Art Direction

Art Direction in games is very important; its main purpose is to immerse the player into the games world. This is done by setting up scenes in the environment, and using colours and textures correctly to convey a certain mood/atmosphere.

An Art Director basically crafts the desired feel for the game and is responsible for how this is communicated to the player. Making sure that from every possible angle environments are correct. They are basically responsible for everything in the game, the presuuure…

A good example where art direction has a great effect on the game is Fallout 3. The environments are very Grey and dull with rubble from destroyed buildings littering the landscapes, subways which are dark and gritty creating a very threatening atmosphere.

The game is set in 2277, 200 years after the nuclear apocalypse. Washington D.C has never progressed passed the 1950s.

However without even knowing the story, just from playing the game you can tell where and when you are. Particularly with the use of propaganda posters - which have a very distinct Art style from that era. Also all of the buildings and assets in the game world all look as if they have survived from a 50s apocalypse

Another good example is Red Dead Redemption, when im roaming the West on my trusty steed there was not one occasion where the surroundings did not look absolutely stunning. Hats of to rockstar.

Environments, props, textures, colour, lighting – all decided by the art director. The use of colour is very important. Colours can be assigned to characters and environments to convey a certain message/feeling. This is also very similar in film as art direction helps a film to develop its identity. Creating a unique style to distinguish itself from other titles.

Although Art direction doesn’t necessarily make a good film, acting, script and story line are generally more important, it could just be a bad film that looked nice. I often remember certain scenes from films purely from a visual perspective.

I think the art direction in Wall – E is amazing. This film relies heavily on visual ideas as there is very little dialogue between the two main characters.

The contrast between a destroyed Earth covered in towers built with rubbish to the pristine spaceship with technology controlling everything. In this way an Art Director working on a Game is very similar to the same position working on a film, as they will have to make the same decisions based on artistic judgment.

The main difference in art direction between these two mediums is that where a film is a 2d image where the director can force the viewer the information, a game has to stand up against a fully playable 3d environment.

So is art direction for me? Well I do like art :P but what skills would I have to develop to accomplish a career in this area? Well I think already having a good eye in spotting techniques which games and films use, so that they can then be used in suitable situations within games. Knowing the atmosphere and creating a suitable environment to fit the scene.

Art directors should also have good communication skills due to their position leading a team. Even if they have the right ideas, but cannot convey their message correctly, then the outcome may not be as good as the directors intensions.

Assessment numerous 2

What a fucking waster

Well reaching the end of semester 2 and the end of the year, it was once again time for assessments. The one thing I was glad about was that my work wouldn’t have to be presented in front of the first second and third year game art students. I think I might have died.

The day started off in the labs, working on my gun project as the deadline was that day (managed to finish with plenty of time to spare and actually write a half decent design document)

I was surprised that people were being called in in alphabetically in order of FIRST names. Which meant I had like no time to upload my work to Facebook. I was still editing pictures before my name was called and I was summoned into room 8.7.

I’ve progressed slowly but surely in game production which is nice to hear seeing as I was close to dropping out of the course at the start of the year. I’ve felt my work on 3dsmax improving over the year gradually becoming more comfortable with the software. Although there are still a lot of things I don’t understand. But over summer my aim is to go through all of the tasks on blackboard and bring myself up to scratch, and also not to forget how to use max over the ridiculously long summer.

After this was Chris’s turn. Honestly I’ve been a bit of an idiot this year. Finding it difficult to find the time to keep up with the workload and I wasn’t at all surprised with the outcome of – I need to do more work, or I’m gonna fail! So I’ve got 30 days to catch up and so far so good. My aim – to complete at least 1 or 2 pages a day which should hopefully bring me up to date, hopefully. Oh and take Chris’s advice about my habits. If you’re reading this, yes I am gonna cut down, and not let it become an issue. Get high AFTER I’ve done work.

Things just got worse from here. Over the year ive been neglecting the blog, and to no surprise I ‘achieved’ a fail grade for that. Sorry Mike. Not only have I got to complete the mandatory tasks but I only wrote about lectures once in the whole year. So im gonna try and catch up on this too.

I can tell its going to be a nice relaxing Easter. Hahaha nooooo chance. Ive really got to work my arse of if I want any chance of staying on this course next year, which I really do even though it may not seem so at the moment. But I do, really. I need to sort my priorities life out.

