Sh.Designs

The Lovers, the Haters and the Reviewers: Part One

2012-02-23T08:21:00.001-08:00

Once again, I’ve let my blogging responsibilities slip up for a few weeks and I now see the errors of my ways! I don’t want to displease my fans (my mum) by not posting up regularly; I need an outlet for my crazy tangents and thoughts, only because my note books are becoming very full very quickly.

I’ve gotten a little bit left behind on the work over the past few weeks, it’s almost a little disappointing that I've allowed the check lists to pile up on my desk and not ticking off each satisfying task. So here’s check one!

Reviewers; I’ve recently written my own review about a game very close to my own heart (Limbo) and I thought that it would be interesting to have a bit of a dive into other peoples/companies process’ on reviewing games. For example; how magazines like Playstation Magazine’s reviews are very different than say a review written by a journalist in Edge Magazine.

Reviewers have a few obstacles to climb, shimmy down and conquer to be able to let their voices be heard. Firstly (and most importantly) they have to build trust with the reader. If you want your readers to take what you say into consideration before they send away their money to a bigger and better life, you have to make them trust your opinion. Even if you are trying to save them from a terrible buy or sing the praises of an amazing new game that will change their lives forever, you need them on your side. Relate to your audience, try to build a connection. The writers will have to know their target audiences very well to be able to tap into their inner gamer, you can write about how the game made you feel and how people like you will feel the same. Always make it personal, if I read endless lines of facts, I become disinterested very quickly (as would most teenagers now-a-days) so I find that if things are more personal to the writer, you feel that passion through the paper and you feel a connection with the writer. Yet no one knows what they are doing when it comes to a keyboard.

I felt that reading edge magazine could be a little bit emotionless, and this made it a little hard to pay attention to. I enjoyed hearing about the inner workings of the games industry and the mechanics of the games they were reviewing, but because of the cold and deeply factual nature of the text I found it hard to find the fun in what they were saying. Whereas (as it pains me to say) magazines like XBOX-360 had a bit more personality and excitement about the games they were talking about, so I felt more relaxed reading their reviews than I did with edge magazine.

Secondly; likability, if you sound like a hard fact straightforward kind of person you will find that a lot of people won’t find your opinion very interesting and they switch off. A few jokes or puns here and their make people loosen up a little bit and enjoy what they are reading. Teenagers and young adults don’t want to feel like they are reading a newspaper; they want personality and light hearted reading, something to wind down to.

Online reviewers (like YouTube ‘ravers’ and bloggers) tend to have a large following and a high likability stat because they are more passionate about what they are talking about. They haven’t been paid to review the games; they don’t want to explain the hardcore facts about its development. They purely are reviewing them so that other people may know how amazing or terrible the new releases are. Sometimes they even open our eyes to games from before my generation was born so that we are able to experience new things. For example; I had never played the original 8-bit release of Mega man until I had watched Egorapter’s very passionate (and rather rude) video about how amazing he thought it was. Even though it was popular back before I could walk, his excitement translated back to me and I wanted to see what all the hubbub was about. And it truly is a classic that everyone should try out.

Unfortunately; it’s hard to trust reviewers now-a-days. Especially when a lot of the reviewers are being paid by the companies that are creating the games, so you find it hard to believe that every game being released by Playstation or Xbox are a 8/9star release. A must have! So you try to pick your magazines carefully, trust your sources, follow every game scouts twitter and facebook so you get the latest ‘deets’ about everything you can get your sweaty fingertips on. All you want is a game worth your hard earned money (or your parents money, but you still worked hard to persuade them to ‘lend’ it to you).

The ranking system always seems to be the main outstanding thing that magazine reviewers always trip up on. Every new game that has been released over the past few years have been high star releases that are must haves for every type of household. Positive reviews with high numbered ratings will always help sales. Customers who don’t put research in their buys and just trust the adverts and magazine reviews will always spend mindless amount of money on a product that claims to be an 8out of 10 ‘game of the year’ release. They depend on people (mainly teens) to skim through the magazines looking at the cool screenshots and the large bold exciting rating and to think “yeah, okay".

Santas been and gone

2012-01-30T09:25:00.000-08:00

Now i know Christmas was a month a go, but i guess i wanted to get back into the swing of things and begin blogging again. I haven't been feeling very well lately and i guess all i wanted to do was brag about an awesome Christmas bash i had with a good friend of mine. He geeked me out entirely for 2012 so i'm ready for the year!

A nurf gun to shoot him with, a t-shirt with my favorite cartoon character on it, the new book from my favorite artist (James jean), the Walking Dead Compendium (i love zombies) and a few games I've been itching to check out. I think what i loved the most about this is that i now have the chance to really sit down and chill out with some of my favorite artists and comics and read before i go to bed. In this course you never really have that chance. I'm either working until i pass out, or passed out somewhere in my room clutching to my furry pillow like its going to save me from the sea of clothes that have "happened" to have formed on the floor or my room. Even though i may go to sleep thinking that zombies will eventually take over the earth or start dreaming about weird shapes and colours because I've been staring at James Jean for to long, its still nice to be able to wind down for a little while. To catch your breath. I do feel a little behind on my work, yeah that's a given; but i really do feel that little bit better now that I have taken the time to read at night. This may not have a lot to do with what I've been up to, but i hope it is a little bit of insight on how much we really do need some alone time when you are on a course like this (because this van really has been driving me insane).

