I've Never Read Harry Potter

FMP Character 3

2009-03-20T13:27:00.022Z

Here are some early concepts, they should help grasp the idea I'm trying to achieve. Some of the concepts were simply too difficult for me and my current 3D ability to do accuratly.

Lack of research made these concepts stray too far from voodoo and the character my project is based on.

These images are very quick sketches to quickly map out some poses, statues and the alter. The character has developed quite alot by this point, instead of uploading each individual concept design I've merely put up the important ones which sparked my final design.

These images are the final design for the male and female, they're well within my ability to model and their design fits the description of the vodou God Marassa. The major difference between my interpritation is the fact I've made Marassa an adult as opposed to a child. There many reasons why I did this, mostly because it'd be good practice to make an adult and it ment I could define more muscles in the high poly, theres other small reasons but thats the most important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marassa_Jumeaux

I don't feel the 3D model does the concept justice, I altered the design slightly to make the character work as a 3D model. The skirt was changed and I've made the face more humanoid. The skull like nose on the concept wasn't right for a very humanoid character.

DS spec character.

FMP Character 2

2009-02-19T02:37:00.004Z

Here's my character with most of it's accessories on. The head and skirt will be alphas and it's all unwrapped apart from body. The has sketc is poor quality because I used a digital camera, I don't plan to colour it in until I do use a scanner.

FMP Character

2009-02-18T16:38:00.007Z

Here are some images of the same character modeled to Nintendo DS and Xbox 360 specifications.
Hopefully by tonight they should both have improved significantly.

A MUST SEE FOR ALL GAMERS!!

2009-02-18T15:22:00.005Z

Here is a video insight on how the some of the general public view the latest gaming consoles. When I listen to those who, in the past have been very enthusiastic about video games, I tend to hear that the only new thing really is the quality has improved, in terms of graphics etc. but its the same old shit, for example; a new console with the same games, or the same type of games as the original. What are we on now, the third generation (PlayStation 3). Where is the promised virtuality we used to hear about from the days of megadrive. At least nintendo taking a risk to develope, evolve trying to be different in terms of gaming for the future, bringing more of the public back into gaming, and proves that we should take risks, even maybe look at hologram technology.
My Dad says, it maybe a bit tongue in cheek, but "many a true word said in jest".
http://i.gizmodo.com/5150189/so-mean-but-maybe-true-nsfw

To compliment what I mean it would easier to watch Johny Chung Lee's video, to give you an idea what gamers are craving for. Ironically Nintendo features again:

Check out www.johnnylee.net.

FMP

2009-02-17T14:54:00.003Z

Here is an early concept of my character I'm doing for my FMP, I looked into Voodoo (Vodou) mythology and decided to create my interpretation of the God/Goddess Marassa. In short Marassa is pretty much like Gemini.

"Divine twins embodiment of elemental forces in the universe, ying/yang, sun/moon, hot/cold, complementary, inseparable polarized forces"

Quote from Wikipedia, lots of fancy words.

Pic

2009-02-17T13:37:00.015Z

Here's some pictures of the last 3 projects I did. The pictures are few because I'm not too fond of any of the work I've produced, although this head of my Mum isn't too bad. Since the project was to create a character in the WW1 era I decided to do my Mum as a nurse, Florence Nightingale style.

Here are 3 LoDs far left 6000 tris, 4000 tris and 2000 tris.

I went for the inner city playground for my environment, the floor should probably be more than just a tiled texture though.

Normal and Damaged Van.

Handy Tutorial

2008-12-08T02:05:00.003Z

Found this well useful tutorial to model hands, it's in a different program but the same principles still apply.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=J1mExXURsWk

I managed to mock up this hand using no reference and just that video, I'm not happy with the fingers so I gave up, still it's a pretty good tutorial but next time I really should take a picture of may hand instead of just looking at it.

Attempt 1

It's still not right, the verts are a mess oh and the fingers are not attached.

They're Running Out of Ideas But I Don't Mind?

2008-12-08T01:22:00.006Z

Surprisingly I've only just found out Square-Enix is re-releasing Chrono Trigger for the DS.

http://na.square-enix.com/ctds/

http://www.infendo.com/ds/rumor-chrono-trigger-ds/

Before I go on I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, if a company re-releases a game with extra characters, cut scenes, battle features, etc I'll feel cheated that my version has none of those things. The Street Fighter games are prime examples, it's extortion but I still fall victim to the lush anime graphic. So why are games being re-releasing, Final Fantasy series, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Mario, Metal Gear Solid Subsistence, Rez and pretty much every other Nintendo game can be bought and downloaded on the Wii. Countless more classics from our child hood are following suit.

Resident Evil (Sony Playstion)

Resident Evil (Nintendo Game Cube)

Tomb Raider (Playstation)

Tomb Raider (Playstation 2)

One reason for doing this is the fact not everyone got a chance to play these classics when they were first released, plus it gives a chance for the kids of today to play some of the best games created. Ok so that's the positive reason, the second reason is chumps like me will buy the game again if they are re-released, heck it's much easier than trying to think of another original game that will be a huge success.

As far as Chrono Trigger goes, I'll just download it.

Leave the Hedgehogs Alone FFS!!

2008-12-07T22:03:00.006Z

Remember this guy, I'm talking about Sonic the Hedgehog, please don't get me confused with this other blue hedgehog that's getting raped by nintendo.

Sonic must be spinning INTENSIVELY fast in his grave if he saw what was going on today. Ok so Sonic got to pair of with Mario in Smash Bros Brawl, that was fun but it's too freaking late Mario has already won. Sonic vs Mario should of existed on the N64 and Sega Saturn, it would of sold like wild fire. I don't mean prance around in the Olympics or smashing each over off a tiny level, I mean a proper head to head with Sega's and Nintendo's best.

But hey it's too late for that Brawl is as close as I'm gonna get. On to point two.

I've continued to play Sonic game due to my love for Sega, but now Nintendo have raped and destroyed Sonic to the best of their ability. for example, first we get Werehog Sonic and now Sonic with a freaking sword. I give up I don't even know what to say. Sonic died along time ago I should just come to terms with it instead of kidding myself :(

Stepping on the Little Guy

2008-12-07T21:17:00.007Z

Take a good hard look at these two video game covers. Words cannot describe how incredibly shit these two games are. These are but two examples of the terrible games being produced for next gen consoles. Granted the Wii is the worst for this but I digress. I can see the popularity of the exercise games from a marketing point of view. My Dad's friends all have Wii fit, and he claims his jab was too fast for the boxing on Wii Sports which obviously pleased him (don't tell him its not real boxing though).

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/how-big-is-big-enough_4

This article explains how in a few years we won’t see games like ‘Ninja Bread Men’ anymore.

For starters the budgets for next-gen development is pretty high and for a game like ‘Chicken Shoot’ cutting corners in graphics sound effects and EVERYTHING is going to really hurt how much this game sells. Ok so these two examples are indescribably bad, so let’s take the latest ‘Atari’s Alone in the Dark’ (example the article uses). With a bigger budget and a better team to refine the game as a whole it could have been a huge success.

The cost of “effective” marketing is tough for smaller firms, just take another look at ‘Ninja Bread Men’!! I can’t stress how much I hate this game! This is why were seeing double barrelled companies like Square-Enix and Bandai-Namco.

Tale of Dale -part 3-

2008-12-07T20:03:00.010Z

I had a few idea for the character project, I was tempted to create two characters in the Team Fortress 2 style but I think I will wait until I get into industry before I'm forced to model and draw in someone else style. Still I reckon I'd be able to do myself pretty well in the TF 2 style bigger afro shades and a few other cliches. For the WW I character project so many people have done a soilder and I wanted to stray away from that as much as possible, my first choice was a typical paperboy with a beret shorts that sort of thing but I could find anyone for reference, it's an unusual thing asking a kid if you can take pictures of them...

From fear of appearing like a pedofile i decided to change that idea. I figured who could I take reference off for the WW I character, theres no chance I could do my brothers or sister there weren't many mixed raced kids around, I guess there would of been a few but thats besides the point. The next best choice was my mum, I then looked into 1930's african nurse and Florence Nightingale and thought that be a really cool idea.

This is the project I'm working on at the moment since it won't take me that long to finish the other two. I'm pleased with how it's going so far this is my second attempt, my first one is a little embarrassing to post.

Tale of Dale -part 2-

2008-12-07T19:01:00.016Z

For the vehicle project I decided to go with the easiest one I could find, vehicles are defiantly not my strong point so If I could I’d like to avoid them if I get into the industry, unless I get a into a situation like Rick Nath did with the Colin McRae Rally series then I wouldn’t mind so much. I chose to do the Citroen Van, pretty simple and easy to find blueprints for it. I don't have any real life reference yet but I know where one is in Leicester thanks to Caz.

When I came to model the door I seperated it from the body of the Van, this turned out to be a bad idea, while I was editing the body of the Van the door remained unchanged so I had to go back to it to refit to the shape of the body. The door had some crazy turn problems but I managed to narror it down this faint shadow. If anyone has any advice on poly distribution and edge loops I'd really appreciate it.

I pretty much rushed this unwrap to see how faced I could do it, it was late I was tired and felt bad I was behind, still I think it turned out ok. The only bit's that are overlapped are areas where the lighting infomation will remain the same.

Tale of Dale -part 1-

2008-12-05T11:34:00.017Z

Since it's been awhile I guess I should start with a heavy load. I wanted to show some work I've been up to recently.

Here some images of a park I live near, it just looked so bizarre, check out this bench look at how it’s made by crappy bent metal bars.

With modelling this park I really wanted to capture the bent metal and not make it look like bad modelling, using loft and its many features made this really easy to do however I did manually edit a few verts here and there. It's almost finished; it's all unwrapped I just need to get better texture reference and sort out some scaling problems but other than that it’s done.

Here's a few texture pages, texturing and unwrapping is quite possibly my favourite bit about modelling, people usually prefer modelling which is understandable, working in 2D is just so much easier for me, plus texturing is what brings the model to life.

I Don't Hate Blogger

2008-11-28T10:07:00.003Z

At this exact moment in time plenty of blogs and 3D projects should of been completed to a brilliant standard. Alas that is not the case, I could blame the fact that no internet in my house has made me unable to blog but that's hardly a justified excuse.

Progression

2008-04-19T01:29:00.003Z

Finally finished my Organic Character digital painting, I changed the shadow according to Chris' tutorial. I'm pleased with the outcome but I'm not to sure about the shading on the legs though, I can't quite put my finger on it, I don't know if theres too little shadow on the back of the legs or not enough on the front. Any criticism would be appreciated.

Lighting

2008-04-18T19:42:00.006Z

While Chris was running around floor 9 like a mad man sorting the 3 rd year's show real amongst many other he kindly found some time to give me a tutorial with my current work. I've figured out that it's "lighting". A firm understanding of light is what I need to bring my artwork to life.
To help me I'm going to use two techniques;

Use my model cast model of my hand with a table light to get reference for direction of light.
Render an object with light in 3D S max, make an image of it and have it in my drawing for constant reference.

Organic and Mechanic REVIVED!

2008-04-17T05:55:00.009Z

My art style has dramatically changed recently, it's as if over night some mystical angels gave me the ability to draw! Either that or I've been dwelling into a lot of reference material to help progress my art style. I've currently decided to look more deeper into Keith Thompson. The more I read about how he creates his master pieces to more inspired I get to draw. To further study Keith I bought one of his tutorial book on how to draw undead; "Drawing & Painting the Undead". The book it brilliant, it explains all the in's and out's of how here prepares his sketchs for Photoshop, colour pallets of skin decaying and in depth look into most of his undead artwork.

It's been along time since I've improved in drawing, it's nice to think I'm getting better. >_<

Suprising!?

2008-04-12T12:37:00.012Z

Lately I have been limiting myself a day to model assets in 3D. This forced me to actually go and make them without picking apart every choice I made. With some models for this Queens building project I doubted my 3D skills would be able to produce desired results. I'm suprised with how these models turned out.

This stage light was so hard to find reference for! I tried painting my own plastic instead, it's the first model I've made by painting the texture so I'm well chuf with this model.

Bizzare Metaphore

2008-04-03T17:06:00.004Z

It's strange, sometimes I think I'm probably the only person in the world with common sense. It's been so funny to see how certain people take or ask for criticism. The biggest example of this is when one person draws a picture of lets say a "square" and then ask someone whether it looks right;

If your image looks like this then OBVIOUSLY you've made a mistake. The second I heard the comment "compare yourself to professionals" it really made me think. I am far from where I want to be. Using professional work as a guideline gives me a goal to reach for, with this in mind I should be constantly improving (if I applied myself).

However... so many people think they are the dog's bollux when there work has obvious faults! Ok so mistaking a cirlce for a square is a bit ridiculous but i'm suprised at how many people can't look at they're work, sit back and realize it doesn't look right. Many who have attempted to paint textures of people is a good example because they look like lego, and extreme use of normal on faces that make eye brows look like grated cheese!?

Ok so i'm no expert maybe I'm not one to judge but it doesn't take a freaking genius to know something looks wrong. The worst thing is when people so strongly believe that there work is the best and won't except criticism. I can be very stubborn to get my opinion across because it's so amazing that some people think they're work is professionals quality. It's almost as if people didn't pick up on the whole compare your work to work you admire and work you hope to reach a similar or if not better quality.

People like this I fear a doomed to never improve.

Ah that feels good to get this out of my system. Didn't name anyone either, if anyone read this blog they will know who they are...

My Room 3D!

2008-01-13T07:57:00.000Z

This is my bed room in 3d, It is just over 500 tris. I found it extremely difficult to model my room with the 500 tri limit but I feel I have done a pretty good job. For future references I think I know what objects I will give more priority in the UV because you will notice that some of the textures seem inconsistent.

Soul Calibur 4 What In high holy hell is this!

2008-01-10T22:03:00.000Z

Ok ok, let me break it down for you. As you may know the Soul Calibur series has a tendency of having cameo fighters as playable characters.

Soul Calibur is essentially the sequel to Soul Blade so Soul Calibur has all the Soul Blade characters and a few more additional ones, one of them is Yoshimitsu from the Tekken games. This makes sense since Namco makes both Tekken and Soul Calibur, also Yoshimitsu is the only te Tekken character to use a weapon and Soul Calibur everyone uses a weapon so it makes sense.

Soul Calibur 2 is more blatant, in total there are 3 different versions of the game. One on the PS2 another one on the Game Cube and another on the Xbox. The PS2 version had Heihachi which is another Tekken character, quite possibly one of the most famous Tekken characters. This still isn't a shock since hes a Tekken character.

The Game Cube one had Link, this too isn't a suprise since the game is on a Nintendo console and Link uses an array of weapons

The Xbox one has Spawn, this may seem random but in actually fact it's not. You see the artist who designed Spawn was asked to design a Soul Calibur 2 character called Necrid. Since the Xbox didn't really have an iconic character they choose to have Spawn as the cameo fighter by the artists request. I don't know why they didn't go with master chief, but I can think of many reasons. One would be getting the rights to have him in a namco game, two he isn't really a fighter. Ok so I know Master Chief is a fighter in DoA4 but lets not get into that...

Soul Calibur 3 brings more Soul Blade characters that were forgotten and in the create your own character option you can make Kos Mos from a namco rpg named Xenosaga. This is where the randomness begins! I mean Kos Mos in a fighting game? I mean its cool but it's still like...wtf!

They are bringing out a Soul Calibur game on the Wii and have added another Namco rpg character named Llyod Irving. This is extremely random since this character is involved in the stroyline!?

But the most ULTIMATLY random cameo fighters has to be this

http://gamevideos.com/video/id/16821

What in high holy hell, jesus lord almighty, up in high heaven was that! Did I really see that correctly, hold on I think I need to watch it again. That made absolutely no sense at all. Did my eyes really see that, they must be deceiving me. This has to be THE TOPS in random characters.

