Thursday, 29 November 2012

Wednesday 28th November 2012
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2 

Today my group went to the Stoke Campus, we had a lecture about progression routes and on interviews for our next step. We also used the library facilities, I took two books out, Maya Professional Tip and Techniques and Digital Sculpting with Mudbox. Iv'e taken out these books for reference and to help me model in Maya and Mudbox. Visiting the library has been a big help and an eye opener, the last visit wasn't successful due to the library being refurbished so we were restricted to the core collection and didn't have access to the main collect where all the up-to-date books were located.  

The lecture took 2-3 hours and I now have a clear understanding about the top-up courses. We also had a tour through the VFX and concepts design area with Jan. If I want to do this course I'll probably have to enter on to the second year as I don't think I'm ready for the third year. They are using software I've not used before like Zbrush.  

We are hoping to get a talk from a lecturer from Stafford about the games design course, to see if we can enter at the third year of the course. I have much to consider, wether I want to continue on with the entrepreneurship, the VFX course and enter the second year or the Games design course and enter at year 2 or 3.  
Wednesday 21st November 
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2   





I have created the Murmillo gladiator helmet, ussing images I have sketched and gathered. For the visor I will texture the detail on, if I actually model the visor it will use up my polygon count limit. The one side of the helmet is 927 polygons, the full helmet is is 1830 polygons. As long as I don't make my character to detailed I can leave the helmet as it is. I'm still yet to create weapons and armour, I plan to make them after I have created the body of the character, I think I get the body under 3,000 polygons which will leave me more than enough the create the rest of the gladiator.

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Wednesday 15th November 2012 
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2

I have begun sketching ideas and designs into my sketchbook, I have been looking at different designs of the the Murmillo Gladiator helmet, there are a few different styles of the helmet all having different patterns and reliefs on the helmet. For the actual model itself I will be creating it separate from the character model.    

dobe Web Photo Gallery. 2012. Adobe Web Photo Gallery. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.richandstrange.com/gladiator/g_murmillo/ref_images/index_murm.html. [Accessed 15 November 2012].   

ladiator arms and armor - a gallery on Flickr. 2012. Gladiator arms and armor - a gallery on Flickr. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/40060535@N05/galleries/72157622969274411/#photo_505942860. [Accessed 15 November 2012].

I have been using websites for reference, they contain a variety of images of gladiator armor and I will be getting books. 


}The Colosseum Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard (14 Apr 2011)
}Gladiators: 100 BC-AD 200 (Warrior) Stephen Wisdom and Angus McBride (17 Oct 2001)
}Introducing Autodesk Maya 2013 (Autodesk Official Training Guides) Randi L. Derakhshani and Dariush Derakhshani (24 Jun 2011  
}Maya Character creation: modeling and animation control  Chris Maraffi (11 Sep 2003)  


Wednesday, 14 November 2012

Wednesday 17 October 2012 
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2

The lesson started off with a seminar, we were debating for or against outsourcing. Outsourcing is a method where some processes in a project are handed to a third party. We were split into two groups and I was arguing for outsourcing, explaining the advantages of outsourcing. I researched into exactly what outsourcing is and how its used, I looked into different views of the subject from different people and I did find a lot of positive views.

3D world was my source of information, they have made a PDF called 'The outsourcing survival kit'. The document contained a lot of quotations from people who are in the new media industry of different nationalities.

. 2012. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://mos.3dworldmag.com/TDW108.f_outsource.pdf. [Accessed 17 October 2012].  


Thursday 8th November 
Exploring Specialist Pathway 2 

Todays lesson was focussed on the overview of the Module. We were given the choice of two different modules, a non-live live brief and a live brief. The non-live brief involved gathering a illustrated portfolio of information containing examples of interactive displays and visualizations. It also involves going to a art gallery/museum which has interactive displays or CGI visualization. With the findings I would have to develop a visualization or display that would suit a museum.

The choice I went with, the live brief which involves creating a 3D character of a gladiator with armor and weaponry. The design will be used in a Augmented Reality application for a museum, the model will be used with other CGI content. The character itself is restricted to 8000 polygons and will need to be textured, the texture will have diffuse, specular and bumped the size of the texture has to be 1024 X 1024 pixels). Animations are to be done in Autodesk Maya or inverse Kinematics motion capture or a combination of both.    

In the lesson I looked at different gladiator types, and chose a type I wanted to create. There are a varied amount of different types of gladiator all having different armor styles and each being paired against each other.

