Eden - End of Project Review

At the start of this project i had planned to create 3D armatures of my characters for my final piece, but when that idea fell apart i felt lost. I lost all motivation and didn't know what to do - i was uncomfortable with my digital painting skills and knew that sketchbook work wouldn't be enough. I put my project off until the deadline was only a few weeks away and then realised i had to suck it up and figure out what i was going to for my last project.

I got right down to work and managed to pump out three sketchbooks full of work and eight finished digital pieces. My friend gave me some priceless input and taught me how to keep my original sketch lines in photoshop whilst still being able to paint underneath them. This seemed like such a minor bit of advice for them but to me it was incredibly helpful. I'm very pleased with how all my work turned out as my digital paintings have made me much more confident in my abilities and make me want to keep practicing now. It's just a shame that my poor time management meant i could only produce eight final pieces instead of the whole cast of characters i had designed. However this will be a lesson that i'll learn from for next time.

In this project i have:

• Explored several routes for my final pieces including puppets and digital art
• Brought seven characters from my sketchbook into finished digital paintings
• Improved my digital painting skills
• Performed colour tests to ensure the final character designs have the best possible looks
• Written character biographies and a story for my game 'Eden'
• Learnt an important lesson about time management

This project was challenging because of my mid-assignment crisis but it was also very fun being so free and able to create anything you wanted to. It has increased my confidence in my own work and given me the drive to keep on practicing when i leave university which is very helpful and reassuring as i was having a lot of doubts about whether i should continue with my art. Overall i am happy with my final pieces as I've managed to give life to my characters through colour and character sheets which makes me feel warm and fuzzy, i feel like i'm finally doing my characters justice. I'm also pleased to be leaving university on a high note, even if i will miss university in general. Hopefully the lessons I've learnt from the last three years will stop me from making too many mistakes in the future and keep me motivated enough to pursue a career in the games industry.

Here are a few pictures from my end of year show:

Since this is my last university project i may not update this blog again, so if i don't then i'd like to thank you for reading and following my three-year university learning experience, from photographing building's faces, to scathing game festival reviews to my final project. Thank you for reading :) - Nate.

Eloise - The Mother

Name: Eloise

Age: 53

Eloise is the deceased mother of James, Annadetta and Malibu. At one point she was happily married and raising her three children with her husband, however he became seriously ill and died a while later. With him gone Eloise sunk into a deep depression and found it hard to show her children love and attention. Some years later her health had deteriorated to a critical level through self neglect and she passed away, leaving behind her now orphaned children.

Eloise is one of the last guardians James acquires and although he manages to bring her back from the dead she is very weak and very depressed when she realises she is back in the world of the living. It isn't until Malibu is killed a second time that Eloise becomes powerful. Angered by the death of her daughter, Eloise goes into a blind rage and fuses with the power of her dead daughter, which still refuses to die even though its host is dead. This turns Eloise into a powerful and vengeful witch, twice as strong as her daughter ever was.

Although i had intended for Eloise to be a guardian, i hadn't really designed her, with only a few rough pieces of concept art to her name. However, when i got frustrated at drawing one of the other characters i decided to just doodle and i came up with the character above. After realising that she looked similar to the inital concepts for Jame's mother i decided to make this character her. However, i didn't want to take this character all the way through to a finished concept so instead i decided to do colour tests. These three colour tests are probably some of my favourite pieces from this project. I like each one, and any of them would look great in the game. My favourite of the three is the far right, which has been named 'The Peacock Witch' by my friends.

P. R. - The Machine

Name: P.R. #815

Age: Unknown

P.R. #815 is rusty, riddled with bullets, overgrown with foliage and has been spray painted by teenagers who themselves have long since past away. He stands dormant and has been this way for centuries, the last soldier of a robotic army from a long forgotten war.

As James started to destroy the world he discovered the forgotten war machine and blew life into it, reawakening its ancient circuit boards and re-programming it to serve him as a guardian. James' gift to P.R. made him more than a guardian though- he became fiercely protective over his overgrown environment and the wildlife inhabiting it and bargained with James to only serve him if his surroundings would be a part of the new world. Amused at the robot's audacity James agreed on the condition that P.R. hunt down Serenity and put an end to her interference. P.R. is incredibly intelligent but also shows many signs of understanding and feeling human emotions such as compassion and sorrow. Whether this was his originally programmed artificial intelligence or a side effect of James' gift of power is unknown.