The Face Only a Mother Could Love

2012-01-11T17:09:00.000-08:00

The second I heard that Chris wanted 9 images of me pulling ridiculous faces for a new project coming up, i naturally obliged. I love pulling stupid faces, its almost something that i do naturally (making a fool out of myself). So I thought that I would share the laughter with the rest of the world.
I hope you're sides don't split too hard!

My Personal Gaming History

2012-01-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

My personal History of gaming unfortunately is a little embarrassing. I was always the typical little girl, playing the Disney games that my family picked out for me. At the time it seemed amazing, but now when I look back and see that there were games like doom and Megaman available, it makes me almost sad that I never had the chance to play them when they were at the height of the videogames industry; the best available! Then I look back a little further, and remember that I did sneak in on my dad’s games when he thought I wasn’t looking, zombie goodness like resident evil and silent hill were in our small flat hiding where my little fingers couldn’t get a hold of them. I still play them today on the old grey Playstation when the family isn’t looking, repeating the terrible language my dad once used.

I’m a real sucker for zombies, and I lovingly blame him for that.

I've never been great with dates, and even though a lot of the games I remember playing were out before I was even old enough to hold a controller; my family did have a love for ‘getting game when they were a little cheaper’ so I did own them a few years past there sell by date. But I love them none the less.

The first game I can remember playing had to be Pokémon. Typical, I know. But hear me out, it really is a sweet story I promise. I used to go to a babysitters before Primary school in Germany and she had a son who was a little older than me, being as young as I was; I looked up to him (AKA I had my first crush) and wanted to do everything he did. Because he was cool in my eyes, and I wanted him to like me. He used to let me play Pokémon red before we left in the car and from that moment I was hooked. Catching the cutest animals with craziest of names, the never ending music and the cool little Gameboy was just so amazing. I wanted to play more and more, then when he got Pokémon yellow, and said I could play that to my little heart sank.

My tactics were sluggish at best, and I really hadn’t gotten the hang of having to win the battles to get points but it was still fun in my eyes. It’s not about the winning or the loosing when you’re too young to understand the difference.
Unfortunately I stopped being sitted by them (no idea why to be honest) and I didn’t get to play Pokémon again until I owned my Gameboy advance a few years later.

Anyways, back on track. A few years later is when the zombies hit the Hulbert household. My brother was happily playing Abe’s world after school every day and I was too busy watching Power Puff girls and Courage the cowardly dog to care about an alien trying to escape and evitable and edible fate until we were asked to leave the room; when I naturally became curious about what my dad was doing. He was playing (and hating) the original resident evil. Now, my dad is a brilliant guy and he always curbed his lip around us little ones and I have never heard him swear so much before in my life. He hated it, every painful minute. Dying over and over again really did stress him out to the max.

Looking back on it, it’s funny to think that such a simple game of walking, shooting and stabbing would bring a solider like my dad to his knees. My little brother would slash his way through Abe’s Odyssey without a flicker of a problem and my dad couldn’t kill a spider that only moved up and down a wall. Bless him; he never was great when it came to video games.

Next followed Hercules on the Playstation and I think this game really ruled my life for a little while. Whatever I couldn’t complete, my little brother or dad did for me, and whenever the songs popped up on screen in its pixelated greatness, I’d jump up and sing along (just because I was a bit of a nut for a good Disney sing, as all kids are). The bright colours and cheerful music sink their claws into your little innocent mind and keep you there, sat down tight waiting for your parents to finally drag you away. But being as cartoon network driven I was, I was easily pulled away with a simple episode of cow and chicken.

The Sega Saturn brushed past my life briefly as quick as the character that came with the hand held; blue and spikey? The name just keeps flying in one ear and out of the other (bad joke, I know).
My little brother was more interested in the game than I and as a result, you just couldn’t tear him away from it. At around the same time, I became a massive Spyro fan.

What’s better than a purple dragon trying to save the world, with an attitude?! I can tell you this now; nothing. Nothing is better when you are a tyke. It was a game that both my mother and I enjoyed (and still do). It was something I’d either watch her get excited about, or that we’d play together with my brother leaning over our shoulders trying to tell us how to play only to be getting an earful back. I also remember buying my own Spyro game when we were living on base in Leconfield and immediately running to my friend’s house to play it with her. It was our all time favourite game and we must have played it at least four times over.

I grew bored of games at around the age of 13. They just didn’t interest me anymore, and I honestly think that my brother’s obsession put me off a little. I was more interested in my drawings and hanging out with my friends every night to be sat in a room all day and loosing nights on end to a video game. I’d occasionally play I spy, Number munch, Carmen San Diego, and Aladdin when I was bored an wasn’t watching cartoons or drawing.

Prince of Persia was the first game I ever completed on my own without any help (this was almost 3 years), Then there was Alice and Wonderland (the American McGee version) and finally my all time favourite game of ALL TIME; Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit was the game responsible for my sudden change from not particularly liking video games to owning just over 25 of my own. It amazing twist and turns, unusual game play and gripping story line that made me realise how much work really goes into a game nowadays.
I was obsessed; I’d be at work thinking about what I was going to do next. I’d be sat at the dinner table with the game paused in the next room hoping that I could only just fit a bit more food in my cheeks so I could run off and play. It was so unhealthy, but it just gripped me tighter than a cats head in a milk bottle. Once I finished it, I discovered that there were 3 optional endings to the game, so I played it two more times before finally having to give my thumbs a rest.

