Task 14: Elements of Game Design, Part 5: Planning and Concepting

Task 14: Elements of game design, part five: planning and concepting

The idea of planning and concepting comes as an essential tool for an artist in the games industry. Because of what the process, that the artists go though, gives them in terms of input to a certain idea that would eventually end up merged with other ideas to result in a final project that stands out, taking all the best and coolest parts of each idea and combining them.

                This process has to begin at the basics. Thumbnailing images of various ideas helps in building a strong set of maybe one hundred different thumbnails, which would then be whittled down variety of ideas, about fifty, sixty thumbnails, these are including the best of the former one hundred to take on even further. The next step in this initial stage would be to further cut down the number of ideas that an artist may have to a realistic ten to twenty plans, which would make for a good selection of quality plans to choose to work with to then build a final project from.

                Another key part to the planning and concepting is the placement of the subjects in the images that the artist is producing, thumbnailing would again be sufficient here as it allows an artist to experiment with the placement, tweaking the images in each progressing sketch. Speed is also a key factor when producing the thumbnails for viewing and taking ideas from, this method ensures that all angles have been covered and cut or included within the final and makes sure that the decisions made are for the better and faster outcome.

                As mentioned earlier, the speed at which an artist produces concept work or thumbnails is key. In thumbnails the more that are done, the better the input of ideas will be for when the project is set up and running, planning for seven hours and then creating a great final piece in one hour or two is better than spending seven hours on a final piece that was only planned for an hour or two and turns out not too great. It just improves an artist’s decision making throughout the final piece almost on a subconscious level, as they would have used parts from one thumbnail that looks great, that they never would have thought to include if they hadn’t of gone through the thumbnail process first in order to get this idea.

                Organisation is vital to how well and how good a project looks and feels. If there is no organisation like; lack of time management, poor motivation and work ethic, a project will fall apart. Managing time well is tricky at first but reaps benefits when used properly, a decent amount of work gets done and keeps stress levels almost none existent, which helps produce the best work, under stress, work can be rushed and some key elements will be missing that can only be included through processes that stress tends to try and skip to finish the project faster. Keeping a good time and work management produces better work and then an artist can have time to correct mistakes that they may find in their work.

                These are the skills that i believe are the most important to get to grips with and start practicing, on a regular basis. 

Task 13: Review of the First Year and Ambition for Year 2

Task 13: Review of the first year and ambition for year two

The first year for me was a huge step for me. I was introduced to 3d software for the first time and a whole new way of working and learning. Although taken back by the new experience, I slowly became accustom to this and started to really enjoy it.

                I did find the software 3ds Max, at the start, rather hard to get to grips with. Although it was a steep learning curve, i feel that this was the reason for my motivation. I wanted to learn how to be good at using Max because I was very interested in what I could create with this software if I worked at it. So that experience really did me some good, i created models such as the Darlek, wheelie bin, building, tree and gladiator and I thought I improved in my skills with each model.

                Visual design was more of a comfort zone for me in the first year, as I had been doing this in my previous school and college work, I enjoy picking up a pencil and paper and drawing and image. Sketching and traditional art media were what I was used to, so the principals of how to draw were there and i didn’t feel like i had to learn everything from scratch. I was interested in learning techniques that were told and shown to me. My ability in traditional art media has improved a lot from what i got from the lessons and I have started to see what I’m drawing in a different way, for example, the colour theory, I now look for more than just the shades of one colour, I started using colours that I would have never thought would be in the senses or objects that I was observing. The single and two point perspectives really helped me in particular as i had always struggled to draw scenery in the past especially when drawing city landscapes and buildings have always been tricky.

                In critical studies I especially like the group discussions I enjoy learning how the industry will see my work, whether or not a piece will be noticed or whether it will be glanced over, i found these talks very helpful in that aspect, also, the lead up to a final product and finished project, the process that the game goes through and the different styles or artists that the elements get worked on. These were documented in my personal research which I enjoyed doing to study the history of the industry that i hope to get into. I very much find the viewing and study of scenery and character reference in the visual stimulation class, very insightful to how a character is portrayed in a game and how scenery and environments help set the mood of a particular set level or cut scene.

