Tree City Scape, Another Concept, Final Brief

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A concept that took about 1 hour to produce. A orignal image was in the background for perspective sake (i’m rubbish with that). I drew the tree with a black sillouete and leaves were added using a custom brush I popped out with features Wet Brush and Scattering turned on. Once I had the main scene in black I added a sketch over the top and then a neat version. I used another custom brush to make the platforms, however it looks a bit too “metally” to me rather than the wood effect I was going for. In the end the blue from the image looked nice and so was kept, I neatened the surrounding focus by added foliage effects. A 10% tint was put over the top and shading added to the tree trunk.

UK Games Industry, What is it like now?

Uk Games Industry

The situation in the games industry in the UK has been in slight decline since 2008. From 2008 to 2009 the headcount for studios fell by 4% and for development studios 15%. Tax revenues to the exchequer fell by £17 million and the sector’s contribution to GDP declined by £41 million. The reason for decline in the UK has many factors, one of the main ones being other countries such as Canada and South Korea are encouraging the game industry with tax breaks luring companies in. This makes it harder for the UK to keep up with game development.
The UK is slowly losing experienced and skilled staff as they are being encouraged to move abroad along with the bigger companies.A prime recent example of this is Activision’s proposal to move their development studio in the UK abroad due to the recent development that the coalition government are not going to give the UK’s games industry a tax break. Bobby Kotick, Activision’s chief executive said, “I think it was a terrible mistake, there are so many other places that are encouraging the video games industry.” (Tiga, 2011). The tax break which the coalitionwhich they said would be introduced, has now been rejected. In June, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, used the emergency Budget to scrap proposals for tax relief introduced by Alistair Darling, dismissing them as “poorly targeted” in spite of Conservative and Liberal Democrat pre-election promises to support the relief. Considering the UK is the third biggest consumer of video games being bought more than film, and being overtaken in making them by Canada and South Korea means the UK has declined into fifth place.
Although the industry seems to be decaying in the UK Tiga, who represents much of the games industry are encouraging games tax relief. Games Tax Relief is expected over a five year period to: create or save 3,550 graduate level jobs (or the vocational equivalent); increase or safeguard £457 million in development expenditure; and secure £415 million in new and saved tax receipts over five years. (Tiga, 2010) Education seems to be a big factor to the UK’s future development and this is a key concern. “The UK needs game development staff. Desperately. And right now. The problem is, there’s no way near enough to go around – and when talent emerges, it’s being tempted out of the country. But the key concern is more fundamental than that. Games Up also wants to take on the education process in this country…” (The Guardian, 2010).
To summarise the UK’s game industry seems to be in decline, it is better for companies and staff to work abroad due tax cuts. Although there is chance the UK might adopt this, with the current financial problems it is unlikely. Talent that emerges usually is taken abroad leaving the UK with little left. Education needs to be more specific and less broad in gaming degrees and encourage maths and science.

Bibliography

(The Guardian, 2010) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2008/jun/23/isukgamedevelopmentintrou
(Tiga, 2010/2011) http://www.tiga.org/
(Information alos taken from) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/8233861/Call-of-Duty-maker-Activision-Blizzard-could-quit-Britain-over-terrible-mistake-on-video-game-tax.html

Games Industry Reasearch

Tiga

• Overseas government support for video games development over the last decade has created an increasingly uneven international playing field, making it difficult for UK games developers to compete.
• British-made video games are facing a long-term decline in the global sales charts, despite a record 2008
• Games Tax Relief is expected over a five year period to: create or save 3,550 graduate level jobs (or the vocational equivalent); increase or safeguard £457 million in development expenditure; and secure £415 million in new and saved tax receipts over five years.
• Experienced and skilled staff are being pulled abroad leaving the UK with less.Ex “I think it was a terrible mistake,” said Bobby Kotick, Activision’s chief executive. “There are so many other places that are encouraging the video games industry.” ample is Activision moving out of UK due to scrap of taxation benefit
• Between July 2008 and July 2009 the headcount at British video games studios fell by 4 per cent, and 15 per cent (44) of British video games development studios, publishing and service companies went out of business. Yet global industry sales grew by 20 per cent in 2008 compared to 2007. In turn, between July 2008 and July 2009 the UK video games industry’s contribution in tax revenues to the Exchequer fell by £17 million and the sector’s contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by £41 million.

Telegraph

• June, George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, used the emergency Budget to scrap proposals for tax relief introduced by Alistair Darling, dismissing them as “poorly targeted” in spite of Conservative and Liberal Democrat pre-election promises to support the relief.

• ITV news
• 5th in games industry world wide down from 3rd
• Video games bought more than films.
• 3rd highest country for buying videogames.