Don't get me wrong I love Darth Vader and Yoda but I also love Alton Towers and sex but I'm not going to mix them together! I really don't know what to make of it I really don't!

But what annoys me more than anything is that all these random characters always appear in the cut scenes over some of the original characters like Seung Mina. I love Seung Mina shes the best character! Namco just must not like Koreans because they also took out Hwang completely out of the series he was the original main character and Seung Mina's finance. They then pushed Seung Mina down to a secret character HOW DEGRADING!

Jeez they give space aliens more of a look in than Seung Mina.... please Namco needs a slap.

Back to 3D

2008-01-08T10:00:00.000Z

We've been given an extra week to get work done. I can't even describe the joy I feel by having this extra time. However I was also looking forward to the new work we would be doing this term. I thought during lesson time we would be given new work like modelling the Queen's Building in 3D in groups. I was looking forward to see who I would be grouping with but instead we even have lesson time to carry on with last terms work. I suppose it's to help us out but I'm a bit dissapoint that we have to wait another week to do the group work.

Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining! I will use this extra time wisely, after all I aim to get 3 A's, I have a certain drive that is pushing me even harder!

When Texturing GOES WRONG 3!

2008-01-07T08:47:00.000Z

The story takes place in the East Midlands, a uni student named Dale Toland was peacfully working on his PC to get his work completed on time. Little did he know was that this day was when his TEXTURING WOULD GO TERRIBLY WRONG!

It took him days to recover.

Creativity... Level Design?

2008-01-03T01:54:00.001Z

And just like that an idea came to my head to blog about! What is the most creative part of a game?

The Idea?
The Concept?
The Graphics?
The Story?
Music?
Atmosphere?
Gameplay/Playability?
Presentation?
Or the Player???

Also who's job is the most creative?

The Editor?
The Art Director
3D Artist

I was on msn messenger and I was talking a person I didn't know called Nicole. The conversation led to the talk about video games and I thought I'd get an outsiders opinion on what depicts creativity. She sided with art! (Yay)

http://ohdearmybrainisleaking.blogspot.com/

A particular article in this blog has always peeked my interest, its titled "Before I Was Famous"

"Once I'd had the breakthrough realization that every time I sat down in front of the TV with a controller in my hand it wasn't “Me vs. The Game”, it was “Me vs. The Game Designer”

I couldn't of said it better myself so I didn't. Without a shadow of a doubt I think that level design is by far one of the most creative parts of a game. It's kind of like a hidden element that you don't realize is there. It makes one game different from another, it makes one game more addictive than another, it challenges you to think inside the game universe, it makes you learn the mechanics of the games which we find enjoyable.

While playing Sonic 2 everyone has encountered that darn monkey (which is why it's a brilliant example to use) and everyone eventually becomes aware of it's presence. When playing the game you don't realize that you are against the level design because it is covered by cute characters and colourful environments, you simply think it's the monkey thats the problem instead of the person who put the monkey there. For example, a game such as Pac Man which has such limited graphics compared to Sonic 2 can still be found very enjoyable. Thats because of the level design its simple and challenging. It's goes to show that you don't need flashy graphics to make a good game.

There are only to things you need;

A new idea!
Good level design!

The Christmas Holiday and Mii

2007-12-13T10:09:00.000Z

Finally back in Leicester, had fun over Christmas and New Year but it's time to knuckle down even harder ^_^

This Christmas, to my suprise I was bought a Wii!? I've never particularly liked the Wii or hated it because;

Pro: Nintendo really do push the limits in new forms of gameplay, they either work or don't, example: the E-Reader for the gameboy advanced which was a total flop. The idea seemed good at first, you had to by swipe cards from a game shop swipe them into the E-Reader and you could unlock more to the game you own. Most people just wanted to buy a game and complete in instead of spending shed loads on tradable cards.

http://uk.faqs.ign.com/articles/448/448711p1.html

Here an faq on how the E Reader is used in the game Pokemon Ruby.

On the other hand we have the DS touch screen and the ability to speak and blow into the DS making gaming more fun since there are more things to do, and of course the Wii remote which imitates any action the game can think of, example Wii sports and the sword in Red Steel. Another thing is that during Christmas the entire family crowded into the front room to play Wii Sports and everyone loved it, one its not too difficult to pick up since you use the remote to do the obvious action that the game asks for, like bowling for instance, you hold the remote to your face hold B and swing and let go of B if you want o let go of the Ball.

Cons: I own an Xbox 360 and not a PS3 because for the simple fact the Xbox has more games on it. Personally I don't give a rats ass how many processes a console has just as long as the console has the rights my favorite games. This is where the Wii comes in, I'm simply not a fan of most nintendo games, i'm not a fan of platform games so henceforth I don't like Mario (I am bias however to Sonic hes the only platform game I play). The Wii seems to have covers of existing games from other console, difference is that now they use the remote in some way and I thought that would be a waste of rebuying games that I already own. Plus as far as graphic goes the 360 and Ps3 are far superior.

It seems Nintendo have always branched out to a wider target audience, like the Brain Train, Catz, Dogz, Nintendogs, other childish games and games like Ninja Bread men which I'm surprised are even published to be on a console.

.....I used to think this before I owned a Wii, my opinion has drastically changed. I have Resident Evil 4 on the Wii, however I already own it on the game cube. I love the Resident Evil series but they scare the living crap out of me, plus I find them hard to play because the controls are so different to other third person games. On the Wii however I'm kinda addicted to playing it, one the aiming is much easier meaning you get less scared because you can be pretty sure if and enemy is close you will get a head shot and if a monster is about to attack you, you can swing the remote to slash the bugger away (or if your like me to get so scared you keep frantically slashing until the enemy is a messed up slashed corpse. The controls are beautiful that is almost appears to be a different game, I actually want to get my favorite ps2 games on the Wii if the controls are going to be this fun to play with.

To conclude the Wii has surprised me, it's easy to pick up which means more people join in, on consoles like the 360, no one would dare challenge me on DO4, thats simply because I've played it to death and have learned most of the moves. A golfing game on the Wii is completely different to one on the ps2. On the Wii you can logically think about how golfing is played to gauge how hard you swing, however on a ps2 it requires button holding and button combinations. The remote provides a realistic sense of control so most people are comfortable to have go. To end, I'd rather not sit here and say which I prefer because there isn't one I prefer to the other, as I mentioned it's not the console I care about, the Wii has games that I really like, the 360 has games that I really like and the PS3 will eventually have games that I really like.

It's all to do with the games.

Hey its ME in 3D!

2007-12-13T07:56:00.001Z

I'm really pleased with how this model went however I am not satisfied with it. This week with Ben Mathis has taught me a great deal about 3D Studio Max so I know that next time I model myself that it will be much better. Better meaning it will be a cleaner mesh, good usage of polys, better packed uvs, better texture (the seams of clothing doesn't match) and edges will follow muscle structure.

Insomniac?!

2007-12-13T07:08:00.000Z

Lately my sleeping pattern has been so messed. I find my self sleeping when I come home from uni due to the fact I was up all night the previous day catching up with uni. I wake up at 4 in the morning only to resume with work. Currently (apart from blogging) I've been trying to get up to date on the Ben Mathis week project. I think getting a high poly model and putting it on;

http://www.gameartisans.org/

Will be a great way to get your work noticed. I have doubts I will be able to get my character complete for the end of the week but I don't think that will matter. As I continue to create 3D models and as i get better I will be able to use this site to show my work to other game artists around the world.

For the project I've been trying to create my mascot "Steve the Alien". Here is my current progress;

I still need to attach the limbs and create the head also I need more edges around the knee area so the mesh can deform correctly when rigged.

Psychonauts?

2007-12-12T19:11:00.000Z

Psychonauts aye, I heard of it at school. My mate of mine really bummed the game and wanted me to play so bad. To be honest I’m not really a fan of 3D platformers, I find them all too similar and tedious. I suppose its just personal preference, I simply find platform games to frustration to be fun.. Its “funishment”.

However this is what Ben Crosshaw had to say.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1368-Zero-Punctuation-Psychonauts

I think its safe to assume that Psychonauts is a pretty good game.

Jolyon Webb

2007-12-12T12:45:00.000Z

Jolyon Webb! He is a Creative Manager for TrueSim, they are a serious gaming division for Blitz Games and is renowned as a God in the gaming industry.

http://www.channel4.com/4talent/feature.jsp?id=3046

It’s a bit late but I had to blog on this fellow because he’s so inspiring! There are two things that in my opinion make him a gaming industry God.

The lecture we had on the 21^st of Nov was such great insight on the gaming industry and how to get in to the industry. To be put simply there were particular points which he commented on to get into the industry. The first being proportion! He showed us a toddler in a mosh pit rocking with his little hand in the air. He told us to remember this picture and then he showed us a picture of himself with a hand the same size as the toddler. It’s amazing really how so many people get proportion wrong even when it is around you everywhere, I think more than anything that is what Jolyon was trying to say. You have to compare yourself to professional! You have to know what is looks right and what looks wrong, and hell if you spend 15 hours in 3D Studio Max making a model and the proportion is wrong it means you’ve spent 15 hours making crap. I was always bogged down thinking if I spent a lot of time in 3D S Max it meant my work was good, that point of view has changed. Time is no indication whether something is good or not. I reckon remembering perspective is the corner stone to drawing anything good. Analysis! I underestimated how important drawing from reference really was. From Google images to books or anywhere you can get a reliable reference. Speaking of book here is one I’ve been trying to get; there is so much information in this book and I think it will really improve my drawing. Jolyon has it too and another one of his references is Eric Gist, his colour theory is amazing. Shane Glines, when he designs he spits out so many concept sketches until he finds one he likes! Chris Saunders, Adam Warren is more of Jolyons references. References should also be taken from paintings, culture, movies and even writing to inspire ideas.

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Artist-Sarah-Simblet/dp/078948045X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197466644&sr=1-1

For some references these are some good sites

http://pro.corbis.com/

www.cgsociety.org

He also mentioned how he doodles. He said doodles shows that we have a visually creative mind and we have to get it out by doodling. That statement really made me realize I’m in the right place. It may seem like nothing but I thought it was really awesome when he said that.

All the work that we create for our portfolio should be personalized and original and professional standard! We need to explore many different mediums like sculpting (with Sculpey)

http://www.sculpey.com/

^ Perhaps model a bit more professional that these guys…

Recap. We’ve been told to;

· Constantly look and obtain references.

· Always draw to understand anatomy

· Try Different mediums

· Sculpting

· Compare yourself to the pros

· Over all be yourself, enthusiastic and try to be original!

Serious Gaming! To be fair I didn’t really know anything about Serious Gaming. To be fair I just thought it referred to something as a game that didn’t have a joke in… I couldn’t of been more wrong, the attention to detail that is going to these games that have a more deeper purpose than entertainment in incredible. I’ve always thought one of the most fun things about playing a game is the fact that in a game you can do what you can’t normally do in reality; I guess serious games are just that. I suppose there is nothing stopping me going out side and mugging an old lady, breaking into a car and running from the police, Grand Theft Auto is a serious game of that scenario right? Ok, so I’m not exactly going to mug an old lady, but what would happen if I did? I guess someone would phone the police or maybe the old lady would kick the crap out of me I don’t really know exactly what will happen. (I hope this metaphor is working) Serious gaming offers choices and is a visual example to help careers such as hospitals and soldiers. Instead of an old lady if there were three injured peopled with three different scales of injuries how would tell all react who would you treat first and so. Making a mistake in a career such a hospital or the army could be really dangerous. Video Games have never been taken seriously by the public and still isn’t today, everyone underestimates how big of an industry it really is. I’m certain serious gaming will have an effect of people’s opinions on games.

I wish I had a Dictaphone

2007-12-12T01:53:00.000Z

A Dictaphone would be so awesome to have! So many people come out with the most amazing things, theirs minds wonder and for that moment they can be relaxed and say what they really feel. This has really happened a lot lately; I find my self telling my house mates;

“You should seriously blog about that, that was so inspire, insightful, funny and true”

It’s just when you come to blogging you realize you have totally forgot what you said or you don’t really know who to write it. A lot of class mates have really good views which would be nice if more people heard them. I guess that’s why these blogs are here…

Poop in my mouth?

2007-12-11T23:47:00.000Z

For those who want to know, the title of Ben Mathis' website is an old college (high school) joke which would be too hard to explain, however he has never not been employed from the crudeness of his websites title.

In think Ben Mathis is where everyone in this course wants to be. But wait! He’s a uni drop out… it’s almost as if we don’t need to do the work academically to get a job, kinda remains me of Peter Molyneux. You hear of people who have never been to uni but have achieved such a great feat out of there lives, I can’t say that I’m not annoyed at people like that because heck they are where I want to be, I just think most people that go to uni would still be working at Mc Donald’s even if they didn’t go to uni. There are people that would make it to where they want to go whether they were at uni or not. From witnessing the resent lectures it almost appears that it is easy to get into the game industry where as before I’ve always assumed some one like me would never make it. This course has given me a lot of hope, the way I see it if you apply the time, effort, enthusiasm and determination you could easily get in to the game industry. I guess I’m lacking on effort….

Meeting Ben Mathis has made me realize that animators and game artist get so little credit than what they disserve, example; everyone knows who bugs bunny is and daffy duck but you don’t know who designed and animated them. It was Chuck Jones for those who didn’t know. Which brings me to my point, I know the games Ben Mathis has worked on but to be fair it’s not like everyone memorizes everyone’s name in a cast. It seems a lot of people see Ben Mathis as a god and for one I can’t blame them, I look up to him to because he is living my dream and not only that he is 100% totally himself all the time. I was talking to a fellow class mate who was amazed Ben Mathis was here in England, I asked this person if they have seen any of his models and which ones do they like, the person replied that they didn’t know what he has actually done. That person was false and was simply following the crowd without making his own opinion because everyone else was strong enough so they thought they would follow that.

Today talking to Ben has been really cool; it was hard to get into conversation with him since he was crowded by a particular segregated group. This group tends to know absolutely everything about the course before everyone else; in future I will call them group C. Ben Mathis is a game art celebrity as far as I’m concerned, meeting someone who is so talented in person you actually forget they’re human.. (well I do).

We all originally went to Soar Point to get a few drinks, there was a whole a bunch of us standing at the bar and it was apparent we were in the same group. We got served by a short girl who had a big badge indicating it was her 18^th birthday today. We are all about to get served until ID is asked for, it appears on person doesn’t have idea so the entire group leaves to go to a different pub. If the manager saw that I’m sure he would probably cry at how much money he could of got, not only that the most ANNOYING thing was that the girl just turned 18., point being since she’s working at a pub the day she has turned 18 means she obviously mush of started drinking at a younger age. She of ALL people should understand how annoying it is to be asked for ID. She kicked about 15 people out the pub who simply wanted to waste their money on expensive pub food and beer… I bet she just wanted to seem adult and kick someone out of a pub because she has a badge that shows she’s 18^th. That ignorant lass needs to get a boyfriend and loosen instead of having 24/7 PMT.

When we finally got to another pub I found it easier to talk to Ben, everyone was so relaxed and could talk easier, heck I even managed to make him laugh in hysterics at a silly joke I made that referred to that 18 year old that asked us for ID (which I was quite proud of to say the least). I brought up a subject i heard about a rumor I heard about Haze, apparently they have scraped the helmet idea, the helmet pumps you up with a drug to cloud your vision on reality, your a solider in a disgusting war however the helmet makes you see everything as bland and makes the terrain look better as apposed to a barren waste land. I thought that this original idea made it different to other fps's. Ben basically explained to me how if something was too difficult to do and too hard to model regardless of how good the idea is it will get scrapper, chances are people will still by the game since it's only on PS3 and they don't have Halo 3. Marketing influences what gets released more than I thought which is actually really depressing. In short he’s a really cool guy as well as being incredible talented. With his lecture today he has shown so many short cuts and tools which I didn’t previous know and it has improved my work dramatically!

