Year 2 - Week 13 - January 23rd - 27th

Not much to say about this week honestly. We’re looking back at the 9^th floor plans, honestly I didn’t like this project that much from last month and now we are asked to further develop it.

It’s good to come up with ideas for how it’ll all plan out, it’s like going back to my college days when I was doing product design, writing ideas, specifications and illustrations etc. It’s alright but I’d rather be drawing than researching most of the time.

My ideas:

I’ve looked at what we’d need and tried to pick off the best of what I’ve seen, something’s like chairs and PC’s are way too expensive, I know the budget is there but I’m just trying to be careful because I don’t know what I’d cost to knock down and put up new walls etc in which some things don’t have a specific price. I’ve tried to cover pretty much everything and think my idea would work but it’s not up to me to decide that.

On another note, I’ve been drawing my usual weekly fruit etc. I think I’m at a point where digital painting is coming easier each time I do it, like I say I’m getting faster. I’m drawing every day, everything I draw however isn’t necessarily an attempt a ‘best’ piece of work, I just want to draw more but do them quickly to hopefully improve. I’ve drawn a lot of still life this year and haven’t really found the time for my environment stuff but feel like I’ve improved a lot more.

Please note, these are taken from FaceBook...

And FaceBook ruined them...

Life drawing this week I think went really well, I’ve got back into drawing the human figure etc and managed to produce a final piece in 40 minutes, though it took a while to work out the anatomy it I got it done. I feel like I’ve gotten a lot faster at life drawing, one thing is just trying to be more accurate in terms of not measuring with my pencil etc and get better at tone.

Not bad?

Overall it’s been a mixed bag of a week. I just want to talk about a bit of level design to finish up. Basically looking at what we’ve done in our group work, I’m not convinced everyone is on the right track; we haven’t really pulled together our ideas properly and say THIS is what we are going for.

I think levels in general are all built around what the objective/goal of the game is. For example in Grand Theft Auto (which is a good example) you would have many different objectives t complete and missions, so the entire game is based around what scenarios happen throughout the game, possibly the script plays a huge part on it but I don’t know. But the game would be filled with secrets etc that reward the user; I think that we need to straighten out some things. *please read ‘Queens Project - Week 3’ post for more* but like having some secrets is mandatory, any good level design has secrets but if we’re trying to be realistic I think that we need to make the secrets believable, but then again I come back to the fact that in any video game, no one cares about trying to be believable because it’s a video game and secrets are meant to be fun, so I don’t know, I could contradict myself for hours but based on what’s written in the brief it’s like we’re saying one thing but doing another sometimes… 

Queens Project - Week 3

Well I could ramble on forever about what has gone on this week but I’ll try to keep it short. So pretty much a lot of stuff was decided without me within just the first day of this project which I’ve already explained. I’ve put one or two ideas forward of how to develop on them ideas everyone else has got but haven’t really had the chance to put any of my own forward so instead I’ve been holding out for a prototype UDK file to just play.

After playing it, honestly I thought it was poor, bearing in mind that I know it’s an early version and what not I think it could be a million times better. I’ve played enough games to know what a good level design is and quite frankly I think we can do better. We were criticized for having a random tree in the middle of the Aintree of the building without any reason of it being there in week 2. Which basically I decided to question everything in the level.

*I may put a copy of what I wrote on our group blog here in the near future as it may be taken down for controversial reasons*

Basically things to me just aren’t adding up, for example we have a random ladder in the middle of the Aintree, but my question is, why is it there? Who put it there? If a HUGE chunk of the building has been collapsed with a huge tree in it, WHO in their right mind would put a HUGE ladder in a MODERN day building which is DANGEROUS?! If anything it would make more sense to knock the building down, preserve the tree and let it grow properly NOT to mention throw a fucking TENT OVER THE WHOLE BUILDING?! Realism is screwing us over simply put, and we’re not realising it…

When things just don't add up...

All I did was take a step back and analyse what had been done so far, because I can’t visualise how it’s going to work because everyone has got different ideas but until I could play the UDK where our ideas are fused together and get a firsthand look at it I couldn’t say anything until now!

Simply put the only thing I can say this week is I’ve single handily caused problems within the group. I finally give an opinion and now we’re in a communication breakdown, which again like last week I said communication was important at the start of the year and it’s gotten worse.