Guardian

• The UK needs game development staff. Desperately. And right now. The problem is, there’s no way near enough to go around – and when talent emerges, it’s being tempted out of the country.
• But the key concern is more fundamental than that. Games Up also wants to take on the education process in this country…

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/291284/features/britain-triumphs-at-oscars-but-uk-games-industry-is-enslaved-by-unfair-treatment/

DJ Hero 3 cancelled – Uk studio http://www.computerandvideogames.com/288272/news/dj-hero-3-cancelled-alongside-guitar-hero/

Bizarre creations http://www.computerandvideogames.com/289640/news/video-farewell-bizarre-creations-1994-2011/

DragonBall Z, A Short Cartoon Evaluation

DragonBall Z

A cartoon animation I much enjoyed as a child due to its originality and male sense of fighting, yet in a child-friendly manner. The style of Dragonball Z was very unique; it was drawn very similarly to Anime yet had major differences. Characters eyes while adopting the nature of them being big were drawn with straight lines, getting wider as they went out. The hair was very exaggerated with nearly all characters adopting black hair, or Blonde for “Super Saiyan” which signified their power. The clothing was very loose taking inspiration for war monk clothing. Muscles were an essential for every character and as you can see in the picture the muscles are very exaggerated also and clearly defined. Even the weirdest of alien monsters would have substantial muscles along these lines. The characters shown emotions and expressions were very much the type shown in Anime cartoons by being very over the top and often falling over when surprised etc.
As a fighting/action cartoon the storyline very much ran along the same lines throughout its showings. A threat would emerge and they would have to go through a journey to become stronger to eventually beat the villain. Then another would invade stronger than the previous one and so forth. Looking back the cartoon can be quite irritating due to its cheesy lines and overreacted screaming at each other while “powering up”.
Dragonball Z was very much a cartoon for the male audience due to its fighting and action packed theme. The cartoon drawings were very clean and throughout the multiple series stayed relevant with the same styles.

This is a video of various transforms and fight scenes, it will give you a short insight to what the cartoon was like.

Floor Plan, Brief 5

Floor Plan for Galex-Ti maintenance room. Drawn in Illustrator, machines surrounding the room are aproximate.

Photo Montage, Party Baby, Brief 3

A montage of pictures to create a issue on the theme that in Britain younger and younger people are being encouraged to drink, party and have sex. This piece is supposed to be a over exagerrated version of this. The image was created in photoshop, the images imported and then using various techniques I tried to blend them in as much as I could so it seemed they were all in one photo. Originally the Bra in the corner was supposed to be on the babies head, however I found it covered up to much of the beer bottle and kiss mark, no matter how funny it looked!

City Scape Concept, Final Brief

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Joachimart, Professional Artist

http://www.joachimart.com/

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I really like his concepts and he obviously knows what he is doing as he has drawn for some big names. What I like is how he uses lighting in one of the stone scenes to really create atmosphere. His drawings are very polished however I am not fond of his character designs on his site as they are all very cartoony and although very well done I prefere his other work.

Torvenius, Fast Digital Painter

Torvenius a artist on Youtube has plenty of work on his channel to view. What I find fantastic about his work is that it is create spontaneously, using his own brushes to just form shapes and working from them. I previously used this technique to draw a gun concept and the process is actually very fast. Textures simply taken from google add a real/rough effect although he uses extra layers and colour tints them where as I just use them on opacity. I particularly like his landscape concepts as I have posted above (He also does a lot of guns and people/monsters). What I struggle with is picturing the depth of field in my images, I have started looking at pictures with similar view points and working my art around them.

Many artists might not like his style due to his rough and unplanned technique however I think this style could greatly be used for throwing out quick concepts and then developing on one you really like, or showing your client a few examples to check he likes them. This would save time in all aspects.

Flash Animating Techniques

This video shows how you can create a custom motion path using a Classic Tween. Simple but could be applied more usefully in a Flash game.

This is a poor example of showing how you can use the timeline to cause easeing in and out. As nothing in real life starts at full speed or slows down instantly in animation you have to represent this. This video is attempting to show how a pendulum would slow from gravity as it reached its peak. However my original crashed and I mocked this up quickly.

Shape Tweening is possible one of the coolest things. You can simple combine shapes or drawings as long as they are made from vectors. Almost like transformers in this clip I show how you can change colour and Shape Tween. The words Steve warping into the word God was pure accidental.

A more complicated Shape Tween with different shapes, it is just as easy to create however if you wanted to control the Tween more it would be complicated.

Walk Cycles and Bones

The newest version of Flash has a new button called the “bone” tool, this only works in action script 3. This clip shows how the fundamentals of the tools work, after creating a shape you drag what “bones” the shape has. After doing this you can move it round, in my case it was a quickly drawn stick figure. Due to being new the Bone tool has many problems, I can across some difficulty animating a thin shape and therefore i used fat elipses. This however causes some “funny” warps as it moves.

The stick figure and Bone tool in animation.

I then applied the bone tool to a more complicated design. After drawing in Illustrator you have to make the whole design a Symbol and break apart till it becomes a shape, this allows the Bone tool to work. The walk cycles for all the clips here were created by copying walk cycles in google images. One thing I attempted was to make the body and head move, due to not being able to bind “bone joints” to each other it takes twice as long due to you have move every part of the body seperately and you come across many errors.

