Mythical Mayhem

OMG there's another one

2011-01-20T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hey guys jsut a quick post to inform you that i ahve a new blog at www.thewatersideforge.blogspot.com which will contain my Final Major Project work

Also I will update this blog with more stuff shortly

The end of another Year

2010-04-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

So here we are again, the end of yet another year as a game art student, and what a year it has been. From the word go this year has thrown a lot at me. At onw point i almost dropped out but to be honest i think that was a case of the second year slums.
The highlight of this yearthough has go to be the group project, the case to experience what it really can be like in the industry, along with the chance to have some more freedom with the brief.

Another major part of this year has been the solidifcation of my future ambitions, The hopes of becoming a 3D environment designer. (I have already cover this is a preivous and crappy written blog)

Personally i dont really know what else to say about he second year, I got off to a rocky start, with poor projects and a total loss of the will to carry on. I think dropping out would of been the worst decision i had ever made. The last place i wanna end up is Tesco stacking shelves ( no offence but that aint for me.)

SO thge 3rd Year stands a head of me, the chance to go abosolutly nuts (well not too nuts). Also the end of my Era in education, after that its out into the place they call the world. To be honest i aint liking the sound of it to much, so i think ill be out with shotguns just in case.

SO, where AM I going?

2010-04-24T09:34:00.000-07:00

So the end of the second year is upon us, and I think its time that I looked back at a previous question, where do I want to go after my third year here is finished?

Before, I had only touched the tip of the iceberg, but after another year of study and practising my skills I have seen a lot more of what the game industry has to offer, and to be frank it can be a little scary. There are so many different areas of game art it can be hard to choose. But there so one area in particular that I always liked, and that is Environment Design

At first it was hard to choose between whether I to want to specialise in 2D or 3D . Being as I had spent my previous education focusing on 2D design I was initially drawn to that field of work. Always sitting in awe when looking through the environment concept art for games, thinking I would just love to be able to do that one day. Of course this was before I discovered how to actually make these concepts into an actual 3D environment.

When the time came around to work on the group projects, I was starting to get an idea of where it was I wanted to go, and 3D environment art was it. As we progressed more an more through the project, the more my ambitions solidified, 3D environment is where I want to go.

what do I think?

2010-03-15T15:38:00.001-07:00

OK so the first proper review of the group projects is now only a few days away, so here is my view on how things have been going.

Do I think that my work will be ready for viewing?

hopefully, but with the sudden loss of my graphics tablet, "Rest in Piece", I am now limited to getting my textures finished during the time the labs are open. Still this should be plenty time, and to be honest I find it easier to concentrate on the work in there, a lot less distractions.

What is my opinion on the results so far?

Personally I think that the group project has gone better than i ever imagined. The group that i have been teamed up with, (go SPAAZERS) has been almost perfect. There have been no conflicts, thank god.

What do i think about the way the group is set up?

All decisions were not made buy a single team leader, we have all been able to put in our opinions and ideas. At first the decision to not have a team leader seemed wise, we all get along very well, there so no need for a person to fill the 'seat of power'. But after talking to both lectures and student we decided that if the team were to start to crumble, that person who took this 'Seat of power' would become the backbone of the group, supporting us all, helping move us froward through coming weeks to get the project done. Luckily there have been no brake-downs, everyone has managed to pull there own weight accordingly/

The Group was set up based on people strengths. I myself, at first wanted to concentrate on either concept side of things, or modelling the environment itself, but I was a little wiry about that though, because my texturing skills were still hidden in the gutter somewhere. It was my major weakness, in all my other game production projects, it was the one thing I despised. I could never get it right, texture would always stretch, I found Unwrapping more of a chore, than anything.

After analysing the queens building and working on the overall layout of our chosen area, i found one thing that way consistent throughout all of it. The pipe work, it is everywhere, no matter where you look there are there hanging above, like they are ready to drop on you at any second. There is was my mind was made, I found that the pipes held a lot of the character to this place and I wanted to be able to work on this. and by the time it got to unwrapping these, I was dreading it. but the discovery of Pelt unwrapping changed my mind. Life became so much easier, Select an edge, make a seam, and pelt. adjust edges accordingly and your done.

Anyway back to the question at hand, other people also focused on what the group felt was there strongest skills.

Mark for instance, is the 'Unreal guy' focusing on getting everything into the game engine, adding effects and more.

Andy was also worked on another consistent thing throughout the level and that was a stairwell, another daunting task. But he did a very good job.

Priya and Aby were the art directors focusing mainly on the style and colour scheme, there idea were in tune with each other and everyone else for that matter, Leave little conflict on ideas. They also worked on modelling repeatable assets throughout the level

Zongyi, well what can I say she was given the seat of power, and in my opinion she pulled it off pretty well. Did abuse her power from time to time but only to lighten the mood.

Mark and Zongi also worked on modelling the male and female toilets, tasks were set appropriately of course.

I didn't 'apply' for the role of team leader for the reason that I sometimes find it hard enough to deal with the work that I alone have, and I don't think that I could of coped with the weight of the others, if the group were to ever collapse. "Game over man"

Do I think that I have done enough work?

At first i have to say I felt as if I had not done enough at all, think about it Mark and Zongyi, had there toilets, Aby and Priya had there assets and visual work, Andy have three different stairwells and me, well I had a bunch of pipes. but with the level then later being split up for each section to work on for texturing, I found that what I think is pure coincidence I ended up with the area with the most assets, that hadn't been modelled.

If I could do this project again what would I do differently?

Well to be honest the main thing would have to be learning and experimenting with the Unreal engine a lot more than I have. the other thing is that with almost all my attention on this project I have nearly abandoned my visual design work. Leaving my hours of work for that module lacking a little more than I would like.

So there you have it my view on the 'Spaazm' project. Don't ask me why it is layout the way it is. Its more like one of those sheet you used to have to fill in at school for your conclusion to a science experiment.

Pictures of the project will be post as soon as I have finished my texture sheets.