Just when I thought it wouldn’t end, I caught wind of a similar game coming out in 6 months time exclusively to the PS3 that was done by the same company, based on the same effects as Fahrenheit. I spent those months saving up for the new console and the game, I don’t think my money was spent on such a worthwhile experience. It was amazing. Once again I found myself thinking and talking about it all the time. Like a pokémaster I had to collect all of the possible endings and complete all of the missions or I wouldn’t be happy.

Nothing interesting entered my life after this point. I could list a lot of recent games that I’ve been playing, but I’m sure you’ve heard about them enough on the TV and pasted all over the internet. My gaming history was very family based, I spent my time with my family; something I truly wish we did more of). We played games together or used them as an excuse to watch or be around each other. To see each other laugh, be excited about (or angry in my dad’s case) and just to spend time together. I may have missed out on doom, Megaman and Pacman. But I still treasure my history because it always brings a smile to my face.

How reviews should be published

2012-01-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a really accurate review done by an animator called Egorapter on youtube. He has some really valid points about gaming today and he compares them to games from the 80's/90's.

I thought i'd upload a link to his Megaman review because i agree with everything he says. I do warn you though, this is not for children. He does enjoy the F*** word A LOT.

Enjoy :)

Indie Games Are the Future (Game review)

2012-01-06T10:28:00.000-08:00

I haven’t blogged in a while, and I really think that it’s time for a post.
I thought that a nice way to start this one off is a small review of a game that I got this Christmas. It’s a small indie game that has won the hearts of players all over the Xbox live world.

Its called limbo.

The game itself doesn’t really tell you anything about the game; you have to read the small description that comes with the game when you download it or comes on your prepaid card from a game store. Even then they keep it simple so that the player can come up with their own conclusions and fill in the gaps themselves (this makes the journey feel more personal to the player than being told every little back story to the game along the way).

Limbo starts off pretty slow (it takes a few minutes for the little boy to open his glowing eyes and to stand up) so you can really take in his surroundings and listen carefully to the small sounds of insects buzzing and the wind whistling. The designers instantly created tension and built a connection between the payer and the character in a matter of seconds, this is what makes the game so nerve racking to play! (You’ll see why later).
The designs of the backgrounds are simple, delicate, and in my eyes; ingenious. It’s a simple black and grey pallet that displays the depth of the platform world beautifully. The swirling fog and leaves falling from the trees make you feel that this world is so much bigger than your small character, like he really is lost in this world and it’s so vast, you start to feel a slight hopelessness for the boy. You treat him like he is your own, someone you feel that you want to protect.

Its not long before you kill the boy for the first time, you stumble across a hidden bear trap that takes his head clear off, leaving his body stuck in the teeth of the metal monster. I genuinely jumped and sat there in shock, grasping my remote in fear and upset that I just killed the boy. The game is that well built that you are sucked into the world with the boy and you feel so responsible for killing him that you feel real guilt for not noticing the trap sooner. You feel hopeless; the feeling that you can’t help him, his little life is in danger and you just can’t save him.

It’s a terrible feeling, I guess I now know how my mother felt when she had a dream about me falling down a well (well... she says I fell, I still think she pushed me).

Survival is another key element in limbo. You are forced to go against your morals so that you can live and carry out your quest to find your sister. For example; there is a section in the game where you have to cross a small river; to cross the river you have to climb over and float on other children’s bodies that had perished trying to cross. If that didn’t make you fear for the boys sanity enough, you then had to drag one of the child’s bodies to set off a trap so that it was crushed under a weight instead of you. Furthermore, you have to trick other children into being killed so they can’t attack you. I felt like I was living out ‘the Lord of the Flies’ in a noire film environment.

The puzzles in the game tap into another emotion that forces the player to stop and think about what they are doing before leaping into a deadly situation; desperation.

You’re desperate to get away from the traps, to escape the giant spider that for some reason has a real vendetta against you. You have to react quickly to certain situations (for example, you have to wait for the spider to get so close to you that he sets off a lever that will in turn flip you into the air for a quick escape).

The game doesn’t force feed you the fear and desperation, you feel it yourself. You feel the hopelessness that drives you through the game. It forces you to make the difficult decisions for survivals sake (like throwing a dead child into a trap, I guess I’m still not over that).I know it’s silly, with how violent games and films are now-a-days but I think children should really be a no go zone!

But putting the tissues aside, I think the final thing that makes this game so amazing is the attention to detail. Even though the design is really simple, the game still tried to push the limits of the black and grey platform world. For example; the glass roof level.

While you are running away from other children, you start to walk across a glass house and as you do so; some of the glass panes crack. This teaches you that the glass is weak in certain areas and will shatter under a certain amount of weight. You then stumble across a ladder near one of the panes; you click on to understand that if you were to jump off the ladder you will then fall and break through the glass to make a quick getaway. The animation of the boy breaking through the glass and trying to grab onto a nearby wall is so realistic, you feel the boys panic as we doesn't understand just how deep this fall is. Secondly, there is the soundtrack.

