End Of Year Feedback

Pros:

Liked the tight knit community to the course, not like other courses where your sitting in a lecture hall of 200+.
Because of this, it makes much more of family feeling to the course,

Again, because of this help from other students, 1/2/3  years was not far away and getting to know them is very beneficial.

Overall laid back approach, I say this meaning that there is no push from the tutors, if you want encouragement, or help it is there but you can work in your own time so long as work is of an acceptable standard and completed on time.

Now have a working knowledge of the industry, because of the course my goals and focuses have dramatically altered, originally wanted to go for the cliché concept artist job, now would much rather work with engines/modelling something 3D based, I have so much more fun in these areas, although I do still love 2D.

Presentation skill development, very good idea, hope it continues into 2/3rd years, being able to get feedback from mike as he has given probably hundreds of presentations and listened to more, being able to be told the positive and negative points, from that experience was very beneficial.

2D very well designed, to get everyone to the same standard, making it more equality rather than some students roaring ahead.

Liked the outings, drawing directly from life, give a much quicker, better understanding of shape, form and depth, and it also gives students a knowledge of their surroundings if they are like me and have moved to Leicester.

Love the imaginative projects that can be made unique to each student, really lets creativity flow and enthusiasm for doing the work majorly increase.

Because of this problems are found that can be individual to each student, but when solved are beneficial to the entire year as other student/friends around you can learn from each other, which is another good point for the labs, the fact that everyone can bounce ideas and or problems off each other.

Liked the second Facebook account, although it’s a tad annoying to be continuously logging in and out of two separate accounts, the use of Facebook for the course has proved tremendously useful throughout the year to get the vital course information, speak with other years outside the labs, post problems on DMU technical at obscure hours of the morning and posting your work as well as seeing other peoples work and learning from there ideas.

Cons:

3D tutorials on blackboard to be updated and made clearer, perhaps short videos, or links to YouTube videos would be good, amount of time I’ve spent trying to follow the blackboard tutorial in the 1st & 2nd  terms  that could be better explained through a video.

More frequent feedback in critical studies, I don’t really know if any of my entries were any good, what could be improved on, what  needs to be cut out because I’ve rambled on too much, or gone off topic.

Other than those two very minor things I’ve had a fantastic year and know I picked the right course in DMU, looking forward to the second and perhaps more to a summer of gaming to catch up on!

Weapon Project Update 2

Well, that’s the end of 3D!

Finished the weapon project with the completion of the 3D work, it’s getting to be business as usual J.

Didn't run into any major problems on this project, and the smaller ones were taken care of in minutes. I tried a new method to myself of baking normal maps using a high poly mesh made from the lower poly inside of 3Ds max, results were pretty  damn effective.

In the future however I will be using Zbrush to make higher poly assets to be baked as it stands it is far superior to this method, but ah well, learned something new anyway.

The main reason I wanted to finish this project ahead of time was so I could comfortably plan out and complete the what seems like a mountain of 2D work to be finished by next week, famous last words here would most likely be, ‘ I will not procrastinate now’ but only time will tell.

Update: UDK & Weapon Project

Another update, just finished the UDK project and the Visual Design portion of the weapon project, thoroughly enjoyed both, maybe more UDK, was a bit tricky in the beginning but like most programs once you get the hang of it, it was good fun to work with, well tell a lie it is apart from all the fecking error messages and light maps…

All in all though I really did enjoy using UDK and am already thinking about designing another level over the summer break.

As for the weapon project, it was not without it’s challenges, being in student accommodation I didn't have access to many tools, in fact the only tools I had to work with were duct tape, contact adhesive and a multi-tool which made combining materials a pain in the arse, what I wouldn't of done for a vice or clamps. Apart from that however, the final product came out quite well, being a three barreled assault rifle with a cooling system:

Admittedly some of my other preliminary sketches in hindsight would have been much better as a more interesting design, but I got too caught up in putting the pieces together and getting to paint the decals, ah well.

One last note would be that I had a really good life drawing session last week, no frustration at all, if this trend continues I think I’m getting the hang of it J.

Hudson River School

Recently I discovered some incredible paintings from the Hudson River School movement of landscape artists.

I'm just astounded my the attention to detail and the way they can capture each individual realistic texture in their works.

Here is just a few samples:

Easter Update 2

Finally!
The reef project is done and dusted and all that remains is to save the tree project to disc, Tomb Raider here I come!

All in all the project was quite enjoyable apart from the massive idiotic mistake I made using plasticine instead of hardening modelling clay, so the model is finished, however cannot be moved, painted or be in direct sunlight or it will look like Slimer from Ghostbusters.

