OTM Post mortem

The Off the map project started on February the 3^rd and finished on may the 8^th and even though it’s only been three months it has felt like I spent a lifetime working on it! It has been enjoyable and at a times frustrating and boring but to be honest I am glad I took part in it because I have learned a great deal about myself and others. I have tried new ways of working and new techniques which have broadened my game artist tool kit.

This project is a competition sponsored by game city and the British Library although we are also submitting it as part of our second year project curriculum for DMU.  The theme for this year revolves around Alice’s in Wonderland exhibition in the British Library and we were asked to create an interactive experience which would fit into one of the following three categories, Oxford, the Gardens or the Underground. 

At first the tutors told us we would create a 3D side scroller game but after a general complain from most of the year they decided to let us do what we wanted. My group was composed of Jonah, Lewis, Carl, Andrew and Georgia and I couldn’t be happier because for the first time I felt that I had a good group and I knew we could achieve so much! And to be honest as individuals we are all brilliant but as a group I don’t think we work very well…

I feel that our first mistake was to go for an open world scene rather than a confined 3D side scrolling game. Personally I wanted to create a game similar to Child of Light or Limbo were the mood, composition and colour is what sells the game. I thought that it would fit perfectly with the Alice in Wonderland theme but most of the members in my group preferred a fully explorable 3D environment and so we decided to go for that.

Our first thoughts were to merge the Oxford and Underground themes together so that as the player walks through the city everything is realistic and as it descends into the underground everything would start to look a bit more wacky and surrealistic. This idea quickly disappeared when we realised that we had been too ambitious and so we decided to settle for Oxford. 

Then we went all out on oxford, we would include a quad and a river bank and a jabberwocky tree and a garden! Sadly this was all too ambitious as well and therefore we ended up with a street scene and a back garden with a well.  It felt that the initial spark we all had for this project faded out as the days went by…

I’d say that the main reason behind our lack of motivation for this project was due to poor concepting and planning of our level. We lost interest in it because all of our original ideas were gone by the time of hand in! I think that if we had properly planned a way to include all those initial features into a small scene, everyone would have been happier. Don’t get me wrong, the concepts for the shops were very good, that’s why they are the best looking elements of our level. Then I compare it to the initial concepts we had of the rest of the level and we had nothing relevant, they were too vague. We were building a level with no references. This led to different interpretations of the overall look of the level. It wasn’t until the last few weeks that we started concepting how we truly wanted the level to look like.

 Also, we got too caught up on making it accurate and realistic that we forgot to add our own interpretation of the world. Apart from the rabbit and the pickups, we barely have any elements that shout Alice in Wonderland!

So after a bad start we just got on with our assigned roles. I was in charge of characters and I am happy that at least the original idea of including a rabbit in our level prevailed throughout the length of the project. This was something new and exciting for me, I learned new ways of rigging, I learned how to animate both in 3D software and Game Engine and above all, I learned about the importance of good topology!

It was a lengthy process which consumed most of the project time but it was incredibly worth going through it as it has become one of the most important features in our level. The game starts when you see the rabbit moving and you feel the need to follow it! If I have to animate in future projects I know I would take half the time and I’d probably push it a bit further (facial expressions maybe?). I definitely want to learn a bit more about animation since there isn't a more satisfying moment for a character artist to see its creation alive!

 As I figured out how to animate a rabbit, the rest of the team focused on building the level. We were quick to block out the initial layout of the level and test some game mechanics but then everything just slowed down. I believe that not really knowing how the level actually looked like made everyone struggle on creating the assets. They either wouldn't fit with the style or the shape would be wrong or it just wouldn't be working for the level.  I think we spent a month and a half with a grey box for a level and at this point even our assigned tutors almost gave up on us. I can’t blame them, we just struggled to make progress and every week their feedback would be the same ‘Get things into engine, texture, and make sure game mechanics work’.

I think that the pressure to deliver just made us sink more and more and in the end we just wanted to finish this project and do something that we actually enjoyed. Jonah became the team leader out of necessity and I think he has done pretty well although I feel he would keep his true thoughts inside in order to not hurt anyone. I am certain that I bit more pressure from him would have benefited the team and make us work faster. But leadership is tough and keeping a team motivated and working requires a good balance of discipline and understanding.