The soundtrack isolates you from your bedroom and drags you into the world with him. You’re a part of that experience with him. Small touches like the sound dampening when you go under water really puts the cherry on the geeky chocolate Sunday. I loved every inch, every jump and tear of this game. It really touched my heart on many levels and I don’t think i will be able to find another indie game that will make me feel this happy to play again. Not unless robot unicorn attack created a Christmas edition... What did you say...? It has?

Well then, I think it’s time for me to stop rambling about Limbo and get some hardcore star smashing done.

To quickly wrap this up, Limbo is a real delight to play. And i recommend it to everyone looking for a new experience in gaming. It’s not a first person shooter, it isn't a typical anime girl with her boobs out skipping about with swords and it isn't a mage trying to stop the end of the world. It’s an adventure, a personal journey of a boy looking for his sister. Truly remarkable.

Crazy Character Inspirations - Fashion

2011-11-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to pluck inspiration from anywhere and everywhere, lately I've been getting a lot of it from the craziest high fashion designers I've seen so i thought i'd share some of it online so that my thoughts and ideas are out in the open.

It started with these images. I was looking for feather head pieces (the bottom right) and i ended up stumbling across a person who makes taxidermy head wear. From rat head bands to Guinea-pig hair clips there was quite the collection of twisted jewelry that obviously came from a not quite right minded male. This got me thinking about a crazed villain character who could wear dead animals, in their hair, round their neck. Once i found those images i found the others not far down the line, a few features that the character could also posses Bones in the clothing, black finger tips and a wrapped up face to hide their identity.

With these to images, i just like the colour schemes. The not quite blacks with blue tints are very cold and chilling themes bring out just what i'd need for the character I've been building from the previous images.

Strong angular hair styles and twisted poses are the best characteristics of a mentally unstable character. It adds the idea that everything that the character is (the unnatural scary look) is deep in the core and mentality of the character (i also find it very funny that i chose lady gaga to demonstrate the hair of a twisted character, shows what kind of person i see her as).

Finally there is fashion. I've always liked the fashion of Alexander Mcqueen and Gareth Pugh, this is because of their total disregard for wearability. They don't seem to stick to the normality of clothes having to be worn in public, they are just creating what they see as beautiful and different for the love of the job. Here are a few pieces that i deem their best, simply for the colour and striking angles in their pieces.

Gareth Pugh

Alexander Mcqueen

With all of these images and various character types I've found in these pieces, hopefully i should be uploading a few character designs soon based on the images.

James Jean - Fables

2011-11-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

I recently got a book from my favorite artist in the UNIVERSE and i thought i should really share it with you all and hopefully introduce a well deserved artist into your world. His name is James Jean, and he is a young artist in his early twenties living in America.

He studied in the New York City's School of Arts in 2001 and is now an award winning artist for his cover art for the comic Fables. He's worked for the Rolling Stone, New York Times, ESPN, Playboy and Prada creating vibrant and visually dynamic pieces. He mixes traditional media with digital to create his final pieces and also doesn't forget about his life drawings, he fills a sketchbook a month with images from his girlfriend asleep to people on the bus. He currently works and lives in Santa Monica where he travels around the world to meet international clients and to appear in his exhibitions across the US.

I have almost all of his art books and i am awaiting the release of his new book that comes out in a few months. I think i am more excited for that than i am for Christmas, to get that new book in the mail and then to curl up in bed and read it with a torch under the covers. Like a child who isn't supposed to be awake at night, but they are too excited to finally get some sleep so they can function in the morning.

I've always loved his art books because you not only get to see the pieces and what he thought about the experience of creating them, but you also get to see his progress throughout the piece. The pencil drawings, to the paintings, test of colour and then finally; the text and layout of the cover its self. I find this interesting because it helps me to see the kind of process' and fundamentals i may have to go through when i think of my final pieces, the kind of things i may have to show to Chris to show all of the hours I've put into my work.

Now rather than talking about James himself, i thought i'd talk about my favorite piece in the book. Page 129, Wolves.

I love this piece for its strong colour contrast, strong emotional involvement and the beautiful mix of digital and traditional media. 90% Of the painting is done in acrylics on watercolour paper and his messy paint-strokes show the anger and desperation that his is trying to show in the character. The only thing he did digitally is the type, and some colour alteration to add to the intensity of the piece. There isn't much to say about this cover other than the second i opened the page, the more i looked at it the more i seemed to love about it. Even know I've just noticed the tiny detailed blood drops delicately placed on the photo at the bottom of the piece. Full of emotion and instant visual impact, i think this is by far his best piece.

His strength doesn't only lye with traditional work, he can work with blond and striking colours in purely digital based work as well. For example, this piece called skulduggery.

Bright colours would normally show happiness or excitement, whereas in this piece James has used the colours to convey chaos and action! This is purely digital and its great to see his style change and still keep strong and be easily recongiasble as James jean.
All of the covers in the book almost make me want to invest in buying all 1001 comic books. But dishearteningly i know that my student finance just doesn't stretch that far.

Visual design catch up

2011-11-26T06:10:00.000-08:00

I've not blogged for a while, so i thought i'd get it up to date on my Visual design Finals so then i can move onto some more personal work.

