King Of The Dead!

So it’s the second project already and it’s a group one! Yay….

Nah I’m kidding. I am looking forward to it. From the issues from the last group project I was sceptical however that was mainly cause of certain issues. Luckily with this group that wasn’t the case and I actually felt confident.

So the title was “King of the Dead”. We are a small time company and a game studio has approached us! Wooo! We’ve got to give them evidence that we can quickly produce both quality work and original ideas. We’ve negotiated with the games studio to produce a small environment that contains a character sat on a throne with one wall and one floor. Sounds pretty good so far. This will give them a chance to judge our skills in environment, prop and character work. We’ve been given 2 weeks to produce this work.

2spooky4me

First of all we got together in our group which consisted of 4 people. We started by spreading round ideas and telling each other what we had in mind when we first were given the brief. The ideas that went round were mostly based around the Mexican Day of the Dead. However we had a fun idea of creating in a game show way. It was different when we first thought of it but it had a lot of connections to death. We were heading down the path of a game show like “The Wheel of Fortune” and possibly making the game show miniature on a shrine that is seen a lot on the Mexican Day of the Dead. We looked further into the meaning and depth and found that there were some gods which we could include. In the end we decided to take influence from both the Aztec and Spanish Day of the Dead festivals with a wheel of fortune type game show which is over looked by “Mictecacihuatl” the queen of the underworld. She was to act as a host of the game show. We looked at various Aztec designs and shrines to come up with some concepts.

We liked the idea however it was coming to a dead end and wasn't original. It was just becoming more of a throne room. So before it was too late we changed our idea to something different, something more obscure. We decided to go for a wage slave employee. We decided to create some subtle hints that would link the character to be known as Death himself. He were trying to picture him in a cubical office with stacks of paper work. We didn't want him skin and bones so we decided to make him fat and greasy. We wanted to go away from the traditional skeleton grim reaper. A good idea was to add “Employee of the Month” on the walls but maybe change it to “Employee of the Century” to signify that he's been there for a very, very long time. So with that we went ahead and created concepts in which we could work from.

Spongebob has the idea

However the same thing happened again, and we changed our minds. We decided to make our character a politician. However that idea changed swiftly to a War General. This was to give the idea that he was The King of the Dead. We didn't want to make it too controversial but we wanted it to make an impact. It was sceptical at first but we felt confident in what we could do. There are many stories behind our character but it was to mostly signify that at the end of the day he is The King of the Dead. We created mood boards, concepts, whiteboxes and felt that this was stable and went ahead to bring everything together. We got a lot of our inspiration from “The Incredibles” and the “Pixar” style. We used a colour palette similar to “The Incredibles” especially with the textures of the Characters and the lighting around the character.

Best film ever!

So in the end that’s where we ended up. A grumpy skinny general in a war room. That’s what we did in the end and that’s what we were happy with. We took a lot of inspiration from “The Incredibles” and it was definitely the worth the work.

All in all I have really enjoyed this project and it’s been really eye opening working in an efficient group who works well with each other. I’ve felt my concepting has become better especially when working with a whitebox for help. Over time I think my concepting will become much more efficient but overall I am really happy about how everything turned out!

If it was a project by myself I would have changed it to something different. I’m not 100% sure what I would change it to but possibly make it more significant or work more on engine work and particles to create the king of the dead and add something more to it. I did still like the game show and would probably pursue that more.

So here are some pretty screenshots of our final level.

Year 3 and into the deep!

So my first blog post of a new year at Uni! So it’s year 3 and in the deep end of it all. It’s time to think of FMP ideas and to most likely scrap everything! But that’ll be a different blog post. For now I’m going to talk about the first project we were giving which was our PBR Texture Project.

So with the release of UE4 I was pretty excited for this project. I wanted to get used to UE4 and have a look at what it has to offer me. Hopefully this time it isn’t as buggy. However what is this metalness and roughness. When I first heard this I really didn’t understand what was going on. It was like I was starting from the beginning again. Well I actually was, but you know what I mean. Although I had a face of pure confusion while hearing about these metalness and roughness maps I felt like it was the start of something new.

