Week 24- Feedback

The Game Art course has been a really challenging experience for me so far but also one that has offered a lot of satisfaction. I have found that all the skills that are being learnt are really difficult to pick up initially but that once you are through the initial discomfort they become very satisfying to develop.

At the beginning of this year, I hated doing 3D modelling but after getting to grips with the intimidating interface I actually find it quite relaxing and enjoyable to create things (providing Max doesn't want to spontaneously combust in my face or act like a "terrible two" who wants his own way).

I have found it quite stressful when we have been given tasks such as one day projects on top of other work, but it has made me work harder to understand 3Ds Max or techniques in painting. I think that if done at a sensible time, they can be really useful to create a challenge.

The traditional Art classes have been enjoyable, especially when we have got out of the class to see parks and the space center and pumping station.

I would really like to learn some photoshop skills though. I still am really unconfident with how I should approach the tools and making different types of pictures. I have learnt a little on my own and from watching other people, but I really feel like I'm just scratching the surface of what I could do and that maybe I am not arranging my layers properly etc. I have picked up things from magazines that have been useful, but I find that I use those techniques so often that it just doesn't look any different everytime I paint. I find it much easier to learn new skills when I try something somebody shows me, and with photoshop being a computer program, I often feel overwhelmed with all of the buttons and I don't know where to start.

Maybe the occasional workshop showing techniques used in industry would be useful, maybe even getting somebody from industry to show us how to do something and we could work alongside him/her?

I have enjoyed hearing the guest lecturers, but all in all have actually found it quite discouraging listening to what they have to say about the industry. People like Jolian Webb made me excited about what I could achieve because it looked like it was worth something morally and that even within standard Blitz games that I would be able to create something brilliant. Other lecturers just told us that we would never be paid well for the first X number of years and that we would have to work ridiculously hard on something we wouldn't be passionate about and to be honest that seemed to be all they spoke about.

I liked finding out how certain games work: the guy from Sega Rally really interested me when he was telling us the different ways they "create illusions" to make the game seems realistic. For example, the ways in which they created mud on the cars and the environments surrounding the tracks. That was facinating and other lectures like that were equally as facinating.

Game City was brilliant, I can't wait to go again next year. I loved hearing about the physics engines for games and seeing the producers of different games talk about them. I was also very impressed that they come to us to ask for new ideas. That made me feel like I was a part of it.

I look forward to the new year of teaching. I would like to see more things like the hands on workshops we have been doing as they have made me consider new ways of designing and creating. Overall I have been happy with the course even though it has been difficult so far. I definately feel like I am learning. I have been able to come home and show people what I have done and feel proud of it.

Week 23- Whatever the hell I feel like...

Well seeing as we havent been set a task for this week I want to talk a little about Portal. I completed it today having got it yesterday and in no way is that dissapointing. Although short, it was packed with ideas and playful discovery but it also had an eerie feeling about it. It was one of the most atmospheric games I have ever played and I feel like I had both a challenge and an original experience in the few hours that were there.

So do I feel short changed? No! The Orange Box cost me £20, i got 6 (?) games. I had a great time playing portal and it only actually cost me about £3.50. Genius.

I find now as an adult that I want that kind of experience from the games I play. I want to play around with a mechanic for a few hours, feel like I am in an interesting or exciting situation and then be able to leave without any feeling of guilt.

For a few years now, Nintendo have been making games like this and I used to find it frustrating. While I was young and had a lot of free time it was great to play lengthy games with intricate storylines. But now I want a different experience that I can just jump in and out of to have a bit of fun. Games should not be a way of life in the same way that eating lots of fatty pies should not be a way of life. I think you should have a delicious treat every now and again and then get out and see the world before you start sweating gravy. Portal was that delicious pie.... or slice.. of cake

(note to self... metaphors aren't cool)

battle against the odds

Quite possibly the best fight I have ever watched. Bonyaski is my favourite fighter! If you like an underdog story, check out this fight from K1.

Week 22- Game Developers Conference

Well it appears that like many others I have found myself writing this blog a bit too late and finding myself very confused about what it is I am supposed to be writing about. The Game Developers Conference has been and gone recently and an article that I came across has interested me. The article at http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6186530.html is about futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil and what he expects of the future and of what we can achieve as humans, not only as game developers.

