Year 2 week 7

What a Character!

Turret is all done! I've completed my first solo project in my second year and I'm really happy with it, this might sound big headed but I can't wait for my peers to see it and ask me how I did so and so. I had allot of fun playing around with the particle effects and making everything look nice and shiny! I'd love to re do this project as well because now that I know how to do most of it easily I can probably get it done in 2 weeks maybe even one!

We have been told about our new project which is a character project! Yay -.- I don't really like character projects to be honest, I just don't know where to start. Also when I hear the words character project it just reminds me of being soo frustrated with modeling and rigging the topology with our gladiator from first year. The brief for the project is we can do and kinda of character and we don't have any limits such as tri count and texture budgets, but we have to make 2 characters that are completely opposite I terms of shape and personality. Straight away this has just blown everyone's mind purely because that they are giving us so much freedom it's actually scary and over whelming.  

With my life drawing, we were shown how to take the human skeleton into consideration. This week the model sat next to a skeleton with the same kinda pose. First we drew the skeleton quickly. Then we drew the model for around 30 mins this made me think more about the bones and how they work under the skin. It was almost as if I was drawing the models skeleton instead of her skin which ended up in some pretty good results.

Year 2 Week 6

Something different

I feel like with every blog I write I talk allot about my game production and tend to forget that I even have critical studies and life drawing. So this week I'm going to try and focus more on those matters.

But a quick update on the turret project, I have found my final shape and I'm busy doing some colour studies with photoshop. I'm thinking of a red, black and blue hexagon theme.

This week with life drawing was different but I loved it! We were just drawing heads, which is a area that I struggle with as well as hands. The lesson on Tuesday really helped me develope my over all understanding of the head and how it works with the rest of the body.

I'm going to be honest here and say that im not really sure what's going on in critical studies, I mean, I know we have these blogs to write but I'm not really sure what else we get marked on. On black board there are a few large writing projects for us to do but we haven't been set them yet. So currently I'm just writing this every week and attending lessons. The point I'm making it that I feel like I'm missing something. I kinda miss being dragged out in the cold wet rain to draw a building 40+ times.

Maybe I should set my own drawing projects?

Year 2 week 5

Turret project! 

We have just been set our new turret project and I'm really looking forward to this partly because it's abit of a break from working in a team and also it's pretty much our first project that we can do almost anything we like.

So the brief for this projectis pretty simple, we need to go and find an item from home to merge with another item to create a sentry gun. We have a tri limit of 5k and a texture sheet size of 1024x. I'm abit up set with the tri limit but I'm sure will provide me with challenge.

So looking around the house for some objects with a Good silhouette, I found my friends bearded dragon and my can opener. Putting these two objects was pretty fun using photoshop. I came up with 15 silhouettes that I posted up onto face and asked for feed back. And of course it have no friends so no one has yet replyied. But unfortNitly for my house mates they can't escape my company so I got some pretty good feedback.

Now I have a good shape I need to add detail and colour to my turret so I'll probably get all done by Monday which will leave me two weeks for the modeling and the texturing.

Year 2 week 4

Game Production Project 2

Film Room Post mortom

Answer the following questions and hand the sheets back to the tutor in your lesson

Team Name: HardCandy

Team Member: Johannes Coetzee

How effectively did your group work together?

I feel like our group has work well at the start as we all knew what we had to do and when to get it done by. But as time went on and it got closer to the dead line the amount of communication seemed to deaerate and it just seemed like it was me asking everyone to meet up and for work.

Did the group’s scene feel coherent and to the discussed art style?

Deciding on the art style really wasn’t the issue, the problem with the group was that everyone’s work had a different level of quality. E.g some peoples work would be high poly and well textured, where as in some other people limited them self’s far too much and ended up with poor models, even the textures were sloppy.

What do you think was your weakest stage?

Concepting / modelling / unwrapping / texturing / feedback / engine

Explain why?

The amount of feedback in the group was probably the thing that pulled the group down as there were very little thoughts and ideas being thrown into the group. This meant that textures weren’t up to others standards and that errors were over looked.

How do you reckon you could have supported each other more successfully?

I think I should have given more feedback to everyone’s models and texturing because when I was putting it all into Unreal I was finding allot of errors such as Pivot points, textures with the UV map still shown and even the models not being finished. If I had just given feedback then I wouldn’t have to have spent so much time fixing them myself.

How would you better organise yourself and your team in future group projects?

In the future I will make feedback forums for everyone to fill in each week so that there is a definite amount of criticism going around.

Who were the standout members of your team, those who helped the most?

The most effective member would be Liv as she made a great time sheet for everyone to fill out and stick to.

Year 2 Week 3

I can’t do it anymore!!

I think group work is really starting to pull me apart. It’s started out pretty well this week as we all got to know what assets we are doing and when they need to be done by. It took us a while to get the right frame choice but once we did I felt like I knew exactly what to do. Just so you know, we need to pick a frame from a film and the model it exactly in Unreal 4 with all PBR textures and lighting.  