 

It was fitting. Don't judge

So having got this project I went out and took some textures. Now I didn’t really know what was going on and ended up taking a trip to Yo!Sushi for food. Cause who doesn’t like sushi?! Even so headed back and started working on my textures. I was ready to start making tileable textures to apply to the texture balls in UE4. We were giving a level template which had the texture balls already named. We just had to create our own textures to apply to the balls.

So in having all the tileable textures done it was time to make the metalness and roughness maps. So to start with I was randomly change the values between white and black and all the grey in-between until I created the right material. I added in some normal onto certain materials such as rust to give it that bit more of a definition. I thought I would understand metalness and roughness but even at the end of the project I’m still wondering how it works. When I thought it was right and it’d make iron look metal it made it look matte. Which confused me. In the end I just kept tweaking the textures until they were right within engine. It’s not a good way to go about it but hopefully with time I will be able to figure it out. I really enjoyed this exercise and sorting out what material needed what property was fun and interesting.

It also has been good to start learning particle effects as well. I hope to get better at these particle effects and learn other ways of creating them and changing them within Unreal. With the spark particle effects I found that it only came out across one plane. I wanted the sparks to come out from all different directions when they spawn and possibly make it circle around the mystical ball before they die. With the smoke as well I have found it difficult to control and get more a mist feel rather than a smokey feel. This probably meant more tweaking and possibly a new particle, however by using the smoke particle I was able to change it in some of the ways I wanted it to look. The only other issue I have with the smoke is that when you look at the smoke in a specific direction the colour changes to black. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it but it will be something I come away with knowing to sort it out in the future.

So here is some pretty renders of my balls.

All together now!!

Happy little family!

It's so pretty!

"Dobby is... free"

So it’s come to the end of the year now and so much has happened, I never thought that it would go by so fast! But as the year has gone by there has been so much for me to reflect on and this is what I think.

So what am I going to get out of coming to University? It’s not just drinking and clubbing, passing out and getting alcohol poisoning, but it’s learn. It’s a huge step in education and one where you do have to stand on your own two feet. You may still be lead when you go astray but a lot of it moves where you take it. This depends on where you want to go. For me over the year I always wanted to work as an environment artist. But it isn’t just about making a pretty picture, it’s more than that. It’s more of refining your skills, learning new ones, creating pieces of work that you didn’t think your skills could do, all through sheer practise. Back in first year it was like learning all the fundamentals of everything, how to move this pivot point, how to move that vert. Now in second year it was all about how do we make this model in the most effective way, how do we refine our models in engine, how do we learn new tools in CryEngine. It’s taking those fundamental skills from first year and bring them in second year and refining them to a crisp while learning extras on the side. Now when it gets to third year, it’s bringing everything together as one, the fundamentals, the refinement and then it will be the “stand on your own two feet”.

At the end of the day I want to get a degree in Game Art Design and make games as a living, whether it’d be mobile or console.  I want to be able to be a part of a team and create new innovative games. Some may be piss poor, some may be fantastic even a next best seller. But what I do know is I want to work with environments or weapons. Over second year environments have stuck with me, but I have gained an interest in weapons and I’d like to pursue this a little more. After three years of university, I will be employable to games companies with fundamental skills at modelling, texture, concepting and working within engine and I’d hope to refine these more to an industry high level.

There were some major down points within second year that have opened my eyes to what the real world is going to be like. A lot of this was time management and after two years of not working out my time I have suffered greatly, and now it’s time for me to pick it up again. It used to be oh this can wait and that can wait. But now I realise it can’t wait. Anything outside of my course can wait, this course can’t. This determines where my life goes and I don’t want to waste. Yes I’d like to relax but I want to make it in life. Where it takes me I’ll follow with my head held high and proud.

