[Idea] - Event Booth Design
Martinet
Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151385Members
Join Date: 2012-05-01 Member: 151385Members
in Squad Five
<div class="IPBDescription">Who says NS2 can't have a fancy new booth?</div>Sooooo.... I'm actually a Set Designer by trade, based out of NYC. At the very least I can draw something up and get it down to construction drawings for a hyper awesome booth for whenever you need one.
I'll get some concepts together later this week and post them here.
-Dan
I'll get some concepts together later this week and post them here.
-Dan
Comments
Elements like Infested surfaces, broken cabeling, Game-Play dislay stations, even a real-live hive would all be awesome.
Live-casting competitive games during the event would be fantastic, and really show off the team-work and asymmetric balance of the game.
Right now, I've got a about 4 strong ideas for what could be done. If anyone has any ideas on what would make a great booth for NS2, and UWE, Please let me know!
-Dan
<ol type='1'><li>The Indie booth did exactly what it needed to: it showed the gameplay to the people at the event as effectively as possible.</li><li>All aspects of further booth design MUST work to enhance and frame the gameplay experience of the event participants.</li><li>The point of the booth is to sell the gameplay to the potential customers and press. To this end, anything which is not directly related to game play should be designed to make people Want to enter the booth and pause long enough to see what is going on.</li><li>As wonderful as it migh be to recreate an envirement or build stunning sculptures, these things are Very Expensive in labor, time, money and logistics and only really impact those whom are familiar with them already: A giant sculpture of a hive will only be of intrest to those whom know what a hive is, others will say "Hey look! A big glowing green thing! I have no idea what that is, but gosh it looks expensive!"</li></ol>
This following is the frame work I'm working from:
<ul><li>A new / better / cheaper / easier gameplay station: using rentals and pre-fab scenery to enhance the experience.</li><li>An additional area devoted to live-casting competitive games as well as providing a podium to talk about the game.
<ul><li>Imagine the team of UWE and NS2HD essentially 'sportscasting' competive play during the event while event-goers are experiencing the game for the first time.</li><li>This will show two sides of NS2 - How much fun it is to run around fighting aliens in the dark or how much joy you can have stomping silly humans under your feet; The insane team play and dynamics of the game that you reach at the higher level of the competitive teams.</li><li>Having a live cast will draw people in to watch the 'song and dance' of the live cast and then stay and experience the game them selves. Also, the more of a show the live casting is, the more likely to make a 'Media Event' out of it with the possibility of greater eye-balls on site for NS2HD.</li></ul></li><li>Using found objects and collected materials to create distressed dressing for the gameplay station and the Livecast station.
<ul><li>Broken bits of wire and conduit collected together and to build the weaving cables we all know and love.</li><li>Plastic "Metal Plating" which is used as a table top and platform surface complete with scorch marks and bits of infestation.</li><li>Glowing lights emanating from the Gameplay station with a dull pulse of their own.</li><li>A soaring cable / awesome metal bits sculpture rigged to sore above the area with video displays implated through out showing the gameplay we all know and love.</li><li>New signage built as a "Light box" so it illuminates, based off of elements found in game. Marine Commander "Login" screen, I'm looking at you...</li></ul></li></ul>
We know money is an issue here, so all aspects Must Be Inexpensive. This means a lot of build on site / prefab and ship in. If we as a community want to have an awesome event booth, then we as a community can make it happen.
I'm running a bit behind on some TV Drafting and design projects, so I don't have renders for this... yet. But i'll have something image wise soon.
-Dan
Secondly, internet (again, at least for PAX east. This will vary depending on convention) was outrageously expensive. They wanted to live stream stuff but were just unable to. I can see this being a common problem as well.
Now, a themed booth like you mentioned = :D
ok, I feel better now.
Just how "Local" does audio need to be? obviously not booming the next booth out of existance, but would it be possible to have the voice of the announcer amped a bit to allow it to cut through the white noise of the convention hall? If so, it would still be possible to have pre-recorded games shown as well as the local play being announced as people run the game thorugh it's paces.
It's a bit of a hard line to walk: How do we keep the costs down and maintain the integrity of the game while still blowing the doors off it with presentation.
Oh well, back to work :)
-Dan
A base station platform with marine base detailing [hand rails, damaged metal, blue glowy bits] from which a mess of cables sprout holding monitors of the gameplay. The structure soars to "Damaged" truss above [rented and dressed lighting truss, venue rigging costs may be an issue] which support the broken husk of a power distribution system.
Also, lighting up there subtly alters the color temperature of the space [venues tend to be bright as heck, so all we can really hope for is to change the "Feel" of the light.
More booze filled sketching to come.
-Dan
A base station platform with marine base detailing [hand rails, damaged metal, blue glowy bits] from which a mess of cables sprout holding monitors of the gameplay. The structure soars to "Damaged" truss above [rented and dressed lighting truss, venue rigging costs may be an issue] which support the broken husk of a power distribution system.
Also, lighting up there subtly alters the color temperature of the space [venues tend to be bright as heck, so all we can really hope for is to change the "Feel" of the light.
More booze filled sketching to come.
-Dan<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
that looks pretty cool :D and lol why does it make me think of this xD <a href="http://www.cfrbeziers.com/jaquettes2/Eden_log_jmb706_v2_front.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.cfrbeziers.com/jaquettes2/Eden_...06_v2_front.jpg</a>
(the bottom sentence reads "A film by frank vestiel")
I mean "Use that as inspiration"
*cough*
One thing though, coming that it was made out of wood, it was a very impermanent structure, and apart if you are a traditional Japanese wood craftsman, it is a very difficult thing to design pieces of wood which can be easily assembled and disassembled into a sound structure.
And so I was thinking that a metal structure would be very appropriate. Though it is more expensive than wood. It can be prefabricated and designed to be effective, reasonably light, and most importantly, assembled and disassembled easily. It would be great if their booth could be reusable and easily built by a minimum amount of people. This could be a frame, delimiting the space, allowing fixture of screens and create the 'table' on which is setup the lan. This could be a nice investment, that would allow the team to be present at many game conventions without having to spend so much time on setting it up, nor rebuying a stock of wood and having to spend time crafting it.
In time, the devs and community could find and build custom 'ornamentation' to it, pipes, wires, infestation, marine structures, alien structures and so on, that would give life to this structure. It would end up being a very uncommon and intriguing booth that would have a solid, reusable structure and would evolve in time as the different ornamental pieces would grow in number. It also allows the community to take part in the booth.
Taking out their booth would be like decorating their Christmas tree :p and even if usually your stock of ornamentation is the same with a few additions, each booth will still be different.