2 Point perspective - Cars

I struggled with this brief a bit, i can't quite get the wheels to look realistic. More like childish attempts at a circle in perspective. It must have taken about four tries to get this final looking somewhat presentable. I used a standard hard edge round brush and altered the opacity and flow so that i could blend colours and reflections together to get that smooth airbrushed effect. If i were to revisit this piece, i would finaly put the details on the hood-caps of the wheels and make the reflections and shadows on the grill a bit more refined so that it didn't look as messy as it does now. I've learnt that cars aren't as hard as i had originally led on for myself but i do need to practice drawing ellipses in perspective so i can get the wheels to stop looking like crazy cartoony doughnuts sellotaped to a toy car.

Shadows and Highlights - Bones

We took a trip to the Newarke Museum in Leicester to visit the dinosaur exhibition. I was actually really excited for this project because i love drawing bones. The little intricate pieces and curves in bones are really beautiful to me. You look at and animal and you never seem to realise what the inner structure really is, and hoe you may look at someones hand and you will never think that that hand is made up of many tiny bones that are curved and indented at the fingertips. I will be uploading all of the scans of my bone drawings as soon as possible because i did keep going back just for fun so that i could see and draw everything. With this final i tried to show all the bones from the smallest to the biggest, almost like a creature display you may show to a client. I really like the ash grey tones and pale blue highlights and i think i prefer these colours to the standard black and grey. If i were to change anything, i think i would do a more detailed piece (like the spine) and focus on all of the little sections that fit together. Possible throw some textures into the painting. Or i would even try to traditionally complete the piece in graphic pens.

Compisition and Landscapes - Bradgate Park

What can i say; it was cold, raining, and foggy. There were many hills and wet muddy slopes to fall down and all i seemed to do was draw and take photos of rocks. Is there something wrong with me? Do i have an obsession? I think i questioned my sanity once i reached the 100th rock of the day but in the end, my crazy interest in the rocks payed off with this piece. I used all the textures and composition drawings i had collected throughout the day to create my final. I've learnt a new painting technique of using photo-reference as a collage and painting into the different layers with a chalky brush to create that more realistic effect. The only thing i wish i had done different was the background. I feel that the fog hasn't been painted effectively and i'd like to collect more reference for fog with the upcoming winter in hopes that i can come back to this piece and show it off at its full potential. Another thing i learnt with this week, buy gloves. I'm going to need them.

The Canal - Revision

During this week I've been working on reworking my Canal final by using my new knowledge of light and reflective surfaces. Hopefully this will completed over Christmas and i will be mixing the techniques I've learned during the skeleton and Bradgate finals by collecting strong textures and using defining shadows and light to bring out shapes and details within the image.

Games Production - Wheely Bin Project

2011-11-14T04:58:00.000-08:00

In this project i had to take pictures of a wheelie bin, model it and then texture it. If hunting down stinky bins sounded rough enough then think about how scary it is when an old woman comes out of her house asking what you are doing to her rubbish "oh nothing, just taking pictures of your bin for art." I completely understand why she asked me to move on. If that didn't discourage me about my project enough, the look of my UMV scared the hell out of me.

How does this happen? A mess of lines and shapes suddenly appeared on my screen! I had to close down to programme and start again just to erase the hell i had created.
The intro to UMV unwrapping was difficult at first because i couldn't get my texture to stop stretching. It took a good four hours of asking around on the DMU facebook until i had finally bucked up the courage to come into the labs and ask someone for help. It took five minutes to un-stretch everything. Wounding.
After another four hours of unwrapping and Photoshop i was finally able to pull everything off.

Overall I’m happy with the result. The bin looked like my reference; my mesh seemed clean and accurate. I feel that my texture could have been clearer but due to my poor camera quality everything seems slightly pixelated.

Visual Design - Week Three - Two Point perspective

2011-10-25T17:02:00.000-07:00

This week we had to go out into the city centre and draw buildings with two point perspective. Luckily i have worked with perspective a lot while i was in college so i didn't find this task too difficult. I must have spent more than my self study hours (10 hours) outside sat on the pavement drawing all the different buildings throughout Leicester The only problem with this weeks task had to be that my scanner has made my final piece look distorted so i will have to re-scan the piece and i feel like i should have spent more time looking at the perspective of my final piece and getting that right than the detail in the wood work. This i what i had come up with:

Visual Design - Week two - The Archway

2011-10-25T16:54:00.000-07:00

In week two of our visual design class we were asked to expand our knowledge of one point perspective by drawing the archway near the university. But it wasn't as simple as it sounds, the vanishing point for the piece was hidden, and we had to try and find the point by following the evidence lines (the bottom of the buildings, the pavement and the road) so that we could draw the archway in perfect perspective. I found this slightly challenging because if you moved, the vanishing point would always change drastically, this way you couldn't just guess where the point was effectively. You had to make sure you were completely certain that that was where the point was, or your piece would have been out of proportion and the perspective would have been completely off place. After spending four days out in the cold sat on my bum i created my final piece using a blue animators pencil to try and experiment with different shades and textures of a pencil.

