I just thought I would spend this time and comment about how it is so easy to become so engrossed into a game. I suppose playing game in one respect can remove us from reality, honestly I don't the amount of times I've been playing a game and the day just went away, I suppose its all about completing objectives within a game or finishing a story line that makes people want to play games so much. I find it hard to believe that there was such huge interest in older games, but I suppose at the time pacman was like what any modern game is like to us, interest in something new is always the thing that drives people to want to play games and so that is why the industry has become what it is today.
As a game artist I suppose I shouldn't be as interested in gaming anymore, because my life now revolves around me creating games, playing them should really bore me and perhaps annoy me in certain ways, saying that though I really don't know. I've always been interested in games ever since my 7th birthday, but as to whether the novelty will wear off only time will tell. I think it will be more interesting creating the game playing it and saying yeah I made that but I have to make it to that point first!
Thursday 29 April 2010
Saturday 24 April 2010
Constructive critism.... High praise Wk 24
So the final blog in the tasks is that of feedback.
Well what can I say, it has been a good year and i know for a fact that I have certainly improved in that of the 2d area and I have learnt new skills in 3d, truthfully I would ask for more feedback within the blogging area and that of the 3d arwa, its fair enough we get feedback from formative and peer assessment but I have noticed that there has been a lack of any major criticism. Yes i do put my work on facebook, but no ever ever really comment on it, perhaps that means there's nothing wrong with it, but I know for a fact that, that isn't true.
I don't really raise any concerns about the trips involved, maybe trips further afield could be good though, and I do mean trips organised by the teachers with them providing us with a way to get there, cost wouldn't be that much of an issue as long as it wasn't over £30-£40. Leicester is awesome and it does offer a multitude of different interesting places to draw at but I really wouldn't mind seeing other places of interest as it were.
Finally I would like to see and hear more feedback from the actual teachers, I haven't had one comment on my blog other than some random spanish madeline Mc Cann group not good feedback for my studies really. It just concerns me because I need feedback to improve my work.
That's it I hope I return next year Farewell for now :D
Well what can I say, it has been a good year and i know for a fact that I have certainly improved in that of the 2d area and I have learnt new skills in 3d, truthfully I would ask for more feedback within the blogging area and that of the 3d arwa, its fair enough we get feedback from formative and peer assessment but I have noticed that there has been a lack of any major criticism. Yes i do put my work on facebook, but no ever ever really comment on it, perhaps that means there's nothing wrong with it, but I know for a fact that, that isn't true.
I don't really raise any concerns about the trips involved, maybe trips further afield could be good though, and I do mean trips organised by the teachers with them providing us with a way to get there, cost wouldn't be that much of an issue as long as it wasn't over £30-£40. Leicester is awesome and it does offer a multitude of different interesting places to draw at but I really wouldn't mind seeing other places of interest as it were.
Finally I would like to see and hear more feedback from the actual teachers, I haven't had one comment on my blog other than some random spanish madeline Mc Cann group not good feedback for my studies really. It just concerns me because I need feedback to improve my work.
That's it I hope I return next year Farewell for now :D
Sunday 21 March 2010
GDC errrrr Wk22
Well another topic I have limited knowledge on.... The GDC!!!!!! RAWR!! errr right
Well seeing as I didn't go to the GDC all I can really comment on is the what's on parts on the GDC homepage. A game that had a look in on the visual part of the GDC was "batman Arkham Asylum" The session covered the development of the game, and went through its realistic approach to the game. Having played the game I did find the game to be realistic in a sense that the way you roamed around as batman and traversed different heights and jumped to different objects seemed realistic. The thing that interested me more about the game was that of the darkness being batmans ally, so the lighting within the game appealed to me more, enemies couldn't see in the dark and that aspect of the game really took precedence.
I suppose Batman being taken from a comic book license it had to be stylised in some way, this of course perhaps presents a problem to the producers as they have to stick to a certain style that the comic was made in, and so any new game created would have to similar to this style, this is perhaps seen as a limitation.....
Thats all im going to write.... As I don't really know what went off because I didnt go to LA!!!! :-P
Well seeing as I didn't go to the GDC all I can really comment on is the what's on parts on the GDC homepage. A game that had a look in on the visual part of the GDC was "batman Arkham Asylum" The session covered the development of the game, and went through its realistic approach to the game. Having played the game I did find the game to be realistic in a sense that the way you roamed around as batman and traversed different heights and jumped to different objects seemed realistic. The thing that interested me more about the game was that of the darkness being batmans ally, so the lighting within the game appealed to me more, enemies couldn't see in the dark and that aspect of the game really took precedence.
I suppose Batman being taken from a comic book license it had to be stylised in some way, this of course perhaps presents a problem to the producers as they have to stick to a certain style that the comic was made in, and so any new game created would have to similar to this style, this is perhaps seen as a limitation.....
Thats all im going to write.... As I don't really know what went off because I didnt go to LA!!!! :-P
Where Am I going? How Do I Get There?!!! :O Wk 21
Well today i'll look at my possible future aims, I suppose this will be a very open door really.