Okay, so I have 5 assets to create and texture before Friday and I did. I completely finished all of them by Thursday and was already putting these into engine. My team mates were set on the fact that they must have it done by Friday. Its Sunday now and I still don’t have everyone’s meshes, textures and assets. I’ve also had to do some of their work for them just because it takes them to long to fix things. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying I’m captain perfect but at least I have done modelling 101 like resetting x form and resting my pivot point. It’s just all these little things that’s taking time out of my free time to complete! Next week it’s by birthday so I won’t be able to get everything done in the week. So now is they time to do it!

Once I put everyone stuff in the level it actually looks really good apart from some low poly models and crappy textures. I just keep having issues with unreal 4 because I just kept pressing buttons without knowing they did. Then that messing up the whole map! I can tell the next week is going to be very stress full.

Year 2 Week 2

Either I’m disorganized or no one wants me.

So now that our warm up project is over, it’s time to move onto a more challenging project with a longer deadline. On the Monday we were told that we all have a brand new project which is called the film room project. We have been asked to stay in our groups from the previous project and to find a film to model. That sounds simple right? Well… no apparently not. In that room I was in when we got told this there was only on more member that was in my game production. I said to her if we should go find the others to start this project. Once we found the others it turns out they had already found team members to work with. So now me and Anya were like okay we can just go find two more people for the group and it will be fine, but no she ended up going with some other people and that left me on my own creating mood boards for a film “my group” hasn’t even picked. After all this I decided to group up with a good friend on my course but even he said I couldn’t (do I smell or?) due to too many people in that group… So now what? After looking on Facebook for and low number groups I finally found a home!

The Group was called The hardest candy girls! YAY!!! -.- I now belong to a group called hard candy girls. I’m sure they will change it in the future. They seemed pretty cool and they also had a pretty good film idea which was Hard Candy!

I had never seen this film before so I took this opportunity to do a bit of “Homework”. This film is about a girl who gets kidnapped by a pedophile but she ends up kidnapping him!!! BAM, BAM, BAAAAAAMM!! It’s actually a great film I recommend watching it. I can see why they choose this film because of the colours they use in it and I’m glad it’s not just another mainstream film like the matrix.

So after watching this film I did some pretty colour studies and found out some pretty cool stuff about their colour pallets. I found that in all the negative scenes the colour pallet was cold colours and in the positive scenes they used lovely warm colours!

This project seems exciting and promising so I’m really looking forward to it!

First week back!

See I told you I would be back no problem! Not only have a passed the first year but I feel like this year I’m really going to pick up and accomplish allot more. My time table seems a lot more busy this year as I’ll be in every day, which is good I guess because that means I won’t be getting into the lazy hobbit of sleeping in often like every other student. Im not sure if it’s a good thing or not that something like 60% of first years got kick of the course. I guess that means more 1 on 1 for the rest of us.

So where can I start? Well game production is pretty much every lesson which is awesome! But apparently the industry has completely changed the way we texture objects now. This has pretty much frustrated all my peers, but to be honest I think it’s a great step into making games much more realistic and visually appealing which is why we are all here. It’s just a bit of a pain because everything we learned last year is pretty much irrelevant and we need to get used to it all again.

My visual design hasn’t really kicked of yet because it’s nothing like the first year where we would be asked to go out and draw something 20 times, but instead its allot better in my eyes because everything we draw is all part of the projects that’s set for us in game production. This means that I will be much more motivated to go out and draw stuff.

So far this week has been great! I’ve started with a great attitude and outlook on my year and I really think that I can do much better than most other people. So bring on year 2!

MY UNI YEAR!

So if someone was to ask me how my first year was at university? I would probably answer them with it was good, but so stressful and not what I expected. I’m not going to lie, it could have gone better! The problem with me when it comes to work is that when I get presented with a task or a project I think “yeah! This will be great and when it’s finished its going to look so good!” but then I will start with the project and find out that it’s a lot harder than what I think it is. Before my year at DMU, I was really motivated and excited for my first year learning how to do some really great art! To be honest, I thought I would be able to go there and be told all the industry secrets on how to make stuff look amazing. Nope, it was nothing like that. I was just hoping I’d come to uni and be able to do some really good digital paintings. I was aware that this course would be intense and really difficult to succeed, but I didn’t know that when Chris says that we are going to be out in the rain and snow drawing that we would actually have to re do all our drawing because of the rain destroying our books.

SO, when I actually started my course I soon realised that it was going to be a long grind till I get to where I want to be. I realised that at uni, I’m not going to be sat down and told how to draw. It was better than that! I was told to go out and draw lots and lots and if I don’t I get kicked of the course. This opened my eyes that if I want to be good at drawing then I’m going to have to learn it myself. I went out for the first project and did exactly what they told me to do. I did lots of thumb nails and a few finals. I was pretty confident that all year long I could easily do this every week. But, then we started our other modules like Games production and critical studies. That’s where my arms just weren’t big enough to carry all the work. It was all just all down to my time managing, I couldn’t balance my studies with my social and personal time. When I was supposed to be drawing 24 drawings of a tree, I was out making friends and putting for time into my other projects.

