Editing the Cinematic (2.5D)

Being a cinematic I needed to bring my pictures to life. Each picture had multiple layers and when for example an arm would move the picture underneath would be solid black to make the motion seem more clean. I was trying to give some sort of slow animation in every scene so the viewer feels like they are going from slow motion scene to another but in a fast paced action scene… Much like the 300 fight scene. Blood was added from the action essentials pack which worked really well as the red bought out some colour in the pictures, this allows the viewer to focus more on the blood. For this reason the blood splats are near the detail of the pictures to keep the viewers gaze away from roughly painted areas. I worked out each scene should be around 5-7 seconds with action scenes being 3 seconds this worked well for pace.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Final Paintings

With the advice given to me over the course I was trying hard to get a good range of values in my paintings, I considered the light source more and also the consistency of light between all the scenes. I will next time take pictures of perhaps a wooden mannikin or a person in the poses just to see a more precise idea of where the light hits. If you look back at the “flat” images I hope you can see the difference and the new picture jumping out a bit more. I painted with light grey around 20% backgrounds and blocked out my characters with a darker grey and line drawing, shadow was added then highlights were added with a 5% grey. I combined the soft brush with the hard to create edges. Colour dodge and overlay were used a lot with lighting and shadows.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

My Paintings, Why so Flat?

After a crit session it was pointed out that my paintings are flat. The biggest problem I was doing was not using a light enough brush on the lighted areas and also putting light in wrong places, these combined created a less realitic picture than lost its 3D appearance. This causes a flat look. I have greatly improved in my paintings through advice and new techniques. One good thing is to use a light grey as a starting background instead of white, having a light grey means you can create very bright highlights on your paintingsa and they stand out from the background popping your focus onto the main parts. I will post variations of these paintings later with the rest of my paintings so you can see the difference between my original flat paintings and my progression.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Horse Research

Obviously when you feature a war between to armies that are expert horsemen, there is gunna be horses to draw. If I can I want to take the focus away from the horses as much as possible by adding detail to the characters and less to the horses but we shall see when I come to draw them. Horses have lots of material online for drawing tips and while they are noit easy to draw there are simple shapes that I can use to roughly measure them. A problem I am having mainly is the neck length. Eadweard Muybridge is a photogrpaher and his photos with the page of various running and jumping motions for horses have been very useful.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Development and Drafting Techniques

This book I really loved, it is called the Skillful Huntsmam. It is a book based on the designing of an old book, by 3 brilliant students and a more experianced artist who judges thier journey of art throughout the book. The artists are Khang Le, Mike Yamada, Felix Yoon and finally Scoot Robertson. The techniques are very nice to see and I wish with this project I had taken thier approach with ym art as I feel I jumped into too much detail too soon. They start with lots of sillouttes and line drawings and establish form, composition and a bit of lighting. Here are some shots, there is some very nice art in here but I thought I would stick with the sillouttes as this is a process I will test further in the future.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Shot Composition and Transitions

Taken from the book “Dream Worlds” by Hans Bacher, it gives some useful tips on composing a shot and ways to make the scene more exciting. Although it is primarily for film there are many aspects that also translate into illustration and concept art. There has been a few times where I have flipped my canvas only to see it is an unblanced composition. By sticking to the fundamentals in this book you can help avoid that. I also found he laid it out very simply and did not rable on with complicated words or diagrams. I have taken a few shots of what I found to be some of the more important bits for myself.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

300 slow motion and still shots

This clip from the film 300 is actually a great find, most 2.5D animatics have a sort of slow motion effect to them much as this clip does when people are inpaled etc. Also its a great source for looking at shot compositions.

Mongol Clip

Early I had taken screenshots of a film called “mongol”, here is a good clip to watch although I actually watched the whole film this is probably the most influencial bit for me. While it is not in design with my story it is interesting to see how they have shown a Mongol vs Mongol battle. The battle I actually am depicting is Mongols vs Tartars which are a diffrent line of breeding to the actual Mongols(however they are all tribesmen and similar in alot of ways).