Some rough concepts for poses

Coulour Tests

Before deciding on a final design i did a few colour tests to see which colours i liked best and which suited the character the most. After playing around with colour for a while i went with my initial plans and made him pink and yellow. I like how ironically cheerful he looks for a walking death machine. P.R. was one of my favourite characters that i digitally painted and i'm very pleased with how the colour tests and final piece turned out, i especually like the late addition of the blue bird.

Stella - The Maneater

Name: Stella

Age: 29

Stella was Jame's previous girlfriend before Serenity who never quite got over the breakup. She managed to crawl back into his life by posing as a friend, when in fact her true intentions were to win back his affection, a secret she doesn't keep from Serenity. She sees Serenity as the reason the pair broke up. Stella is emotionally unstable and still madly in love with James, willing to do anything and everything for him to win back his love, enabling him to manipulate her very easily.

When approached by James to become one of his guardians she accepted enthusiastically, seeing it as a sign that he still loved her when in fact she is little more than a pawn to him. James mutated her into a half spider, half woman hybrid and with her new power she hastily follows James' wishes and does his bidding.

I'm very happy with how this piece turned out and it's probably one of my favourite pieces from the project. I like how unusual the upside-down pose is and the range of emotion she shows in each picture, especially the one of her sobbing. Although the 'black widow woman' is a cliche i'd like to think I've put my own unique stamp on it that separates it from similar designs.

Ray and Laurent - The Scientists

Names: Ray and Laurent

Ages: 31 & 33

Ray & Laurent worked with James and Serenity on the mysterious new element 'Eden'. Although their personalities contrasted they worked very well together, with Laurent's cautiousness balancing out Ray's recklessness. Although the two worked well together they weren't particularly fond of each other. Ray disliked how pessimistic and neurotic Laurent was whilst Laurent was always Jealous of how confident and optimistic Ray was. Despite their differences though they were integral to the progression of Eden and their research helped James to develop a way to harness Eden's power.

They were the first two people approached by James when he was looking for guardians to help him destroy the world and stop Serenity interfering. The two initially declined his offer, appalled that he had used their research for himself and planned to destroy the world. However, James managed to persuade them with the notion that in his new world everything would be new and their would be endless things to study and dissect. Knowing how intelligent each man was, James decided to fuse the two together to increase their intelligence and hopefully make them work better together. Although they both became much more intelligent, their feelings for one another didn't change and they bickered and disagreed even more, their already opposing personalities now seemed even more exaggerated with Laurent becoming even more neurotic and pessimistic and Ray becoming overly enthusiastic and reckless. Driven mad by the fusion and with no regard for their own bodies anymore they start to experiment on themselves, which gives them their odd sucker punch glove arms.

Some concepts

The Scientists - mid paint

I'm really pleased with how this picture turned out. This idea originally came from a game me and my friends designed over ten years ago, although back then he was a two headed jester. Later on i took inspiration from the jester character and drew a two headed, skinny man with strange claws on chains for arms, which transformed into this when i revisited it. I like how clinical the picture looks and how almost everything about the scientists is contrasting, from their hair to their boots. Although Ray and Laurent are one of my more bizarre creations i think they fit into this game idea very well and are a quirky and unique addition.

Jimmy and Gladys - The Brother and The Best

Name: Jimmy

Age: 10

Jimmy is the little brother of Serenity. He's an adventurous child who has a passion for exploring and collecting insects and often went bug catching to look for new pets to add to his collection. When James started to destroy the world Jimmy was out collecting bugs and was approached by James who managaed to manipulate him into becoming a guardian for him. The power James granted him corrupted his mind and turned him into a hate filled shadow of his former self, hell bent on intercepting his sister as she tries to stop James.

