The End?

Well I must say It's been nice at University, but if I'm not destined to go on and gain a degree then so be it...

I can't believe I've done so badly. I thought what I was doing was good enough, but there's always things you miss, like in my 3D work I never knew that you had to name everything you created until just recently.  Having to re-do all my 3D work in 3 weeks is just not at all possible, is it? On top of having to write another 15 or so blogs and do a lot of visual design.

At the moment, I couldn't be more miserable and depressed, I've failed and I know it, everyone keeps telling that you're only human and that 'they' will give you a chance to re-do stuff over summer, but I honestly can't see it happening. They just wasn't enough time to do everything that was asked of me at formative assessment, I passed one part of the course but the other two I just don't see it happening. Only just recently I found out that University is about teaching yourself and I realise what a complete massive idiot I've been all the way through the course asking for help on just about everything, the thing is I never knew that! I honestly didn't know that, and I've always been a slow learner, but in the recent months gone by i've enjoyed it like doing digital paints that I think I've gotten quite good at now? Well I don't think so, I mean I don't ever get any likes or comments of praise on my work.

Like I said before there's no hiding from it, I'm a failure and I know it. I thought I'd have done better but if given a chance to go back, then I'll re-do everything over summer if it takes it. I've messed up and I said to myself in my first blog I'm bottom of the pile out of everyone on the course and how good I am as an Artist and i still am today. It's like I've been relegated, i've been struggling at the bottom end of the class all along throughout the year and now it's time to just face what I had coming to me in the first place.

I wanted to re-do all my projects in 3D but I only found the time to finish just two of them and the other one was about 3/4th of the way done. I was rushing so much that I screwed up the folders on my CD that I handed in, I just wish we had like an extra hour, if I had I could of finalized everything, but there was so little time I just couldn't think. I've never been so stressed in my life and now I'm in a spiraling depression because of it, but it's my fault.
I even screwed the folders up on the disc but it won't let me change it and I forgot to put one of my projects on it. In fact one of my projects is in another project folder. It's been one crazy year and the thing is if I was this bad in industry I wouldn't get a job anywhere, but I've said to myself if I do make it back I'll do nothing but work myself to death as work next year is to final degree so it's very important.

Living on my own away from home and the pressure of all the work really has hit me like a 10 ton of bricks, I've gone about it the wrong way, I have no excuses.

I gave it my best, but if my best isn't good enough then so be it...

Y1 S2 T12 - Personal Review Of The First Year

It’s been an exciting year on the Game Art course. Moving away from home is always a bit nervous but I settled into DMU and the course really well and have enjoyed it. Along the way I found myself doing many different types of work I never imagined myself doing before.

The one thing I was worried about before coming was the fact that I hardly ever used a 3D software package in my life, I had some experience it in from college but not too much and not something as powerful as 3DS Max that’s for sure! In fact I never even heard of 3DS Max before I got here so this was a lot to take in at fist but given the time and effort I have adapted to it quite well. I’m producing work that I never even thought I would before, it was hard but like people said, it’s better to just throw us all in at the deep end in so that we can just learn to adapt to it quicker and then we feel comfortable around it for future tasks. The idea of having tutorials on the internet that we can always comeback to, I thought was a good idea, that helped a lot at first but as I progressed I sort of found myself not needing them as much and using the internet to look into things that were a bit more advanced.

When we first started we looked at one point perspective and I found it somewhat difficult, I think it was the fact that I was looking too much into it at first and it became difficult, but now it’s so easy that I know it like the back of my hand. It’s funny because every time I look down a street or path I’m always looking at where the vanishing point is and the horizon line. When we was doing the architectural project I found it so easy to do, but it’s because that it’s a really blocky shape, but at the same time in visual design we started to draw buildings using two point perspective which I found easy, again because it’s just blocky and easy. I’ve never drawn a piece of Art using perspective before so i thought it would be a bit challenging, but it’s really not, perspective is so simple and I love to draw to one point perspective, it’s kind of become something I’ve become a bit addicted to, but it makes it a lot easier.

