Review of Game Art Design, Year 1

Well, It’s been quite a fast hectic year, and I know I haven’t barely updated my blog at all like I said I would at the start of the year, but I’ve learned some lessons and developed my basic knowledge of 3D modelling and importing to a game engine, I’ve developed my craft in 2D visual design, and I can clearly see a big improvement from when I first came onto the course, I’ve met some amazing new people and even joined the theater society and did the end of year performance with them of “A Chorus of Disapproval” There’s been a lot of ups and downs but overall I think I do want this career in game art design. 

 

At the start of the year when I was first met with 3D programming it was quite daunting and overwhelming, but over time and heathers tutorials weren’t really helping me all that much and the ones on blackboard but thanks to the help of Mike Pickton’s YouTube tutorials and my 2^nd and 3^rd year colleagues they helped me to get my head around 3D a lot faster and better.

I’d like to thank them for what they’ve done for everyone in first year, we couldn’t have done 3D without you 2^nd and 3^rd years, especially Mike Pickton and Ben Keeling my main guru’s as they were. I’m really going to miss all the 3^rd years, they really helped us get settled in and were all really genuinely funny and friendly to us.

 I liked it more than visual design, because it was so fast and efficient compared to the hours of sketching for 2D visual design and then shading and rendering detail which took ages. The only thing I despise about 3D at the moment is texturing, it takes the longest amount of time and can really get on my nerves some times. After Christmas and with the building project completed I was completely in love with 3D game production.

But during the first few months of the course I had a huge problem with myself.

 

My procrastination issue which has haunted me ever since I started 6^th form college, I don’t know how it developed and gotten worse, why it had become this bad but I really need to put an end to it, even for the visual design deadline I was up 3-4 nights in a row doing all-nighters trying to finish as many projects as I could. Which was very idiotic.

I learned a lot about drawing and perspective as well as colours while doing the course as well, even if I did procrastinate a hell of a lot.

As for the social side of things, well let’s just say it didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, with me living at home I never really got to experience the full university experience with that being living on campus with people I’d never met before and going out with them to have fun and whatnot. I would have to walk for 30mins through a pretty crappy area just to get town. I hoped I could’ve gotten to go out a lot more with everyone but oh well. Life never goes to plan. But this made me decide to get a house with 3 of my fellow game art students, Ben, Kat and Findara for next year to experience what it’s like, which I’m looking forward to tremendously. It might be a hammer in my wallet but I think I

need this. To get out of my parent’s house and live on my own independently and sort of discover myself and develop myself as a person.

But back to the first year. I find that I didn’t really learn much through listening to Chris' lectures on drawing techniques apart from the perspective drawings, Instead I would learn by just constant work. Draw, and draw and draw on my own constantly and look at other artist’s and my friend’s artwork and see how they did it and then try to imitate the technique, I guess that’s how I like to do my art.

The one regret I have for this year, is again my procrastination, and just never putting my full 100% into any of the work I did, I couldn’t really bring my lazy self to pump out work using my fullest potential in any of the work I did.

But what I learned was to see only potential in work, no matter how good it is, it can always be better, not perfect, but better and I’m talking about my work ethic too, and how I plan and time manage things. I tend to work best in pressured conditions which might be strange but it really brings out the best in me.

I hope to change all the bad habits during this summer break and come back and completely own the course in 2^nd and have everything under control.

But aside from the bad things there were good things, I would always stay in the labs till around 8pm-9pm just to socialize and get my work done since I live far away, and then my dad would pick me up so I wouldn’t have to walk home in the dark. But I did go out on the group trips that were organized by our own game art Facebook 2012 page and had a laugh with the game art “crew”

I had some really great times with my friends here at Game Art Design and I hope I see all of them next year, and I’ll be on my game for next year definitely!

Here is a link of some of the work I should have posted up in the blogs.

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.113860632102353.20786.100004352501105&type=1&l=c99f78545e

  

Elements of Game Design Part 4: Envrionments

Here is the last part of the Elements of game design, and I’ll be discussing how environments influence atmosphere, immersion and how it’s designed.

Over the years environments have become bigger, more colourful, dynamic and 3D, and with better technology coming out each year, and with the benchmarks and visuals for big budget AAA games nowadays. They can create incredibly realistic, believable environments, breaking the boundaries between cinema and game play.

 Before it used to be just 2D black and white side scrolling games like Mario or Megaman on the Gameboy and NES but now we see huge new worlds, as seen in MMO’s like Tera, WoW, aswell as big AAA games like Crysis 3, Tomb raider, and upcoming releases such as Battlefield 4 and Call of Duty Ghosts for the new generation consoles.

Again, with the same principle as character but larger and more important in my opinion, the environment can make a scene moody and dull, to scary and atmospheric, to action packed and dangerous to really immerse the player into the game, even more so than the storyline and dialogue, It’s half of the immersion in my opinion.

MMORPG’s use environments as one of their main selling points for their games, the whole world is open for the player explore in, so it would make sense to be as entertaining as possible as well as tell a story through the environments, monsters, lighting and architecture.

Cevat Yerli, The CEO of Crytek talks about Crysis 2 in an interview with Gamasutra 

“The choreographed sandbox combines the freedom of Crysis 1, so you still have free-form gameplay, with choreographed moments that are interspersed into the experience. You have a more intense feeling -- a more action packed, intense feeling of a linear shooter. It's more accessible and more cinematic.

At the same time, you can use the world full of freedom; you can traverse it horizontally and vertically using the features of New York. The world is filled with objects that have logic behind them; you have cars, barrels, and breakable stuff that you can pick up and slap people with, and you can also have the intrinsic ability to play stealthily without the stealth suit.”

A lot more games are taking the Sandbox Free roaming approach to their games, as to let the player explore and go wherever they want, becoming part of this new world and escape the clutches of reality. And with items being dynamic and interactive it further increases the depth of the world of the game. I think more games should try and be sandbox instead of linear and story driven, mostly because it gives no opportunity for the players to fully absorb and experience the art, environment and atmosphere. It also increases the amount of hours of play the game can offer significantly, rather than the players rushing through the levels to get to the end. 

One of the first sandbox games I played was Super Metroid on the SNES, while it didn’t have amazing graphics, The combination of the charming art style and creepy ambient music really took me into the world of Super Metroid, I remember one point I was lost near the end of the game and I couldn’t find a way out of this maze and I cried because the music got to me and it was so creepy, like I would be stuck there forever. But hey I was about 8 years old back then haha

One of the more recent games I played was Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and oh god that was the scariest game I have EVER played in my life, the environment and the atmosphere of the broken down olden rotting castle, with the creepiest ambiance music and dark lit hallways in combination makes this game a fantastic example of how big environments can impact the player. The whole game was literally making me paranoid just because of the atmosphere even though I was fine, I was terrified there was something unknown out there.

http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/game_environments_design/silhouette-design-game-environments.php

The website here explains how some environment artists use silhouette designs to block out the initial ideas of their environments, It helps them focus on the shapes and forms as well as visual appeal without worrying too much about the details, colour or line quality, its all about letting the creativity and imagination flow through the artist onto the paper. 

I hope to see the day when environments are so realistic that they are indistinguishable from real life, though it might lose its charm that way but it would be an incredible feat and to go to the next big step, getting virtual reality right and making a fully interactive environment with touch and smells combined too. 

But that’s way too far into the future… Or is it?