When I grow up I wanna be just like Ben =)

Do I session much?

2007-12-11T23:11:00.000Z

I find myself hard to understand a lot of people.

Segregation

The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities, especially as a form of discrimination.

I find not understanding some one and their points of view a form of segregation.

I find myself hard to understand a lot of people.

Segregation

The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities, especially as a form of discrimination.

I find not understanding some one and their points of view a form of segregation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1QSLpG2s4M

This is hilarious, and read the comments, it refers to my previous blog on how people don't know what they are talking about but they will talk anyway to make it look like they have an opinion that for one is meant to matter and two it's meant to make sense.

Once again I’ve strayed off my point however I had to add that youtube video.

I remember the first year of uni, I remember how exciting it was, moving away from home, meeting new people and being totally independent was the being of a new adventure. With all this excitement I introduced myself to all my fellow class mates. A simple smile, a simple hello, a simple “Hi nice to meet you my names Dale hoe do you do”. All of these things were an attempt to get to the people that obviously have a similar interest to me since they are doing the same course.

I couldn’t of been more wrong… I realized my attempts to make friends were in vain, for starters everyone has segregated into their own comfortable group in which they share there views with, talk with, sit with and so on. This can be spotted by who you notice comment on each others blog. Heck during the first year everyone assumed I was gay because I said hello to everyone (please laugh here). Ok so I guess I don’t mind now (honest) but those people who started that where in their own segregated group. It’s for reasons like these why I don’t think the wiki for drawing class will work and why no one ever criticizes each others work let alone read everyone’s blog (there are so many people who don’t read each others blogs).

There where three main groups at the beginning of the year however I’ve now found that some people in each group have intermingled with others. There are also leaders to each group, they are often the people who talk to most or who always have an answer for everything. I think if everyone let loose and got to know each other instead of being to comfortable in their own group we would all be much better as a class.

Its things like this are why I love the idea of the “Queens Building Project”. From what know the games industry is a very friendly community in which everyone knows each other and everyone has a contact or a friend that may be at a different company. We as a game art glass seem to be blind to the fact that when we leave uni there won’t be that comfortable segregated group we could just sit with, we will have to broaden our horizons and meet people that may be different to us and perhaps think different to us (scarey!!!!).

Blogging for this course is looked at to a lot of people as irrelevant. Drawing is shown as the most important thing in the industry, understanding anatomy helps immensely. Next is 3D modeling, since that is what we will be doing in our jobs people see that with high importance. With the blogs however I don't think anyone feels that same importance, thats probably the reason so many have done so little blogs, (I guess I mostly talk for myself...)

Exploring My Mind

2007-12-11T22:24:00.000Z

Today has been a really inspiring day. I have literally looked at everything around me and found a suitable way that it would relate to this course and how it could be something to blog about. The crit's today have changed a lot of my points of view on things.

1. I have finally realized university is nothing like school, although I thought I realized that I don't think I really did.

So many people are afraid of having a crit (so did I) because they realize how little work they have done. What they don't realize is that you are at uni for yourself and a crit is simply to put you at the right track. The way I see it is if you find that a crit is scary or if you avoid it you are simply doing yourself harm. The tutors have a job and i'm sure they won’t really mind if some one person is paying tution fee and not giving 100% and is just at uni for the “hell” of it. That person will never amount to anything and in turnn is a waste of human space.

2. With being told what I need to do to improve, I realize I can do alot better and there is noting here stopping me

I've took a look over all of my blogs to date and I think I finally realize what I have been doing wrong. The first view blogs I wrote I tried my best to academically answer each question that was asked, however now I don't think that is what blogging is for. These blogs are to explore us as people and show how much we understand and to show how much we are interested in what we do. It is our way of mapping our brain into words for the entire world to see. My blogs to date are loosely an insight to how I think. I was afraid to say in my crit but how I create things is fairly weird... I tend to have stray thoughts as I look at everyday objects and image a cartoon in my head, often I'd laugh to myself while others around me will look confused. It occurs when I listen to music or watch/play a movie/game. I imagine how I would do it and imagine what it would look like if it existed.

As of today I am going to blog how I talk, so many things "get's my goat" and when I rant about them so many people find it comical.... I guess kinda like zero punctuation...
I've choosen to write what I think before I look it up and make sure I back it up with facts and refer to other people’s opinions.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation

Speaking of opinions!! I find the majority of people will listen to or agree with an opinion which most people agree with. Example The last time I went home, a little kid no more than 10 ten years old was bulling a Muslim kid and saying some really inappropriate stuff which would be offensive to write. That kid is no doubt getting this opinion from his father or (else where from an older person). Just like all those jerks that simply talk about the war in Iraq to make themselves seem well traveled and deep. I SEE IT EVERY DAY!!!! So many people would criticize something with no basis behind their view; they only do it to look brooding and deep.

"Hey look at me I have a freaking opinion that means I'm interesting"

Gawd get a life. If you don't know the kind of people I'm talking about it's either those old men in a pub talking nonsense about the Iraq war or students that read 1 book and try to look intelligent.

That’s a lot off my chest however I think I have vastly strayed away from the point I was going to make. What point was I even tiring to make?

03-Relevant to Creativity

2007-11-05T15:28:00.000Z

This blog is devoted a story/game that I so desperately want to get out of my head and down on paper (blog)
It is called “Legend of Takrah”. The story’s genre is fantasy, being a fantasy story I have desperately tried to stray away from all the clichés such as; the hero has a past that is fundamental to the storyline yet he can’t remember or the main character is incredibly strong however he doesn’t fully understand his power etc. You will notice I haven’t strayed away from all the clichés, if I did that it wouldn’t be a good fantasy story.

It’s hard to say how long I have had the idea for “LOT” since when I was younger the sorry was more primitive, it is no longer called “The Adventures of Captain Boy”. Although the titles are drastically different the overall story vaguely remains the same. The story is told in three parts, they consist of;

· Sion’s Story (Past)

· The Segments of Sion (Present)

· The Kyoku (Present)

I have tried to take an original approach to how the story to told to the player.

Structure

I’m still not sure what I want the genre of the game to be, an rpg would respect the story however a Fighting game would amplify the action that is apparent in the story, Non the less an rpg has more advantages. The Player will mostly operate the main character named “Tariyoe”. With Tariyoe you will play through the story titled “Segments of Sion” While progressing through this story a meanwhile scenario is taking place, at certain intervals of the game you will switch to control a character known as Ginsuren, his story is “The Kyoku”. Further in the game you will have access to switch story as you please but that is a subject left for later. While playing as Tariyoe and Ginsuren certain information is being told to you without you releasing it is relevant, this information that you gather from both stories builds up “Sion’s Story”. All information given to you isn’t direct so it’s up to the player to figure out the past before they make they’re next step.

Moral

The story is loosely based on religion. People can be blinded and controlled by religion however religion isn’t the problem its people. The goes on the assumption a god exists, Since it does what is it,

Progression

The entire game is based on choices. Each choice you make will influence the story (some choices more than others). You will have to befriend people carefully and be aware who is your enemy (you never know who has been insulted by you opinion).

Aptitude Gauge

In the game when you have befriended people an aptitude will appear. The gauge indicates how much he/she likes you or dislikes you. You have to use this to gauge what you say and do carefully, what pleases one may not please to other but don’t forget about yourself, aptitude gauge aside you need to make the most logical decision.

Apart from these few features the game is played like a regular RPG, with these features and a compelling storyline I hope people will enjoy playing “Legend of Takrah”

02-Relevant to Creativity

2007-10-30T07:45:00.000Z

For quite some time now I haven’t been sure of what to blog about for creativity. I’ve been searching the web for cool innovative and interesting things to write about but found nothing.

Alas I have found something to write about. Since the beginning of the course I have begun to write all the assets to a game I’ve wanted to create for a long time. I’ve attempted making this game on programs such as RPG Maker 1995, 1998, 2000, XP, 3D and the playstation RPG Maker series.

http://www.enterbrain.co.jp/tkool/RPG_XP/eng/

http://uk.gamespot.com/ps2/rpg/rpgmaker2/index.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF-3z80E-go

Even before understanding how the industry work I tended to go off drawing concept designs for characters, levels, countries and a compelling storyline.

All the programming is practically done for you meaning the programming gives you loads of options to select from. You select want you want and you put it in an event, lets say for example the event was a person and they were a shop keeper, in a case such as this you will import a shop keeper graphic and choose the option custom shop-activated on touch. It’s very similar to visual basics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Basic

I realized before long that RPG Maker wasn’t equip with what I wanted to do, I spent years creating my animation system in RPG maker which basically was an event that selected a picture every 1.5 seconds (it sounds simple right). It’s surprising to see the amount of junk that people have made,

http://www.fairyfish.btinternet.co.uk/rpgmaker.htm

I vowed to make a game that looks like it has been made professionally, meaning it had to have the little stuff even if it was faked, such the opening every game has where it shows the company’s who published and made the game, then an opening cinematic (animation) and then to the title screen. When selecting new game you should be brought to an introduction which includes a tutorial and a hefty chunk of storyline that will make you want to continue! It seems no one else realized that.

On a positive point, it was surprising to see what people made in the end, unlike the industry no one used references let alone design characters because they used pre made ones, all of them aside some games were still fun to play even though they looked terrible. I guess this software allows people to emulate what they love bringing out a creative side of them which maybe they couldn’t before let out.

01-Relevant to Creativity

2007-10-30T05:13:00.001Z

Creativity?

Where shall I begin, telling us to blog on creativity is like slapping a block of clay into to a little babies hand, all of them will come up with a different outcome. Ok maybe that’s a bit too exaggerated, the point I’m trying to make is that everyone will talk about completely different things regarding creativity. I guess that’s the point of these blogs and why they are so broad…

I could talk about Ken Robinson, but I guess I would just be regurgitating what was told in Powell Time and mentioned in so many blogs. That to me isn’t creative; I will contradict myself here and say that I think Ken Robinson has been unfair on the subject English. During my school days English Literature was one of my creative subjects, think about movie scripts and books. How could something so creative be overlooked? The only excuse is that English is valued academically more that art, music and drama.

I understand completely where Ken is coming from, it’s just what is creative is easily argued.

Photoshop Video Tutorials

2007-10-30T04:20:00.000Z

These Videos are I'm using to draw my picture, they are amazingly useful! I should the first video a few weeks ago. If anyone wants the full video find me and I will happily give them to you. If not I guess you could torrent the files.

This blog will be continuely updated...

Photoshopping it up

2007-10-30T04:15:00.000Z

I've been watchin a few photoshop tutorials on how to draw and they have been very useful, my picture is far from finished but I still reckon it looks pretty cool.

Year Two Begins, What Have I Done and What Will I Do

2007-10-11T14:22:00.000Z

It's been a disgustingly long time since I last blogged, however that’s all about to change this year. This year I plan to bring up topics worthy of a constructive debate or topic which I find will be quite interesting to my fellow class mates.

Not much has really happened over the summer, I went to a festival called “Off the Tracks”, it’s my second time going and it was brilliant (well that depends on what music your into.) It’s pretty hippy, a lot of reggae a bit of folk and all sorts of different genre! Here take a look.

http://www.offthetracks.co.uk/

http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/offthetracks/2007-late/

On a more related note, I seriously recommend some of Ben Mathis tutorials if anyone is struggling on their portrait project or simply if you want to find an easier way to model. Although box modeling is perfectly fine if it works for but personally I find my results far superior using Ben’s style of modeling. It’s my first portrait model and I can spot millions of flaws with it, but as a first attempt I feel its decent and it allows for a lot of room for improvement.

http://www.poopinmymouth.com/process/character_tutorial/character_process.htm

A problem I found was that the reference pictures weren’t right, they require a lot of editing in photoshop if they are taken by hand. Also the Da Vinci pose proves quite troublesome for two reasons. One reason is modeling the arms, the side view of a Da Vinci pose shows no information on the arms at all making a lot of the modeling guess work, another reason is that it looks unnatural. If a person sees a realistic model of me posed as Da Vinci it will immediately be hard to connect with. All that aside it does make rigging a bit more difficult (at least that’s what I hear).

Week 24's Task

2007-04-08T22:22:00.001Z

And finally, I've really enjoyed reading your blogs and I hope you've enjoyed writing them. Keep up the good work!

Hmm, constructive feed back, this blog entry seems quite easy. All it requires is me waffling on about what I think as opposed to doing major research. They course draws to an end, its been far greater than I have ever expected it to be however I can’t help but feel that I haven’t put 100% into my work. I couldn’t help but get myself caught up in all the typical student clichés, that’s nothing to brag about although it is immensely fun, back to the point. So I’m on the last important blog and I’m reflecting on all the entries I have done, I started off really enthusiastic but that enthusiasm eventually dwindled as the blogs went on. The blogs and the vle are brilliant ides, it allows us to always know what is going on. At first I was accustomed to this blog idea but now I have seen the light. I have gain a greater insight of all my glass mates and I have a good idea on how they think. From what I gathered not many people read each others blogs, in fact I think some people haven’t even written all of their blogs which means there is only one person to blame.

For next year, I’m going to metamorphoses over the summer holiday. People will truly see what I’m made of, just you wait!

Week 22's Task

2007-03-28T20:09:00.001Z

My knowledge about the gaming industry has increased immensely from being on this course, for example while I was sitting around dream of making games I didn’t take the liberty of seeing how games were made or finding out more about the industry. Now that is all different, back then I didn’t about the GDC (Game Developers Conference).

What is the GDC exactly? Well allow me to explain in very few words, (it is self implied really). The GDC is a gathering video game developers, they all get to together and sip tea…

No not really they actually focus on learning from the fellow developers and looking for some, anything that will spark their creativity to create a game. Way back when in the late 1980’s they used to be called the Computer Game Developers Conference (not much different aye). The conference started off really small in some guy’s living room (Chris Crawford). Now the GDC is rapidly growing, soon the gaming industry will be bigger than movies, and then they will be bigger than what ever industry that is bigger than movies (wonder what that could be?)

As I was scrolling through all the different articles on the GDC website there was one that instantly got my attention. It was a lecture by a man named Taku Murata and he was talking about Final Fantasy 12. Before I continue Taku Murata is the Manager of the Research and Development Division for Square Enix and has been with Square Enix for more than 15 years during thouse 15 years he has helped developed some the the Final Fantasy series that later became big hits also he was the main programmer for Final Fantasy tactics. The Final Fantasy franchise itself has sold over 70 million units world wide, this should give you a scale of how popular the series is.

The lecture itself was about Square Enix’s latest instalment on the Playstation 2 Final Fantasy XII. The game sold over 4 million units in Japan and North America since it was released on March 16th, 2006. Taku Murata along with some other Square Enix developers talks about the development of the game.

In my opinion the highlight of the game is the fact it looks so brilliant with the flaw that it has a lower polycount on all the characters. Taku mentions the challenges he face during the games development and how the game pushed the envelope of graphics. He then goes onto the technical challenges that had to be met in order to reach the quality graphics that are apparent in the game.

He introduces new tools that were created during the development of Final Fantasy 12 such as the effect tool, motion tool and stage editors and other secrets that lie deep down in the development of Final Fantasy 12!

Week 21's Task

2007-03-28T20:07:00.001Z

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

Time has gone so fast and I have enjoyed every second. My skills have improved from nothing to a C+ in 3D modeling and I continue to practice in my own time to catch up with some other very talented 3D artists in my class.

