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I’ve had a really great time this year and I think that I’ve learned loads of skills that are good fun to put to use. Since this is the final formal blog task, it seems fitting to begin it by discussing the blogging itself. It’s been good fun and it’s really great to be writing things that you know people you know are going to read. It’s also definitely advantageous over writing an essay as everybody has their own personalised style and it’s fun to read peoples’ writings and watch it develop with each post. The blog tasks have helped me to gain a more focused insight into the game industry and although I’ve found some very challenging, they’re always rewarding upon completion.

Working with 3DS Max has been a challenge but an enjoyable one, however, it’s been made all the more difficult with the amount of hardware problems, so many computers have been down. Having to go through 5 computers in a row that don’t work is pretty demoralising when all you want to do is get your work done. More contact time would be very good as it’s helpful if you run into an unstoppable problem to have Joel quickly show you what’s going wrong.

The drawing side of the course has been very useful. I’ve learnt far more than I thought I would and the workshops and wire modelling classes have added a lot of variety and allowed us to learn new and original skills. It’s also been great going over the basics of drawing and I feel I’ve developed a more mature approach to the way I draw. I’d like us to be able to have more contact time with Chris and Jack as I don’t feel we can get quite as much personal tutoring with the class being the size that it is. I also really enjoyed our trip to Bradgate Park and the various sites around Leicester and I’m sure everybody else did too so more class outings would be great! As I said before, the workshops were really good so I think more work of a “hands on” nature next year would be helpful.

The lectures have been interesting and insightful and I’m looking forward to the idea of lectures on key games for next year and looking at film alongside games would be very helpful due to the cinematic direction that games are able to take with the development of technology so all these sound like good plans.

I’d like to see more games installed on more computers in the labs so everybody can get involved and interesting rivalries within the class can truly begin to flourish. Being able to have CryEngine 2 would be very, very awesome and getting Unreal Engine 3 as soon as possible would be great too.

I think I’ve covered all the issues I wanted to raise and I’m looking forward to next year, should hopefully be very awesome indeed.

Game Developers Conference... and the Zelda Rant

After browsing through the colossal list of different sessions, I think I’d like to look at Eiji Aonuma’s Reflections on Zelda for this task, mainly because Zelda is a popular and important franchise in the industry that other developers can learn from and also because I have my own reflections to add upon finishing Twilight Princess.

Aonuma begins by talking about the issues the franchise faced after the cel-shaded style used in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This style sent the franchise in a “gamer drift” due to it inadvertently sending the message that the title was aimed for a much younger audience. This was reflected in unsatisfying sales numbers and it was clear that the series needed to cater towards a specifically different market if it was to be successful.

The Zelda team came to the decision of a creating a realistic Zelda that would cater to a wider and more adult market and would also satisfy long term hardcore fans of the series. This decision was met with concern from Shigeru Miyamoto and he suggested that it would need to have aspects that varied from Ocarina of Time to keep the series fresh. He suggested being able to swing the sword whilst on horseback as a starting point, something fans had long since speculated upon. The introduction of the wolf transformation was also used to provide fresh and varied gameplay.

In my opinion, neither element is a particularly drastic change to the franchise. Twilight Princess feels very much like a remake of Ocarina of Time to cater for the dedicated harcore fan base that were disappointed with The Wind Waker. Due to it being a launch title for the Wii, the game was also introduced to the casual gamers enabling it to reach a vast market, a pretty nifty sales tactic which has been clearly successful.

The problem arises with the game itself. I was heavily disappointed with Twilight Princess in many areas and I think it fails to live up to what the team were trying to achieve. In short, I found the game painfully easy, each boss boiled down to being a simplistic puzzle that required no skill and there was never a sense of inherent danger or threat which totally cheapened the epic feel the game was trying to achieve. The usually frustratingly devilish Zelda puzzles seemed to have been simplified and were far too obvious. I felt the art style was far less consistent than that of Wind Waker, with blurry textures and overused effects such as bloom spoiling the overall feel.

I think that the art style in terms of character design has led to an emotional detachment from the characters. Link’s new look, although supposedly more “realistic” than his cartoony Wind Waker iteration, seems empty and lifeless like a doll. It calls to mind the Uncanny Valley robotics theory which revolves around the idea of humans having an emotionally negative response to robots or non human entities that are “almost human”, for example, scary Barbie dolls and almost life-like shop mannequins. The new Link is actually less human than his cartoony counterpart, WW Link’s cartoon appearance leaves more room for interpretation and draws greater emotional sympathy from the gamer.

Which one's the most "realistic"?