Well like everyone else on this course I would imagine that I want to get a job in the gaming industry, it is perhaps my ultimate aim. I do tend to keep an open mind though, the more this course goes on the more complicated it seems to get, i'm not trying to say by any means that i can't hack this course but I do find things very challenging (3d especially) and again it is noticeable and true what a hallowed teachers say Keep up and manage your time!!! (words that break my lazy heart ha!)
It is noticeable to me that I prefer the 2d sort of side to game art design and although I myself do not have amazing drawing skills but it is always something that I can hone in time, perhaps conceptual art is the way forward then but time will tell. I do need to spend a lot more time practising skills and understanding shapes and forms more, this will help with overall drawing skills because that's basically what everything is shapes and forms. Photoshop is also a continual learning curve, the more time i spend on it the better I seem to get (or so i've been told)
At the moment i'm not looking much farther than that of the final hurdle on the 30th of April, I do intend to work my ass off until then and I hope I can produce enough work for then. It has sort of dawned on me within the last month that proper time management is necessary to succeed within this course, deadlines are best kept stuck to. I think it is wrong to sometimes expect perfection within our artwork, but the quality of peoples artwork certainly reflects that of future competition for jobs inside of companies, we have to work hard to achieve our goals and to become the best we can be else perhaps we aren't worth being employed....
Well like everyone else on this course I would imagine that I want to get a job in the gaming industry, it is perhaps my ultimate aim. I do tend to keep an open mind though, the more this course goes on the more complicated it seems to get, i'm not trying to say by any means that i can't hack this course but I do find things very challenging (3d especially) and again it is noticeable and true what a hallowed teachers say Keep up and manage your time!!! (words that break my lazy heart ha!)
It is noticeable to me that I prefer the 2d sort of side to game art design and although I myself do not have amazing drawing skills but it is always something that I can hone in time, perhaps conceptual art is the way forward then but time will tell. I do need to spend a lot more time practising skills and understanding shapes and forms more, this will help with overall drawing skills because that's basically what everything is shapes and forms. Photoshop is also a continual learning curve, the more time i spend on it the better I seem to get (or so i've been told)
At the moment i'm not looking much farther than that of the final hurdle on the 30th of April, I do intend to work my ass off until then and I hope I can produce enough work for then. It has sort of dawned on me within the last month that proper time management is necessary to succeed within this course, deadlines are best kept stuck to. I think it is wrong to sometimes expect perfection within our artwork, but the quality of peoples artwork certainly reflects that of future competition for jobs inside of companies, we have to work hard to achieve our goals and to become the best we can be else perhaps we aren't worth being employed....
Creativity (again!) Wk20
Ok it's time for another grand talk on creativity!! So here we go!
How can you define creativity? Reflecting back on a wednesday morning lecture Mike went through multiple ways creativity can be defined, my personal favourite was the football player analogy, (merely because i'm mental on football) a football player can be classed as creative because of his overall skill, the vision he uses on the pitch, the way the ball is passed to his respective players.
Truly creative people have to have multiple skills within their own working environment, yes things can be seen as creative because we are using creative skills to make certain things happen or produce something we class as valued, but truly creative people usually have a hunger to rpoduce and create as many things as possible. Leanardo Da Vinci was one of these people, he always had a hunger to produce art which explained things, but it was noticable that he never really wanted to stop producing work and that he was hungry to move onto another piece of work after finishing a previous piece.
Creativity is a mixture of the mind and body, more so the mind is involved in creativity because creativity take more thought than movement to produce... (all depending on the type of creativity) musicians would take more time to compose a piece of music than they would actually playing it, same as dancers would spend more time rehearsing and learning steps more than they would actually dance the routine for in a production.
Another point that was raised in the lecture was that of children and their creativity being destroyed by the school system, creativity so it is said naturally flows out of children, I myself wouldn't call it creativity I would call it growth. Yes children seem to improve whilst they grow, that come naturally though, it isn't them being creative it's more like play than it is creativity.
So how can we define creativity within the games industry? I would say that there are many different methods of creativity within the industry; I suppose the main flow of creativity is the actual outcome of a completed game, every worker within the company has put lots of effort into the game through development to shipping.
Games manifest creativity in many different different ways thinking past the actual creation of the games and the development process, games show their creativeness because of all the different elements within the game. The culmination of sound and imagery used in games sometimes reflects that of its creative qualities, when you look at a visually stunning game and the see the thought behind it you have to think about the creative effort made in its production. It's like everything we look at in games today has to be top quality and of course this is expected because of the competitiveness in the market. So the need for creative thinker within the industry will always be necessary, as creative thinkers will be needed to programme games and creative artists willl have to make the components in game and dream up wild and amazing artwork to interest the buyer.
How can you define creativity? Reflecting back on a wednesday morning lecture Mike went through multiple ways creativity can be defined, my personal favourite was the football player analogy, (merely because i'm mental on football) a football player can be classed as creative because of his overall skill, the vision he uses on the pitch, the way the ball is passed to his respective players.