When I started this course I entered with a sense of arrogance. I believed my drawing was unmatched and I thought I would understand 3D Max in a day. Regardless of being told continuously that laziness is not tolerated in this industry I still found myself slacking off. It wasn’t until I saw the skill of everyone else in the class when I realized I had to seriously pick myself up and improve. After all I aim to be the best game artist anyone has ever seen, that is my life long ambition however impossible it may seem.

3D Studio Max had me completely baffled, I heard what was being said yet I didn’t understand it. The first project to create the wheelie bin was really hard for and when it came to handing it in I failed. Failing may sound bad (well it is) but during all my continuous attempts at creating a wheelie bin I really improved. I began to understand how to create models out of splines, I mastered alpha channels and I fully understand the modifier list. The quality of my final bin was worth a pretty high grade however since I failed once I could only receive a “D”. It’s a pity I know however as I have the knowledge to keep improving from these mistakes. The house project got me so baffled with normal mapping my textures weren’t finished for when I had to hand it in. Now my third project at max I decided there would be no mistakes and the 3 Tree’s I create look so fricking cool (if I do say so myself). The low poly tree is so neat it looks almost as the as the high poly tree and the cruciform looks extremely convincing. Over all I enjoy making meshes but my texturing is some what lacking, my van proves that.

I was fond of drawing at the beginning; I liked how we would go outside and simply draw. With my skill aside the drawings I came out with were some what poor. I simply thought it wouldn’t matter, plus I spent too much time imitating various Japanese artists to create my own manga characters. I was predicted a C for my drawings because some of my work was pretty good but I was dropped down to a D so I would work harder (it worked). I have escaped what is called line drawing and I know put more work into my life drawing than I do my manga. I thrive to create my own style that isn’t manga, something that is original that people look and realise this artist is fresh, talented and inspiring.

The blogs…hmm where shall I begin?
If I am honest this is the department I have been incredibly lazy (I hear I’m not the only one). At first I’d prefer to do an essay however I do enjoy the critisms I get from my class mates at the end of each blog task, it helps me to improve. Some blogs I have enjoyed (such as this one) other I haven’t and some have increased my knowledge on the gaming industry.

At the end of it all I want to have the skills in 3D modeling to get a job as a game artist and I want a wide portfolio with incredible life drawing and 3D sculptures. I want to have all the knowledge I need in regards to the gaming industry and getting a job there. Out of the course (which some lecturers have touched on) is more information on getting a job, interviews and generally about the gaming career world.

Week 20's Task

2007-03-28T19:42:00.000Z

Creativity

“What does creativity look like? Is it in the brand identity, think Halo or Half-Life for example, or does it live in the overall experience of play? How do games manifest creativity, Graphics, AI, and Gameplay? Are there any companies or individuals who seem, to you, to be particularly creative?”

What is creativity, it is almost as hard to answer as trying to explain to a toddler the definition of the word “what”. I think a lot of people know what creativity is but find it hard to explain. You can see creativity in originality, such as in art, music, acting, animation, dance, adverts and the list continues. I think creativity and originality are one in the same. For me creativity is when your mind wanders and you see and hear ideas in your head that are formed by things your inspired by or out of nowhere. It happens to me when I least expect it, I could be listening to my mp3 player and think of an amazing idea for a game or when I’m trying to get some sleep I would think of an amazing addition to my novel.

There is a topic about creativity I would like to bring up actually. One of my games at the moment is Gears of War. Ok so it’s another game with big men shooting aliens just like Unreal or Doom, there is no originality there what so ever however it is still a good game. The most original aspect about the game is the chainsaw bayonet on the machine gun which makes you want to use melee attacks during an action packed shoot out. Still the game is brilliant and I continue to play it. There is a game on the playstation 2 called Okami. Some people haven’t heard of it some people have, fact of the matter is that the art style is brilliant. The game looks fantastic with wonderful old school Japanese illustrations. It’s very creative and original however it is a good game? The fact that very few people have played I fear that the game play will not be that impressive. I feel that this game only has originality but that doesn’t mean it’s good.

I feel in the gaming industry being creative is one thing but you also need the advanced technical and artistic capabilities to actually make a good game. That’s what I think at least.

The most amazing thing about games is the fact you can do things that you wouldn’t be able to do in reality. How you play and what you do in a virtual world is to me another form of creativity. A game would give you an objective however you could choose to spin around aimlessly or jump off a mountain and watch as the character falls to their death. I was reading a link about something called “Second Life” and “Teen Second Life”. It is a virtual world in which as the name implies you have a second life walking around this world going to places, talking to people and being whoever you want to be regardless if it is your self or not, a world where you can escape from reality much like MMORPG’s (Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game). My point is this; creativity is everywhere around us, this is being emulated in games. You as a player supply to the creativity by doing whatever you want.

I’m finding it hard to explain what creativity is so I will conclude with repeating myself saying that creativity is originality. At least I think

Week 19's Task

2007-03-28T19:34:00.001Z

Life Changing or Career Building?

Highly trained graduate artists or creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background? I personally believe it depends on what the company is after, however anyone can be taught how to become a talented artist, anyone can be manipulated to best suit their company, this is why I feel that a creative individual should be so much more appreciated because it’s hard to find new original idea. I don’t see why you can’t be a creative individual and an amazing artist, that way you could simply offer what to company demands. For example companies like Rare, which my mate Aldo now works for, ok so he makes people tea and mows the lawn it’s still cool non the less, they want young artist with enthusiasm and are creativity.

I’ve found this blog task pretty difficult due to the lack of information I could gather. To further my point each company is different, they all want different things. Hopefully during the third year of the course we will be taught more about the industry itself. This would prepare us immensely because we would be able to know what to expect when looking for a job. An argument is that we could do this in our own time however we wouldn’t know what we will be looking for.

From what I work out it would probably be best to work for a company that you like and what best suits you. If you value artist ability but you don’t cares that the industry isn’t creating new then you can become a run of the mill game artist for Blitz or you could join a company that appreciates your original art style and wants to incorporate in a game. I’m sure it’s not that simple, I suppose any job in the game industry would be a good one, at least I think.

Week 18's Task

2007-02-26T12:00:00.001Z

Sound for Games
Gaming music to me means only one thing, that thing is Nobuo Uematsu.

Born in March 21, 1959. He is a Japanese video game music composer. If you don’t know him by name then you will have heard either one of his tunes or heard of a game he has worked on. This is the man that produced most of the music for Square’s (now known as Square Enix) Final Fantasy series.

Each game he has worked on all have a separate sound, for example Final Fantasy 6 has a dominate flute, Final Fantasy 9 is very medieval whilst Final Fantasy 7 is more rock. Don’t take my word for it take a listen. The Final Fantasy’s he has worked on consist of 1-10 the prelude on 11, various bits on other Final Fantasy spin offs such as the anime series FF-Unlimited and he has now retired (which broke my heart).

http://bluelaguna.net/splash/ff.php

A sound track that all gamers should listen to is the fantastic sound track of Final Fantasy 9. It is the best sound track in the series and it is also one he did completely by himself.

Opening Tune: “The Place I’ll Return To Someday”

http://bluelaguna.net/downloads/mp3s/ff9music/01+-+The+Place+I%27ll+Return+To+Someday.mp3

Battle Theme

Best battle theme ever! It makes random encounters fun it really does.

http://bluelaguna.net/downloads/mp3s/ff9music/18+-+Battle+Theme.mp3

“You are Not Alone”

This is Nobuo’s and mostly everyone else’s (including me) favorite Final Fantasy tune. How it fits into the story is brilliant, the main character is contemplating the purpose of his existence, he has just realized how he is a being known as a genome and was originally created to destroy the planet Gaia. He feels alone and no one can help him in his time of need. Suddenly he gets up and ventures to stop his brother’s meaningless rampage by himself. Then his friends arrive and they remind him that he is not alone. This tune says all of this.

http://bluelaguna.net/downloads/mp3s/ff9music/93+-+You%27re+Not+Alone%21.mp3

Sorry, I think I’m straying off the subject a bit, allow me to resume.

How is sound used in games? I find this a difficult question, I feel the answer is different for each generation of games, from the ear bleeding glass shattering sounds of the NES to the accurate foot step, gun shots and people sounds in the latest and next generation consoles. Sound is used to make any video game world more believable to the player. I remember that Christmas morning when I got Final Fantasy 7. I spend hours constantly playing it and then I got to the first Boss Enemy. When I heard the music that was played during the battle I was speechless. It was that day I fell in love with the electric guitar and I vowed to one day learn how to play this tune.

Original Version: “Still More Fighting”

http://bluelaguna.net/downloads/mp3s/ff7music/20+-+Still+More+Fighting.mp3

Modern Version: “Those Who Fight Further”

And is it true that the Nile Rodgers/Bernard Edwards composition 'Good Times' is the most influential recording made in the 20th Century?

Week 17's Task

2007-02-26T11:21:00.000Z

Game Technology - Game Engines

What does a game engine do?

Well for starters a game engine is software that is (in short) used to create a game. It simplifies the games development and some Game Engines offer you the ability to make the game accessible on different platforms. Functions found in a game consist of:
Physics engine that simulates Newtonian physics models, it emulates mass, resistance and even friction, It uses these to predict effects under various conditions. In short it does it’s best to copy what happens in the real world. A good example of in game physics is Half Life 2.
Collision Detection which as the name implies detects collision, how things would impact.
Sound (self explanatory)
Animation of people, environment etc
Artificial Intelligence
Scripting which is programming language.
Networking.
Scene Graph is a data structure used by vector-based graphics editing.

Like I said, in short a Game Engine is an engine used to create a game, really quite simple.

Subtractive and additive describe how a level is constructed with the game engine in question. The Unreal Engine (which I will need to familiarize myself with) uses subtractive. You are wondering what it is right. It is as the name states, you will take things away. The entire level starts off as a solid block, by using various brushes you can carve into your block. Each brush is different but they all specialise in creating your map, some are used to add things others are used to take things away. This method however tends to crash due to the fact brush effects are memorised (reminds me of another piece of software I know *cough* 3D Studio Max *cough*.

I personally prefer the sound of the additive way. You start with nothing and you simple add what you want where you want how you want until your level is created.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of buying into proprietary technology?

Well advantage number one (and in my opinion the biggest advantage) is that it is already made and you know the existing program works. Disadvantage is that it would have to be customised to your liking but that isn’t too bad. Trouble is can this program deliver what you need, if you have an original idea that hasn’t been thought of then your going to have to create your own piece of software like CriEngine and CryEngine2.

CryENGINE is a game engine used for the first-person shooter computer game Far Cry. It was originally developed by Crytek as a technology demo for NVIDIA and, when the company saw its potential, it was turned into a game.
When video cards with support for 2.0 pixel and vertex shaders were released, Crytek released version 1.2 of the engine which used some of the capabilities for better graphics.
Later the company developed version 1.3, which unlocked support for HDR lighting.
The engine has been licensed to NCSoft for their forthcoming MMORPG, Aion.
Wikipedia

What seem to be the key issues for 'next-gen' game engines?

Next Gen game engines, what will they offer. Will the world go normal mapping mad or does that just apply to gears of war? Most Next Gen engines focus mainly on light and shadow; Condemned showed us how realistic shadows can be used to enhance the fear of its game play. Also the Source engine and the Unreal 3 engine show new dynamic shadows and light mapping.

I’m looking forward to the future!

Week 16's Task

2007-02-26T11:18:00.000Z

Gaming Cultures

What game cultures am I you part of? Well I’ve never gone out to a social event such as a first person shooter tournament, unless it’s with my mates I’m mostly a solo gamer, which is one reason I haven’t bought the Wii yet (the truth is I’m broke). The natural stereotype for gamers is the lone-teenage in his/her room geeking away on their X Box, Playstation, Nintendo Game Cube/Wii. In truth that isn’t very accurate, a few weeks back I was beaten on Dead or Alive 4 by a 35 year old. I find a lot of people pointlessly alienate videogames and they look down on it. For example, I told a friend of mine about how much I’m loving my Game Artist course, he replied;
“Videogames, your hardly going to make any money doing that”
In all fairness he was a labourer so he is thick as pig sh*t. The online thing that is the cause of way so many people see video games as inhumane is because of the virtuality, these people are idiots (I can beobjective when I want to be) I find that games are slowly being accepted as a culture now, it has grown immensely in the years.

“Dale you have spent hours sitting playing your silly video games”

Then I reply

“How is this any different to you watching you Eastenders omnibus?”

Mother then keeps quiet.

So the real question is here how much time do I spend playing video games, or rather how much time do we as gamers spend, does it vary with the genre? To respond video games are a lot like drugs, you spend all your money to obtain them and they are incredibly addictive. It’s this addiction that sucks up all our time playing video games. I have spent sickening hours on games in my life to the point it’s amazing I’m still breathing today. Is sitting down and interactive with a computer healthy? Most of you say no however the Wii and the Eye Toy will disagree with you, but the way I see it is that it is no different to watching TV how videogames are more involved and some say it boost reflexes in your fingers.

Yes videogames are addictive and people spend way too much time on them, but online games are in a league of their own. I don’t know the details but a Japanese man died playing World of Warcraft.
In my internet skirmishes I found a report about a man who spent quite a lot of time playing an online game called Everquest.

Dennis Bennett was failing his college classes, his marriage was in trouble, and he wasn't being much of a father to his 1-year-old son. But he had progressed to Level 58 as Madrid, the Great Shaman of the North, his character in the online role-playing game "EverQuest," and that was all that mattered at the time.

Does that just say it all, I can relate to this man in away, well loosely because I don’t have a wife or kid maybe I play too many videogames, more to the point playing an online game you find yourself inmersed in a fantasy reality, in this reality you can be anyone you want, a noble knight to a magician or a sinister character. What you do effects people meet, people around the world doing the same as you. You meet friends grow stronger and you have this ambition to be known for something, you want to be the first to own the strongest weapon or complete this in the fastest time or get the highest. However with other people playing you must spend the most time on the online game in order to beat the world! Of course this is an endless battle since everyone keeps playing and your goal can never be achieved.

"The game almost ruined my life," said the network engineer in southern Indiana. "It was my life. I ceased being me; I became Madrid, the Great Shaman of the North. Thinking of it now, I almost cringe; it's so sad."

Is it really that sad, well yeah but my point is that being this so called “Great Shaman of the North” no different to kids playing cops and robbers or cowboy and indians? In fact don’t answer that.

These people you meet on these online games, you get so attached to them, you feel the need to contact them outside the game, this is where MSN messenger comes in. Countless people who you’ve never met or seen before are typing to you about stuff that isn’t really important for hours on end. Is that sad? In fact don’t answer that! Still there are a lot of things in this world that are sickening, for example some mothers actually soap operas are real! It is unfair to simply alienate videogaming.

Week 15's Task

2007-01-14T20:08:00.000Z

An introduction to the Game Industry

What happened to blog 13 and 14. Oh I get it know we had a 2 week holiday.

So you’re doing a game art design course and you know nothing about the gaming industry, I am disappointed. Ok so I can hardly talk, but I found this website really interesting.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/

This site is truly amazing; it has all the information on your favourite companies, latest gaming news and you can even search for a job! Actually I think it says that on their main page?

Finally I can join in those high and mighty intellectual conversations with the third years about how they hate everything. And also I can brown nose those guys at the NGJ because they are so brilliant.

In case you didn’t know I was being sarcastic (duh), what I meant to say was, with my new found knowledge on the gaming industry I can argue my point better to those many people I disagree with.

