Week 17

Group work Grafting

With only 1 week left it's really time to pull the proverbial finger out, I've been modeling and unwrapping until my eyes bled trying to get it all together in time. Part of me feels it'll all be ok and part of me feels like it's bordering on the impossible. Nevertheless Obo's orbit park is in progress coming to a moon near you soon.

Most of my time this week was spent settling on an idea, finding new reference and just running with what worked. In hindsight, which is ever 20/20, this may not have been the best way to tackle my task. In hindsight, oh wonderful hindsight, it may not have been a plan to throw all the ideas on the wall and watch for what stuck.

Such is life really, we learn from our mistakes because we can tell where we went wrong afterwards. If we knew how tits up they would go we wouldn't do them in the first place.

All that said I honestly don't think it'll be a complete failure, we've all learned so much about cleaver unwrapping and how the engine works that it can't be seen as a loss. Not to mention how much we've all laughed making this broken bootleg of a theme park reality.

I mean come on, who wouldn't want a go on Game Human Pixel Hero Palace Much Fortune?

Week 28

It may have been Easter but I'm an artist, never miss an opportunity to learn, never miss an experience that could inspire you.

http://www.getyourgeekon.co.uk/?p=655

So I went to London a few days ago, to see Philip Pullman's Grimm Tales, honestly it was amazing it's so worth going to see what they've done with the space.

The Grimm Tales is an almost contemporary theater piece that takes 6 tales and works them into small plays, each is around 15 minuets. The contemporary part comes from the way you move around the warehouse, exploring each set as you traverse from tale to tale.

    

Contradicting the contemporary style of set design the acting is very classical, incredibly talented and due to the nature of the space, intimate. The actors and sets are surrounding as you watch the performance, it's enchanting to be in and the level of immersion into the world of Grimm is incredible, for 2 hours you are not in London any more.

  

I can not rave about the sets enough, it is perfection, the decaying Victorian style and sense of macabre surround, the aesthetic is never broken through out the whole building, so even unused rooms have been transformed for you to explore after the show.

  

Something about all of the components worked so well and it would be interesting to translate into games. I'd love to look deeper in what has worked to find what could in fact be applied to not just to story telling devices in games but in the sets we creates for players to explore.

   

Just understand that I want to live In this world and that Tom Rogers, the man behind these stunning sets is my idol.

Week 20

Whats the Concept Behind this?

The first thing to tackle in any environmental concept is the feel of the level. Is it realistic or stylised? Is it moody and mysterious or happy and bright? Where does the journey lead the character and what kind of genre would it fit into? 

These are the questions as a group we have been answering this week. As of yet the style of the level isn't nailed down but we all have some strong ideas to represent Alice.

Some of us want a more realistic approach while others want a heavily stylized approach. This is causing some issues in nailing the concepts too. We all roughly know what we want out of the level, including which parts of the book we're involving in our game. However as of yet the one style to rule them all has not been found.

To help us in our quest to find the golden style, we have white boxed out the level idea. Using this we're all painting over it in different ways, to try and show others what we're thinking of for our game. This has proved very helpful and Braden has become chief gray-scale paint-over man and somehow I've been nominated as colour all the things gal. This was a task that I've never considered myself at being that strong with, however I really feel I have taken it in my stride and rode into battle with colour on my side for once.

And so the tale of paint-over Braden and colour it please Fred has begun... or at least for the next week or so it has. I must admit our journey through wonderland has been wonderful so far.

Week 19

Alice in the wondering lands

Following on from my previous group project, I'm straight back on the group work horse. While I wouldn't call my last project horrendous, it certainly taught me a lot about working with artists and how to organise the ever sporadic mind.

This time my group is six people, comprised of people I both know very well and some I have hardly ever spoken to. I Can't wait to get to know these not so new faces properly and be able to create something exciting with them as our first introduction. However that urge may just be the "creative" inside me, wanting constantly to show people the images and ideas in my head.

