Week 1

Farewells and Fresh starts

Grouping together

After a long summer of merriment and seeing family I'm back in Leicester continuing my journey that is Game Art. My first week had been such a mixed affair with the final farewell of first year and news that diffuse and specular maps have been superseded by albedo, metalness and roughness. I'm happy to see new changes and learn about how the industry adapts. I feel it will make me more capable of adapting in industry when these changes roll around again because I have dealt with them while still learning.

Here's to fresh starts, I've even set myself a daily digital painting challenge(even if it's only an hour a day). Seeing the improvement in my visual studies is really motivating as I'm becoming more of an artist by the day.


Not to mention albedo maps don't need shadows baking in, which is great, because I didn't understand that part very well anyway. However that is not to say I haven't had a little struggle getting my head around U4 and the new material maps. Hopefully as the next few weeks go by with a little practice and a little 3rd year nudge of help I'll have the new system cracked.

My first week's work has been interesting, fun and engaging but mostly interesting. I've had two group projects this past week; as my main aspiration is to become an art director I have tried to enthuse, motivate and get the best work out of my colleagues as possible. 

Group work

PBR is love PBR is life

I think my 3D group work could have been more organised but my peers looked to me for advice on what style, scale and job they should do. I noticed they asked me to check things for them even though I didn't ask to have things to go through me. I think they felt comfortable with me taking the reins and organizing our work. I'm really encouraged by this because it means that I'm already on my way to learning the key skills needed to manage a team.

I think it's really important as a team leader to not be over aggressive with your methods; people should be able to bounce ideas off of each other and feel like they can contribute to the project. The best way of leading isn't always to get on people's cases but to be passive to the work flow of an artist, encourage the best work out of them as a working group, rather than limiting them to your own thoughts.

This more passive leadership is happening with my visual studies film still group work. There are strong characters in my group (including myself) with all these great ideas already. There is little point in narrowing their ideas with what I think, ultimately that could take out some of the passion for the project. Instead we have lots of bounce meetings where everyone gets to pitch their ideas and I really feel our current idea is so much stronger for this.

Revised Moodboard

At first we had thought about Utopia or Kill Bill. Everyone was happy with these but after a talk with the lecturers, we've kept looking and we've gone for the tent from The Royal Tenenbaums. 

My over paint of our scene

As you can see it's quirky, simple, quaint, full of colour and interesting lighting.


Here's for another great year.
Here's to farewells and fresh starts!