                The first year was vital for me to experience the kind of work effort expected in university, and I’m pleased overall with my progress in everything that I’ve been taught.

                In the second year I Intend to try and explore the modifiers and advanced tools available in 3ds max to be able to build more realistic models, and aim to increase my knowledge of topology in a mesh, flow lines of anatomy, how they are helpful in animation, and I want to improve my abilities with rigging character meshes too. I hope to better my drawing capabilities through increased variety of media both wet and dry, and how to properly capture expression and emotion in my pictures by more regularly creating drawings and digital pieces. I want to learn a lot more about how industry runs and works, so i look forward to continuing with the blog research, the group talks and the visual stimulation classes.

Task 12: Personal review of the first year

Over the past year i feel like i have really settled in at De Montfort and
onto the Game Art Design course.
When i first started the course i was excited and optimistic, looking forward to learning about the techniques and skills that are necessary in order to venture into the industry and to secure a job. At first i found the course very challenging in the 3d module of the course, i had never used a 3d software before coming to university therefore i struggled a lot to get to grips with 3ds Max, i found myself being left behind by the rest of the group. I found the Gurus and grasshoppers activities very useful and was very reassured when i had a crash course in 3ds Max from the third years, these lessons really help me to be able to start using Max up to standard and to be able to efficiently create assets, this allowed me to catch up to the rest of the group. it felt like i was thrown in at the deep end from the start, which was, in the end, a good thing as it was a real eye opener into the work i had to do, therefore i have adjusted to a comfortable work rate.
I went into the visual design module fairly confident as this is my strongest skill, the lessons were very interesting and i feel i have learned more than i have ever learned previous about drawing techniques and i feel that my drawings have improved drastically from my original standard. I feel more confident about approaching a challenge, and i think that this new found confidence shows in the pieces that I'm producing,
for example: previously i had always dreaded and stayed away from landscape sketching or scenery drawing, but with the techniques that i have practiced, i am more confident in attempting to create these scenes. Character modeling, that i also have never gone into before, was very enjoyable. I have learned a lot about creating an armature and then applying Sculpy to create the character models, looking at the models i have created i am very pleased with how they both turned out.
I have enjoyed the critical studies module because i found the lessons very enlightening and interesting, everything that i have been taught this year, i have never know prior. learning about the process that game companies go through in order to create a game was knowledge that i know will be applied to my future ideas and suggestions.
In terms of next year, i would very much like to experiment more with human anatomy, i believe this would be vital skills involved in creating and producing well revised character ideas and would enable a higher quality of rendering skills for concepts and accurate action shots. I also plan on improving my speed paint skills and general use of Photoshop in order to produce better quality of textures and colours for the assets that i produce in 3ds Max. I'm thinking that Zbrush would be a worth while tool to use and also one of the digital 3d sculpting software to create higher quality of models, but a focus on raw materials in 2d would be very beneficial in improving fine art skills.
In summary, i think the first year has gone very well, i have learnt more than i could of imagined and am looking forward to continuing into the second year.