The type I chose is called a The Murmillo, the word Murmillo is Greek for a type of fish. This Gladiator wore a full helmet, one full arm guard usually on the right and a leg guard on the left leg. The weaponry was just a Gladius (40-50cm long) and a oblong shield legionary style.

Gladiatorial types. 2012. Gladiatorial types. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.durolitum.co.uk/gladtypes.html. [Accessed 08 November 2012]. 

The Murmillo - image courtesy of Peter Webb
I researched into the Murmillo Gladiator, looking into the variations of the helmet, some having reliefs on the top of the helmet and some varying in the visor.

Wednesday, 17 October 2012

Thursdays 11th October 2012  
Understanding the Media 2

I have modeled an asset for my environment as well as using assets from the Unity Asset Store. All I wanted to do was create a small plant to place amongst the trees and grass in the scene. I will be modeling a few more assets so I can get a bit of variety of vegetation in my environment, I want to create a few more rocks, plants and maybe trees although I can use the tree creator plugin for Unity to create trees.   










I also textured the leaf so it was ready to be put into my scene, I used Maya to unwrap and Photoshop to texture, I got the leaf texture from Autodesk Seek. My lecturer told me of the site and explained what it was and I will be using the site more often for textures and maybe for assets.

Autodesk Seek: xfrog inc : greenworks organic software, AG17 Spinacia Oleracea Spinach, Spinacia Oleracea Spinach, manuf(revit, autocad, Applications, Specifications & infomation). 2012. Autodesk Seek: xfrog inc : greenworks organic software, AG17 Spinacia Oleracea Spinach, Spinacia Oleracea Spinach, manuf(revit, autocad, Applications, Specifications & infomation). [ONLINE] Available at:http://seek.autodesk.com/product/latest/agg/xfrog/xfrog-inc-greenworks-organic-software/AG17. [Accessed 11 October 2012].


I'm still currently trying to find a better way to create the water for the river, as I have stated before most of the ways I have viewed on creating realistic water requires Unity Pro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sVvs6R4WTs
Unity 3: New Pro Water Feature - YouTube. 2012. Unity 3: New Pro Water Feature - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sVvs6R4WTs. [Accessed 11 October 2012].   

However I have more progress on my scene and completed the waterfall, and most of the close area around the waterfall. I have added my own assets as well as assets form Unity, I have added more rocks around and in the river. 

Thursday, 11 October 2012

Wednesday 10th October 2012
Understanding the Media 2 

In todays lesson I have concentrated on making a waterfall for the environment, I want to make some features for the jungle a waterfall being one of them. In the Unity project file there is already a present particle effect for a waterfall, all I needed to do was alter the setting for the waterfall to suit what size I wanted to create.




I did create multiple particle effects for the waterfall to make it larger and to give the effect of it falling from different points on top of the cliff. For the bottom of the waterfall where the water hits the water surface and rocks, I used the waterfall particle effects again to create the water smashing of the rocks and down the river, this part still needs a bit of work because the river. The river doesn't look realistic, I'm using Unity's simple water script and all the textures that come with it, the problem is that the water looks extremely poor up close, but from a distance it doesn't look that bad. I have looked into finding different plugins for Unity to obtain a better package for water, a lot of the resources I have found only work on Unity Pro and I'm using the free license of Unity.

UNITY: License Comparison. 2012. UNITY: License Comparison. [ONLINE] Available at: http://unity3d.com/unity/licenses. [Accessed 11 October 2012].  


Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Thursday 4th October 2012
Understanding the Media 2

I have carried on developing trees for my game environment using the tree creator in unity. As well as creating trees with the tree creator I also intend to download assets from the Unity Asset Store, there are a large variety of assets available for free created by the Unity community.

Nobiax Free Plants by dactilardesign -- Unity Asset Store. 2012. Nobiax Free Plants by dactilardesign -- Unity Asset Store. [ONLINE] Available at:http://u3d.as/content/dactilardesign/nobiax-free-plants/2S8. [Accessed 04 October 2012].    

River Tool » Six Times Nothing. 2012. River Tool » Six Times Nothing. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.sixtimesnothing.com/river-tool/. [Accessed 04 October 2012].   


Unfortunately I was unable to download the assets into Unity because it is not the correct version, I did look into downloading the latest version of Unity but I was able to, the latest version of Unity requires the latest version of the Mac operating system (10.5). The Mac i'm currently using is 5.4. I will have to do download it on my home computer and use the assets there. 

