'What am I going to get out of three years at University?'

well theres 2 answers to that big question 1 is qualifications a great career and oppotunities opening up which i never thought i would get. and theres the knowledge of university life growing up and becoming an official adult with the chance to do anything i want. the biggest thing iam going to get out of these three years is the understanding of the things i love; games and the games industry ive only been here a little while but my veiws and attitudes towards games and game cultures have severily changed, i now see little details in games like low poly trying to look hight poly and i do not take for granted the details in assets as i know how hard they are to make. Back when i was in college i did not know a thing so i traveled past vast peices of comutergame art thinking nothing of it, now i stop ant look especialy in games that try to impress using new technologies ad large landscapes like oblivion, on that game i traveled to the highest point and turned up veiw distance so i could see it and it looked beautiful. iam changing as a person, from a bedroom geek playing games like crazy passing storylines and art to a real game enthusiast which is a far cry from the way i was before i came here, games mean alot more to me now. i buy game that i know will not be very good just so i can rate it and see how not to make a game im also playing genres ive hated in the past as i know i may be making these in the future even though i do not like them some people do and they need to be as good as i can make them. ive looked back on what ive done in the past not just my attitudes towards games but my work and i have recently looked back at my 3D work and it helped me alot as now ive seen all my flaws and ive ironed them out for my next project which im happy to say is coming out pretty well accoring to joel(yes praise!). in the second year i will do alot better than this year testing my limits and pushig my drawing skills so i can become the best i can for the third year were i will hopefuly be a 3d and 2d master!

But what exactly is it, and how does it manifest itself? Is creativity hindered or enhanced by technical constraints? Who 'does' creativity - the art director? The artists? Programmers? Writers?

What does creativity look like? Is it in the brand identity, think Halo or HalfLife for example, or does it live in the overall experience of play? How do games manifest creativity? Graphics? AI? Gameplay? Are there any companies or individuals who seem, to you, to be particularly creative?

As an artist, or programmer, how will you show your creativity - and how would you expect it to be acknowledged by others?

Tasks:

1. dig into the web to find what other people have to say about creativity
2. write your blog entry considering the issues raised above

creativity can be known as the measure of talent or in our feild creativity could be when you make something new something not seen before thats creativity, if you can take things that exist and make something new out of it, if you can get ideas from everyday things you see all the time and make something from it you are creative. in the theasaurus creative means imaginative and furtile, to be full of ideas to think of things no other person would. imaginative people think in a completely different way to most other people they see usefull things in everything. a simple crisp packet could be part of a character in a film to a creative person.

technology helps in a big way for creativity as it makes the job so much easier and fun, i dont know what the world would be like without photoshop or even a pc, the games industry would probably not exist at all, but you could also say without creativity we wouldnt have the technology today it takes imagination and creativity to come up with things like the pc or photoshop, even a simple thing as the pencil.

you can not place a lable on who is the creative one in a games team because its the team thats creative, if you took one specialist out of the team the team will fall apart, each person is creative in there own feild and thats what makes a great game great film, great artist in genaral.

creativity is in everything. everything has thought gone into it from the carpet at your feet to the keyboard im typing this out with. without some ones imagination and creativity things may not have worked in the way they do now. the brand name and corperate identity to half-life was thought out usein the imagination of alot of creative people so yes creativity is in brand identities but it does live within' the game aswell to a larger extent as there are games out there where the brand identity was made on microsoft word and dumped on the cover, every person working on a game is creative if they weren't then there would be alot of boring buggy games out there.
every different specialist focuses on there field with there passion and creativity so there is creativity bursting out of every part of the game.

there are alot of talented and creative people out there from artists in many fields such as music painting, scientists .... my favourite musician would have to be steve vai as he can create a song from nowere on his own with a simple instrument. bacon as he can make a person look like a peice of meat and that is what we are he can perfectly describe people and objects with ease.

Some game companies want highly trained graduate artists and programmers. Some claim they really prefer creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background. They can?t both be right can they?

How can education meet these opposing views and yet provide a valid and fulfilling experience to students?