I must admit this project is truly bringing the "creative" inside me, outside me, in a singing and dancing fashion. The Off the Map Project for the British Library this year is based on Alice in Wonderland. I must admit I am a bit of a Lewis Carroll lover myself, the tales of the Jabawocky are among some of my favourites. So upon hearing my topic is about literary nonsense and a world that has no need to be grounded, I'm very excited.


The research has started, the book has been read, the mood boards are coming. My friends, the time to concept is upon us. But for now Freddy must stop this blog, "for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid."

week 16

Back to the drawing board 

After our presentation it was clear that we had got the wrong end of the stick, miscommunication can be the downfall of group work for so many reasons. All group work requires the team to come up with an interpretation of how they will tackle a brief that suits all parties. However it's really important, so not to loose sight of the goal, to check back with who set the brief. Least you end up with the dreaded wrong end of the stick.

In our case it may not have been just that we misunderstood the brief a little, but that the people helping also did too. This gave us all a little lesson in not getting too attached to an idea. After being told to bench it, half the group was very aware that drastic changes were needed and the other half tried to consider less radical plans.

The time came to white box it out again, choose a new theme and style guide and hope it only took a day. After painfully letting go ideas and sorting which models were reusable and which had to go we had a new level working.

This project has now taken on two new challenges for my team to face. Firstly completing a four week project in two and a half weeks and secondly overcoming miscommunication and learning when to let it go.

Week 15

The joys of group work.

 First day back and it seems we are back on to group work yet again. I did enjoy the film room project, however 4 weeks on a big part of a working level is something I'm dreading. Not to mention the awkward school like shuffle of finding your friends and people being left out. I was lucky to find a group of people I considered friends, but I really don't feel that the 'choose your own group formula' truly ever works out.

But this is a do or die course so it's time to do. To start with we all formed a mood board of things we wanted and blocked out a rough route of what the level could look like.

After a night of research and some refining I went for a retro Deco hydroponics lab. Luckily someone else was on the same retro vibe and the hydroponics part of our work got put through. My white box and level plan were cut, although that's not the important part to me. My artistic choices were strong, held up and that's what matters.

The colour palette!

 I started by roughing out a white box of my lab using the parts i liked from my mood board. I wasn't great at moving stuff around so after getting an idea for the shape of the room i took it into 2D and played around till was happy.

The room shape will have to change a bit but the idea and the parts inside have all been thumbed up and i'm confident after a paint over of how i think it should look i'll be ready to go for it.

 However for that I needed to take a screen grab to work over, this proved harder then first expected. 3Ds max has some small issues with shaders that I decided made it impractical to use and so this lead me to have to set up and light my white box in unreal.

Max with a usble shader

Unreal Basic lighting

Unreal with the lighting i would use in the room

My paintover/ photo bash

So once i had worked out my idea it was time to refine, a few little bashes later and i had a strong idea to present and show my vision for what this hydroponics lab could look like.

Bring on the presentation I thought, it'll be fine they said, we're not here to shoot you down they said...

... spoilers it wasn't.

Week 30

Extended Reflection

Currently I am studying Game Art Design at DMU, this is in the hope that when I graduate I will not only be a better artist, but be employable for these skills.

My main aspiration is to become an Art Director or Lead Character Artist. However I have noticed some gaps in my arsenal, namely software like Maya or Z Brush. These are both software used regularly in industry that I have a very simplistic understanding of and I shall need to hone my skills on such to become more employable.

For instance, Blizzard are a renowned company that require both Maya and Z Brush as Proficiencies for a lead character artist position. Working on a stylized but semi-realistic title like Overwatch is a very real aspiration for me. Looking at my current standard of work, the hand painted texture look has been successful in my projects, whereas the more traditional photo realistic or grunge textures have been less effective.

My current standard of texturing has shown great improvement from where I was at the start of the year and my iteration is more focused, quicker and shows greater understanding of strong silhouettes pertaining to which of them I should advance. Because I have been able to get through this stage quicker, I’ve been able to paint over my work and study the compositions I’m making in engine closer; allowing a higher level of polish on my work.