Other problems with the visual style can be seen right from the start, with the opening video showing Link riding across the plains on horseback as the sun sets. Random sunbeams arch down at near vertical angles over him when the sun is at the horizon line and as he rides to the edge of a cliff, it drops away at an unnatural angular gradient and the ground’s grass texture stretches down after it. Stuff like this is unacceptable in AAA titles, especially Zelda, one of the most venerable and best loved franchises in the industry. Maybe my expectations were way too high after all the hype, but I just can’t help feel disappointed with it.

Well… I’ve really gone off on a tangent there, and although I think I could keep going on about this forever, the rant is finally over. I feel much better now!

Personal Aspirations

I think before I go on about aspirations and goals and things of that nature, I wanna have a good ol’ reflection on the calming, serene world of game art design. *eye twitch*

I’ve really enjoyed the course so far, it’s been one of the best experiences of my life, but it’s been tough. I think this is mainly due to me being lazy and overestimating my ability to complete complex month long projects in ten to twelve minutes, but I’m working on it and trying to plan my time more effectively.

Art class has been really enjoyable and I do feel like my abilities have improved over the duration of the course. I’m still not anyway near enough to the standard I’d like to achieve and I’m finding a lot of the stuff we’re doing pretty tough but I’m going to stick with and set myself a few personal projects to be getting on with over the summer to improve my skills. I really need to know how to win against Photoshop…

The 3DS Max side of things has been a very tough but rewarding experience and I really feel that I’ve learnt absolutely loads of stuff. I’m definitely beginning to enjoy it now that I’ve learnt the basics and I don’t have to spend an hour recalling how to weld that vertex. In particular, it’s the mesh creation I have the most fun with. I still feel very inexperienced with the mapping and texturing side of things so again, summer practice is a good idea methinks. A little more technical knowledge and I think it should enable me to get a bit more creative and fun with the work I’m producing.

After this course, I hope to attain a job as games artist. I’m slightly worried as I doubt my ability to be able to pull this off, but with serious dedication I think I can make it. I’m happy to be going into a profession that draws together many of my life passions and it’s also very cool to be working alongside great people who understand the meaning of headshots and internet humour. By the end, I want to be able to create effective work proficiently both in art and 3D. I want to be personally satisfied with what I’ve achieved as that’ll allow me to take an objective stance when criticising my own work meaning I’ll be able to push for the best I can do. I also want a pony.

Week 20 - Creativity

Creativity, this sounds like a fun one. Obviously, being involved in the artistic side of computer games design is a pretty creative thing, us game artists should have creativity pouring out of our ears like beautiful rainbow waterfalls of great ideas. I suppose that creativity is the process used to create original concepts and to realise these great ideas as it seems that creativity and originality are closely linked. I think I’ll have to explore the subtle nuances of that relationship later on… Now, to the task at hand!

Creativity can manifest itself in pretty much anything people do. It definitely doesn’t have to be restricted to just art-based outcomes; it can be used to solve anything from day-to-day problems to real complex sciencey stuff. However, I think that creativity can only be properly explored when boundaries such as “problem-with-solution” are disregarded and a person is able to think in an almost entirely creative manner, such as forming works of art. This leads on to whether creativity is hindered by technical constraints or not. Whilst I think technical constraints will always hinder in some way, I feel that constraints cause a person to focus their creative abilities which lets them adapt and manipulate their ideas in a more effective manner. Everybody can have great creative ideas, but part of the creativity is getting them realised.

Now in terms of game design, I think each person involved “does” creativity. Every person, whether lead artist, programmer or coffee maker (he could draw smiley faces in the foam), is trying to help visualise an initial creative idea, they just have different methods of going about it. I think that every bit of input is a creative process because the game in its entirety is a creative outcome.

Just about every element of a game demonstrates creativity. It’s there in how it looks, plays, sounds and also in how it plays on your emotions. Certain games are atmospheric for a reason, for example, survival horror games. The environments, sounds and situations are all there to instil a sense of dread and that in itself is a creative choice. This player interaction is where the versatility of games enables creative aspects that I feel are restricted with other types of popular media, nothing else involves a person in a world of many creative possibilities like a game does.

There are lots of particularly creative companies in this industry and, unfortunately, lots that aren’t. But they suck! So we’ll look at a goodun; betcha all saw this one coming. Clover Studio! …oh wait, they were axed by Capcom. It saddens me deeply when something like this happens; they were incredibly creative in all aspects of their games. But it’s an industry in the end, it’s all about the sales figures right? Amirite?! ... Not to worry though, with plenty of other creative and talented developers on the go I think we’re in for a few interesting games. Since technical limits are being pushed with the powerful consoles and PCs and control methods are being revamped with the Wii, there’s no excuse for a lack of creativity!