A Brief History of Games (Part two - out of three)

2011-10-25T16:45:00.000-07:00

Magnavox’s Odyssey (in 1972) was the first console available to your home on the planet. But it was Atari’s video computer system (VLS) that came to be in every child’s bedroom. The sales of the VLS had already made over $215million; meanwhile the Japanese were looking in different areas for their inspiration.

Toru Iwatani (Namco) wanted to produce a maze based on a nursery rhyme about a small creature that eats all evil things. He had trouble thinking of a design for the creature until he had been eating a slice of pizza at his family’s favourite restaurant. He used the shape of the pizza (after eating one slice) as his inspiration of his character.

This was the first game that didn’t involve a spaceship, a bouncing ball or a tennis match. It was the beginning of how unique character designs could create such a strong identification for a game.
When introduced to the US, the name had become a problem because of its easily violated name Pock-Man; so this is when Pock-man became Packman in 1980.

To start with, this game was not ‘all the rage’ of the arcades; it was actually the game that had brought a strange phenomenon into the arcades that many of the hardcore gamers had feared. Pacman had attracted the female crowd as it was branded to be ‘too cute’ to be popular with the boys.
It not only had a ‘cute’ theme to the game but it was also easier to play than most games out at its time as it was only played by a single joystick. Eventually the popularity of Packman soared and Pacman had a sudden world wide appeal, which had resulted in creating up to 1200 cabinets a day and raking in $60million in one year.

Suddenly in 1983, the American video game industry had hit a brick wall. Not since 1929, had an industry fallen so far so fast. Many arcades closed down across the US causing the industries profits to plummet, but the arcades weren’t the only ones to suffer; the console market also collapsed.

A rain of terrible games for the home console everything seemed to be game over for the industry. Fortunately, a new rise of the home computer made the Atari VLS system look prehistoric and brought a new light to the dwindling industry, thanks to the help of small toy manufacturer in Japan.

Hand held consoles have been around since the Game Watch; however it was Nintendo’s Gameboy that took the spotlight and the hearts of all children around the world in 1989 and must have single handily saved the games industry. The Gameboy was the first games console that was designed for adults as well as children, but they needed a new revolutionary game to entice people to play and buy the Gameboy. The idea came from an obscure Russian programmer called Alexey Pajitnov who had created the simple game called Tetris.

Tetris was simple and easy to understand. No one else had thought of it before because they were too busy trying to simulate aliens. The true soviet game has been seen as a compulsive feeling to clean things up, to create order out of chaos. The inspiration came from an already existing soviet game called Pantiominos. The aim of the game is to create a perfect rectangle out of many small shapes given to you in a box. Alexey came up with the idea of destroying the bottom row once completed; he simply saw no reason in keeping it there (this made allowed the game to go on for what seems like forever).

During Nintendo’s rise of popularity, next came Sony.
Sony (With Playstation) made playing video games cool. Many games flourished and started a world wind popularity throughout the industry, it also had introduced the most popular female figure in the gaming industry; Lara Croft (1996 Tomb Raider by Toby Gard).

By the 1990’s games became too complicated to have a single person to design and code a game; so Toby Gard led a huge team to create Tomb Raider.

Games now have the ambition and budget of cinema allowing many various opportunities for them to be the best of their abilities (for example the new arriving 3D games coming out within the next 2 years). Plot lines and characters are now designed to be more emotionally involved for the players, more adult themes have been introduced to accompany the interests of all ages and to the make the games more relatable.

The games industry has grown tremendously, and is still growing today to be almost bigger than cinema with an overall profit of millions of pounds a year.

My brush with the games industry didn't appear until around 1996 when my dad had brought home the SEGA Game gear. It was an out of date hand held (seeing how it had already been out since I was born in 1993) but it still had to be the most amazing thing I had seen.

Sonic the hedgehog platform based sprite game was my childhood wrapped up in a box and compressed into pure awesomeness. The colours were bold, the sound effects were ‘crisp’ and the little blue hedgehog was so unbelievably cool. I will never forget the first time I was able to defeat Dr Robotnik all on my own (with a bit of my dad’s help of course). I don’t remember having any other console or game in the house until 1997 when Abe’s Odyssey was released on the Playstation.

By this point i think i had lost interest in video games. I was a girl, was expected to play with dolls and watch the power puff girls in the morning and Ed, Edd and Eddy when I got back from school. It was the angry howls of my dad which attracted me to the living room while he was ranting and swearing at the Playstation to “just do what he wants for once”. It was also the game that intised me into watching my father or brother play. I’m not sure if it was the poor language or the childish fart jokes that i found so entertaining but it opened my eyes to a small virtual world that was fun and creative that i just couldn’t stop watching.

Silent hill and resident evil soon followed and so did my brand new Gameboy advance in 2001.
Pokémon and monsters inc were my games of choice and by this point I became obsessed with the idea of collecting them all and fighting to be the ultimate Pokémon master!

Games took a huge leap into first person shooters in the 2000’s and this is where I had begun to lose interest. Games were no longer about being fun and having a good time, they somehow had turned the industry into a completion on how gory or realistic they could be. The child like wonder that I used to know and love had been stomped on by the large suited army’s that marched on the inside of every teenagers screen.

Even though some of those games had revolutionised game play and design for many of the games we play now, I feel that the original creativity had been lost within the industry in the early 2000’s...