How is the industry doing, well it goes without saying how well Nintendo are doing. At the moment they are with out a doubt currently the most successful company in the market. The DS sell 7.5million units and gets 8/10 for best selling software in Japan. Sony’s Playstation Portable sold 1.9million units in Japan. This proves my point that gameplay beats graphic however that is a different subject matter. The Pokemon Company have also contributed to Nintendo’s domination of the market and I’m proud to say the second highest selling publisher was Square Enix which managed to sell 6.8millions units. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XII was in the list for best selling game in 2006 (didn’t see that one coming, sarcasm again). So you ask how is the industry doing, I’d say Sony are slacking off, yeah sure they are going to hit us with the PS3 but will it save them. Need I remind you of the results from sales of the DS and PSP? That touch screen was a depth in gaming and still all Sony do is continue to offer us nothing but graphics. Why did it work for the PS and PS2 you ask, the reason was that the PS graphics were revolutionary same too with the PS2. In my opinion the PS3 has to show us a depth in graphics the likes of any gamer have never seen.

This is the world I want to get immersed in. I want to say I was a part of creating this came that sold this much. I’m a game artist for this company who are doing this good. Saying this who are the employee’s in the gaming industry and what do they think? Well I made I was intrigued by what David Gardner, Chief Operating Officer for EA’s worldwide studios was saying at a speaking conference in Edinburgh.

"We have all been talking about this for a long, long time, EA's own research found that 40% of teenage girls played video games versus 90% of teenage boys and most girls lost interest in games within a year. They don't want 'pink games'. They are not trying to play girly games where Paris Hilton and Britney Spears go shopping and put make-up on. Those kind of things have not been that successful. But he said games such as The Sims and websites such as Pogo.com proved there was a market for women gamers. Most of the Sims players are girls - 70% are women under 25”

It’s funny, assuming you change something pink you assume a girl will like (if only that was true *sigh*). Games that influence girls more is probably the most over looked aspect in gaming since the joy stick.

Sony is really behind compared to Nintendo’s amazingly new interactive remote and Xbox fabulous internet gaming with Xbox Live. Both Nintendo and Microsoft are still promising new and more amazing feats for gaming such as Xbox Live for Personal Computers. We all know what Xbox live is like but what about Sony’s online gaming? Chris Satchell, Manager of Microsoft’s Development Group described PS3 online offering as a “disaster” and Peter Moore says he isn’t sure Sony have the talent for online gaming. That sounds like fighting words to me! Sony has to hurry up and provide something to those hungry gamers.

If you want my opinion (not that you have a choice). I reckon it isn’t the console that sells it’s the games! So if your favourite game is on the Wii you will get the Wii. The PS3 have Final Fantasy 13, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resident Evil 5. I don’t need to remind you how successful Square Enix are, Konami and Capcom are decent too I suppose (*laugh*). The PS3 has to offer photo realistic graphics and everyone’s favourite game, then and only then will they be back in the market where they rightfully belong.

So in this blog I have backed up Nintendo, gave Microsoft their props and pleaded for Sony’s revival. Who do I plead my allegiance to you ask, I’m a gamer not a fighter so I say get them all!

Week 11's Task

2007-01-14T19:32:00.000Z

The Play's the Thing

Gameplay, gameplay, gameplay. Gameplay is the reason majority of gamers own a DS and not a PSP, it is the reason we all (all I) got this tingly feeling inside ourselves when we first saw that clever remote from the Wii. Gameplay is why we choose to play a game, to react things that we can’t do in real life.

Ok so some people argue the fact that gameplay doesn’t exist. They say if games have gameplay why don’t books have bookread? My answer is books do have bookread however it’s not called bookread, it is called readability. When a book grips you to read more that is bookread, the same applies to gameplay.

I feel this still isn’t enough to explain what exactly gameplay is. Gameplay is the most important aspect of any game. Imagine Tetris without the blocks or Doom without the guns. Gameplay is a plan for a style or how a game is played is played. It is different for each genre of game. It is such a hard entity to describe, (you have better luck telling someone the definition of “what”).

Without a doubt gameplay is there, it’s the addictive aspect of a game that keeps you hook. You find some games are worked around gameplay and others not. Allow me to explain. Take Gears of War for example, amazing graphic is really the biggest highlight of that game however it’s the gameplay what makes you play it. The third person view that plays like a first person view, this is gameplay. The melee combat with the chainsaw bayonet, this is gameplay. The thrilling action packed story mode where anyone from around the world and jump in and help you out, this is gameplay.
I could go on but I won’t.

Looks wonderful doesn't it, but graphic is a different subject so I will try not to get side tracked.

To conclude I feel some people will find points to prove me wrong and others to back me up. This question of “what is gameplay” will never go away until people realise I’m right.

Week 10's Task

2006-12-13T03:47:00.000Z

The elements of Game Design, Story and Characters

Designing characters is fundamentally the reason why I joined this course. At college I was lost as to what I wanted to do. I tried 2D hand drawn animation which I have been longing to do since I could remember from watching Tom and Jerry. I quickly found out that animation on all formats grows to be very tedious and time consuming however that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I couldn’t get my characters to look right when they were animated. Their personality completely changed from the slick still poses from my original designs. That was when it hit me; imagine perusing a career in character design.

You would have to be lying if you said there wasn’t a cartoon character you like or dislike. Even if you don’t watch cartoons (because some people don’t?) surely you must at least see an advert or a trailer of a character that annoys you.

My personal favourite cartoon character of all time is Thomas Cat from the classic Tom and Jerry

"I knew that no matter where you ran it, the minute you saw a cat and mouse you knew it was a chase." -Joe Barbera

Tom is such is ultimately an opportunist. He is very quick tempered and energetic and you can see this while you watch him animated. His expression drastically changes when he particularly angry with Jerry Mouse. The humour lies in the fact that they both have rather sadistic tendencies in the fact that they enjoy tormenting each other (I wonder if Jerry’s into that kind of thing).

Neither Tom nor Jerry speak often which makes you concentrate on Tom’s brilliantly animated facial expression.

The little words which Tom speaks are mostly in song which compliments to the humour. 1946 short ‘Solid Serenade’ Tom sings a cover of “Is You is or is You Ain’t My Baby” (which is my favourite episode by the way), but of course non can forget Tom’s trademark bellowing scream. Tom is portrayed as the bad guy even though his is the main character, majority of the episodes Tom gets out witted by Jerry and you begin to feel sorry for that fact that Tom doesn’t get Jerry. I find that I begin to root for Tom hoping he would one day catch Jerry. Since Tom is a simple character try to ackomplish a simple goal it isn’t hard to relate to him unlike a main character of a role playing game who all ways has a troubled past but he’s got amnesia and can’t remember.

Ok so this is one of many examples of a good character. I don’t think that there is a particular blue print to a good character because good characters are so varied. The key things to note is the genre for starters. A comedy robber will look clithe with his bandanna around his mouth. Imagine if in the movie Oceans Eleven the main characters wore a bandanna over their mouths it wouldn’t work at all. For a movie the actor has to portray their character’s personality in how they walk, talk and their expressions.

Interesting characters with defined personalities, detailed history and the story ahead of them is why I love playing RPG’s. The RPG’s I normally play are of a Japanese origin because I find their story telling captures straight away and puts you in a world where the characters a believable (well most).

Final Fantasy XIII (13 for those that don't know)

Final Fantasy I the best RPG ever made in the world period. You disagree?

http://www.final-fantasy-13.com/ Take a good look at this link and the tell me if you disagree.

Steve the Alien

2006-12-13T01:25:00.000Z

Steve the Alien is a character I have created since I could remember. Steve is the mascot of Waleysoft Production. Ok so Waleysoft Productions doesn't exist yet but if it did Steve would be the mascot. For my Art Style guide I am designing a first person shooter in which you play as Steve to defend against a human invasion. Humans invade Steve's planet, Stevopia because the Earth has been over populated due to too many teenage pregnancies. It is up to Steve, his girlfriend Eve and his best friend Gwaglorpwanahrk (Gwa-glorp-wa-nark) to defend their planet from the monsterous human race.

My Master Piece

2006-12-08T11:04:00.000Z

Come one come all to witness my first ever 3D Model. There are quite a few bugs in it that is while I haven’t posted any rendered pictures of it, regardless I think it is coming on pretty well. What do you think?

Origional Bin

My 3D Wheelie Bin

I'm finally getting the hand of unrapping UVW and creating Alpha channels. Bring on the bump and normal maps I can handle it. How hard can Z Brush be anyways pffft.

Week 9's Task

2006-12-04T17:54:00.000Z

An introduction to Game Technology

It is true controllers have always been over looked. I really enjoyed reading this link http://www.playphoria.com/features/indepth/controller-ergonomics/. After reading this link you understand why you thought the Nintendo 64 pad was terrible.

Here is the design of (in my opinion) the image of the worst control pad design ever! Look at where the analog stick is positioned, in the middle of the pad! How bizarre, not only is it bizarre it is ridiculous. Care for an example? I will use a 3D fighting game as an example; the D-pad is more accurate for performing complex combinations however the analog stick allows for more accurate moving of the character. Now visualise this, your fighting your buddy on a 3D fighting game you use the analog stick to move into the perfect place to perform a come, so to perform your combo you take your hand off the middle arm of the controller to place to the D-Pad. That will take you at least 1 second and with that open opportunity BANG! You lose. So you still think that this isn’t reason enough to hate this design, ok check out example number two. First person Shooters, one analog stick for a first person shooter. My fellow gamers this is insane, one stick to control your legs and head! Ultimately you find your self looking around instead of walking and in that second BANG. You lose. It is much more appropriate to have two sticks, one to control your movement and the other so you can freely look around and not distort your walking. Still not buying it? Prepare for the ultimate reason why I hate this controller. It looks ugly! Ok so I’m not being objective, quite frankly I don’t really care.

What is this controller you ask? This is Nintedo redeeming them selves but it was too late for anyone to care.

Also what happened to the joystick! I loved the joystick; the only console I owned where I utilised using the joystick was on my Sega Master System, that’s probably due to the fact this console was closer to the arcade era. Joysticks exist for modern consoles, just take a look at these images below.

This is a Joystick for the Playstation 2. It is merely one of many.

This a Duel Joystick for the first Playstation. It is commonly used in the game Taito Legends for Playstion 2.

And here we have the fancy pants XBox joystick.

I bet your wondering, "why have I never seen these joysticks". The direct answer to that I don't know however I assume it's due to that fact that the gaming industry believes advertisement for these joysticks is irrelevant.

I don’t think Joysticks will last much longer; it looks like everyone (mostly Nintendo) is try new things. Why do you need a joy stick if you utilize a remote to be like a joystick, surely if there is an Aeroplane game for the Wii the remote will follow the same principles as a joystick?

This is the new controller for the Wii. This isn’t the right time to share my views on this new invention.

The easy console I find to use has to be the Playstation, simply because we gamers have used it for so long. The arms of the pad are comfortable if you didn’t think they are then after years of holding the thing to play games your forced to get used to it. Also the buttons go are so distinct that you remember them more, it seems like all the other consoles use letters. Plus time also gives you a photographic memory of where the buttons and what the buttons are.

Week 8's Task

2006-11-28T12:53:00.000Z

Storytelling in Games

Storytelling, everyone has a story to tell, it could be a story about yourself in which you accomplish an amazing feat which puts the listeners in a state of ore (well that’s only of you exaggerate the truth a little). I find the best stories to tell is the ones where you find yourself in the most bizarre situations, situations so bizarre that you wish you could make this material up. Allow me to give you an example, it’s a story my Dad repeats to get some laughs; the funniest thing about it is that it is true.

My Dad brought my brother, my sister and myself up by himself since he got a divorce with my mum while I was at an early age (awwww). My Dad became a typical house mum, washing, cleaning discipline and all that jazz. Anyways while he used to drop me off for school he got to know all the other mums that were dropping off their kids. Most of these mums were “working girls” (if you get what I mean wink wink). I didn’t quite understand at the time but when we would see these mums in the street they would always say hi to my dad and he used to get really embarrassed. The reason being because everyone used to stair at him and they got the impression he was a regular customer!

Well back to the matter at hand. Is a storyline in a game relevant? Personally I reckon it depends on the genre. I believe there is no definitive answer to this question; many people have many different opinions however “video games” is a vast subject so when people say a storyline is relevant are they talking about all genres of games, a few or one? Answer me this does Space Invaders have a storyline, it’s basic and linear but essentially it does. Aliens are attacking and you have to destroy them (this sounds more like an objective rather than a storyline doesn’t it). Do you need to know the story of Space Invaders to have fun? Of course you don’t! Shoot the Alien sprites down and don’t get hit to get the highest score. It’s addictive and challenging and a storyline is completely irrelevant.

Another classic example is the first Doom! Come on guys it didn’t really have a storyline (ok so the PC version had a narrator at the first and last level work with me here). A man on mars fighting demons that is the extent of the storyline really. Doom has a poor storyline does that make it a bad game? Heck no! Doom pioneered all first person shooters as we know it. All though Wolfenstein was the first it was Doom that boosted the popularity of this new genre. Which brings me to my point, hands up for those of you who prefer Doom 3 to the first Doom (don’t really do it moron). Doom 3 has brilliant graphics but now it has a storyline. Doom 3 is a great game don’t get me wrong however it isn’t Doom in my eyes. Doom 3 highlights more on horror and focuses on the story but on the first you were simply pitted against demons. Doom and Doom 3 great games as individuals one has a story the other doesn’t which ultimately proves that a storyline isn’t needed.

Don’t get me wrong I love a game with a great storyline; however I’m trying to be objective here. This is the reason I love Role Playing Games because most have a storyline that grips you to the game and to crave to find out more. You control the main character which places you into a fantastic virtual world of fantasy and mystery.

This is a huge debate and I look forward to hearing other people’s opinions.

Week 7's Task

2006-11-26T13:59:00.000Z

An introduction to Art Direction for Games

What does an Art Director do? Surely he directs the art of the game, well that’s what I used to think but honestly what does that even mean? Allow me to put things into context for; imagine you have six artists working on a single game. Each artist is working individually on different aspects of the game from the environments to characters. So Dale where’s the problem? The problem is that each artist has their own style; the game will look like a collage of different styles. It is the Art Director sole purpose to linear these artists’ creativity to follow the style chosen for the game.
So where did I find this information? I went on wikipedia, not really, I attended a lecture were I got to speak to an Art Director in person Rick Nath. He told us how he rose in ranks from creating 3D models for Codemaster’s Colin Mcrae Rally, to creating screen savers for Microsoft to becoming an Art Director. He is currently running his own business where companies can hire him, kind of like a mercenary but he’s an Art Director (did that simplify things?). Art Director is an extremely creative role with a lot of responsibilities. They need to have a great understanding of the 3D software to be able to advise fellow artists, and they have to create the overall visual style of the game.

Art Director in games is much different to an Art Director in films, for example in films the Art Director assigns separate tasks to personnel however in gaming the Art Director concentrates in making sure each artist follows the same visual style.

Art Director is such a demanding job, years of experience in the gaming industry is required before considering becoming an Art Director. You’d need to be an expert in creating 3D models as well as having people skills in order to instruct the artists. I’ve not considered being an Art Director, I feel that is a bit too far ahead to be considering. One thing is for sure I will make it in the gaming industry and that is a promise!

Week 6's Task

2006-11-18T17:38:00.000Z

An introduction to Game Design

What is meant by Gameplay? It is what the name implies. The definition of gameplay is the overall experience of the game. If you strip a game of its graphics, sound and storyline you are left with nothing but gameplay. What is the genre, how do the button interact with the game, what can you interactive with in the game, what is the purpose/goal of the game; all of these are essential points that explain gameplay.

Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii and Xbox 360, which one do I get you ask? Some say that the remote handle for the Wii will flop others say that the Xbox 360 isn’t even a next generation console its just a gaming PC and others believe that the playability of the Wii will kill what ever graphics the PS3 has to offer (much like the DS and PSP). Well to answer your question GET THEM ALL! Photorealistic graphics, original styles of gameplay and all my favorite PC games without the annoyance of installing them. Does it not sound like a dream I ask, it doesn’t? Well that’s just your opinion (you should be more objective)?

