Blogger is BACK

ok its time to write even more blogs, but first a quick update on the last year..

Okay first of all i didnt finish all the blogs last year.. whoops! no matter i still passed without any idea of what grade i got, Its about 4 or 5 weeks into the year.. or more i don't ever keep track on that sort of stuff and well we haven't really done that much to be honest.. okay we have "learn't" to model a character and drew our own designs for characters and stuff like that, but we don't really have a proper teacher for modelling and by now i would of liked to of learnt a lot more, tutorials only teach us so far.. at least for me, i hate the damn videos. seriously theres not much need to turn up to the modellng lessons anymore as you can do more at home without the hassle of transfering files over and finding a PC that isn't fried in the lab.. Never mind, im sure the year will get better. Unless michael Powell has spent all of our University fee to go to vegas and buy cheap hookers.

Alright i am supposed to write six blogs on creativity... yes you heard me right SIX blogs about creativity even though we already did one last year, im sure theres a good reason for this but i wasn't there when this was set so i had to ask a peer (im sure this gets annoying for everyone) I'm still unsure if i just misheard them or not.

OK watch this space one creativity blog coming up in a jiffy unless i get sidetracked and play Team fortress 2 wich is reallyreally good.
I also need to finish my character model up, Uv mapping and texturing are my big weakness and considering i had to learn it all myself i think i'm doing okay. Ben mathis is our new teacher.. our VIRTUAL teacher.

Week 21's task.

Where do you want to go, and how do you get there?

I'm not really sure, one of my main ambitions when i was in high school was to get into university.. and i have sort of done that. Now im trying to learn as much as possible about game art so i can be competant at a job when i leave, im not sure what i want to do after my possible game art design job, but i've always been the type to do.. whatever and end up at places through random choices.
My ideal plan at the moment is to start a decent game art job at decent company making a bit of money, I think i have the talent to get there, i just have to fix my chronic lazyness and i'll be fine.
I apologise for this really short blog.. but i hit a writers block.. i guess its one of those questions that i find really hard to answer, i can't really answer the qeustion and manage to stretch it out into 300 words.

I think im going to come back to this post.. when i make it 'big'

Left 4 Dead

I for one love zombie games, i have a link to the zombie panic mod. wich was well fun for HL1, and Valve are releasing a game with the source engine called left 4 dead wich looks pretty amazing, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles most games being released has, but it looks like a really good teambased game.

check out the gameplay footage,
http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/10873

It was based on the popular thing from people setting up counterstrike servers and having 2 or 3 human players against 30 or 40 bots limited to knives,
The game looks great and also has player controlled super zombies and stuff.

Task 20

Creativity... hmm errrrr

Creativity is a hard thing to talk about, it basically means to create things... yeah, well putting ideas we have into practice and creating something new, and if your a creative person you can keep thinking of new things.
In a game art frame of mind, it would be to think of new settings and characters for example, or something simple like thinking of a cool gun that changes the way we play.. (portal? is that creativity at work)
Game companies thrive on creativity, we need it to keep people buying new games and to keep games from becoming stale and boring, creative people have always been around to feed the games industry with ideas, even poor games have flashes of creativeness in them.
Creativity is essential in gaming but isn't the only thing companies want from graduates.. the quote on the vle explains this well,

'Creativity without craft is like fuel without an engine - it burns wildly but accomplishes little...'

This means that all the creativity in the world is no substitute for raw talent and technical knowhow... well a little, creativity is very important but if you don't know how to put your ideas into a media then your of little use to a company, who may already have lots of creative individuals who are talented in their field.
I think all games have at least a little creativity, (unless its really dire) creating monsters guns and characters all need to be done with some amount of creativity, making a whole new world or environment requires a lot of creativity.
In our course we have many creative individuals who will continue to suprise us, we are always thinking of cool little idea's that could go into games, i also think that playing games have fueled our creativity at least a little, seeing new idea's all the time and playing through different settings and seeing other peoples ideas on screen all help with our ability to create..