New Games Journalism

There are lots of different types of Game reviews/reviewers. Whether it’s published in a magazine, video reviewed on a website or posted to an internet blogging site. All reviews strive to the same purpose, to analyse and criticise, usually ending in something out of 10

A term for this is ‘New Games Journalism’ which incorporates any material which has been created as a response to a games experience. This can include the gamers thoughts about its playability, experiences within the game world, interaction with other players online and even the gamers anecdotes.

So, this week’s task - to review a review, very inception like! Except without all the guns and mindfuck.

I guess I shall start with this article from eurogamer ( as it is the most amusing)

A review of Project Gotham Racing 3, by boomboxdan

He does point out at the start that - ‘this is my first review so go easy on me!’ but I’m sure he won’t read this so… let’s not. The first thing I noticed when reading through was the complete lack of correct punctuality, making it awkward to read, and his opinion less valid :P also ending sentences in, ‘and all that’ just seems a bit half arsed, and all that…

I found it amusing when he was talking about the how good the visuals of the game are, and as further evidence, ‘his two mates, Woody and Scott’ also agree, which means they must look good! Using technical specifications in this situation would have been much more appropriate, rather than opinions from his friends.

However this is just a consumers article so it does not have to stand up against a professional review which would be expected to meet much higher standards. Hey, it’s not like he’s getting paid for this shit. But it is however a good example of NGJ

There are opinions that NGJ is affecting sales magazine companies such as PC gamer. Magazines are used primarily for looking at games to make a decision before you buy. Kind of like a catalogue for games. However why pay £5.99 for someone’s opinion when you could go on the internet and find this information for free! I guess if you’re a fan of glossy pages, and the cds with game content and patches may swing it.

(I remember I used to get my mum to buy them for me, but the cd’s used to just pile up in my room, and then I discovered that pretty much everything is on the internet!)

So where do professional reviewers earn their money from?

Well let’s use PC Gamer as an example. Their articles are typically written by in-house editors and free-lance writers, publishing the final product monthly. Earning money from advertisement and sponsors but mainly sales.

PC Gamer also has various websites, forums and even blogs which help advertisement.

The company has worked its way up to becoming the bestselling PC game magazine in its respective countries (UK & US)

I think that NGJ is good in the way that it allows anyone to express their opinion and also make a name for themselves and be recognised against their peers for something which they presumably enjoy.

However to some extent yes it can have a negative effect on professional companies which review games to provide writers with an income. But if these companies adapt to the situation and provide fans new ways to enjoy their product, such as blog writing then NGJ won’t be so much of a threat to the larger more successful publications.

Trip to Bradgate Park

The aim of going to Bradgate at the end of the year as our final project from visual design was to show how much we have improved (or should have) however as I was probably too hungover last time (sorry) so i missed the first trip there and never found the effort to go.

We got to the bus station but couldn’t for the life of us find C14, our desired stop. But after lots of confusion and a sandwich we eventually found it.

I was stunned by the park, and also by the prices in the café (£1.60 for water!! What a rip, but as I was hungover I gave in, desperately needed water)

We got a few sketches done but it was way too windy. Seriously need to invest in some clips for my sketchbook so it doesn’t flail everywhere whilst I try to attempt work. eventually I surcame to taking pictures . Heres a couple of prep sketches I did that im particually proud of. My final at the moment a WIP from this image. I started the final sketch there and I plan on using this image to fill in the detail.

The day did turn pretty catastrophic at the end however. We knew the buses came over hour but not sure when. But wating at the bus stop for 40 minutes I started to get a little suspicious about wether or not it would come. So I decided to ring the travel company for the bus times. After describing where I was and where I wanted to go, I was horrified to hear the woman respond ‘sorry no buses till tomorrow morning’

Oh, shiiiiiiit…

So great, stranded in Cropston, 8 miles away from home, cold, tired from walking the whole day, penniless due to a pint of Peroni and it was getting dark... I need a cigarette. We contemplated walking, hoping we’d get picked up on a dual carriage way by traffic police. Luckily I was meant to be going round my friend’s house from Leicester of uni, i got a phonecall from him as at this point it was getting late. I explained the situation and he agreed to come pick us up, yessss. Just had to wait another hour for him to come find us.

Heres just a few of the photos I took from bradgate.

Weapon of Choice – Final submission

Unlike previous projects, I decided this time to stay on top of time so I didn’t have to rush things before the deadline, so the day that our gladiator project was due, that night I got started on my weapon.