One of my favorite hobbies (ever) is designing games for several downloadable. Software such as RPGMaker 3D or Mugen. I would get so into creating a game to my liking until I would come to realize that not only do I have to draw and design each character I also have to draw and design the environments. Also an interesting storyline isn’t handed to you on a silver platter. This is why creating games isn’t a single person’s responsibility. People are assigned to jobs such as ‘artist’ who draw the art for the game and an ‘art director’ that makes sure all the art is in the same style and the art director also has a great understanding of the 3D software that is being used.

Games are increasingly become more different such as Football management games to Racing games. With the difference in genres its almost obvious that different methods of design are used.

What is important for me when I play a game is a combination of everything, graphics, sound, storyline and mostly gameplay. It has to be enjoyable. Some games pit you in the action of a gun fight and others make you scream for your Mum whilst being eaten alive by Zombies. Multiplayer games enhances gameplay because you are sharing the experience with someone else, on a plus side it’s nice to beat your family members to a bloody pulp on a fighting game. The genre of game that I prefer out of all the others is Role Playing Games.

Role playing game makes you interact with a story that is constantly being told. You can change the story sometimes due to the fact you are the main character. RPGs come from a wide range from either strategy RPGs, Online RPGs, Action RPGs and turn based RPGs (which are my personal favorite). However, although my favorite genre of game is RPGs, who can say no to a good olde First Person Shooter. It could be the first ‘Doom’ or ‘FEAR’ the FPS genre of games still remain ever so similar but with different weapons, environments and storylines, but do I care, the answer is no! The reason why is ‘gameplay’, FPS’s don’t need to try something ‘different’ if it isn’t broken don’t fix it!

I’m not really pinned down to any particular genre, if it is good it is good and it will be played by me!

Week 5's Task

2006-11-05T15:43:00.000Z

Writing about Games

A lot of people play video games and enjoy them. They go out to the shop and purchase a particular video game that appeals to them. They then play and enjoy the game until they witness the ending credits (I bet your thinking where is the point). The point is that ever since I started playing games I have always analyzed each game I own with great detail. I compare the graphic with similar games to the one I’m playing. Some times back when in my school days I would sometimes hear another fellow class mate say; “That game is crap!” I would always ask them “why?” to try and justify what they said. When people criticize a game I want them to be able to justify their opinions, it’s exactly the same principle when a person says; “This game rocks!” I found that in time I would start reviewing games that they said was crap or rocks to find out about the graphic, game play, music, storyline and more. I made up my own mind about the games, saying to my friends things like; “The game play in this game is highly addictive; due to the fact your character has the ability to constantly change its appearance, fighting style and strength it brings a high diversity to the way each battle looks, plus you can destroy the Earth depending on the strength of your character which allows you to see some fantastic visuals” The game I was talking about there was the latest installment the Dragonball Z fighting game series as Dragonball Z Tenkaichi Budokai.

So did you find what I said in the previous paragraph interesting? As anyone can say this is a good or bad game, but by giving the listener a valid reason why it is good informs or impresses them more. At least that is what I hope, would that make me objective? I realized from further discussion that people are biased; some people would only dislike a game because of the genre. Some people would prefer platform games, other people would prefer football management games, some people like to be mentally challenged, others would like to simply press a button. Sex also has a part to play, for example my little sister likes ‘Sing Star’ and the ‘Dance Mat’ games.

All these factors affect opinion. With my Dad the ‘Golf Games’ were a classic example, he hates anything to do with golf even the word golf itself, however he played a golf game on the Sega Saturn and got extremely addicted to it because of the game play! Proving game play is important as a separate entity regardless of themes and graphics, even though the graphics were very good as well. Prior to this if you would to ask my Dad about sport games his opinion would have been negative. Whilst writing he even said, “I F**king hate golf” showing his unwillingness to be objective still, the photo below will show how cheerful he is.

Therefore objectivity and critic’s preferences or view points should be taken into account when viewing their analysis. If a magazine journalist is a FPS or fighting champion, their opinions could be biased to those genres. So it’s a gamer’s job to read plenty of reviews to make up their own mind.

E.G. The Project Gotham Racing review by the crudely named boomboxdan, which can be found at the link: http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=62798 To be fair the reviewer, Dan, does mention how this is his first review, the trouble with it is not everyone is a fan of racing games. I have Project Gotham Racing for my Xbox 360 (because there was no other way around it). I’m not a great fan of racing games however I find PGR pretty fun, plenty of lush environments of different countries around the world makes choosing a race track a lot of fun.

You can be transported to many locations in Japan, England and many other countries. I reckon Dan should have mentioned the vast gaming options you can choose from such as ‘Elimination Race’ in his review. I tend to play Elimination Race because I’m not that good at the game. The goal is the last person to pass each lap is eliminated, it is actually quite thrilling in multiplayer mode because I’m not thinking of winning I’m thinking of not being eliminated before my friends. There are many more Racing Options to choose from as well as Elimination Race that adds a great level of game play, plus you can customize the options of each race to your liking such as; the amount computer controlled cars you want (if you want any), the level of difficulty for each car (I tend to put them all on easy because of my skill, be honest winning is fun), how many laps, how many players and the list continues. The plus factor of a game I believe is to do something that you can’t do in reality, (like killing people) for example I can’t drive, let alone drive a race car around the streets of Japan. I reckon Dan should have at least mentioned how realistic the handling is, I find this realism takes some of the fun away for a non racing game fan, but I am not going to be bias as if you prefer realism you may find no problem with the handling of each car. The way I see reviewing a game is that you need to the diversity of the game playing market. Dan’s review was aimed at fans of existing racing games yet he didn’t go into great detail about the game play. His review in my opinion wouldn’t have sold PGR to me, if I read that review before playing PGR I wouldn’t of put the disc inside my beautiful Xbox 360. The problem with amateur reviewers is ‘language’, or communication skills, they need to be able to describe why a game is ‘amazing’. Using your ‘two mates’ isn’t a valid resource in my opinion.

Being paid to play and write about video games sounds like the ultimate job ever! I used to think that back in the day, but where’s the reward in playing games everyday. To put it into context, imagine having Christmas everyday? It wouldn’t be special anymore and you may grow sick of playing badly made games. More to get to the point, I am my own critic and I really hate when magazine or online reviews gives a bad review on a game I like. Ok so some reviews could be accurate however I find myself reading opinions not objectivity. Such as reviewers who hate RPGs so they go on saying how they find random encounters boring and how all RPGs are the same. The same thing can be said about all genres of games for example in a fighting game you fight, and in a racing game you race. That isn’t the case for all reviews on RPGs, I think the world would be a better place if we had an objective ranking system for this reason.

New Games Journalism! To be honest this task worried me because I had no idea what the heck the NGJ was. I thought the NGJ was a new thing; apparently not they have been around since 2004, so why haven’t I heard of NGJ until now.

From what I’ve read I have found out this much. The NGJ is a video game journalism movement founded by Kieron Gillen in 2004 (who seems a bit weird in my opinion, nothing wrong with being weird though I suppose). How should I put it, they creatively analyze games. The highlight of NGJ is the style in which they review games. They review their games as a story that includes them experiencing the game (very original). This also makes their review unique and you remember it regardless if you like it or hate it. I would give NGJ 10 out of 10 points for being interesting; however the information is not always useful. As I made myself clear I want a factual objective review which I can rely on to purchase a game. From what I have found the NGJ simply tell you a happy interesting little story that has absolutely no useful references to the game in question, although very useful to the magazine that pays them. Editors and publishers are not always interested in the business of playing games, but selling magazines. A good article whether factual or not will sell, just look at the tabloids. This is made worse by a Microsoft magazine writing about a Microsoft game, I wonder how bias they would be.

I guess NGJ is a lot like wine, you either like it or you hate it. Try and guess my opinion, or would you rather me tell you it in a story.

In conclusion you could ignore all what I have just said; the best reviewer is a demo disc or download, so you can review it yourself.

Final Major Project: Jack and Jill the Game

2006-11-04T19:58:00.000Z

Programming

Hello:

onClipEvent (enterFrame) { with (_root.player) { // Controls Player Speed mySpeed = 3; // Controls how far the Player bounces off the wall after impact myBounce = 3; // keyboard controls if (Key.isDown(Key.DOWN)) { _y += mySpeed; } if (Key.isDown(Key.UP)) { _y -= mySpeed; } if (Key.isDown(Key.LEFT)) { _x -= mySpeed; } if (Key.isDown(Key.RIGHT)) { _x += mySpeed; } // detect if edges of the player is colliding with the Maze Walls if (walls.hitTest(getBounds(_root).xMax, _y, true)) { _x -= myBounce; } if (walls.hitTest(getBounds(_root).xMin, _y, true)) { _x += myBounce; } if (walls.hitTest(_x, getBounds(_root).yMax, true)) { _y -= myBounce; } if (walls.hitTest(_x, getBounds(_root).yMin, true)) { _y += myBounce; } // detect if Maze is finished if (_root.end.hitTest(_x, getBounds(_root).yMax, true)) { _root.gotoAndStop("882"); } }}

What did you say?

All that junk up their is the main programming for the body that my game relies on.

// tbytes = Total Bytestbytes = getBytesTotal()// bloaded = Bytes Loadedbloaded = getBytesLoaded()/*Basically the code below takes the Total bytes for the swfthe multiplies them by a percentage.Example = .25 = 25% Loaded, 50 = 50% loaded. .75 = 75% loaded ect...It then checks the Bytes Loaded to the Total Bytes, If it is Higher than the current statement it then executes the tellTarget actionscript*/if (bloaded >= Number(tbytes * .25)){tellTarget(box){gotoAndStop(3);}}if (bloaded >= Number(tbytes * .50)) {tellTarget(box){gotoAndStop(5);}}if (bloaded >= Number(tbytes * .75)) {tellTarget(box){gotoAndStop(7);}} if (bloaded >= Number(tbytes * .90)) {tellTarget(box){gotoAndStop(9);}} if (bloaded == tbytes) {tellTarget(box){gotoAndStop(10);}gotoAndPlay(11);}// end of Script

And this is how my game loads. Pretty intense, aye? I taught myself how to use Macromedia for my Final Major Project at college. It was based on the visual style of a children’s animation called ‘Charlie and Lola’, this meant that I had a theme to stick with. This made my task of creating a game even harder.

Charlie and Lola

Jack and Jill by Dale Toland

I don't know how to edit the java script to post my game on my blog so instead I will simply post images of the game.

Shot 1

Loading Screen (getting the animation to run as well as the action script in the background proved very difficult).

Actions:
1. Cat walk's on the spot.
2. Background pans to the left to make it look like the cat is moving.
3. Butterflty flutters up and down aimlessly.
4. Title wobbles around.

Shot 2

Ah the beautiful character selection screen with the giant hand cursor.

.

Actions:
1. Each word wiggles around if you place the finger over it.
2. The photo zooms closer to the screen before you select your character.

Shot 3

This is the task screen, here you get told what to do. Didn't take a genious the figure that one out aye.

Actions:

1. The cursor has changed to a fluttering butterfly.
2. The Task item (this level it's a bucket) jumps from left to right.
3. As usual the words are interactive to keep the game interesting for children.

Shot 4

This is the first level, ultimately you have use the arror keys to control Jack or Jill to cross the zebra crossing to obtain the Jack and Jill themed item.

Actions:
1. Car drive across the road. (however they are time so it is impossible for the car to hit the character)
2. Arrow keys control Jack or Jill
3. The themed item jumps from left to right to indicate it's importance.

Shot 5
A congratulatory sound effect is played to show for your good work in avoiding traffic. There is a button to the next level.

Actions:
1. Jack head turns.
First Jack looks at the bucket
Second he looks at the screen
This allows the player to understand they have accomplished their goal.
2. 'Play' takes you to the next level
3. You can interact with the words

Shot 6

This is level four, the levels increasingly get harder.

Actions:
1. Cat walk left to right making places difficult to access because you cannot walk passed cats.
2. Dogs are still and they block areas.

Shot 7

After all 6 levels are completed you get congratulated by Jack and Jill.

Actions:
1. Play allows you to replay the intire game as the character you didn't choose.

It's much more impressive when you actually play the game. The sound effects and music add to the atmosphere. I shall bring the game in on usb stick to show you all.

It's this project that got me into university and I got a DDM.

My Thoughts out Loud 1

2006-11-04T18:59:00.000Z

Words of Inspiration from Ben Mathis

Gaming has always been something I was very interested in. Even when I was young I dreamed of creating games. I realized that I had a bug for drawing and I loved designing characters, environment and even world. I originally wanted to take my drawing skills to animation but I soon figured out that I didn't really enjoy the tediousness of drawing each individual frame, let alone the time it took. My tutor college tutor suggested being a game artist and the more I found out about the course the more I fell in love with it. So far I find this course brilliant however I felt that there wasn't much work to do and it bothered me. Besides teaching myself 3D studio max, carrying on with my art style guide and drawing self directed studied there isn't much work to do. Then I read 'Put Your Money Where Your Mouth is' by Ben Mathis and it gave me a new look on not only the course but the gaming industry in general.

I always thought that it would be hard to get a job in the gaming industry plus I thought the fact I have only worked in one place employers would instantly see me as inexperienced, but now I know in order to get a job in this gaming world I need a brilliant portfolio..

"Do not complain about the difficulty getting a new job. It is not difficult to land a better job. It's difficult to keep a current, relevant, quality portfolio" (Mathis 2006, web).

Laziness isn't tolerated however I don't think it's possible to go lazy on something you're so passionate about. I'm aware that talk is cheap and actually creating a brilliant portfolio would be a harder task than simply saying it. This site is incredibly useful at getting to grips with 3D studio Max; it has helped me out immensely. http://www.poopinmymouth.com/

Thank you for dwelling into my thoughts.

Bibliography

Mathis B. (2006). Put your money where your mouth is. At: http://www.poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/money_mouth.htm (Accessed on 04/11/2006).

Week 4's Task

2006-10-28T14:59:00.000Z

History of Computer Games 2000s the Future

What are the significant developments facing gaming at the beginning of the 21st Century?

Year 2000! The wonderful, magical Playstation 2 was released by Sony. A year later Nintendo rivalled with their some what cuter Gamecube. 2001 a new competitor entered the console arena, the new competitor Microsoft released the X Box which is monstrously huge and to compliment it’s size it comes with a control pad that isn’t much smaller than the console. Okay the control pad isn’t that big but it is still huge. Judge for yourself.

On another subject in 2001 Sega's console making days drew to an end. The little blue spiky hedgehog decided to run around with Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony in 2002. Playstation 2 where currently leading the battle in 2001 with the release of the very successful “The Sims”. The Sims became the best selling computer game of all time, later in October Grand Theft Auto III came out on the PS2 which became top selling game in 2001. In March Nintendo continued its hand held console success with the release of the Gameboy SP. The installed light of the SP made it very successful. Skipping on abit to 2005 Nintedo released another version of the Gameboy Advanced which was more compact called the Gameboy Micro. The same year Nintendo released the Gameboy Dual Screen which utilizes Wifi to allow multiplayer gaming between other DS’s, but obviously it’s major attraction is the touch screen which offers a different and very fun interactive way of gaming. In my opinion it was the touch screen that made the DS more popular than the Playstation Portable. Then 1 year later a smaller more compact version of the DS was created known as the DS lite (this sounds familiar?).

The X Box flagship game ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’ sold over 5 million copies worldwide. In 2004 Halo 2 sold even more than the first and it became the best selling game on the X Box.