I started a quick attempt at animating the bottom half of my Visual Language character, its not smooth or pretty but it kind of works.

Manga and Anime

From reading:

– Equivilent of western comics.
-Profoundly different.
– Manga more cuturally influenced.
– Cater for all ages, and cover all stories.
– Characters and story “not set in stone”.
– Form over line.
– Emphatically non-japanese.
-“alternative world”
– Initially inspired by 1930 American cartoons.
– Styalistic.
-Total dedication to thier art in every scene.
– Less dialogue than western cartoons.
-Variety of genres
– 3 main categories; catastrophic anime (post atomic bomb), carnivalesque anime (ceremonial), nostalgic anime (life as it is, good and bad).

Character Actions 2, Brief 4

Progression from stick figures to rough concepts of Galex-Ti in various emotional states.

Character Actions, Brief 4

Process of creating some robot head concepts for different moods. I wanted to eject some “human” emotion into my robot character so the viewer can relate and bond with Galex-Ti more. Here are some first expression concepts. Inspiration came from “Dog” in Half Life, and also from “Animated Performance” a book by Nancy Beiman.

Galex-Ti “Action Pose” Concept Art, Brief 4

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A concept of Galex-Ti using his beam. The position was created roughly by cuting and tunring parts of the side and front drawings. It was then imported to Photoshop and painted over in various steps. I’m still practicing getting that more “real” and sharp look, I kept consitency with the light being on the right hand side throughout which made painting easier. A texture was then put as a background with a light render and lens flare added.

Polygon Storyboard

City Scape Concept – Temple, Final Brief

A concept for a building in my city scape. Using many of the same considerations, the building is actually in the shape of a guitar and the edges much like a African drum edge. The lines are very loose but I like that style, originally it was a black and white drawing but I decidede to add colour and vibrance as a city based on music cant be dull!

Future City Scape (Galex-Ti Enviroment), Brief 4

Turns out the brush I made for the gun is also good for building, 5-10 min play around in Photoshop. This is a example of what the timer period Galex-Ti is in. This shows one of the sucessful prospering cities, a safe zone.

First Concept For Final Brief, City Scape

A concept of one building that would occupy my City Scape in the theme of Music. I am going with the style of Acoustic guitars, all buildings will be naturual, made of wood and use various framing.

Character Complete Front and Side View, Brief 4

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Front and Side view of Galex-Ti

Inspiration for Factory, Brief 4

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I was really stuck on how to fill the background and develop detail around the main focus, these images helped alot. The Halo concept helped me alo and my perspective view was based upon this. Iron man I used for shadows wire and surrounding “secondary” stuff.

Development of Galex Production Factory Scene, Brief 4

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This is really a slideshow of how I build up my scene for my character to live in, Galex-Ti. This scene is where Galex-Ti will be repaired after missions and also upgraded and built. I experimented with Illustrators Perspective tool which allows you to have consistency with lines from a viewpoint, I really liked using it. I worked by layering up the front and then fading and drawing the back on another layer. Rough shapes for cogs and boxes (abstract shapes) were apparent int he final drawing as I knew I was going to paint over. The final step was importing to Photoshop and painting away! To hide the vacancy of a emprty backwall I used shadows to block out open space, I wanted a crowded feel. Wires were added and foreground images to act as your looking into a cave or secrect den. Lighting was added to create a focal point. It still needs neatening up but I am happy with this result.

Game Development Companies in Leeds

Just Add Water (JAW) is a local games company registered with PSP, PS3, Wii, DS and Xbox360. This company is a example of how smaller companies are finding the strain of financial cuts among oter things. A late game can cause massive damage for a company. However they are now working closely with Oddworld Inc. JAW work on quick bursts changing company often, they have over 100 years of experience and have helped produce over 40 games in the last 20years.

“Gravity Crash”

Game Development Companies in Leeds

Gamerholix Limited is a game company in Leeds with over 100 years of gaming experience designing over 200 games across all platforms within that time. Despite a limited amount of information available on their site there is enough to show you they have worked on “Little Britain: The Game” and also a variety of children learning games. They are multiplatform designing for the Iphone, Wii, and PS. There latest app for the Iphone was quite successfully reaching #3 in Iphone Music Game charts, “Doo Wop”.

I like this idea of a music app as it simply allows you to create fun and great sounding melodies, there may be more “in depth” music games out there but if they are complicated to work or aren’t fun they don’t succeed.

What I didn’t like on first view of Gamerholix Limited is their website. It lacks detail and doesn’t give you much information on current works in progress or past work. The site seems half finished in my opinion. However its good to see what games are being made locally to me.

Messing Around

A Drawing that took me 15-20 minutes in Photoshop. Gun was created out of random shades and blocks then shaped and detail added. A skin and background was added to give a dirty feel. Inspiration taken from Torvenius freelance artist.

Balance Work and Play

Played alot of the new Halo game when I was at home, thought I would get something from it so decided to draw Master Chief with my new Bamboo tablet.