Personally, I feel that the course has actually been a great piece of learning, even for the first year.
This should be pretty evidenced by the work in my presentation. The progression of how well I've come around to understanding things and how the world looks is just so new.
High school didnt teach me about perspective in art or any of the things I've learnt this year. I only picked up the perspective and technical drawing from when I was in DT graphics.
Life drawing was especially useful. When coming to interviews at uni they shunned my drawings even though I had spent at tops 3 hours on 8 different life pictures. In college we had a model for just one morning but now I really understand anatomy and things make so much more sense and the progression for that, I think is a big step
I can't really say the same for my photoshop work. Mostly that has been a "Fuck off and find out" style principle. I had basic knowledge to paint things and definitely learned alot more about rendering and colour theory. Some things would be nice to know, such as how to use other brushes and things like that. Layer principles, how the Adjustments work and which filters are useful.
I don't know what happened with Mike and the Guest Lectures since January. There was some pretty useful stuff in there. Hope they restart next year.
Maybe some Air Con for the labs its getting pretty damn hot in there >_>
Sorry, that had nothing to do with the course.
I guess there isn't really too much more to add. I agree with the going out more and the sculpting ideas. Traditional media? No way. Not unless you want pencils and crayons every submission.
I would say more freedom too but I guess we get that in the second year what with the levels and whole Queens project.
So yeah, I'm good and thats my list of things, its pretty small but I'm sure everyone else may be thinking the same thing
Monday, 21 April 2008
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Week 22: GDC
THE FUTURE OF MMOs.
This turned out to be something I wouldn't mind giving a look to even over the development of Super Smash Bros Brawl. But it is the MMOs that take up alot of my time, even if I play the fake ones too.
At first we only really had MMORPGs and those worked well with their levels and social marketplaces and they are still being released today. Heck, even the old ones are still doing well. There are still loads of people on the Diablo II servers and dotted around on every MMO to exist. It's hard to say what really attracts people to mmogs. It could be the sense of achievement of reaching a certain level, it could be being strong enough to take on the hardest of bosses or it could be finding rare equipment and being the richest player in the game. The majority of MMOs that I played were like that and after quitting the grindfest that was maple story, quiting, rejoining, then going to play the extremely-fast-leveller but unpopular to get the party bonus, then going back to maple story, then quitting for the same thing but better called LaTale then leaving because it was in Korean then back to maple and finally off it because its more addictive than crack.
Now the two MMOs I play are Lunia which goes for level based gameplay over grinding. It still has grinding in a sense but favours skill and combo making to proceed. Getting into a new level and running through to the end and taking out the boss is worth it and the usual getting stronger every x levels. The other is TF2. One that isn't an RPG but an FPS. I believe that with halo and all other multiplayer FPSs is that shooting other people is more fun than CPUs. I have outrageous fun on TF2 tricking myself into thinking I have l33t scout skillz. Its as addictive as those RPGs yet there is no ranking system, or equipments to strive for. The only thing per round to aim for is being top of the leaderboard and even then people dont care about the points they get. The gameplay is just that fun.
From another angle there is Eve. I haven't played it but my college friends have and they just love it. Set in space, you mine for ore and treasures, learn skills over the course of the day even when not playing and upgrading your ship.
It's odd how all kinds of genres are being upgraded into MMOs nowadays. Thinking of it, even the 2D fighting games have been converted in the likes of Grand Chase. Sure its anime styled but for a fighting game it did look exciting much like Street Fighter online but with swords and spells.
In the future there is more than likely going to be MMOs for every genre of games. Racers will be online, choosing people to race against, upgrading your car and modding it. Maybe even forming racing clans or their own race teams.
With the success of Second Life, there may be other casual mmos springing up. Those with no real objective, just to do things you couldnt normally do in life. Meeting new people and having fun.
A point: I read recently that games coming out may well ignore subscription fees altogether in the future. With the introduction of cash shops to purchase new clothes/weapons to upgrade your avatar there may well be a revolution in how everything is done. This is the kind of thing that could break the industry.
Maple STory had a CS that just gave you equips with looks and no stats but also things like pets which looted for you and revive stones. It seems fair enough to me but on the other hand it could be more like trickster where if you don't pay real money, you can't catch up to those who do as they get better stats on their purchased items.
