End of Year Review

Before i started this course I wasn't sure what to expect. I had a brief concept of what a game artist did from images and videos I had seen on the internet, but I thought it mostly consisted of doing concept work in both digital and traditional form, which is what I was entering the course to do. So when I read the course handbook and saw the word '3D' I was panicking. I had no experience in working in 3D, I didn't know what software to download to practice on, I was beginning to question how a mortal even made a 3D model on a computer. When I had my first Lab lesson we were instructed to make a 3D model of a church. It took me about 4 hours, to make something that would take me 20 minutes now. I came away from that lesson wondering how I was going to succeed in this course if I couldn't even make an untextured 3D model. My next experience of 3D, a week later, consisted of making a dalek. I came home that night and moaned to my girlfriend. However I pride myself on the fact that I never give up. So I carried on hacking away at this juxtaposition of 3D geometry until I had in front of me, something that could almost be deemed as a dalek. After that deadline I walked away from uni feeling like I had just obtained an unstoppable tool, Knowledge of 3ds max. From then onwards I have loved making 3D models, embraced texturing with arms wide open and now I’m learning how to import my models into a game engine. I amaze myself sometimes when I’m creating these things, I find it so interesting, I’ve never understood computers, I'd never describe myself as a tech wiz, a year ago the process of designing assets for games seemed to be a technical magic I could never wield, and now here I am.

There are still a lot of things to improve in my 3D work. Not necessarily things I’m doing wrong, just things I haven't learnt yet that will improve the overall execution of my models, and I look forward to learning all the tricks and tools that will help me.

As I mentioned earlier, I came into this course looking forward to the traditional drawing elements involved in it. I Have been doing art courses for the last 4 years, and I couldn't be in a job that had no artistic element to it, it's what I enjoy, it's what I find interest in and more importantly it's what I'm good at. So this course is perfect for me, as I know it's definitely the next step for me to progress into a job I’ll love.

So far the elements of 2D work in the course have really fulfilled my artistic nature. Going out with Chris to draw parts of Leicester seems like part of a holiday as opposed to part of a course. To sit out in the sun and do what I love, creating artwork and learning artistic tools and tricks from Chris and Jack is my ideal work environment. However the amount of work is undoubtedly a struggle sometimes, and finding the hours to finish final pieces is especially difficult when I'm burdened With 3D projects on the side, which sucks because I naturally veer toward a steady pace when drawing my pieces of art.

Life drawing is new to me, which is most likely evident in the work produced from the lesson, Chris has told me I need to improve it. However I still really enjoy it and it's a great environment to experiment with drawing techniques and use of colour, as the human form is a beautiful thing to depict. Over all I feel as if I’ve learnt a lot from my 2D lessons, and I have produced some of my best ever pieces of work. I feel a lot more confident in drawing techniques and creating concepts from scratch and subsequently I now have a firm understanding of how and where art is applied into the games industry.

Critical studies has been enlightening. It has allowed me to delve into gaming history, look at the triumphs and turmoil of current gaming, given me an insight into the future of gaming, and reminded me how bad I am at presentations. Despite the writing and speaking aloud elements everyone dreads, I really appreciate the lesson, even though Mikes lectures are always short and sweet, iv still learnt loads about the games industry, which Is crucial if I want to go into the industry myself. The lessons allow me to look at all angles of game production, even delve into how games are perceived and reviewed, which then forces me to relate what I've learnt back to my own work, and subsequently improves my outlook on the things I'm creating.

Despite it going really quick, the first year has been very interesting. I've learnt a lot about the games industry and what's going to be required of me, now I just want to jump in and get started. However I've still got two more years to get through. Which is probably a blessing, as it will make me even better. 

Importating my work into UDK

Currently in the course i have made a vast array of game assets, from vans to trees. Now my task is too import all of these assets I've made so far into UDK, with the aim of creating an interesting scene. When the brief was initially set i thought it would be a 2 day job. However after i had made collision meshes for each asset and had started to import meshes such as my van into the scene, i began to realise how crucial it is that you take great care in the design process of these assets. Things that seem passable at the time will come back to bite you in the ass later down the line. For instance I had done a last minute job on the windows of the van, making them out of an opaque 3ds Max material rather than properly textured them as see through alpha channels. Subsequently it caused problems when importing it into the game engine because the default material i had used in 3ds Max wasn't compatible. So i then had to go back to the design process and do the windows properly. My own fault i know, but it's the best way to learn and now the van looks even better for it.

  After amending a few kinks in some of the assets, i imported and named every, mesh, material and texture and began to make my seen out of the random things i had created along the period of the course. However, it soon struck that the juxtaposition of all these assets didn't look very professional, so i created a whole of other asset... a street

Which meant that i could tie together the oddly arranged assets into a plausible scene.

With the addition of a basic sand terrain protruding into the scene, adding a method of zoning the area of so the player wasn't tempted to run of and the addition of a pool of water for aesthetics my scene was complete, and executed well i feel, based on the small amount of assets i had.