The Playstation 2 on average has a life span of three years, if properly cared for it can last longer; regardless Sony released the Playstation 2 Slim. In all honesty the PS2 Slim was just an attempt to get more money. Nintendo amazed the survival horror genre with the release of Resident Evil 4, although it was ported to the Playstation 2 the quality of the game decreased making the game much more preferred on the GameCube.

Nintendo’s hand held console dominated the markets so Sony decided to introduce their Playstation Portable to the hand held console world. 2004 the PSP was released in Japan on December 2nd. The US got the PSP 2005 March 23.

Nintendo Revolution? What’s all this about aye?
In 2005 Nintendo revealed few detail about their next generation console the Nintendo Revolution. At TGS Nintendo shared more information on their new controller which can interact with the game by being tilted and by changing its position. The new controller has movement sensors and it is mostly one handed although it has an attachment that can occupy your other hand for some games.

Next generation consoles were now the biggest news in gaming, especially after Sony demonstrated their Playstation 3 during E3. Everyone eagerly awaits the arrival of the Playstation 3; I hope you have your pocket money saved because I sure have. December 10 Microsoft released their second console known as the X box 360 which is in my opinion a taster of things to come. Computer Games are gradually becoming more and more photo realistic.

On a completly pointless note the Microsoft has redeemed themselves with the very handsome X Box 360 control pad

Much better =)

What pressures does the industry face?

Personally I think the biggest pressure the industry will face is ‘Sales’, the cost of the so called next generation consoles. The computer game industry is second only to the movies industry and the movie industry is second to the porn industry (it’s true).

The two largest markets for computer games are obviously Japan and then the United States. Behind them two are Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany, South Korea, Mexico, France and then Italy. China's computer game market isn’t very big at the moment but it is expecting to rise.

The prizes of the new ‘next generation’ console are just not practical. The X Box 360 with no accessories apart from 1 control pad is about £274.99. The wireless internet adapter to for the X Box is £60 and you have to buy the Microsoft adapter because others won’t work. New computer game releases are going at about £60! Playstation 3 isn’t much better with its games costing $60 a piece and they plan to release two models one costing at around $499 and the other $599.

I believe less people would be able to afford these consoles ultimately decreasing their income.

My Personal History of Gaming Concludes (at least for now)

Sega had just released the Dreamcast; it was far superior to the Sega Saturn and the first Playstation. So how come it didn’t sell? The reason was because everyone was awaiting the arrival of the Playstation 2. I have owned 3 Playstation 2’s in my time. My original black one lasted for about 3 year and suddenly decided it didn’t want to read CD’s anymore so I sold it for £40 (heh heh sneaky aye). The new silver one came out which ran faster and was a lot quieter than the black one. I still own the silver Playstation 2 but it belongs to my brother as well so I couldn’t bring it up to Leicester with me. Kingdom Hearts 2 came out the following Friday which forced me to obtain a new Playstation 2 so I bought the PS2 slim.

The first game I owned on the PS2 was a FPS my entire family enjoy even down to my little sister, it is called Time Splitters. It uses the excuse of Time Travel to create loads of absurd individuals for selectable characters. It is the vast array of characters that I believe differentiates this FPS from other. Following shortly after Time Splitters I got Grand Tourismo 3 which graphics left me shell shocked (well it was good for its time you can’t deny that). My collection grew with a vast selection of RPG’s then First Person Shooters to various other genres like Stealth games to action games.

I didn’t get a GameCube until quite late, I wanted to further my Final Fantasy collection by obtaining Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and that was the only reason I wanted a GameCube. I also enjoyed the likes of the brutal ‘Smash Brothers Melee’, ‘Resident Evil 4’, ‘Legend of Symphonia’ to remakes of old Sonic Games (it felt right to play Sega games on Nintendo).

I never owned an X Box, there was nothing I wanted to play on it, plus I didn’t see Halo as anything special, it was just another FPS to me. Nothing sold the X Box to me. However I recently got into online game with the likes of Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142 and Final Fantasy 11. Since I no longer own a PC and my laptop isn’t suited to play state of the art games I bought an X Box 360 which I think is fantastic! I’m in ore by some of the spell binding visuals of the Alien environments from ‘Prey’ and the game play in ‘Dead or Alive 4’.

What do you want from gaming in the future?

GAMEPLAY!! I don't want the attention of improving graphics to hinder game play. Many retro games still have a lot of playability in them. Also on another note I miss the days when games were challenging and lengthy, now games are a lot shorter and not hard in the least (even on maximum difficulty settings).

It’s hard to pin point exactly what I want but I want something new, something that hasn’t been done before. For example the Nintendo Wii’s new controller, their interactive screen and microphone on the DS creates a whole new level of game play. Next generation console graphics are exceptional don’t get me wrong, the visuals in the new Metal Gear Solid 4 look almost photo realistic.

Virtual reality didn’t work in the past but what would it be like with today’s technology, a system that puts you in the game. However instead of walking around aimlessly in your house thinking you’re in another universe will mean control pads will still have to be used to walk. Imagine if other software like gloves that allowed you to interact with in game objects were available and weaponry like swords, shields and guns to simulate fighting.

What games would you like to play

Well Crisis (a new FPS) looks visually beautiful; however it reminds me of Far Cry. Although Crisis looks good it’s still nothing new. I defiantly want to try out Red Steel for the Nintendo Wii, I want to see the levels of depth you can you can go too with manipulating the controller to wield as a sword. For example could you stab your opponent’s ass or slit his head off or are you limited to your actions. The new Zelda game ‘Twilight Princess’ utilizes the controller in a different way so I would like to try that too.

One game I am MOST looking forward to is ‘Dragonball Z Tenkaichi Budokai 2’ on the Nintendo Wii. By using the controller you have to actually physically perform the actions that the character do while they do their special attackts. n Here is an example.

Character's actions

The Example

(I have no idea who that guy is but he proves my point pretty well.)

I want to play Metal Gear Solid 4, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles 2 and Final Fantasy 13. The game play in FF 13 allows you to battle like the scenes in the movie Final Fantasy Advent Children.

How will you play them?

Well I own an X Box and the Wii is relativly cheap. The Playstation 3 is a bit pricey but I will get one. I want games in the future to involve people more, such a Virtual Reality or controller swords etc.

Week: 3's Task

2006-10-25T13:13:00.000Z

History of Computer Games 1980's to 1990's

The Arcade era truly defined itself in the 1980's. Genres began to define themselves, such as 'Defender' a side scrolling shooter game, 'Donkey Kong' which was a platform style of game,

'Road Fighter' was an early racing game and 'Black Belt' which kick started the fighting game genre.

Even in this age boundaries were trying to be broken. Games such as Battlezone and 3D Monster Maze attempted to create a 3 Dimensional universe. Battle Zone used a wireframe vector graphic style to simulate a 3D world. Computer Game sound effects drastically improved, sound effects for people, monsters, and weapons became more realistic.

The racing game that pioneered all racing games was called 'Pole Position' (1982). Although the game used 2D sprites it simulated a 3D race track. The game's format consists of the player constantly viewing the rear of the car and the horizon in the distance, as you accelerate the track scrolls down and you use the left and right directional controls to turn, until you ultimately follow the track and reach the finish line.

The gaming industry was growing bigger faster. For example, cartoons are recognized through the characters that appear in them, now the arcade had a very popular character known as Pac Man. More original ideas just continued to sprout, such as the 'full motion video's' from the game 'Dragon's Lair' (1983).

1982 was the year house holds state of the art 8 bit consoles such as the Commodore 64 (below) was released.

The Apple II

The ZX Spectrum

and the Atari 800.

The Commodore 64 was very successful, with Basic programming environment, graphic and sound which were extremely advanced for its day. It became popular fast.

The ZX Spectrum was released in the UK. It also became popular (much like the Commodore 64).

Sierra created a modern adventure game known as King's Quest in 1984. As you can see from the image below it is very colourful and has a lack of tone. The game is played in third person
perspective. The player can move freely around the 2D background. Fore ground objects such as trees, pillars, gates etc overlap the player’s character to give the illusion they are in front, this is called pseudo-3D, pseudo meaning false. Commands were entered in text in this game however Lucasarts pushed the boat out further in 1987 with the release of 'Maniac Mansion. The game was built on a system called SCUMM, it featured a 'point and click' interface and it wasn't long before other game companies cottoned on that this was a good idea.

Late 1985 the Amiga was released, a machine that was classed as a sufficient upgrade to the previous 8-bit consoles.

At the same time the Atari ST was released, these machines were very expensive making them less popular.

In North America 1985, Nintendo's 8-bit console known as the Famicom (Family Computer) was released. In the United States and the United Kingdom the computer was called the Nintendo Entertainment System also know as the NES. The platform game genre escalated when people witnessed Super Mario Bros. This made the NES a huge success, it currently dominated the market in North America, however the NES's time in the lime light was limited. In early 1990's, the Sega Master System began to rival the NES since the two consoles were very similar. Both consoles escaped from the original joysticks and used control pads instead. To the left of the pad is the directional section (D-pad) and to the right were two buttons for commands.

Not only were the consoles rivaling but so were game developers such as 'Enix' and 'SquareSoft'.

'Enix' created a role playing game called Dragon Quest in 1986 with a visual style made by 'Akira Toriyama' the creator of Dragonball Z (a famous and loved animation in Japan); since it contained the artwork of Akira Toriyama it was more popular in Japan than its rival. SquareSoft was in a bad state at this time since their games weren't selling. Hironbu Sakaguchi went on to direct SquareSoft's last fantasy game which was called Final Fantasy, released in 1987 (deja voo). Final Fantasy continued making games as well as Dragon Quest however SquareSoft (since they had made millions from several Final Fantasy games) went on to sell the games worldwide. This made Final Fantasy very popular in Europe and America but it didn't change Final Fantasy's position in Japan, they were still second best. The story ends happily; the companies made a truce and became what is known today as 'SquareEnix', now the latest Dragon Quest games are released worldwide too.

Back to the matter at hand.

Creeping up the RPG battle was The Legend of Zelda series, like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy it too made its debut on the NES. It was released the same year as Dragon Quest 1986.

Handheld Console

Perhaps the most famous hand held console in existence is the Game Boy which was released in 1989. This far surpassed Nintendo's previous hand held console 'The Game and Watch'.

1990's

From here things get serious, the gaming industry now has it's foundation, it now needs to nurture and expand it's horizons, computer games were getting increasingly more popular.
More companies emerged, others diminished, budgets increased and machines got more powerful. 3d graphics came to rise as well as more multiplayer games began. Companies known as Epic Mega Games, 3D Realms, ID Software came into the gaming world.

The game Wolfenstein by Id Software started the First Person Shooter (FPS) genre, but the game 'Doom' rocketed the FPS genre making it better known. Also the real time strategy genre became more popular with games such as Dune II, Warcraft and the better known Command and Conquer. Alone in Dark was one of the first of its kind in the survival horror genre made in 1992. This inspired one of the most popular survival horror games called Capcom's Resident Evil.

The 1990's era brought the arrival of the Sega Genesis, better known in Europe as the Mega Drive. Nintendo had a suitable rival for the Mega Drive called the Super Nintendo (Snes). The two consoles were at their prime in 1991. The two consoles were at their prime in 1991 both consoles were classed as equals. 3D graphic became increasingly more mainstream with these two consoles with games such as ‘Star Fox’ on the Snes and ‘Rise of the Robots’.
Creeping up into the UK market in 1990 was a machine called the ‘Turbo Grafx 16 created by NEC. The TG 16 did surprisingly well in Japan but in America and UK the Snes and Mega Drive rained supreme. NEC was new to the market and failed the battle with Sega and Nintendo in 4th place. Nintendo held 2nd and 3rd place with the Snes and the some what dated Nes, regardless of Snes being released the Nes was still very popular.

The market in Japan however was quite different, the Mega Drive (or Genesis as it was known there) didn’t hit off as well as it did the UK and America. Nintendo’s Snes just barely became victorious over the PC Engine (Turbo Grafx 16) in Japan. Neo-Geo (a console made by SNK) also rivaled the console market and was the most expensive of them all. The Neo-Geo brought the arcade experience home since the console was very similar to the SNK’s arcade machines.
Here I get to explain about my favorite console of all time, the beautiful 32-bit Sega Saturn! The Japanese released date was in November 22nd 1994, North America in April 27th 1995 and in Europe July 8th 1995. The machine sold about 170,000 on it’s launch day in Japan and 5000 during the UK’s launch day (I was part of the 5000). Also in 1995 Sony made it’s shock appearance, like a storm it came out of nowhere. Sony released it’s 32-bit counterpart know as the Playstation. Thus was the true beginning of 3d gaming CD’s, although wire frame 3d and flat polygons have already been seen nothing could compare to the standards of these two machines.

In the US Sega Saturn advertised itself with an advent featuring a Sony Playstation being thrown out of a tower block window; this shows the immense rivalry between the two consoles the Sega Saturn was insinuating it was better than the Playstation. Nintendo joined the battle with the Nintendo 64, released in Japan in June 23rd 1996, North America in September 29th 1996 and in Europe March 1st 1997. The N64 sold 1.5 million machines in three months and Super Mario 64 pioneered 3d platform games. Whilst Sega and Sony moved on to CD’s Nintendo unusually stayed with the original cartridges. Using cartridges hindered Nintendo if anything and the novelty at the fact they stayed with cartridges quickly faded. Nintendo always try to be original which can be seen with the mini disc for the Game Cube, thus making the option to watch dvd’s impossible where as the Sony Playstation and X Box could be used as a DVD player, but that is a subject I will go into on a latter date. The fact that the N64 used cartridges was the reason SquareSoft moved to the Sony Playstation to release their first 3D Final Fantasy, which was Final Fantasy 7 made in 1997. Final Fantasy 7 was a huge success and it even obtained best game of the year award and it also made role playing games more popular.
To add to Sony’s success Konami’s released ‘Metal Gear Solid’ (sequel to the Metal Gear games on the Nes) on the Playstation. It was the birth of stealth games, this gave the Playstation more popularity.

While the Sega Saturn was a success in Japan redeeming the Mega Drive, it failed compared to the success of the Sony Playstation in America and Europe. Sega was of no threat to Sony in either Europe or the US; the Nintendo 64 held its ground but was still no match for the mighty Sony Playstation.

This is where the story ends in the US and Europe but in Japan Sega released the Dreamcast and Nintendo released a new hand held console known as the Game Boy colour. And so the tale ends, the once equal powers of Sega and Nintendo battled valiantly until a mysterious warrior appeared and wiped the battle field clean leaving Nintendo with an inch of his life.

My History of Gaming.

Although my family did used to own an Atari I was too young to remember it. The NES and Master System were still quite popular during the 1990's, plus with the releases of the Snes and Mega Drive the Nes and Master System dropped in price. I never owned a Nes, it was the spikey blue hedgehog that sold the Master System to my family. It was my cousin who introduced me to computer games, I was too young to respect how revolutionary the Master System was compared to Pong.

As far as my little mind could comprehend Master System was the begining of computer games, I knew nothing of the arcade era until much later. During my Master System days I enjoyed games such as Alex Kidd, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Chaos, Sonic Drift, R Type (my mum's favourite game), Alien 3 (which by the way used to scare the hell out of me), Alter Beast, Outrun, Bubble Bobble (me and my brother completed all 200 levels!), Disney's Castle of Illusion and Wonder Boy. Thats all the games me and my family can remember.

My addiction to computer games was apparent at a young age, me and my brother used master all the multiplayer games we could get our hands on, those were the good old days.

It wasn't long until we got a Mega Drive, the multiplayer game collection continued with, Mortal Combat, Streets of Rage series (very addictive), Sonic 1, 2, 3, Sonic & Knuckles and Rise of the Robots. Alot of people criticized Rise of the Robots' game play but I loved how difficult the game was. I used to draw the Robots and make up my own, each one being unique and having a specific purpose. My platform genre grew with Bubsy the Bob Cat 2, Atomic Runner, Shinobi, Earth Worm Jim, Terminator and there is more butit has been so long.