Cinematic and Storyboard

Feedback

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The great thing about being surrounded by people who are doing the same thing as you is that you can get good feedback from everyone, and while sometimes the truth can hurt it has improved my drawings numerous times throughout this project.

Here are some screenshots of conversations recorded on Facebook; a lot of my advice is given in class and especially as I work close with Jake Neal who is great at form, composition and lighting I have had tons of advice and I think it shows.

More Similar Peices of Work

Rough Paintings

I started with painting out simple forms of the charcters and the poses. I tried to convey the idea of each scene and the animation that it will be including. If I were to do this again I would have done even simpler drawings of about 10-15mins and just blocking out solid blacks and whites to get the compositions right. By spending probably too much time on these early concepts I felt I had to stick with them. However some were changed later on. Some of the intial concepts were not clear to say someone else or a client. My work in the future needs to be much more precise in whats being told as I won’t be working for myself in the future.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some more Composition References

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Resource Images

Below are some screenshots taken from the film “Mongol”. This film has quite an interesting view on the life of Temujin (Ghenghis) however it strays quite far from the source book I am using. Due to my final peice being a cinematic I was looking at shots and composition to help me decide on my own shots. This was also very good to look at references of movement and position of horse riders and of course horses themselves.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Mongol Art

A bit different as I have gathered art from the internet so some is more imagination than fact, it is interesting to see the differences between artists.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Mongol Research

Below is a few images I robbed off the internet to just give a starting point on Mongols. The main designs I want are the shape/features of a Mongols face, this statue in particular is based on Ghenghis Khan. The other images are of certain clothing they would wear, Mongols wore layers of cloth and fur, they called these deels. For war they adopted the Chinese style armour after stealing the design. Depending on the scene I choose to tell I might not need to show the armour.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

120 Self Promotion Ideas

http://www.allgraphicdesign.com/graphicsblog/2007/11/28/120-self-promotion-ideas-for-graphic-designers-freelancers-free-or-almost-free/

While trying to talk about my self made business I found this website which shows some good, and not so good ways to promote yourself. I just think is a good find and could help when you need to get yourself out there.

Artist Tutorials

Thankfully on the internet there are plenty of artists that have worked in the industry trying to help people like myself get better by showing some skills they have used and tips they have learnt from mistakes or just good tips.

Two main artists I look at are Feng Zhu, and Xia Taptara.

I have followed Xia Tapatara’s work a while now as I originally found his tutorials on youtube. While having good tutorials for free he also has good paid ones with more detail in, the biggest thing perhaps is that he has set up an “Artists arena” where you are given a brief (such as real life powerpuff) and you compete with amateur artists such as yourself, you also get great feedback from people and while probably critical it all helps.

Feng Zhu was shown to me by Jake Neal on my course, Feng zhu’s tutorials are great if not better than Xia Taptara’s as he works with more things such as sillouettes and angles, topics more devoted to the lore and learning of painting/drawing. I found his tutorials I have watched very useful.

Both artists are great for inspiration and I am always keeping an eye for artists like these that show different painting styles, and perhaps give away some few tried and tested techniques!

Game Artbooks

Recently I bought the Guildwars2 Artbook, can you guess i’m a fan? 🙂

This artbook is really good and although it cost me £20 I think its worth it jsut to see some of the process they go through and the small comments they make can be quite useful. The art is very beautiful and you can see the art styles bewtween all the artists as it lists thier names with each one. There are also charater turnarounds and its nice to see the professional standard of them and compare your work to thiers. There are also many different type of artworks from sketches to full works. The perspectives of the drawings are most impressive, they are often slanted/at an angle so the picture catches your eyes more and looks dramatic!

Using our skills as a Designer

Something a bit different in this post but I stimbled across some designs by a designer and in a way many people on my course could draw these as it is very thier style.

http://www.graphicdesignblog.org/oliver-appetizer-plates/

Above are two designs that show a charcter “Oliver” on many dishes with images of food coverted into an activity or scene. They are quite querky and funny and would be good to sit down at the table and see art as well. Something like this might appeal to me depending on my path I take, if the idea is there then I will do it.

