Week Five: SO MUCH FREEDOM!

    I always feel like I’m completely weird when it comes to working. I don’t like working with people I live with, there’s too much freedom in a project! But I do feel I have proper reasons. With too much freedom, I struggle to find a foundation to build upon. When given a brief in industry, there would be at least some structural start such as ‘Sci-fi’ or ‘80s’. With a project where we can run free, it terrifies me! Where do I start? What can look impressive? What’s original, believable? Brief starts like this tend to set me back due to the amount of research I had to amass and the topics I have to cover, this often involves looking at how something works in real life and apply the physics and mechanics to the game asset. For this project I looked into understanding how a machine gun and Gatling guns fires. Understanding this mechanic allows me to break it down and replace it with objects, materials or other suitable systems from that time period. This gives the asset a more realistic feel and look which keeps the immersion for the player.
    The breaking of immersion can be a sign of poor game development, on both the artistic side and the developer, so understanding physics and laws in the real world can allow us to break and bend some of these rules without the destruction of immersion occurring.
    This start has affected the flow of my work, with a lot of time spent on just research. This ate into my time for iterations and has set me back. I’ll have less time to model and texture, which is an issue for me as I’m not too good at texturing and wish to improve.

    Outside of University work, I managed to do a study of Feng Zhu’s work which I’m quite happy about. I mainly focused on understanding how to make an interesting picture via composition and being able to break down the piece into simplistic forms. I also learnt a lot from his usage of values, where minimum amounts of black and white are used and a heavy focus on the greyscale colours. I did add some colour afterwards just to tidy up the piece, but I feel I need to get my greyscale foundations correct before I push into colour.

Week Four: An Extension of Last Week

    I’m going to continue on with the same topic as last week’s blog post about the issues that went wrong extending into a post mortem to help me grow into a better team member.
    I personally found this group project to extremely difficult in comparison to the first one and I believe it all comes down to the issue that three out of the four members of the group lived together. This at first could be considered a bonus. Working together with flat mates means more time together to improve upon your work, but I found this to be untrue in the case of me. I considered myself to be an introvert due to my difficulty in being around people for long periods of time and liking to being left alone. Unlike with the first project, I could go home and relax away from work. This was something I couldn’t do with the second project. I would return home and my team members would be there meaning I had virtually no time away from them to have a break. We basically brought the work back with us, and we would only talk about that when we were back.
    I also had an issue with one of the team members, who I felt complained about every decision that was made such as the implementation of asset swap to mirror industry as to get into good practices. This team member would also tell me I was wrong frequently, such as in the layout of the files which we were taught to do last year. I’m usually fine dealing with people like this but without a break this person became overbearing. As I’ve often dealt with people in the past like this, I was able to get away from them by going home, I was unable to with this certain member and it just became too much. Working with this same person in the future I’d probably go out after lesson for a while to get away.
     For myself, I need to be more organised and produce a design document throughout the project so I don’t leave it until the end of the project. This caused a lot of stress for me at the end, having to write the group design document and the personal document. The recording throughout the project will allows me to articulate my thoughs on the project and allows me to think about how to push the designs and models further daily. Stepping back and being able to look at everything produced each day allowed me to write about how to tackle the project the next time I come to it.

Week Three: I'm Running Out of Names For This

    Third week down, close to finishing my second group project. I’ve learnt a lot from this group project in comparison to the first one, there is a lack of communication, and this is an incredibly important element in which we struggle in. Unlike my team members which have turned to complain about one another (including me) on their blogs, I feel that I need to dissect why these issues have occurred in the first place. If we do not stop to think about these issues then this circle of backstabbing is going to continue.
    The biggest elephant in the room is the lack of communication, on Friday one quote sums up this whole issue, ‘I assumed you knew’. I first started the group project by producing a ‘idiots checklist’ on what to check at each stage of producing assets to allow for the next person in the chain to move straight onto the next stage. This was ignored by at least half the members of the group. When we did communicate we often didn’t do it in such away that everyone could understand, or issues were just not communicated in general. Often elements was described in a way that was ambiguous which does not work in a team situation, and sometimes terminology was used which everyone did not understand confusing some group members. Work became rushed and finished to a poor standard when we would inform members of the group we were waiting on their assets. I was told by the next member of the chain that they were waiting on my assets, yet I took my time to finish as I did not want the next person to have to fix it up as in the end it would extend the time spent on the model. When we did speak about issues, it became a shouting match, I’m guilty of this. I do feel though that this would often happen after a ridiculous statement or answer was replied with, one moment of this would be a dislike of a room due to the colour of it, and not the aesthetics of the architecture. Yes a colour could affect this, but the overall form should shine through.

The colour’s not the best, but the focus on lighting is superior to the Clockwork Orange scene we did first, as well as the architecture which has a heavy focus on symmetry which makes it more interesting.

    Another issue was organisation, although we tried to be, we kept falling short. Much like with the check list eventually being completely ignored, our organisation was on and off. Sometimes we would all show up, other times people wouldn’t even show up. I’m guilting of not telling people that I wouldnt be able to show up at the last moment as I live with a couple of flat members so I assumed, yet again this key word appears, that they knew I wouldn’t be able to make it.

    Doing another project like this, I'll be focusing more on group organisation and group communication as this is currently my weakest element.

