I done gone did a presentation

Well, tried to. And, well, it sucked. Majorly. If there was an award for such a catastrophic suck, I do believe I would have been awarded it post haste.. Presentation not working, running out of time, the inevitable tear stricken panic attacks before and after along side sickly feeling and forgetting to breathe.. yeah, I don't do public performances brilliantly. I find it a bit amusing that it turned out exactly how I thought it would when I first read at Christmas we were doing presentations in term 2.

My tae kwon do instructor recently has been lecturing the children - and by this I mean ages 5 to 13 - on confidence in their gradings, saying if you don't have it, then quite simply fake it. I've heard this multiple times in my life, as public speaking or interaction with someone of whom I don't know is something I've always struggled with. This time it's resulted in me feeling like nothing more than a pathetic child for my response to such a simple task, the fact I can't even fake confidence in such a simple area which is me talking about something I like or dislike is incredibly disheartening.

I guess it's a good thing there's a second attempt at the same presentation, maybe this time I can appear less child like and make the amount of time I prepare for this actually show through my nerves. I can shorten the presentation easily, narrowing down what I focus on from my review and furthering it.. but this means more talking, more analysis and attempting to stretch it over the space 5 minutes which seems almost impossible. I've heard people say 5 minutes is a short amount of time.. I really disagree. Super disagree.
I can perform a pattern or spar for 3 minutes, do a grading in 30 amongst a group of at least 19 others, where if you make a mistake it's incredibly obvious, and I'll be incredibly nervous and rush everything. But speaking for 5 is about a million times more difficult than those. Just got to tell myself what I always do when I'm struggling with something - "get over yourself, you're being pathetic."

This feels like it turned into a rant more than an analysis of why I sucked... oops. I should probably work on that too haha.

So you know I hate game reviews, right?

I don’t claim to be the most knowledgeable when it comes to games, in fact I consider myself quite the opposite. However I know what I like, and what I dislike and I can say pretty legitimate reasons as to why. And after thoroughly enjoying the adventure role-playing game Fallout 3 to the point of exhaustion, and to the extent that mods could not salvage the game, it’s safe to say that Fallout: New Vegas was a must have in my gaming library. The introduction of Obsidian Entertainment in the developing team piqued curiosity – collaboration between two companies could go either way, especially when involving a series which I believe to be beautifully put together. In my hopes and dreams, it could only live up to the previous visuals and open-world game play that Bethesda seem to flourish in designing, with mutants and a story that was immersive and involving. It’s safe to say that, in my opinion of which may be valued or otherwise, I was thoroughly disappointed in this game.

The initial story is interesting - with the initial panning cinematic scene displaying multiple aspects of the games various quests and introducing the all new fractions or tribes within the game, as well as where they stand in their alliances – definitely worthwhile to watch as each scene revealed is relevant to the environment and story, showing threats, iconic areas and somewhat safe-zones. Cutting to a scene where your in-game self is revealed. The back story varies away from the usual vault dweller start. You play a courier traveling the Mojave wastes of Nevada, where things have taken a turn for the worst as your delivery is robbed from you in cold blood. How exciting, right? A quest for revenge, how fun – a different taste to the lone saviour route approached in previous games in the series- referring to the water chip retrieval in Fallout, the GECK retrieval in Fallout 2, and the water purification/Dad retrieval in Fallout 3. Although it seems rather farfetched someone surviving a head shot in the given environment, you are retrieved by a robot and taken to the doctor of a close by town – this initialising the character creation.
The story itself is immersive until you track down your “killer” - Benny, the leader of ‘The Chairmen’, of whom you find to have a large scheme under way involving the delivery you were making. From here on I found my own experience with the game being somewhat pointless – the playable character had very little to no reasoning for carrying on or fulfilling Benny’s plans, with the lack of background to the characters’ name furthering yourself from any form of decision making the game attempts to portray – it lacked the empathy or links the previous games had, the feeling of community from the vault environment or family ties, as well as the dependency on you as the player to fulfil the quest.

