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.

Task 4

Personal Enquiry

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 bore, 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 I would like to research into as well 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 first one. Boredom!

 You know that feeling when you have to go visit your Nan or sit and wait while your favourite soap comes on the telly, and you start looking around for things to do. Yup, you know what I’m talking about. Like I said before, some people are afraid of being bored, but I think it’s so important to be bored. You probably think “what the hell are you on about?” well think about it. When people get bored they tend to do things…different things, like discover new hiding places or new kinds of food or even meet new people! Boredom is what has helped mankind evolve from cave men. If we were just satisfied with throwing rocks at each other and running after our food then we would never have strived to create new things like spears to catch our food and sling shots to hit each other with.

Boredom has also help 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!

Still not convinced? Are you getting abit bored of reading this? Well think about this, if there was no such thing as boredom I wouldn't be writing this as the course I am on is for creating games. People play games because they are bored, so if there is no such thing as boredom, then there would be no games which means no jobs to create games and all in all means that means there would be no education courses for a non-existent industry! See it plays a bigger part than what you think huh?

2000s

This decade was where (in my eyes) the demand for video games caused companies to up their graphics, sound and multiplier compatibility. This was the decade where the games industry made more money than the films industry and showed the world that it’s actually a big deal and lots of money can be made from it. It’s when universities and colleges all over the world started to see that people wanted to make these games so they made game courses like the one I’m on at the moment. People started queuing up for the gold digging industry hoping to strike oil with a large company and become very successful. The 2000s was when the industry saw the potential of mods!

 For example Counter strike released in 1999 was and still is one of the most played first person shooters and it was made as a mod from a game called half-life. After the two developers made counter strike and saw its popularity they released that there is a lot of money to be made through mods. After this, companies started making add ons and DLC’s to expand their games and to make more money on the side.

Another example of a great success is Unreal tournament, this game allowed players to create their own character models for the game. All these mods really helped shape the games industry as we know it today.

In the 1990’s games companies were coming out with all different kinds of consoles. There was so much competition and varieties of consoles. Now a days, it’s pretty much been narrowed down to three major companies; Sony with PlayStation, Microsoft with the Xbox and Nintendo with the Wii.

Mobile games

After the 2000s, Japan saw a popularity increase for mobile phone games ranging from puzzle games to virtual pet games. As soon as mobiles were built with a good enough processer, the money started rolling in for the mobile industry. Games such as jewel quest and snake were created. When apple began their app system, audiences were amazed. Anyone could now go to the app store and download their favourite game. The app store also opened up opportunities for small time developers to create their games and share them for the world to see and try out.

Recently large games companies have released old Ps2 games onto the app store including games such as GTA and the Sims, which have made even more money for the franchise and have proven popular once again. I find this amazing, that top selling games in early 2000s were the top dog in graphics gameplay and sound. Games such as GTA really pushed consoles to their limits and now they are able to be played on just about any mobile device that can fit into your pocket!

This makes me excited about the future! Makes me wonder if we could have insanely high demanding games like Battlefield 4 in our back pockets ready to play online against other players in the world.

The Future is looking good!

The game industry in the 1980s

In the 1980s, the games industry gave birth to some of the biggest games companies that are still around today such as Electronic arts. Most of the games created in this time period were simple clones of the popular original arcade games such as pong and space invaders.

Game Innovation

Due to the release of home consoles, the arcade era slowly died down. This was also the start of video game genres such as:

Action-Adventure: Legend of Zelda helped to kick start the action adventure for the 1980s. As you are reading this you probably know what legend of Zelda is and that’s a great example that many well know games and companies started up in this decade.

RPG (Role play game): Dragon slayer 2 was made in 1985 which is considered the first RPG with player stats and quests.

Adventure: Not many people of today know about ZORK but it was a text based game made in 1980. I only know a few old timers that know about this game but never the less it was very popular as it gave the player imagination and allowed them to choose what happens to the player making it very adventurous.

Fighting games: Karate champ (1984) was a one on one 2D fighting game. This influenced game makers Konami to create YIE Ar Kung Fu which eventually developed into Street fighter which was and still is a very successful game that many people still play and talk about.

Platform games: Space panic (1980) this game was credited as the first platform game as it allowed players to climb ladders to reach different floors in the level. Soon after, Donkey Kong made an appearance in 1981 which made players jump over gaps making it the first true platform game.

Racing games: Turbo created in 1981 was the first racing game with a third person view called the rear-view format this was soon made popular and is used in almost every racing game to date.

RTS (real time shooters): Herzog Zwei (1989) was considered to be the very first real time strategy game. This game gave the players an opportunity to plan out strategic out posts making the game tactical.

Gaming computers

Like I said earlier in this post, this was the time of the game consoles! Game consoles such as Commodore VIC-200 and 64, Sinclair ZX80,ZX81 and Zx Spectrum and many more.

The Commodore 64! What a cool name! I wish the modern consoles were called that instead of “Wii”. This console was released to the public in 1982. This console sold loads due to its great graphics and sound for its time, it also allowed the players to use their old controllers with this console. The aggressive marketing of this product made sure that everyone knew about the new exciting console.

Early online gaming.

Dial up bulletin board systems were popular in the 1980s. Superset software created Snipes! To test out their new IBM personal computer based network. It was the first text based game that you could play online with other computers. This software slowly helped out other games later on such as DOOM! A very popular game known to many old timers and computer game geeks. This was one of the first 3D first person shooters to be able to play online. Without this game, there would be none of the newer games such as Call of Duty!

Later in the 1990’s

In the 1990s arcade games were no longer found and so became, the start of the fourth gen consoles! This included consoles such as the mega drive and super NES. If you ask any 90’s baby they will have heard of these and if you ask any of their uncles or dads they would smile! Let’s not forget about the handhelds! Every kid was running around with their Gameboys playing Pokémon and Mario. This is where the first LCD colour displays were released as the Sega game gear.

These were the years where you still see the 32 bit games on the market and you still see these developers expanding in today’s High definition gaming market!