Perhaps we should have talked to each other and made sure everyone was on the same page, especially the asset team. At some point I didn't even know how the level looked like or was meant to look like! So, yeah communication is a big deal, not only oral communication but visual as well, we’re artists after all, we learn more from a picture than words!

I can’t say I am pleased with our project because we could have done so much more…I am happy with my contribution though. The rabbit looks great although I ran out of time for the rest of the assets I decided to do. In terms of the foliage I had to be selective and choose a few items that were manageable with the time that was left and it is a shame we don’t have a wider range of trees/flowers.

Here are the main points I got from working in this project:

-          Concepting is the most important step on any project. Bad concepting will lead to a bad game.  Also, not any concepts are valid, they have to be relevant and give instructions to the modellers. They need to tell how the end product should look like. They don’t have to be complex paintings but they need to be clear.

-          Art Direction. This one is tied to my last point since I feel that if we had had some sort of art direction it really would have benefited our project. If someone just had commented that we needed a change on our level (which the tutors did on our project presentation) perhaps we would have ended up with a different result.

-          Leadership. People like to follow a leader even if that appointed someone is making terrible decisions. Someone has to do it and commit to their role and be strict if it is for the greater good (no need to be mean though). I’d like to become team leader on future projects and take on that responsibility and see if I am fit for that role.

-          Communication. Oral and visual. The team should know what they are doing at all times. Even when they are working on their own stuff, feedback can be helpful to make them notice mistakes that they would have missed otherwise.

-          Have fun! I think that when something drains your soul instead of giving you joy, that something must change. We started this project because it was fun and creative and we lost that emotion as we realised our level wasn't looking the way we’d hoped for. For future projects it might be worth to start the project again. Who knows, perhaps looking at it with a different set of eyes might turn it into something awesome.

And this is it, I don’t want to go on for too long... But just to summarise, I am happy I went through this experience because I needed to learn about my role in a team and how to become a better team player. I have acquired new technical skills and we made a game! I feel we need some fresh air and perhaps later on we’ll come back to it and polish it.

See you soon!

Carla.

Has technology killed communication?

Hello everyone, today's post will be dedicated to a presentation I had to deliver about a week ago for my Critical Studies module.

Has technology killed communication? In a world flooded by smart devices, have we lost the ability to talk to each other? Or is it just a phase in the evolution of our society?

It all started when I watched the video for Stromae's new single Carmen.

Stromae - Carmen

Its message is clear 'Don't let social media control your life'. After watching the video it left me thinking 'Has is grown to that extent?' and 'How far will it grow?'

Videos like 'Look up' by Gary Turk and 'IDIOTS' by Big Lazy Robot appear on our news feed from time to time to remind us what our society is turning into. They tell us to switch off from technology, to stop experiencing life behind a screen and to stay away from the social media giant. But is it really that bad?

Look Up - video

IDIOTS - video

To help me find an answer to this debate, I simplified some of the issues with technology into three different sections: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

The Good: Digital media connects people! That's why they were created on the first place! They give people freedom to express themselves. It makes possible to talk with someone across the world, it even allows us to meet new people. We have never been so close to each other. Why should we reject it then?

The Bad: All the content available to use can become overwhelming and at times we become too busy updating our online presence that we forget our surroundings. Sharing part of yourself and finding out that other people likes it can lead to vanity and turn you into someone you are not.

The Ugly: Being able to express your opinion freely means that any opinion is valid and hateful content can damage one's self esteem. And then there;s those who's online profile is so acclaimed that they become attention seekers. And worst of all, social technology takes away our privacy.

The reason we get involved with socializing online is to share part of our lives with those who are close to us. It is a fact that most people we interact with are our real life friends and family. It makes sense that in a world moved by technology, our communication with each other will be influenced by it.

Does that mean we will become alone someday?

