I am Cyborg, But That's OK

I am Cyborg, but that’s OK... the title itself it very weird, it’s something you would here being said in a sentence, obviously not in real life but in a fantasy movie maybe, but not a title of a movie. Seems we’ve been watching a lot of foreign films lately, this one being Korean made me wonder what we were in for. I’d never seen a Korean film before so this was a change. The title of it sort of suggests it’s going to be a comedy, being funny and quirky. If it was just called: ‘I am Cyborg’ I would think this to be something more like iRobot (a bit more seriousness to it). That is only talking about the title...

The actual plot is about a girl who believes she is a cyborg. At first she is working in a factory and attempts to recharge herself by cutting her wrist and connecting it to a power outlet. This is what would replace food as for a human. She then is taken to a metal institute because of what was seen as an attempted suicide and then wants revenge on the people that had taken her away.

While there, there is this other guy that is just as crazy as she is. He wears rabbit masks and starts to brush his teeth. Later he tries to help the girl (young-goon) because she won’t eat, which is obvious because she thinks she’s a robot. The doctors or men in white as they are described give her shock treatment; I think that must indicate they don’t know how she got in there in the first lace and the fact that she would take that as being recharged. She starts to hallucinate and have reoccurring dreams, which for some reason she doesn’t work out that a cyborg cannot have dreams?  (If I’m not mistaken).

The guy in all this however tries to help her by making what they call a ‘rice-megatron’ convincing her it’s a device that converts real food into electrical energy, very funny, this is just one of many jokes they have throughout the movie, it was quite like watching one of them Asian game shows where they have to complete physical challenges, some parts of the film the characters were going crazy in similar ways to these game shows. Some examples where they are running riot around the institution various times and other complete random acts that they did, reminds me so much of Takeshi's castle. One part of the film Young-Goon is shooting at everyone in the institute, it looked like something out of the Terminator, and in fact I think it could have been inspired by that, but the female version of it?

At the end of the film Young-Goon is told that she’s a bomb by her grandmother in which she tries to blow herself up I’m guessing by sitting out in a thunderstorm, but however the guy stops this from happening by putting a cork on the end of the lightning rod they are using, which means he doesn’t want her to die because he has become so attached to her. I never knew that this film was in fact a romantic comedy until after finding out more about it, it was though hard to understand, its foreign meaning you want to watch the acting but to understand more of what going on you have to watch the subtitles. I find this really distracting, because it’s a comedy meaning you want to enjoy the funniness of it but I missed so many parts of it and struggled to understand the main story a lot.

It was a good film but I’d have to watch it over and over again to fully understand it. Oh and she does actually manage to eat something in the end and is applauded for it...

Animation & Deadliest Artist Lectures

When we had the animation lecture I didn’t really think we’d benefit from it being Art students but the guy who came in, actually worked on things like Star Wars Clone Wars is a big thing. He said things about designing characters and what not. He said things like when you’re designing character the limbs of them must be good to animate and he took us all through the process of how to go about animating which at the time I thought was very beneficial until the Gladiator project came along just a few months ago and we had to rig it.

I really struggled with the gladiator project; the rigging I thought was hard to do. Basically it’s about making the skeleton limbs all touch the necessary vertexes of the asset you’ve created. I honesty and truly don’t see a point in this, isn’t this what animators are for? I mean I’ve been told that it makes the animators job easier etc and it checks to make sure that the vertexes are moving correctly as they should but I still think the animators should do this, it should be there job, I mean trying not to complain or anything but I had hard enough time trying to design the geometry and texture the damn thing without this as well... I really don’t enjoy designing characters as anyone could tell.

Hope mine doesn't go this bad next time.

In the deadliest Artist lecture, well it was the Artists from Blitz just showing some their work and everyone just voting for who thought whose was cooler. It was interesting though, it taught us a lot about the importance of fine Art and traditional work. They showed us a lot of sculptures and works of other that they liked, and were inspired by. I remember one girl shouting: “No one really cares about fine Art! Everyone just wants to create cool stuff!” or something like that, I wouldn’t have liked to have been her after the lecturers and one of our tutors hearing that...

But anyway I thought that it was good and some of the works they showed us were just bizarre. I feel that you must first become a professional Artist before you can start producing things that almost make no sense but are seen as great? What I mean is, is that I’ve seen all different kinds of Art work like sculptures, traditional paintings, digital etc but some of it makes no sense to me as in 1998 an Artist called Chris Ofili won the turner prize by painting an image but making it out of elephant dung... I mean really?

Dung Anyone?