Conference Day

    On the 2nd of April, we were all invited to a Game Art Conference day in order to improve on our writing skills. This involved becoming better at analysing, being able to write when we don’t want to and learning to become objective. I found the conference day helpful for me, but I felt I could of maximised it’s help by going to sessions which were aimed at the things I struggled with, but there was a problem with this. I didn’t know what I struggled with, because I struggle with almost everything, especially confidence, which luckily enough there was a session for that.
    I went to the following sessions;
    Word Art: Using Words Creatively - This session is to get you thinking expressively and conveying meaning to a reader with a creative use of language.
    How to Write When You Don’t Want to Write - This session invites discussion on the experience of trying to write when you don’t want to write when you don’t want to write. It offers practical strategies for overcoming ‘writer’s block’.
    The Tools of Visual Practice and Using Them in Your Critical Writing - This session will help you use the skills from visual studies to connect to analysis in your blogs.
    Confidence Building for Success - For students to share ideas on what helps (and hinders) academic confidence and to come up with ideas and actions to build confidence.

    Two of these sessions helped me out greatly, which was ‘the tools of visual practice and using them in your critical writing’ and ‘writing when you don’t want to write’.
    In tools of visual practice we were taught to use language to produce an literate representation of our ideas in our heads, using emotional and descriptive words to produce it. We used the game, the Last of Us as our basest for our ideas. We described the look of the sky, the ground texture, character, smell, light, ambiance, taste, temperature and emotion of our ideas. During this session one of our tutors, Mitch, choose one of our ideas and painted it via Photoshop within two hours. It’s amazing.
 

Asda is not Walmat in America, it’s Asda. Also I wish I could paint like this.

    Within, writing when you don’t want to write, the idea of using sticky notes with your ideas written upon them, then placed on a wall allowing you to order them to produce the framework for your post.
    While the other two sessions didn’t really help me, Confidence Building for Success and Word Art: Using words creatively. With the latter, we spoke about using a thesaurus to use words we wouldn’t usually use. Back in year 9, I worked out this technique and used it frequently in my English work, allowing me to help expand my lexicon. Where as in confidence building, it didn’t address the reasons why I didn’t want to post. Reason’s such as being afraid that the things I write would come across as stupid.

    Overall, I found the day useful as two of the sessions really helped me. If I went to some of the session which were more suitable for me, I probably would have learnt a lot, but I can definitely see the helpfulness of the services to others.
    I want to say a thank you for everyone who was involved in the production of the day. These session which we’re kindly put on for us by the staff members of our course and the university’s library and counselling service.

ANALYSIS INTO A JOB ROLE: 3D CHARACTER ARTIST

    For this blog post, I’m going to be analysing a job role for a Concept Artist. I’ve always loved to draw characters, exploring worlds, with its plant life and animals, how the architecture formed and how the economy grew to support it. Gods and Religion. Weapons and wars. Understanding how patterns form between all these elements and implementing them, forming a realistic culture.
    Now the reason I’m rambling about what I like to draw is in one of our seminars, we were asked what our dream jobs would be and how we would act upon trying to reach it. Our tutors recommended that we look at the companies we played most of their games from, and ultimately my favourite companies came down to Valve and Bethasda.
    I’m a massive Fallout 3 fan, I’ve put 100s of hours into walking the Washington Wasteland. A waste of time for some as I could have been doing something more productive, but I enjoyed it. All of it. Fighting super mutants. Raiding raiders dens. and exploring the wasteland for supplied. But this wasn’t the only Bestheda world I inhabited. I lived in Cyrodiil as a rich Khajiit in Skingard and helped to stop the return of Molog Bal. And lived in Solitude in Skyrim as a Dovahkiin High Elf with my Wizard Husband.
    I’ve escaped from Black Mesa, defeated the leader of the first wave of combine forces on Xen. I’ve escaped from City 17, then went back again to save the people enslaved by Dr. Breen. Escaped the explosion of the Combine tower, before trying to get contact with a large headquaters of the rebels. I’ve completed tests after tests, defeated an psychotic A.I.

    So looking at these two companies jobs, I ended up choosing 3D Character artist from the Valve Corporation.

[1] http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs/job_postings.html

   
Breaking down the Role:

    This job asks for a wide range of skills and understanding of numerous elements relating the usage of media, both traditional and digital, as well as understanding the application and ability to apply the fundamentals of art, being form, shape, colour, light, mark making and composition.
    The job also asked for five or more years of modelling experience in film or games, meaning that I’ll need to amass an online presence, and portfolio showing my ability of modelling, texturing, optimised UV spaces, and the wireframe. I also need to show my concepting, how I came to the final idea, and any issues that appeared in the application of turning a 2D plane into a 3D sculpture, this maybe the effect of gravity on hair, or the head’s movement being inhibited by a piece of armour.
    The hardware needed for this job ranges from understanding HTML code to using Adobe Flash. As I did two years of Graphic Design, I’m quite familiar with Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. Adobe Photoshop is another software I’m quite fluent in. I need to be able to use shortcuts in ZBrush and Mudbox, saving time whenever I can.
    I’ll need knowledge in art. Different art movements throughout the years, using bits I like from them. Being able to emulate the style if needed.
    The ability to be able to collaborate with others, revise and improve characters quickly yet still maintain a high standard.
    As I would be collaborating with team members, I need to improve on being more well spoken and maybe softer spoken to come across a bit more relaxed. I also need to become a bit more mature to other people's emotions.

My goals:
- Improve on all work
- Become better at optimisation of UV spaces
- Become better at producing low-poly typology on surfaces via getting rid of typology that doesn’t affect the overall silhouette of the object or person, and implement interesting and realistic textures (This depends on the style I’ll be told to implement).
- Improve on anatomy. Muscle structure, skin tension and flow, and finally skeleton structure in humans and animals.
- Being able to communicate my thoughts and feelings about a concept without it coming across as being confusing or rambling.
- Become better at rigging, and understanding what causes deformation and how to correct it.
- My most important goal is to get faster.