I found modelling with traditional mediums had good and bad points from the PC counterparts that I’m used to, one being how much I missed the copy, paste, mirror and symmetry tools, however I really enjoyed not running into problems with knowing what I wanted to accomplish but not having the technical know how to be able to complete it, much more instinctive in a word.

The final design came about through looking at medieval professions when stuck details to add to the first idea I had which was some form of large humanoid lion fish and I began to think about Skyrim then cultists of one of the expansions and religious figures.

I didn't feel that the lion fish would fit the bill for this particular role and scoured the internet until I found the moray eel to fit perfectly. It is already quite sinister looking, lurking in the shadows of coral, waiting in ambush.

Below are the final shots of the model and design, plus a few raw images from the camera:

Update: Easter Projects.

Just finished the design document, which makes the entirety of the tree project finished now, even though I actually finished it last week it took until now to remember to update the blog. Whoops.

The project as a whole went off without any major hitches, the one problem throughout was a small rendering annoyance that was fixed with help from Mike.

I am pleased with the final results and now I just need to crack on with the reef project, which is currently as far as silhouettes…

I really would like to get everything out of the way just to get some free time over this holiday break, free from the stress and worry of things to complete something I didn't manage to get at all over Christmas.

If this actually happens I’ve got a load of paints and a spare canvas left from my A-level art course I would love finally do a painting on, as well as being able to dig into the stack of games I’ve acquired over the terms that are either un played or 30mins in.

Elements of Game Design Part 4

Elements of Game Design Part 4

How do level designers construct and decorate the environment to assist navigation through the level?

Level designers construct and decorate in certain manors to cater to the objectives of the point in the game, however different types and genres of game have very different approaches as a result. In the Bethesda game Skyrim the main additions to assist in navigation are focal points, these serve three main purposes:

 1, being a functional purpose, helping the player orient themselves in the environment, they will always know their position in relation to various ones.

2, is purely visual, an aesthetic function and creating visual appeal to the area.

3, Creates a point of interest in that area, drawing on the curiosity of the player to investigate and explore. In single player maps you may define multiple focal points using architectural structures, landscape elements that help the player to travel from one focal point to another.

In multiplayer maps, you can have one or two focal points. These help to orient the player in the environment as they spawn. Players will always know where they are in the environment no matter what happens so they are not disoriented. 

Where as games more like Blizzard’s Diablo III uses limitations in the playable map to steer the players in the correct direction. Games like this are unlike Skyrim in environment design because of the lack of choice, the story is linear and there are no deviations, but Skyrim is much more of an open world sandbox where a player is able to write his own story in one sense, make his or her judgements as they go along.

How does the environment influence the atmosphere of the

game?

Once again I can come back to Skyrim and Diablo for this one.

The different environments in Skyrim and Diablo III completely after the mood and atmosphere of the game, for example: the Mountain ranges surrounding Riverwood near the start of the game provide and calm, peaceful and tranquil atmosphere, almost like a leisure holiday within a game.

However other areas like the Nordic ruins evoke much more sinister, evil atmospheres, the dim lighting combined with an almost monochrome colour palette really emphasises these effects.

Is there a balance to be struck between realism and stylisation that supports or hinders the player’s belief in the game world?

In my opinion it depends entirely on the game, some games like call of duty thrive on the realism they create for their experience, where as other games like Team Fortress with it’s cartoonist and styled approach really work well as is.

It depends on the nature of the game really if the story is based around real world events or dates a more realistic approach to the level designs will ultimately be more successful in the current game market.

In the realms of fantasy and science fiction however the realism gives way to creativity and imagination, but having said this the game world still need to include similarities to reality to sell the ideas, you can make an obscure fantasy world with all it’s individual elements, but one will know what they are because they can not relate them to a real world item, for example in Halo the alien spaceships and weaponry certainly look different to human ones, however you can still tell clearly that that is a gun and that is a spaceship because they are based off real world items that players can identify.

Illustrate an example of an

environment you particularly like – who designed it, what real life equivalents does it pay homage to, does it reference existing film or literature genres?

Once of my favourite examples of a beautiful environment in a game has to been The Frontier in Assassins Creed 3.

The lead artist on this project responsible for designing the Frontier Environment. Research, style guides, tech development and pre-production was Marc-Oliver Bouchard.

As you can see the work produced is incredible, I myself has a great interest in the beauty of untouched wilderness, there's just something about it that is so enticing. Another reason why this has to be one of my favourites is that realism and similarity to real world counterparts and so the ability in game to climb and explore areas that I might never get a chance to discover in my life.

External References from:
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/level_design_tutorials/how-to-plan-level-designs-game-environments-workflow.php

http://marc-olivierbouchard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/blog-post.html

Personal recollection.