OK Button is broke!

Honestly I think some people are overreacting, we’ve got 2 months left which is more than enough time to change a few things. The level is too short for my liking, honestly this is supposed to be survival horror, it needs to be long and drawn out, and difficult straight off the bat cause it would be for an audience of 18+, but it’s not, a 3 year old could beat it in 30 seconds in my opinion.

"A picture is worth a thousand words" - Napoleon

I’ll look back on this after the project is done and laugh about it, but at the moment we need to think things through more…

Queens Project - Week 2

So after another week of concepting and putting together ideas, things are coming along slowly but surely with the group project. I’ve thrown together a few ideas and tried some white boxing out on the bridges of the queens building atrium.

The thing about the white boxing is that it took so long to put together the thing we might as well use it for the final thing… First it was too high poly so I took it down to get it as simple as possible.

The thing with this asset is that it’s a top priority asset and a few different variations of it have to be made in order for it to work.  So building a T junction (for a diverted path) and a normal path (straight on) is about all that is necessary. Most important part is keeping it low poly.

Now I’ve rambled on a bit about making it and not much about concepting, I’ve done some concepting and taken a lot of images for reference and assets. We have an idea of what the final thing will look like but it’s still hard to tell because everyone is coming up with different looks and ideas all the time. It’s like as were trying to produce it, new thing keep popping up that we might have not thought about before.

These ideas that we come up with however do need to be drawn for them to exist, though one problem I’m having is that a lot of stuff has been decided on without me which shows communication is vital. I talked about communication at the start of the year and now it’s showing in this project. It’s a real taste of what industry will be like but I’m finding it exciting.

Once the concepting stage is finished the modelling and texturing will take over from then. The asset list is pretty much complete now so we’ll be assigning assets to everyone which is where the project gets harder. Learning UDK is not an easy thing either but that’s nothing really to talk about.

I think to sum up the second week, I would say it’s slowly coming along, it’s early days so there’s not too much to say and that this semester will be over soon enough so we need to step it up a gear.

Queens Project - Week 1

*Note* The reason I didn't post this earlier was because I didn't think my ideas were that good and everything had been decided upon before this... pretty much...

Thought I’d take the chance to write a bit about my ideas for the queens building.

To start off some off, we have to take into account that it’s an existing environment we’re working on, so taking a strong reference is essential in transforming such place into survival horror genre.

The initial thoughts that come to mind are dark, gloomy setting, preferably set at night time, with rain and perhaps some thunder and lightning (of course the weather would be seen outside).

I think it’s first important to look at the references taken and then pool together all our ideas of what we like and don’t like. While thinking about this we should be asking ourselves ‘is it possible?’ in which I mean is it possible to create what we are going for in the available time period we have of 11 weeks +.

I’m thinking that we should come up with extras for the level, in what I mean is how pretty much every video game level I’ve ever played hold some sort of secret(s) to it. I heard the suggestion of keys to unlock certain doors and paths within the level itself, which I’m not sure if that’s been done in the past but the idea is that it challenges the user to find them and make their way through the level. It’s a survival horror level, so basically I’m not sure that it should be free roaming (where everything is unlocked to walk through) because in that case you could just run from start to finish and the level would be over pretty quickly, its survival, so there has to be a lot more challenge than that.

Typically in horror games such as Resident Evil etc the difficulty of the games is usually hard from start to finish, it’s not one of those that starts easy and becomes of progressively hard. I think as environment Artists for this brief we should be creating something with hazards in to add difficulty to the level to and challenge. Things that come to mind would be live electrical cables, fire, traps, broken bridges/stairs possible water hazards to etc.

With it being a horror (and like I’ve said the first thing that comes to mind is darkness) I think lighting with have a big impact on the level, ideas I have in mind is flickering lights, lights switching on and off, possible thunder and lightning on the outside of the building, maybe the flash from the thunder could light up a room for a brief moment. I’ve heard that the level may start outside in the courtyard as the player would then enter the building, which I think is a good idea as it immediately makes the player want to move on into the building and explore what’s inside. Maybe the front door could close on them as they enter to add more tension, or maybe that’s a bit cliché?

I think it’s important to try and be original, look at ideas from existing horror games, pick off ideas that we like and then turn them into something we can embed into the level so we’re not just directly copying other ideas.