F2P Game models examples

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Playing many MMO’s in my time its interesting to see how they adapt a F2P model and how it differs. heres a few examples I will talk about, I have only chosen these 4 as I have experiance with them. They are Guildwars1, Lord of the Rings online, Age of Conan online and finally Teamfortress 2.

Guildwars 1 model is probably the simplist and has least choice as since GW1 was a free game originally they can only charge for added content. This shop allows players to dress characters or open slots for you to “recruit” your other chracters into your group, basically one of your characters is controlled by AI. The best thing about this shop is that it does not create any disadvantages to other players in pvp no matter how much you spend. The downsides are they are expensive for what you get and there is less choice than others.

Lord of the Rings was a big mmo and still is, it brought its f2p model in due to perhaps subs dropping and also the view that f2p is a better option. Lotro is perhaps the best model I have seen so far as you mostly purchase items or ares that link to your acount and never go away rather than some offering time based unlocks. The costs are also quite proportionate and give lots and lots of items to choose from. There is also the ability to gather enough points to buy stuff in game without buying points, however this takes a long time, the option is still there. The downsides are probably they are always coersing you to get a subscription somehow and you sometimes feel pressured into getting a sub.

Conan has a very aggresive f2p model, its impossible to gain free points and even when you sub you get such a small amount each month its more like a bonus to when you pay for points. The choices though are good. The bigegst problem is you can never “buy” content only rent it as such with month passes etc, and kinda of defeats the object of the store.. why not just sub. The biggest problem I faced was without a subscription you cannot enter the expansion zones EVEN if you have paid for it! To me the f2p model is nice if you dont mind playing the lower levels and getting a hang for the game, if you want all content and abilities that help you in game… get a subscription.

Finally Teamfortress 2 turned f2p I guess when they released the Mann o store, valve obviously saw it as going to be sucessfull and thought by giving a good game for free they will get more micro transactions… which they have. The Teamfortress store is brilliant, it offers players the chance to play/trade till they get the items they want, or just buy it. It doesn’t really change the game unfairly and there are alot of cosmetics, including player base made items. The bigegst fault is the prices of new items charging ridiculous amounts for a hat. As a casual player I would never really use this store. However it shows how sucessful this sort of thing can be, look up Valves Valentines ring for teamfortress 2… crazy!

Splash Damage and Brink

I persoanlly saw a prensentaion from some designers at Splash Damage during the Bradford Animation Festival, talking about thier design of Brink. Back then it seemed to be a very nice concept and design, the reality I was told when released was it is good, but nothing special. However an article on industrygamers shows how it was not a flop on any account.

“Brink sold 2.5 million units worldwide. ”

“…the game is “estimated” to have generated between £120 million and $140 million in revenue for Splash Damage since it launched last year. ”

While most of this goes to the publisher this has given Splash Damage a bit of a better name for itself and it has gotten a new publisher under Warchest. This is a f2p publisher and it seems this is the way to go for alot of game designers nowadays, the idea I suppose being that people expect less from a game they havent paid for and there is also a killing to be on buying items.

I am loooking forward to thier new title “RAD Soldiers” it looks like a mix between Teamfortress and Worms. The idea of being able to play cross platform I think is good but its better from the designers view as thier game is more accessable and able to be played more.

A Game to Remember

Recently as a gamer I have found I have been buying less and less of computer games and actually playing older games I had such as command and conquer the originals etc. For one I believe the standard on PC has slipped dramaticaly due to ports from consoles. Even when I had a console I never really believed alot of the games were worth the “new” price that was given to them. Partly I think its due to a hard economy and publishers are just running on old sucessful ideas such as COD or Halo… boring.

This post is however to talk about a game that in my books is the best game I have played in a few years… Deadspace2.