You can also check the groups progress through our Blog

Pipes, are they really enough??

2010-02-24T04:39:00.001-08:00

So the group projects are under way and I have gotta say I think we are making excellent progress. Within the first week we had gotten our level location sorted, Ideas wee flying around so much you had to hide in the fridge with the cakes to avoid getting knocked out by them.

After studying the queens building I noticed that there was a large amount of piping, i instantly saw this as one the major characteristics of the Queens Building so I jumped in at the chance to focus my attention on these.

Now that i have nearly finished working on these, I have a feeling that I really haven't done enough work, but with most of the assets already built, and the unreal engine work already making headway. A sense of hopelessness is starting to set in. Will I have done enough work??

I am trying to get my hands on any little assets that need building, which wont take up to much time, but still go toward the amount of work that I have been doing.

After talking about this to the group yesterday they were saying the the piping system was a pretty colossal task as it is. But still I think that it I should do more if I can. But what, do i delve deeper into the Unreal Engine and hope that documentation and experimental pieces will work. Do I try to find more that I can actually put into the final piece.

Presentation is everything

2010-01-28T12:55:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing i have learnt, its that good presentation can make or break your work, and it is important to nail this issue quite early on. There I have been tasked with creating a 10 piece portfolio of my work.

For my portfolio I have created several designs, to use. (click to see larger image).

Each piece is numbered for votes, so please vote for a layout you think would work out best

Working patterns - how do you really spend you time?

2009-12-12T10:57:00.001-08:00

Many people have different ways of working, but it is not just about how you work it also about how you organise your time. How can a person adjust there working pattern, to get the most out of the time they have to work on something?

Two weeks back I was set a task to help solve these questions, this involved making a note of the time I spent doing things for an entire week. From there I would review this and come up with a better working pattern.

Here is a quick overview of how my time was spent for a week:

15 Hours a Week –Lectures

23 Hours a week – Self Directed Study

39 Hours a week – Playing games

16 Hours a week – Other (e.g. Eating, Reading, Watching TV)

56 Hours a week – Sleeping

19 Hours a week – Unaccounted for

After looking at this I found out that I am actually only doing between 2 and 4 hours of work a day, which came as a bit of a shock because I really felt like I was doing a lot more work. I also I found that the time I spent playing games was as you can see was a little too much, every now and then I would stop working to play a game for half an hour but that never really happened, half an hour turned into an hour and so on an so forth.

I reviewed the time spent and re-planned how I should use it, and this is what I came up with

15 Hours a Week –Lectures

50 Hours a week – Self Directed Study

45 Hours a week – Game play & Other (e.g. Eating, Reading, Watching TV)

40 Hours a week – Sleeping

18 Hours a week – Unaccounted for.

Based on this I am over doubling the amount of time spent doing work, and less time is spent doing less productive things such as playing a whole 39 hours of games.

But here is a question a put to you. No matter how much to plan your time, what do you do when you are just incapable of concentrating on your work? With the reviews coming up shortly, the stress of making sure I have everything ready for it is getting to me. I feel like I have so much that I need to do, and yet I am unable to concentrate on almost anything. I think all I can say at the moment is I am looking forward to the Christmas break, I think I need it

Self Portrait - Captian of the Airhaven defences

2009-12-12T09:21:00.001-08:00

More information to be coming soon.

Command Ship - defender of Airhaven

2009-12-12T09:17:00.000-08:00

More Information will be coming soon

Airahven - City in the sky

2009-12-12T07:03:00.000-08:00

For my first semester I have a three part project, to create an Environment, Vehicle, and Self portrait based on the book Mortal engines. All assets will be staged together to create an aesthetically accomplished piece.

For those of you how don’t know what Airhaven is, let me give you a brief over view. Airhaven is known as the city in the sky, and is a creation of Philip Reaves, author of Mortal Engines. In a world where resources are scarce, and cities move, you have to keep on the move to avoid being “Eaten”. To avoid the chaos of the world, the city of Airhaven decided to take to the sky, using a large number of gas balloons.

A single tier city, that floats above the world seems like an interesting starting point but the descriptions in the book are quite bland, so I don’t have much more to work with, except that it is made from a lightweight alloy metal. Initial thoughts were the street the gasbag and gondola is on. (A pub that plays a part in the story) The Landing Bay. The Dockhands Office (designed to make sure people aren’t going to create sparks or such things.)

Budget
Maximum Tri count – 20,000
Maximum Texture Size – 1024x1024
Total texture Budget – 12Mb

Programs used
3DS Max
Photoshop
Crazy bump

After some initial concepts decided to work on the landing bay. My ideas were for there to be several different docking spaces on the outer ring of the platform, with fuelling pipes. A radio tower and a stall to sell Airship parts, e.g. Engines, tools, etc.

Fuelling Station

Stall, Props and light

Completed Scene (no Textures)

Completed Scene (textured)

Diffuse and Normal Maps With Wireframe

As you can tell this scene isn't finish I need as edit some of the geometry to avoid getting some of the shadows, add the Sky dome Texture, Specular Maps, and get the Lighting to work

The world, through the eyes of Turner

2009-11-10T14:05:00.000-08:00

One of my first projects this year is to recreate a piece of work by the ‘old masters’. For mine I decided to look at the work of Turner. Before I go on about my version of his work, I am going to take a minute to talk about his life and his work.

Let’s start from the top shall we. Turner was born in the year 1775, into an English family from London, he entered the Royal Academy of Art when hewas just fourteen, and was accepted into the academy just one year later. Turners original interests where in architecture, but he was advised to continue painting by the architect Thomas Hardwick. After only one year of study, a watercolour by turner was accepted into the Summer Exhibition of 1790, and his first oil painting known as ‘Fishermen at Sea’ was exhibited in 1796. He then exhibited at the academy for nearly every year for the rest of this life.