A Brief History of Games (Part one - out of three)

2011-10-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

The gaming industry all started with Steve Russell; a 24 year old engineer working at the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. He created the first ever video game (on the PTP computer system at the institution) that only the technology students with the access to the computer system could play. It was simply called ‘Space War’.

In 1961 the 2 player game was seen as the best past time at the institution. When on their break, the students would sit around playing against one another trying to destroy their opponent and try to not be destroyed first; a classic ‘kill or be killed’ scenario. At first, the game was played by using various switches to move your spacecraft up and down, forwards and backwards, rotate left and right, to travel through hyperspace and the most important; the fire switch.

With the game being too complicated for most people and it also created a very uncomfortable position as the player arms rested upwards onto the switch pad creating wrist pains. Russell came up with the solution of creating a type of joy pad (the first ever). This made it easier to handle to the ships and fire at your acquired targets.

Secondly, there was Nolan Bushwell; a video engineer working at a pinball shop. IN 1972, Nowland Bushwell created ‘Atari’. The company where he had created the first video game arcade cabinets called ‘Computer Space’ in his daughter’s bedroom.

The cabinet was installed in various pubs across the

, which showed its most fatal flaw. The game was too hard to play drunk. This started Bushwell off on a bad start within the industry. He wanted to create another game that was simple to play but also addictive and kept bringing the public back allowing him to create more games and have a strong following. His idea stemmed from wanting the game to be something everyone already knew, something that the rules were known universally; for example tennis. With the name ‘Ping pong’ already copy-written he simply used the name of a ball hitting the paddles as his inspiration. He named it ‘Pong’ in 1972.

The game grew and spread like wildfire across the world with many countries attempting to make their own version. This sent Atari’s popularity through the roof and it became the ‘Microsoft’ of its time.

Over the next decade the company kept growing more and more popular and the worth of the company grew from a $250 investment to being worth over $25 million dollars. Eventually ‘Warner Brothers’ bought out the company for $30 million dollars setting Nolan Bushwell for life.

The next leap in the Video Games industry happened in Tokyo Japan when Toshihiro Nishikado changed the games industry forever in 1978.

Pachinko was the biggest and most addictive game in Japan. It involved dropping small ball bearings at the top of the machine and then spinning a wheel (somewhat like pinball). Thousands of arcades had row upon row of pachinko machines all full of people dropping the ball bearings at the top and the colourful lights flashing and the wheels spinning. The game took the country by storm for years until 1978 where Pachinko met its nemesis that pushed the game out of the limelight.

On June the 16^th, Taito (who manufactured the Pachinko cabinets) produced the pixilated icon; Space Invaders. In six months, Space invaders had taken over Tokyo and pushed aside Pachinko as the countries national past time. It took the classic American space obsessed theme but then combined it with popular Japanese creature feature B movies.

Taito had come up with the idea for Space Invaders after seeing an already existing American game called ‘Breakout’. He had taken the idea of the ball destroying the blocks but wanted to try something slightly different, he wanted to make the blocks fight back.

Space Invaders success was due to various new ideas which set the benchmark for all future video games. Firstly, there was the High score. This gave the player a feeling of progress and accomplishment. This then lead onto another must have design aspect of games development; goals and rewards. The more the people played, the better they got and the longer they were able to defend the earth from the vicious aliens! Finally, the most important of all was that Space Invaders was the first game ever to feature fully animated characters.

Space Invaders had inspired Atari to produce 2^nd Gen games, which within a year had replaced invaders as the most popular game in the arcades.

Asteroids was incredibly hard to play, with having five buttons to control left, right, forward, back, fire, supersonic which made it very confusing for the younger crowd! But most importantly of all, it was the use of the wire frame vector graphics (the representation of all surfaces of a three dimensional object in an outlined form) that had really allowed the game to take flight.

Asteroids looked sharp, pure, new and crisp. The game was so successful there is a record of one teenage boy having spent 31 hours playing the game on one single quarter.
In the 1980’s (alongside asteroids), more groundbreaking games had leapt out into the limelight.

For example, the game Defender by Eugene Jarvis had devoured 1.5 million quarters in its lifetime. Atari had published Missile Command by Dave Theuner and Battle zone by Ed Rotberg.

In the 1980’s there was a high battle mark for arcades in the US, never again were video games ever produced in such high numbers. The 1980’s also had the peek in popularity of the home console.

Games production - Week Two - Texturing

2011-10-18T15:05:00.000-07:00

We have been introduced to the beautiful and complicated world of texturing. It a hard concept and process for me to grasp because the shapes of the object the you've built never seem to appear the way you expect them to on the uv editor. You have to decided witch element is the most important so that it can use the most texture space and if you don't place it right onto the texture space then you can easily stretch and distort your textures. This results in an awfully disturbing looking render. A bad texture can make an amazing model look shit, but a good texture can make a shit model look brilliant. I need to keep this in mind.
As a test to see if i payed attention or not to the walk through, i was asked to create a tinned can of chick peas in 3d's max by using reference images heather had given us. Over all i am proud with the way it turned out and i think i got it in the first go! Lets hope my texturing my wheelie bin will be as easy (fingers crossed).