These are just some of the thoughts I’ve had so far, I think the planning and concepting part will show more of a clear route we want to take, like I said pooling ideas together to see what we like and don’t like in a process of elimination, leaving the things we want and the rooms that we like. I’m also thinking that it will be important to make a plan of the building, with a layout of the rooms, this will gain an idea of how they join together and where the stairs will be placed and access to upper floors is. Once this is done I think we can do some white boxing as a prototype and generate more ideas for further development to get us started , but first pitching ideas will be essential.

Year 2 - Week 12 - January 16th - 20th

This week started off with life drawing, which is something I didn’t talk about last week so I want to talk about it a little. I’ve not done any life drawing since last year so I’m a bit rusty on it. Things I learnt last year were using the hand eye coordination technique were the hand naturally follows the eye, this really helped me gain a much quicker and accurate outcome of the human figure, normally in the past the way I use to draw was by pure judgement of how I see and what I think I saw things, which most times out of ten (I would say) would be inaccurate. I never really used the technique of extending the arm out and measuring with a pencil either much, but that really helped me to. It’s amazing in how I’ve improved in a short amount of time.

I’ve again been continuing with these techniques, primarily however using the hand eye technique for short poses and pencil measurements with longer poses. One thing that throws me off producing contour work is having to remember pushing soft and hard with a pencil for lighter and darker areas of the body. I’m struggling to do it all at once. When I’m drawing still life however I tend to get it right, but this is based on the fact that I have the time to think about it, I don’t work fast, only if I’m required to. I can’t work at a speedy pace; I need the time to work things out accurately as I strive to be ‘perfect’, but ‘perfect’ is really impossible to achieve with anything.  I think over time for now things will come along much better.

Accuracy?

We looked at logo designing and coming up with a presentable background to put our work on in a portfolio. Now personally I don’t want to be a Game Artist (or at least not anymore) though I still think it’s going to be good to have a strong portfolio. I’ve already talked about composition so I’m not going to ramble on about that anymore but basically it’s important to make sure the viewer sees what’s going on in the image, not have a focal point smack bang in the centre of an image, and make sure the scene isn’t mostly empty.

Nice simple design?

Coming back to logos I find that it’s important to have a logo that incorporates something about yourself.

Game D-Pad controller (black), my initials (red).

You want it to be eye catching I think, so bright colours, bold font are generally good for something that people could recognise you by (I’d say). It’s like any company logo, for instance McDonalds logo, you know what it is just by looking at it, it doesn’t even have to read ‘McDonalds’ for you to know what it is, so something that stands out it always good.

The group project is coming along slowly but surely, we’re still in the concepting phase, however I’ve decided to post different entries about that separately from now on.

Year 2 - Week 11 - January 9th 2012 - 13th

This week counts as a part of the last semester, so there’s not really too much to say. Over the Christmas break I had drawn myself for our self portrait project. I said at the start of the year I wanted to get better at drawing the human figure, I spent quite a bit of time on my portrait but I thought it turned out really well, maybe the best piece of work I’ve ever produced.

Me.

Looking at skin tones and colours I layered over and over using the peachy/orangey and red colours of my face. Instead of using black and white to make things look darker and brighter, I’m well into the habit of using darker tones of colours to bring out the darker and lighter areas. I used this to create pixel density to the image, especially on the nose, hair and eyes in particular. I used this project opportunity to eliminate all defects on my face just before I say it can be improved because there are details on my face that I know are there but didn’t want to add them in. Overall I’m really happy with the outcome.

Group project teams have been announced this week. A lot of the overall level design seems to have been decided upon already. The idea of having a huge tree in the middle seems like a cool idea but I don’t want anything to do with it… I just cannot stand trees. I had totally different ideas about the project; a lot was decided without me and I want to be either a game designer or level designer but the problem is I don’t want to cause arguments and have the group fall apart, so I’m just trying to take in on the chin with whatever is suggested but it would have been nice to have taken a lead role possibly and have more of my own ideas taken into account (though there is still time as its early days, I’m not complaining). So far actually I’ve put together a few images of what the final thing could look like. We’ve so far painted over some of the photos we’ve taken to get some ideas flowing and to help generate more.

So far we’ve made an overhead view of the building plans and put together a plan of starting the level and ending the level, we’ve also one some white boxing for a more clearer view on how we should go about modelling certain things. I’ve also compiled an asset list. Communication is important within this project so we’ve set up groups on FaceBook and another blog specifically for the project.