My reasons for this is that this game had me hooked, it had an ok storyline but enough to make me wanting to see the end, this may be enhanced by the fact I never played the first game and so I wanted to find this “marker” even more. This game also had beautiful room designs and sound, these being the main things that make this game the game it is I give a big bag of kudos to the sound designer and enviromental designers. The last game that really scared me I remember was probably Tomb Raider 3 when I was considerably younger, Metro 2033 scared me a little for some parts in the game but nothing that I was afraid to run around everywhere. Deadspace 2 is another level, I literally walked around the whole game with my flashlight scanning every corner, I watched my ammo and generally it made me play through fear. It made me jump more times than I can remember and I think there was a hint of neck cramp where I was so immersed my body was tensed.

Reasons I think it was scarier than most was for one how easily you die, I played on “Normal”, I am a gamer I expected it to be a breeze… I was wrong. I would not even attempt this game on Hardcore mode.. not if you paid me. With the concept of dying so easy you are much more causious, unlike games like Call of Duty where you can take a few clips to the body before finally falling to the AI. The second reason and a big part is the ammo/money in the game. I was scared when my gun ran low and I was even more scared when my choice was between buying a health pack or some ammo. This mechanic also meant I spent more time checking rooms for loot and making sure I stomped on every alien I could, to make sure it was dead mainly! The puzzles in this game also give breaks to the non stop action of just blanking aliens and while being sometimes difficult to see at first are actually not too hard.

For a game with such beautiful animations, textures, sounds and just well polished I have no quarries with the disc change half way though, infact I think more games should adopt it! I prefere a better product over easy of use anytime. For one I never played online but this game had a superb single player, the downside only being you can only really play it through 2-3 times before really getting bored (it loses that fear factor after a few goes through). 9 hours of first time play though is not bad money for a game like this, especially as single player games drop considerably after a few months of release.

Steam vs Origin

Today I read an article released about Gabe Newell talking about Origin, EA’s new online distribtor service. One thing people will always notice is that programs like Origin and Steam are essentially the same, because they both want thier service used you will be accustomed to pop ups, having to load it before you can play your games, and generally more hassle for the user. However saying that Steam was the bane of buying steam related games in the past, now, people accept it and don’t mind as much. Origin I feel will become like that, however the pain becomes when you have to open 3 to 4 different programs to have access to all your games. Due to competition different games will be limited to only certain programs for example Battlefield3 was only perchaseable on Origin.

“Valve’s Gabe Newell has advised EA that creating a digital distribution platform for its customers should not be “a zero sum game.” ”

Personally it feels as if Gabe is annoyed at an attempt to knock his “steam” from its state of total monopolisation. While it would be nice to have to only open one program for games EA would not allow anything like that soon as I assume Steam would be the popular at the moment, mainly due to habbit.

Maths of a Console Developer

“That basic math is why Sony and Microsoft were willing to lose hundreds of dollars per console initially, and it has proven to be a solid investment for both companies in the long run. Nintendo has had the luxury in the past of not having to make that investment, but if there was ever a time to do so, it’s now. Nintendo could even make it more dramatic: Price the Wii U at $199, drop the Wii to $99, and watch Sony and Microsoft squirm as they try to match those prices. ”

Taken from an article off http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-04-20-wii-u-a-strategy-for-success this article had a concept that I had never really realised happened, it actually makes a lot of sence. usually with any product you sell you aim to make a profit, however with games consoles it doesn’t neccesarily have to be like that to start with. The idea talks about Nintendo (who still have a big bank of money) releaseing the Wii:U for a price under the manufacturing cost, for example it costs Nintendo £250 for each console they make, yet they release it to the public for £200 or even £150, even though they will originally lose alot of money with a console widely used more games are released and the market for it grows. Each game developer pays a small fee to Nintendo for each game and in the long run Nintendo make their revenue back. However the risk is your console doesn’t pick up and therefore it is very make or break depending on the loss your making per console.

I just thought this was an interesting concept, as I would say, passing back to go forward.

2.5D

Anatomy of a 2.5D Shot – Inside Scott Sigler’s Nocturnal Trailer from Kevin Capizzi on Vimeo.

