Saturday 26 April 2014

So the Easter holidays are over, which can only mean one thing - UDK deadline on Monday! I've spent the past 3 weeks crying on my keyboard because my alphas aren't working or there's a ridiculous issue where my materials aren't importing. So yeah, it's been a pretty 'fun' three weeks to say the least.

 I really enjoyed this project as we hadn't done too much work within UDK before, so it was nice having some time to myself to figure it all out. It was also really nice to be able to experiment with new tools and revisit previous projects - and even create new assets to add into the scene. The collision meshes were hands down the most simple part of the process. I encountered a shed load of problems when importing my textures, half of the time they would't work or they'd just choose not to import. I assume this was probably something to do with my lack of knowledge using UDK, but after a few YouTube videos, I solved the issue and FINALLY began building my scene!

There's a few bits I want to fix up on this scene, which I'll revisit over the summer and hopefully get a better understanding of the program. I thought learning how to use 3DS Max was difficult...this is something else!

UDK? More like UDNay
17:42

UDK? More like UDNay

Tuesday 8 April 2014

So yesterday was what I'd class as my 'day off'...coincidentally it was also the release of The Hobbit: TDOS. Pretty self explanatory as to why I chose to have a break.

I rushed down to my local supermarket to buy the copy that contained an exclusive Lego set - I am 18 I promise you - who wouldn't want a Lego set at 18 anyway? Pfft. 
It only took me about 5 minutes to build however I'm sure it hit a number of childhood memories and the rest of my day was filled with all sorts of nostalgia. I spent the rest of the day watching Rugrats and playing Spyro and Uncharted. Okay, so Uncharted really isn't that old...but I haven't played it in ages so a good ol' catch up was in order. I really have missed the witty banter in this game. 

 [Nate, Sully and Elena push open the grating off the well] 
Victor Sullivan: Well, well, well- 
Nathan Drake: Ha-ha. That's cute.
Elena Fisher: What?
Nathan Drake: Because it's... a well.

It's worth giving this clip a watch - from 1:22 - just so you can hear the above quote in action. Possibly one of my favourite cutscenes however my mam didn't seem to find it nearly as amusing as I did.

Lego-Legolas (ha ha)
LEGOlas
06:23

LEGOlas

Wednesday 2 April 2014

So today we had the first game art conference for this year! I wasn't sure what to expect as we'd only been told about it a few weeks ago - even then we were only told we'd be having a day in the library to help us out with blogging. The element of surprise was quite nice though as it left everyone guessing about what was going to be happening on the day...

 So today consisted of a variety of lectures that were specifically designed to help us on specific areas of writing skills. There was a number of sessions we could choose to attend; some may have been recommended to us by the CS team. I attended the following:- 
  • Word art: using words creatively
  • How to write when you don't want to write
  • Your blog as a conversation with experts

and finally

  • Confidence building for success


 The first session was really fun as it was rather interactive and involved working in a team with people I wouldn't normally work with. We were given the word 'animate' and had to think of words starting with each letter that related to game art. For example, for the letter 'n' we had nGon. Nasty things. *secret link* 

We then moved on to analyse an image the lecturer had given us. In this exercise we basically had to write a paragraph on what emotions the piece portrayed, how it made us feel/react etc. All of the artwork analysis' I did at college are coming into practice once again! This was then turned into a very basic blog post and was helping us understand what methods we could use if we're ever stuck on what order to write things.

 Following on from this first session, I stayed for the next session which was 'how to write when you don't want to'. I had so much fun in the first lesson so this turned out to be not as exciting :( I still found it really enjoyable and helpful though as I was given a hell of a lot of useful information that I'm sure will help me in the future. This involved being asked questions on why we thought we couldn't work. Lack of motivation? Fear of failure? Too many ideas? Tiredness? These were all but a few questions on our 'Why I can't write...' checklist. We then did a 5 minute free writing task about why we chose to study game art at DMU. This was reeeeeaaally cool as it was literally banging out words without having to worry about punctuation (welp).

 After a short break we were put straight back into action - the next session being 'your blog as a conversation with experts'. To cut a long story short, this session covered referencing and was super useful as after blog assessments I had a few pointers saying that I needed to reference as I was going along, using citations, rather than compiling a huge list of links at the end. We did a few tasks that involved plates and cutlery, so immediately we all thought we'd be eating food. How wrong we were... 
The task we were given was to analyse a piece of writing using the skimming, scanning, scouring, surfing, and another one which I can't for the life of my remember what it was...oops. We then had to write questions and criticisms on said plates about why the writer has chosen the points he has, and what he could possibly do to make it a teeny tiny bit better.