Task 11: Elements of game design, part four: Environment

The environment is one of the most important aspects of any game, it has a variety of functions and contributions to the game, and makes it almost impossible to have game without an environment. The environment allows for characters to be placed in a place that compliments the story which a writer is trying to convey, also, the environment helps to establish the surroundings and location within a game. Another way of putting it is that it is vital for a good game to have an environment.
Designers are responsible for creating a believable environment that the characters in a game can navigate, and navigation is important when considering the initial level designs. The environments created have to subtlety and cleverly use colour, lighting and layout of each aspect of the level to guide the player through
the environments. This idea of guiding the player through the levels varies with the genre of game that a particular is being designed for, for example, in a horror survival, the general colour scheme is quite a dark palette, meaning a limited availability of colour use, therefore, lighting can be used to lead the player through.
Directing the player is not only limited to the use of colour from the designers, it can also be achieved through the actual layout of the levels that the game throws at the player, narrow, dark corridors and buildings can be used due to their direct nature when included in game. Buildings give the player options, but, at the same
time, only give them one option, cleverly giving the player a single option to advance.
The way in which the player is lead depends on the genre of game, the genre can influence the whole level design considerably, for example again, a horror genre would call for the levels to be completely different style to an action genre. The style is the key tool in this example, usually incorporating buildings and assets which the player will be forced to go through or move around, again, giving the sense of freedom, however,
not actually having it.
The environment influences the atmosphere of the game massively, the previously mentioned aspects of the level achieve this, colour use, lighting and layout. The layout of a particular level is on of the main roles out of the three, but this doesn't render the others useless, they are all needed to create an atmosphere to suit the
game, the layout of the level creates atmosphere, trying not to exhaust the horror examples too much, within a horror game the idea is to give the player a feeling of panic and to basically scare them. This could be achieved by using lots of tight, lifeless space, where theres no room to run, that gives the player a sense of being trapped and claustrophobic just by initially considering the atmospheric goal. Alternatively, a wide open space in a horror genre gives the sense of safety due to the vastness of the environment, which isn't what the conventional horror genre consists of.
I think that there is a balance to be struck between realism and stylisation in making a world believable to a player because, obviously, if the level is too stylised, then it doesn't represent real life, which is, in most cases, the goal of the production, to give a player the opportunity to live out a life which they can not live outside of the game, and to make this second life believable, there needs to be a representation of the world they actually live in. Although there can be a compromise when the audience of the game is younger an has not yet fully developed a sense of the link between the character interacting with a digital environment, therefore, they are quite happy to be seeing a floating, giant, giraffe shaped house with a tiny bird as the care-taker, so there is room for artistic improvisation and creativity gone wild in this case.
This is a piece of environment art that i like, it was created by Pavel Elagin who is an artist who has worked in Australia on bioshock 2. This piece was inspired by the middle east however i think that it resembles in a way the alien vs predator movie's temple, it is this way that it pays homage to the actual temples in the east,

this representation therefore, in my opinion makes this piece a good environment design.

Task 10: Elements of game design, part three: character

I have encountered many characters throughout my life, watching television, reading books, comic books, playing games and films. Most of these characters are memorable, these memorable characters are very prominent to viewers due to the characters characteristics, some of these characters that come to mind are: C.J from the grand theft auto series, San Andreas, who's cocky attitude and surroundings made for an entertaining game, the heavy rain detective Shelby, who's personality is very much hidden until the end of the game, makes for an intriguing person to follow throughout the story line and my final example being Kratos from the god of war saga, his character is the whole basis of the entire game which, for me, was the selling point for the franchise which is the story of Kratos and through playing the games, the player discovers his troubled past.
There are techniques that the designers use to keep the attention of the player, these techniques, i think, are: the interest factor, the use of the characters past to lure the players into wanting to know more about the characters past which is the main reason for most gamers to play on through the game, they want to complete the story, characters involvement is a big influence on the response to the characters presented to the players, if a character is only seen once, for example, then if the player is left with a choice for this particular character's fate, then the choice to choose that fate is made easier due to the player not relating to the character, in the long run not having an emotional bond with that character, as opposed to a character that makes many appearances, making a connection with the gamer that makes such decisions harder to make as there is a much stronger connection. So screen time is a huge factor in character relationships in games and the player's feelings towards them.
The script is rather important when building character's persona in a game, if a character, for example, had a poor script then this would take away aspects of a the characteristics, that would usually be expressed in the cut-scenes of the story where the relationship between character and player is established.
Included in this equation is the acting of the characters during screen time, actors giving the characters emotion which is as important as a good script, as when, for example a passionate scene is to take place then the quality of acting would be the make or break of the scene, if the acting was terrible, then the emotion would not be felt by the viewer at all which would make for a bad turn to the story and overall a bad experience, with the player loosing interest and eventually stopping playing the game.
The appearance of the character must be interesting, the player has to have an initial attraction to the character he or she is going to control for the majority or all of the game, i think that the appearance of the character is a vital selling point for games that are heavily story based. Take 'Heavy Rain' for example, where
the whole twist in the tale is, Spoiler alert!, that the detective attempting to solve the case of the child murderer, turns out to be the child murderer, this comes as a huge shock resulting from his appearance, of a happy jolly detective which the player would not expect this particular character to be capable of such a crime.
Personally, i find stories that are murder mysteries and crime thrillers completely irresistible, its the solving of the crimes and the suspense that i find a great concept to include in a game, like the examples that i used earlier, 'Heavy Rain' it has all the elements that i look for in a game, solving crimes using intuition and clues, a very good character back story, acting and good action. so these types of games are what i find irresistible.

