With this first design, I wanted to have a Japanese pagoda building as the core of the box, and to act as the hub of the navigation for it too. I used my graphics tablet and Manga Studion to trace around the outline of the pagoda from an picture I got, and then I filled in the details myself. I found it difficult to trace the inner details, and I also wanted to make the picture as close to being mine as much as possible, so I added in my own markings all over it, using a very random but effective technique that I used in GCSE Art.
I was meant to keep it as just the outline, but seeing as I'm enjoying drawing so much at the moment, I got carried away and drew in extra detail on the pagoda >_<. I wanted to make a 3d model of it neways, most likely from scratch within 3DS Max., although that will be freaking difficult to think of it. Anyways, if you imagine the above drawing in 3D, I wanted the navigation to be centered around the camera itself. Basically as respresented by the arrows there, clicking on different parts of the picture, will rotate the building to show a specific side, and thus one of the included features of the box like my logo for instance. I was thinking of creating movie clips of the building being rotated in 3DS MAx by use of the timeline and moving the camera itself to give the impression of the building rotating. I would then embed the movie clips into the project, which is being built in Macromedia Flash, so when you clicked on one of the areas, the clip would play and the building would appear to rotate as a consequence. Due to time limitations as well as lack of skills, I fear I may not be able to pull this idea off actually to be honest, although I would love to! Out of all the ideas I do have for the box so far, this has to be the most complex one to be honest, but most likely the most visually impressive too potentially. I was thinking of creating a 2D version of it actually, where the box would look something like it does above, albeit the arrows of course, and I'd have small picture symbols in the box somewhere, which would act as buttons and respresent each individual item in the box. Visually, it would probably look a lot like my moodboards, but hopefully a lot better. If you want to gain an impression of what I'm planning to create, please feel free to search for my blog on moodboards, it can't be missed!;) I would probably have an animated ninja character in the middle of the page in front of the pagoda, which I could possibly make it "fly" ninja style towards the chosen symbol, which may be a cool feature. If I really go advanced, I may even be able to pull this off with the 3d character avatar I'm developing for the box, but then again time and skills are problems here too.
With my next design which you can see above, someone suggested an idea to me about having a comic page style interface for the box, which I really liked, being an obsessee with anime and manga of course. Hence, I came up with the idea of having a several manga books lying on a table closed with a bird's eye view of them, and each one would represent a different item in the box. When you click on a book, it should open up and reveal what's inside it, hence the comic page style interface can be used here.
In order to build this, I will need to use 3Ds Max to create the 3D models of the table and books, and I will also need to develop the actual project in Flash in a similar way to the other design idea I mentioned. I will also need to use Manga Studio as it can generate comic panels on a page in seconds, which I can export as .jpeg files and thus possibly map them to the 3d models in 3Ds Max. I would then export the books with the panels added in them, and then import them into Flash after that, where I would add in all the items to each corresponding book. This idea does seem at least a bit easier to make than the first idea, and it could work really well if I manage to build it successfully.
Finally, I do have one final idea which I haven't skectched up yet though. It's pretty similar to the 2D alternative of the 3D pagoda design I mentioned, where I would create a moodboard style interface bassed around a Western Asian theme, and have interactive elements in it, which would take you to different sections of the box. Out of all the ideas, this would definuitely be the easiest to make by a mile, but it also will the be easy way out and the least visually impressive, so I do want to try and avoid using this idea...unless I really have to!
I haven't chosen which idea I'm going to develop yet, as I'm still exploring the software, learning what I can about them, what their limitations are and what I can actually pull of with them especially with the amount of time and the current level of skills I have too.
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