Name: Gladys

Age: < 0

Gladys was a caterpillar that had recently been collected by Jimmy. When James made Jimmy a guardian he unintentionally made Gladys one too, who was in Jimmy's pocket at the time. She grew in size exponentially and aquired sharp fangs and a large horn on her head, along with giant tufts of hair. Unlike Jimmy, the power granted to her didn't corrupt her and she remains quite docile and tame unless provoked or ordered to attack by Jimmy, whom she is very protective over and serves loyally.

These two characters were some of my earliest creations whose colour schemes and dynamic i had had in my head for a long while. I'm pleased with how the pair turned out, although if i were to redo the picture i would probably give them each their own character sheet instead of a shared one.

Malibu - The Witch

Name: Malibu

Age: 17

Malibu is the youngest sibling of James and Annadetta and was raised by her sister after both her parents died. She is considerably younger than her older siblings and therefore can't remember her mother. Shy and nervous, Malibu is often overshadowed by her old sister and keeps to herself most of the time. She looks up to Annadetta for raising her and although her brother had little input in her life she has always admired his confidence and appreciated his extravagant gifts.

When James approached both his sisters with the proposition of becoming guardians Annadetta accepted on behalf of both herself and Malibu. Although she got on well with Serenity and was slightly scared by her brother's new form, she did what she was told by her sister who had always had her best interests in mind.
Whilst Annadetta's transformation into a master huntress was successful, Malibu found it harder to harness the power gifted to her. She was clumsy with her sorcery and had a lot of trouble controlling it. It wasn't until she was killed by Serenity that her true potential was realised; as Malibu died her power refused to and took control of her body and mind, transforming her from a novice sorceress into a skilled adversary.

Malibu was particularly hard to get right. She is based on a character i created in a game once and although i wanted her to look similar, i also wanted the character to have her own identity. Colour was especially hard to decide on since in my mind i imagined her to be wearing black and white, but when i tested that it looked very bland. I'm glad i went with purple as it's a much more 'magical' looking colour which suits this character perfectly.

Annadetta - The Huntress

Name: Annadetta

Age: 24

Annadetta is the the younger sister of James and the older sister of Malibu, who she raised after the death of their mother and father. Looking after Malibu put a lot of strain on Annadetta, meaning she had to grow up a lot faster than other children. This made her stronger, more headstrong and gave her a certain instict for survival. After James left them both to pursue his own career money became tight and Annadetta had to turn to hunting to provide food for her and her sister, over time this made her an excellent marksman. Although James left them both to fend for themselves, he occasionally came to visit them with extravagant gifts as he loved the attention and appreciation he got for doing so. This angered Annadetta who desperately wanted James to help provide for them since he became so successful, however he never did.

When James approached Annadetta and Malibu and asked them to become two of his guardians, Annadetta accepted on behalf of both of them, seeing it as her and Malibu's only chance of surviving James' process of recreating the world. James granted her the prowess and hunting capabilities of a wolf, which when combined with her already expert hunting knowledge made her into a formidable opponent.

Above is Annadetta's finished character sheet. I'm very happy with how this turned out as i was using a different technique to how i've done digital art in the past and i'm very happy with the results. Although some things could be better i think it manages to portray my ideas on what this character looks like and how they might act in the game.

Negotiated Studies Two - 'Eden' - Year Three Final Project Idea

My final project at university has finally arrived and i decided i would re-visit one of my favourite ideas from the past, which was my end of year two project. This game idea followed the journey of a recently dumped girl called Serenity whose former boyfriend decides to take over the world. The story was a little bare last year though as i focused more on costume and character design so i decided i would revamp the story a little bit:

'In a top secret lab four of the most intelligent scientists are examining a white, wispy mass that was discovered whilst in space and brought back to Earth. The science team soon discover that the unidentified object has amazing natural properties and holds the secrets behind the universe and life itself, they call the white mass 'Eden'. Through extensive experimentation the team realised that Eden can create invulnerability, immortality and immense power which the team try to harness with little success and the project is due to be passed onto other experts. However one of these scientists, James, a narcissist, refuses to allow Eden to be passed onto another team and keeps trying to harness its power and eventually he is successful. Realising the amount of sheer power at his fingertips he decides to break off his ties with his girlfriend, Serenity, another of the scientists working on the project, so that he won't have to share the power.