After Christmas, the tutors saw that I was taking on the course the completely wrong way. I was pulled aside and told that I’m heading to failure if I don’t do something about it and they weren’t wrong. They really opened my eyes that I wasn’t preforming as well as my fellow students. But this is where the martin deep down comes out. Every time I’m told that I can’t do something is where I kind of put on my try hard hat and get to work because I want to show people and myself that I can do what I want to achieve. I think it’s mostly that I want to prove people wrong.

I attended a management class at the library where it really helped me change my attitude towards work. It showed me how to time manage properly, so I made a to-do list on my wall. Once I laid out what I needed to do and when to do it for I realised that there’s a lot of stuff to do! Putting that list up made my mind a lot clearer. I managed my time effectively and it also helped because everyone that came in my room was like “oh my god you have so much work to do” so that helped too.

When it got to the end of my year I really put my foot down on the partying and stayed in a lot more to get all my work done. I didn’t just rush it either I took my time to make sure it was all good. There was that one day I took off to go out in the sun and play a bit of football in the sun. But the universe soon told me that that’s not what I should be doing as I got sunstroke!

Over all the course structure was pretty good apart from the very last few days when my critical studies deadline was close. I wasn’t told at all, I didn’t have a clue when I was supposed to have all my blogs done. None of it was on blackboard and because of this I am now having to re do all my blogs over the summer. But things happen for a reason, I just hope that they organise this a bit better.

If I was to re do this whole year, I would have made that to-do list right away! It would have not only saved my time but money too, because I wouldn’t have gone out as much. I would have paid a lot more attention on how much work I really had. I would have done my work as soon as I could instead of doing it last minute. So over all I think it’s all just down to time management! 

VISUAL DESIGN

An exam? Say whaaa!

Wait what? This is not what I signed up for! I did not know that we were to do an 2hour exam at the end of the year. Well when I say exam I mean just re do an old project within 2 hours. We were told that we had to go back to the museum where I did my dinosaur bones (stupid turkey) and draw again for two hours under supervision. When I got there, again the whole museum was flooded with game art students all crowded around a dinosaur. I decided not to do my turkey again this time round but instead I picked a big skull with some nasty looking teeth on it. I thought it looked interesting and did I mention it wasn’t just a stupid normal turkey! I actually liked drawing this skull as again like most bones, it had lots of gradients to it and different surfaces on it. There is a lot of shading involved with these drawing and I love shading! It’s probably one of the few things I’m actually good at. I think I just need to learn to use a wider range of pencils because all I really use is a 2 or 3B then a HB for the sharp edges.

VISUAL DESIGN

The hardest painting I have ever done!

This sounded pretty easy and enjoyable at first but trust me it’s a lot harder than what you might think. All we had to do was to copy a master painter from the 1800’s. First of all, it was soo hard to find a painting that I didn’t think was too difficult for me to copy, then I had to see if some else had done it which meant I had to change it twice. I managed to find a painting from Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. She did this nice painting of a person painting which I thought would be pretty easy to imitate. Once I got it into Photoshop and all my guidelines were set up, I think it took me about 2 hours to actually get a bit of the painting done that I was happy with. For some reason, I found it really hard to copy all the colours and textures on a small area. Now I can really see how skilled you had to be back in those days because I can’t even do what they did with a computers help. But something like 10 hours later, I finished it and I’m actually pretty pleased with it. It’s not the exact same but it does look pretty good for my first copy.

VISUAL DESIGN

Leicester history!

Off to the guild hall! Thank god this wasn't another trip all the way across Leicester in search of some amazing thing to draw. The guild hall is just across the street from the halls I live in, so it won’t be a problem with taxis or long distance walks. It was a nice history lesson as well as visually appealing. There is loads of stuff to draw there like old chests, chairs and the architecture. For some reason there was a lot of volume like inside with the high windows which really made the place one of my favourites to visit. I can’t remember if I have explained this in my blogs before but not only do I have a thing for straight line but for some reason lighting interests me soo much in every project! Every project I am trying to add some sort of atmospheric lighting and volume light, just to add some mood into my drawing. But because I’m still a little noob I still have lots to learn.

This project however was really easy to add some great light into the room. I’m really happy with the finished painting and would love to go back and maybe draw a different room. If I were to re do that painting I would add a few more textures into the walls and into the wood as they look a bit bland at the moment.

VISUAL DESIGN

Time travel!

The 1920’s Chicago project was a really interesting project! We were asked to research Chicago city in the 1920’s and create a final. At first I didn’t really know what I should do as lots of interesting things were happening in those times. So I waited it out a bit, I waited for everyone else to post on Facebook what they did in the hope for some inspiration. I saw that a few people were doing some highways going through the city which looked pretty cool so I thought I would give something like that ago but it just ended in disappointment and me raging because I couldn’t get the perspective right once again!

So I decided to just do a character for the project. The character was a sergeant for the police force. I didn’t want to make just a boring, vanilla character so I added some mystery to him. I added a cigar for character and the brief case for the mystery. Once I had drawn him out I thought that there was something missing, he looked a bit incomplete. So I tried different combinations with different items. 