Online friends can't hurt your feeling whereas real life ones will. By losing that attachment to people we could become shallow and cold. But then again, we are sociable beings. We need to be in contact with people, it's what makes us human.

In conclusion, the way we communicate with each other is changing, it has changed throughout history and it will continue to change. So, has technology killed communication? No, in fact, it has increased so much that from time to time it's good to switch off all devices and stop talking.

Thank you for reading!

Film Room project: Postmortem

I believe our film room scene was quite successful considering we had never done anything like it. 

Our team was strong and varied and even though we are very different people, we worked very well together. 

Early on, we made sure we were available for each other. We would work together in the labs all day and later on at night we would keep talking to each other via facebook.

We gave constant feedback to each other which I thought it was great. We were learning together.

I     In other words, communication was great. We also organised our work very early on through flow charts, cascade charts and others. We made sure certain goals were reached on certain dates. The truth is that we didn't stick too much to those deadlines and that damaged our final outcome. 

I think that the fact that we knew we could get everything done in time made us more lax towards our deadlines. I tried to keep up with what was written on our charts but everyone worked at different speeds and we didn't want to pressure anyone.
We were ready to take on any work in case someone in the group started falling behind. 

Looking back I realise we should've been more strict on our deadlines because when we put the scene together there were many things that could've been solved if we had had a little more time spend on engine.

The major problem we stumbled upon was lighting our scene. Fabric is a complex material, the amount of light it lets through depends on its thickness and there's also subsurface scattering which we had to account for.

We underestimated the difficulty of this task and therefore we didn't give ourselves enough time to fix it. Jake who was doing most of the engine work spent the last two days playing around with lighting and we got pretty close to the lighting in the original picture but there were still things to polish.

I have learned a lot during this project but the one thing that I found very important is the skill to make good visual decisions and make them fast. Making those decisions early on are key to any project. If we had chosen the correct scene earlier we would've saved almost a whole week which we could've spent on perfecting the lighting in the scene.

Therefore, these are the key things I will implement into my future projects:

1. Make the right visual decisions early on. It is hard to know what works and what doesn't straight away but I shouldn't be afraid to ditch one idea and do something else.

2. Keep the communication going! Make sure I get feedback at every stage and make sure everyone is on the same page.

3. Work to meet group management deadlines. What's the point on doing lots of planning if no one is looking at it...?

4. Allow extra time for the unexpected. We had been testing our assets in engine for days but it wasn't until the day before hand in that we had all of the assets into our final scene and it is something I want to avoid in future projects. It was after we put everything together that we realised some assets needed slight modifications but it was too late to do anything about it.

This project is over but not forgotten. Time to take a deep breath, have a little celebration dance and move onto the next project!

See you soon! 

Carla.

Blog task4, part3: Cinematics in Games (re-submitted)

After I took a look at the history of video games it was clear to me that over the past few decades, video games have experienced many changes. They are not two bars hitting a ball across a screen anymore; they have become an interactive form of art.

Current video games combine elements from narrative fiction film, music and sports. The amount of work to produce a single game can be very large, especially in terms of art. The development of game environments is an intensive process involving the creation of level maps, lighting sources, setting detail and visual texture complexity.

“Another important element is a belief that creators are artists. At the same time, however, it’s necessary for us creators to be engineers, because of the skill required for the creations.”

                    -Shigeru Miyamoto- (Game designer and producer of Nintendo’s biggest names)

Knowing that art plays a very important role in video games, one of the things I find that makes them very enjoyable it is when they are telling a story. If the story is good, the player would want to discover more by playing the game. They would want the game to take them in a journey and feel like they are living someone else’s life.

In my opinion, cinematics are key to set the game mood and to tell the story.  They add depth and substance to the game. The gaming industry knows it and they make sure to make a good use of it. Such is that, it is common for videogames to start with cinematics. They are used to sell the idea of a game sometimes months before a player will ever get behind a controller.

A well-crafted cinematic will succeed in total immersion of the player before the game even begins. Also, powerful narratives in games like Red Dead redemption and Uncharted 2 have helped show the world that games can be just as meaningful as any other form of art.