Keeping with the little theme I currently have someone posted this little video on the group wall, it gives a slight idea of the time it can take to rig an image and make it 2.5D (which is essentailly a bunch of 2D layers that move to create a 3D effect). While I think its a cool idea and facinating, the amount of time this person spends on this picture I reckon could have been shortened. I don’t beleive a rig was perhaps needed, instead just use different layers and move them to simulate joints.

Here is the below finished video and I do however really like the finished version so I can ‘t complain at the time he spent, as it was well spent. What I like is the way the animation works with the 2D images, the modd and lighting of the drawings are also nice to look at.

Industry, Breaking In

Quite often my biggest worry is leaving university and not being able to make a name for myself in the industry. It’s going to be hard work but i’m sure i’m capable, one thing however is that I am very fortunate that nowadays the games industry is represented alot better for studies and the teachers know alot more about what they are teaching than they used to!

There is also alot more information on professionals and how they broke into the industry, I found such a great list on EA’s website.

http://www.ea.com/news/breaking-into-the-industry-philip-simmons

Philip Simmons, Environment Artist is a guy i’ve looked at and is quite interesting. He shows me how I will likely be a freelance artists after my studies and that my sucess from there will be based on my skills and outsourcing my work. His biggest tip is good as well;

“The easiest way to become an Environment Artist is to be a World Builder. If you’re going through school, lots of schools will try to get you to be a Prop Artist, because props are the easiest things to turn around and make nice-looking. The problem with that is that most prop work gets outsourced. Companies need people who can make entire spaces. And to get those jobs, you have to show that you can realize an environment in its entirety, concept it, build it, and handle it – all by yourself.”

Online Gaming and Internet

I recently read an article on develop magazine (http://www.develop-online.net/news/40574/EA-All-franchises-to-recieve-online-universes) that EA are planning to make all thier games require an internet connection, basically be an online universe. While I can see this happening I can see a massive drop in sales and probably about as much hate as the DRM. The problem with this theroy being it requires the player to 1. Have a good internet 2. have it up 24/7. Issues occur when internet cuts happen or a company goes down for a short period, the gamer thus loses the ability to play his games he bought. I persoanlly beleive this is a way for EA to combat piracy as often with an online game compared to a single player game, it is easier for EA to find pirated signitures etc. Neverthless its a pain in the ass for consumers.

“Creating Guildwars2 Cinematics”

“They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so we’re letting our art do the talking with our new 2.5D animated storybook cinematics.

A strong narrative has always been important in Guild Wars, and cinematics are one of the many tools we use to present the story in a dynamic way. In Guild Wars 2, we’ve reinvented the way we use cinematics to tell the story. We utilize proprietary animation software that renders 2D cinematics in real time, so your player will appear inside the brilliant animated illustrations.

In this video, we’ll take a look at the artistic process for creating the stylized new look, and we’ll check out a section of the GW2 human race cinematic, which players will see in the gamescom demo. I hope you like what you see!” – http://www.arena.net/blog/video-creating-guild-wars-2-cinematics

Just an interesting video I watched that shows a basic understanding of how the put together the concept art to create a cinematic. It shows a quick look at thier storyboards and its just generally interesting to see the transitions from scene to scene in the final thing.

Cinematics using 2D Images

This is an interesting topic for me as I have only seen these type of cinematics being released lately. I don’t know why we havent seen more examples from games, for me they are entertaining and show story well, they are also easier to make if you recycle the concept art that has been designed for the game/film.

Here is an example of Blizzards new Diablo 3 intro cinematic, as you can see it uses 2D images to create 3D effects and uses fast transitions to keep a fast paced battle.

A still shot taken from the Diablo cinematic shows how the pictures don’t have to be breathtakingly stunning, just to clearly show the detail of the object.

Heres another example of a cinematic using art work from ArenaNet’s upcoming Guildwars2. The art for these are more beautiful mainly because they are recycled from the actual artwork for the game and not produced for the cinematic, this I find much more exciting.

UK Industry, Skillset2

Following on from the introduction of Skillset one interesting and probably in my opinion the most important page is job roles in the industry your looking into.

“Art and Animation

Game Artists create the images – all the objects, buildings, landscapes and characters – which make up the game world. Animators define and create their movement.