Turner’s style of painting is very unique, in a lot of his works he uses the oil paints almost like watercolours, this helps him to create a visually amazing pieces. John Ruskin (English Art Critic) describes Turner as the artist who could most ‘Stirringly and truthfully measures the moods of nature’.

The things that captured turners interests the most were things such as shipwrecks, fires, natural disasters, and natural phenomena,like sunlight, storms and fog. The significance of light was to turner, the emanation of gods’ spirit, this is why in his later paintings he refined the subject matter of his paintings by leaving out solid objects and detail, and concentrating on the play of light on water, and the radiance of fire and the sky.

Turner’s earlier works were true to the style of English Landscape paintings such as Tintern Abby 1795 (top). However in Hannibal Crossing the Alps 1812 (bottom), his emphasis on the destructive power of nature was starting to come through.

In his later years Turner used oil paints more transparently, and focused almost all his work on the power of nature and Light. A rumour says that he had himself tied to the mast of a ship to experience the power of nature during a storm at sea. How much truth there is behind this, I have no idea, but if it is true then, I take it that’s one way to get the feel of nature.

I have taken a real liking to the style of Turners’ work, the looseness of it, and the way he shows both spectacular lighting, and the powerful force of nature. So for my piece of work I decided to do ‘Burning of Parliament’ which shows both of these aspects.

Burning of Parliament by J.M.W. Turner (1834)

Reproduction of ‘Burning of Parliament’ by S.B. Gwilliams (2009)

I could of sworn my looked better that that, yet again that's what you get for putting it right next to masters work for all to see.

This is the end! For now

2009-04-03T12:36:00.001-07:00

That's it what can I say, the first year as a game design student has come to an end, and boy what a roller-coaster of a year it has been.

Where do i begin. Walking through the door into the labs and finding and unoccupied seat at the back of the room, awaiting the introductory lesson to begin; that was a nervous day from start to finish.

The first thing and probably the only thing that annoyed me a lot (emphasis on the word lot) was the labs were being moved and they weren't done on time, and it would be several weeks before we would have a lab. What I have got to say though is that the tutors improvised extremely well, giving us projects to test our creative skill and get a feel for what we are like.

Moving away from that, the year as a whole has been excellent, I have learnt some many techniques is art that I didn't realise, and just took them for granted, id say I have learnt a lot more in this year than in the last 3/4 years. One thing I wound really like to look at more is colour theory, and the effects of light on different surfaces and textures, to achieve maximum quality of work.

3D modelling, now that was tough, I just couldn't get to grips with it at first, if only my own 3D modelling program worked, still access to the labs till 9 at night came in very handy, the only thing i would like is to look into things with more detail, unfortunately I know that there is not enough time in the lectures to do that.

OK next, Critical Studies. Even though the classes were really quite most of the time, just listening to some of the things mike had to say were fascinating, and always gave you something new to think about, to be honest I think I blame him for the headaches I get, to much going on in there for me to be able to handle.

Overall I have gotta say that this has been one of the best years of my life, of course its had its down sides, but hay I'm still hear, and I intend to be hear next year.

For now Farewell

GDC 2009

2009-04-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Ok then the GDC is just around the corner, and I'm sitting here wishing I could go. Any way on to the point of this entry, I am going to have a look at one of the talks that are going on in this years conference, which I would really like to attend. This is: (as listed on the website http://www.gdconf.com/index.html)

Art Directing Horror and Immersion in DEAD SPACE

First of all horror games in general all follow the same principle, blood ridden walls , flesh twister monsters, you know what I'm one about. Anyway even though we see the same thing over and over again, it still seems to get reactions, but what I want to know is what this company did to invoke the emotions of the players through the visual quality,

Surely you would think that they took a similar approach that Doom 3 had, yet again is that such a bad thing, it was a huge hit, one the scariest games I have played to date, call me what you want but its true, unfortunately the film was no where near as good. Back to the point, Dead Space might just be a copy of Doom 3 if they go for the same visuals, but it will get the reactions that they will want from the players.

Being as art is my main focus in game design I would like to know exactly what it is that they think, is best to get the reactions out of the players, and how they go about producing this work.

Where am i going?

2009-04-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

To be honest when I decided that I wanted to be a games designer, there was only one company that I wanted to work for, and that was Blizzard Entertainment, yes yes I know I'm going on about Blizzard again, but its true, they were my inspiration to become a games designer
Studying the work of the blizzard artists was inspirational to the point that I started to take art seriously.

After Starting this course and seeing the quality of the work required, I began to question whether or not I am cut out for this, especially when we started the 3D modelling work, I thought I would never get my head round it.

Anyway enough ranting back to the point, when I begin this course I wanted to be a concept artist for Blizzard Entertainment, but now I am unsure of exactly what branch I want to go into, don't get me wrong I still want to be a games designer I just don't know where about in the industry I want to go, what I do know is that I have gotta pull my finger out and get to work.

Creativty, its still there, I Think

2009-04-02T12:56:00.000-07:00

Ok so you may have read my previous blog about creativity, well now that several months have passed and its time to have another look.

To be honest creatvity hasnt changed much over the last 3 months, but what has changed is my views on creativity, after watching speach by a fellow called Ken Robinson, it makes you begin to wonder about how creativity is brought out within a person. Ken Robinson said that everybody is born with creativity, just think about some of the things you used to do as a child, the drawings, the imagination of games made up when with friends, or was that just me? Anyway in Ken Robertsons speach he said that the one major factor that supresses this creativity, is education, the format of the educational system makes you look at many things that are important to know, such as Literacy and Numeracy. But almost all the other subjects that you study will have such small focus on creativity, you are told, read this write that and answer these questions over and over again, where is there time in all of that for creativity? The answer is there isnt. The education system doesnt consider creativity when writing the curriculum.

Creativity is shown in many different ways, such a dance and drama, its not just art. People who are good at these things dont have to chance to express them and see where they could go with it, the reason for this is that education works on a ‘Right/Wrong’ system, its either right or wrong, but with creative subjects you can mark it on a right/wrong basis because every person will interperet things differently, that includes how the sudent will look at something compaired to the tutor, of course the education authority will try and look at it that way, for ease.