I’ve enjoyed how in visual design we’ve got to go out and doing drawings, it’s as if we have a little adventure every week but with a new project at hand, we need more places to go to, I like how in the course we get to re-visit places like Bradgate Park etc and see how the colours change at different times of the year but however I don’t like how we must keep going back to these same places as it appears from what I’ve seen the second and third years do, it would possibly be nice if there was a lot more places to go to, like around the country perhaps. I went on the trip to Liverpool to the Tate museum which was a really nice trip and all but by the time we found a place to sit and draw we had literally 30 minutes and that was all, so had to make it count as much as possible! It was really interesting to go there and see all the work first hand like we saw some of Picasso’s work etc I think arranging more trips to around the country would be nice, I mean we are in the middle of the country so it’s not too difficult to get anywhere!

Over the past 7 months of the course I found myself doing a lot more painting, at first I thought I would do some, but not much as I prefer pencil more, but we’ve been taught in the way that if you take time to plan everything, use perspective and layer colours over each over there’s not a painting you can’t produce. I found myself wanting to buy a graphics tablet and using it to produce digital painting, I must say that in the short time I have been using it I think I’ve adapted to it quite well and next year I would hope to do a lot more. Next year I would like to do a lot more personal work given the time and get use to some more advanced techniques using Photoshop.

I’ve enjoyed the lectures we’ve had, we seemed to have a lot however in the first semester and I really thought about 3 would be enough. They’ve all basically told us the same type of thing in every one, implying what you do in industry and what types of jobs they are out there and what jobs are harder to get. It’s been fun though when they talked about making a good portfolio and told us what is good to see and what isn’t like animals in bikini’s, enough said...

We’ve had lectures like the deadliest Artist that have been fun to watch and I remember when we had one guy that came in from the course in the past and he basically told us not to worry about becoming better etc and that we’re all heading the same direction and he even said to us, that he couldn’t do this and that and his 3D work wasn’t good but now he’s giving professional a run for their money.

It’s been fun watching our films on a Wednesday, and I liked watching them more in the second semester (because there was more). The blog has been my favourite part of the course, next year I would hope to do a bit more personal work again given the time and maybe talk about things in the gaming industry more, like we’ve talked how it’s the fastest growing industry in the world and still growing, it would be nice to talk things like that more but it’s all going to be about working in teams since we have the queen building project coming up soon. But to talk about what’s going to happen in the future of gaming etc, they are really interesting talks that have even sparked up on FaceBook a few times.

Overall I’ve really enjoyed it, we were told to make a final painting to sum up this year and what it’s been about, basically I went along with creating a digital painting of Abbey Park because I took a really good one point perspective shot of on one of the bridges there. It’s my final because it sums up how I have gone from always avoiding paintings because I’m not that good at it, to now producing colour digital paintings that I’m enjoying a lot, there’s no denying I’ve become better and I hope that next year I can become even better, which I’m sure I will. I also think what is a better way to sum up the year than incorporating what we’ve learned back at the very start in week one? Being one point perspective, in colour, digitally done, showing my progression and development of being on the course. If I’ve improved this much in such a short amount of time then next year-just next year...

Game Production & Visual Design Developments

In Game Production this year I’ve been introduced to 3DS Max and however that it may have started out a bit slow for me I’ve really gotten use to it and produced a lot of good work I would say, though it seems no however good you think your work is there’s always someone to criticize it, but it’s a harsh reality.

My work has been a bit sloppy and messy throughout so I have had to come back and address things, at first I thought I’d just produce everything in 3D however I could get it done but after a while you realise that there’s no hiding from having to unwrap assets instead of mapping everything and that the mesh flow must be good and clean that that everything must be named and have the correct sizes! I thought it’s overcomplicating it at first but to be professional you must take the time to do it and not be lazy! I avoided the 3D work as much as I could at first because I thought it was hard to get use to and I’m sure we’ve all been stressed with it at some point but like I say you can’t hide and I have bothered to get myself into gear and do it.

I’ve now tackled my fear of understanding how to unwrap assets and model them efficiently, I have found myself asking for help quite a few times along the way though. Next year I’m not going to ask as much for help unless I really need it, University is about self teaching yourself so I need to do a lot of that, no one else can help, like we’ve been told countless times, this is not school or college and at first I treated it like college, but I’m a slow learner so over time I do eventually understand things! So I’m going to do that especially after basically being told by one of the third years to shut up and just do it, because critique is overrated and makes no difference according to him, being a third year I definitely believe him.