The majority of computer games are now developed using realtime 3D graphics and animation. Artists and Animators working in computer games development are usually trained or experienced in one of the major 3D modelling and animation packages, such as 3DStudioMax or Maya.

Game Artists work at many different levels in a games development studio. Job roles are often combined, and include concept artists, environment modellers, object and vehicle modellers, character modellers, animators, and texture artists. A Lead Artist or Art Director takes overall responsibility.

Job titles in this area might include:

Creative Manager
PreVis Artist
Art Director
Technical Artist
Lead Artist
Artist*
Concept Artist
Animator*
Environment Artist
3D Modeller
”

In a very good talk with Nicki Ball I remember her stating that everyone expects to be the highest job when they enter the industry. As I hope to eventually be a concept artist I believe it would be good to look for a job as perhaps as an apprentice artist based on my skills or even as a 3D modeller and work my way up with practice. The likely is however I will be freelance for a while as most artists do, it is also cheaper for companies to bring in temporary artists.

Uk Industry, Skillset

http://www.creativeskillset.org/

“Creative Skillset is the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses to ensure the UK creative industries maintain their world class position”

Skillset is a site shown to me by my tutor which is a site encouraging use of our skills in the UK industry of creative media. Espcially in genres such as animation and game design where it can often be tempting to work abroad due to more benefits.

The aim of the website is to give a bit more information about the actual industry you may be going into, as jobs avaliable etc.

Below is a nice picture taken from the site that shows the distribution of Game Companies in the UK;

ArenaNet Artists, Richard Anderson

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:ArenaNet_artists

Above is a list of the artists employed by ArenaNet and working on the Guildwars series. The thing I love about this game is its art, there is so much that show such detail it allows the modellers to create a truely unique world.

One of the artists i’m going to have a quick word about is artist Richard Anderson. The reason I have picked him out of the others is because of his unique art style, he paints very jagged paintings that come together without being neccesarily detailed or sharp. They add an interesting image and become something clear but yet different. I like his style and he talks alot about it on the following link, his methods and ideas which I found useful and interesting.

http://idrawgirls.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/concept-artist-richard-anderson-guild.html

Heres some examples of his work;

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Artist – Octavian Bene

Octavian Bene is an artist I have just fallen across while looking on the internet, his designs and paintings especially with bodies and landscapes are breath taking.

 

Here are some of his best works in my opinion, I love the detail on his castles and how he manages to show the sense of scale with these structures. He reminds me much of Daniel Docui’s work and infact one piece is so similar I think he must use him as an inspiration. I would love to be able to portray the scale and atmosphere he does here.

 

 

MMO’s and F2P

As a PC gamer quite often you are seen as the gaming group that only plays MMORPG games as they simply don’t work on consoles. However, throughout my life I have seen an increased amount of them be released… and fail. The biggest success I have noticed is having a fan base converted into a MMO, such as Lord of the Rings, or Star wars. These give you an automatic starting point and quite often people fall in love with it easier, however the biggest problem in this industry in World of Warcraft.

MMO’s work on a basis of releasing a game that is capable of keeping a player occupied long enough to play to the top level and a little bit beyond until new content can be released. They then work on regular content releases to keep people playing and eventually offering these massive worlds. The problem with this concept is that it is not possible for a new game to be released with the amount of content one of the old successful ones has, in this case i’ll use World of Warcraft. Usually people get bored or run out of content and un-subscibe.

A trend that has been spreading lately has been a F2P concept in which players pay for content but have no subscription, they also can up to a certain amount earn content. While it is seen as the new “great thing” I believe it is a method to stop a game dying completely, while new players come in the content is more limited than before, quite often subscribers have an in-game advantage as well. All this points to a presurising system that encourages and almost pushes the player to grind to boredom or pay money. This in my opinion takes the fun out the games and definately ruins them for me.

In the future I as a consumer would love to see a F2P game that gives you all the content, but paying can get you cosmetics perhaps help you along the way to better items. However the items should never give an unfair advantage in Player vs Player confrontation. This way the player can play ALL the game and not be fed up by people willing to fork out money.