At the end of the day it was a successful/unsuccessful year and I’ve learnt so much in such a small amount of time compared to what my life will give me in the future. It’s been an interesting year. But I’m ready to relax, practise and come back with a fresh mind-set. It’s been a good year! 

I'm such a softie!

“Soft Skills is a term often associated with a person's “EQ” (Emotional Intelligence Quotient), the cluster of personality traits, social graces, communication, language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that characterize relationships with other people”.

OK, so that's soft skills! Wait, what is it again? Oh, so it's based around people's personalities in life and their mind set, in working? So I guess this is pretty important in the gaming industry! Well, in any industry.

So in theory I feel for teachers, it's going to be pretty boring! Sorry! I just feel that, teaching something you have been learning for so many years can be pretty boring. It's like for your life you are telling the same story over and over again. Some people may not even remember what you taught them, so it's just a waste of time. Others on the other hand, go forward with it. This is where I'm getting to.

With soft skills, they're essential for every day tasks. They help people in everyday life, such as getting up and being in the mind set of getting a healthy breakfast so you can have a productive day. People with good soft skills are ones who mostly look out for themselves and try to have as many productive days as possible. This is quite vital for the industry.

Within industry, you always need to be at the top of your game. You need to develop your skills even further and to be on your toes, ready to change when the brief does. By this, it's if something you've been working hard on for a month that is ready to be showed, and that idea gets put in the bin, or you need to start again, you need to have the mindset ready to do that. If you don’t have that, then you'll just think “fuck it”.

Which is basically my mind set. I like consistency within my life, always have done, so if one thing is saying make this gun. I will make that gun. If it changes half way through and messes me up most of the time I say “fuck it”. This is where I then sit on my ass, eat comfort food, cry and play games. But I do have motivation. If it is something I enjoy, such as environments or weapons, I’d get cracking with it. If something changes, then yeah fair enough. With me, it varies depending on the project or the area that I’ve been given to work on. A lot of the time, after having a long project I would like a couple of days to relax and chill out, otherwise, I over work myself. This is quite a lazy mindset. These soft skills, aren't exactly great for the industry. This is why (going back to previous blog) I want to specialise in the environment, because I enjoy this. I have the mind set, and the motivation to learn more about it. However I am very open to feedback, and this I take as a personal attack (which is something I need to learn not to do). However that is only with practise.

Hard skills are good with tools that don't change, or when they do it's very insignificant. Soft skills are excellent for everything. When tools change, and they change a little or a lot, soft skills allow you to work around it, allow you develop your understanding more, to help you to get in the mindset of getting out there and learning them all over again. However we do need to learn both. Hard skills are great for getting where we are, we still need them in life. We still need to be taught how to get going. It's something that is vital to many students. I believe that this is what our course does. It gives us those hard skills which show us how to get started, then we are free to use what soft skills we have to develop our knowledge of what we are working with and on. Those who fail are the ones who have no motivation, no soft skills, and that is what is vital for this course, for the gaming industry, and well for just about any job.


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

I did stuffs! I'm so creative!

Creativity. What in the world does it truly mean. The word “creative” or “talented” or “creativity” are words that can mean so much to people, that it could crush them. What do I mean by that. When I was younger, I struggled a lot in most areas of school. I originally went to a pretty shit primary school, and finally got moved to a more higher-class, better quality, better Ofsted reported school. I felt like the dumb-ass out of everyone in the year and even the year below. In the year below, kids would be able to do their multiplication, they'd know their 6x tables and then there would be me struggling with my 2x or 3x tables. For me they were “talented” at multiplying. But that wasn't the case in the end. I never really thought about it being at a young age but now, they just learnt it. Yeah some of the kids had a knack for it, but all of them had to learn, they had to recite, they had to repeat over and over again. It came to tests, and it was one, where you had to learn a specific multiplication table e.g. 7x table. Then you had to say it to the teacher without fault and then backwards. I mean seriously. Backwards. Why?! But I had to do this homework, and for once in my life I wanted to be “talented” I wanted to be seen as a clever kid in primary school, I was fed up of being the dumb one. I don't really want to make this a sob story, I’m sorry. So I’ll get to the point. Basically it was the 7x table week, and I learned those 7x tables, forwards and backwards. I went up to the teacher, completely bricking it, and said it forwards and backwards. This was without any fault, mind you. I passed and got a gold star! YES! I walked away happy and never really thought about it again, until now. So, what was the moral of the story. Well no matter what, “creativity” or “talent” isn't something that is just there, it isn't something someone was born with, it isn't something you just know, a lot of it is something you learn. Yes this learning, that we do for all our lives. No one knows everything in the world, otherwise why are we still searching for cures, or figuring out what Mars looks like. If someone knew everything, we'd already be getting fuel from another universe.