In visual design well what can I say? I’ve gone from doing pencil sketching to now being more confident in drawing much more complicated objects such as cars etc that a year ago I’d have never been able to do! Now I’m drawing all kinds of stuff and why is because perspective and going back to basics of drawing has really helped me a lot! I have a better understanding of colour theory and have become much better as a painter, I mean I can’t just always produce pencil sketches my entire life.

In life drawing I’ve gained a better understanding of the human figure and different forms of it, though I do need to practise it more, I can’t believe however how simple it was just to not look at the page your drawing on and just let your hand follow your eyes, my drawing of the figure have turned out a lot better this way though sometimes it doesn’t seem to work because of rushing things, I need time to plan my drawings and work out that everything is in proportion before I render so I mostly just thumbnail sketch everything because it’s easier and everything looks a lot more accurate! When we only get 20 minutes to produce a rendered sketch just isn’t long enough and I end up going wrong because of the rush, though I think this is something I need to address, GETTING FASTER! I’ve spent so much time doing one drawing after another on Photoshop and I spend way too long on the images I produce, drawing a banana took me 6 hours to do and it still doesn’t look right!

I’m not sure where things are going to go in the next year but I know that over summer I’m going to practise my skills and techniques in 2D and 3D so that I don’t forget nothing and be fully prepared as from now on it gets harder. I understand depth, composition, colour theory, perspective a lot more this year and I would say I’m well on my way to becoming a Game Artist pretty soon, my only worry is my grades but only time will tell.

I guess over the summer I will have to keep practising my skills in 2D and 3D and probably in the meantime it will be good try and download UDK because as I seem to have mastered the basics in 3DS Max we’ve all got to go back and learn the basics of a new program this October! Best get a head start huh?

Year 2 & 3 Presentations

I liked watching the year 2 and 3 presentations. First off the year 2 presentations, straight away they all made an immediate impact on what is expected of us on the 2^nd year of the course. The quality of the 3D work produced was amazing; at the moment I’m not as good as what the 2^nd years produced but not far behind! So far I’ve built up a good library of the basic skills, but if I am to become better I need to work more and they showed how much you need to work in order to become better. It was the sight of actually seeing these fully playable levels right in front of me first hand which made it more exciting to watch. They all explained about how they went about coming up with the ideas for the Queens building project. They went around taking photographs first which is self explanatory why but I liked how they used these images to create some concept work of how the final thing may look and each part of the level will look like. Actually being there and seeing this done first hand was very interesting, I’ve seen videos of old games that I like and how they went about creating the concept work and making variations of what scenes may look like in day and night etc and how what levels may look like once they finished, but never have I once seen it being produced and sitting around the labs, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of it but to see it actually work was awesome!

I know that working as a team isn’t easy; it may think it looks easy but trying to keep everyone happy in which no one is doing all the work sure isn’t, I’ve even seen arguments around the labs because of occurring problems. Thing is, I think it’s a lot more like designing a game; you don’t just have one designers but a few or LOTS! You’ll find it better to pool together all your ideas and then form that pick out what you all like and will work and what you don’t like and may not work, it’s like deciding on what people think maybe a risk and what they think may not be because it’ll come good, or at least is should come good...

Communication is key, obviously, staying in contact, knowing who is doing what and when it must be done by and just generally keeping it all in order managing your time you have. If one thing isn’t done it can and will throw the whole thing out of place and require you to re-do the whole time planning process which should be done at the start so it’s kind of having a step back to the beginning before you can continue again.

The year 3 presentation we’re even better than what we saw in the year 2 presentations, the thing is just because you’re in year 3 doesn’t make you better than anyone in year 2, even first years have gotten comments from third years on how good their work is, but to me in Art there’s really no right or wrong answer, you’ve got to be creative and just create things how you see them and then create the image in your mind of how you see your concept working out? I think the biggest impact of seeing the year 3 work was the fact that they was making work that I'd consider better than the year 2 work but there is only one person doing the job.

