crit

being tech lead as given me the best oppertunity to crit other peoples models and texturing and im glad i have this role as seeing peoples mistakes has made me a better modeler and all round game atest. i now make sure my models are as good as they can be all the way down to xform and pivot position. this job ive been given also has geared me up better for the industry i knwo for a fact i st pivots and xforms of my models correctly and my naming conventions have improved alot i understand what its like for a techy in the industry to get a badly named model and badly named textures and it has made me change greatly. but this has made me think that in our course we should have atleast one module on an engine or a simple lesson so people get to know what its like for example we all create a model and then give that model to a totel stranger and they have to import that model and then crit each other on problems and such. it would be a great way to get everyone naming and setting models correctly.

back to criting i think from looking at other peoples work i have also learnt a few new techniques that helped me out for example looking at jp's roots i learnt a nice way of creating low poly cracks which i worked into one of my models. not only did this improve my model it also matched his and they worked well together. also from this project i have learnt the value of art direction, colour pallets and communication is key to a good level, due to my problems with the unreal engine i have had to be house bound and not really spoken to my group which has added stress and slowed down the group immensly and i would like to appologise for this also the stress has caused me to lash out a few times as making these models and spending so much time on them has caused me to act as if the blockout was my baby in some way and that is the reason i was unreasonable to a class mate over a certain blockout and i would also like to appologise for that, (they know who they are)
linking back to a previouse blog i.e. my last i have found that i dnt mind working in a group anymore my oppinion of class mates is actualy improved some what, i now find i like working in groups i just get stressed of this godamn engine.

working in a group

this project we are on at the moment is great in the ways of interacting and helping each other improve but the main thing i have learnt from this project is how much i hate taking orders from people as most people have probably guessed, taking orders from someone who has never been in the industry or had no experience is a very fustrating as alot of the time you find that the work you have been given to do is not of that high importance or the assets have been porly distributed. You would thing this project would teach us how to work in a group as if you were in the industry but frankly i disagree as most of the time people in your group are either not as good as you or you feel you could do much better than your leader as they are not big shots in the industry and you do not have any respect for there disitions or there judgement, it is quite depressing at ties to find out the ideas and direction your group is going towards is terrible or just not coherant. most of the time i find myself wanting to do the whole project on my own or with my friends i live with as i know we could do so much better for example if i told my brother his work was shit he would instantly change it and take my advice but if i told someone that in my group i would more than likely be egnored which brings me back to the lack of respect. being led around by someone you find to be a terrible leader can lead to many places one of the best things i could get out of this is i would learn to respect peoples opinions even if i dont agree with them but the main thing i think im going to get out of this is a low grade and hatred of my fellow workers. i hope that will not be the case but it seems iam already there. most of the time im waiting for models to put into the engine and when i get them i have to put them all together i have to export them import them and there textures creat the file directories and create the materials attach the materials edit textures in some cases i had to fix problems to meshes because i didnt have the patience or the time to send them back and waite days before i got them back again. iam still wating for models that should of been textured and ages ago yet i have heard nothing also i have to create texture light the blockout and place the ill sized models into the blockout to be honest i feel like im not part of the group anymore, iam just a drone taking there work and putting it in te engine im like the end of the assembly line, one good thing though, iam in control of the blockout so i get last say and get to make the major portion of the level so all in all the level is mine to control, i control lighting position i even control size and scale weather effects textures atmosphere iam god!

the ultimate in bad games

i havn't blogged for a while but the thing that has managed to bring me back to my love of blogging is a game most people of my age dont play because it is meant to be played by 10 year olds and this game is spyro. its the newest of the games and quite fankly the worst. the game play is terrible the camra angles are worse the controls suck and even the texturing isnt great you can even see were they have put colour burn and dodges to vary the plain textures. also i was on a part just rescently were i have to climb up a wall by lighting candles to flip rocks around to the safe flat landing area but i have two problems with this. one spyros controls make it so he is in control of weather i slowly land nicly on the platform or sail nicely to my death in slow motion. also there is this one move wwere spyro goes in slow mo to do a more damaging attack but he goes in slow mo every fu**ing time and its so boring anoying and most of all its SLOW!! jesus christ i spend most my time waiting for him to get out of slow mo i might aswell go make tea while he finnishes his show off move.., there is even more... after a grueling task of crap gameplay and bad controls i finaly get thru a section to a boss but its ok fine nothing wrong with it just a standard boss but.. i have to do this for each element and every boss looks the same except a different fricking colour... i know this is for children but i would be suprised if it kept the intrest for a 5 year old for 5 seconds and failing that i wouldnt be supprised if the child gave up cuz its godamn hard. i cant recal the amount of times i had to replay sections because spyro thought it would be great to fly of the end of a cliff. usless little purple dragon. i just have one more thing to say... die spyro die dont make another one of these games even if it looks nie with higher texture quality and normal mapping to take over the bad colour burn n dodges i c before me now!.