I have found it incredible that within the course we have had the oppertunity to discuss such a range of topics that don't directly apply to just drawing and using computers, but that we have been encouraged to consider what computers will be capable of in the future. Having watched programs about "futurists" and what scientists predict that we will be capable of, I am quite honestly scared of what people want to be able to do in the future.

Kurzweil talks about using computerised blood cells to enhance our human abilities at the moment and even being able to cheat death. He beleives that the growth of computer capability is exponential and that it will continue to open new doors to us as a human race.

What does this mean morally? Do we actually want to cheat death? I remember my Grandmother saying "never grow to be old" and my Great Grandmother saying "I have lived too long". I genuinely don't want to live until Im 600 or "enhance" my body with nano technology, and I'm pretty sure it would not feel right living for such a long time.

His approach to inventing and developing ideas struck me as intreguing. He beleived that you should develop things that have the potential to do alot more in the future with the advance of technology, "develop ahead of the curve".

It seems that this idea has already been excersised with the game Crysis, which it seems cannot be run at full power on currently existing computers but has been made in a way that will push the development of greater processing power forwards. Maybe we should be looking ahead in terms of what people want to see within games, looking for emmerging trends in art and fashion to inspire the way we design.

Looking around me when I am out, I often see trends within art that echo within all other areas of visual design. At the moment the trend with graphics tends to be sillouhettes and decorative pattern, flowers and stars. This is seen on adverts and posters everywhere and has obviously become an influence within fashion aswell.

I bought The Foals album this week and the graphics work within the pages are very similar to the style of work i was looking at throughout my studies at BTEC. They include handwriting, used things, things that are left behind such as: receipts, notes, doodles. They have all been combined to make a particular asthetic style that can also be seen in many different places.

My point is that there are trends in art, and therefore there will be trends within what will sell a game based on its aesthetics. If we are to take on board what Kurzweil is saying, then we should be looking to see what is happening elsewhere in the art world.

Week 21- reflection

What do I want to get out of my three years at university? When asked to define my answer to this question it becomes quite difficult for me to answer, because in some ways, I’m not sure. I think that before coming, what I really wanted to do was to be able to express my creativity in new ways and put that creativity into an area that I would enjoy as a job and that would be employable. However having been on the course for a year now I am not sure I feel entirely the same. I don’t feel as creatively free as I did when I was on my BTEC Art and Design course and I find I am struggling considerably most of the time. This does not mean that I am not enjoying what I am learning, it just isn’t affecting me in the way I thought it was and it has made me assess my goals a little differently.

Many of the guest lecturers that have come to see us have told us over and over again how working in the game industry takes up your time, isn’t fun, demands that you are the best of the best and doesn’t pay very well for a long time and its left me thinking “well what is there left that’s good about it then?”.

I think that now what I really want to do with this course is acquire a number of skills that could make me employable in many fields of work. I don’t feel particularly passionate about the gaming industry anymore but I do get excited about the idea of creating things, and doing this course certainly gives me that ability in many ways. Maybe I will want to go into games after university, maybe I won’t, but either way, I am going to try my very best to do well because I believe that if I am here, why should I settle for a bad or even mediocre grade? I aim to be one of the best in the class by looking at what everybody else is doing and what is happening in the game industry and trying to learn new skills.

I think that if you are going to apply yourself to something you should do it fully and this may partly be to do with my beliefs as well. I am a Christian and one of the Bible verses that stands out to be as particularly challenging is “Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (Colossians 3:24).

I want to come out of university not regretting how hard I have worked. I want to be able to do digital and traditional drawings and paintings at a skilful level and I want to be able to 3D model in a way that will allow me to get a job in many different areas of work. I am genuinely excited whenever I learn something that develops these skills and I look forward to what the rest of the course has to offer me.

Outside of the course I also want to challenge everything I believe in currently and develop who I am as a person. I see university as a huge oppertuniy to mature in many different ways: in my opinions about things, my ability to deal with other people and the way I deal with situations generally. I see it as a very challenging atmosphere as everybody comes from different backgrounds and beliefs and I think that if you believe in anything you should challenge it constantly because otherwise how would you know that you were doing the right thing? I think that without coming to university I wouldn't be able to feel confident doing anything as an individual. It has given me the chance to grow up and I've found I have changed quite a lot over this last year and I feel more like an adult than a child. I hope that by the end of university I will be much more able to be who I want to be and not be afraid to fulfil my dreams.