But some people do have a comfort zone with areas, lets say. Some people are really good at rigging, naturally, they get a sense or a feeling with it. Then there are some (like me), who need to learn rigging. I need to learn about where everything goes etc. and that is all through the process of learning. Even those who are naturally good, aren't perfect, they'll make mistakes and they need to learn, but they just have something for it. It's the same with every area, hence why there's the whole debate about being a generalist or a specialist. Those who have a knack, or a natural feel for characters or environments or vehicles etc. will generally specialise in those areas, because that's where they feel they belong, but that's where they need to learn other areas. Everyone is OK at everything, not everyone is excellent at the same thing.


Within the games industry, you aren't expected to be amazing at everything, but have some strong sense about the majority of things going on. When it comes to being an art director, you have to have a strong sense of everything and also be great at one particular thing, but that's from having years of personal experience, to have a strong sense at all aspects. Us newbies as graduates, won't. Once we graduate, we wont have a strong sense of everything, we would have only just got a waft of smell, a hint of spice. This is why becoming an art director takes years of experience. But this doesn't mean he's more “creative” than others in the industry. There may be programmers who are better than him at programming, but that doesn't mean they're more “creative” than the art-director. Everyone is “creative”. The word “creativity” doesn't belong to someone who can do this, that and the other. It's a general term for someone who has keen eye for what they love. You can be “creative” when it comes to medicine, it's not just an artsy-fartsy word that artists use. Imagine how modern medicine would be if no one was creative, imagine if no one suddenly thought about putting a nail in someone's broken bone to fix it, imagine if their colleague didn't say let's put a metal bar in to help it. That's creativity. Bouncing off of each other, to create something. So here we are now, with everyday modern medicine and loads of people with broken legs, arms, backs, necks, skulls, you name it, with metal crap shoved everywhere. OK it's not shoved, it's carefully placed. But you get the idea!


As an artist, to learn, you will need to learn skills in areas which you lack. You need to learn your tools. You need to learn how to use them, how to live with them, how to eat, sleep, drink, make love to your tools. Because they are vital. In an aspect of this world, the tools are vital. By using your tools, you learn the skills, by learning the skills, you practise with the skills, by practising you get better, by getting better you become more creative and so one and so forth. Oh look that word “creative”. It is everywhere, but it does not fit one person. It fits everyone. Not all multi-million games are made by one person being “creative”. Actually it isn't made by one “creative person, it's made by hundreds + of “creative” people. See where I’m getting at?



Even now those “creative” moments in the past, are something we admire, but we don't turn to use them. We say “Oh that particle was fantastic back then, but how can we make it better?”. That's being creative, that's being talented, that's not just one person, that's a group of people, that's a “talented” and “creative” team. 

Yeah! You go Einstein

Generalist to Specialist

The gaming industry has become a real competition now. As it's grown the bigger companies out there like Ubisoft are just making a heck of a lot of money, and all the spaces for jobs are gone. With bigger companies, they are going to keep those already taught in the ways of us newbies can't even handle. For them it's a waste of time and money. For us it's a job gone. It makes me sad in a way that there are so many game artists out there who are just lingering waiting to be taken in. I just feel like I'm going to be joining them soon!