This wll put students in a mind set of if its not exactly what i am showed then it is wrong. Question to you see something wrong with that? They cant express themselves creatively for fear of getting the work wrong.

So to some it up, creativity is always there but through education it get supressed, sometimes to a state of complete absence.

Warning: Authorized Personnel Only

2009-04-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

It a question that faces you from the moment you realise what it is you want to do in life, or even as soon as you realsie you need to get a job, How do we get into industry?

Well here is the problem put bluntly, a lot of employers want artists with good skills, a liberal background shall we say, people who will know the skills they need for industry life. Now on the other end of the scale there are employers who look for people who have the exprience of workin in the industry, people how will know what there doing and will be more useful to them. This is the more common case. So how do we get into the industry when employers want experienced artists.

The only place we can turn to is the education system, already couped up in study, you know that if you turn back your chances of gettin into the industry are slim to none, but getting the education to change its ways is almost as hard a task. But what is it we need to change so that it makes us more employable?

Not only in gradute courses but college and even final years of schooling, would be to create a more industral feel to the stucture of the work set, working from live breifs, constant connections with industry, review of your work by members of the industry, this is just the start, but trying to get experience of actually working in industry is another matter, job placements at industrys are hard to come across, and with so many people trying to get into them you have to be at the top of your game, of corse this can act as a catalist and encourage you to work better, and other time is can be depressing, making you think “what is the point?”

I think all that we can do as students, is make sure that we are at the top of our game, so that when the chance to get into industry arrives, you can grasp it with both hands.

Gaming Cultures; are they really all that bad

2009-03-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

Online cultures are ever growing with internet access becoming easier and cheaper to acquire, more people are becoming members of online cultures, from chat-rooms, Facebook, Myspace, and online games. I myself am a member of Steam, a program that allows you to have I.M. conversations with people from all over the world; it also has its own store and member profile pages.

I am also a subscriber to ‘World of Warcraft’, which is not just an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online Role Playing Game), but it is also its own gaming society, cities full of people buying and selling with other players, it even has an auction house for people to sell rage items for extortionate prices, well in certain situations anyway. I am a Member of guild known as ‘The Shadow Vanguard’ with currently around 250 members from all over Europe. There are many, in fact most of the people I know on ‘WoW’, I only know as a virtual character, and have never met in real life, yet we become good friends. I think being a part of these gaming cultures takes up a majority of my spare time.

Game cultures are often criticised because of the lack of social interaction, yeah you might get square eyes from sitting in front of the computer, but you are given the ability to interact with people from all over the world, discuss many different topics, not just games. You can also gain a lot of knowledge from this, for example a friend of mine, has been learning Dutch from someone that he has met via these gaming cultures.

Music, how much does it influence our gameplay?

2009-03-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

Music plays a very important role within games, and that is basically to create atmosphere, just think about it, whenever you play games such as survival horrors, the one thing that creates the most tension, when you walk though the dining room door is the music, it help to create that sense of fear, it help you to believe that you are there walking through that door way, not knowing what it is that awaits you. Games that are very renown for this are Resident Evil, Silent Hill (a person favourite even though I was scared s**tless as kid.) But it’s not just the music it’s also the sound effects, the creaking of floor boards, the wind whistling thought the crack in the windows, these all add to the eeriness, and making you feel more a part of the game The themes from certain games (like films) becomes so well know that it becomes part of the identity of the game.

One remarkable men that I have found out about is ‘Chance Thomas’, he did the music for games such as King Kong, X-men, Lord of the Rings, Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire. Thomas was the first composer to score an amazing Oscar winning film and Registration more than 1 million downloads of his game music.

The amazing thing about his guy its it was by pure chance when he started a spark, in 1997, that by May 6^th 1999, the game score would be allowed to compete for a Grammy from the 42^nd Gammy Award Ceremony in 2000. Here is the link to the article that I read that contains this information. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3433/working_the_grammy_angle.php

Game Engines, The Backbone

2009-02-28T08:29:00.000-08:00

Well as you can tell by the title, this week’s entry is about game engines. I personally have no knowledge about these, what so ever, therefore don’t expect anything amazing to follow.

A game engine is a software system designed for the creation and development of video games. The core fundamentality’s provided by a game engine usually include; a rendering engine for both 2D and 3D engines, and physics engine or collision detection (and collision response), sound, scripting, animation, artificial intelligence (A.I) and several others.

The process of games development is frequently economized by, in large part, reusing the same game engine to create different games.

Another thing I am going to look at in this entry is meant by subtractive and additive. Well within all things these have a very similar meaning.

Subtractive, as you all know for you basic maths skills, this meaning to take away, or remove certain elements. Within game engines, this means removes certain aspects of the whole thing to optimise performance.

Additive, once gain something you first start to understand from maths, the meaning is to add certain elements, most of the time to an existing element. Within game engines this could mean adding certain components to make the game engine perform the required actions, of improve overall performance.

Introduction to the Games Industry

2009-02-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

Because the aim of this task is to write about the current state of the games Industry i have focused on what conserns be most, and that is the loss of jobs due to this global recession

In light of the current credit crisis, the games industry is doing exceptionally well, the industry is doing exceptionally well, the industry has continued to grow in leaps and bounds, and also hit a new sales record in 2008 with a raise in both video game hardware and software by 19% over 2007. Its fair to say though that it’s not as high as many had predicted.

A telling strain in any industry is the presence of major job cuts; the game industry is no exception. In late December Sony reported that it would be cutting more than 8000 jobs, and that they will be decreasing its investments into its electronic research by 30% by March 2010.

In October Electronic Arts (E.A.) announced that it will be cutting 6% of its work force. But after failing to meet sales and predicted targets for the year, they said they there will be deeper cuts and cancelation of several projects.

