Year 2 - Week 10 - December 5th - 9th

Oh dear... oh dear... the reason for not having a third ‘oh dear’ is because our blogs were not marked, so if you’re not in for hearing a huge rant from me please leave this blog now!

You maybe have guessed it; I did worse than my realistic prediction on the assessment. Yet again the harsh reality as I like to call it has slapped me in the face, not only that but it has kicked me while I’m down again to.

To start off, Game Production... well I said in my last entry that wasn’t hoping for a really good grade due to the lack of personal work which would let me down. There’s a million and one things wrong with my treasure chest and trash projects.  It’s all pretty much down to detail with the geometry and the specular and normal maps and the finished outcomes not resembling the references. I guess in that sense we really don’t have any leeway in Imagineering in our work, which I thought we could do. One thing that sticks out is how in my design document I have apparently said I thought that both the treasure chest and trash projects were challenging and difficult. I remember saying that I thought maybe the legs to the treasure COULD have been challenging as I have no experience in using the pelt mapping modifier in max and I thought it COULD have been difficult...

 As for the trash box project I said that this project seems a little too easy, because we’re basically just modelling boxes, I mean what’s so difficult about that? I said that I wanted to ADD a bit of COMPLEXITY to the project because it just seems too easy... in which I went about it by doing things like not making the bin square, by not just modelling a box, make it so it’s bending and worn etc but that’s the only thing I could think of to be honest. My shapes are ‘rudimentary and crude’ well okay I just wanted to get the models done without using unnecessary triangles, isn’t the whole point to be as low poly as you can get? Basically I need to just add more detail, my overall mark was 35 which is the exact score I got last year and failed the module, I’m not far off though to say I knew I wasn’t going to get a really good grade.

Visual design... well as I’ve been saying I’m finding the time to do extra but what pisses me off is that the personal work that I’ve done was NOT taken into account at the assessment. I failed because I haven’t completed all the work given to us, I know that but it would have been nice if maybe my work could have been looked at and not just scanned through briefly. Again like the previous assessment I’ve been told that I’ve improved and again done a lot MORE yet my grade remains the same. What pisses me off even more is the fact that it’s NOT marked properly...

A brief scan through our work and line drawn the middle of the inadequate box. The same old story as last time. I’m not down about it though; I actually smiled when I saw it, I’m use to it...

I mean thing is, okay so I’m inadequate even though I’ve given it a 110%, but it’s the fact that how on a brief scan of my work can you assume my research, technical skill, artistic judgement and my engagement and attendance are inadequate to? What to me is a CLEAR OUTSTANDING example or poor marking is the fact my attendance is inadequate, even though I’ve NOT missed a SINGLE class... 

Okay so maybe it’s based on half attendance and half engagement, but if by what it says is based on that then I know for a fact it’s a complete lie. So maybe don’t like to engage with other during class, I’ve always been that way, and who says you have to have engagement, it’s my life and my life choice, if I don’t want to then why should that effect my education? The point is if it’s based half on engagement and half attendance then I should be at ATLEAST a good on the feedback sheet? 

I don’t what specifically sure what is meant my relevance , and I don’t know about technical skill or what others think of my Artistic judgement but attendance FOR SURE SHOULD be at least better than inadequate.

The one thing that REALLY confused me and pissed me off was that the first thing I was told in my visual design review was, and I quote ‘I know you’re struggling’................................

Who said that they know I’m struggling? I’m not struggling at all... I don’t feel like I am and have never said OR felt like I am this whole first semester... I don’t honestly know where that’s come from at all... It is if anything a FALSE assumption of me and as if it’s made to make me feel worse about the work I’m producing? Not to name any names but one of my close friends was also told the same thing? Where is this struggling thing come from all of a sudden? NOT only that but to be told that visual design is NOT my strongest part of the course and then give me a bad grade? It’s as if they were trying to make me feel depressed...

I did NOT pay all this money to come to University for people to sit there and make FASLE assumptions of me and tell me my attendance and even my work relevance is ‘inadequate’ when I know that it’s NOT. I came to get a degree and to hopefully one day achieve the dream job I’d like, like everyone else. It’s out of order.