Serenity is distraught at the news and attempts to change his mind by following him back to the lab and trying to talk things over. Once at the lab she realises what James is planning and attempts to talk him out of it which doesn't work and instead irritates him. He harnesses the power of Eden and fuses with it, giving him the powers of a god. He lashes out at Serenity, knocking her unconscious and almost killing her. He then decides that the world is an ugly place with so much potential, and decides to destroy it and create a new world in his new image. When Serenity regains consciousness and discovers James' plans she vows vengeance on him, not only for planning on destroying the world but also for breaking her heart. Although James doesn't see her as much of a threat, he decides to enlist some guardians to help him destroy the world and stop Serenity should she try to interfere. To stop James from fulfilling his intentions Serenity must defeat each of James' guardians who consist of former friends, lovers and family.'

I think this story has a lot more substance than last years and is hopefully more interesting to potential players. It also sets the game up like some of my favourite older games like Crash Bandicoot where you have to face a series of bosses before reaching the final boss.

Now that i had my story i had to decide on how to present my work. I thought that since this was my last project i should do something fun that i'd enjoy and i looked back on past projects to see which i enjoyed the most. I remembered how much fun armature building was at my end of year one assignment and i decided to make models of my characters. I drew out my characters then worked out where joints would need to go etc, however this all proved to be a huge waste of time as trying to schedule appointments with the armature instructor was near impossible so i abandoned this idea.

With my plans dashed i felt very unmotivated and didn't know which direction to take my project in, a few weeks went by and i eventually decided to just do digital painting instead, something i hadn't particularly wanted to do since it wouldn't be as impressive as armatures. However, once i got started i started having a lot of fun and found the motivation to get the work done. The next few posts will show my progress, along with character biographies and finished pieces. Enjoy!

Game Design and Creating a Board Game

We recently had a guest speaker at university called Ian who came to talk to us about his love of board games and tabletop RPGs. Ian currently works on Dungeons and Dragons guides but is curious about what the next generation of tabletop RPGs will bring, perhaps diceless games or other new styles. Firstly though he gave us a brief history of table top games.

Apparently table top games originated from Prussian military simulations in the 1800s. These simulations involved moving figurines resembling soldiers to different locations to test out battle strategies. This idea was popularised further in the 1950s and 60s with the release of H.G.Wells' Little Wars.

In the 1970s Dungeons and Dragons was released. This game proved to be a lot more popular then Little Wars because of its fantasy elements, immersion and character progression; starting as a weak character and turning into an epic hero. Ian loved this concept and also loved how the games were open ended, where there were no limits and you could imagine anything you wanted and make it part of your story. He also stated his interest in the idea of winning by losing which is where your character may die saving the other players - so although you have lost the game you have died a hero and won.

Ian gave us an assignment in which we had to create our own board game. There were only a couple of rules that had to be incorporated, one was that the game had to be a multi-player where players had to race to the finish, and the other was that the game couldn't just rely on chance, the players had to have some sort of choice - either setting other players back or helping themselves through clever thinking.

Originally i came up with a game for four to six people, with each player controlling a character with unique skills. This idea evolved into each character having a different class e.g ranger and warrior. These classes would allow players to do certain abilities like the ranger being able to attack players far away from them - this would have fit the brief by not letting the game be decided by chance however this idea proved to be very difficult to even make a prototype of and so i decided to scrap the idea and start again.

I decided to stick with a fantasy theme but this time experimented with a map with a lot of different pathways where players could choose which path to take which could help or hinder them. This also wouldn't leave the game entirely to chance. However, this idea was quickly rejected as it become clear which pathways were more beneficial to take very quickly.

I decided to simplify my idea and aimed to let chance cards shape how the game played out. Although these cards were called chance cards, many of the cards let the player make choices that could help benefit them and put other players at a disadvantage. I simplified my map and my idea and created a prototype of my game with these new cards.