Moving onto the gameplay. I mentioned the character creation, something I enjoy greatly because… well, pretty people and stuff. I was disappointed with the lack of advancement from Fallout 3, it was essentially the same. Although the games aren’t incredibly distanced from one another I would have hoped for a more extensive decision when choosing the right hair for my kick-ass female beast. The visuals were decent, nothing new however they did add a certain aesthetic to the game that I personally liked – no intensely baby faced characters within the preset faces, yet the choice being there to have a young enough character for the job of a courier to be believable. The levelling system was done quite well, with the achievements of perks coming every 2 levels – a more balanced way to enhance the game, and I found myself spurred on to advance that additional level in order to gain this little aid, or fun add on. The level cap, however, is still an issue – a somewhat lazy level 30 for the base game is a frustrating level for someone who will play the game extensively and enjoy the reward of a stronger character.

The research that has gone into the aesthetics of the game is astounding, with the multiple themes introduced and NPC backgrounds being truly worthwhile. I usually judge these things in the way as “would I kill that person to steal their clothes?”.. moving on. The contrast between the two extremes of a civilised society and the ravenous raiders is clearly seen and performed effectively – mainly focusing on the white glove society, and their more dark background.

Along-side this the clash of 1950’s appearance to clothing and environmental aspects such as billboards and the more modern power armour, and scrap armour. In addition to this, the fact that the majority of the armours or clothes are not overly changed for the different sexes is a brilliant aspect, with revealing outfits appearing in the same context for both genders and the link to eras keeping everything else tasteful and appropriate to the environment. However, these aren’t necessarily new aspects to the game - never the less this fact does not take away from their initial effectiveness.
The way the influence of tribes/fractions is an additional aspect of which has been done in an interesting way, and thought out well – the influence in one tribe that will have been built up through decision-making quests destroying or cancelling out your reputation with another. On more than one occasion I found myself debating with the pros and cons of aiding one fraction over another, debating the possible effects and reputation it’d give my character. The irreparable damage that can be caused to one save is an awesome feature.

Something this game really didn’t perform on was the quality of the voice acting, as multiple times I found a mismatched emotion to a situation when interacting with certain NPC’s. For example, on one occasion on approaching a small town you will gain the opportunity to interact with a running man – he will speak about how he won the right to live through a lottery, his dialogue being super excited and relieved. Upon saying goodbye to him, his response will be an emotionless, bored-sounding “bye”. The mismatch is overly noticeable, and lazy. An additional example will be an otherwise non-interactional NPC, whom will ask you what you want, upon bidding them farewell they will say “Later” with what can only be described as a hiss of malice. In addition to this, the overly repeated same-voiced reactions from non-interactional NPCs gets incredibly boring, I personally found myself avoiding civilised areas from the constant tough-sounding “you eyeballin’ me” from every guy in the area.

An enormous breaking point on the voice acting comes from the super mutants. These mutated humanoid creatures are the result of the FEV – the forced evolutionary virus - and brutish in every way, including their gristly vocals which feature throughout the entirety of Fallout 3 and the beginning of Fallout: New Vegas. However, for some peculiar reason which completely escapes me, there are those with the ability to speak fluent, clear English with no distortion to their voice. It’s unfitting and completely breaks the immersion and design of the creatures – of whom are supposed to be monstrous and relentless.
The final area of gameplay I wish to touch upon is the miscellaneous aspects of the game. The non-story based quests are extensive in amount and I believe they are what make the game what it is – varying from the more serious town-aiding ones to the amusing “help ghouls get into space because why the hell not”. Furthermore, in more than one occasion the main quest has led to one of these, of which I found thankful as it played as a silver lining to an otherwise dull adventure. The random events that occur whilst wondering the wasteland are an additional plus, giving the open world environment a reason to be explored and for quick-travel to only be used in severe bouts of laziness or repetitive travel-to-and-from quests. In addition to this, the introduction of a survival mode was an incredible addition to the game – an additional immersive aspect which increases the reason for exploration and inventory housekeeping for survival reasons.

The environment itself is reason to ignore this quick-travel option, as it’s drab appearance carries its own beauty as well as the overabundance of dangerous areas are immensely fun to challenge yourself with passing through – for example the Deathclaw infested gully linking the first town you start in to The Strip, a more direct route for the brave who are willing to encounter the reintroduced ranking system for one of the more deadly creatures in the wasteland – varying from babies, to the Legendary Deathclaw.