There’s lots of Art out there, but so much of it I just don’t understand, I guess things like that do have meaning but you’ve really got to look into it to understand. I remember being in college and thinking about painting I was studying at the time and thinking what they mean, such as The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali which is an image I’m obsessed with, people say there’s meaning behind everything in that image but is there really? Some people say that Dali could have just done it because he wanted to, but no one really knows... I think that’s why I like it so much but there’s questions there of what I think still to be answered. It’s kind of like gaming really, all the questions about it haven’t been answered yet and that possibly why I love it so much?

The Persistence Of Memory - Salvador Dali - 1931

Y1 S2 T7 - Presentation – Personal Game Review

One series of games I like is none other than FIFA. What I like about these games is that there’s always a new one out every year and it keeps you interested with all the new stuff they add into it.

FIFA 11 (2010)

First of all it’s based around football, so it’s a pretty simple concept; they have to look into how about game the game better and better each year by adding new stuff into it. Basically they know that each year a new football season start so they would go about it my planning out what they have made the previous year and what they can add into it the next year for example in FIFA 2005 the game was pretty simple, there is a career mode which allows the player to play and manage a given team of their choice, this compared to FIFA 11 (the newest game in the series) is a lot different for the fact that they have now scraped the idea of only letting the user start off with a set number of different teams to chose and now they can start off with any tam the wish just to give you more option really. But it’s little things like that, that make up the game itself.

When people think of a football game I personally feel like they think “it’s just football how is the newest one any different to the rest?” well yes the idea of it is the same as any other FIFA game or football series but with that in mind it keeps the games simple and gives the creators and designers a big challenge every year simply because they need to build something better each passing year, but because the idea is just the same every time it allows them to take the all the elements of game and then think about how can we improve this. Some people could argue and say “well it’s going to get to the point where there’s going to be no way to further develop it” but it’s a good challenge.

If you compare FIFA 08 to FIFA 09 you’ll find that there are over 250 improvements in FIFA 09 as stated by the producer David Rutter. There’s so many people out there that have their own ideas for the games, so many that people make videos on YouTube about what to improve next and FIFA themselves even have their own forum that allows people to post idea themselves which the designers and creators listen to themselves.

http://www.fifplay.com/fifa12_ideas/

The game play of it I find very addictive and if you love football then you should love the games, I find that the Xbox 360/PS3 version of the game is the best because the game I would say isn’t as good on the Nintendo DS or PSP simply because of the lower graphics and support from the consoles themselves not making it as good on a handheld device though it’s quite nice to have if you’re out and about. With an Xbox 360 or PlayStation controller you can do so many different tricks whilst on the ball and while not on the ball you can do other things like switch the team between attack, defence or a balanced style of play which is making it a more realistic to how real football in played. Realism is the big key factor here because the creators and designers are trying to make it as to real life as possible. The game play is introduced into every type of mode the game has to offer, for example there is one mode where you can select to play on any team you want, but you only play as just one player of that team taking orders for the team manager as you would playing in reality. For this they use a player camera, meaning that you don’t see the most of the pitch both teams are playing instead to focus it on the one player you are controlling they put the camera into a first person perspective as if this is how you would play in real.

These game are released on the first Friday of October every year (in Europe) this means that after every release they must immediately get working on the next one because they only have a year before its release, but the thing is they have less time then they think... The idea of the game is to keep it updated and so what they do is waiting till the final date for the real world transfer deadline to end so they can update all the teams in the game for their users who play but it ends at the beginning of September meaning they’ve only got a month to finalise everything and ship it out! In which in recent years they have been clever enough to add in a feature which allows users to connect to Xbox Live or the online PlayStation network and update the teams within the game manually as they happen in the real world. This is almost of way of enticing more and more people to buy extra hardware and software for their home consoles in which to update teams within the game that a lot of people could be passionate about. You could say they are trying to make more money by doing this sort of thing but I think it’s just to keep up with other competing titles on the market, because if the game didn’t have online capabilities then it wouldn’t get very far in the new age we’re living in.

Be a Pro mode.

They games go down to the very finest detail now, with just about every different team and league in the world, new modes being added every year, you’re even able to build your own players and customise them. On the Art side of it there a lot architectural design which all these Stadiums and character building to fit into every kit design each team has, so there’s a lot or work when you consider building these things down to a fine detail and a data base of million upon thousands of player out there. It’s one game series I’ll always keep buying.

Until next time...