Personally I kind of hope for an online Jet Set Radio. May happen, may not happen. A sequel at least would make me happy T_T
This turned out to be something I wouldn't mind giving a look to even over the development of Super Smash Bros Brawl. But it is the MMOs that take up alot of my time, even if I play the fake ones too.
At first we only really had MMORPGs and those worked well with their levels and social marketplaces and they are still being released today. Heck, even the old ones are still doing well. There are still loads of people on the Diablo II servers and dotted around on every MMO to exist. It's hard to say what really attracts people to mmogs. It could be the sense of achievement of reaching a certain level, it could be being strong enough to take on the hardest of bosses or it could be finding rare equipment and being the richest player in the game. The majority of MMOs that I played were like that and after quitting the grindfest that was maple story, quiting, rejoining, then going to play the extremely-fast-leveller but unpopular to get the party bonus, then going back to maple story, then quitting for the same thing but better called LaTale then leaving because it was in Korean then back to maple and finally off it because its more addictive than crack.
Now the two MMOs I play are Lunia which goes for level based gameplay over grinding. It still has grinding in a sense but favours skill and combo making to proceed. Getting into a new level and running through to the end and taking out the boss is worth it and the usual getting stronger every x levels. The other is TF2. One that isn't an RPG but an FPS. I believe that with halo and all other multiplayer FPSs is that shooting other people is more fun than CPUs. I have outrageous fun on TF2 tricking myself into thinking I have l33t scout skillz. Its as addictive as those RPGs yet there is no ranking system, or equipments to strive for. The only thing per round to aim for is being top of the leaderboard and even then people dont care about the points they get. The gameplay is just that fun.
From another angle there is Eve. I haven't played it but my college friends have and they just love it. Set in space, you mine for ore and treasures, learn skills over the course of the day even when not playing and upgrading your ship.
It's odd how all kinds of genres are being upgraded into MMOs nowadays. Thinking of it, even the 2D fighting games have been converted in the likes of Grand Chase. Sure its anime styled but for a fighting game it did look exciting much like Street Fighter online but with swords and spells.
In the future there is more than likely going to be MMOs for every genre of games. Racers will be online, choosing people to race against, upgrading your car and modding it. Maybe even forming racing clans or their own race teams.
With the success of Second Life, there may be other casual mmos springing up. Those with no real objective, just to do things you couldnt normally do in life. Meeting new people and having fun.
A point: I read recently that games coming out may well ignore subscription fees altogether in the future. With the introduction of cash shops to purchase new clothes/weapons to upgrade your avatar there may well be a revolution in how everything is done. This is the kind of thing that could break the industry.
Maple STory had a CS that just gave you equips with looks and no stats but also things like pets which looted for you and revive stones. It seems fair enough to me but on the other hand it could be more like trickster where if you don't pay real money, you can't catch up to those who do as they get better stats on their purchased items.
Personally I kind of hope for an online Jet Set Radio. May happen, may not happen. A sequel at least would make me happy T_T
Monday, 14 April 2008
Week 21: Reflection
IT seems pretty apparent that if a student doesn't do any work they will ultimately not learn anything. Sure you can be told what things look like and how they work but without going over it and trying it for yourself, you're never going to remember it.
ITs a useful thing that we learn something and then do an excercise about it. For visual design we learnt about single and double point perspective and produce images and also paintings with those techniques. Looking down the river has helped show how things disappear into a point even though i do still struggle with getting all of ground within a third of an image. Tricky seeing it in halves then squeezing it down but i will work on it. Two point perspective is used when viewing the corner of an object such as a building and then looking down into everything besides it.
3Dsmax excercises are useful to help drill those tools into your head. Being familiar with the professional practises is a great idea for getting us in line for moving on up. Working with tris and polys and doing texturing styles is great, especially to learn this early. Personally I
would like to know how to set out texturemaps properly so that no space is wasted and people dont look down on you for bad usage.
Tieing in with that. I know we have to learn some things ouselves but perhaps a little bit of photoshop tutoring wouldn't go amiss. During summer I will definitely aim to up the quality of my digital paintings and work on my anatomy. I do draw bodies alot more realistically than i used to. I understand how things wrap together but there is still more i can learn. How muscles move and restraints of the joints.