I’m pretty happy with how the character has come out but I still think that there is something missing. So I made my first background! To add more drama to my scene I added a man in the fore ground with his head turned away from the camera looking straight at my character as him they were about to have a show down. My scene was in a bar and my character just walked out of the back door. I don’t want to add colour because I want to give it that brown old photograph look!

 I’m really happy with this painting as it was my first one that I really spent time with on the back ground and trying to put in as much character as I could.

VISUAL DESIGN

My first digital lesson!

FINALLY!!!!! What I have been waiting for! I have been looking forward to a lesson in digital art for a long time now.  However, when we finally had it he just taught us everything I already know -.-. Besides learning how to use the tablets I didn’t really learn much more. When I did get home however I came up with plenty of ideas for my vehicle that we need to draw, make and paint. Mike showed us a great way to come up with ideas and that’s silhouettes! We were told to pick one interesting item and draw the silhouette of it. Then we had to use our imagination to add more to that silhouette to create a vehicle. This way of coming up with ideas is the best that anyone has ever showed me as it really helps me get my head around shapes. I have been doing this for my projects since, so thanks mike! I’m pretty happy with how my final ended up as I think I had a good colour range and texture on my vehicle. The only down side I had with this project is that I really, really suck at clay modelling. When I finished my model I just took a step back and sighed L it looks so bad! I really need to practice a bit more with the modelling as I just find it really hard to model one side of it without destroying the other.

VISUAL DESIGN

But where’s Nemo?

This project actually daunted me at first, all because we have to make clay models! I wasn’t expecting that at all. I didn’t know that we did those kind of things on this course but oh well, bring it on! Apart from the messy clay, the rest of the project really excited me as we needed to create a character completely from scratch, gaining ideas from the word “reef”. Chris told me that we can do absolutely anything but I really can’t think of anything else other than the sea’s reef and I’m pretty sure that’s what everyone else is doing so that’s what it is I guess. To be honest with you I have no idea how I came up with my creature. I just sort of combined a scorpion and a crab because why not right? I had fun creating this character but as I was drawing him up in my sketch book I realised that I tend to rush my physical work to get straight to drawing it up on Photoshop. That just shows I’m clearly into the digital arty side of projects, maybe this could help me find what career I want in the future. I did my best on this project to get the right colour pallet for my under water character. I colour picked from a crab and found what colours look best under water for my light sources. It turned out pretty good, I think I just need to work on the
perspective.

VISUAL DESGIN

An all-time low

-.- Self-portraits was next on Chris’s list of projects. At first I was really looking forward to it as I haven’t done self-portraits in ages! I was hoping that because I have done a lot more drawing since then I might actually be able to draw myself without it looking unhuman buuuuut…. that just wasn’t the case L. I did a few quick sketches to get myself warmed up till I thought I might actually be able to get a big one done. After doing about 8 small sketches the monster was about to be created! It looked so bad. I was really trying to follow Mitch’s face guidelines but every time I did, it just didn’t work. It made me look fat L. Every time I did a big sketch something was wrong with it. The main problems was that my eyes were too big and my head was too wide. I knew I had no hope at this time to actually draw a good sketch. So, I decided to draw several faces each expressing different emotions like happy, sad and just normal. It was pretty funny to see them done but next time I’ll really take some time to look at my face!

VISUAL DESIGN

What’s interesting?

So this week we were asked to do a very similar thing to our Christmas project which is to find someone in Leicester and turn them into an interesting character. This should be easy enough but I was thinking, what is interesting? Like what do people consider to be interesting? Is it something that’s different or something that is exciting? Many people have different opinions as to what they find interesting. So on my adventures, I stumbled across a late 40’s woman with tied up frizzy hair. She had rough skin and baggy eyes which showed me that she smokes and also the cigarette in her hand gave it away. I’ve picked this person because she reminds me of the old school 90’s ravers that would go around in bright interesting clothes and just be completely different to other normal people. So that’s what I decided to do, I drew her in my sketch book and scanned it in. With help from Photoshop I added some bright florescent colours and some funky clothes that I researched using man’s favourite “GOOGLE”. I was pretty happy with it and it was the first digital painting that I really took my time with and tried to learn some techniques with Photoshop. If I could go back and do it which I may do in the future, I would add plenty of detail in the clothes and maybe add a back ground.

VISUAL DESGIN

“AWE YOU GUYS JUST MADE ME INK”!

Time to get messy! We are finally using more exciting ways to put our ideas on paper. We were shown some really inspiring art from the film Black Hawk down. These images were made with Indian ink and a pen. When these images were being shown I was in awe! They looked amazing and the best part about them was that they were only done in 2-5 mins. I just couldn’t believe how much detail the artist could get into the drawing in such little time. So I went out with a friend and decided how hard can it be? Very. It was pretty difficult to get everything in that was necessary for the drawing in 5 mins. First we timed ourselves so we could go faster and faster and it worked but we still didn’t really get much in. I think it’s more about little crucial things that make a big difference rather than big iconic things that only shows the view where you are. I had a lot of fun with this project and I hope we can do more messy projects like this in the future! It has also helped me develop my view on how to be efficient and what to draw first.