Overall, this game was a disappointment, yes. For multiple reasons, all being noticeable and bad enough for create a reason for me to not play this game on multiple occasions. However, for those who don’t care for a decent main story quest or the full immersive, emotional-based state I personally enjoy to get into whilst playing games such as this then it’s definitely worth playing and enjoying... and I might have just contradicted myself a lot. Oh dear.

Not game art related, but I stumbled upon the artist Jack Long, and was amazed by his splash art pieces - mainly his flowers. Definitely work looking at and appreciating the timing and precision going into such a random use of materials.

The best example of a game review ever known to man

The Christmas Project

Christmas time, what better way to spend it than working? And I’m being serious here; it’s brilliant that I got an Intuos 5, however there’s nothing I wanted more than to carry on working. Because I’m sad. And boring, obviously.

The project we were given – to design an evil Christmas character, couldn't have been better for me. The one thing I love doing is designing characters and drawing creepy ladies. However for some reason I drew a blank with concepts. Originally, I planned on a Krampus-styled character, a character who would abduct/kill naughty children at the oh-so-festive time of year. Silhouettes for this, however, ended up being boring. Or not focusing on the theme at all, other than using the concept. When I decided to attempt to bring more Christmassy aspects into the design – for example, reindeer, I fell onto the idea of genetic modification/splicing. As my mood board included images from the movie Splice – of which is about the very same theme – I felt compelled to further this design.

Although I didn’t further it much, due to a series of brain farts and my usual liking for the first design, adjusting the pose did a lot for the design. My second mood board mainly decided the colour – the wintery, snowy scenes allowing a cool feel – both calm yet when applied to my character, creepy.

From here I considered the backstory further – taking inspiration from the story in the film “Splice”. In the movie, the creation attempts to kill and “take vengeance” on her creator – of whom injected her own genes into the creature. Therefore, it made sense for my creation to kill her creator – Santa Clause.

Whilst designing clothes for the character – now titled “Subject 12” – I considered the backstory; whether she’d escaped and had time to hunt for pelts and bones, stolen Santas clothes after she’d killed him, whether she’d simply broken free and killed him on sight, or whether she’s been used in the sense of a doll by Santa – dressed up and exploited against her will. Although I wanted to avoid this final theme, I couldn’t help but consider how I could further the idea – researching lingerie and corsetry, as well as the sex industry and adjusting her appearance accordingly. In the end I went with the simplicity of bandages – covering enough but implying no chance to get fully clothed.

The poster design was inspired by the movie Alien 4 – mainly the scene where Ripley – of whom is a genetic construction following her death in the previous movie, stumbled upon the lab with her previous, failed forms. The colour pallet could have been experimented with some more – however the initial green I used seemed to fit well, following the contrasting red and green colours commonly associated with Christmas yet not over powering the blue colours on Subject 12. The story board itself is visible in the poster – something I wanted to do initially, however I would have enjoyed to further a focus on the character more. Cropping the final poster did help this, however with the story visible in the back I still feel it took away from the image in total.

Self reflection, or self loathing - you decide.

A new year has dawned upon us! Let us rejoice with resolutions that no one will ever keep up… hopefully maintaining this blog better won’t count as that. Woops. So what better way to start the year than looking back over previous work, you know – the thing I’ve been avoiding like the plague because oh god pure hatred. However reflecting on these is one way to help me improve my lovely, never ending life of average grades.

I attempted to touch upon this previously, getting to week 3 of Visual Design and mentioned my issues with scale on environments. Quitting ahead before I got to 2 point perspective, which made sense because well, it’s self-explanatory looking at it.
With the horizon line running off the page to suit the vanishing points placement in order to avoid a fisheye perspective, this proved to be more difficult than it probably should have been. In addition to this, other buildings proved to be harder than others – a more basic shape like the Fletcher building being easier than one such as the Student Union or the High Aston building – mainly due to their over-hanging roofs. Still, the thumbnails proved to be easier to produce than a larger scale final piece, whether that’s due to be getting unbelievably worked up because I appear to be unable to draw a straight line as well as my issues with scale getting the better of me. To be honest I’m surprised my blood pressure isn’t sky high.