I want to include a river in my environment and I have looked into how to do it and there is a river building tool available for download for free created by sixtimesnothing. I have downloaded it and unzipped it into Unity and used the tool, the only problem I faced was that the graphics card is unable to run the shader for the river tool so I can't build the river. 




I will overcome the problem by carrying on the project at home and download all the assets that I will need to complete the jungle. I will need to spend time on getting the water looking realistic because at the moment it doesn't look like water.  

Thursday, 4 October 2012

Wednesday 3rd October 2012 
Understanding the Media 2 

I have begun development on my project, I have spent most of my time using Unity 3D because I haven't used the program in a while. I have been experimenting with the tree creator, it generates a tree that allows you to heavily modify it.

 

Using the graph on the side bar of Unity I can add more branches and leaves linking it to different parts of the tree. Selecting different branches on the graph allowed me to edit that part of the tree, which locked the other branches and leaves stopping me from accidentally editing other parts.   

 

 The branches had rigs inside of the mesh, making it easier to move the branches into the shape I wanted. The rig had nodes spaced along which were  the edit points, I could rotate and move the rig the only option I didn't have was scaling it, that could only be done on the options in the side bar. The scaling was very specific to each part of the tree. I also looked at this quick tutorial to help me understand how the tree creator actually.worked.http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Components/tree-FirstTree.html 


 

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Wednesday 26th September
Understanding the Media 2 

 I represented my Presentation this morning, I have improved it by including a variety of sources and a wider range of of research. I included demographics, sales data and genre data. I displayed the data on graphics to make it look more presentable.   

Both years 1 and 2 were designated into 2 groups for a debate. We had two topics to debate which were 'Games are Art' and '3D Graphics have improved film'. My group were against 'Games are Art' and we were in support for '3D Graphics have improved film'.

We suggested different points for each topic, mainly concentrating on 'Games are Art'. My main focus for the debate was although I did make other points -

Photorealism is a recreation of the fake (falsehood)

I researched into Photorealism using New Media A Critical Introduction, and read the actual definition for Photorealism. Reality is not recreated only a photographic reality, reality seen through a lens of a camera. Digital simulation has not achieved realism, only Photorealism. I also looked for quotes to use in the debate to support the argument. I also looked into the idea that artists have no freedom with being creative in the games industry. Artists are given briefs which they have to follow and no personal influence is allowed, they are part of a pipeline.

I read into to particular example, a concept artist was given a brief, the project was to create an image of a mech-planet construction site. The brief goes into detail on what is required on the image, the colour palette is restricted to only cool blues with one additional colour to pick out the details in the image. I used this example to back up the argument by explaining that the artist has no freedom in what he is creating, he is restricted to two colours.  

I found a quote by Roger Ebert who opposes the idea of games being art.

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists, and poets. To which I could have added painters, composers, and so on, but my point is clear."

- Roger Ebert

I used this quote to support the argument, explaining that artists in the art industry don't consider games to be an art form. This quote being a perfect example of why game are not art, saying that no artist has ever been able to compare games with other arts.    

Looking at this argument it has given me a wider mind on the subject, I have always looked at it in a biased way and always believed that games were a form of art. But arguing against it I have had the chance to view the other side of the argument and see what other people believe and they have made some interesting points. The games industry pipeline is a long list of people who have been given a brief which they have to follow building someone else's vision.    

The next debate was '3D Graphics have improved film'. My group were in support of this idea.

My points for this argument were not as strong as my points in the last debate, I began by explaining that 3D has improved the entertainment value of films. Films like Transformers could not have been achieved without the technology of 3D graphics. The animations sequences being so seamless and the quality of the 3D being photo-realistic making a more successful impact on the audience.

I then described Bullet-Time, I began by explaining how the effects of Bullet-Time were achieved before it excited, the way it was created was by editing all the single frames together, the director could then generate the illusion of the freezing of movement and action. This was not very time efficient. Bullet-Time is a very fast way of creating slow motion and this technique is improving all the time as technology advances.   


Tuesday, 25 September 2012

Thursday 20th September 2012
Understanding The Media 2
This lesson I concentrated on gathering research for my presentation, I have changed my target market to Hardcore Gamers. The reason for me doing this is because I have already done research on this market, I also think this market is interesting, seeing trends and statistics on demographics and sales.