GAME, Digital Distribution and the Concequences

Lately it has been said that GAME and its asset Gamestation have been forced into administration. Most likely the main reason is that nowadays everyone buys either from an online retailer or buy through a program such as Valve’s Steam store. The biggest thing about internet shopping is that you can easily compare prices quickly from around the world, in which most cases GAME was not the cheapest. It had to be said the pre-owned market was keeping GAME stores afloat with that being its main source of income, but again internet sites were offering pre-owned services and I think even that market was shrinking for them.

So with digital distribution of computer games being the biggest method of purchase nowadays what does that mean for users. For one it will most likely mean you need a good broadband internet as an essential, for some that don’t neccesarily want that this can be a pain. Another problem I persoanlly come across being a PC gamer is the massive amount of programs needed for you to sign up and create accounts to play, for one this is annoying and time consuming.

PC games are very much acount based, this is the main reason they mostly dissapeared from the shelves in stores and why you can’t really buy any second hand. I can see in the future this coming to a console, acount based games in which you download through say the “xbox 590 store” or whatever. While this can be nice on a PC I always see consoles as a much more physical game device. I would epscially want a hard copy to take to a friends house if he didn’t have the game.

While a deal has been made to save GAME I beleive they will have to adapt with some sort of online or GAME browser that deals special offers and keeps the viewers just popping on to see whats for sale (much like steam do) as well as continuing the stores. I would also like to see some more PC games other than the sims and MMORPG games, thank you.

Games in Education research

Epistemic Games is a company of researchers and proffesors dedicated to the future of using video gamews in education. I have been looking at alot of texts from Kurst Squire and David Williamson Shaffer. Both of these have written many articles and books about games being used as an teaching instrument. Examples given are games like Civilisation or Railway tycoon, they even talk about strategic shooters such as ghost recon as being beneficial to learning by offering a different set of skills that will ultimately help you in future life. I agree with thier views on alot of things however they speak more about how games can help with basic learning and not nessecarilly specific learning in school which is what I am looking into to. However I am sure the ideas of learning from a game and using a game to teach certain skills are quite similar.

Video games in Education Research

http://www.gaia3d.co.uk/

Gaia is a company I noticed that specialises in 3d for education allowing schools to project 3d images of say wter formations for geography etc. It is an interesting concept but like I have been studying in creative practice 3d id very vimited due to its 3d glasses required. It is both expensive but more than anything it socially restrictive. Therefore I can’t see 3d combining with any sort of games were they introduced to education fully.

Final Production

Final Scenes

This is my final scenes 5,6 and 7. This is the part inside the ship, the arena, and the build up to the “fight”. I was really disappointed with this, one my characters rig was badly made not allowing me to do a fluid animation of picking up the spear. Second the clips I rendered were to short meaning it seems rushed, jumpy and the sound effects and music therefore don’t work over the short time. However, positive things I can gain are that I learnt a lot from Annabeth about moving the camera to fit the scene and not the other way around. I have learn that if you are using live footage with digital, you need to record the camera lens, distance, angles etc so you can easily replicate it in the scene. I also recapped on the green-screening although it could have been done better with some advice and tutorials. The biggest flaw in my opinion is the fact I didn’t get time to make effective sounds or have time to re-render the scenes.

Rough Cut

This is the rough cut I proposed on the final crit session. There is one or two frames that are out of continuity and so that will need to be fixed. I am happy where I am but there is a lot of work to do with the animating.

Spaceship VFX Scene

This is my best, and favourite clip, I spent a lot of time on this one clip and it shows in my opinion. I googled to find out on a lot on after effects. From this I learnt to add a subtle depth of field, camera shake, colour correction, and masking out. Sounds were taken from royalty free websites the ones in this clip are unaltered. I used the recorded ambience as a low background with a spaceship rumble on top getting quiet to loud. One problem was because I had colour corrected the scene to make the spaceship seem more in the scene, my other scenes did not fit as well.

Nicky Ball Lecture

Below is just a typed of copy of my notes on creating a CV for film/games/animation as well as tips for cover letters, procedures and hoe to find oppotunities.