But what about specializing? Well that could be something. Us students are generalists. We know the basics of just about everything. But we don't know specific things in great detail. This is where we need to start thinking about where we want to lead our lives. What we want to do with them, and how we are going to get there. As a background we all need to learn the general of everything. You will more than likely need to learn about anatomy even though you want to specialize in environments. Because when going for jobs in the gaming industry, you just want to get your foot in the door, or just about every body part there is. Smaller companies such as mobile companies, are probably looking for someone who can take on everything, such as characters, environment, vehicles, that they at least know the basics, but do have some sort of an expertise area. This is where you can grow, where you can lead you portfolio, your work. When it gets to bigger companies, they want specialists. Ones who only work on trees, ones who only work on buildings, ones who only work on engine etc. and the list goes on forever. This is why big companies are so fricking huge! They have a team for one area which specialize in that area. It's just one step at a time when it gets to specializing in areas we want to pursue. We are going to have to go through the nitty gritty, fuck this leg, fuck this wheel to get to the yeah fields, yeah trees!


It used to be one guy could do everything. Now as technology had advanced, how technology has become more in depth, people are needed to become specialized within that particular area. Even though that means more jobs, it also means people with a lot more experience, and they're going to be number one to employ. But as technology advances there may not be any need for people, this is the same with any job out there now anyway. We may be taken over by robots.


But on a serious note, having a team of specialists you are more likely going to have a better output of work in a short amount of time, instead of having a team of “I’m OK at most things” and having a meh output in a light year amount of time. It's this that is vital and this is needed. This is what employers in the gaming industry are looking for, and thus us who are OK at everything are being shoved to the side, and there is more and more of us each year.



But it is difficult at being excellent in every area when it comes to the games industry, and thus specialization is extremely important, not only for the person, for you, but for the company you want to work for, or working for. So by specializing in one area, but being pretty good in others, you can help those who are closely related to you such as being a specialist in environments, you can help those with building, but wont be much help with someone who is doing coding or shaders. But you have some knowledge all around. 

Interaction! I hate messy menus!

When gaming was around it was very much, does it work? Yes! Does it look OK? Yes! Does it do the job? Yes! Right that's it! Launch it!


But not anymore! User interface is something that is very looked at when it comes to gaming. So I'll start by talking about the consoles themselves. They were very much square. Box in shape, and that was it. Not much else to it. The materials they were made out of were simple grey plastic majority of the time, maybe slightly different shades of grey but were still grey. They may have red buttons or something along those lines, but yeah, grey. Back then it was great, it was modern to them. But now we see old consoles and we instinctively know that it's an old console. Along with the controllers too. A lot of the old controllers were grey, unless they were specially made ones. But now you look at consoles and they're sleek, the have curved edges and they are not so pointy and painful. It's the same with the controllers, the controllers are more user friendly, they have better looking ergonomics and just overall look nicer. Now the materials are black, it's more sleek, more modern. Some go for white but majority it's black. Over the years there have been fails in the way consoles and the controllers look, but they've come so far and done such an exceptional job! Just look at the comparison through the PlayStation years!

PS1

Comparison between the PS2 and PS2 Slim

From bottom to top, is the comparison between the original PS3, PS3 Slim, PS3 Extra Slim.

Interaction design can also be transcribed into user interface as well. This is also quite demanding in game. For a game to work, for a game to look and feel good to the player the user interface needs to be friendly. It's need to caress the user, make them love the interface. For me personally I really really really REALLY dislike “Dragon Age: Origins” user interface. The inventory is the the most confusing things of all time and this is one of the reasons why I just can not play the damn game. However when playing Skyrim (which is sort of based around the same idea, magic, adventurer etc.) Skyrim takes the bait. “Skyrims” interface is easy and friendly. I could make love to it, because it is just so nice. For me personally I find where everything is, spells, armour, weapons. Then the quick menu of select weapons and spells. It's just quick and efficient. I just find Dragon Age too much!