Task 9: Elements of game design, part 2: art direction for games

The art director is involved in many jobs within the production of a game. Overseeing the overall quality of the work produced for all games, in addition to this, it is also in the job's description to oversee the advertising and publishing materials that are used to promote the game. Most of an art director's time is spent on games developed within the company that could be a big seller, however, time is also dedicated to so called 'B-side' games that are not the main ambition of the company. The overview of the B-sides usually involves reviewing the art through the milestones of the external production, suggesting improvements and new ideas for changes to be made. Art directors attend all the review meeting in the company and their involvement in a game starts when the initial idea of a game is pitched to the senior management, the next stage that the directors take care of is the reviewing of the design document produced by the game artists, they check that the art work is sound and accurate. They work closely with the game producers, deciding how much time should be dedicated to the production team to work on a game, also, how much of the budget shall be spent on each game.  
 The art director is responsible to the senior management of the game, they are responsible for the overall look and feel of the game being produced, both the way the player interacts with the game and the way the player interacts with his environment. this includes both active and passive art in the game.
Art director is a creative roll to play in the production, this is because the art director is involved in every part of the art production of the game, from improving concept work to changing environments that don't work with a certain mood thats trying to be achieved throughout a game, they have to be able to spot these things in the work that they see, therefore they must be creative when doing this job.
With film art direction, it's not so much, harder than game direction, its just the fact that in film, there is only ever one perspective and point of view to address when looking through a camera lens, whereas, the game artist director has to take into account the player's ability to move around 3d space which gives the director's judge-
meant a bigger sense of responsibility if a mistake were to not be spotted in a scene. This observation is the main difference between the two directors and what they do, other than this, the principles of the two jobs are the same: working with the production designer closely, a responsibility to assign tasks for personnel within the team and attending all of the production meetings.
If i were to become an art director in the future, i would think  that i needed to improve my skills as an artist, in spotting mistakes in work such as, maybe a mistake in perspective for example, also i would need to have the skills necessary to be able to correct these mistakes spotted and give advice to improve them. I would need to be able to consistently produce work that is up to scratch with the level that is expected in the industry.

Task 8: Elements of game design, part one: From pong to next gen.

The word 'Game play' has quite a literal meaning: 'the playing of the game' but also carries the meaning: The plot of a computer game or the way that the game is played, alternatively, meaning: interaction with a game through it's rules, the connection between the player and the game, challenges, and overcoming them, plot and players connection with it and describes the interactive elements of a game.
There are many leading lights in the games industry within games design, a few names include: Christian Allen, design team for 'Ghost Reacon' and lead designer on 'Halo Reach', Cliff Bleszinski, Member of epic games and lead designer of 'Gears Of War' and 'Gears Of War 2'and Ken Levine, the designer on 'Bioshock'.
These are just some of the designers of recent years, but, also designers from the early years of computer games are just as well know and recognized by the games industry, names such as: Ralph Baer, the father of video games, he created 'Chase Game' in 1967 which was the first game ever played in a television set and William Higinbotham, the creator of 'Tennis For Two' in 1958. these great minds are what started the whole world of the video game.
  Probably one of the most influential names in the last 20 years is Satoshi Tajiri, his idea exploded into popular culture for children in the 90's as soon as it hit the shelves, Satoshi Tajiri is the founder of 'Game Freak' and the creator of the infamous 'Pokemon' games. He was born on August 28th in 1965. Tajiri's childhood hobby of collecting insects was to be the inspiration for his video game, He wanted children to experience the feeling of catching and collecting creatures like he had as a boy. Satoshi became progressively more fascinated with arcade games in his teens at his local arcade, this interest led to him beginning to attempt to plan his own video game.
 At the age of 17 Tajiri started writing and editing a fanzine called 'Game Freak', moving on from this, he conceived the idea of Pokemon in 1990, this was after he first encountered a game boy, which seemed the ideal console for his idea. The game took 6 years in total to complete and when the game was released it received little media coverage as the game boy was thought to be a dead console. The game sold approximately 23.64 million copies and was a huge part of reviving the game boy and Nintendo.
The process of game design takes place after the process of proto-typing, the proto-typing usually takes place in the pre-production of the game, whilst the game design comes in with the production of the game. This process is not just a one man job, it requires all the efforts of game programmers, producers and artists
to gather all their ideas and suggestions for the game design process.
The holy grail of game design is a game with a carefully constructed narrative that players can influence to the same degree as their real lives. The goal is to have stories that are every bit as engaging as traditional narratives but created in such a way as to enable players to have a variety of player experiences. Based on these lines and these principles, i would say that different genres do not need different design principles when faced with the issue of story line structure. But, in terms of game play, each genre requires a certain style of design when dealing with the game play, for example; a horror genre requires a slow paced game play whereas, an action genre would require a faster, paced game play, these choices will demand for a different set of principles depending on what emotions the designers want the player to feel when playing.
When i play a game i feel that the most important things to experience are: a good story line, i like to feel like carrying on playing the game to find out what happens in the story, it has to be griping and involve interesting characters, otherwise i loose interest. The other thing is, a good level design and art direction, the level that the player is immersed in has to convince them they are part of the story, also what the player is looking at has to look good and almost guide the player through the level to give them a real experience. Thats what i look for when i play a game.