in the first year of uni i hated doing these blogs as we were basicly forced to write about what we were told well thats what i though but now i love writing them because we have so much range and freedom, i still felt ill wen i was writing my first one but now i feel fine. im glad we do not have to do essays (thank you mike one big thumbs up) i hated essays thats one of the reasons i loved being artistic, back in school i hated every lesson except tech (which was graphics) and art, everything else seemed a waste of time to me except maths that was fun because i was reasonably good at it, infact it was my best grade(A) we had these 2 brainy kids in my year both of which were in my art class and did graphics aswell, which put alot of pressure on everyone in the class to do better and thats part of the reason iam here ive always loved drawing and after beating them in gsce art grades it was settled i would go do some form of college art course, then everything led from there went to college got the best grades possibel 3 destinctions but it was all down to my life drawing that got me in but it was due to my grades in school and college that gave me the confidence and the knowlege to want to learn more.

if found something very weird about me rescently, ive slowly de-learnt to spell over the years, its not because im getting more stupid its because im getting more lazy, i found most of the problems is to do with msn, writing fast is important as you writing as if you were speaking and we all know theres not that many people out there that can type fast, on the spelling side of things i just miss spelt "writing" i spelt it with a "gh" that word is so simple yet i forgot without even knowing it and to spell it right would of been alot faster, i may even be dislexic. Before college and uni i didnt know much of dislexia because i never really encounted many people who have it but after going through college and especialy uni i have realised most artistic people are dislexic for example my tutor alot of my friends are and i think having this problem is not nessecerily a bad thing it makes you strive to do better artisticly because the more academic things are alot harder to express yourself in. ive found i can explain things faster through drawing rather than speach this is evident in alot of people i know, how many times have you been wanting to explain something but wish you had a pen and paper but dont and as a result just give up trying.

rituals

due to this holiday i have finally realised the imporntance of surroundings in work, being comfortable not being distracted even the position of my drawing board to my computer, i now spend a good 15 minutes setting up to do work i even find myself positioning my work so it can be seen from my door so as to make people look at it and give me advice on it, for drawing i always need my computer next to me at about 45 degrees to my drawing bpard and below my drawing board i need my pencils and water colours in easy reach this is to speed up work flow, as everything is in arms reach then i always spend about 10 minutes looking at my last drawing to see were i want to gofrom there. so all this even before i pick up a pencil. i wonder if anyone else has similar types of rituals they go through before work?

to be honest i dont want to be writing this post i should be in bed asleep due to being ill also my sleeping patterns are so messed up i get up at 6pm n go to bed at 6 am i havnt seen light in 3 days. all these problems are making it so hard to get work done, don't get me wrong ive done some but no where near as much as i should have by now its been 3 - 4 days of no work cuz i dnt have the strength to get up i dnt even have strength to eat but im going to try my best with the time i have got left on this holiday no matter how hard it is to get up. to be honest getting up out of bed is hard for me normally and getting to the point of actually doing work is even harder.. iam so inundated with work it is hard to see this day as a holiday, my brothers in scotland so im also alone, im used 2 having constant critacism but because he is nto here the only person that can crit my work is me and no matter what people say about learning to self crit you never do it accuratly, for example if you have an idea in your head and you draw it you fill in the gaps with your mind to make the drawing work like there is supposed to be pattern on the dress but you know what its going to look like but an outsider looking in wouldnt kniw that and the whole drawing would lose meaning. thats enough of a rant i think.

some images of my murderer/zombie character i don't think im gunna have time 2 rig and pose him but it would be fun if i could, the best part of this project was cutting my brothers character head off and covering it with blood. i prefer my work on his head 2 mine

creativity

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_creativity.html

i was browsing the net and came across this web page devoted to quotes and i was reading through them an i came across a few i realy liked one is

Arthur Koestler:

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

this quote stood out for me because of the many times we have been told in lessons we should be learning for ourselves and how learning max is best to be self taught and it also reminded me of a random thought i have when anyone is explaning something, for example if a tutor is showing you someone elses work to explain how to do the task then that idea he used as an example becomes void, thats why i hate it when examples are used. It also seems to me that if you cant come up with an idea from a word without guidence then you shouldn't be wasting your time doing a creative course. i prefer to be left in the dark about a task and work my way up untill i have an idea as that way gives more room for originality and creativity. its the hard work and lack of guidence which forces the mind to work for that goal.