With these announcements many companies have been changing there tune about just how strong there games are.

Song Computer Entertainment Europe head David Reaves, told Eurogamer.net that the industry is not recession-proof, but is essentially doing well.

"It's a function of the economic situation that you are going to find people who are resilient, who do not play with their pricing, who are very efficient; the videogames industry is inherently very healthy."

Creativity

2009-01-11T09:47:00.000-08:00

OK will start by explaining what I think creativity is.

Creativity is a mental and social process involving the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the creative mind between existing ideas or concepts. An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is simply the act of making something new. Scientifically, creativity is usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness.

Creativity can be as individual as a finger print; this is because creativity can be affected by several factors, these include, the thought process of the designer, the social environment, and there personality traits. It could even be affected by divine intervention.

When new consoles are created a lot of companies try to master the new technologies, creativeness goes straight out of the window while developers are trying to outdo each other technologically. This also results in remakes of older games. After companies have mastered the new technologies they then can use these to create more creative games. This is kind of like watching a movie that has been remade, for the sake of special effects, spectacular but shallow.

Certain games manifest creativity in different way, depending on the type of game. For example World War 2 based games mainly show creativity in the A.I. the graphics are helpful, but they are based on realism, so you can’t really call it creative. There A.I. used though help make the game more creative, oddly enough I think this is because of the realism. But not all shooting games are like this, one game in particular is XIII, this is a FPS (First Person Shooter) but the style of this game is different from others because it has a Comic Style. Personally I find this quite creative.

Fantasy games are my personal favourites. There are all said to be creative but just like I said about creativeness in games, most of them are all based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s work. Even for me I'm starting to get annoyed with all the repetitiveness, a lot of game designers just throw the same things into a very similar environment, and set you with very similar storylines, mainly ones where you are an unsuspecting pesent and it’s up to you to save the world from an ancient evil.

Creativity in game development is not a sole person’s responsibility, there are several factors that a good game requires, and most of them require a certain amount of creativity. These are mainly the people who come up with the game, and the concept artists.

As an up and coming artist, I'm still unsure of how I will show creativity in my work that will be acknowledged by others. After I have studied more about Art, and Game Design, I will have developed more skills, and then hopefully I will be able to be acknowledged as an Artist.

Idolness?

2008-12-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

When I look at why i haven't written my blogs, i can never come up with an answer apart from i cant be bothered at the moment, i know this sounds really harsh and Mich i know you will really hate this fact but, when i start writing my blogs I get so into it, its unreal Ive already written several tonight i don't mind writing some more, i think being as each one is a different topic it seems to keep my attention. I'm also quite surprised at the things that we never really look into as gamers, but i think its amazing how games are broken down into so many different sections, that create it as a whole but thats a topic for another time.

Game Technology - User Interface

2008-12-14T19:38:00.000-08:00

The way that games have developed is astonishing but I’ve never really looked at how the User Interface has changed so this is actually quite interesting to me.

Starting from the beginning, ‘Brown Box’ this is the same console that was designed by Ralph Baer, the controller for this was just simply a couple of knobs, that control the form/character you play as. The Odyssey followed a very similar principle in User Interface. Pong on Tele-Games has got to be the simplest design that I even seen. In 1985 the NES moved away from the traditional controller format, and went for a D-pad format allowing the player more control of the in game interface and character, also they added 2 extra function buttons (the famous A,B). The Nintendo Gameboy also followed this format very closely.

Since the release of the NES all controlled have followed these basic principles, but adding more functions to the controller. Strangely enough Nintendo were the first to move away from original D-pad design with the N64 controller, adding an analogue stick and a third handle, personally I didn’t like the idea of the third hand on the controller because is move to far away from how natural the previous design worked.

Sony later improved on Nintendo’s design with the Dual Shock controller, adding a second analogue stick and positioning them so they were more comfortable to hold.
Sega came back on the scene with the Dreamcast, and personally I think they took a step backwards with the design of the controller, making it surprisingly large in comparison to their competitors designs, it was also quite uncomfortable to hold.

Sony brought out there Dual Shock 2 controller and the only thing I can say is all I they did is change the colour.

Microsoft not long later release the Xbox, there controller design still followed the basic principles of its competitors but they focused the shape of the controller around comfort for the player.

The only real changes since then have been the Revolution Controller, this is extremely closely related to the original NES controller, but this is because of the way the controller is designed to be used, instead of just sitting holding the controller they are designed to get the player to interact more with the gameplay.

Storytelling in Games

2008-12-14T17:55:00.000-08:00

Straight away I have to say that the story behind as game really makes the game better for me. If I can get into the storyline of a game I can appreciate it a lot better, I think that’s the reason to why I’m so addicted to RPGs.

Do all games have a story? I think that a majority of games do have a story behind them, whether it be that you play a new recruit during WW2 trying to help save your country and get back home alive, a Nascar racer trying to win the Season, or maybe a lonesome peasant caught up in a greater picture. The question about storytelling is not if a game has a story, but about how the creators of the game develop that story toward you as a player, and as the character. For me as a gamer I prefer to live as the character when playing a game, sounds crazy but its true I like to submerge myself into a game.

I personally don’t know the story line behind second life, so I'm not going to try and go into that.
World of Warcraft, does it have a storyline? Hell yeh, it has got the have the best back-story I have ever known, I’ve have been a Warcraft fan for several years know, and that is mainly because I was grasped by the storyline of it. World of Warcraft is currently continuing the storyline of ‘Warcraft 3’ ‘Reign of Chaos’ and ‘The Frozen Throne’, with the previous two expansion packs, I could sit here and fill pages and pages going on about the storyline of Warcraft but I'm not going to, (insert sigh of relief from reader here) but I am going to give you this link http://www.wowwiki.com/Portal:Main just encase your interested. But the way the storyline within WOW has works is that you will follow, hundreds, yes hundreds of small storyline based on your character, these include race, faction, level, and location within the world, the higher level you get the more you are able to discover about the main storylines that Warcraft is based around.