Personal Game Review

My name is Stephen Taylor, the game I have chosen to review is EA Sports' Fifa 11. EA Sports first released this game on September the 28th 2010 in north America, 30th of September in Australia and finally in Europe for all platforms, except the Nintendo Wii and DS. However, it was released on both the Nintendo Platforms later on October the 8th and the PC version was the first Fifa game to use the game engine from the console version.
The Genre of the game is 'Sports' game but more specifically 'Football'. There is no real story line or game plot to Fifa as it is a sports game, and it is not linear in the sense that there is no main character or no main plot that the player follows. The closest thing to the conventional plot is the game mode 'Manager Season' in which the gamer chooses to take control of a single player within a team or the full team, and takes his or her team through a fifteen season campaign, buying and selling players, trying to have the best squad and aspiring
to win the league.
The gameplay in Fifa is mostly good, buy far the best football game I've ever played. But it is not without its little glitches and flaws, for example: The players start on the wrong side of the pitch and there is a frantic dash of all the players to reposition themselves on in the other half, at times... Amusing, but this repeating can start to irritate, The commentators say the most random things that are not accually happening on the pitch, example: Andy Gray might comment on the corner that is about to be taken, when in fact the goalkeeper is preparing for his goal kick. These glitches don't occur that often, but it is noticable when they do.
However, putting these glitches aside, Fifa 11 gameplay is solid and fun, it makes for a great multiplayer, with the capacity for eight players, or a good single player game with the games modes included. It has a nice look to the game with the stadiums well presented and has player likeness, making the player models looking perfect down to a freckle, which makes for an immersive experience.
The thing that makes Fifa 11 stand out from the rivals and previous games in the franchise is the new game features that have been added to this one. These features include: The next generation gameplay engine also included in the PC version, allowing for PC gamers to not miss out on the newest tech poured into this newest Fifa. A brand new career mode has been introduced and completely replaced the prevoius, this new feature allows for gamers to choose whether of not to be a manager of a club of choice, or whether to start a career with a single player in the be a pro mode, taking a single player up through the ranks of skill and stature to become one of the greats of football, or even, taking on the task of playing and managing the club in player manager mode. Two button control has been introduced as an optional function, introduced for those who want to simplify the possibly confusing and complicated default controller setting, this consists of changing
the setting so that the player only ever has to use two buttons in order to play the game, which is a good idea for the less experienced players.
In summary, Fifa 11 is a well made game, the developers have thought of , and included many good features from the previous games whilst still managing to incorporate new, and successful features into this latest release, it is an enjoyable experience playing this game and, in my opinion, is a great game overall.

12/04/11 2

 Today i finished both of the tree models, all i had left to do was to create the LoDs for both models. I rendered both the front and side view ports, saved the images then took them into Photoshop where i used the images to make alphas to put back into Max. After the textures had been loaded up in max, i created two planes and placed them in the centre of the scene intersecting, i then applied the images to the corresponding planes, creating the LoD of the trees.

