Saturday 17 March 2007

A hybrid of sorts



All I can say is thank you Robot Chicken <3

Sunday 11 March 2007

Week 21: Where do you want to go and how do you want to get there?

Well for this blog it’s time to look back upon the last few months and reflect if I’ve learnt anything from being on the course.

First I’ll start with 3dsMax: Although most of the time I might not show it I do actually really enjoy working in Max and have been fairly pleased with my results so far. When I look back upon the wheelie bin project and how daunting everything seemed at the time it’s quite encouraging to see how much not only myself but also a lot of others have improved in leaps and bounds. I would love to have the technical knowledge to be a bit less constricted when making objects in Max however I’m sure that will come in time. I wouldn’t say I’m confident in Max however I am competent in the program and will put time and effort into what I’m making in order to achieve the result I want. I’m pleased that we have deadlines in a way because I can be a bit of a perfectionist and spend time tweaking bits here and there, which no one can even tell what I’ve done.

Next it’s Art: I did feel at first very much out of my league on the first few weeks of the art class, at the time it seemed everyone was a professional artist compared to me however that feeling soon passed and I began to feel comfortable in class and with my skills. It seems odd but as soon as I moved to my halls I didn’t feel very inspired or motivated as much as I had been over the Summer, I think I’m experiencing an Artists Block at the moment. I would enjoy Art class more if I wasn’t so critical of my work, I find it very hard to take complements about my work and will often struggle to find what exactly is good about it, although I’m no where as bad as I used to be. I really enjoyed the workshop that we had and the more sculpture related work such as making the wire men as this was a nice break from the more traditional work, I would also enjoy trying my hand at soft modelling (Hint hint).

The Art Style Guide: I was feeling fairly creative when I was working on the art style guide however I would of loved to have gone more in detail with it and maybe produced some concept art for it. I was quite saddened to hear that it wouldn’t be marked however I do think it was an interesting experience and I would like to do it again at one point or another.

Specifications etc: This is just a quick word on the document related part of our 3dsmax projects. I would love to put more detail in my specifications and timetables however when we were doing the bin, it was such a small object that it didn’t need a massively detailed specification so it was kept quite simple. Now I’ve got my head round the process of writing a specification I’m think I could write a thorough in-detail specification like the second years have done.

And lastly,

Blogging: I enjoy writing blogs when I get round to it and posting silly things and well just making it a bit more personal. I wish I could write longer blogs but I’d most likely waffle on and on and write about trivialities and bore the reader to tears, also I guess my grammar could be improved. However the actual blog writing and research itself I find quite interesting and not extremely difficult although I would say my overall downfall with my blogs would be the fact that I’m hardly ever on time with them, I think it’s a preference of mine to do two or three at a time as I find this helps me really concentrate and I find that I can write longer however I will try harder to keep more up to date in the future.

Well all in all, I would say that I’m really glad to be here and I’m quite pleased with my work. It’s also an interesting opportunity to meet people who share the same interests as me. I want to get a good job out of this is my primary concern and contribute towards making creative and interesting games – and play them for free.

:3

Week 20 Creativity

Creativity –for all those that took any sort of art class whether it was fine art at some college or even finger-painting in infant school all of us at one point or another have some idea what the word means and what the word means personally to us.

It’s another one of those ambiguous words that everyone has a vague idea about but it isn’t a word that can be pinpointed exactly by definition. Well for starters I might as well have a look at the word that Creativity stems from which would be quite obviously Create. Humans are the only beings on the planet with extensive ideas and imagination at their disposal. We as a species have harnessed small, quick thoughts and turned them into something imaginative and/or functional, just take a look around your room; every item has been thought up, refined and made by one person or even a group of people. The power of humanities thoughts have given us The wheel, the light, cars and the Xbox 360, if we as a species didn’t the imagination and intelligence to create then we wouldn’t exist as we do today.

