Thursday 14 March 2013

Team structures

after going to the valve talk at BAF i thought that i would do some extra research on team structures within the gaming industry which i found this link. the link shows multiple different structures which could be used within different sized companies and i think that knowing this structure would help when working.
http://stimulagamesindustry.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/team-structures-within-gaming-industry.html

Power to pixel

weeks up to the exhibition were hard with having to do minion tweaks and things to the module itselfs aswell as sorting out decent enough pictures to demonstrate our ideas behide our work as well as doing turnarounds and making our level have as little to no places to fall out of and get stuck into. the days up to the exhibition were a made rush with the deadline closing in and having to pick the final things to show. on the day before everyone seemed to band together to help each other get their work done which was nice to see. I helped adam make the boards and ended up covered in that spray glue somehow.

on the day of the exhibition lots of the group seemed to get lost getting to the venue which we then needed to get more signs up to show where we were so people didn't get lost too. i the show seemed to be great success though i don't think i will bring one of my mates again seeing as he found bugs and glitches within everyone's work.

Communication Theory


Identity




Celebrity culture


Critical postions on popular culture



Cities and film



Panopticism




The Gaze



Creative rhetorics


Phychoanalysis







Over the summer

I bought a few books on character design and how to draw characters. I did this to learn how to draw more realistic and more human characters. while reading about them I started to think about how archetypes and how they can change the general look of a character and their environment. since then i seem have more knowledge about how to make a character but they still look quiet cartoony.

I completed a few games out of my backlog and acquired alot more from the steam sale. after watching the documentary about how violent video games are last year i picked up doom during the sale. while playing it i could see why it was banned in a few countries when it was released. i looked  into what games are currently banned made me realise how semi - laid back the UK is on violent video games and that some of the games banned in other countries i actually like to play e.g. Left 4 Dead. 

which conference im going to


http://www.eurogamer.net/expo/whats-onz

http://thoughtbubblefestival.com/

http://nights.gamecity.org/

PPP

he showed us his show reel which was very good and if my show-reel is anywhere near to what standard his was I think I could get a job easily. he said that collaboration is a good thing to do which I will try and add to future modules so that I that i have work with other people and increase my teamwork level

BAF- faceware

 the face-ware software has advantage a lot since last year when they were showing us it and now it can do a lot more. it can pick up on more muscles in the face which adds for better facial animation. i think this software would be a good addition to anyone that wants to do close ups of game character so that it moves more naturally and more professional



Skills I want to Develop outside of the course

This year I want to improve my drawing skills, group talking and do some stop-motion animation.

ive wanted to improve how i draw for some while now because drawing in a cartoon style doesn't always get the points i want to make across or it makes them look more childish and for a lower target audience that I'm going for. this year im going to look into the college living drawing classes to try and improve the anatomy of my drawings. i also need to use more human references while drawing instead of just going with whatever pops into my head so it doesn't look like some mutated animal that's meant to be a person.

I think improving my group talking skills would help me a lot by making it easier to communicate and seem less nervous. i aren't quiet sure how i would improve this to a high standard within the course though but i will try harder when we are doing crits during modules and presentations to talk louder and with more confidence in my talking.

ive always loved stop motion animation and i seemed to thorw it to the side when i started doing this course. ive been looking for software for a while that i could use so that i could do some stop motion when im not busy doing modules but ive not found any that are very good. im going to look into software that companies that aardman use for their stop motion animation to see if theirs a version i could use. if all fails i could just use still images from a camera or use adobe flash to do some animations

BAF - Valve

during this talk you told about the different working structures their are within companies which was very instresting to find out. when i could be working within one of them in the future. also we got told the story of how the talkers ups and downs within the industry which was quiet crazy. the talker went onabout how your show reel is the most important thing you do at university and that it should be no long than a couple of minutes long.


BAF ABAC


BAF urban enviroment


BAF BIOWARE

this talk was very laid back and very interesting to see how Neil Thompson got to where he is now. he use to work at a lot of little game making companies where he made his trade and got to know more people higher up the industry by going to social events. we also got to see some screen shot dragon age 3 which was very cool specially when i enjoyed the first two games.


Friday 8 March 2013

Fast & furious 4

i was just looking for some visual effect clips and i saw this one of fast & furious 4. within the clip it shows various scenes that have had effects added to them. within this some of them are barely noticeable until you see them within this clip like  when they are in brazil. i truly thought they were at a real location but it was just a field and they added the buildings and other things to bulk out the scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWPX7TFrrV0

Collab 1

below shows the before and after of the rigging process which i did for one of my classmates. in return they did the uv mapping for my models which later got textured by someone else. it took me a while to do the rig on this model because my classmate wanted it to be able to sit down and wag its tail so i made two different skeletal chains and picked the one within the pictures because it had more joints within the tail which gave it more movement if needed.