I have gathered a lot of information from the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) (The Entertainment Software Association - Home Page. 2012. The Entertainment Software Association - Home Page. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theesa.com/. [Accessed 25 September 2012].) . I have found this particular website very useful because it provides a lot of data on different areas on the games industry especially focusing on game player data, sales and genre data and economic data.

There is also a PDF that i have downloaded that provides sales, demographic and usage data dated 2012, it has a lot of essential facts about the computer and video game industry.
. 2012. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf. [Accessed 25 September 2012].

For my presentation I still need to include other sources to reinforce the data I have collected, I am aware one source is not adequate. I have done more work on my presentation, my presentation didn't include any research into market research so I have now included demographics on gamers including graphs on gender of gamers, genre of games and sale statistics on games. I have also started to include referencing in my presentation.

I still need to include examples of games industry work aimed at the Hardcore Gamer market and try and relate to my own project, I think that I have justified enough to why I want to create a 3D environment in my presentation.

Monday, 24 September 2012

Wednesday 19th September 2012 
Understanding The Media

The class presented their presentations on their specific target markets and pitched their ideas. My presentation was unsuccessful, I had totally missed the point of what I should have been presenting. I was still undecided on my target market. I only pitched my idea and only justified why I was going for the idea. I can't go forward with my idea without focusing on a target market.  

Todd went first, he went straight ahead with his target market, the target market being hardcore gamers. He will be creating a poster for a game, he will be creating 3D characters and then render it for the poster, the characters will be human and non-human characters. The genre he is going for is sci-fi and he will be using Autodesk Maya and Photoshop.

He looked into other sci-fi games for examples like Halo he also looked into excising games posters like Red Dead Redemption. His final aim is to composite his characters into a poster advertising a game.  

Jasmine's target market is children gaming/casual gaming. The platform for the game she will be creating is on Iphone, the game will be education, she said that these kind of games are quite popular and Neil said people have made a lot of money out of these kind of games.  The game will be aimed at 3 +, it will teach the basics to children like basic colours and shapes, trying to make the learning experience fun.  

She will be using a variety of programs to create the game, using Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop and maybe Adobe Illustrator.

Jamie has chosen 18-24 year old males as his target market, his idea is a first person shooter based on the Arab Spring. He has looked into games that are along the same lines of his his idea, games like Freedom Fighters and Call of Duty both being first person shooters.

 He also explained some of idea in detail, his UI will be based off social media sites which would sit well with his general idea linking it to the Arab Spring. A lot of communication during the Arab Spring was done across social media sites like Facebook. He has research into timelines of the Arab Spring on the internet, on the BBC news page.

Calum put forward his idea last, he will be creating a short cartoon aimed at the Family Audience. He has taken inspiration off Pixar and their animations. He said one possible character could be a mouse cursor with eyes, he wants to create funny entertainment with hidden themes that parents would understand, which would make it more entertaining target market he is going for.

He researched into different examples, he looked at a variety of cartoons and animations. Adventure Time, Simpsons and Futurama were a few he researched into all containing the entertainment that Calum is looking to create.

He will be creating the short in 3D using Autodesk Maya, he aims to render the animation with realistic lighting trying to create photo-realism.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Tuesday 18th September 2012
Creative Influences 

This lesson was just a general overview of the module. The main points covered for the lesson -

Assessments 1+2 - Assessment 1 being a negotiated and agreed proposal (1,000 words) and evidence to support a industry project that will enhance my progression plans. Research will have to include-

Research into progressions opportunities
Costing and Funding
Timescales and deadlines
Intending outcomes

Assessment 1 is worth 50% of the total mark.

Assessment 2 being a 2000 word essay on a movement, designer or artist that has had a significant impact on my specialism.

Assessment 2 is also worth 50% of the total mark.

Neil covered a lot of points at the start of the lesson on progression, what possible routes I could take after I finished the current course I'm are on. There are a lot of ways I could go for after I complete New Media.

Higher level education was suggested and a route that I am considering. Other people suggested internships, employment, Starting your own business and business courses, freelancing etc.

The class was given a task to complete after Neil had finished explaining progression. I was given a sheet to evaluate my practice. The sheet had some questions asking about what progression route I would be taking, what is the most significant thing i have learnt so far etc.

We then went onto discussing what an Eclectic Practitioner is, someone who is practicing as a certain profession but also taps into other professions. For example a 3D artist who teaches as well doing 3D. We listed a lot of different subjects a practitioner could be doing.  

Even though this lesson was just an overview Neil gave a good overview of what he expected from us in the module. I also think that this module will be extremely useful in helping me plan for my next progression route.