Skyrim Menus - good very good!

Dragon Age Menus - bad very bad!

But that leads me onto one of the best interfaces I have personally experienced. Once again that is from “The Last Of Us”. I'm not just using the game because I am just playing it now, but because I genuinely think that this interface is one of the best. When playing the game, you see none of the interface apart from the bottom right corner, where you see your health and the weapon currently equipped, but apart from that it's just you and your surroundings. This minimalistic interface puts you more into the game. Then there is the weapons in game menu. It's easy to use and simple. You have a limited number of holsters which only you can upgrade further into the game, but when you have too many guns they do go into your backpack, just like any normal item to carry, however to equip this you have to hold down a button and this will prompt Joel (the main protagonist), to get down, open his backpack and equip this item. I just like how he does that. Also throughout the game you'll get little collectables and the in-game menu for that is really simple. It also doesn't pause the game, the game carries on in the background, so you either wait till a safe place or you better be quick, in case infected come along! But everything about it is so simple, it tells you what it is, what it does, what it costs, how much the next upgrade will cost etc. I like the simplicity and this is what makes it effective. In a way “Skyrim” is the same, it isn't filled too much with crap (which is what I got from “Dragon Age”).

The minimalism, when in game.

In game weapon menu

Crafting Menu from backpack

Upgrade bench menu

Wii Remote and Nunchuck

But it's not just that, there is also the new revolutionary equipment now, such as the Xbox Kinect, the Wii, project Morpheus from PlayStation and the Oculus Rift. So it all started with the Wii, let's be honest. The Wii was a very much user based console, that the person had to physically get off their ass and move about to make it work. Obviously you could have used the D-Pad but why not wave your arms about. Yes you had to hold the remote, but it was a one handed remote that did, well everything. They also brought out the “Nunchuck”, which attached to the original remote, but that gave you more of an immersion with the game, like shaking a enemy off you, or shaking the remote to activate something. But then out popped Kinect. Now I do feel this came from the PlayStations EyeToy, which in fact I thoroughly enjoyed when I had it. It was a bit of a pain to use but the principles were there and with the generation of gaming at that time, it did what it was meant to do. But Kinect made it more involving. There were no remotes, just your body, and it also was able to register multiple people in the same scene. It was great and fun, bit dodgy sometimes, but what isn't. But now out comes the Oculus Rift. Jesus does that look fun! You look a bit stupid with a massive piece of machinery over your eyes, but it really brings you into the game. You use your head to look around the scene. That is new. I knew it was always something that was to be mentioned, but now its real. It is something you can use. I can't wait for games to actually be more linked with the Oculus. I feel it's truly the next step in gaming, that you will actually be there. I know you have to use a controller still to move etc. but looking around is just one step. But recently I have just found out about project Morpheus. I recently bought the PlayStation Official Magazine, mainly because I say “Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel” being advertised, but as I was reading through I did come across the article about project Morpheus. Here is a snippet from what I read.

“Sony's other piece of software, Castle, is a lot more hands-on. It drops us in the courtyard of a medieval-style stronghold. An armoured mannequin is standing directly in front of us. The game tracks our hands this time, too, courtesy of the two Move controllers. We grip by pulling L2 and R2 and start grabbing and ripping away at the poor blighter's robes and limbs. Picking up a nearby sword, we then start slashing away at our stationary target with bloodthirsty swipes. We then snatched a crossbow to shoot some more targets – only to have a giant stone dragon appear and eat us whole. But easily the most astonishing part of the demo comes when the Sony man tells us we can physically walk around the mannequin with our feet. And we do.”

PlayStations Project Morpheus

Wait? What?! We can actually walk around, with our own two feet. What the two feet we stand on. What? From reading that article that is what stood out the most for me. That was something I could not believe, until I read it for the 10^th time. This is where gaming is going. I really hope it keeps going that way!


References:

Playstation Offical Magazine – Issue 096 May 2014