LoD of tree 2

LoD of tree 1

12/04/11

Today i went to the labs to continue work on my tree project that i am redoing to better my work from the first term, i made great progress in my opinion, managing to get both the models completed up to the LoD creating, which i intend to do the next time i am in the labs. i textured both tree models and successfully made the alpha channels for the foliage of the trees, these alpha channels worked perfectly, which is a great improvement on the original submission where there were many faults including: terrible renders, leaves not showing up on both sides of the plane, 3ds Max not correctly showing the opacity information. these problems were addressed today with alterations to the original Targa image in Photoshop and also changes to the Max settings for the display of the alphas, so these new alphas i am very pleased with.

Final render of the first tree

Another render of the first tree

First tree

Second tree render

The second render of the second tree

04/04/11

Today I visited Bradgate park, I went to Bradgate to do visual design work in my sketchbook, the drawings that I produced were, in my opinion, a vast improvement to the previous Bradgate park drawings in the first term, which I am pleased with.i primarily focused on small thumbnails, then moving onto a sketch for the final piece, I took a photograph of this particular scene so that I could later add detail to the preliminary sketch of the final.

I stayed at Bradgate for most of the day, getting the thumbnail sketches down so it was a very productive day I thought. The scene looking across Leicester how ever was difficult to draw as the weather did not help the visibility whilst on the hill. For this reason, the main focus was on the closer assets, like rock formations for example. For the rocks thumbnails I tried rendering techniques without smudging which I had been advised to lighten up on using.

07/02/11

I finished the texturing of my model for the gladiator project and have now started rigging the character, i found that texturing the gladiator was easier than texturing the van, this has shown me that my skills in 3ds max are improving which i am pleased about.

Some renders of the finished gladiator model.

Writing about reviewers

There are many issues that game reviewers face, through a little research i discovered that many game reviewers find it difficult to keep some of their reviews none- biased, for example; writing on a games that they may have found to be the best game they’ve ever played, this being the case, they would unconsciously make the game sound excellent, whereas it doesn’t live up to the many readers views. Other issues include the sources of the games; maybe the developers do not send a copy of the game, or even a demo, to the reviewers, making their life harder in trying to get a hold of the game so that they can get a more of a hands on experience of the game under review. Similarly, if an issue should appear in the game then they must get to the source of the problem and try and feed back to improve the quality of it. Reviewers also have some critics that explain that the reviews seem half- hearted and not of the highest standard, this, i found out, is because they have such a small amount of time to complete a full review that what they produce can, obviously, not be perfect as the next assignment will be undergo also.

                I believe that an objective ranking system is not necessary in order for the reviewed games to sell, this is because i have witnessed such a thing happen, where a game, for this instance, has been bought purely on the likeness of it’s counterpart movie, the game being pirates of the Caribbean, due to this fact, a link was made between the movie being good, and the game which immediately was being anticipated as an awesome game. The fact of the matter was, that the game sucked, it was poor to say the most and could have easily been surpassed by the likes of another Barbie episode in that bizarre saga. So this brings me to my point that sometimes subjectivity trumps objectivity. However, objectivity is an essential part to a game review, as a game could be good in terms of objectivity but it could have the worst ideas in the history of games, but, the review would have done the job of persuading readers to purchase the game because of the review, so in that sense the system is feasible, and is essential for the powers of persuasion.

                The NGJ provide an insight to games that are released that necessarily are not well known, giving it press which could boost the popularity which makes it good in that way, however, if they give a bad review then that could be make or break for someone like, a small time developer.

                I found a few other forms of games writing two of these were: reviews on popular games and descriptive writing on story plots and general likeability of the game.

                After all these findings, i thought about my own writing, and asked myself, do i value objectivity or subjectivity? Well, i think that i value both when reviewing a game but i going to say that in most cases objectivity tops subjectivity. Subjectivity can be vital as games are mainly bought for their status and likeability, call of duty, for example, a game where not every one of the new releases is, arguably, better than the last. They are again, bought on a basis of genre, if a genre is preferred to another, then that one will sell, due to the subjectivity factor. Finally, to mention objectivity, in a review, the game in question might not be known at all upon release, this brings in objectivity to give the reader the information that he/she needs to decide whether or not to purchase it. My final conclusion is that, yes, both play their respectable factors but objectivity comes out on top in a review as the basis of said review. 