Truly creative people have to have multiple skills within their own working environment, yes things can be seen as creative because we are using creative skills to make certain things happen or produce something we class as valued, but truly creative people usually have a hunger to rpoduce and create as many things as possible. Leanardo Da Vinci was one of these people, he always had a hunger to produce art which explained things, but it was noticable that he never really wanted to stop producing work and that he was hungry to move onto another piece of work after finishing a previous piece.
Creativity is a mixture of the mind and body, more so the mind is involved in creativity because creativity take more thought than movement to produce... (all depending on the type of creativity) musicians would take more time to compose a piece of music than they would actually playing it, same as dancers would spend more time rehearsing and learning steps more than they would actually dance the routine for in a production.
Another point that was raised in the lecture was that of children and their creativity being destroyed by the school system, creativity so it is said naturally flows out of children, I myself wouldn't call it creativity I would call it growth. Yes children seem to improve whilst they grow, that come naturally though, it isn't them being creative it's more like play than it is creativity.
So how can we define creativity within the games industry? I would say that there are many different methods of creativity within the industry; I suppose the main flow of creativity is the actual outcome of a completed game, every worker within the company has put lots of effort into the game through development to shipping.
Games manifest creativity in many different different ways thinking past the actual creation of the games and the development process, games show their creativeness because of all the different elements within the game. The culmination of sound and imagery used in games sometimes reflects that of its creative qualities, when you look at a visually stunning game and the see the thought behind it you have to think about the creative effort made in its production. It's like everything we look at in games today has to be top quality and of course this is expected because of the competitiveness in the market. So the need for creative thinker within the industry will always be necessary, as creative thinkers will be needed to programme games and creative artists willl have to make the components in game and dream up wild and amazing artwork to interest the buyer.
Thursday 18 March 2010
Life Changing or Career Building Wk19
Well I have to say I find what Warren Spector said to be very contradictory.... unless he plans on living forever!! I could understand his perspective for a few years perhaps, but it is necessary to develop young, up and coming talent. Without developing young talent there would be no future for the business. The talent that exists within a company could well be amazing at the time and the company itself could be the most prosperous company, but it would still
need younger artists and workers to fill in the gaps when other workers move on or retire.....
Another speculation connected to this, lack of a need for younger not as experienced artists would be that university courses that specialise in training and educating the students would become obsolete, i'm sure that would cause an upset at some universities!!!
It isn't really sensible to presume that the industry would be good without an influx of new artists... In fact that probably makes it more volatile, how can different styles be made without new artists to bring new ideas? Industries to possibly become boring or even predictable because the same artists are used, new artists would bring at least a new amount of spice or variety, as of course.... variety is the spice of life!
There is a specific need to have normal artists and university taught students, I doubt many artists know how to programme games but I suppose there is a possibility that their knowledge in different subjects like programming could be extensive all depending in how much they wanted to immerse themselves into their work, having someone teach you specific things means that you should understand the subject matter more clearly and therefore learn it to a better standard.
All I can say is studying at university to do game art design is career building, and we as students are learning the necessary skills to become good game artists and workers in industry.
need younger artists and workers to fill in the gaps when other workers move on or retire.....
Another speculation connected to this, lack of a need for younger not as experienced artists would be that university courses that specialise in training and educating the students would become obsolete, i'm sure that would cause an upset at some universities!!!
It isn't really sensible to presume that the industry would be good without an influx of new artists... In fact that probably makes it more volatile, how can different styles be made without new artists to bring new ideas? Industries to possibly become boring or even predictable because the same artists are used, new artists would bring at least a new amount of spice or variety, as of course.... variety is the spice of life!
There is a specific need to have normal artists and university taught students, I doubt many artists know how to programme games but I suppose there is a possibility that their knowledge in different subjects like programming could be extensive all depending in how much they wanted to immerse themselves into their work, having someone teach you specific things means that you should understand the subject matter more clearly and therefore learn it to a better standard.
All I can say is studying at university to do game art design is career building, and we as students are learning the necessary skills to become good game artists and workers in industry.
Saturday 13 March 2010
Sounds For Games Wk18
Sound in games is all but similar to that of genres in storyline, games have to sound like how they feel, if that makes sense. For instance if you look at games like "The Legend Of Zelda" game the soundtrack itself is mainly based around quest, it feels uplifting as you traverse through fields and different areas. There are subtle changes within the sounds of the game as you go through it, perhaps with the change of scenery or going into different situations. The game itself provides moments of tense situations and so the music itself changes to suit the situation suspense can be well created by the change in musical components.
The two games that for me changed the way I looked at music was the resident evil series and AVP2 on the pc. I loved the diverse subtlety from moments u were just walking around to general musical background and then out of no-where something tense would happen! The horror genre for me seems to utilize music and the used of sound in the best way, whilst playing normal sort of games heightened musical pitches does produce moments of anxiety but there not as effective as what games with horror involved can be.
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