The Art Director

2008-12-14T15:35:00.000-08:00

Ok I’m going to get straight to the point in this entry, starting with “What does an Art Director do?”

An Art Director is seen as the leader, and somewhat Wiseman in the overall vision of the game, but its stretches a lot further than people would think; they work closely with the Creative Director to define the artistic styles for the game; the Art Director also work closely with the project art manager to help, manage the artistic goals within the set budget and schedule. The recruitment of art teams, along with the recruitment department, also falls to him/her. They oversee all of the art teams’ results and giving feedback to work in progress; solves problems effectively related to the artistic creation of the game. The list is pretty much endless and to be honest sounds like the artistic part of them will be sucked right out of their souls if they’re not careful. I personally don’t think it is a creative roll, personally I think it is more about management than art, but without an Art Director not just the art department but the entire company would fall apart. Kind of like a house of cards, you take one card out the whole thing falls down.

If I wanted to ever become an art director firstly I think more than anything you need good leadership skills, tied with vast knowledge and experience in the Industry, not only being good at your chosen area but also in other areas very closely link e.g. 3D modelling.
Personally based on what I’ve found out about being an Art Director I would rather stay as an Artist/3D modeller, why? I prefer to be creative than managerial, hence the reason I’m studying a Creative course, and not a business based one.

Donnie Darko

2008-12-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

When i got back from watching the film, i was blown away storyline, certain things mades scence, but the more i try to get my read found it, the more messed up my mind gets. Anyway i wemt looked for info and heres a little something i found. http://www.donniedarkofilm.com/ its the link to the film website, its crazy. There are three 'levels' open to you but you need a password to access levels two and three. Go into level one and try to figure out what the password is, ive been at it for about an hour and a half straight. I does explain some of the theory behind the film aswell.

Have a go it will get you brains working overtime.

Writing about Games - Cont.

2008-12-02T17:56:00.000-08:00

Welcome back. This week’s edition; Writing about games (continued).

So I left of last time with my opinion on those NGJ articles. Well I’ve been looking at some more of them and damn there good. Personally I really like subjectivity, within games journalism; it really grabs my attention more, to know other players experiences, and I think it helps to really sell the game.

How do I feel about my own writing, well I don’t really know, I’d say there’s a hell of a lot of room for improvement, one of the main things would probably be my vocabulary, as well as my last of knowledge, when it comes to describing something, I’ve always struggled with this, not severely but it can really put a stopper on things when trying to pitch an idea, or explain something, worst of all myself, cannot for the life of me explain myself, honestly the trouble I had writing my personal statement. Anyway stop ranting Simon you’ll do yourself an injury.

Moving on swiftly...Other forms of Game Journalism, well I’m going to be honest with you, I haven’t done much research into it at the moment, but I will do so over the next week. So watch this space.

Writing About Games

2008-12-01T11:14:00.001-08:00

Ok, I have my notes and Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough Ice Cream at the ready; let’s have a look shall we.

The main issues facing games journalism is probably online publishing, even though it isn’t that good, a lot of people will look up information about new games and review on the internet and in review forums. Therefore this is jeopardising professional games journalism.
Damn don’t you just hate it when I see something that u later rely on, forget to note it then u just can’t find it again, people usually think your making it up, but I tell I read that somewhere, and if I’m right it’s in the Kieron Gillian article
http://gillen.cream.org/wordpress_html/?page_id=693

Personally I really liked that article, but still back to the matter at hand.

After read several NGJ articles, I have really been taken away by them, the way that they don’t just talk about the game, but how they talk about their experiences, whilst playing the game, for example, the article ‘Bow Nigger’ talks about ‘Jedi Knight II, Jedi Outcast’, and his experience of how a certain battle no long felt like a game, but I good old fashion fight between good and evil. Ok Ok I know this might sound crazy, and people will think, that guy plays games to much, but just read the article, and you’ll see why. Here’s the link http://www.alwaysblack.com/blackbox/bownigger.html

Another article that really grabbed by attention was, ‘ZangbandTK – Confessions of a Dungeon Hack’ by Kieran Gillen. In this article he talks about his experience playing ‘ZangbandTK’. Not only about how the game works, and its history, but his experience playing the game, along with a short description of his characters (in some cases rather short) lives.

Ok I just want to know what the heck Sony were thinking when they released ‘Rez’ with a “Trance” Vibrator.

Im Back!!!

2008-11-28T08:29:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've been away for a while but my comp was broken, finally got it fixed though.
I know they say that the library is there so that we don't miss out on any work but I just couldn't concentrate on writing the blogs,
Damn I have a lot of catching up to do better get started.

The 21st Century, Next-Gen Gaming and Beyond

2008-11-18T13:52:00.000-08:00

Next- Gen Gaming. Let’s have a look at the major issues facing the games industry.

The first issue I’m going to have a look at is the publishing of new games. Sequels to big selling games, or licensed movie game are guaranteed to sell, whereas new games most of the time don’t even get off the drawing board, this is because of the way that publishing works, if I’m correct the publishers invest the money into the project for funding, and I’m not just talking a couple of hundreds, therefore they need to be sure that they are making a good investment and that there not going to lose out on money, plus they will make a nice little profit.

The next issue that I’m going to look at is, cross platform gaming. Originally the game company would make their game for a specific console. The publisher of the game would later higher a programmer, to enable the release of the game on other consoles. Now cross platform gaming is almost an essential part of games design, this is because is targets as wider audience, and it also helps to intrigue publishers.

Well I could go on talking about the way that the new consoles are but of course you’ll be sick of reading about another person rabbit on about how they think the Xbox 360 is better than the PS3, or how the Nintendo Wii is their favourite. Personally I can’t really say that I have a favourite

Well there we go I think that’s about most things, but wow its finally within the 300 word limit, but i cant help feel I’ve got a lot to add, but I’ll come back to it soon.