07/02/11

Today i finally finished the modeling stage for my van, and so i started the long process of uv unwrapping, its going good in my opinion, at the moment, the initial confusion was which kind of mapping to use, in the end i've chosen to use planar mapping.

Heres a wire frame render of the finished model

A render of the front of the van

Guest Lecture 02/02/11

On Wednesday we had a guest lecture from Blitz Games, they showed us pictures purely of fine art with no images of games that Blitz had made.

                Firstly, they talked about how the fundamentals of art were extremely important when transferring skills into 3d and 2d work for games, telling us that its these fundamentals that good artistic vision can be improved on, and so further improving our work. Some of the types of fine art that they showed were: portraits of people, which helps to get a good angle to how character design can be improved greatly by truly understanding the basics of human portraits, and sculpture work, that focuses on the human form, understanding the anatomy of a human being helps to get an accurate representation of a person from character design.

                Their second topic was what things the game industries look for when they hire artist. They revealed to us that various styles of art work is a good bet, showing that you have a wide range of ability throughout the spectrum, always be criting your work and being enthusiastic about the improvements that could be done to your work, and also to meet deadlines to ensure a happy employer. These bits of advice were useful to us as we all look to get jobs and be known as a good artist and worker.

Guest Lecture

Yesterday was the guest lecture from Michael Morgan, who was a graduate from DMU, and who has worked for Lucas Arts creating animations for various works whilst he was there.

                He first started with the types of projects that he had been working on for example; Star Wars: Clone Wars, the series, and showed images and video clips of the work in a montage, to show the episodes he had animated. He then went on to explain how the motion is created and how the lip syncing of the characters was done which was very interesting as i showed skills needed that are achieved from the animation course. I was glad that he’d told us how to achieve the desired scene.

                I found most of the information helpful, the types of work spaces that can be found when working in films and in games, also the companies that look for work from the UK, this involves travelling to places such as Singapore. I found that it was mostly focused on animation, which probably was to be expected when he announced he was a animation student, but the things he talked about were useful and easily transferrable to the game art course. Because he had been a DMU student, i found it reassuring as he knew the situation we all are in and could relate to it himself, and he went on from DMU to become a successful animator. 

My Personal Gaming History

               My first games console that i got was an original Nintendo Game boy, i only had two games for the Game boy which were super Mario and Tetris of which i played many hours. Second console was the saga mega drive at the age of 5-6 where sonic the hedgehog won the prize for most played, also most frustrating, i moved onto other games during my time as a mega drive owner, such titles as, Double Dragon, which was a classic beat’em up with element of side scrolling games added and great two player fun, Twin Cobra, one of those, shoot everything and see what’s the highest score you can possibly get, and Echo the dolphin one very relaxed game to play. These are only a few of the games i played.

                The next step up from the Sega mega drive for me was the Playstation from Sony, and this was, at the time, the one console that i didn’t expect big things from. I only rarely bought Playstation games so few games are remembered, games like, metal gear solid, dragon ball z, tomb raider etc... I believe i played more titles later on in the future of the consoles life.

                So, two years later, Nintendo 64 was released. This console was my most attention grabbing console, just because of the superior graphics compared with the consoles i owned previously. The Nintendo 64 console lasted me about two years when it finally stopped working. That event completely discouraged me from Nintendo consoles, although in my opinion they are still dominant in handhelds and their newest console the Wii I rather enjoy.

                In 2001 i had a Playstation 2 console, the ps2 was the console that really made Playstation for me due to its vast range of titles available. The games of my teenage years include, Time crisis, which was great fun with the controller being a gun pointed at the screen, which i thought was awesome, the start of the next gen GTA series beginning with GTA 3, moving to Vice City and the biggest selling episode, San Andreas.

                Between the time of the Playstation 3’s release and the previous ps2 launch, i moved slightly into the realm of computer gaming with only the one game owned, for a computer, by me, counter strike source, this game is what got me through the wait for the Playstation 3 which was about 5 years since i got the game was the ps3 released.