Finding a Job:

Focus on YOUR skills.
Contacts – get contacts through meeting people.
CV – have a relatable CV.
Cover email.
Interview – dress smart casual (not suits for media jobs)

Life Circle; What I want -> Research -> CV – > Market yourself – > Internship – >What I want…

Tips for looking for a job.

What level do I start at in my specialism.
Start from bottom, work up.
Interests out of work can be relevant.
Look for easier to break in areas. _
What do I dislike – dont do a office job if your hands on. ]
Enviroment I work in. ]
What makes you happy _]
Jobs outside the industry but related.

Twitter – social networking

Finding oppotunities;

Know who to contact – internet research.
Watch end credits for names.
IMDB.
Contacts.
The unit list/mandy.com.
Northern Exposure (more for films).
Create your own oppotunities.

CV Details;
Name + Contact (name you go by)
Number mobile only or house if you own your own. in style 5-3-3
Personal profile, what you want.
Relevant experiance.
Employment.
Education, dopnt list gcse/a levels just say how many.. ref maybe maths etc.
Hobbies.
References avaliable.

Cover email;

Check name and address of recipicent.
Dont cc or forward to multiple.
Use “Dear …”
3 paragraphs.
Including What I want and some buttering up.
Follow up the email after week or so of no contact.
Never use words I want/need.
Spelling and puntuation!
No second emails (make sure everything is in one email)

More tips;

Make sure CV up to date.
Business cards for social events.
Social networking.
Website portfolio.
Net events.
Circles.

Be realistic about your level of ability.
Have action plan.
They are helping you mwith placements, be polite.
Contacts.
Follow up offers from contacts.
Dont be too keen/pain in ass but be inthusiastic.
Small world.

Disintegrate Effect (Video Co-pilot tutorial)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

As being totally new to after effects I had no idea how to get a nice dissolve effect. Following this tutorial was actually quite hard and my effect was not as good as the tutorials, however it gave me a great understanding of after effects and how its similar to photoshop. For one I was colour coding layers and naming properly. I also learnt how you can create pre-compositions for example the Video Source. and when changed changes in many other pre-compositions. Linking changes to keep the continuity. This tutorial is also handy to have as I can reload it up anytime and just add a different image/person and I can also change dissolve colour, direction and speed.

This is my final result:

Spaceship Textures

After playing with some textures and displacement maps for my spaceship I found I very much liked a spiky design. A lot of the tests involved textures made from chip of a computer and wall panels. In the end I decided to go with a “ice” texture this when displaced gives a jagged ice look. I have decided to go with this as my art style for the arena as well. Ice styled with metal.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Alien Textures

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

These textures look nice on my model but could be better, for one, the separations in the UV maps are not seamless so the legs joint to the body is very noticeable up close. The Alien also looks a bit flat but this could be down to its low poly textures and wireframe. Although this can be good I think making it lower poly in this brief was a mistake as I was focusing more on render times than how it looked.

Film Shoot Pictures

Below is pictures from the shooting I did for my indoor scenes, due to people needed for equipment and lighting there was a total of 5 people filming therefore the shots are not just from my set. This is a good technique as we can all help each other. However it means a long shoot and when no one is in particular control people can become lazy or bored and productivity slides.

Arena Concept art and basic model

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is a basic model of my alien arena and a concept I did for it, at the moment I picture the final design as a sandy outdoor feel arena, yet it is inside the ship. I want to have a small glow theme and metal plates to fit with the spaceship.

Normal Mapping

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is my normal map I created for my alien, there is also a screenshot of how it shows in a render. I am happy with it but at the same time I have a long way to go in making a alien look realistic, on the bright side it makes a good character for a game especially with its low poly count.

UV maps

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

To make the biggest use of a normal map I need a good UV map, also to make some realistic textures I need a good UV map too. It also reminded me of the technique as I had problems in the past and this time they were a lot easier to create. However I still had problems with the hands, also I need to learn how to connect body UV’s together so I get a seamless join in the textures on the model.