To add to that I will work on some 3D stuff, modelling a couple of toys i have and work on two areas. A shrine and my bedroom to have a go at modelling and texturing full environments and assests. I'll also have renders and objects to put towards my portfolio.
Also Ill be joining in on Del,Dan's and Mike's SUMMER WORKOUT if it fully goes ahead. Those guys work hard so if i follow in their footsteps itll really help me step up my game to at least be better than college standard when it comes to art
ITs a useful thing that we learn something and then do an excercise about it. For visual design we learnt about single and double point perspective and produce images and also paintings with those techniques. Looking down the river has helped show how things disappear into a point even though i do still struggle with getting all of ground within a third of an image. Tricky seeing it in halves then squeezing it down but i will work on it. Two point perspective is used when viewing the corner of an object such as a building and then looking down into everything besides it.
3Dsmax excercises are useful to help drill those tools into your head. Being familiar with the professional practises is a great idea for getting us in line for moving on up. Working with tris and polys and doing texturing styles is great, especially to learn this early. Personally I
would like to know how to set out texturemaps properly so that no space is wasted and people dont look down on you for bad usage.
Tieing in with that. I know we have to learn some things ouselves but perhaps a little bit of photoshop tutoring wouldn't go amiss. During summer I will definitely aim to up the quality of my digital paintings and work on my anatomy. I do draw bodies alot more realistically than i used to. I understand how things wrap together but there is still more i can learn. How muscles move and restraints of the joints.
To add to that I will work on some 3D stuff, modelling a couple of toys i have and work on two areas. A shrine and my bedroom to have a go at modelling and texturing full environments and assests. I'll also have renders and objects to put towards my portfolio.
Also Ill be joining in on Del,Dan's and Mike's SUMMER WORKOUT if it fully goes ahead. Those guys work hard so if i follow in their footsteps itll really help me step up my game to at least be better than college standard when it comes to art
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Weekly Design Challenge
Looking up on Kotaku, there is a link to a new challenge for game developers/designers/whatever.
It may be something worth entering each weekn or even just give it a look in to see what people are coming up with.
This weeks is to come up with a new functional RPG character. I'm not sure if the contest requires any art but it's only the first week. We'll know soon enough.
Without further ado, here's the link http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/521/james_portnows_design_challenge.php
So we will see what happens with it and I'll see what happens and perhaps update the blog with winners and things like that
It may be something worth entering each weekn or even just give it a look in to see what people are coming up with.
This weeks is to come up with a new functional RPG character. I'm not sure if the contest requires any art but it's only the first week. We'll know soon enough.
Without further ado, here's the link http://www.gamecareerguide.com/features/521/james_portnows_design_challenge.php
So we will see what happens with it and I'll see what happens and perhaps update the blog with winners and things like that
Friday, 11 April 2008
Week 20 Addendum
Just felt like addinga bit more after being told the first one was pretty negative.
Of course there are so many different ways that creativity can be shown.
Damien Hurst managed to cut a cown and its calf in half and call it art. Nothing like that has ever been done before. Its really unusual that seeing the insides of a cow is acceptable in the form of art and can even become the competition winner. I personally don't see how it is arty but somewhere along the way someone decided to produce sculptures instead of paintings and after that all kinds of other things that have made art alot more than images.
Along the course of time so many things have come about and it is all through creativity. We wouldn't even have music if a person didnt believe making noise could have a purpose or produce something pleasant to the ears. Hell, we wouldnt have nearly anything we have today if nobody had used thought to adapt to surroundings or to better themselves.
Same applies to gaming. There are clever minds who want to up the power of consoles in order to produce games that look more realistic or even more surreal. Its a wonder that we even have consoles at all even more surprising we have games that have progressed up to almost realistic standards. As I mentioned before there will be a point when games aren't really games anymore. Besides, having realistic games sort of defeats the point of games in the first place, right? The only realistic game I own is Need for Speed: Underground 2 and that was bought for my sister. I play the games for the escapism. To experience something that somebody else has imagined. All those storylines have been a fragment of a humans mind.
Looking arround, someone has harnessed electricity so that we can view moving pictures on a piece of glass. A box in the corner is able to give me heat at the flick of a switch. I'm even writing this blog in a language you can understand because language has been developed and words were crafted and given purpose to define things and name things.