First ever Digital Painting

2008-11-17T04:30:00.000-08:00

Like the title suggests this is a look at my first ever digital painting (even though Ive had a graphics tablet since September). This is also one of my pieces for my Organic Character Project. For this project i decided to use minerals as my organic substance. Not the best choice but i wanted to try and choose something different, try to think of something other than plant life was tricky. This Guy though, is supposed to be some kinda powerful being that is encased in a gigantic Mineral/Crystal. I'm definitely going to have to practice more.

Oh, and by the way the colours seem to have got messed up in this image ill try to sort it out shortly. (when i can figure out how)

I didn't mean to, it was an accident

2008-11-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

Ok well i just wanna say sorry about the lenght of the last 2 entries i kinda seemed to waffle on a little long than expected.I should probably be banned from writing on these things but still, ill find a way to let you know if i do ;)

I know the aim it is to make it feel like less like writing a essay but i get so caught up in it I forget myself, and then when I try to condense it down to a reasonable amount it just doesn't seem to work out, so I end up posting the whole thing anyway. The worst part is all this work so far covers two tasks, each split into two sections.

My Personal History of Gaming

2008-11-14T19:41:00.000-08:00

Where to start, I think the beginning is usually the best bet. Believe it or not the first game I can remember playing was ‘Pong’, can’t really remember that much because it was a few years ago.

It really all kicked off for me with ‘Sonic Adventure 2’, for the Sega Mega Drive. My parents wouldn’t let me have it set up all the time though when I was younger, so I was limited to how much I played. God knows how I coped if I go more that 3 days max without playing a game I think I’ll go crazy. Several other games for the Sega mega drive really sparked my interest, including ‘The Lion King’ and some form of space game, can’t remember the name of it for the life of me.

2 years after the Playstation 1 was released, my parents went out and invested in one, and what an investment it was. I really got into gaming around that time, watching my dad play ‘Tomb Raider 2’. At the time to decided to stick to ‘Crash Bandicoot’. After a while I moved to the harder games, this included ‘Metal Gear Solid’, I got so addicted to this game I’m sure my parents started to worry about me. I didn’t stop playing it until I completed it about 4 times, damn I could probably go back and do it again now, that game just doesn’t grow old.

The Gamecube was the next investment made, after playing ‘The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time’ briefly and being blown away by it, I was overjoyed when I found out I had my own version, along with ‘LOZ Windwaker’. I grew fond of RPGs very quickly, there was always something new around every corner, keeping me glue on the edge if my seat.

The Xbox was next on our list shortly after the death of the gamecube, which has only recently been replaced *wipes eyes*. If I remember correctly the first game that came with that was ‘Arctic Racer’ or something to that effect. During school i was always hearing people going on about a game called ‘The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind’. After constant enquires and nagging I found out it was an RPG, where you had almost total control of what u did as a character. The Moto for this game was, ‘To live another life in another world’ and damn it was right. I fell in love with this game in the first instant; I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer size of the game, along with the total free control.

Playstation 2 was very late in arriving into my gaming experience, but that was soon made up for with the addition of ‘Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty’. Just like its predecessor I just couldn’t get enough of it, completing it with a very short space of time. The Prince of Persia series was also very griping. I have developed a taste for RGGs over the years and are to this day a personal favourite. This might sound like a crime to lot of people but i have only recently got into Final Fantasy, a woah what a collection.

About 3 or so years ago my best mate introduced me to my now personal favourite game to this game ‘World of Warcraft’ also known as ‘World of Warcrack’ because it is so addictive. ‘WOW’ is the world largest MMORPG, with around 10 million player, and just released its second major expansion. I pretty much owe where I today to that game, I became inspired by blizzards Warcraft series as a whole. I have been studying blizzard for a while now and I would actually like to work for them as an artist, of course I feel like a have a long way to go before then though.

I feel like I’ve missed quite a lot out but there you go that is a brief overview of my gaming history.

Why!!

2008-11-14T18:20:00.000-08:00

Please can someone tell me why!
I'm sure this is a curse.
Every time i try to concentrate on my work there is something that distracts me, and this time it was a damn fire alarm (it is 2:21 in the morning as well, although it isn't the best time of day to be working).
I've been trying to come up with ideas for my Organic Character. almost ready to start on my final piece, i have high hopes for this one, ready got stuck into it.
And now I've lost my rhythm. Damn it!!!
If anyone has any pointers to help get back into the rhythm of work please by all means let me know.
I feel slightly better already, I've definitely got use my blog for a good rant more often.

1990’s – The Maturing of the Games Industry

2008-11-14T15:51:00.000-08:00

Once again I just cannot seem to fit in all the information within a 300 word limit so I’m writing a separate entry for the 90s.

As the title of this blog suggests, the 1990s were about the maturing of the gaming industry into a mainstream form of entertainment. Because of the success of the gaming industry within the last several years, more publishers took an interest; therefore there were increases in the budgets. There were larger production teams, and a connection with the music and film industries were formed.

The 1990s saw the rise of the 3D graphics, first starting off with flat shaded graphics, and moving on to simple texture mapping, a good example of this would be ‘Wolfenstein 3D’.

Shareware distribution gave the consumers the chance to try a small portion of the game before they invested in buying the full game. The main format for these was floppy disks. At the increasing size of games in the mid 90s publishers and developers began to mimic the shareware games and replace them with short demos on free CDs with gaming magazines and over the internet.

1992 saw the release of ‘Dune II’ this was not the first game in the RTS genre but it set the standard game mechanics for future releases such as ‘Command and Conquer’ and Blizzards ‘Warcraft : Orcs and Humans’ and ‘Starcraft’ and still very popular series of games to this day.

‘Alone in the Dark’, like ‘Dune II’ was not the first in the first game in its genre, but it set the stage for the survival horror genre. With games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill the main blockbusters of today.

Adventure games continued to develop with ‘King Quest’, ‘Monkey Island’. The creation of ‘Myst’ developed a new style of puzzle-based adventure games and was the first to take full advantage of CD-ROMs.