Coming back to the task where we were asked on how to improve the course, well it’s a fantastic course but the inaccurate marking of the work is what let’s it down in my opinion.

Semester 1 Thoughts

The dreaded assessments are coming up shortly so I thought I’d take the time to write up some of my thoughts on the work I have done so far. Going back to week 1 at Abbey Park, we were taught about how you can use colour swabs to create images.

My final piece I thought turned out well thought there are ways in which I could have improved it. I used a limited colour palette for it, it was amazing to see what I managed to create out of those colours alone. I would say the bushes in the background are maybe not that fitting as I have trouble with rendering trees and foliage. I spent a lot of time on it as I have found I spend a lot more time when I work digitally.

My Loughbrough final took way too long to finish. I sketched out the scene I wanted for the final but found when applying colour and all the detail it took a lot longer than it should of. None the less I’m happy with the outcome.

My dinosaur work could have turned out a lot better, with this I thought that it showed in my prep work that my rendering had improved a little but for the final the background is letting it down. The thing was the background behind the dinosaur head was pretty much blank, I think looking back on it I could have brought more of the lighting and depth to it.

Besides hating Bradgate I thought my final for this turned out well. It’s an oil painting (still waiting to dry) which I would like to do more oil paintings as I quite enjoy it. I thought I should challenge myself with this one and face my fear of landscapes and trees all in one. Despite hating this kind of thing I thought the final outcome turned out well, you could say that maybe it’s a bit abstract?

Vehicle designing was a very interesting project. Once I started drawing down ideas, more and more started to come about to. I did a white box model of what I imagined the final finished thing to look like once I had sketched down all my ideas. I like problem solving through drawing, I thought in the early stages of this the vehicle that is made to work in water was maybe a little too big in which I changed it by process of sketching down new ideas. Would be good to know if it would actually work, I mean it should?

More Imagineering with the war of the world’s project. I thought that this was pretty similar to the vehicle project in how we need to draw ideas down and develop them. I went through a process of coming up with ideas of the final design using an 8x8 grid which helped. I wanted something quite scary, I wanted to create one idea I had drawn down but finished up creating an edited version of it as things started to change when modelling the thing with wire and sculpy.

Urban work was very nice to do, drawing the built environment was something I wanted to do more this year but haven’t found much time to go out and do that. Why I liked it so much is because it allowed me to use my knowledge of perspective, especially one point perspective which I like and I was able to take the blocky visual elements of the streets and buildings into my work. Like I say I could draw the built environment all day I was able to find a street with elements in it I like, it even has a tree in the scene, which is taking a risk by my standards!

Overall I think it’s been a good semester. I’ve tried to keep up to date with all my work and done some extra work on top of everything. The only thing I think that I’ll be let down by in the assessment is that I never had the time to finish my personal project for Game Production, I haven’t done enough work in that module. In visual design I’ve tried keeping up to date and done extra still life work and a piece of fruit each week which I quite happy with but feel that I could of done more. I found that in doing personal work it kind of interferes with the mandatory work but I’m managing my time to do it. In my blog I’ve done my best to get the tasks done and write up about my own work and do extra personal work on things like games that interest me. I was criticised last time for not adding no images or links in my blog which I have attempted to do more of this time around.

For the assessment I am hopeful of:

Game Production – Adequate, Visual Design – Good, Blog – Excellent.

Like I say I can’t see anything better than an adequate in Game Production because of the personal work. Hoping for at least a good in visual design but I don’t know if that’ll happen and maybe I’m pushing my Blog a little there?

I think realistically, I predict:

Game Production – Inadequate, Visual Design – Adequate, Blog – good/very good?

Is what I’ll get but we’ll see…

Year 2 - Week 9 - November 28th - December 02nd

It’s all about Interior design this week. Being asked to redesign the 9^th floor for our course can either be easy or hard, personally I have a few ideas but I would have just preferred to draw an interior at home. It’s been another Imagineering project on top of another lately, with the vehicle, War of the Worlds, Mortal Engines and now this… I’m putting ideas down on paper but kind of struggling to visualise it in action. I’m thinking I want to re-design the Game Art seminar room however, basically I’m think of designing a room similar to the Queens building seminar we use for films and guest lectures, only difference is that this is a lot smaller than that, probably about 1/4^th of the size and the ideas are still in practise as of now. But we’ve never done something like this so it’s interesting looking inspirational ideas for interior design. I imagine this is what we’ll have to do with the group projects coming up next month, designing each room so it’s as if it’s getting us prepared for it.