I suppose that in the more positive side of creativity, though a bit vague, nothing apart from the sky and the grass and soil and water has just happened. Anything you see is because someone created it, refined it and gave it to us. So as I said before, we can all be creative, as much as anyone weve heard before if we give ourselves the time to.
Of course there are so many different ways that creativity can be shown.
Damien Hurst managed to cut a cown and its calf in half and call it art. Nothing like that has ever been done before. Its really unusual that seeing the insides of a cow is acceptable in the form of art and can even become the competition winner. I personally don't see how it is arty but somewhere along the way someone decided to produce sculptures instead of paintings and after that all kinds of other things that have made art alot more than images.
Along the course of time so many things have come about and it is all through creativity. We wouldn't even have music if a person didnt believe making noise could have a purpose or produce something pleasant to the ears. Hell, we wouldnt have nearly anything we have today if nobody had used thought to adapt to surroundings or to better themselves.
Same applies to gaming. There are clever minds who want to up the power of consoles in order to produce games that look more realistic or even more surreal. Its a wonder that we even have consoles at all even more surprising we have games that have progressed up to almost realistic standards. As I mentioned before there will be a point when games aren't really games anymore. Besides, having realistic games sort of defeats the point of games in the first place, right? The only realistic game I own is Need for Speed: Underground 2 and that was bought for my sister. I play the games for the escapism. To experience something that somebody else has imagined. All those storylines have been a fragment of a humans mind.
Looking arround, someone has harnessed electricity so that we can view moving pictures on a piece of glass. A box in the corner is able to give me heat at the flick of a switch. I'm even writing this blog in a language you can understand because language has been developed and words were crafted and given purpose to define things and name things.
I suppose that in the more positive side of creativity, though a bit vague, nothing apart from the sky and the grass and soil and water has just happened. Anything you see is because someone created it, refined it and gave it to us. So as I said before, we can all be creative, as much as anyone weve heard before if we give ourselves the time to.
Thursday, 10 April 2008
Week 20: Creativity
Well it's the big subject and it is something that everybody is in possession of. Creativity is an anomally really. It is something that is hard to put into words or describe since it can come in many different forms. This can be from cooking a brand new meal to solving a maths problem to thinking up a new species of creature to put in a game.
I suppose the most prominent form of creativity is the Arts. All manner of things such as dance, music and art itself. Anyone can go to a theatre and see a brand new play that is the genius of the playwright. The story and characters can be completely new and different from anything else that exists and that makes him creative. This is just an example of an obvious form of creativity.
(I'm gonna be sick of this word by the end of the blog)
Not everybody is so outwardly creative. There are so many other ways of showing it. There is nobody on the planet who would not be able to think up of an idea for a story. These people may not have the tools or equipment to follow through their ideas but certainly it is better than having all the tools but no ideas. Sure this is contradictory to my other statement but many people do get blocked alot of the time. I personally want to create something new but more than likely, decide not to do it because its so cliche, would seem like copying someone else or just that it was a fleeting idea and didn't have enough flesh to it.
Thinking of games today, all of the big mainstream titles don't seem creative because there are just too many of the same things. Looking across the room at my DBZ game, I recall that all the games in the series are the same but with more characters. As far as I know this is the same as almost every sports game that is out there. Sport can only get more real therefore perhaps someone will be creative and think of the next step for sports games. Or games as a whole. Nintendo have broken the tried and tested 'use a controller to play' ethic with using a stylus to control the DS and a remote which has numerous attachments (1) to free the arms and give a sense of immersion. What did we have before that? Rumble. Right now its still really all we have with the odd bit of shaking the wii mote or six-axis to get the feeling that we're there.
We always say how we want to get new styles of playing games and it makes me wonder; do we not get new ways to play because developers know what works and it earns them money? Or could it be down to people not thinking outside the box? Some games nowadays do push the boundries. This could be in the art style like when cel-shading was first introduced. IT could be in the storyline engrossing the player into always wanting more. It could be how we actually play the games with peripherals like light guns and guitars coming out. Surely if we pushed the limits that we have now, we would have all sorts of brand new things that will change gaming forever.