Maxis began to publish the successful ‘Sim’ games starting with ‘Sim City’ and continuing with ‘Sim Earth’, ‘Sim Ant’ and ‘Sim Tower.’

The 90s also saw the start of Internet gaming, with MUDs (multi-User dungeons). Quake was created with this in mind, and has now caused most FPS to have a main requirement of Inline play. But other games also started to offer this feature, such as RTS games, ‘Age of Empires’, the ‘Warcraft’ and ‘Starcraft’ series. MMORPGs such as Ultima Online and EverQuest became very popular, removing the play from solitude when playing games, and opening a whole new aspect of gaming.

Damn this has turning into quite a list of games and I’m already nearly 150 over the limit so ill make this quick.

Because of the popularity of home video games, arcade games quickly became “old Fashioned”

These were replaced by gaming systems that were not available for home use such as Sport games like skiing or cycling, rhythm games such as “Dance Dance Revolution”. Of course even these game style games are now being released for home use with the release of ‘Nintendo Wii’ and ‘Wii Fit’

The 1990s saw both the Fourth and Fifth Generation of Games Consoles.

The main consoles of the fourth generations (1989 – 1996) were the Saga Mega Drive and the Super NES (also known as ‘SNES’)

In the Fifth generation (1994- 1999), Sega released the Saga Saturn and Sony came on the scene with the Play station, both using 32-bit technology. After numerous delays Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 (as u can guess from the name it was a 64-bit console). ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ was the 3D debut for the Legend of Zelda Series. Nintendo's choice to use cartridges instead of CD-ROMs for the Nintendo 64, unique among the consoles of this period, proved to have negative consequences. In particular, SquareSoft, which had released all previous games in its Final Fantasy series for Nintendo consoles, now turned to the PlayStation; Final Fantasy was a huge success, establishing the popularity of role-playing games and making the PlayStation the primary console for the genre.

Well now I think it’s time for me to apologise to you all. This went on a little longer than I expected.

A history of Computer games 1980 – 1990.

2008-11-06T05:41:00.000-08:00

Within those ten years the computer games industry was like one hell of a rollercoaster ride.
At the beginning of the 1980s a lot of computer games were just clones of previous ones, but the low publishing costs aloud for the creation of many bold and unique games.

The ‘Golden Age’ of computer games reached full steam in the early 80s, with many genre defining games. ‘Defender’ was the first scrolling shooter, and it also was the first to have aspects of the game outside to players view such a radar view. ‘Battlezone was the first to use wire vector graphics to create the first 3D game world. It wasn’t the best but it was a start.

In 1983 there was ‘The Crash’ of the computer games industry and this brought an end to second gen gaming. It is said that the crash was caused by poorly designed games such as E.T. which is perfectly understandable because what a pile or rubbish it was. Other games such as Pac-Man were also partly to blame, excuse me but Pac-Man, how on this planet can u blame Pac-Man, it is a legend. But anyway everything got up and running again in 1984.

Then in 1985 it happened, like the big bang of the gaming industry. The NES was invented with Super Mario Bros, instantly becoming a god amongst the gaming world. They were followed closely by the Sega Master System, along with the gamepad, finally. This is where it really kick off, the major release of the time were: (1986) Dragon Quest, (1987) Legend of Zelda , Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Series (oh my god what creations, they all go down in book of gamin legends), (1989) Sweet home (this was the start of the survival Horror genre)

These were significant changes from what the industry had been only 6 years before, but there was still more to come in the 90s.

A little Bit I Missed Out

2008-11-06T05:40:00.001-08:00

The Arcade era

Ok then, the first arcade game known as 'Computer Space' was made in 1971 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. (Based on Steve Russell’s earlier game Spacewar)
A year later Nolan Bushnell along with the help of Al Alcorn decided to create an arcade version of ‘Pong’. In that same year Nolan and Ted started Atari Computers.

In 1972 Ralph Baer designed ‘The Odyssey’ and was released by Magnavox. This was the very first commercial video game console that was designed for the home. It also came programmed with 12 games.

Four years on and Fairchild released the first programmable home video console, the called it (wait for it..........)
Fair Child Video Entertainment System (what the hell were they thinking) luckily they changed the name to Channel 7 (still who the hell would call a computer console Channel 7). This was the first computer games console to use the microchip.

In June 1980 Atari’s ‘Asteroids’ and ‘Lunar Lander’ were the first two games to ever be registered in the copyright office.

A History of Computer Games 1950s - 1970s

2008-10-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

Ok let’s see then, there are several people who would say that they created the first computer game, but in fact they only created a specific type of computer game.

The original concept for a computer game however was developed by a man named A.S Douglas who was a student at Cambridge University in 1952. For this PhD dissertation, he looked at ‘Human Computer Interaction’ and as a result he created the first graphical computer game, a version of tic-tac-toe (also called OXO). This was designed for an EDSAC vacuum tube computer using a cathode ray tube display. The player actually played against the computer incorporating basic Artificial Intelligence (AI), using a rotary dial

The first ever video game was ‘Tennis For Two’ created by American Physicist William Higinbotham who was also the head of the ‘Instrumentation Division’ at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958, and was played on Brookhaven National Laboratory oscilloscope.

Steve Russell who is a computers scientist, created Spacewars in 1962, and was the first game intended for computer use. He used a MTI PDP-1 mainframe computer to design his game.

Ralph Baer wrote ‘Chase’ the first game to be played on a television in 1967, and surprisingly enough he got he idea whilst working for ‘Loral’ which now the world leading Space and Communication Company.

As for the Question ‘who decided to use computers to have fun?’ all I can really say is “All of the above”. These people all came from different backgrounds, from a student to a member of ‘Loral’, and all seemed to have a passion for using technology for entertainment purposes.

Oh by the way I have left the 70s for next weeks entry for the basic reason that the arcade games are the main topic and they came out around that time.