This for me is the main event of the course or the ‘golden age’ if you like; this is the one thing I’ve been looking forward to the most since I first heard about it, it’s really exciting but its going to be a lot of hard work, can’t wait to get going properly next week.

Had to cut this down from 938 triangles.

Gaming in 2011

Last year I talked about gaming in 2010 and about gaming some games and consoles of that year and what we would be seeing the following year, so as we have just ended 2011 I think I’ll write a bit about my thoughts on gaming in 2011 and what this New Year will bring us.

In 2010 I remember saying that we there weren’t really any consoles to talk about that were released that year however at that years E3 convention in America we saw the Nintendo 3DS announced. As amazing as it looked, the 2 questions that everyone wants to be answered immediately are: How much is it going to be? And when will it be released? We all know for a fact that with it being a Nintendo console it is most likely that Japan will get it first. Sometimes America does get the release first as in recent years I’ve known that to happen with the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS but it’s the most likely outcome. As predicted it was but only by a month. Being the only console released this year it the main thing to talk about.

Things are going in the 3D direction and with this being the first 3D console it opens up quite a lot of possibilities for the future. It’s just a matter of time until a 3D home console is made, however on that note, you’ll probably need a 3D TV to go with it thus making it all too expensive, so maybe when all the hype on 3D has died down a bit we may have a 3D home console but I’m talking way in the future. It’s incredible what Nintendo seem to achieve, every time the design a new console they add a new feature to it which amazes everyone but revolutionises the way we play, take the Nintendo DS for example, we could then play games by touching a screen, Nintendo Wii: we can play with touch and move sensitive controls not to mention you can blow and speak into the mic of the Nintendo DS for some games. Game play has totally changed, we’ve seen Sony do the same and Microsoft with their ‘PlayStation Move’ and ‘Kinect’ add-ons, though I feel they are playing catching with that, though the Kinect proves you don’t even need a controller anymore to play a game.

We've seen some magnificent visuals in some for the 3DS titles and the fact that you don't need glasses to see screen proves that we could design a TV the same way? However I don't think it's possible to turn a normal television set 3D through connecting a console?

So they’ve figured out how to play games differently (eliminating the controller) and boosted the graphics making them 3D and what not, so what’s next? It feels that we just can’t get any better now? At E3 2011, they revealed the highly anticipated Wii U console, the sequel to the Wii in which it basically does more than the Wii Watching one the preview trailers however, it amazed everyone (as Nintendo always do).

Now we’ve got a touch screen in front of us to play our games, it’s also the first Nintendo console to be HD (playing catch up?) and if you don’t need the TV you can play your Wii U games on the controller portably… my first thoughts we’re: ‘Oh My God!’ what amazes me is how it’s all done (I’m assuming) wirelessly. The game can transfer from your console to your controller so you can keep playing it while on the move? If that’s true, it’s just amazing! The controller can be used as a touch screen, but my question is: is the handheld controller screen HD?

PSVita 2011/12

Sony and Nintendo will go head to head by the looks of it this year as both are bringing out consoles. Sony’s PSVita is on the way soon, what makes it good is how Sony are changing the way we play (for once!) by introducing a touch screen on the front but also the back of the console. It’s another touch screen but with a slight twist which is cool but also Sony has released the first HD handheld console with graphics to that of the PS3/Xbox 360 status. There are many games to be released this year and it’ll be interesting to see how Sony and Nintendo do in comparison, but where does this leave Microsoft with their Xbox? Well maybe we’ll see something at E3 come June, one thing I come back to think about a lot is how Microsoft’s Xbox 360 is coming up to its 10 year anniversary pretty shortly (in 2015), they haven’t produced a console since 2005, are they working on something big? I always thought they’d make a handheld Xbox, though a lot of fans for a few years now have had all this hype on the speculation of ‘Xbox 720’ (just because it’s double 360). I can’t say but maybe we’ll see something soon…

?

As a conclusion, it feels like we’re living the bottle neck of gaming, we’re answering questions all the time as each year goes on but how greater can we get? As I ponder this thought the developers are coming up with new ways to play games. What’s next? PS4?  And Xbox Handheld? I think this year will be a big year that will answer many questions in gaming though there are tons more to answer.