How far can console gaming really go before it isn't home gaming anymore? Nintendo certainly can't go back to a standard controller after the Wii and I dont think microsoft or sony will think twice about doing something similar to get up there with Ninty. I ask for immersion but the most extreme immersion is a simulator which defeats the point of home gaming. I don't have room in my house for an F-Zero machine nor do I want to run on a treadmill everytime i want to go somewhere in my game. In response to the point, yes creativity is limited alot by availiable technology. Right now we don't have time machines or human teleporters. Hell, we don't even have the flying cars we were promised back in the 60s. Then again, are we really limited with what we have or are we limited by what we believe we can do with it. I'm pretty sure before cement was invented that you could build a house out of sand and water (and other stuff).
Maybe if we got everybody in the world together and sat down to work on a problem, or were given a solution to solve we'd get billions of ideas. Those billions of ideas can be joined together and developed to produce the solution we need. There are not two people who think alike so therefore we can get so many ideas there is bound to be one that works and can actually be done.
We don't need to leave these things to our modern day genius' or even those of the past. We all have the potential inside of our brains to come up with ideas. Using the ideas we can overcome problems. Once that set of problems has been overcome, you're evolving and new things are happening. Materials are being used differently, people have different views towards anything and everything. Seeing something, and being inspired to merely think of anything is creative.
I suppose the most prominent form of creativity is the Arts. All manner of things such as dance, music and art itself. Anyone can go to a theatre and see a brand new play that is the genius of the playwright. The story and characters can be completely new and different from anything else that exists and that makes him creative. This is just an example of an obvious form of creativity.
(I'm gonna be sick of this word by the end of the blog)
Not everybody is so outwardly creative. There are so many other ways of showing it. There is nobody on the planet who would not be able to think up of an idea for a story. These people may not have the tools or equipment to follow through their ideas but certainly it is better than having all the tools but no ideas. Sure this is contradictory to my other statement but many people do get blocked alot of the time. I personally want to create something new but more than likely, decide not to do it because its so cliche, would seem like copying someone else or just that it was a fleeting idea and didn't have enough flesh to it.
Thinking of games today, all of the big mainstream titles don't seem creative because there are just too many of the same things. Looking across the room at my DBZ game, I recall that all the games in the series are the same but with more characters. As far as I know this is the same as almost every sports game that is out there. Sport can only get more real therefore perhaps someone will be creative and think of the next step for sports games. Or games as a whole. Nintendo have broken the tried and tested 'use a controller to play' ethic with using a stylus to control the DS and a remote which has numerous attachments (1) to free the arms and give a sense of immersion. What did we have before that? Rumble. Right now its still really all we have with the odd bit of shaking the wii mote or six-axis to get the feeling that we're there.
We always say how we want to get new styles of playing games and it makes me wonder; do we not get new ways to play because developers know what works and it earns them money? Or could it be down to people not thinking outside the box? Some games nowadays do push the boundries. This could be in the art style like when cel-shading was first introduced. IT could be in the storyline engrossing the player into always wanting more. It could be how we actually play the games with peripherals like light guns and guitars coming out. Surely if we pushed the limits that we have now, we would have all sorts of brand new things that will change gaming forever.
How far can console gaming really go before it isn't home gaming anymore? Nintendo certainly can't go back to a standard controller after the Wii and I dont think microsoft or sony will think twice about doing something similar to get up there with Ninty. I ask for immersion but the most extreme immersion is a simulator which defeats the point of home gaming. I don't have room in my house for an F-Zero machine nor do I want to run on a treadmill everytime i want to go somewhere in my game. In response to the point, yes creativity is limited alot by availiable technology. Right now we don't have time machines or human teleporters. Hell, we don't even have the flying cars we were promised back in the 60s. Then again, are we really limited with what we have or are we limited by what we believe we can do with it. I'm pretty sure before cement was invented that you could build a house out of sand and water (and other stuff).
Maybe if we got everybody in the world together and sat down to work on a problem, or were given a solution to solve we'd get billions of ideas. Those billions of ideas can be joined together and developed to produce the solution we need. There are not two people who think alike so therefore we can get so many ideas there is bound to be one that works and can actually be done.
We don't need to leave these things to our modern day genius' or even those of the past. We all have the potential inside of our brains to come up with ideas. Using the ideas we can overcome problems. Once that set of problems has been overcome, you're evolving and new things are happening. Materials are being used differently, people have different views towards anything and everything. Seeing something, and being inspired to merely think of anything is creative.
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