Week 4 saw the entrance of a task I felt more comfortable with – rendering techniques on dinosaur bones. The obvious reason being because I’m so deep and brooding and the bones represent my soul, of course. Or maybe because rendering of more organic forms is something I like to think I have some decent ability in. Despite this, I feel I could have experimented more in different rendering techniques, or attempted to apply a more textured appearance to my drawings. In addition to this, I would have loved to have produced a larger amount of thumbnails for this project – however due to my sister whisking me away to London for a belated birthday trip on the Thursday I found myself without a full week and having to make the most of my time there – using it to produce a detailed final piece that I’m rather proud of.

Sorry mum I didn't mean to destroy your car..

  As much as I’d love to skip the next project, unfortunately I feel I must go over the, what can only be described as appalling attempt at drawing a car with the “ability” I learnt in week 3. Well, it took an entire week to even get a basic understanding of this task I may as well have been drooling on the page and submitting it, and even then the final piece completely destroyed any form of progress I believe I made over the week. Over all cars tend to be easier to draw from behind or when I am overlooking them (preferably from behind as well). But still, the length of a vehicle seems to be something I struggle to get right – as shown by the poor, boxy rendition of my mums Skoda Fabia. This is an area I need some serious work on, and the same area that’s incredibly off putting due to my lack of progress through it.

Straight borders? What are those?

The joys of being rained on in the cold. 5 Layers of thick jumpers and jackets couldn’t prevent the inevitable hiding from the wind and rain in the pub when we ventured to Bradgate Park. Perspective on these tasks came easier than expected – obviously something has sunken in from the previous tasks, although foliage proves to be as difficult as ever to draw. In addition to this, I decided to challenge my ability by attempting to draw water, as well as a waterfall. All I’ll say is it could have gone better.

Week 7 we went to Abbey Park pumping station, somewhere I apparently visited frequently in my childhood with my parents and siblings. Needless to say I don’t remember it much, however it did prove useful in attempting to render different materials such as metals, as well as apply perspective to indoor scenes. Not only did some objects prove I haven’t gotten over my somewhat questionable scale issues, but that one area I need to work on is my ability to portray depth in an area, varying the amount of detail on objects as the distance changes. It was suggested that changing the pencil hardness on more distant objects could aid me in this – something to attempt in the New Year and projects to come.

Week 8 saw the introduction of speed drawing. As well as blind drawing. Never again. But it saw the introduction of a lovely specimen, of whom I’m surprised, turned out quite well considering 50 minutes was spent on this drawing. Although there is the issue with his spine possibly being too long, and perhaps the angle on his body being somewhat distorted and the rendering being somewhat rushed, what can you expect from a quick drawing? Probably something better than I produced but I’m getting there I guess. He has no lower legs.. my apologies.

As I haven’t covered my progress in 3D at all yet, I’ll touch upon it, and my progression through the more tiring aspect of the course. 3Ds Max is a somewhat temperamental programme, of which angers me. The first project was to create one of the more well-known Doctor Who villains known as the Darleks. Learning the basics of the programme and how to meet a small triangle count was no doubt necessary, although I question the choice of an object with multiple spherical shapes surrounding it.

The second project was wheelie fantastic, obviously not a load of rubbish. It gave me a chance to make some shoddy awkward puns every now and again which was obviously nothing but fun. But no, whilst modelling the wheelie bin was rather simple, it gave us a chance to experience the overwhelming joy of gathering our own reference photos, adjusting them in photoshop as well as the different mapping types such as alpha, specular and normal mapping. Unwrapping the bin was a pain to begin with, lining up the texture correctly and avoiding distortion. If I could do this project differently than I would have adjusted the texture images in photoshop a bit more, allowing them to blur less.

Finally the building project proved to be nothing more than frustrating, utilising all the skills previously learned to produce a photo realistic version of an old, interesting building located around Leicester. The building I chose could have been modelled better, taking advantage of its age and warping the faces more to add an aged effect. However at the time I was just happy to finish the project – finding out you’ve accidentally deleted an entire, crucial face when it’s time to start texturing isn’t amusing. An additional aspect I could have done differently is the TGA files – making each one smaller, allowing myself to apply more normal mapping. Also, perhaps choosing not to adjust colours of tillable textures on my laptop – which enjoys distorting colours so that it’s not necessarily an accurate representation – could allow a less “psychedelic” feel to the house.