Tasks:

1. trawl the web to research more on these issues
2. write your blog entry, and discuss your findings and your personal views on this issue

these requirments are usualy specific to a certain company and these opposing veiws can only be solved in two ways either let the pupil choose which he or she prefers depending on what company she or he wants to get into or give the pupil both types of teaching. either way has good and bad points for example teaching both types makes the learner weaker in both subjects its like many things today for example on an rpg if you choose to multiclass you will be weak at both due to the deminished amount of levels for each class. this brings us to the fulfilling part as the weakening in both tpes of teaching its hardly a fulfiling course.
i feel there should be a course for each type giving a focust teaching enviornment but also a choice in which to graduate to or from my time in multimedia at college i started out doing everything you posibly could then as the second year came round i got the choice to choose which i liked most an focust on that subject my choice was 3d animation this could also be applied the try before you bye aproach.

this would be so much easier if games companies just chose poeple who were good at making GAMES not people who fit into there criteria, at the end of the day its all about the quality of games and thats it even to the corprate poeple who are just in it for the money not entertainment get money from good games so to be honest all games comanies need to do is choose skill over qualifications. if i was a qualified musicion with a certificate going up for a job against an awsome musician i would loose because at the end of the day its what comes out at the end, great music great games, great product!

ive trawled the web and magazines to find what games companies want and its skill and knoledge.. they ask for skill in programs, knowlege of games and the companies past succeses, so if your just a geek at home with no qualifications but know how to use a program or you can draw well draw well then you can get a job, just show you can work hard and your in so different teaching styles do not mean anything really just your skill and know how.

How is sound used in games? Who are some of the ket composers working in games? What are your key sonic moments in your gaming history? And is it true that the Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards composition 'Good Times' is the most influential recording made in the 20th Century?


sound brings atmosphere and tension it hightens mood and game pace, it makes a game worth playing, have you ever got to a part on halo were your a bit tired and feel like saving and quiting but then u here that feint sound in the background then it gets louder adn louder and the heavy steve via riff comes into play egging u to move on, makes you sit up and wanna squash those alien scum. i love that tune made me play that game like crazy and i loved it so much that i learned to play it on guitar. there are also tunes in games that arnt actual songs just ambient sounds which change the mod of the area especially when you pass from a large open bright safe place to an eerie dark secluded dungeon. on alot of games especialy oblivion and neverwinter nights 2 i changed some of the music files so i can go into battle with heavy metal music making me wanna bash the skulls of goblins or rip apart a low armoured archer until the musci fades away and im standing there victorious then the slow ambient music comes on after the battle calming me down and taking me out of the frenzied state of barberionism (i think u just made up a word) music can also indicate whats coming round the corner and start your adrenalin pumping for the fight ahead, for example in fear i was walkin towards a shut door and music started playing and my heart started mumping the......BANG!!... the door ripped of its hinges and a fully armoured soldier with a nail gun popped out with 2 other soldiers brandishing shjotguns, i quickly chucked on granades and burst into slow mo dodging bullets while lobbing explosives but this guy kept coming making me wish i had it on easy, all this time heavy metal music in my ears making me go crasy in slow mo as soldiers heads flew off from my shotgun bursts at point blank range. man that was exciting.

one great composer of games is steve horowitz, he has made music for sony, sega and many titles for nickalodeon like Sponge bob; Dora The Explorer; Jimmy Neutron and Joe from "Blues Clues"
kojo kondo is another great composer as he made all the well known tunes from every mario game and every zelda games.
Nobuo Uematsu, composer of the much loved Final Fantasy games series music he is so well known that all his music was played at walt disney concert hall in may 2004.

there are many composers out there alot with very good titles under there belt and alot with not so many but to see real great composition you need to check out composers from many diferent companies and many differen countries, but to be honest great composers is down to taste for example people might like the music from silent hill created by Akira Yamaoka but some may not in my opinion the music and soundtrack is one of my alltime favourites but other poeple might disagree and like music from say Sponge Bob Square Pants, its all down to taste.