We next got the Mega Drive 32 X which me and my brother were pleased about because that mean't we could play Knuckles Chaotix. My dad wanted the 32 x so he could play a first person shooter called Doom. The FPS genre was new to me but I quickly picked it up. Our 32 X was unreliable because it used to crash more than often.

I was aware of the battle between Sega Saturn, Sony Playstaion and the Nintendo 64. I decided to stick with what I knew and continue my Sonic collection with Sonic 3D, Sonic R and Sonic Jam. It wasn't long before we got into another platform game called Nights into Dream and Nights into Dreams Christmas Edition, since it was created by the Sonic team.

My taste for first person shooters had begun from playing Doom on the 32 X, aswell as getting the Sega Saturn version of Doom our FPS collection increased loads with games such as Alien Triolgy, Duke Nukem 3D, Exhumed, Hexen, Quake and Space Hulk (which was poor in comparison to the other FPS's I mentioned). With owning a Sega Saturn I became aware of demo discs, we obtained a very big demo disc collection.

A game that was created in our home town of Derby was a huge success, it is non other than Tomb Raider. Although Mario 64 created a massive 3D world itwas the realism of Tomb Raider that made it successful. We got a copy for our Saturn. The fighting game we got for out playstation was Virtual Fighter, for more info on this game here is a link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Fighter

I never owned an N64 but I did realise that if I was a true gamer I had to own a Playstation. My fighting game series improved with Capcom titles such as the Street Fighter Alpha series and Dark Stalkers.. We bought namco's Soul Blade and the Tekken series. We also imported Dragonball Z fighting games. The Grand Theft Auto series was a must, that fact that I wasn't 18 was irrelevant. My Final Fantasy series grew with 7, 8 and 9. My Sega Saturn still had alot of playablity so I often switched between the two.

Then I heard of the Sega Dreamcast...

Week: 2's Task

2006-10-16T16:51:00.000Z

History of Computer Games 1950's to 1970's

Early History of Computer Games and Video Games

It was 1946-7, Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr and Estle Ray Mann created a game on a machine called a Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) which simulated a missile being fired at a target which was inspired by the radar display during World War II. The player had to turn dials to alter the curve and momentum of the missile to ultimately hit the target. At that ancient time graphics could not be drawn electronically, small targets drawn on an overlay had to be placed on the CRT by the builder of the game (I can imagine this getting very tedious). This I believe was the early origins of using computers as entertainment.

A man known as A.S. Douglas developed a graphical version of noughts and crossed called OXO in 1952. At the University of Cambridge. It was created to demonstrate his thesis on human and computer interaction as apposed to entertainment. OXO was played on a system called EDSAC computer, which used a CRT for a visual display. I have also found out that this game can be downloaded off the internet.

1958 William Higinbotham constructed a game known as Tennis for Two on an oscilloscope to entertain visitors at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. This is where using computers as entertainment began to sprout. Tennis for Two was created before ’Pong’ and unlike ‘Pong’ it shows a very simplified Tennis Court from the side, the ball is effected by gravity . The game was dismantled in 1959.

Steve Russell programmed a game called Spacewar on a completely new system called the DEC PDP-1 in 1961. It was a two player game; each player controlled a ship that fired missiles. In 1962 it was the first widely available and influential game.

Now onto the better known facts, the birth of coin operated games. 1969 Ralph Baer was working on a prototype console that hooked up to a TV set. The console played ball and paddle games, the prototype was sold to an electronic company called Magnavox. Magnavox released the console as Magnavox Odyssey and this was the first videogame console.

The game Spacewar! Was released in 1971. It was released as an arcade version by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, they called it Computer Space. Bushnell manufactured 1,500 Computer Space Arcade Machines for an electronic company called ’Nutting Associates’. People found it difficult to play so the game was not a success.

Bushnell eventually founded his own company called ‘Atari’ in 1972. Then the legendary Pong was created, it was the first widespread arcade game ever. Pong is based on table tennis; the ball is served from the center of the court while the players control a rectangle to serve the ball hoping their opponent missing it. If your opponent misses the ball you score one point. Atari sold a cracking 19.000 Pong machines. This was now the true birth on computer game entertainment.

Arcade games truly hit off in 1978 with the release of the famous ‘Space Invaders’ by a company called Taito. This arcade game inspired many other manufactures because they realized that money was to be made from computer games industry. Not long after Space Invaders Atari released Asteroids. 1980 came the arrival of the colour arcade game known as Pac-Man.

One of the first player versus player games was a game called Karate Champ which inspired Street Fighter which furthered the fighting game genre but this is straying from the subject a bit.August 1982 came the arrival of the Commodore 64, it was released public. It was very basic however at it’s time the graphics and sound capabilities were revolutionary. As the 1980’s continued Sega and Nintendo’s ultimate rivalry began with the releases of the Sega Megadrive and the Nintendo. From here was when my gaming history began.

Who decided to use computers to have fun?
Personally I would say Steve Russell. The game Spacewar was a game that was interactive for two people and was simply used for entertainment. 1972 came Pong which was more mainstream and it began the computer game craze.

What was their background? CRT simulated the ability to shoot a missile at a target. It was created in 1946-7 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr and Estle Ray Mann. The CRT was used as the visual display for a Noughts and Crosses game called OXO in 1952. This furthered when William Higinbotham constructed a game called Tennis for two on an oscilloscope in 1958 which ultimately inspired Nolan Bushnell company Atari to create Pong.

Does this strike you as significant? I’m not too sure what this question is asking, however I assume “significant’ is referring to the back ground of computer games. If this is the case then yes. The CRT was used in the creation of OXO, the computer game world slowly evolved from her making the background very significant.

My Personal History of Gaming

I remember it like it was yesterday; I could barely speak or read. The ability to walk had been an obstacle I had recently over come. It was early 90’s I watched as my cousin was fiddling with the wires around the back of the television. My confused expression was left ignored as everyone waited eagerly for something to appear on the television screen. Then there it was it was, love at first sight. I saw this spiky blue hedgehog dash across the screen battling a big brown mustached, yellow collar wearing, rounded egg bellied mad scientist know as “Doctor Robotnik”. The most peculiar thing about this blue hedgehog was that my cousin controlled him using a remote with a wire connected to a strange box. Sonic the Hedgehog was the first game I ever witnessed but it wasn’t the first game I played.

Although the Super Nintendo and Sega Master System were already released, at the time my family only owned the Sega Master System. Even though Nintendo was currently winning the battle with Sega my allegiance never differed, my heart belonged to Sega. During my late days at nursery I neglected reading I was behind everyone else in the class. My older brother and my father were always on the Master System so It was a while before I had my first touch.

One day when I woke up my father handed me the control pad, he turned the Master System’s power on without inserting a game. By doing this I was transported to the magical world of Alex Kidd (Sega’s original mascot before Sonic the Hedgehog came along). The adventured of this young boy grasped me to the television screen instantly until I found out you had to interact with other people (here is where it gets complicated). You see when you interacted with another character a bubble appears from their mouth containing text to emulate the fact they are speaking, (well der!) the problem was I couldn’t READ!

My frustration occurred when I figured out my family’s ploy; they were not going to read the text bubbles out to me. Days later I murdered them……

Heh heh not really I love my family very much (*shifty eyes*). Instead of reading the books supplied by nursery I played ‘Alex Kidd’. So in a sense one could say computer games taught me to read, or maybe I say this as a defense to those who say computer games are corrupting the minds of children from today’s society.

As I grew my supreme intellect increased vastly, I grew bored with the Sega Master Systems and ventured on to more powerful consoles such as the Megadrive which was released in 1991 (I was three years old *aww*). I can’t recall my age when I played on my first Megadrive but I do know after obtaining it I was expecting the Sega Saturn. I mastered every Sonic game I could get my little hands on, I began amazing my fellow young brethren with my ability to obtain ’Super Sonic’ on the first level in ’Sonic the Hedgehog 2’.

After I became supreme overlord of the Master System I got the Sega 32-X which was an add on for the Megadrive. In all honesty in was a total flop. The games were hardly decent besides Knuckles the Echidna starring in Chaotix (which was a Sonic game), also the 32-X tended to crash offten

I furthered my adventure to the Sega Saturn completely ignoring the release of the Sony Playstation which came out of nowhere! For Christmas I was given the choice between Playstation or the Saturn. My love for Sonic the Hedgehog over powered the immense quality of the Playstation. Soon even my intelligence gathered that the Playstation was the daddy of anything the world had ever seen. My master plan was for my dad to get me a Saturn and my mum to get me a Playstation, ‘tis’ the beauty of divorce (that was pretty harsh…).

I enjoyed the beauty of my little blue friend and the supremacy of the Sony Playstation. I completely ignored the Nintendo 64 because my I couldn’t understand why they still decided to use cartridges. During these times I also started getting games for my PC. I was introduced to “Emulators” and “ROMs”. I wanted to obtain a Nintendo and the Super Nintendo by using Emulators.

I downloaded “The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past”. I feel in love with it and I desperately wanted to play more Zelda game on the Snes (Super Nintendo). Little did I know that there was only one Zelda game for the Snes so I downloaded a game called “Final Fantasy Mystic Quest” (it looked similar to Zelda), that game changed my life forever.

I ventured on to play Final Fantasy’s 1 and 2 on the Nintendo Emulator, 4 to 6 on the Snes. Since I had a Playstation I gotFinal Fantasy 7 for Christmas, I bought Final Fantasy 8. The only Final Fantasy game I don’t own on the Playstation is ‘Final Fantasy Tactics’. I even own semi Final Fantasy related games such as the ‘Chocobo Series’ and I have recently order the 1990’s anime ‘Final Fantasy Legend of the Crystal’

Pointless Fact

There once lived a man named Hironobu Sakaguchi, he worked for a very low stream company known as Square Soft in Japan. They created many game which to their distress were immense flops. Hironobu being initially a fantasy story writer was the director of most of Square Softs games. He wrote another story and use it to create one last fantasy game before the company crumbled. That last fantasy game they were going to make was called Final Fantasy (that title doesn’t seem like an enigma now huh) which was released in Japan December 18, 1987. The success of Final Fantasy brought up the imminent sequel thus begun the birth of a vast series of Role Playing Games, Movies, Japanese Animations, Character Models (Toys lol) and more.

Now back to the matter at hand

Later Sega came out with the Dreamcast. From the way how I have been telling the story one would assume I would have rushed out to get it to play Sonic Adventure, however I was converted by the brilliance of the Sony Playstation. I waited eagerly for the arrival of the Playstation 2!!! With the Playstation I furthered my Final Fantasy collection with Final Fantasy 10 and 10 part 2. The Playstation 2 was revolutionary and it totally over powered the Sega Dreamcast thus becoming the end of Sega’s console making, meaning I could play all the Sonic games I missed out on in my Playstation 2 yay!!!

Disappointed about the set back of the Playstation 3 I quenched my thirst by purchasing the Xbox 360. I am mastering Dead or Alice 4 before I go online with the Golden Membership I have bought.

When I was young my mum used to tell me I spend too long playing computer games, yet she zones out watching her soaps hours on end. I see no difference in playing games and watching TV besides the fact the computer games are more interactive and strangely addictive.

Computer Games are a lot like drugs in a way, they take all your money and are very addictive, but In a more in-depth explanation why I continued playing games was, as a child I used to draw many comics starring absurd characters in stranger places. I imagined if maybe one day these characters would appear in a computer game of their own, and you know what, I have gotten much older and, created very original stories and I still wish for my characters to appear in a computer game.

My Stupidity Thickens =(

2006-10-16T16:31:00.000Z

Has the title intrigued you? Allow me to explain myself. Reading questions “properly” seems to be a difficult trait for me to learn. I have noticed due to ranting on in my first blog I haven’t actually chosen one blog to review.
I fear it is too late to edit it however I feel obliged to correct my error. I will keep this entry short because I have more important matters to attend too such as “week 2’s task”.

By the way…. Has anyone played Final Fantasy 3, it is the only one I haven’t played. I have played the series 1-11 (except 3), FF 10 part 2, FF Mystic quest, FF Crystal Chronicles, FF Tactics, FF Tactics Advanced, FF Legend 1-3 and Kingdom Hearts 1-CoM-2

Plus I have the full series of FF Unlimited on dvd I eagerly await the other two series which look AWESOME. I’ve also seen the fantastic Advent Children and the first Final Fantasy anime “Legend of the Crystal” which is vaguely based on Final Fantasy 5.

If anyone has Final Fantasy 3 on the an emulator please oh please let me know. I want to play the original before it comes on the Nintendo DS.

Michael Powell, are you serious about letting me write an essay, sarcasm is hard to detect through text. 10,000 words in 2 months is no problem . Should I base it one the weekly task another subject or a computer game related subject of my choice?

>_< You have my hopes up, since blogging currently exist for the other students will the essay still effect my grade?

Daley Waley's World

2006-10-04T16:06:00.000Z

I Am Very Annoyed

To begin I would like to comment on my current frustration towards this “New Model” learning system. As I believe I have made my self clear that I am annoyed and some what disappointed with this new blogging system.

What has annoyed me the most is the fact that I won’t be able to write my A* quality essay. Oh how I have prepared my self for University and ‘Academic Writing’. I continually cry myself to sleep as I feel my grammar fade. What effects me the most is that I know how to write an essay and a very good one at that but now I have been taken to a world which I am not familiar with and I’m concerned it will effect my grade.

I’m a quick learner so no doubt I will be able to adjust myself to blogging, another option would be to complain. However, I feel the entire class would want to rip my head off like barbarians, which relates to their feeble intellect.
I don’t blame them all for praising Michael Powell for getting rid of essays but I am rather heart broken.

A primitive student looked at me with a blank dazed expression as I told him of my ideals. He looked at me as if I was the idiot, which was quite confusing to say the least.

I am making a bigger matter out of this than is necessary, the reason for this is two fold;
1. To most likely make my first blog an interesting one.
2. Maybe I want to quench my thirst to write an essay

Using the words ‘annoyed’ and ‘frustrated’ is an extreme over exaggeration, to be fair blogging looks fun; actually I’m having fun writing this!

I can see myself spending a lot more than a measly two hours a day blogging and checking the black board. It should be fun I suppose, I can’t wait to get cracking with some serious work, come on Michael Powell hit me with all you got I can take it; I want to be the best Game Artist EVER!! (Correction I “WILL” be the best Game Artist ever.)

I apologise for the amount of class mates I have insulted during this blog. (Pffft not really….oops did I just write what I was thinking heh heh no worries tip-ex will do the trick)

Now on to the questions.

Who's writing, and how do you perceive them to be?
What I could gather from the examples given was that blog writers are very ‘random’. They could consist of students, teachers to television presenters. Some are serious, some humorous but all very individual.

Does blogging strike you as objective or more personal?
Well it's obviously personal; I see blogging as a platform of expression, as I believe I have made clear through my previous statements.

How often do they write, what do they write about?
Some write only once, others daily and some even weekly. I haven’t witnessed any blogs thus far that restricts it’s self to a particular schedule. Depending on the writer their blogs are very different; some contain important university information, whilst others contain personal or humorous content.

How do you see yourself using a blog?
I will use my blog as prescribed by the module but also I will have fun with it. My style of blogging will be light hearted and rather humorous, but mainly I will use it as a study skills diary of sorts. At least for now.

Do you feel comfortable writing for an invisible audience for example?
Yes, besides who cares, what are they going to do about it. When you take into account I’m using the blog in a diary format, it is not really going to be an attack on any constitutions or organizations, for example ‘political pressure groups’.