Y1 S2 T11 - Elements Of Game Design - Part 4 - Environment

Level design is something I have always been interested in. From an early age I was always making up own levels using a pen and paper, I could come up with my different ideas and variations following made up tasks you would have to complete in the levels.  One thing about this though is that I was playing games that like Mario, Crash Bandicoot and sonic and the objective in all of them is pretty much the same and what I found interesting is there basically is an unlimited amount of ideas and designs you can come up with to challenge the user, yes they are simple but I find them effective, but in the more modern game with a story you have to sort of make the level while sticking to a script. I think the way level designers now-a-days make up their levels is by looking at the script first because that tells them what is going on and gives them an idea for what they need to build in relation to the characters and how they will navigate around the level eventually reaching the goal they must accomplish. They would sketch out the plans to the level first, this would help them get idea and a sense of where everything is going to which then helps what they are going to build and texture within each separate part to the design. They can start off with the white box modelling technique, eventually slapping on the texture, but the textures they used can be influenced by what the story needs, if for example we were to play Legend of Zelda then there’s pretty much a castle in every game and tons of caves meaning they need to get these textures in relation to the different puzzles or scenes of the game, like the animation of what happens. Most castles would be dark so the texture would most probably look gloomy; if not then the lighting would be placed to make it look gloomy. The atmosphere is dependent on the scenery and all games they have a certain Art direction so I think it’s important to keep the game looking the same way through out, which all good professionally made games do, else it would be one wacky game if not, but perhaps maybe that a good idea that no one has thought of before? We’d just be pinching off other people’s ideas and throwing them altogether in one, that idea actually reminds me of Super Smash Brothers, they bring together all the Nintendo characters and their environments, which is interesting and it’s always been a successful franchise even though there’s only ever been 3 versions of the game.

No game is real, all games are unrealistic no matter how hard they try, they look like they are realistic but it’s still all virtual at the end of the game. I guess we are thinking about how we are going to turn gaming graphics a step higher and get them looking even more realistic, but it’s going to be many years before then, I think that one thing that makes most gamers addicted to a certain type of game is not how it plays but they way it looks also, they can be attracted to a certain style type and it makes them care for the game more becoming more and more interested to point where they must have the next game in the series on the actual day it’s released and they do nothing but play it whenever they can. I think within any game however you make it how you want and at the same time you make whatever it is in the game that is required like not just the environment but also the characters as well, and you keep them all the same style, so what I’m trying to say is that every game is designed whatever it may be and then stylized in a specific way throughout, it’s basically just variation after variation of Art styles that we see on the shelf’s of our favourite game stores, and they are all a variation of realism manipulated into a different way.

One gaming series environment I find interesting and may sound silly to some is actually Pokemon. Pokemon, from what people see think it’s all about made up creatures that don’t exist and battle them, what most people don’t know is that that Pokemon is actually based on the different regions of Japan. For example the first Pokemon game was based on the Kanto area of Japan, in which makes it quite unique because it’s based on what already exist in that area of Japan, but the thing is it’s not just one area of Japan they have taken. The latest games in the series are very interesting because it is based on the metropolitan area or New York City in America. This sort of says the team of Artists would have gone to New York and get references of how to make that and put it into the game itself. How many times do you see New York City on TV or films and TV series based in New York, there’s millions of them so it was only a matter of time before they thought we need to get out of Japan and go explore the world? This gives them a million and one places to visit and base their environments on. There’s a whole world out there and they have so many possibilities for ideas, until the whole world is full, but people would like it so much that, if it gets to the point where they need to make a whole new world then people will still buy it because of all its success in the past and let’s face it all games are made because of money, and that’s what Pokemon is all about, it’s about catching creatures and fighting them, simple but so effective coming back to my crappy but influenced level designs. Everything actually in the game makes perfect sense in relation to real life, not to get in detail about all that but in reality the bridges in the metropolitan area of New York are placed and based of the actual existing ones. Right down to the last details, the main things you would mention are the tall buildings of New York and the streets of they have replicated, it give the impression of ‘the big city’ or ‘the concrete jungle’ that is New York has been turned into the style of the’ Pokemon world’. These games are based on a grid format which the player runs around on to navigate and they have done that well evolving it along the way from basic 2D graphics to now 3D with many more possibilities using the environment within the games (and giving thanks to the technology that now allows them to do so).  The environments are all set out in a format that allows them to play the game which they first made back in the late 1990's and now have adapted the landscapes around them into that of the game should be played. There are so many parts of the game and features you could reference it to and these are all ideas from existing films and things in New York. I have no idea about the names of the designers and Artists for these games; I’d have to look them up but again what they have done is simple and effective, or could say that it’s simple and effective way of making millions off of children who feed off this Japanese phenomenon’s worldwide. The big bright bold colours of the game make them attracted to it and no matter what people may think of the word ‘Pokemon’ when they hear it,  the people who actually make it are having the last laugh because of all the money and that basically the whole idea of games and it’s genius to be honest.

