Wu Kong gets mad and goes straight to attack the dragon, and this show us conflict.

 There is more conflict that we see in the story against the demon king Zhu Bajie, but then he tells his story of how he got banished to the mortal realm and how he has to help Tang Sanzang too.

 At the end of that Tang Sanzang, Wu Kong, and Zhu Bajie set off traveling to the west, after traveling some more onward they attacked the demon man that showed up in front of them stopping their path onward Jubaji engaged in battle with the demon with Wu Kong as well, as the monkey king wasn't able to help battle in the water he sought aid from Guan Yin and was told that person they as fighting was an incarnation of Xiaowu Jing after the mishaps of the whole situation Xiaowu Jing plages his loyalty to Tang Sanzang after the many adventures those 4 been on they always end up fighting each other but when it came to the danger they would get the work done. The story shows morality, aspiration, learning, and conflict.

Reflection

This taught me a lot about Wu Kong and his story throughout history. The monkey king was born from a rock egg and has divine power that grabbed the attention of other gods, gods that mostly only care about themselves until a monkey learns enlightenment and martial arts and becomes cheeky. But it taught me that he is a free person and that he learned a lot throughout the centuries to become a god. But for my main character, I want it to be based on Wu Kong and the strength he has. I want to use Wu Kong's story as an inspiration for my game because hearing his myth was very interesting to me.

Unit 8 - Primary Research Trip

For my primary research, I visited the Young V&A Trip.

What we went to do for this trip was take pictures of the Japanese mythology that was at the museum. The aim of this visit was to gain ideas for our game/animation of what type of myth we could interpret.  

  

We did look into myths about manga and how they originated, like how Yokai-watch was based on the myth Hyakki Yagyo (Night Parade of 100 Demons), which is about how Yokai and Oni are shapeshifting supernatural beings that go parading through towns. They can be friendly, vicious, or deadly, but they sometimes riot for no reason. The human conditions that this myth was to give off were morality, conflict, death, and emotion.

We also learned about the myth of Amaterasu No Okami is the goddess of the sun who brings light to the world, but she was bullied by her brother, so she hid herself in a cave. When she did that, darkness fell on everything, including the eight hundred gods. The goddess hangs a mirror, then sings and dances to the beat of the drum to cheer her up. The human conditions that this myth uses are morality, emotion, and conflict.

We found out that many films were based on Japanese myths as well like The Tale Of Princess Kaguya and the people who made this film were Studio Ghibli. They interpreted the myth into a film.

Then what we did after was to apply semiotics to cat-like creatures.

How Doraemon is a machine cat that acts like a companion throughout the show, he acts like the saying (man's best friend). As we can see Doraemon has human conditions like empathy, joy, sadness, and anger. But it's meant to symbolize a machine trying to be a cat

What I learned from going on this trip was the origin of these myths and where they started and why it was famous myths throughout the years, my favorite one is the (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons).

The impact of these myths I saw on the trip might help me with what I might use in my game and what I want to use. 

Helped me with fighting code

 

The video taught me how to do melee/attack animation for the code and how to do it. What exactly helped me in the video was the code because doing this solo and being confused did not help me, because I thought it would be similar to do but I was wrong so this video helped me a lot.

Helped me in Enemy AI

This video help me a lot, at the start of the lesson I was watching a video on enemy AI and how to get it to follow the player in line of sight, but I found it tricky because the first video I watched explains these from a 2D platform game angle, and  I need it to work with 8 directional movement and where if they see a player they would rush towards them. So I found this video and it went step by step showing me what to do and how to get it work especially with the code like X and Y, before I didn't know what anyone of these other codes could do until I watched this video.

Universal LPC generator

 I used this Universal LPC generator to create my character because when it came to trying to create my character through pixel apps it was hard as well as difficult to do so I researched what could help me and this website showed up and I used it to make the characters I have for my game. So far I've made 2 characters but a third one is on the way. This website has a lot of character material to make a character you would want so whatever they had I used and made my first character King.

Help me make a main menu

At the start of the project, I didn't really know how to make a main menu, so when I researched how to on YouTube this video came up and showed me step by step exactly what to do and how to do it, it went in perfect speed teaching me what to do for my game.

Helped me switch between animations for movement/attack/idle

While having trouble switching between idle and movement I researched how they be switched normally between the different sprite animations, so I went to YouTube this was the first video that I'd seen so I clicked it and it helped me step by step on what to do and it very easy learning what to do with this video.

Helped me with the fighting code and the flash behavior 

This video helped me learn more about the positioning of sprites and the behavior flash and what it could help me with, also taught me what X and Y could do, and showed me how I should do my attack animations.