morrowing the elder scrolls 3 oblivion daggerfall 2.. this time its personal

I knicked oblivion of a mate the other day and its actually... quite good despite its 50 titles. i dont really enjoy RPG's too much but it has a really nice environment. I am getting a bit annoyed of the 4 voice actors in the game.. Shaun BEAN being one of them eugh.
I set of to be a really evil bloke but i ended up being a nice guy characer that occasianally stabs somebody, i think im a nord or something... yeah the guys who are good with big swords.
ha theres even a small man with yellow hair following me everywhere, he even went into oblivion with me a few times.
also when im walking about randoms start to attack me for some reason, i think its because their part of an evil gang or something,

Task 19

ERgh behind in blogs again, im gonna try my best to finish the rest of these by the end of holidays and still have time to do some more artwork stuff. hahaha

Im going to do this blog like an answer to a question instead of spending ages trying to think of and introduction so... Blog go now////

"Some game companies want highly trained graduate artists and programmers. Some claim they really prefer creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background. They can't both be right can they?"

Of course they can.. And i sort of agree with both sides of the story, game company's are all different and are looking for different things, it would be easier to have them all uniformly looking for a wheeliebin making drone, but that would be boring, and make it a lot harder to find a company you really like.

It is important to have a "liberal arts" background to a certain degree, being able to draw is a standard, i don't think companies are looking for a fine art degree, you don't need to be salvador dali, but just to have some sort of drawing knowledge and experience.
I think companies are really looking for a talented artist that can move his skills, ideas and style to a game environment. The traditional art thing ends there.
I think that as a game art course we shouldn't be focusing on traditional art so much, most of us are competent artists anyway.. or at least should be, i know that i can paint and draw and stuff i did an endless, boring amount before i came to university. The screening for the course was to have at least an A level in art, most people would be good enough to start moving their skills into games then.
Game art is becoming more technical these days, and more computing knowlege is probably needed more than painting lessons, i can't program a thing, and i think a little knowledge maybe needed in the future, at least enough to configure an engine or write a shader, if i went to rockstar now and showed them lots of pretty pictures of tree's and canals, their not going to allow me to make assets that go into new advanced engines.
But then again, knowing proportions and being able to visualise 3d on a 2d canvas is a good thing to know as well, I think we should be learning Art techniques but applying it to the games more, knowing perspective is good, and learning proportions was needed for our advancement in games, but going over the top and doing a degree in art is not what we need.

oops i went of on a tangent a bit.. but i think i answered the question well enough.

Sound for games

Sound for games is very important for atmosphere and immersion, these days i can't really play a game without sound and have much fun, it provides one of the basic senses in a game.
Games use different sounds to create an environment, they would usually have a long sound file of ambient noise to immerse yourself into the game world and make a virtual place seem more believable with wind, traffic birdsong etc
Sound for games have been around almost as long as games have, from simple blips and bloops to full orchestral music scores, i remember the atari 2600 sounds being awesome with its primitive explosions and loud static noises. I also remmeber being really impressed at voice being implemented in sega genesis titles, with its original music giving different feels for its games.
I feel music in games is only recently been thought about seriously again, i remember the old Nes games like mario having really simple little tunes, but they were catchy and made you instantly recognise what game it was from. The Sonic series had its own original little music tunes that helped bring the game to life.
When the playstation was released it wowed people with functioning 3d graphics, but i feel the quality of sounds were lost, although they were at a higher bitrate and sounded clearer they seemed pretty generic and most games used stock sound effects from movies wich were boring.
The music was mostly thumping generic dance tracks with little thought put into them although there probably were exceptions. Most people bring up final fantasy (again) when it comes to music tracks but i listened to a few tracks and their all just poor looping midi files.. in my opinion.
However recent games have been quite impressive with their sounds and music, using full orchestral scores in games like medal of honour 2 and shenmue (bit old but whatever) and good ambient noise mixed with realistic sounds and voices in the game world.
Sound also adds to the gameplay of a game with certain noises being recognisable for when somethings going to happen, or music playing to make certain scenes more intense.
Some games have sound based puzzles, or sounds given as a indication of where to go or what to do.