Lately I’ve been drawing a lot of still life, in what I call my perspective ‘sketchbook’. I’ve been setting up still life objects to draw daily and found that it is coming along quite well; I’ve done quite a few as far. Basically I’m using it as not just for 12 hours self-directed study but also primarily to try and improve my rendering ability. Back in College I remember looking at the work of Giorgio Morandi, were he would paint bottles and other still life objects but not the labels stuck on the sides of them.

 
Naura Morta - Giorgio Morandi (1929)

Still Life with Cups and Boxes (1951)

My style of drawing is will differ from the next person like it does with everyone, the way I see it is that the labels that come on household object such as boxes etc. are not necessary, the way I see is that they aren’t needed because they don’t add anything to the image which is why I like to draw the basic shapes of the objects in perspective then add the lighting in. It feels more ‘cleaner’ and ‘neater’ if you will just like Morandi’s work. I found that the style in which I draw in is quite similar to Morandi’s, he proves that all the detail is that necessary in an image. I personally struggle with drawing logo’s etc. and can’t copy them quite accurately, his style lets you forget about all that, because it’s not always about how much detail you can put in, sometimes you can find yourself getting so caught up in detail you forget the bigger picture. Morandi himself explored composition, placement and different shapes and forms these everyday objects provided as well as lighting.

http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/still_life/morandi/giorgio_morandi.htm

I’ve also been using the still life to explore composition more also, something I talked about a couple of weeks ago but also something we talked about this week to. I’m trying to set up the still life in a way that I can put the horizon line about 3/4ths of the way up the page but also try to use the rule of thirds so that the placement of the object on the desk isn’t just dead in the centre of the image. If I stand the desk in which the objects are placed on against the corner of the room I can use the lighting of the wall to define the hard edge of the objects I’m drawing, it also allows me a wide viewing angle in which I pick a spot to sit and then draw the object itself which is placed in position so it matches up with the horizon line.

Cicular Still Life

Still Life Box 

It can sound confusing, and it is, composition is still something I’m trying to master, but I feel like I’m slowly but surely getting better at it.

Below

Like Identity, Below was similar in ways. In Identity we looked at the environment and how we can try to make use of a limited area. That film is set in one motel; this film is set in one submarine. It’s similar in the ways of how in Identity the characters were practically stranded in the motel overnight, whereas this one the character cannot leave the submarine unless the want to be killed and be in the middle of nowhere in the ocean. Basically like Identity they are trying to make use of the environment since it is just limited to one submarine with different various rooms scattered around. What is again similar to Identity is that it’s basically a horror film thus the same kind of events take place such as people being attacked and mysterious things happening all the way throughout the film, it was kind of like watching an ‘Identity 2’ in honesty.

The ways it was different however was that the characters are on a mission to rescue survivors, whereas in Identity the characters just need to somewhere to stay overnight as the rain outside is causing flooding, though however I guess you can compare and say it is similar… Similar in the fact that in both situations you can say that it’s dangerous to go outside and then you can say it’s dangerous inside in both situations to… In Identity there is someone going around killing everyone and in Below there is a ‘ghost’ of some sort doing pretty much the same. It’s quite interesting, it’s as if both films have a similar plot but just set in different environments.

Enough of the story though, I thought that this film had good visuals, it’s set underwater all the way through until the final scene , so you expect to see a lot of blue and dark tones of colour throughout. Blue was definitely the most common colour in the film. The odd yellow, green, white, black and grey popping up to and a bit or red. It feels as if every film we watch has the same sort of colour palette.

It’s not until the final scene you sort of get a relief of seeing the same things over and over, but the idea of the whole film set in one location is great and they again like Identity made use of the different areas they were limited to. I’ve never heard of a World War II horror film before so it was nice to see a sort of different side or ‘idea’ if you like brought about the World War in this film.