I now know pushing my visual skills in Photoshop and my understanding of the fundamentals will ensure I am T shaped artist that fits movements in current industry. However there are visual skills I will need that must be learn off my own back to help me, painting over work to show my meaning and refined concepts are both things I need to work on off my own back in the coming year.

Concentrating on the skills I will need in the coming year rather than just the ones I have developed and refined while on course, I must become more confident and outsource my feedback on sites such as Art Station and Polycount. Without a larger, harsher feedback pool I will not progress at the rate necessary next year. This is because my finial year requires me to strive into industry slandered and achieve work that is worth putting into portfolio.

There comes a time when I have to accept that my head is full of tangents and loops, it just wants to tell you so badly about all the things that it kind of mushes them in an incoherent jumble of consciousness. This year I have learned how to decipher this illegible mess my brain wants to give you and place it into a somewhat coherent blog. Although in honestly the writing has gone well in comparison to last year, the confidence to post said writing has not gone well. Unfortunately I keep leaving myself chunks of blog to edit. While my university helper tries to help me decode my nonsense and is starting to feel real improvement when it comes to how coherent my work is; I personally do not have the same sense of achievement.

Looking back there wasn’t really a lack of time this term but last term I really struggled to find time and it is these blog posts that have suffered. If I was to redo the blog I think I would post smaller more summative posts and make them only around 500 words maximum each. This would mean I would be less nervous that my rambling where being read and my blog count would triple.

Although the blogs haven’t gone as well as hoped one major thing that has happened is I feel able to write by myself these days, something most people find easy but up until around two months ago was both scary and seemed implausible due to my lack of ability in writing and proof reading over my work. Have really helped me find my own way of reading my writing over and having more confidence. I’ve been trying to get small feedback from peers and this has helped me see the small improvements in my writing that are happening. 
Moving on to what has supported almost every project this year, my 3D has definitely come on leaps and bounds. Having spent some time over summer looking at characters, due to my interest in them, I was able to model things more coherently. I would say my current standard of modelling has now developed past coherence and is pushing into being proficient. Admittedly the things I have been most successful with have either been props or characters, which leads me to reflect on what needs to improve next.

I think one of my jobs over summer will be to start looking back in to engine but this time with focus. Because engine offers so much I think I should really hone my research and learning to aspects that will aid the parts of industry I want to go into. As such: particle effect, engine textures, importing characters, creating simple NPC animation loops and changing out the dummy for my own meshes are all skills in must invest time into learning.

One type of task that can be difficult to reflect upon in hindsight is group work, I can honestly say that my group work has been a very mixed bag. On one hand it went well for some of my first projects and the groups I worked with for the most part allowed me to reign in ideas and act as an art director of sorts. Most notably the Alice project where many assets are put past me before they enter engine; supporting this a lot of the consepts are painted over by me and the theme, atmosphere an overall look of the level where pushed by myself. I find this really exciting seeing it come to fruition and I’m very proud of the work that we’ve produced thus far. Here’s to hoping it is finished and works as well as well envision it working when it’s finally all in place.

 Even though my group work hasn’t always been fabulous I feel that having one good one bad and one downright ugly project is the best way for me to learn how to learn the skills needed for art direction. I need to know what not to do and I need to learn those lessons fast. Where better than, at university where I have a nice safety net for when it all goes wrong.

Looking at all the parts of my year and how I have advanced I can easily see where it is I need to advance further and where I need to balance my skills. My first plan is to use the summer to gain a better understanding of engine, character design and modelling and to really push my visual skills so they make me stand out as a strong candidate for future careers. Here I’m thinking of my hand painted textures, my Imagineering skills and my understanding of fundamentals. People need to respect you for you to lead as I wish to and there is a very simple way of getting that respect among artists, it’s quite simply to be really good at what you’re doing. In the third year I will create characters when possible and really push to direct projects where possible, focusing on painting over work and giving good quick feedback to people I work with. I will also focus on learning software I will need for the next stage, like z brush, 3D coat and Maya. This will not only aid my work and make it look better but it will make sure I am proficient in software used in the character roles I am looking at applying for after the course. After all if university is my time to do nothing but learn then I shall endeavour to learn more than just what is set out for me to learn.