Reflections

Well I guess the best place to begin is the group project, damn I could probably speak about this forever, but not neccessarily for the right reasons :P

Well it definatly was a challange, and regardless of the bits that happend in between the beggining and the end, the end result isnt that bad, and could quite easily become fairly successful.

Even if people keep their view to leave it dead, it was definatly worth while, if anything just for the verification of who I am and what I can do.

I would say that on a production level (assets etc) I wasnt in any way producing what I could, or what I should have been, my time and effort was to plan ahead and dodge the short falls which were inevitably going to happen, keep the falls shallow rather than HUGELY DEEP :P
Ive had to fight with myself, seeing what I have model wise and judging myself by that, its difficult to feel good about all the work that you physically cannot show, keeping your cool has never been difficult for me, but that doesnt mean that during the project i havent wanted to give people the "commen sense backhand attack", you kind of assume that people have a similar mind track to you, its only when people prove otherwise that you realise that some traits you have are actually special.

But I have a new found respect for the tutors, not that I never before hand, but more a case of understanding the more minor issues, and even though they may be minor they carry the same weight as any of the major issues.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make it drink

that pretty much sums up the entire project, Ive always been a person who over thinks, it took me a long time to keep taps on it, and not get caught up in thought loops which inevitably end up in unproductive projects.

But its not perfected, i definatly got caught up in one!


Communication - There wasnt any, regardless of my efforts, there wasnt any, if you read this gang, you seriously need to pay more attention to your communication, I know its a tricky one, if we generalise our class by our course, were all ghostly pimply geeky nerdesque people who nasal giggle to each other and piss our pants when were anywhere near a girl who smells like roses.

But the sad truth is that the majority of people on our course can quite happily chat to one another to some extent, but when it comes to communicating proffesionally are terrible!!!


Attendance - This one closely ties in with communication, we set out to meet up each and everyday between 11-12 to keep tabs on each other, look through work and chat about what assets need to be done, wether assets needed fine tuning etc etc
First couple of weeks were O.K. with only 1 or 2 being gone here or there, there were issues but nothing that couldnt have been sorted.
11-12 is fair, you get time to lie in and when you leave around 1 you have the whole day.

But that obviously wasnt what people wanted to do, after being in each day between 10-11 until 2/3 usually, i eventually got fed up, at the time the computers were being a big pile of wank, thank you so much Novell Client for shitting on our Pc's!!!!!!

So around week 5 I broke, didnt come in for an entire week because why waste my efforts, that period of time kind of lingerd afterwards, i lost my interest entirely, and have only recently fixed my sleeping pattern back to normal!!!!

BUT

Them not coming in technically shouldnt have been an issue if there was communication, an online asset list, online art bible and tech spec, Blog, MSN to chat, email........everyone can be used without having to be present in the labs.

my brains is fried a bit to do with this ill update it tommorrow probs

Hand helds are the future!!!

Well the game developers conference was interesting, with one major thing sticking out in my mind being the Onlive!

I could see what the future held, why sell people disks, when they can "share" such disks in and around anyone they know.
The whole pirate scene with torrents, irc and all manor of "sharing tools" will never be silenced, the idea of hacking and breaking the rules is really enticing, weve all heard of "sticking it to the man" thats what it all kinda boils down too.

So the idea of disks and consoles are where pirating was born, the more advanced the security, the more advanced the console, the more thrill and excitement these bedroom hackers get from lol'ing at Microshit and Sony etc. The fustration they must feel when there prize and joy, which costs them so much to develope, is playing megadrive games ^_^ (love my psp XD)

So the obvious solution really is the buisness that we ourselves as game artists are going towards, soft products!

Why make a disk, then have to make one after the other for every consumer who requests that product, when software can be made once, and sold indefinatly via the internuts.

So the principle behind Onlive is we dont touch the console, we dont even touch the game, you no longer buy the actual game really, nor do you buy the console, you buy access.

Its all sitting at the other end of the cable but your account lets you access whatever, gone are the days of console only games being a bastard, you wona play both xbox and ps3, sure, its fine, but something tells me that it wont be that easy once this all kicks off.

But the fun thoughts behind this is what this Onlive will effect.

Consoles -
Well up until now the idea has been to make something that will play hard, play well, and look suuuuuuupppper SHINY to wrangle the consumer into buying their product

"ooo we can do this, on an they cant on theres"
and so started the fanboy rivalry, weve all seen it, an lol'ed hard at the patheticness

and the biggest concern, being cost efficient to produce and distribute (thats what you were meant to be thinking of Mr and Mrs PS3 developement team)

So now one of the biggest elements will fall off the table, thats alot of £ to put somewhere else, these "consoles" if we will call them that from now on, can be super machines if they want,
they dont have to be pretty,
they dont have to fit under your tv,
they dont even require much thort when it comes to cost effectivness, you can now buy the bigger shitter looking components, who the hells gona see them?

So no doubt the generation preceeding the Official kick off of this kind of hardware will shit pure gold onto your screne ^_^


Developers -
Weve all heard the percentages, developers get bout 8% i think it was from a game, so yeah they will make profit generally, but its not really anything to brag about.