I don’t know but to say it was supposed to be set back in the 1940’s, it just didn’t feel like it to me, it all seemed a bit to modern but however they captured the sense of fear and danger of being in a war and underwater very well and the ‘ghost’/horror side to it and the costumes they are wearing added to that feel very well I thought.

LockStock - Revisted

Last year I wrote more about the story of Lock Stock rather than the Art and development side. After watching it again, this time around I started to see things I missed before. In terms of Art direction it had a strong use of yellow tones throughout, thrown in with a mixture of greys and browns, the odd red and green lighting to but one thing I noticed was how blue kept popping up again and again. Not just blue lighting but I noticed how the characters tended to wear colour quite often.  

The characters are great, the way they act the way they are dressed says it all about them. The really captured the feel of what more modern gangs of London are like. Similar to L.A. confidential, when I talked about how the characters seem to just float onto the stage, in this film the actors seem to barge their way onto the stage with a strong sense of character. What I mean is everyone in the film comes on as ‘I am everything, give me what I want or you’re dead’ attitude.  Almost every character we see is dressed in a smart uniform, carrying a dangerous weapon, with a no-nonsense attitude towards everyone and they all have that deep typical London accent, it makes you scared off visiting London.

I remember saying last time that everything in the movie is about money, guns, drugs, respect and women, which it pretty much is from start to finish. It has a fear factor added to it by this but it tends to soften the strong sense of fear by adding little quirky jokes in quite a lot. There are two characters from the north that are kind of like the jokers throughout the film, they have a scouse accent which I feel is one of the elements of breaking up the hard core violent drama.

The streets of London a dangerous place, I think the film captures these rough streets quite well. Typical grey, dull English streets wherever you go which is where I feel the lighting plays a big role to give it some nice bright colours in the film so where not just seeing dull boring, possibly bleached colours throughout. It was kind of like watching a more extremely violent version of Eastenders, not to get into that too much, but you do even see Phil Mitchell get as angry as Vinnie Jones from the film.

I noticed how reds kept popping up to, it’s as if during the day the saturation is turned down and during the night they turn it up quite a bit. The nights are dark but lit up well which again, I think breaks up that dull feel of natural England.

Year 2 - Week 8 - November 21st - 25th

We kicked off this week by given the task of modelling our War of the Worlds Martian tripods, though I was already one step ahead as I had already finished mine. 

War of the Worlds - Alien Tripod

I knew we was going to have to model it so I got it done before the task had even been set this has allowed me to get on with other work, like my personal work and other outstanding bits I haven’t done yet. I’ve found more time to do more personal work this week and focus on my final pieces.

Coming back to the tripod though I found that when I was modelling it, something’s didn’t go as I had planned and drawn out and found myself having to redesign some of the structure of it on paper. Following this I took the time to make these adjustments on the model and I was quite happy with the outcome.

The assessments are coming up shortly and I’m nervous, I’ve been thinking about it for weeks and I get more panicky as it draws closer. I think it’s fair to say that I have done a lot more work than I had achieved this time last year and also the quality is a lot better (I believe).

LoughBrough Railway Station Final.

Christmas is just around the corner which I’m looking forward to, but it’s not all going to be fun and games as there’s work to be done. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to do a lot of personal work over the holiday break in all areas of the course. I know I probably won’t come out with amazing grades, but I am trying hard, a lot harder than last year that’s for sure. Last year I was doing the work given to us and hardly did any personal work. This year it’s a different story, I said I’m going for it and I am sticking to it. I said earlier that each week I was going to keep drawing fruit each week and also keep a sketch book or personal where I’m drawing things in perspective and I have been doing it. I’ve been placing still life object and drawing them to perspective, I want to explore perspective more however by getting out more and drawing the built environment, which I’ve done for my urban project but would like to try and do more for my personal work.

A year ago at my first assessment I was told to do more work, I took this as doing more of the work given to us not as personal work... In which I spent my Christmas re-doing everything which didn’t get me anywhere in the end as I had done all the mandatory work up to date, I did all this extra work and didn’t gain anything for it by the time I got my results in July, which I was annoyed about. I wish I had spent it doing personal work but because I miss interoperated my feedback I did it all for nothing... This is why this year I’m making sure I’m finding time for extra work, I just hope the extra work reflects in my grades...  