   Pokemon Red 1996                                                     Pokemon Platinum 2008

Y1 S2 T10 - Elements Of Game Design - Part 3 - Character

I think the characters in films and TV I’ve seen, for almost all of them, it really depends in the type of environment they live in. When I say that I mean that environment has the biggest impact on the type of character that becomes them, for example like their life style, the people around them, the things they like, do and say are all the aspects of the character that makes one become connected to the actual person/character and even can make them relate to them in various people’s own life’s. I find that it is easy to like or dislike a character upon what they are like, but one thing about film, actors on TV and fantasy characters in books is that it’s all fake! That’s the only thing that puts me off getting overly connected to them, but then again the same goes for games, no matter how hard we try to be realistic about them, they never will be...

They definitely are good at trying to capture all kinds of feelings that we can feel towards them, you have to be creative to do so and I feel like it’s definitely all to do with the Art style and direction simply because it’s that which basically controls the mood of everything. It’s all used to create an emotional feel to the viewer, whether it is the settings or the script of the film, show, book or game and how the characters and actors react to it and make what’s written on paper into practise. It basically is just like making a film or game, you have to plan it all down on paper and make documents first. The point is how you plan it out is how it should be follow through, so writing a script and giving a film or game a setting (or an Art direction) will effect they way we perceive it.

I believe that a character can be defined by these types of things even the clothes they wear is such a strong way to give an idea of them, but I also think that it doesn’t define them completely, as in there are a lot of questions that could still be answered, what I mean is that there’s so many things you could say about them and the script is what they follow, but the script doesn’t give a description of absolutely everything about them, so I feel like there’s more that can be answered which not only the script but the settings and actions don’t always necessarily show with just about any character really. The only way you ask these questions is to gain such strong feelings towards them that you want to find out, but maybe never will.

I’ve personally never been interested in books, I think this is because it’s basically reading, which I think is (to blatantly put it) boring... My main problem with them is that I like images, I learn more by looking at imagery. The thing you get with it is a sense of the mood, colours, and settings and from that you can gain a better feeling of it in my opinion. I’ve seen quite a lot of films and played a lot of games however, the type of stories I personally like are ones that don’t have all this cliché crap in them. There’s far too many stories were everything is okay in the end and you know it’s going to happen before you’ve even got through half the game or movie, because whatever the problem is, you know it by about 1/4^th into the film and the problem is always resolved in the end. I more of a fan of the old games and films, where it all began, the story lines were simple and they were the biggest thing for their time and to me still are, now-a-days it’s all the same stuff being repeated over and over and it’s a case of “seen it all before”! Don’t get me wrong there are some good games out there that are different and maybe forgotten about now and there are probably a lot more out there released every week but I don’t have the money to buy everyone of them. Some of the games I do like are re-made like the original Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro etc, and I always find myself coming back to them and buying the latest ones because I guess it’s just the roots of what I know and liked as a kid, and it’s just something that can’t be taken away... never, and I don’t think I’ll ever change that to be honest. These characters and the settings they are put in, in just something that I think will last forever, because it was there right from the start, I’m not a fan of change either and that’s where my feeling stand on them, my connection is so strong to them that I don’t want to ever forget them.

Y1 S2 T9 - Elements Of Game Design - part 2: Art Direction For Games

What an Art Director does, is he/she tries to define the way in which a game should look like. For example the Art Director’s main focus would be working very closely with the game designer because the game designer is the one with all the ideas of how the game will plan out (its overall structure). The Art Director would then lead a team of Artists within a company to achieve what is wanted for the game, such as how should the characters look, how should the maps, cities, buildings, landscapes and even skies should look. The level of detail that should be in everything is another thing that should be gotten across, in particular if the game is based upon a certain culture, how it should feel?, what time of year is it?, maybe even what time of day, and also what type on genre is it. All these questions must be first answered to then try and communicate this to rest of the Artists for them to finally be able to communicate to the target audience which can be anyone and everyone depending on what type of game is being produced. The most important factor however of any game is the visual side, (in my opinion) simply because without design, there would be no game, and what I think usually attracts a lot of people to gaming is the appearance of it, because every game has design, in fact the way I see it is that everything in the world has design no matter what it is, and quite a lot of the time what makes gaming appeal to most people is how appealing it is aesthetically, however this does not justify the game is going to be good and it’s right up yours and the next persons street. There is a lot more to it than that, because everyone is a part of a team, which is where good communicational skills come in and that’s a very big important factor towards making a good and successful game. I mean a game can have the most beautiful graphics in the world but if that’s all it’s got it’s not going to get very far. Just as an Art Director would manage a team by communicating ideas, the entire company they are working for, must communicate in some way what they are trying to sell publically to people all over the world, so if anything it’s a huge responsibility no matter what the job role. It’s completely huge, especially now-a-days in gaming as Artist roles are growing increasingly popular with each passing year and even salaries are very high for Artists in the gaming industry, simply because it’s such an important role. Without aesthetic appearance a game just couldn’t simply exist, even Pong (as simple as it is) has an aesthetic appearance!