Task 17 Game engines

The game engine is the core part of games, they bring all the assets together and work them into a playable space, game engines make developing games easier and allows a company to easily port their game to different consoles.
Some engines come with a developer kit that allows the company to quickly edit their game and reduce cost, this also allows mod teams to develop their own content for the engine in question.
I would try and explain scene graphs and graphic engines but that stuff gives me a headache and will just end up as an unreadable paragraph..
Popular engines include Unreal engine, Cryengine, Doom 3, and the source engine, i've only ever used the source engine before and only made a few maps with it. i once had a go with unreal but gave up quickly.
Their are things called Middleware engines where company's develop programs to help developers build their game, one example is speedtree wich makes realistic trees really fast and saves a lot of time.
When a company starts to develop a new game they will either create their own engine or use an existing one, creating a new engine is very difficult, engines like doom 3 and quake have been constantly updated over the years and keep getting enhanced and eliminating bugs. Game engines are expensive but it could work out cheaper than coding one from scratch.
Subtractive and additive, is a term for mapping, it explains how a mapping tool works, in Additive the mapper starts with an empty environment called "the void" or "empty space", the mapper will place a room inside of this by making a hollowed out cube and sealing it, crazy stuff can happen if there is a leak in the box. Sky is created with a skybox, wich is just a normal box with a special skybox texture added to it.
Subtractive mapping uses one infinite solid space instead of a void and a mapper will hollow out the inside to create rooms, this totally gets rid of leaks but i find it an annoying way to map and prefer additive. Some people create their own void by making a giant hollow cube and adding bit inside it.

task 6teen, gaming cultures.

I cant check the gamesutra account because you need to register so i'm going to write what it think this task was on about.
Gaming culture is sort of like film culture were different people group towards their different genres of games, you have your RPG fans who might post pictures of kittens and listen to J pop, and you have your FPS fans who might argue about whos mom sux the most or how much George Bush is a fag,online forums is a popular place for this as gaming culture is tightly bound to internet culture, the internet provides a meeting place for game fans and allows users to play against each other online, it also provides users a place to post their own creations and get feedback.

The webcomic Concerned, highlights certain gaming "cultures"
within certain first person shooter games.

Webcomics are becoming popular in the internet these days, their are a few good ones such as
PBFcomics and Concerned, Concerned is made with garry's mod wich changes Hl2 into a sandbox game where you can make contraptions and "hilarious" poses, people now make comics with it wich.. 99% of them are terrible, but concerned had its moments, giving someone who can't really draw a chance to make a good webcomic. ( i won't go into machinima.. ew)
Modifications, to me are an important part of gaming culture and some day the industry, its were a lot of talent for the games industry is found and although there are some lazy, badly thought out mods a lot of them are gems and are really worth playing, certain mods make bad games good, operation flashpoint wasn't that great until it got patched and modded up, Battlefield 2 is a horrible game on its own but Project reality really makes up for EA's silly mistakes, and worked wonders with such a limited engine.
A lot of mod teams have been given support to release their mod as a full game, such as The Ship, and Red orchestra, also garry's mod was recently released as a full game, these games are usually released over Steam.
Mods are getting very popular, counterstrike has already shown us that a small mod team can get a huge playerbase, you just need a good idea and a few decent coders and 3d artists.
Gaming culture is huge and is no longer restricted to bedrooms and arcades, games are as much as a phenomina as TV or music and will continue to gain popularity.

task 15

It kinda looks like i missed a load of tasks but its actually the week 15 task and not 12 or something.


The game industry is constantly changing, at the moment we see big companies with thousands of employees releasing games, a lot of the work is outsourced to countries where labour costs are a lot lower.
Many people seem to think that the outsourcing will cause difficulty in getting in the industry, it probably will at first, but cheaper artists are no replacement for actual talent and motivation, i think that as games get bigger a lot of the generic objects (tree, wheeliebin,terracedhouse.) will be outsourced oversea's and the bigger, more challenging objects will be undertaken by game artists in country.
I also believe that smaller team led studios will be more popular as a teams vision could be created with the help of outsourcing, Some mod teams are starting to release games you pay for, The ship, Sin episodes, Portal, Red orchesra. are all games created by mod teams who moved on to bigger projects as the original mod gave them some experience.