Visual Design - Week one - The Canal

2011-10-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

The canal was a nice introduction to the course for the Visual design class. I enjoyed being outside and finding various areas i could sit and be in my element. Some music and my pencil case is all that i needed (and a hoody but i don't want to be complaining about the weather aha). The task was to find and draw the single point perspective compositions within the canal. I enjoyed spending the week returning to the canal because i've already worked with perspective before with my college course and it was relaxing to go back to the basics.

I found the compositions to be beautifully simple so it was extremely easy to be inspired by the area. The only thing i seemed to struggle with was my value of tone within my drawings. I seem to make them more like an illustration than an observational drawing and so my lighting and shading doesn't feel exactly true to life. Hopefully thanks to my new B-penciled friends i will learn to put more harsh tones into my work and expand my skill in shading and lighting. These are the final results of the week...

A new place a new day

2011-10-12T02:27:00.001-07:00

I haven’t really done an introduction for my blog and I guess if I am going to keep it updated every week I should really have one, just so that everyone who reads this will know a little bit more about who I am instead of what I am doing.

Hi, my name is Shay and I am a budding game artist studying at DeMontford University. I am a short and easily excitable 18 years old who always tries to find adventure and inspiration in everything I do. If something is boring, make it interesting! You can ALWAYS find something to be passionate about and my work is my passion. I look up to many people for inspiration and funnily enough my biggest inspiration was my old tutor Gareth Slieghtholme. Not only did he put up with me running around the classroom watching funny cat videos for two years but he helped me to realise what it was I wanted to do for a living; he always supported me 100% (no matter how many times I must have made him want to jump out of the classroom window). He helped me to find inspiration in the little things and to learn that “it’s all about doing what you love to do, not what others may think of you”.

My biggest art inspiration has to be James Jean. He is a young painter in his early 20’s who has become so much so quickly within the art world. His delicate and simplistic styles flow from page to page and I can’t help but read all of his books over and over again because no matter how many times I look at the same painting or sketch, I always discover something new within his work that I get excited about. Even though his final pieces are all child like, smooth and young, his observational work is rough and sketchy. He will sit and draw a person in his little book and if they move during the sketch, he draws on top of that with the new position. He never stops, I admire how he isn’t precious about his drawings and he just gets on with his work. I have four of his books now with more to come in the mail (so that’s where all of my money is going!).

I love books, of all kinds. Architecture books, concept art, photography, film vaults all the way to crime dramas. If I find a book that I think looks interesting, I will ‘stupidly’ sacrifice a few days eating well for a pot noodle and an inspirational read. I will read a lot of my books about once a day until they become tatty and fall apart, and so I will buy it again just because they will forever fascinate me.

Two years ago I started off not knowing what it was that I wanted to do. I stumbled across game art in my second year of college and i think the sudden burst of excitement showed me that this is where I am supposed to be. I am driven, excited and willing to go anywhere and do anything if an adventure is in the cards. So bring it on DMU because I am so happy to be here!

Week One - Game production - The Dalek Project

2011-10-12T01:52:00.000-07:00

Even though i may have found the introduction to the 3Ds Max software difficult to catch up on, i seemed to find the Dalek project really relaxing to create. I took my time and learnt new tips at my own pace. For the Dalek project it almost seemed like i was thrown in at the deep end. We had only just created a church out of basic shapes and now we had to create a known icon from the doctor who series with lots of buttons and gadgets... With a tri budget of 1500! Oh dear.
Once i got home and sat down to create my Dalek i found it easier than i had originally expected because i already had the basic knowledge of the software from the previous project (as seen below). This is what i had come up with...

I was proud with the outcome of my second 3Ds Max model. The only thing i think i would have done differently is to prioritise my detail. Instead of giving my Dalek the perfect silhouette that allowed you to instantly recognise him as a Dalek (the bolts on his body), i chose to use my tris to add little details that weren't all that recognisable; for example the panels on his body to extrude so that it looks like metal sheets put together). I also would have fattened him out slightly so that is front view wasn't so thin. Overall i am happy with the result and hope to progress as quickly as i have throughout the year.

Week One - Games production - The church

2011-10-09T13:47:00.000-07:00

My first week in Game production was an unexpectedly easy one. When i first walked into the class room i thought that they would be throwing a lot of new technical language and numbers at me that i just wouldn't be able to pick up on. The first three computers that i tried the 3Ds Max software on, crashed while uploading, on top of that while i was moving around the classroom the tutorial had begun and i felt like i just wasn't going to be able to create anything. After finally getting 3Ds Max open i quickly caught up on the tutorial (with some help from blackboard) and i was on my way to making my church!

Even though i only spent an hour creating the church, i still found it highly stressful to be able to render. I wanted to do so much to it that i wasn't focusing on the mere basics of the building; this caused various problems with the mesh and parts of the roof kept either disappearing and or bending inwards instead of leveling out. I was pleased enough with the final outcome of the render because even though it wasn't fancy with lots of detail or 'gadgets', it still looked and felt like a church. I learnt that even the most basic of shapes and structures still need a lot of focus and attention because if you miss that one target weld or poly selection, the whole thing is fucked. I would like the chance to be able to redo this render because i feel that i have a slight better understanding and feel for the software; not only would i be able to work my way around it faster but i may be able to add the fancy details and 'gadgets' to make it really stand out.