Some things that are different from Art Direction and Art director jobs in film and gaming is that an Art director working in games is in charge with the overall look and feel of the game, trying to visually communicate the best way for the game to look which can sometimes effect the way in which it plays. In film is more about keeping track of the overall Art department making sure everyone is on top of the tasks that the Art director would assign to everyone. An Art director in film would also try to get things done in a way that is sensible and sufficient meaning that they are in charge of the budget, so they have to be careful and think about what they want and need to use, which will include reading the actual film script for a better idea of what they’ll need. They have to prepare for every scene and before everything starts filming so they have to think well ahead, but this does have its similarities to gaming because in gaming they have to work to deadlines and manage teams to get across their visual ideas. Another thing they do is work with producers and tries to determine whether if the producers ideas will work or not, in which the Art director may try to come up with new/better ideas. I won’t get into every detail, but basically I think that the roles in both film and gaming are very similar, there are minor differences here and there but overall they both manage and work with teams to create ideas and assets, working closely with different people. Like I said before communication is essential and having a good knowledge and understanding of visualisation is key. An understanding of lighting, scale, proportion, perspective, colour, volume, shape, form (and the list could go on and on) are all a good thing to have, because if you’re not creative and able to come up with ideas you wouldn’t be able to get the job, but the same applies for film. You’ve got to have a strong passion for them (being films or games) so a really good knowledge of how games work and what they are made up of, and along with this a good portfolio would get you a long way, not even of just 2D visual ideas but also some 3D, since games are primarily 3D now-a-days. Understanding all this and being able to apply it to different types of gaming genres.

War of the Worlds - Extras

While watching the extra parts to War of the Worlds, we saw how they came across ideas for character designs, similar to what we have been doing lately. One thing I’ve learnt during this week is how you have to be inspired towards creating the work you do, else there’s not much point in wanting to become a game artist or designer if there’s nothing that influences you, but why would we be here if we didn’t want to do this?

Anyway we saw how they came about ideas for what they wanted in the movie, the director Steven Spielberg said he wanted the audience to be terrified by these alien creatures that are like 50 stories tall. In which having only seeing them briefly it would scare the hell out of just about everyone if they saw one of these in real. But what was interesting is how they like us are taking real life aspects and turning them into something that could only exist in a fantasy world in the film or even a game. They saw how they could give these alien things just 3 legs but still make them able to walk in a way that is of a giraffe. They would pool their ideas together and then the director would decide on what he liked and what he didn’t like in order to capture the biggest feel of fear and realism into the movie. Of course what we have on earth is all we’ll ever have, and so the way I see it is basically just taking what you like and love most and try to find that inner quality and the passion you have towards it to inspire you. It’s funny though because we were shown how one thing can lead onto another through your own journey of life. The way you think and feel about something brings out what you want to do in your life and therefore you make your own path and follow it, along the way however from an Art point of view it can change what type of work you do, and there is quite a lot of inspirations for different kinds of Art and design.

From what Chris showed us, he’s been all over and done everything, and when he was reflecting back on it, it was amazing how much he did and all the different types of work he’s done, from traditional Art, to sculpting, photography and many more. I first started out using pencil, and tried the different various things through school etc, but I was never really inspired by anything until recent years I’ve done painting although I’ve always tried to avoid painting, I’ve tried it and now I’m much more confident using it, I’ve used things like oil paints, charcoal, pastels etc and now I’ve I’m even doing digital painting.  What have always inspired me is simply video games, playing one after the other over and over right to the present day, I knew from an early age I wanted something to do with video games, but I didn’t know what, then I thought I wanted to be a designer of them but nothing really opened up in terms of degree programs, so here I am on a course that is a bit of everything to do with gaming, which I couldn’t ask for more. I’m still following that path now and getting close to the end of it but the thing is I’m still as inspired by video games as much, if not more then what I was back when I first started playing them. The same goes for designing characters and such, take inspiration from what is around us and then turn that into something interesting. I remember when I was young, I used to draw my own level designs, though they weren't very good I had ideas and an influence.