Week Twenty: Creativity

New ideas and methods are ways in which creativity can manifest itself. These could be in the form of a theory, an imagined scenario or even just be a new way of approaching a situation or problem. The impressionists were a group of artists who decided to paint in a way that was considered wrong, or lacking in skill: However generations down the line you can see their influence across the arts and this is due to their creativity in approaching how they viewed the world and transferred this onto canvas.

Whether it is an artist within a film company producing a concept for an environment, or a composer completing a symphony that has never been heard before, creativity can be channelled through many different media. If a company were having trouble marketing a product and an employee came up with a revolutionary strategy to advertise and sell their product in a new way, the employee would be considered incredibly creative.

So how is creativity hindered? Can it be gained? Some believe that within education that our creativity has been hindered through being told that there is a right and a wrong way to approach the arts. I find it interesting that if an artist such as Jackson Pollock were to produce work like he does now within the current school system, he would probably be told that it was wrong and that it did not show any skills that the National Curriculum would want to see.

Like many students, Pollock would have probably been told to do a still life painting of an apple for his 10 hour GCSE exam. Does that encourage creativity? Pollock shows expression and movement within his paintings using the materials on the canvas and the marks themselves actually show a story of how his body was moving when he created them, maybe even showing a little of how he was feeling on the page. Don’t you think that is what creativity is all about?

We should be exploring new ways of expressing ourselves. Despite this, the current generation are afraid of trying new things because they have been told that they can’t draw, or that their style of work is not going to get them the grades because they don’t show that they can paint the same old Georgia O’Keeffe flower that the rest of the class have all slaved over without a single new idea or experience. How many times have you heard somebody say “oh I can’t draw, wish I could be creative because I have so many ideas!”?

Having grown up with two parents who are both teachers, it is interesting to see that they also struggle greatly with the system at the moment. They delight in students producing individual work and showing a passion for it yet feel bogged down because they are constantly asked to produce paperwork stating their academic progress! I don’t believe that you can measure somebody’s creative process. I was shocked to learn that after my father stepped down from his full time job as an Art teacher that the man who replaced him instantly destroyed all of the resources my father had worked so hard to collect to inspire his students: items such as plants from all over the world, folders of artist references and bones from different animals that had worked well at feeding the students creativity. Just like the games industry artist Jolyn Webb said to us during a visit “we must constantly be feeding our minds, feeding our creativity with the world around us”.

So how is creativity used within the Games Industry? Within the games we play? Games are another creative field for the imaginations of people to be expressed, much like film or books or even music. In a games team they have an overall vision that they want to convey which is controlled usually by the art director. He will make sure that the ideas being generated are directed in the right way so that they don’t conflict with the rest of the game. The artists are allowed a certain boundary within which they are allowed to work to make something new which is controlled by the brief which they are given. Ideas will be refined by others later and the whole process is ideally there to make sure that a game is a collection of ideas from different people.

Week 19 - Life Changing Or Career Building?

When approaching a career as a game artist it is unclear what path one must take. Many games magazines will have advertisements for different universities in which you can study with the aim to become an artist in industry. However, how can anybody know which course is employable? Would a specialised course be considered too specialised?

Companies such as blitz value creativity over ability to use software when initially employing new talent. If that is the case should someone looking to be a game artist purely study fine art?

To answer this question first I need to determine what skills are needed within industry. A current job advert for an environment artist asks that the applicant "must have strong fundamental drawing skills and be capable of producing game quality work to the standar of other artists in team and.....have several years worth of experience in photoshop and 3Dsmax". This instantly suggests that when looking for a course to train themselves, a student must look for a course that teaches skills within photoshop and 3Dsmax but that also has a strong focus on the traditional side of art.

Many companies are explicitly requesting artists that know how to deal with realism. Colour theory, proportion and strong rendering techniques all seem high on the agenda when hiring an artist within the current gaming market. High definition games and the ever-increasing power of consoles demands that the boundaries of realism are constantly pushed. What more can computer game graphics do apart from push toward the more realistic if they are to be original and awe inspiring?

It is also important that people know how to use the tools that are being used, such as 3dsmax so that a company doesn't have to spend money training more people when they want to be making new games and making a profit. Some kind of training is needed aswell as having skills in traditional art.

I think ultimately, its a balance of the two scenarios. If a completely abstract artist tried to apply themselves to an industry project, they would find it difficult to produce the kind of work that they are expecting. The work-flow would probably be quite similar but the two are very different in the outcome that they would require.