On most of games, especially on Japanese games, cut-scenes come across quite often. They are essentially pre-rendered sequences in which the player plays the role closer to that of a detached observer. They are often used to establish the initial setting and background storyline or to push the story forwards.

Some may say that cut-scenes are overused. That it turns the game into a movie and videogames are made to be ‘played’, engaged with in a manner that it is much more active. They might be right, but to me, cut-scenes are quite important. They narrate the story, and guide the player through a journey. They make the gaming experience much better because the player gets to know the characters and immerse himself with the game mood. 
Cut-scenes have the opportunity to convey emotions that would be otherwise disregarded by the player. Game developers can now present emotion through complex facial expressions and body language. The ultimate goal in games is to make them as realistic as possible, and that’s the reason why developers use film techniques in games, to enhance realism.

It is true that sometimes, too many cut-scenes make the player disconnect from the game. When a cut-scene begins all the tangible elements of the game that the player has grown accustomed to become obsolete. That is a thing the industry must be careful about. To tackle this problem, they should provide minimum disruption of gameplay flow. The use of written material such as signs or notes inside the game might be a possible option. In the game world they can be read as the player explores the environment and therefore push the storyline forwards while playing. Also, NPCs (Non Playable Characters) could make interventions to give out clues or tell part of the story plot but without the need to stop the game.

Ultimately what the player wants is to feel like he/she is part of the game. Until now there’s usually been a clear visible gap between the higher quality graphics found in cut-scenes and the lower-quality images that characterise more interactive periods of gameplay. I believe that as the gap reduces with the introduction of more powerful technology, games would lower the number of cut-scenes. It will reach a point where the player would interact with the gaming environment to progress along the storyline as if it were real life. Like if it were a movie, with the distinction that the player would not be viewer, but the central figure.

In conclusion, a video game while cinematic it is not a movie. To make the gaming experience truly engaging is to find a point of balance. Resorting to film techniques to engage with the audience should be avoided but not to the extent that the game lacks all sense of emotion. If cut-scenes were to be abolished, it would strip away one of the most effective storytelling techniques.

Games are a form of art and just like books, ballet or films, they have a narrative. As technology allows the industry to use better graphic engines, cut-scenes will not differ from actual gameplay, making the player feel like the protagonist of the game.

As a future game artist I believe my task is to make the industry push its limits. It is my task and the rest of future generations of game artist’s task to make better graphics, better characters and better stories. Our goal is to make games as visually attractive as possible since I believe, art is key to a video game success.

Thank you for reading,

Carla Chanquia.  

References

1.  Cinematic Camera Control in 3D Computer Games. http://front.cc.nctu.edu.tw/Richfiles/12146-G31.pdf

2. Computer Games / Cinema / Interfaces. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/05164.41114.pdf

3. Publications by Henry Jenkins. Games, the new lively art. https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/7143524/jenkins.games.pdf

4. The Best Opening Cinematics in Video Games. By Hanuman Welch. August 8, 2013. http://www.complex.com/video-games/2013/08/best-opnening-cinematics-video-games/

5. Dusty Cartridge. Dusty Cartridge Debates: Are cut-scenes outdated?  November 2013. http://dustycartridge.com/features/dusty-cartridge-debates-are-cutscenes-outdated/

6. Contemporary Aesthetics. Are Video Games Art? By Aaron Smuts. 2005. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/ca/7523862.0003.006?rgn=main;view=fulltext

7. Wired. 5 film violations in videogame cut-scenes. By Jason Schreier. September 2011. http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/09/videogame-cutscenes/?pid=1984&pageid=38345#slideid-1984

8. Google images. 

Blog task 4, part2

For my blog task I wanted to talk about games graphics and in the end I decided to base my argument in cinematics and cut-scenes.

Current video games combine elements from narrative fiction film, music and sports. The amount of work to produce a single game can be very large, especially in terms of art. The development of game environments is an intensive process involving the creation of level maps, lighting sources, setting detail and visual texture complexity.

Knowing that art plays a very important role in video games, one of the things I find that makes them very enjoyable it is when they are telling a story..