VISUAL DESIGN

Christmas Time

YAY it’s that time of the year again where everyone pretends to be happy whilst the spend loads of money on people they don’t actually care about. Call me the Grinch but I’m really not much of a fan of Christmas because it hypes everyone up and makes everyone want that one day to be perfect. So, naturally when something small does go wrong like not having enough brussel sprouts or the kids not behaving. Someone always kicks up a fuss and hides in their room or man crib and makes everyone else miserable and left feeling awkward.

Any way ART! So this Christmas I have been set the task of finding an interesting character in Leicester and turning him or her into an evil Christmas character! This was our first character project and I was really looking forward to it! Unfortunately another reason why I hate Christmas is because I have to spend it with my family meaning I have to travel down to Stansted. This meant that I didn’t really have much time to go out and find an interesting person in Leicester. But have no fear as Chelmsford is probably even stranger! So I headed out and found a kind old homeless man that would let me take a picture of him! Don’t worry of course I gave him some money and food for his troubles. I picked this man because he just had so many characteristics like his aged skin and roughed up hair. Let’s not forget to mention he had a beard! So of course I picked him. I would have loved to sit and have a long chat with this man to find out a bit of his past to help with ideas on what to make him into but it was getting late and my bus was about to leave L.

So I decided to make him a large and slightly mysterious man with a long fur coat and a cigar. I wanted the viewer to wonder why I choose these items and I would have liked some of them to write a paragraph showing what they may think of this man. I intentionally made his shoulders really wide and his head small to give of a super natural feel to it but I fear that most people may just see it as me being a noob.

VISUAL DESIGN

BROOM BROOM!

I hate drawing cars.-.- why in the world are cars so frustrating to draw! I just don’t get it, I think there’s something about curved shapes with perspective that just doesn't agree with me. I think I need to sit down and really have a look at how to draw curved shapes like ovals in perspective. It sounds stupid if you don’t do art but drawing a car includes lots of shapes like rectangles and ovals so drawing it is actually harder than you think. Because of my frustration, I decided to pick a box car to study and draw (LAND ROVER). This made it all so much easier! I think I’ll start off with boxed cars then slowly move onto more rounded cars like the Ford KA which in my opinion looks like an egg with wheels.

VISUAL DESIGN

Pumping what!?!

Being frustrated by the lack of drawing from the space centre, I headed over to the pumping station the next day.  It surprised me that I actually really enjoyed it. I think this must be my favourite project yet, I think it’s because of the straight lines! I did say somewhere in my previous blogs that I have a thing for them I’m just not sure why. I found it really easy to shade and draw these huge industrial pumps. And even better I enjoyed it, maybe steampunk art is the way forward for me? I was watching everyone else rage as they were finding it difficult to draw out the strange pumps. But, instead of helping them I decided to feast on their rage!!! It actually made me so much more confident to go back to the space centre and conquer the unknown where no man has been before! Oh and did I mention that the pumps where used to pump sewage? Yeeeeah…

VISUAL DESIGN

Back to the expeditions!

So this week was interesting because we basically got set two large projects at once which for me right now really wasn’t the best of timing. We were sent over to the familiar and famous SPACE CENTRE! We were shown some pretty good examples that made me feel pretty ambitious for the project. We were shown some amazing space designs that had been drawn using great lighting and tones! But unfortunately I’m not a 3^rd year and I have no clue how to use colour properly yet. Soooo getting started with this project was very frustrating and tedious as I couldn’t get the circles right in a perspective. At the end of the day I just ended up raging and storming out the centre to the words of “we have another project to do this week at the pumping station across the road” -.- at that point I just wanted to go home.

VISUAL DESIGN

Relaxing time!

This week surprised me a bit because I was expecting a grand project to do. I was thinking that we would have to travel across Leicester to draw some amazing ancient ruins of prehistoric leicestrians! But now it turns out it was just a nice simple project for us to draw some still life. Don’t get me wrong I love still life! It’s simple and easy to get to, well actually you don’t need to move at all. A lot of people will sit in their room and think to them self’s that they really want to draw but there is nothing interesting around to draw, yet if you take the time and actually look around there is plenty to draw and study. Such as me beloved speakers next to me. It’s got lots of simple shapes that you would think would be very easy to draw but trust me it’s really difficult to get the perspective and depth correct.

VISUAL DESIGN

Turns out it’s only a turkey -.-

A trip to the museum was our next Visual design quest! We were instructed to find a dinosaur that we liked and draw it for a few hours. To be honest I wasn’t really feeling up to drawing much that day so I decided to grab a coffee and have a walk around the museum and found out they have all sorts in there. They have an Egyptian area and a wildlife section. I think I ended up spending too long on looking at the museum because by the time I was ready to draw I had wasted 3hrs :/ I found it really funny how the whole museum was empty except for a section with the dinosaurs where a herd of the game art students had taken their chairs and camped out for the day. I found some really interesting dinosaurs but none of them really got me excited to sit down for 5hrs and draw some bones, so I thought I would draw some thumbnails and get the hell out of there. The next day I felt a bit better (probably because I got up at 1PM instead of 8AM!) so I headed down to the museum and found my all amazing DINO! It looked like a small bird of some sorts but I didn’t question it as I knew that dinosaurs are cray cray. I actually really liked drawing it as it had all sorts of smooth and rugged areas on the bones. Once I had finally finished my drawing I was pretty happy but as soon I put my pencil down I read a sign saying that it was just a turkey! Seriously -.- out of all the amazing preserved dinosaurs I picked a lousy turkey. Yay.