 Finally, the last session I chose to attend was 'confidence building for success'. This session involved a small group of people sharing ideas on what helps them with academic confidence, what areas they could improve on and how they're planning on doing so. This session was absolutely awesome and was definitely my favourite of the day! There was only six of us in the room, so it was really interactive and involved us analysing certain processes we were confident in doing, and if we weren't, what we could change about it. There was also a short task in which the whole group had to stand up and throw a ball at each other. The person with the ball had to answer two questions 'what have I learnt about myself since starting at DMU?' and 'how could I show others that I'm more confident?' after they'd answered, the ball was then thrown to someone else until everyone was sat down again! 
This particular session was so much fun and the tutor really helped too, he was really enthusiastic about what he was teaching us which really helped us all to engage. 

 A second finally...
Us first years were then taken back into the lecture hall and had an evaluation of the day and conference close. This was more Chris and Mitch showing the awesome art work they'd done in their sessions. I'm sooooooo sad that I didn't attend these *cry face* because they were looking at 'The Last of Us' and the group were given words related to the game to create a basic storyline for the film adaptation. Kind of playing the role of an art director... A story was then chosen and Mitch did a quick concept of the story written by a student - and I must say, it was bloody awesome, which makes me even more sad about not being able to attend! 

 Gah.

 Anyway, overall I had a brilliant day and I've definitely taken a lot in and am able to know just how to improve my writing. There's probably a load of words that don't make sense here, add an 'm' in somewhere. This keyboard doesn't work properly. *sigh*





Game Art Conference 2014
11:04

Game Art Conference 2014

So one of my favourite bands released a new album this week! It's so amazing that I thought I'd write a short little post on one of the poems that appears in a certain song. The song is called Cannons is is freaking amazing anyway but the fact it has a poem read by Bill Nighy at the end just makes everything that little bit better. 


I'd recommend listening to the whole song, but if not, skip to 4:18 to hear the poem. If you're interested I'd also have a read of this - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/kaiser-chiefs-and-bill-nighy-write-modern-day-antiwar-poem-for-the-world-war-one-centenary-9174405.html - too as it explains the story behind it and what sort of effect it might have on different listeners. 

Hooray for new music!
Education, Education, Education & War
08:39

Education, Education, Education & War

Tuesday 1 April 2014

So I've been sat here for what feels like hours - probably about 30 minutes - editing and uploading my life drawing work in preparation for Friday. Scary stuff. It got me thinking about just how much I've improved in the past year of being here, though. I'd done life drawing once before at college and really enjoyed it, but it was only for one lesson, which lasted little over an hour (sad times).

Anyway, yesterday was my last life drawing of first year! It was such a fun lesson and involved the usual 2 minute/opposite hand/blind contour drawings but this time we got to choose what medium we wanted to use. I decided to be boring and go for pencil and fine liner pens. 


Soooooo, the image above shows a couple of warm up sketches in my first life drawing lesson here at DMU! I kinda felt like a deer in headlights at first as it was really a whole new experience and I was surrounded by people I didn't really know. The rest of the year went past in one big blur - way too fast for my liking! 


Swiftly moving on, these three drawings are what I produced in yesterdays session. The two images above contain a variety of different warm up sketches. The left image has blind contour drawings - which I must say I can see the biggest improvement in. The first one I did looked the model had crab claws and no neck. I might attach a photo if you're lucky and fancy a laugh. The image on the right contains longer poses, I think these ones were around 5 minutes? I used a fine liner and pencil for these and looking back at the outcome from the first lesson I can see that my understanding of proportion has improved quite a lot, and rendering in general.


This drawing is a 'sort of' final in which the pose lasted for 35 minutes and was probably one of the most challenging poses for me yet. Don't get me wrong, I love a challenge, but I'm pretty sure I had to redo the head about 8 times because the position was off. :(  I almost managed get the hang of it, but I decided to start shading the body instead, much more fun. 


Well I suppose I did say I'd include the God awful blind contour....here goes...



Sic Parvis Magna? Hmmm...
12:26

Sic Parvis Magna? Hmmm...