Linus Pauling:

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

this is another quote i like because its exactly what was drilled into me at college and its what i try and use for my drawing all the time, create as much as possible and there is bound to be that one thats good, you just have to search through the junk to find the ideas worth developing.

Marie Antoinette:

There is nothing new except what has been forgotten.

i chose this quote because i just love its simplicity, everything has been done before in some way, shape or form. Its inevitable to have similarity's in work its the people that can admit that and move on to develope that idea that are truly creative.

drawing project

this character is based off a windmill and the mechanisms found in windmills for example his stomach is a grinder found in old fashion german mills this is the same for his feet. he is made up of wooden cogs and beems and they are heled together by the moss.

this is another version iam working on it encludes a background and the light source but they are not finnished yet

unreal creativity

rescently ive been working on the unreal 3 engine to get used to the up to date engines for next gen. ive been putting different models that ive made during lessons into the engine mainly my self portrait. Ill start with saying the procces of getting models into the viewers is simple, there is no back water exporter and converters like the Stupid half-life 2 engine, theres no errors no problems no down sides. just export import sort out a few texture files and bobs your uncle DONE! now to me that is real genious because i beleve most of the engines that are out there were made hard to use on perpose just to pi** off the modding comunity but then i discovered unreal :), which made other engines look like a mess of code left over from the programs developed for vending machines. they have realy created this engine for the creative mind, they have realised that most people out there do not have a degree in computer science or programing and do not want to be searching the web for little bits on how to create a .qc file for hl2 modles. the world today has become so much more open to creative and artistic people its amazing how easy it is to be creative compared to a few years ago. now people have freedom to express themselves and experiment with things, most if not all of this is down to a little known thing as the internet it has helped the world evolve, without it people would of realised there are other people out with similar passions yeah sure there could be that kid round the corner who likes to paint games workshop models with you but with the internet the scale is much more vast and open finding new creative ways to express yourself is so much more broader. Without the internet there wouldnt be a moding community so most of the creative talant in the industry would never of been recognised for example the creators of counter-strike, they wouldnt be working for valve if it wasnt for the internet. we all should be thankful we live in a world with so much freedom.
now off that random thought ill show my model in the unreal3 engine.

prop for my model

choosing my prop wasn't hard because its sitting next to my desk were i work, this also made it easier to create as i have the item with me all the time so i have reference and can easily take texture photos of it. But even though i had it easy i didn't take any reference photos i modeled it all just by looking then slaped a quality photographed texture on it, even the amps texture isnt a photograph of my amp its one from google. Even though i cut corners creating it, it still came out reasonably well and looks exactly like the real thing apart from the straight low poly lines.
ALL HAIL CHAMFER BOXES!!

me

this is my model of me before texturing. After finding out the true poly-budget i had to strip my model of about 300-400 tri's, which didn't change the models looks at all. most of the tri's were taken from the face especially around the back of the head, which you can't see at the moment.
what also helped me create this model easier was my hair covers my ears so i didnt have to waste poly's on them and the final thing making my model easy to create was the simple hair, which became simpler after i deleted poly's.




















this is my model textured. It took me a while to get the shirt to line up well on my model as it had lines across it. The face was quite easy for me to get right as most of my facial features were modeled in 3D so the texturing just added to the realism, the major facial feature that made my model look like me is the nose as i modeled it to be wonky as i have a brocken nose due to an unfortunate event at a nightclub. But this added to the characteristics of my model.



here are some images of my 3D model self portrait rigged. iam liking it so far yet im not liking much of the rigging and posing i can never seem to get it right, after a few attempts i should be fine. this model was the first attempt, i just opened it up and it looked like this. I found out it was to do with the rigid selection. some parts of my model were rigind and some wre not so it skewed the deformable ones around .

