War of the Worlds (2005)

War of the Worlds is yet another film to do with aliens that is directed by Steven Spielberg. Even though it is based on the book of the same name by H.G Wells, it has been contemporized and therefore many things are now different about the story. The first thing that differs about the two stories is that in the book, the aliens simply land and start to invade earth: Understandably, Spielberg wanted to do something different, seeing as how the book has had more adaptations than so many other stories. He wanted to have the alien ships already buried under the Earth's surface. The aliens then came in what looked like lightning storms so that they could pilot the Tripods.

Tom Cruise plays a divorced parent with an immature approach to life, Ray. Rachel, his daughter, played by Dakota Fanning (who i swear is a 40 year old woman in a childs body) is a very mature and intelligent child. Obviously this creates an interesting dynamic between the characters. The son, Robbie, is your average rebelious teenager and he simply doesn't understand the situation fully, often desperate to fight the invasion with military force.

The main thing I love about this adaptation is the constant battle of different personalities and beliefs: On their exodus away from the city Ray and his family get their car stolen and their lives put at risk by many desperate people. This all felt very real to me having been in London at new years eve amongst many millions of people. Later into the film, Ray is forced to kill a man who has lost his mind out of fear. This man wanted to attack the tripods with his own strength and a shotgun and Ray has to stop him in order that he and his daughter are not discovered. This creates a very tense atmosphere, especially during a classic scene in which the tripod sends a probe down to try and find survivors.



The art direction is what really excited me about this film. The concept artist for the Tripods was Ryan Church, the same Ryan Chuch that worked on the latest Star Wars films amongst many other things. I really liked his adaptation of the Tripods, they kept enough elements of the ones from the book but were suitably changed to make them more interesting or exciting. He took the approach that the actual machine would have to be terrifying as it was representing the creature within. He also kept hints of the green smoke that hissed from the limbs of the war machines in the book. The head of the machine had something "human-like" about it aswell and the many "glistening tentacles" really statyed loyal to the book whilst giving it a unique twist.




The aliens themselves were changed quite alot. In the book they are simply octopus like blobs that are not capable of much more than glooping around on the floor. The film had them as 3 legged creatures much like a stereotypical alien.

Overall I think it is a very exciting film that brings many new ideas to a tired old story that has been repeated so many times. The unique art style has a consistant feel and the whole presentation maintains a constant feeling of terror and parranoia.

Figuring things out...

Our group project is going well so far. We have a concept in place and we are now making assets to block out the level so we can compose it however we want. However, in the process, we needed to do a few experiments in order to figure out how to do things. One of those things was: How do ceilings collapse? To solve this problem, one of my team mates went to a building site to see what makes up a ceiling. He discovered that it was made up of several layers of plaster, brick and concrete set in a metal mesh. He then gave me those instructions and I created a 3d visualisation so that we could figure out how to make it in game.

The actual metal mesh can be done using alpha channels and also the plaster can. I think that the finl product will also be more distorted and have much more concrete hanging off of it. However, this has been a tremendous help in figuring out what to do. I have learnt first hand that making a test subject is vital when working in unknown territory.

I have also put together a few tests for the rubble. A very productive day indeed!

People People People!

Went to town and spent a good couple of hours drawing people as they walked around. I found that I couldn't draw literal representations of people but I found it a really good exercise for drawing something new and different. When a person walked past and I liked an aspect of their character, I tried to freeze the image in my mind and draw what I saw. What I found was that my drawings became quite stylised simply because I was trying to capture character rather than just shape and form. I really enjoyed it and actually I quite like the style of the drawings. I think I may keep them that way and paint each of them up in a more detailed manner. This little dude is the first I have done.

Starting again!

Ok so we have changed the teams of our group project now. I am no longer a team leader which sucks a little but I have been put with a team that I feel quite confident with now that I have found out their ideas.

We are basically going to make a destroyed lecture theatre. The auditorium will have been destroyed by a missle and we are going to model all of the debri and damage that it will cause. I wasn't too sure about this idea at first but after discussing it with my tutors and the other team members I am quite excited to get going.

My first job is to create a chair, a standard asset that will be repeated throughout the scene. We are not going to texture anything until we have figured out where things are going to go. This way we will also have a consistant style throughout the scene.

Time to get to work!

New Project- Team Environment

We have just started a new project in teams in which we have to create a university building in a post apocalyptic style. I have been chosen as a team leader which is pretty scary but I will do my best to do a good job. We have started to look at how to block off certain areas of the environment realistically and have discussed what features to have in each area to make it more interesting.

I have assigned each person a few jobs for this week. Basically for the first week people have to create a few concepts and learn how to use the unreal editor so that we can get started on the main shape of the building.

Here are our notes of how the level will be set out. The red shows the blockages and the blue show the areas of interest. It is pretty messy but at this stage this is mainly so we know where we are headed.

I am excited about how we are going to do on this project but I can already tell that it is going to be pretty stressful and that it will be a challenging situation to be in.

A rather good day

I've had a pretty good day. Today I had the chance to go out for a meal with my course mates and we all managed to just discuss the way we are working and how we could each improve in terms of techniques and helping each other. It was surprising how much it helped just chatting to everyone and deciding how we were all going to solve certain problems. A few of us are going to try and submit some work in order to go to the open day at Blitz Games. I have decided to try to rig up my self portrait so that I can use that for my submission.