Cinematics are key to set the game mood and to tell the story.  They add depth and substance to the game. The gaming industry knows it and they make sure to make a good use of it. Such is that, it is common for videogames to start with cinematics.

Also, powerful narratives in games like Red Dead redemption and Uncharted 2 have helped show the world that games can be just as meaningful as any other form of art.

On most of games, especially on Japanese games, cut-scenes come across quite often. They are used to establish the initial setting and background storyline or to push the story forwards.

Some may say that cut-scenes are overused. That it turns the game into a movie and videogames are made to be ‘played’, engaged with in a manner that it is much more active.

To me, cut-scenes are quite important. They narrate the story, and guide the player through a journey. They make the gaming experience much better because the player gets to know the characters and immerse himself with the game mood. 

It is true that sometimes, too many cut-scenes make the player disconnect from the game. That is a thing the industry must be careful about. To tackle this problem, they should provide minimum disruption of gameplay flow. The use of written material such as signs or notes inside the game might be a possible option. In the game world they can be read as the player explores the environment and therefore push the storyline forwards while playing. Also, NPCs (Non Playable Characters) could make interventions to give out clues or tell part of the story plot but without the need to stop the game.

To make the gaming experience truly engaging is to find a point of balance. Resorting to film techniques to engage with the audience should be avoided but not to the extent that the game lacks all sense of emotion. If cut-scenes were to be abolished, it would strip away one of the most effective storytelling techniques.

Carla Chanquia.  

 References

1.  Cinematic Camera Control in 3D Computer Games. http://front.cc.nctu.edu.tw/Richfiles/12146-G31.pdf

2. Computer Games / Cinema / Interfaces. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/05164.41114.pdf

3. Publications by Henry Jenkins. Games, the new lively art. https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/7143524/jenkins.games.pdf

4. The Best Opening Cinematics in Video Games. By Hanuman Welch. August 8, 2013. http://www.complex.com/video-games/2013/08/best-opnening-cinematics-video-games/

5. Dusty Cartridge. Dusty Cartridge Debates: Are cut-scenes outdated?  November 2013. http://dustycartridge.com/features/dusty-cartridge-debates-are-cutscenes-outdated/

6. Google images. 

Blog Task1, part 1

From mechanical machines to small handheld devices, computers have clearly changed dramatically over the past century. I believe that computers are split in two categories, those used for work (industrial or business) and entertainment. It was probably around the 1980s that this shift occurred. With the launch of apple computers in 1975, a computer could be used by anybody. He also made the first computers with pretty calligraphy and that was probably the first hint of art in computers. Computers could do much more than just solve algorithms.

Then the arcades games took over. They were just pixels on a black background but people liked it and games and entertainment seemed like it had a good potential.

Another shift took place during the development of computers and it is woman participation. They used to work managing the super massive computers of the 1950s but after the cold war they didn’t play major roles in creating new computers, they went silent for a few decades until recently.

Regarding videogames, they have become more realistic thanks to better engines capable of rendering awesome graphics.  With that, a big controversy have been circulating for the last decades. Violence. Game nowadays are more gore than they used to be due to the graphics.

Some people attributes crimes carried out by young people to games. Although I believe that if you are psychologically healthy, there’s no reason why a game would turn you into a violent person. Old games can be as violent as current ones, but because of the limited graphics, it doesn’t seem that bad.

As an artist I do appreciate the art work behind any game. It always tells a story, or at least it is entertaining. How many times I just like to walk around the game map observing the graphics. Countless.

I prefer games that take you through a journey, that have plot and interesting characters. Pastime games, which I like to call (wii sports, dance central, street fighter, etc). They are good, and entertaining, specially if you play with friends but you get bored of them quite easily.

But a game with a fascinating storyline will grab your attention for years. The gameplay also makes the whole gaming experience better. If it is too hard or too boring the game won’t succeed.

For my blog task I believe I will focus on graphics in videogames, as I really enjoy visually striking games.

Carla Chanquia

References: History learning site (2000—2013). The personal computer [Online]. Available at: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/personal_computer.htm