Visual Design

ATTACK OF THE ANTELOPE

Our first field trip! This project was great apart from the typical English weather. We were sent to Bradgate Park where we had to spend a lot of time drawing the nature (little did I know that we would be chased down by some antelope!) It was pretty amusing to be fair, but apart from that we got a fair bit  of drawing done. I really didn’t know where to start though, it was like looking into a hay stack and deciding where to start looking for the needle. I did really enjoy capturing nature into my sketch book as it’s all just squiggly lines. I really think I need to get home and look up a few tutorials on how to draw trees because like I said it’s pretty difficult to start off with the drawing. I’m just looking forward to capturing some lighting on a digital version of all these beautiful landscapes.

GAME PRODUCTION

WHAT? You mean I can get a prize???

It’s nearing the end of our year and to finish it all off we have been set a competition for the best textured model. We have been given two models for us to texture and rig. This sounds like heaven to me. A model that is all done and ready for me to just paint away? Well that sounds perfect. As I’ve said in my previous blogs, I much prefer painting and designing the look of something then I do building it. I was all ready to go from day one. We had two weeks to get these models done and handed in. Yet, after the first week I had already completed it! After having a creative thinking session with my girlfriend, we decided that I should make the male model a gangster G and the female a 1940’s dinner waitress! I was pretty happy and confident that those models were really going to show people that I can paint and that I can make the effort into making good looking models!

GAME PRODUCTION

UDK

We meet again UDK! I used to use this program back in college, I made levels using BSP brushes and kismet to animate platforms but we weren’t taught how to do any of the stuff we covered in the past few weeks. I was shown how to put all my objects that I had created in 3Dsmax into UDK. This was pretty simple and not really a project but it was all I had to do for a week or two, I thought it would be good to do all this as soon as I can so I can move onto my other projects.

GAME PRODUCTION

READY…FIGHT!!!

The gladiator project! The very first character project has been set and completed! This project was pretty fun to do, but sooo very frustrating! Rigging has actually made me suffer and not want to finish the project. Rigging took ridiculously long to get right and even when I had finished it, I ended up having to do the whole project again because the modelling wasn’t correct so the joints wouldn’t bend properly! It was so frustrating but yet enjoyable. I think I did a really good job compared to some other gladiator I had seen made by other fellow students, but when I handed it into my tutor he said that a lot can be improved in the art work -.- that really made me feel like a noob. When I was doing all the modelling all I could think about was painting it, so I guess I prefer painting and adding colour to the character more than creating it.

GAME PRODUCTION

The start of a bad habit

Van-This project seemed like it would be a simple task at first. However, little did I know that we would be using a new type of modelling method called strip modelling. This method made me want to pull my hair out! But I knew if I did that I’ll just look like my dad. Making the van was pretty simple after I got the hang of attaching the vertex’s and edges. Doing this project really taught me what can and can’t be done with polygons. I’m still at the point where I’ll imagine how it will look at the end but when I finally finish it there’s always something wrong with it like bump maps or spec levels not being perfect, I guess I’ll just need to keep practicing till that day comes along. The project was once again rushed last minute due to me not having my time management properly sorted out. This has lead me to be behind on other projects such as visual design and these blogs. Time really isn’t my friend!

GAME PRODUCTION

Proof I am a good boy

Foliage – “Nature you scary!” Oh my god, now I see why all the trees in games look so bad! This project was quick to do but so damn frustrating and difficult to get looking good! Because foliage is all natural, if you make a mistake or a seam is showing it doesn’t matter to much as nature is all random any way and nothing within nature has straight lines! That’s probably why I find it easy to draw nature because you can just scribble and it will look like a rock. All there was to it with this project was just making sure it looked like the tree I based it on which was very frustratingL. On the other hand, you can look at a building and see from 2 photos (SIDE AND FRONT) exactly how it looks and how to make it. But with the trees it feels like I’m trying to solve one of those illusions. Because I was so badly organised with my last project I decided to prove to my tutor that I am capable with time management. So I actually went out and took pictures of things in parks that I didn’t need to like bins, grass and rocks. I put these items into 3Dsmax and made a pretty scene with all of them. But when I wanted to show my tutor he wasn’t there for the hand in L but at least I showed myself that I can do the work set for me plus more!!

GAME PRODUCTION

TIME!!!!!!!!!!

Building- When I was presented this project to create an interesting building somewhere in Leicester, I felt like I was presented with a real challenge where as in the previous projects I felt like they were just to help us settle into 3Dsmax. This project taught me how to use multi subs which are a life saver and essential to almost every build. I’m not going to lie I thought I was going to be able to do this pretty easily but instead I ended up having to re sit this project because I didn't leave enough time for texturing. But over all I did really enjoy this project apart from the fact that we nearly got mugged in Leicester whilst looking for a building to create. I’ve always been interested in buildings and architecture, I guess you could say I have a thing for straight lines. I wanted to be an architect but my puny brain couldn’t handle the maths that was needed for it. I think I really need to organise my time better for future projects :/

Art direction

Marek Okon

A little history about him is:

•       Grew up in Poland, studied in Canada.