I’ve heard the word creativity being said to me all throughout my artistic life and it is always a nice compliment to hear that you’re creative. Creativity can apply to anything as it stems from a creative thoughts process linked to ones imagination, it doesn’t just apply to art which is what it is usually associated with – it applies to creative writing, cooking and even accounting.

Looking at the word Uncreative can help define what the word creative actually means. The word uncreative is linked with words like; undaring, controlled, cautious and conventional – not particularly a nice word to be associated with. This means that creative minds more daring, think out side the box and tend to be more open minded with their thought process and ideas. We wouldn’t of got so many good books/movies and games if no one thought up these ideas and pushed their idea to the limit of their imagination.

Games as a media is ideal for showing creative gameplay, storytelling and art – No other media works quite as well as pushing the boundaries of creative and technical power. The increase of technical intelligence over the up and coming years means that creative thinkers in the industry will have no technical restraints when making a game. As a species I believe that we will only increase in imaginative and push our creative ideas as it seems that every one thinks that everything has already been thought up and done – quite a pessimistic view on the value of our future creative thoughts – I say that they aren’t thinking hard enough.

Certain games have a wonderful creative flow in not only their visual style but also in their gameplay and make use of the technical capabilities very well. Lost Magic on the DS used the DS stylus pen to make the player actually draw the magical runes on the screen, which was quite a dynamic part of the game play. Story line and character development it always seems that any of the Final fantasy series seems to win – hands down, which in my opinion I would agree. For visual style and imaginative character concepts Psychonauts is one that particularly stands out as the whole theme of the game was the mind which allowed designers to create fitting mental environments for the character that the player was in, for example; Milla Vodello is a 60’s-70’s inspired character and her mind is just one big party with dance music, flower themed furniture and bubble blowers. Brilliant! Another title that intrigues me visually is LittleBigPlanet on the PS3, a very interesting visual and playing style where the backdrops look like they are made out of cardboard and you can bounce on oranges etc.

LittleBigPlanet


Games give the designer and in some cases the player to really create and explore more with their ideas and imagination which at the end of day what can be better then that.

Week 19

The main question for today is; who is more employable – The art graduate with no experience in main computer programs such as Max and Photoshop or the University Graduate who knows everything.

However it isn’t really as easy when it comes to that as it boils down to the company and to the individual.

The Art Graduate: Having a blank canvas to work with and train up could give the employer to monitor how the employee is learning, in doing this the employee is taught that companies way of doing things. However training is expensive and takes time and the game industry is a fast paced industry, so not many companies are going to be able to spend enough time needed to teach properly. However it could be a good investment training them up except when they decide that they don’t really like the games industry and move on to work in film in something. Bottom line is I guess having a nice clean artistic person to work up with who doesn’t have somebody else's way of thinking embedded into them is all nice and good, however companies simply don’t have the time to train to a great standard. The bonus for having an art graduate is that their open minded, creative and enthusiastic however won’t have the technical side to back it up.

The University Graduate: Having gone to University and trained up with Max/Maya and Photoshop this person is going to have knowledge about modeling, texturing and animating. This person can dive straight into the industry and not need to have extensive training at the company’s expense. However since this person has been trained up in University, the techniques that he/she knows will be influenced and affected by the Tutor’s knowledge, which is fine if the Tutor knows his stuff however if the Tutor has poor skills this might have an impact upon the student thus churning out a poor employee. Since artistic skill wasn’t particularly involved when learning Max/Maya the student might not have any knowledge on colour theory or anatomy, the fact that he/she can model a human in Max/Maya is employable however modeling a human with incorrect proportions, isn’t.

The Verdict: I think it’s pretty obvious what the answer is. Having two students relying on one side of games design will result in a poor result. Creating and understanding games includes areas such as Art, Technical knowledge, Social knowledge, psychiatry and architecture. When I look at it like that then I know that our course has got the balance working in their favour since everything we learn in both our lessons with Joel and our lessons with Chris bounce off each other quite effectively, the knowledge learnt in one class can be applied to the other. I believe that this is what employers are looking for, a knowledge of both Artistic and technical and skill in both areas.