I first tried to model a L85A1 rifle but due to the limited tri count of 700 tris, I thought I should do something a little easier like a handgun, so I chose a M1911 Colt instead. That night I pretty much finished the basic model and here’s what it looked like. I was pretty pleased with this, particually with the geometry around the barrel of the gun. All of this was modelled in the side view port and I had to pretty much guess the width of the pistol.

In hindsight I should have really made something a little more complicated/interesting. Looking at other course mates work, I liked the idea of taking an existing weapon than conceptualising it changing geometry and adding crazy shit, but hey ho nevemind.

After modelling the weapon, its time to UV unwrap! Yaay. Well actually seeing as I can do this now it wasn’t so much of an issue. Barely took any time at all. This is my finished texture sheet and imho I think it the best one so far. Not in the way of layers, textures and colours but maximising efficiency on the texture sheet.

I did struggle to find suitable textures for the gun, hunting around for black metal proved difficult so in the end I played around on photoshop until I came up with something which vaguely resembled the real thing (im still not great at texturing, particually on my gladiator model which I will upload at some point, I just hate it so much! Visible seems everywhere) but heres the final product anyway

Finished this project with plenty of time to spare, so for the rest of the lesson I got to play COD, good timesss!

Transit Van project - final submission

Well finally finished my transit connect project, the task – to realistically model and texture a For Transit Connect, whilst keeping within a Tri and texture budget.

Specifications:
Tri count – 5000
1 1024x1024 Diffuse map for exterior
1 512x512 diffuse for interior
1 128x128 texture sheet for lights
I used 4298 Tris, and 1 of every texture sheet allowed.

This is a final render of my van, looks alright eh? Well I like it, I’d employ me!

I felt this project helped me a lot as im gradually becoming more and more familiar with 3dsmax. Particually in this project I’ve felt my unwrapping and texturing skills have improved. With help from Mike (deserves a medal because of his approachability and the amount he’s helped me and others on this course) he showed me an easy way to unwrap assets using the planar unwrap. Rather than my first attempt at using flatten mapping and trying to sort out all of the millions of tiny little planes.

These are my final texture sheets for the exterior and interior. Trying to find suitable Transit connects parked in the open, not in dark places and not driving around proved surprsisingly difficult. Eventually I did find one that I could take pictures of, although I was being glared at by the builder who I assumed owned it.

OH and I also took photos of the DMU transits until I got harassed by security and was told ‘I cant do that’ jokes on them though as the number plate on mine is from one of their vans haha.

Not gonna lie, I did run short of time in this project (work handed in 5 minutes before the deadline) also I had to allow time at the end to write a design brief. This resulted in me not being able to add any specular maps to the Transit therefore all the different parts on the van (wheels, metal, sponge) were the same material and all as shiny as each other. But overall, I think this project went ok J

Lectures - week 16

First things first: writing a blog at 3am( typical student) Not sure if its I’m just high and I’m gonna regret typing any of this at all. WELL… Generally speaking lectures this week have been pretty awesome, my favourite actually being the critical studies lesson on Wednesday with Mike. It was nice to just sit around a table with my fellow course mates, chill and just discuss the course.
Well as the game production lessons are often my most dreaded as I have to come to terms with 3ds Max, this time I was actually able to be productive and start my van (project) However at the of the start of the lesson I did have one of my usual panics thinking “how the fuck do I do this!!!” This was my first attempt at creating a low roof van.

To make this monstrosity i used the side view port a textured plane of the van, created a line around this, extended the width accurate then filled the gaps. TBH, it’s aweful… but after a sneaky peak at the guy on the computer in front of me I learnt a new technique which worked out amazingly well. using the vertical view port on the image, making the model transparent and creating small planes over the textured image I was able to model the van relatively realistically, without it looking like a box with wheels (gave up on this before I even bothered to add wheels)

My second attempt thus far also with interior ^ And oh my what's this!? It actually looks like a
van!!?

Tuesday – trip to the pumping station. This was fun, except the epic long walk to the place. Oh and being hungover! The pumping station is actually closed but after apparent months of persuasion it was re staffed and we were able to looking around, but only for 3 hours before we were kicked out. Inside was interesting looking at all the machines with the variety of complexity and size. I found it easier to work from objects which were alien to me.
Before this we did have a quick life drawing session. Was nice to be able to do this again (long time since A level art) however there were waaaay too many people in the session and as a result I could only see from the waist upwards. But theres still plenty more sessions to come.