•       Over ten years of experience.

•       Worked as an illustrator, Designer and art director.

•       And recently he has joined JKD Collective as a Visuals artist.

•       Most famous for last of us and crisis 2.

ART DIRECTION

Looking at the art direction that Marek Oken has used in the past.

Studying of Marek goes about his art direction, first he starts getting the shape and silhouette correct so that you are able to see what the object is then he will go about deciding where he wants the light source to come from and how strong. He does this by adding hard and soft tones into the shape to make it stand out. He then goes about softening the skin to blend it in for and adding small details so you can see the definition. Then lastly he starts to add the negative lights and to add mood to the image.

By looking at these images Marek posted to show his processes on art direction you can learn quite a bit.

Ive picked this image to study its colour, lighting and mood.

Colour- this image has a wide range of colours, He has tried to focus all the dark colours in the fore ground so that the viewer in drawn the carcus that the camera would be in, this creates a strong mood in the image.

Lighting- Lighting in this image isn’t very dynamic but still powerful. The lighting all around is quite neutral all around the image and it’s not like one image where the lighting forces the viewer to look at one area.

Mood- The mood is really powerful in this image as it shows war and death, it also makes you want to know more and makes you want to know what’s happening in this image. I makes me want to know what is that human like figure standing there and is the camera in a human’s carcus or an aliens? This images really makes me want to know more about this game.

I’m going to pick another image to show you and I am going to tell you why it’s so awesome!

Why is this awesome?

Well, look at it! It looks like a photo!

Anyone who can paint to make something look like a photo is Awesome! This isn't one of my favourite images but it’s just so god damn good! It’s awesome because that guy looks awesome! It’s awesome because of cannons! Ships! And War! He has captured this sea fight nicely with lighting, composition and mood! I just can’t get my head around how real this image is not just the two men but the boats and the water looks great! These are the kind of images that make me want to do better and strive for better results.

It makes me want to see more!

Research in Job specs

I have found a Job Spec for a 3D Environment artist located at Halifax.

They are asking for;

Must have a minimum of 5 years’ experience creating 3D game environments.

1. Passion for creation of visually stunning 3D environments whether natural or Architectural.

2. Zbrush experience in creating high definition environment pieces a large plus

3. Strong technical skills in integrating environments with next generation toolsets (scene

 Lighting, environment optimization and event triggering)

4. Setting the standard for less experienced model

5. Traditional art background advantageous

What do i need to do to reach these requirements!

1. I believe that I already have a passion for creating 3D environments so maybe the only way I could improve in that area is, I could look at more inspiring artist and look up to them as role models.

2. Currently I have no experience in Z brush at all but this can easily be improved with tutorials and plenty of hours sitting down and practising this software.

3. To improve my knowledge in modern day tools to create the best and realistic scenes I could have a look at how modern day games are created and the tools and methods used. I could also ask around with my tutor and lectures for any information on how to find out the industry’s secrets.

4. Not too sure what number 4 is asking me for but I think is to show less experiences modeller’s what the standard of the models should look like. So if this is what it means then this means that I have to make sure there are no flaws in my models such as visible seams and distorted engons.

5. Traditional art is a no brainer, every artist needs traditional knowledge and skills. So the only way to build up my skills for that is to go out with a pencil and some paper and draw some stuff over and over again till it looks perfect.

I have a long way to go to reach these requirements which means plenty of practise and persistence, I will need to be the best at 3D modelling. But let’s not forget that it also states that I need to have a minimum of 5 years’ experience in the games industry so that means that that’s plenty of time for me to learn new software and tools.

Final essay

Boredom!

Boredom is an emotion experienced when a person is left with nothing to do or when they are not interested in their surroundings. We have discovered that the first time the word boredom was used was by Charles Dickens in the novel Bleak House in 1852. But boredom has been around since the beginning of man just like all the other emotions e.g. happiness and sadness.  Boredom is also a motivator! It motivates humans to keep doing something or to discover and create new things. It is an emotion that has driven us to create games and it’s also the main reason as to why we play games. So this is why I want to look deeper into boredom.

I have previously stated that:

“Boredom is something we all experience most likely every living day of our lives, it’s what makes us twiddle our thumbs, stare into space and think about some of the most pointless and sometimes deepest thoughts. For example, how did the earth begin or why are we here? Or even I wonder if I could sneak into the bank and just pinch a few dollars. Some people see boredom as a common daily fear, people don’t want to be bored, and I believe there is even a name for someone that has a fear of being bored (thaasophobia!). It’s not just humans that get bored either; it’s just about every other animal as far as I know. Every time your cat or dog is scratching at something or chews away a piece of your nans old flowery sofa, it’s because they are bored. They have a need to be occupied or have something to do. Whether that’s chewing on a toy or playing fetch. “Playing” now there’s a word and I’m more than certain that it’s got a lot to do with boredom. But before we put too much on our plates let’s look at the one. Boredom!”