Collab 2

i did some rigging for one of my classmates which in turn they textured my models.
above shows the before and after the rigging process. this model was easier than some of the rigs ive done before it was a fun experience. though i should of asked my classmate what he actually wanted the model to move before i took the model because i took some time making some joints within the model that I took out because they werent going to be used and might effect the model within the weightpainting process.

 this is my fish model textured just how i wanted it a nice orange body with metallic arms and legs. it only needed a slight change to it on the arm but i really liked the texture.












the  image on the left was on my first idea a pinkish colour with yellow dots which i didnt really like because i dont think its too light for the model and should be darker. the image on the right was my second idea for my jellyfish which became the final texture after i few minion changes. both of the textures for my jellyfish and my fish are really good.

illusion

i was looking into vfx companies that were in england and found this company that is in leeds. i had a look at their showreel and current projects they are very good. And they had alot of work that looks alot like what we have with our module.
http://illusionvfx.co.uk/projects

Boundary

i found this international company that have done work on some big films like ironman 2 and harry potter. i watched their showreel which shows how they add some of the effects to their films which if i want to go further into vfx i will do the same for my portfolio.

http://boundaryvfx.com/about

Jellyfish pictures

ive seen alot of this companies work without even knowing. ive seen the adverts and the coke cola can part of their showreel was in a documentary i've  seen and is a advert that is on the discovery channel. the coke cola can is my favourite piece from this company its nice how they show all he different forms of rusting and how it erodes away.

http://www.jellyfishpictures.co.uk/

Fish spaceships

i really liked the idea of having a animal as a space ship and a alien. i wanted the spaceship to look more like the animal its meant to be with like a enhancements to make it a spaceship. the alien would be more alien/robot than the animal to give it abit of contrast with the ship.
the mood board above shows some of the fish i was thinking about making into spaceships.
 above are a barracuda, whale and shark space ship
above are killerwhale, hammerhead and 2 different types of jellyfish

above is the jellyfish design I liked the most but more detailed. with some ideas of aliens.


 above shows different colour ideas i had for my spaceship. i really liked the red one with the dark red spots but i also had the idea of having a purple main colour with yellow spots which i later used on my final model.

Alien

my idea for this alien was to make it a goldfish and have it in a kind of robotic suit. below shows different ideas for legs,arms and fins. also it shows my idea of having seals as my alien which i didn't go into much detail on because i really took to the robotic fish idea.

i had a last minute idea of having seal aliens. the only reason i actually chose to do seals because seals eat fish and having seals flying around in a space ship would be a good idea in my mind. they could be using it as some kind of camo to get closer to some of the fish races to eat them.

Bacon aliens

 out of my 3 ideas i picked this one and another one to  do more concept work on. below is the mood board for the bacon aliens. i didnt do any more spaceship designs because i thought that i had a decent design for one in my starting idea.
below are the multiple different types of the alien i could have being 1 bite, 2 bites, 3 bites and 4 bites.  i like the 1 and 2 bite aliens because i think that the 3 and 4 have to much going on and where the eyes are on the alien it makes it look weird.


creatures

http://www.creaturespot.com/main/2013/1/20/a-pair-of-portraits.html

i found these pictures of aliens/creatures while i was doing this module. i thought that they would be a good examples of different aliens/creatures and how people see aliens. i would want my alien/creature to have features that makes it different from other peoples reppeznsentation  of aliens.

Transformers

within this clip it shows various different shots from the transformers dark side of the moon film. it even shows how parts of the film have been made with the different effects. in one part of the clip it shows you multiple different types of smoke clouds that they have used on the burning down buildings. also it shows that not all of it was pure footage some of it was just made in a 3d space using after effects or anouther visual effects programme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7r5mz9aTlA

Scot pilgrim

recently watching this film i know that there are alot of effects that are used within it.  sadly i couldn't find a more in depth clip which shows how they added the effects to the footage and so forth but i thought that having this clip as an example of some visual effects was a good idea. i like how in some shots within the film they add lines so that they could show multiple people at once but also so that they could stay true to the comic books that the film is based on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvvWpv6uB8s

vbx stufs

http://www.creaturespot.com/main/2013/2/12/sculptris-and-sketches.html

I was looking for aliens that look like animals i came across these models of a crab. this also gave me the idea to do a underwater kind of alien/spaceship. which i will develop upon and see where that will take me.

Modeling

here are the models for my project. the first image is of my fish alien model with its rig that i neglected until very late because i was too busy making sure that the rigs i were doing for my classmates would work fine without them actually being modelled because one of the models hadn't been uv mapped yet. i had forgotten all about my fish aliens rig. second image is of my jellyfish spaceship with added turtle turret which i made as a joke but it made it look pretty good. the third image is of my interior which was easier to model than both my fish alien and my jellyfish spaceship but took alot longer to uv and texture.