Rigging is a real nightmare to me... i really cannot stand it... I simply want my character to stand in a relaxed position and I come across all kinds of problems. None the less I want to learn how to do it properly without things messing up. For now I have half succeeded at making it look relaxed and will just tweak some verts so that it doesn't look incorrect.

Like many other people on my course today I really want to do well. I think I may enter the next dominance war competition in order to improve my skills and get some feedback on the way I work and the techniques that I am using.

A conversation with my friend Dan today also helped me sort my head out a bit. I keep feeling down and stressed out because I can see where I want to be and I can't think of anyway of reaching it. Dan has a really good approach and said to me that I should work on the little skills bit by bit. I am never going to reach that standard that I aspire to without first learning how to. Basically I need to improve my skills purposefully in all areas and try to apply them into the field I eventually want to end up in, but I also need to realise that it is a gradual process.

I am constantly impressed by the ability of so many people on my course and I have realised that many of them simply try things over and over again. That is something that I need to adopt myself. Trying little excercises in a short period of time will help me to get better.

Maturity

My day today has been quite uneventful and started with the realisation that any time before 9 O’clock simply does not exist, even when I am awake... The sheer levels of grumpiness became a muttering storm of grumbles and childish whining. Today I had to be up early in order to give in my presentation of my work for this term and I can barely remember doing it. At some point one day I am going to have to consider changing my sleeping habits and actually grow up a bit.

I was thinking today about what I am actually going to do with my life. After leaving university I don’t have many initial options beside trying my best to get a job at a games company. Besides that I could choose to do another Art related job or something creative: Or I could look into a completely new career and use the qualifications I have gained in order to get into this new career. The more I think about it the more I realise that the most likely scenario is that I will at some point be doing something completely new that has nothing to do with the course I am attending at this period in time.

If I intend to get into the games industry then I have to realise that I am going to have to move and that could be complicated if I have things tying me to Leicester or the surrounding areas. Ultimately I don’t want to be defined by my career but by the way I live my life and so I am not too paranoid about ending up with a job that I didn’t originally intend to have. It could be good for me! Who knows what God has planned for me.

The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best possible pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to control.” - Psalm 32 vs.8+9

A large part of my learning this year has been realising that I could end up in any place in the near future. I have ended up confronting my largest fear of playing music in front of people and I now thoroughly enjoy doing it. This is all due to God challenging me by presenting me with the opportunity to coordinate worship at Christian Union and it has changed me completely for the better.

My life could take any direction and I have to learn to adapt and mature in the correct ways. I found myself filling in a series of forms today and arranging filing systems… a process I always used to associate with my super-organised Dad. I would often wonder how he could sit and do his jobs for hours and find satisfaction in completing them but now I realise that you learn to do these things simply because you have to: or because you have failed before.

University has been a series of adaptations and I feel that when I leave they will continue until the day I die: I will constantly have to deal with new ways of living and possibly new careers. I guess the point I am trying to make here is that I will adapt to whatever good and bad things happen in the future. Some may think that not getting your target job would be a failure: However I think that the real failure would be not applying yourself to be the best that you can be, no matter what happens, good or bad.

“Give your burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not permit the Godly to slip and fall.” Psalm 55 vs.22

I think I'll call that one finished...

I think it is about time I stopped tweaking my self portrait so I can start some new stuff and finish some old stuff. So here it is!

Getting myself rolling again...

So Christmas is over and New Year has been and gone and now I have to start my engines again in order to get back to the same routine I had going before the holidays...

Christmas was such a great chance to relax for me.. i feel really refreshed, but now I am starting to get frustrated with my inability to do my work for my assesments on the 12th of this month. I have been nice and lazy up until now and apart from the odd bit of doodling and 3D modelling I havent really done anything serious and it is about time I started. I'm aiming high this term... I've been told to aim for nothing but a first and I do intend to.

I think I find that part of the problem is that my emotional state really affects the quality of my work and the fact that I have very little to do at home is not helping. University has ended up feeling like home. I had a bizzare experience when I came to the front door of my parents house and rang the doorbell instead of reaching for my key. It was a sign to me that I had actually moved out for real.

The holiday has been a really good one even though very few of my friends have been around. Seeing family is important and I really realise that when I haven't seen them for a long time.

New Years Eve was a great experience for me, although it did freak me out a little bit. I went to London to see the fireworks with a couple of friends. The atmosphere was strange, it was full of energy but people would get aggressive at the slightest confrontation. Several arguements happened throughout the night, but luckily none of them amounted to anything. The whole thing felt like an apocalyptic scene from a film, people selfishly pushing in crouds and screaming all over the place: it was a bit intimidating when you are the only guy with your friends!

The actual fireworks were incredible and I had a great time laughing with some strangers. There was a bit of a classic moment during the actual display: one guy shouts out "We love you Boris!!" (refering of course to Boris Johnson) to which the drunken Australian guy in front of me yelled out "Bowser?! Who the F*** is Bowser?!".

So now it is the first day of 2009 and I want to make this year one in which I can be proud of how hard I have worked and the way I have gone about it. I want to be a hard worker, an unselfish person at all times and be able to enjoy myself without guilt when I am not working. God help me in all of those things! I need it!