There work was stunning, everything right to the last detail, but the thing was that everyone wasn’t going for same style, in year 3 it looks as if you get to chose what you want to go for, meaning you don’t have to create something realistic just something you would really like to do. You can set your own triangle limit which makes it interesting to model things as well as texturing them I don’t know what my final project in the last year would be, but I know that I’ve got a lot on my plate now before I can start thinking about that.

Finally we talked about how adding things into your levels makes it more rewarding for the player, like adding photo's of your friends faces. Here's a video of how Crash Bandicoot 3 was made, in here they talk about that exact same thing for example when a player dies the animation of the character dying in all kinds of different ways really "softens the blow" as they put it to make losing a life a little more fun. They talk also about how the Art within the game can be changed etc to gain an outcome of how what it may look like when the final thing is finished. They sort of say what target audience they are going for and how really try to engage their audience by taking what they like and challenging them with it.

4 Lions

4 Lions is very interesting film to me for a few reasons. One would be that it’s set in Sheffield England which is near to where I come from; two is that the characters are all Muslims that become suicide bombers and finally... everything I said.  It just seems like a funny concept when you put it that way. It’s completely hilarious along the way. They all eventually turn out to get materials which allow them to make explosives. They then try to decide on what to use these explosives for.

There’s one scene where the explosives are in bags and they are trying not to drop the bags and bring them safely home without getting caught. In which one guy who is friends with of the Muslims throws one of the bags left behind and it’s either catch it or be killed, and it’s things like that which get in the ways and make the film funny.  It actually ends up with them attacking the London Marathon with them dressing up as existing characters such as a mutant turtle and the honey monster, thing is they have the bombs strapped around them all. Earlier in the film they are shown trying not to get caught in which they eat their SIM cards out of their phones simply because they are electronic and can be tracked. Later on the during the marathon however they get themselves into all kinds of trouble, I can’t help but think that the film was inspired all the crap you see on TV where foreigners are threatening to bomb places etc, which is wrong but it sort of based on that but it shows how we mostly stereo type these people in exact similar ways and they aren’t all like this.

The ending however was quite surprising, I thought it would of ended in the way of getting what they actually want but I didn’t quite understand that they wanted to become suicide bombers? It actually all ends up with them all dying, but the way they all die is made funny and it’s okay to laugh at all of them because it obviously not real. One guy eats the other guys SIM card and then when he starts t choke on it someone attempts to help him bring it back up but when he grabs hold of him and squeezes, it sets the bomb off and all you see is this mutant ninja turtle head come falling down. One of them and to quote the words says: “he fell over a sheep and exploded”, it’s just so funny all the way through and has that great British comedic sense of humour about it which I like. I felt kind of unfair that they all died in the end, two of them are brothers and one of them dies while in a restaurant but the thing is because the other brother has had his SIM card eaten he can’t contact the other brother, and so it ends with the older brother jumping into a local boots store and exploding to death, again even for the final death and ending to show it still managed to be funny.

It’s a good comedy but it sort of shows you the kind of things these people go through I thought besides all the comedy, I was well done and I would put it near the top of best films I’ve seen, I think one of the biggest things in this is that you become connected to the characters in which I’ve previously talked about before, talking about how you become connected to the personalities of the characters and the things they get up to and even the environments they are in, such as a certain scene were they in Pakistan hiding from helicopters hovering above and firing rocket launchers into the middle of nowhere , having no knowledge of how to properly use the equipment, causing disasters and getting themselves into more bother. Just brilliant!

Dark City

Dark City, well I think we all know what I’m going to say about this one... It’s another dark and gloomy science fiction, so basically I might as well just say “read what I thought about Blade Runner”.

But it wasn’t so bad; it’s about a guy who has this group called ‘the strangers’ after him. Murdoch (main character) has some sort of power that allows him to do stuff like make doors appear to that of what the strangers have. Basically he’s being chased over several murders that he didn’t commit. Basically what happens is that Murdoch finds out that he’s form a place called Shell Beach and wants to get there in hope of finding answers etc but he can’t because no one knows how to get there even though it appears on a map of the city. I think this is due to the strangers scrambling everything when they keep stopping time etc, the thing is Murdoch isn’t affected by this because he has the same powers as the strangers but it becomes increasingly frustrating.