I said that most people see boredom as a fear and that no one wants to be bored but I see boredom as a motivation and not so much as a fear. Without boredom we wouldn’t make new things and in this case games as explained in the next part of my previous post.

“Boredom has also helped to create just about every game there is, ranging from your kiss chases in primary school to the Olympics. One day someone was bored and said I wonder how fast someone can run? Or I wonder how high someone can jump? So they made the Olympic GAMES!”

A little bit of history for you, the very first game ever recorded was a game called Senet which was made in Egypt and dated back to around 3100BC. Now, imagine how boring it must have been back then without modern things such as Twitter, Instagram or even an XBOX. Nowadays it’s almost impossible to stay bored as we have access to many different entertainment systems and games to keep us on the go. We have so many games we could just download for free and play instantly. I think this has resulted in a lot more lazy and unproductive people. This theory of mine has not been proven but is very logical. Nowadays there is media all around us such as games and TV so it is easier to procrastinate about doing work or to invent new things. Back in 3100BC all there really was to do was play senet and other games like hide and seek but obviously I can’t say for sure this is all there was. As there wasn’t much to do back then the only other option was to fulfil your boredom by doing work, building a community or a school, helping out with food supplies and experiment with objects and elements to get to the age we are at now. It actually blows my mind how far we humans have come in life. I’m sitting here looking out my window and looking at the building that has been made and the small tiny details that have been put in place for the smallest purposes, It just makes me think that’s a lot of effort for just a building.

So we have found out that because of boredom we created games. But then what? Now that we have games surely we aren’t bored anymore? Well, apparently not, I still find myself bored and left without things to do. So what do we do now? I guess we can just keep creating more and more games. Which is pretty much what we are doing. But game developers have also found that instead of making more games, which costs more money, time and effort to come up with new ideas, the game developers just make DLC! This way they could just release more game modes or weapons and challenges to stop the player from getting bored. This will save the developers money and the customer, as it won’t cost them as much too just download a new expansion pack.

The fact that gamers get bored with current games challenges the developers to create new and more existing games. A great example is the “Nazi zombies” from world at war. It turns out that when they finished the game “Call of Duty World at War” there was still some space left on the disk for more content. They were just going to release that game as it is but then one man in his spare time created this new zombie survival mode and showed it to his director and it was approved to be implemented into the game. This mode started off with your character not even having a name or an objective to achieve other than to survive. Later on, after this game was released, the game mode became very popular and was even the main reason for why some people bought the game. The developers saw the demand for more content and started adding a hidden story and all sorts of new guns, Easter eggs and enemies. They also added more objects for the player to stop them from getting bored of the game.

So just from that example you can see that just because of boredom something great was created and turned into a big money selling and eye grabbing idea! Boredom has helped the games industry evolve in so many ways and strive for success! It is the backbone of the games industry.

Research into the subject of boredom.

“Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, and not interested in their surroundings”. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a bore had been used in the sense of "to be tiresome or dull" since 1768. The French term for boredom, ennui, is sometimes used in English as well.

That paragraph is the first thing you see when you look up the work boredom in Wikipedia, yeah, yeah I know the online wiki isn’t the most reliable website to get information from but we are looking at boredom not the history of life so it’s going to have to do.

So I’ve started researching on the subject of boredom to see if there is any relation to why we play games and seeing if it has any effect on the industry. I found out that boredom is trivial and that’s why we have created things like games. Boredom is when you can’t find something that satisfies you. But I’ve also found out that boredom isn’t boring at all, kind of like I said in my own theory before researching that boredom leads to some pretty amazing things. When you are bored, your brain activity only drops by 5% but more activity is found in the areas responsible for audio biographical memory, thought about others and conducing hypothetical events (imagination).

So I’m trying to see if boredom has any link or connection with why we play games. I looked into the reason as to why we play games and started with “what is a game?” Well Chris Crawford, a games designer, has a whole theory behind it all and in conclusion a game is interactive, goal orientated and must contain agents, e.g. people. But that’s just his theory so it may not even be true. There’s a great article in the New York Times by Robin Marantz Henig about “why we play games”. I also found an experiment, where they took a baby rat and put it with an adult rat for the years of its “childhood” the rat ended up growing up with a lot less brain active as a normal rat all because the adult wouldn’t play with the baby.

Now then we want to find out what all this has to do with games! Well while I was looking at up what a game actually is, I realised that life is a game. Its interactive, its goal orientated and it contains people. So yes according to Chris Crawford’s theory life is just one big over complicated game. But why have we created video games? We have created them because the goals in life are sometimes very hard to achieve and you can never know if you make the right choices, e.g. I have no idea if the career that I’m going into is the best for me or if the people I am friends with are on my side. Life is hard, and that’s why we have created video games that provide fast, easy to achieve and understandable rewards to make up for the long roads in life. Games give us the satisfaction that life can’t offer us. It makes the unknown easy. When I play chess I know exactly what each piece does and I know exactly how to win the game, where as in life I have no clue when the game of life might even end.