They tread a fine line, and the most plausable way to stay alive is to stay safe, safe being FPS drivel and shitty other things which have been made to death...O BUT DONT SAY THAT, THIS FPS NOW HAS BULLET BENDING, THATS SO MUCH DIFFERENT TO BULLET TIME HONEST!!!!!

So.....could this be........inventive games........ARE GONA HAPPEN :O :O
Its going to be TOTAL SHIT

Sorry but with most things you aint gona start shitting gold right away, its on our shoulders to go in with new minds and help this industry, can you imagine what these developers will look like.

Bleeding fingers, ghostly face, knowing exactly how to make FPS drivel and the rest of the tosh the public ask for......then magically

YOUR FREE, YOU CAN BE CREATIVE AGAIN

*insert blank faces*
(millyseconds later)

Aliens with 7 arms instead of 6

* MONDOOOO OSLAP *

Itl be exactly the same as every 1st year organic/reef/other character project, the usual ideas, coming out in their usual ways, but BUT BUT BUT itl get there in the end, I just hope they realise how to make good fun exciting games in my life time

I double hope i get to make them XD

Hand Helds-

I recently purchased a psp, probably for the wrong reasons, but damn am I happy I got it!!!
Technology gets better this much by that time yada yada yada weve all heard alot about it, weve all definatly seen it, "TOP OF THE RANGE LAPTOP..(counts 2 seconds) THE NEW TOP OF THE RANGE LAPTOP"

The psp can emulate all the way up to n64 and megadrive.....*does shifty eyes* not sure how i know that but IT CAN!!!

So no doubt when the psp2 or whatever comes out itl be in league with Xbox an ps2, now the graphics an such on them aint bad, but itl look awesome on a handheld.

So is this the future of "consoles"?

WIth Onlive technically killing the Home console market, will all that shiny development money go into hand helds, will the extra money from games sales on Onlive go into hand helds?

With hand helds also having Wifi, and every other shop and or store having free Wifi, doesnt take a genious to link Onlive and hand helds also :P donwload the game, get a weeks activation or sumet = oooo

Weve came to the world in an awkward stage regarding the games industry.

Graphics was the thing that made a game up until a few years ago, then it just became more an more pathetic, games arent even really seen as art, being a game art student = rolled eyes an looks of disgust.

Will there be day when our ninja max skills will get chicks XD??"?!?!?

I think when Onlive and co start up, and real creativity hits the developers, that is our time to shine, to be seen as artists, weve got to shake off all this baggage we have lumberd with our "genre" of work.

and wev all gotta hack our psps to play mario........ ^_^

Blitz

Well it was a definate awesome event, wasnt exactly taken by the "critique", they just looked through work and never really said what was good or not :(

but the walk through the Blitz "labs" was awesome, got a definate feeling of "level", the bottum floor was smelly :P and the top had tonnes of awesome, and Jollian Webb (spelling) which multiplies it by ten bajillion.........i was told he drank vinegar to get the expression correct for trusim o_O an put his hand in boiling water to get the pain one correct...........



now thats hardcore!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But the most shocking thing on that day was the actual percent these bleeding game artists actually get......3.50 froma £30 game.........WTF

No wonder people are migrating to things like steam and direct to drive or D2D.
Avoid alot of these rediculous costs, 20p for a dvd disk.........so xbox and co charge $5 for a disk because its "Microsoft", blood money those bastards, as if they dont have enough money.........same goes to PS3..............even though they have no money......stupid ps3

btw, sony, please dont go out of buisness, i like the psp :P

Oooooo real art

Was awesome to see senor Paul Wrights work, especially in the flesh, seeing nicely arranged bubble wrapped art ready to be shipped was cool in its self,

but the easel one one side of the room, with ten bajillion messy tissues from correcting the oil paints, and it was "clean" by his standards :P

but hes a cool guy, very tempted to go to one of his workshops, just to talk about tone an colour with him, find out how he goes about things, theres seems to b a very basic theory behind it, but he just applies it well!!!

Paul Wright

So for Chris's project its painting in the style of an artist, an artist whos pics we can actually go and see.

Shockingly I was actually quite up for this and so after some searching, I came across a Paul Wright.

I liked his style because it was so blocky, I knew I wouldnt be able to handle clean painting, it just doesnt work with me. Colour wise its really varied, he gets alot of interesting colours into the face and yet they all match.

So after some hunting I got his site and sent off an email to find out if theres a way to see his work and chat about his style.

After doing that I researched some more, it was around that time I started to worry :P i found that he had been on the Rolf Harris Star Portraits program, and had been shown in all sorts of popular exhibitions and such, it was then that I thought that getting an email back is the most id get....

BUT

seems im going to meet him in his studio next week.....which is awesome, an actual art studio....ive got all kinds of pre-conceived ideas of what will be there, but i shalt see ^_^

Paul Wright

Blitz

Illness created a mood, fed up, but got a email saying been accepted by blitz for the open day.....now my minds messed up ¬_¬

Sculpty

Initial sculpt gif



Mid sculpt gif



Final sculpt gif?