The elements of Game Design - Gameplay

As i have said before gameplay is pretty much the most important thing about games, graphics sound etc are important too, but without gameplay its just a cgi movie, as game artists its forgivable if we do a good job and the coders aren't switched on but its always more satisfying if everyone does their part.
"Gameplay" is a pretty broad concept and can be defined as how the characters in the game are controlled and how the player effects the world, it can also be described how fun the combat or tasks in the game is. innovation in gameplay is important as the same type of gameplay can get very boring, lots and lots of shooting and jumping can get pretty tiring and most people like a change, its important to have a lot of new things to do in a game, half life 2 had its physics engine wich gave you new ways to solve problems, max payne had a slow motion mode that allowed you to defeat enemies in a different way, no matter how small the innovation it adds to the fun and gives each game its own gimmick or reason to play it, the games that stand out are the ones that have well implemented gameplay innovations.

Periphials can be good for gameplay as they give a new way to control the game, lightguns were some of the earliest oddball creations and proved very popular, other ideas include fishing rods, bongos and guitars, these games were popular becasue they were different and well implemented, they were good games because the periphials worked well, although their have been some failures such as the nintendo power glove and virtual boy.
The nintendo wii is a very good example of gameplay innovation and stands out because its slightly crazy but somehow manages to work well and change the way we interact with a game, the graphics aren't quite up to par but it doesn't matter as the games are good.

Task 10, Story and character

"The rain was coming down like all the angels in heaven decided to take a piss at the same time... in my situation, you can only think in metaphors."

I think i've already gone on about story and characters, but i think i have to write more even though some of it might be recycled from the last blog.
Oh well ill give it a go anyway, stories in games will get nowhere without a decent set of characters some games define the characters around the player instead of developing the guy you play as, games like half-life 2 and zelda do this and it feels more like your them, your own actions and way you play contribute to the main characters attitude. Other games develop all the characters and makes the main character speak for you, although sometimes games give a decision in what to say usually the character has its own attitude and feelings, this can kinda suck when the character lets some bastard escape instead of executing him like you want him to, but most of the time the player would rather see how the story plays out instead.
Over the holidays i had the chance to play through max payne 1 and 2, these games have a very developed story line and characters and sometimes feels like a bad ass action movie. I especially liked the way the tv stations in max payne 2 took the piss out of the original game, and also attempted to develop characters that could die as soon as you meet them (wich happened often as they usually charged ahead and got themselves killed).
My favourite characters in books and films are the type with a huge backstory that you don't know yet, while reading the book or watching the film you learn more about them and what happened before the timeline your reading. My favourite series of books is the nick stone steries from Andy Mcnab, i feel the character is very developed and you learn almost everything about him in the nine books that are written so far, i think a lot of the author is in the character and is written very realistically.
Although for games i don't mind playing as a mute character like in half life. The setting is as important as the character in games, as its a more visual experience than books and sometimes films as games give you the ability to explore and unearth things you may not of noticed on the first playthrough.

Task 9 Ergonomics.

Ergonomics in consoles is something us game artists don't usually worry about, but its still pretty important for a console to have a controller that is comfortable to use.
I personally prefer using the mouse and keyboard, i play shooters most of the time and there isn't a controller that has really been any good at FPS games.
For consoles the gamecube pad was great, all of the buttons and stuff where just in the right place so you can use it for ages and your hands wouldn't get knackered.
Joysticks are apparently good for aeroplane games, i never eally tried using a proper joystick with throttle and all the other bits but for immersion i guess using these would be the best for certain games.
Arcades are good examples of finding tons of different ideas for ergonomics as almost every machine was designed with a seperate team for that area, a lot of cabinets have the classic joystick thing and a few buttons, but walking around an arcade you'll see enterable tanks with different buttons for controls, or sniper rifles you have to look through and moterbikes you have to actually get on and ride, all these machines had to be designed so that different people could use them.
i still prefer the mouse and keyboard though.