I want to spend this Christmas tweaking stuff and doing personal work in all the modules of the course. In 3D this week we were continuing with the Mortal Engines self portrait project, I’m doubtful that it’ll be finished by the deadline, I’m trying but I’m having the same problems that came up in the gladiator project. I’ve spent way too much time already on the head that still doesn’t look right and finding it hard to set up my camera to get good pictures of myself. I think 3 weeks on this is not long enough, considering we have to make a high and low poly version. One I’ll most likely be coming back to, I mean there’s only ONE person on our course who I know wants to be a character Artist, hardly anyone likes characters, I think it’s because they are complex to model.

Sonic Generations

Sonic Generations is an absolute must to talk about in my blog! One thing I’ve mentioned a few times in my blog is how we should take older games and give them a chance to become the game they could have never been in the past. With technology advancing, why not give them a chance to live up to their full potential? Back in the day Sonic could only be played on a console that supported 8 and 16 bit consoles until new consoles where made capable of handling better graphics. I live in the past I only tend play the old games because to me they were (in my opinion) the best, it’s the basic roots of gaming (where it all began) not just for me personally but everything started with bits. From 8bit to 16 to 32 to 64 and beyond, it all keeps advancing rapidly, we live in a world now full of HD, Blue Ray and 3D graphics. 

Modern Sonic left. Classic (better) Sonic right.

This game to celebrate Sonics’ 20^th birthday, they’ve gone back to the past and created a game where Sonic goes back in time and teams up with him classic self taking on various levels from all the different Sonic games in the past 20 years. When i first heard about all the old levels being thrown into the new game I knew I have to play it and it is simply put something I’ve been waiting for. Trying not to get caught up in the excitement of it too much what I love is that it has took level designs from 20 years ago and thrown them into the a next generation console with gorgeous 3D visual elements, kept the old style of game play and even the music to boot!

Classic 2D Green Hill Zone (Act 1)

The new modern Sonic game play is thrown in to with these old levels, so for example you can play as modern Sonic in an old level where it’s a free roaming 3D platformer but also play the classic retro style Sonic , being a 2D side scrolling level though it it’s still a 3D game.

Modern Green Hill Zone (Act 2)

Sonic has always had that cartoonish style to it, which is what I like but in recent years they have gone a bit off it in terms of Art direction, giving it a dark gloomy atmosphere everywhere which makes me feel sick (personally) and it feels as if this bright blue hedgehog doesn’t fit in with the more realistic looking environments. It’s great to see the old style back again though, they should have never changed anything in honesty, and they should’ve just kept it going the way it was until everything went 3D, it’s still good but even in the media people are slating the more newer games, but I think this game will make it in everyone’s good books this time around.

Classic 2D Chemical Plant Zone

New 3D Chemical Plant Zone

Sonic means a lot to me since it was the first game I ever played, which was the 8bit versions for the Sega Master System II and for 8 bit a lot of people would agree that its better than Sonic 06 (or Sonic 2006) for the Xbox or PS3, the game was rushed and it was horrible, a lot of things in the game don’t make sense and even the modelling in the game doesn’t make sense for example there’s a cut scene where Sonics’ hand looks bigger than his head (I’m not kidding). Why I think it’s rushed is because they wanted to release the game in time for the PS3 console release as one of the debut games, I bet they wish they spent more time on it though. Sonic 4 was the continuation from Sonic 3 which was released nearly 20 years ago and just last year it was released adding to the old series in 3D and they nailed the Art direction spot on from that, it sort of suggests the franchise is going back to its basics instead of getting way out of hand which I’ve seen in the last 10 years.

Sonic 06 (Doesn't do it for me!)

To sum up Sonic in recent years hasn’t been that good in terms of story which as you know can affect the Art in the game etc and personally I never liked it that much, but I think this game puts it right back up there with the best of Sonic. Only thing I want them to do now is to remake the all the old games one by one in 3D but I’ll have to keep dreaming for now...