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Thursday 13th September 2012
Understanding the Media 2

This lesson I have to start thinking about a target market for a project. I also have to create a design brief for the project explaining what I am creating. I was shown a presentation on a few different target markets. The suggested subjects were -

Established Markets
Child cinema/games
Casual Games
Developing Markets
Family/Group Games
Emerging Markets
Developing World  

The established markets I think would be the easiest one to do, it involves Hardcore Gaming. This subject area would be one i'm most comfortable working with because I do a lot of gaming myself in games considered for hardcore gaming. I'm aware how elitist and competitive it is especially on the consoles (Xbox/Ps3).

One of the biggest issues in this area is the limited demographic, most of the games are aimed at males aged between 12-24 year olds. The games can be extremely violent e.g. (Gears of War, Dead Island). There are arguments for and against that violent games are a bad influence on the people playing them, especially the younger audience.

Arguments against violent video games making children more aggressive state that there is no connection between violent video games and violent behavior. And there are many studies to suggest the same idea.     

 "Psychological studies purporting to show a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful effects on children do not prove that such exposure causes minors to act aggressively."
— Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, majority opinion in Brown v. EMA/ESA

(The Entertainment Software Association - Games & Violence. 2012. The Entertainment Software Association - Games & Violence. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.theesa.com/facts/violence.asp. [Accessed 25 September 2012].)

But there are plenty of arguments to support the idea that violent games make minors behave more aggressively. Some politicians have called for a ban on violent video games as well.

MPs call for violent video game ban after Breivik claims that he "trained" on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Telegraph. 2012. MPs call for violent video game ban after Breivik claims that he "trained" on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - Telegraph. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/video-games/9272774/MPs-call-for-violent-video-game-ban-after-Breivik-claims-that-he-trained-on-Call-of-Duty-Modern-Warfare.html. [Accessed 25 September 2012].

Violent video game Call of Duty once more linked to high-profile mass murder | Mail Online. 2012. Violent video game Call of Duty once more linked to high-profile mass murder | Mail Online. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2153218/Violent-video-game-Call-Duty-linked-high-profile-mass-murder.html. [Accessed 25 September 2012].

Games in this area are usually franchise driven because the developers and publishers know the games will sell (e.g. Call of Duty 1 - 9 on the main series of the franchise and there are other games made on PSP and DS)    

For the project I want to create an environment in Autodesk Maya and I want to attempt to do something I haven't done before. I have done a lot of architectural projects in the past using Autodesk Maya so I want to avoid doing another one. One of my ideas is to do a organic environment, I haven't done anything organic in 3D before so i think this will be a great opportunity to do it. I have considered some ideas down for different types of environments, cityscapes, jungles etc.

http://conceptartworld.com/?p=14734 

I will need to look at using other software as well if I'm to do an organic environment. It will be challenging just using Maya, I will look into using software like Autodesk Mudbox. I haven't used Mudbox before so this will be a good project to learn how to use Mudbox.
 
Wednesday 12th September 2012  
Understanding the media 2  

Today I was given three tasks all set in Adobe Photoshop, since my skills in Photoshop needed improvement, i found this lesson much needed.

I was given three images and i was to manipulate and modify each one in different ways. The first image was of the Dubai cityscape. The task for this image was to add more buildings to the image using what is already available in the cityscape. I made a duplicate of the original image so if i had made any mistakes i would still have the original. I have used Photoshop many times in the past so i already had a method in mind on how i was going to add more buildings. Using the marque tool I selected a section on the one building then duplicated it.



















The second image was of the Taj Mahal, and for this task i had to remove all the people out of the image using the techniques that i was already familiar with. I used the clone tool to copy different places in the environment and cloned it over the people in the image.



















The third task involved a recent event of a 19th century painting, the Spanish fresco painting. A amateur spanish painter attempted to restore the painting but completely ruined it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19349921  
I had to try and restore the painting in Photoshop using the clone tool.    

Using the clone tool, all i did was clone the existing colours to fill the white spaces. I did have to refer back to the original image before the painting was damaged to get a better idea of what colours were used on his face and hair. Looking at the ordinal image did reveal that their is a crown of thorns sitting on top of the head which you can't make out clearly on these images.
 












I found these tasks quite interesting because i've never done this type of exercise in Photoshop before especially trying to repair a painting in Photoshop. The lesson was a great refresher for using Photoshop and i do feel more confident using Photoshop.