He wants to get back to his wife etc but he then finds out that the city is surrounded by nothing but space. The strangers use his own memories of which he doesn’t have suffering from amnesia, but using them to track him down. Murdoch eventually takes on the strangers takes on the strangers and uses his powers to bring him back to Shell Beach and meet his wife.

Yes it is a very strange and weird film, but that’s what makes it unique. From what I’ve heard the setting for the film was inspired by the work of Edward Hopper. It does capture that feel of America I thought and turns it into a whole believable world or city in this case. It’s like as if Edward Hopper has already done the concept Art for the setting of this movie and all they needed to do was plan it out where everything is going to be how it’s going to and also what they are going to have for each scene. It’s quite clever; we’re always talking about nicking ideas of what other people have done and making them into our own thing and what better example of it. Personally I always try to stay away from these miserable looking films and games that are dark and what not but I didn’t think it was bad; it had a good story to it and they managed to create this whole believable world which I liked.

I talked before about how were not ever really rewarded watching a film but this comes a long and the entire movie is pitch black throughout it until the very end we get to see this beautiful beach setting, it’s as if all the way through you want Murdoch to reach Shell Beach, the place he grew up in but you don’t get it, so the story sort of sets itself up on him gaining the power to bring down the strangers and getting what he once had back, it’s quite simple and effective whereas most films over complicate stuff with mind games etc trying to make you think more. The names of the strange too such as Mr. Hand and Mr. Book, that’s pretty simple and effective to, wouldn’t you say?

The Others

‘The Others’ is set in Britain which is always nice to see. It’s about a woman and her kids living in an old house with history about it. The daughter starts to see a small boy around the house and the mother is convinced that it’s not true. However the woman (Grace) hears strange things going on like the piano being used when there’s no one visible she can see. She thinks it’s something unholy and needs the house to be blessed in order to get rid of it. The daughter however starts to scare her brother with this unknown small boy called victor. The three servants that enter the house at the start of movie, to me seemed suspicious. We find out that both children cannot be exposed to light, only weak light such as candles thus they must live in complete darkness for the rest of their lives. However the old woman (one of the three servants) says to grace that if you don’t expose them to it ever, then you’ll never know it’s cured or not. I couldn’t help but think this was used in a way of purposely putting the children in more danger. The kid’s sort of question Grace’s beliefs at the start of the movie, Grace doesn’t believe that ghosts exist etc and she doesn’t like the fact that her kids think they could exist. Grace then starts to think ghosts could be around and tries to find the graves of people that previously lived in the house, but the servants cover the graves up. That scene however is done in the way of they are purposely doing or that it was a mistake.

The servants become more and more suspicious all the way through. The curtains in covering all the windows in the house however are one day removed but the thing is the old woman servant says that, that is what might happen proving to Grace they can’t be trusted and thus kicking them out of the house. There is a part of the film where Grace finds a photo of people who previously lived in the house but died, the three people appearing on it are the three servants. At which point you think okay they are ghosts then, but if they are how can Grace and the two children see them? The children however run away at one point to find their father who at one point was with them when Grace found him in the middle of the woods trying to get the house blessed by the priest. The father however seems dead from the start, he doesn’t hardly or even say anything at all as far as I recall which I was weary of at first. Whilst in the woods the kids are confronted by the servants at which ultimately proves there’s something wrong with them. The start chasing the children back to house, what I found hilarious about all this is that Grace every time throughout the movie is constantly using a shot gun as protection, but that is only because she doesn’t believe that they are ghosts and that only find out right at the end that they are ghosts themselves as the children discover there’s a group of people in the house acting as mediums to get answers from the ghosts inside the house which is Grace and the two children.

In the end everything is just to find out that they killed themselves and the purpose of the servants is to tell them this and realise they are the ghosts. It’s kind of weird however; I’m a believer in ghosts myself and feel like what it would be to be a ghost. They’ve put in a perspective of humans and ghosts cannot see each other and basically both are scared of one another. It’s quite cleaver I think and it ends by the daughter standing by the window watching the family that is there move out and being exposed to the light which isn’t effecting the children at all. It’s odd when in the past I’ve seen these types of creepy things happen on TV etc like séances and it puts in into a way of how one may think it’s being conducted as the children whisper into their ears telling those reasons why they are here and answering questions...  I’d never try a séance however...