                The Playstation 3 was the console i most looked forward to; i remember looking at footage on the internet of newest in-game screenshots of the amazing graphics and processing power. Then, when finally released, resistance and motor storm were the two games that i played, the ps3 still is still my choice of console over the past 3 and a half years since release, many other games were bought and played on this console, i think it’s the most games I’ve ever had for a single console.

                Up to now, the games that i have played have gotten unbelievably good with mind blowing speed in such a short 20 years that i think they surely can only get better and bigger. Looking at these improvements over the years i would hope for games in the future to have better graphics and processing power, also improved memory on discs to vastly increase game accessibility and length. So i think, and hope that games of the future will deliver the goods that we expect them to bring to the table in the upcoming years of gaming.

13/01/11

Read the design brief for the next project which is the ford transit van, I’ve been out hunting for a transit van to take pictures of and finally found one, I thought there were going to be loads, but only found the one on eastern boulevard.

                I took some pictures of the front, sides and back of the main body of the van, then got into some close ups of the detail, such as the badge and then pictures of the lights ready to use for the separate texture sheet needed for the lights.

10/01/11

Today finished a quick digital paint to illustrate motion on behalf of my vehicle in the design project. the picture is purely to give a sense of how the boat would be seen travelling through the water.

History of video games 2000’s

The start of the 21^st century brought about the biggest developments in gaming history, There were many different types of developments from a variety of companies.

Nokia N-Gage

                Moblie gaming was the forefront of these new gaming advancements with the launch of the Nokia N-gage in 2003, with its superior graphics to its previous competition, the mobile phone, it was a great success. Other smart phones were released by competition that played video games with similar standards to the N-Gage, Apple released their product, the iPhone in 2007, this only strengthened the appeal of mobile gaming even further.

Apple's iPhone

Sony Playstation 2

                Sixth generation consoles were the next big development of the twenty-first century. The Nintendo giants fell behind, this made way for the Sony Playstation 2 to top the market before 2001 when Microsoft released the xbox. The xbox, based on the pc’s intel Pentium III cpu to provide it’s power. This brought around a huge increase in the popularity of ‘open world’ genre, massively influenced by the announcement of ‘Grand theft auto III’ rocketing the market further. There was also higher demand for ‘Mature’ rated games like Halo and resident evil.

                The alternate controller phase took the industry by force with the introduction of such games as ’Dance Dance revolution’ with the soft foot mat controller and Sony’s ‘Guitar Hero’ using the novelty guitar-shaped controller on the Playstation 2.

Original XBox

                Also, the cheaper, and more affordable broadband connections boosted the online using of games to an all time high. This increase mainly contributed to the pc games, with the pc possessing an integrated modem along with the accessibility of the pc at this time, world of warcraft, just one of the pc’s massive array of online games. Secondly to the scene was Sega with the dreamcast, which also contained a modem. Next in line were Sony and their answer to the dreamcast, an attachable modem to be used with ‘Final fantasy XI’ along with the launch of Microsoft xbox live, these left the dreamcast’s popularity at a low and so Sega retired to a 3^rd party company.

                Casual pc gaming on the increase, small puzzle games were on the menu for pc games and influenced a massive game that hit the market big and took it by storm, ‘the sims’. The popularity of this genre brought about opportunities for casual pc gaming to advance the market yet again.

Nintendo DS

Microsoft XBox 360

                The seventh generation console release could probably be said to be a milestone in technological achievement throughout the world and the big giants were launching consoles to keep with this generation, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP were hugely sold, DS attracting younger and mid-aged consumers with the interactive capabilities, whilst the PSP was a hit with the veteran gamers because of the superior graphics and power. Consoles were not that far behind, in 2005 Microsoft launch the xbox 360 to have Sony follow up in 2007 with the PS3, both these consoles almost matching the processing power of the high ranged pcs at that time. This was nintendo’s comeback and they released the Wii just after the PS3, this really put them back on the map with it’s revolutional motion sensor remote controls. In 2009 Microsoft and Sony release their reply to Nintendo with their own sensors, xbox kinect and PS3 move.

Sony Playstation 3

                The start of the twenty-first century was a great contribute to the future of the gaming industry and will continue to inspire for years ahead.