creative attire

I was stuck on what to write for this blog entry until a few days ago when it came to that special day known as Halloween. It was on that day I realised something about creativity, creativity is everywhere it is even in people who are not necessarily aloud to be creative due to work or course they are taking. Even though they have no creative input they seem to explode in creative ideas towards there attire on that day. When creativity is suppressed for to long these people seem to explode at the slim chance of being creative, as if they are a child that has been denied sweets and finally gets a lollypop after so many years of withdrawal. The consequences of this is some what hilarious. Peoples imagination can go wild when competition is involved, what many people will probably say is not true is that yes , people do compete to have the best costumes and in turn the best creative mind, but some people, obviously the people who are forced to be or are born creative stray away from this type of brawl as they compete on a daily basis to be creative, so use this time just for fun. This was evident at my houses Halloween get together as a few of my mates I.e. Dale, Danny, O’Brien, Carter and Pete dressed up in bin bags for fun. There was no attempt at being the best they did just for a laugh.

once upon a time i had no ideas for drawing or anything i was bored out of my mind so i decided to go around lesta for ideas i took my brother and 2 cameras and we went to a few places first was a railway yard around the corner from our house.
we went looking for ideas for characters interior and exterior spaces, well almost everything we recorded anything that might of been useful.






this picture i thought looked like a character with the hands streched out forward and i thought i could try and develope this which i have and will eventualy be seen. ive finnished it and i like it very much, its a sort of creature made of old dry twigs and branches, it gave me an unusual idea for a game which was.... those things you see out of the corner of your eye, shadows and strange shapes the ones movie makers use to creat atmosphere and tension i.e. tapping of a tree on a window that is sort of shaped like a hand, well i thought of taking this and the things that turn out to be you imagination were actually creatures. its not been developed but i may work more into it just an idea at the moment.

these are more pictures from the same are i thought the change in paint on different surfaces could be useful.









after this we went to a factory which we did not think we could get into but the door was wide open and it was great. the atmosphere was awsome and the lighting looked really creepy. the place looked small when we went in but when we left and came back we realised we had missed a door and this door was like a portqal because it led into multiple rooms and another floor the place was larger than we had first anticipated it was MASSIVE!





























after this we went to another place down the river but i have not loaded the pictures up yet so i will save them for later

well to be honest i loved every part of this course from the drawing and modeling to the workshops i am a bit annoyed that i missed the last workshop and i hope i can re do that next year.
next year i would love to see Photo shop tutorials and some for of creative writing/ storytelling as i would like to further my skills in art with words as well as pictures. i would also like to go with the group to things similar to the GDC and have a blogging session on it or go to any type of useful exhibitions as we've bin to an artist exhibition now i would like to see the games world with class mates to enjoy it with. again GDC WOULD BE GOOD! i like nearly every conference they had on except i do not really enjoy serious games as i came into thiscourse wanting to make fun games that people would want to play over and over and maybe even fix problems with some of the games out today, i wouldn't find serious games fun therefore i wouldn't be passionate.

gdccoference proceedings

Your task this week is to find something of interest in the conference proceedings, and write a small piece around it.

i was looking through all the confrences and i came across alot which i would love to go to many of which would help my knowledge on games and game making. for example i realy want to see the future of storytelling as this has become some what weak in many games titles to the point where we're seeing a lot of repetition. and fankly im getting board there is only a few new and wonderous ideas coming out and i want to see the confrences views on sequals whether they see them as money making scemes weakened by the past success and the inevitable weaker second part i.e. ff10 part 2 or as new ideas ready to be developed into that last chance 3rd title that almost never works. story telling in games keeps us hooked theres no doubt about it. this is the reason i do not play ff11, yes it does have a storyline and its supposed to be realy good but getting there is a nightmare you need to reach maximum level and get parties with other online players who are not guarenteed to be there, to pass one little stage. i mean talk about time consuming.

one of the major conferences i would love to go to is the motorstorm conference because itdelves in to a the technical physics of next gen something im truly pashionate about, physics is what i love about games these days it used to be if something is in a scene you couldn't do much to it unless it was part of the story line but now things like cups and chairs can be moved, one thing i feel makes games look more real is if they have those little things we take for granted in real life. if we take something for granted in the real world, to get that sence of reality we need to take it for granted in the game world.

in short i probably would get some one to record the confrences i cant go to just so i could get a glimpse of them all. they all seem useful and exciting.

'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.