The final prototype before i made the real thing

These were my cards and tokens needed to play the game, the eight different coloured tokens are what the player is aiming to collect to win the game, whilst the cards dictate what happens. After testing the game it proved to be highly successful and very fun. A few times players who were about to win were thrown back into the game as another player received a helpful chance card and targeted them. I will add pictures of the game when i go back home and can use an A3 scanner.

I think my project was a big success as not only did my game fit the brief by being a race to the finish and mildy strategical game, but it was also very fun, with players wanting to play up to four games in a row. This project was also very fun to do and demanded a lot of creativity and thought which was a good challenge.

Working for a Friend

Late last year one of my friends who is studying film asked me to do some simple storyboards for his film. Originally he wanted one shot per A4 piece of paper but i wasn't too comfortable with this and thought it might be more efficient to do four shots per A4 piece of paper. He agreed that four shots per page was more efficient but still wanted two of the main shots in A4 which was fine with me. Below is the first draft of the first shot i sent him.

Below are some of the finished shots i did for him. Unfortunately i can't go into any detail on the story of his project as his film is yet to be finished. I was quite happy with my work for my friend, i like using colouring pencils as they make a change to digital art but sadly  these pictures aren't the best quality because my scanner seems to have brightened all of them. Nonetheless the pictures are all clear and fit the brief well.

Creative Futures Week and Glyndwr Ffresh Festival

Recently my university has hosted two festivals than involve speakers from many different fields of media giving talks and advice to the media and art students. Here are some of my favourite talks from both festivals.

How Not to be a Designer - Robert Ball

Robert Ball started off his talk with a noticeable quiver in his voice and was clearly very nervous. Sometimes we would speak too quickly, other times he would stutter or miss out words, but slowly he became much more confident which was good because his talk was one of the most interesting.

Ball explained that he had become interested in design by creating the cover of the 1990 game 'Robocop 3'. This inspired him to join an illustration course, however at the time he thought that the course wasn't going anywhere so instead turned to design. He admitted that in hindsight the course actually seemed very creative and experimental, something he would later focus on in his career, so the illustration course could have actually helped him.

After leaving university he was unable to find a job in design so worked in a ticket office instead. Luckily one of his friends managed to get him a two week job placement with 'The Partners' a well known design company, after which he was hired to work full time.

Ball explained that whilst he was there he learnt the importance of branding and advertising and how what works for one product might not work for another, for example a sign with 'fresh eggs' hand painted on it looks natural, but a sign with 'flying lessons' hand painted on it wouldn't seem so trustworthy.

Ball then started to explain how not to be a designer. He said that his most famous designs have come from breaking away from the expected. His examples were an advert for The National Gallery of art in which he included no art work, instead he simply used descriptive words on posters and trailers than expressed some of the emotions portrayed in the art. Another of his famous designs became a campaign to save more electricity. Instead of creating a screensaver for Deloitte, he decided to save the company money and energy by creating a campaign called 'Planetsaver' in which employees were encouraged to put their pc into sleep mode.

Ball finished off his talk by saying that an idea shouldn't be dismissed just because it seem silly, good ideas can come from anywhere and might be good no matter where they come from. I found this talk particularly inspiring because it was encouraging us to think outside of the box and to try to stray away from designing the expected. It was also refreshing to see such bold ideas from his portfolio that seemed so creative yet obvious at the same time.

How to Motivate Yourself - Denise Chilton

Oh the irony... As much as i liked this lecture it's hard to actually motivate myself to write about it. This talk by Denise Chilton was all about how to motivate yourself - or at least it was supposed to be. Instead of learning how to motivate yourself to do tasks we were told to just do what we liked doing instead, as we didn't really need motivation for that - not good advice if you like Youtube... However Chilton did also give some other good advice that was much more useful to me.

Her talk was basically a large pep-talk for us all. She asked us all to write a list of our positive characteristics to begin with and then instead of asking us to make a list of negatives tols us to ignore the negatives and focus on the positives to harness their full potential. She explained that a lot of the time we see other people's positive characteristics then compare them to our negative characteristics which makes us think less of ourselves. She then told us to give ourselves the same advice we'd give friends, as we are usually much more supportive of them.

Chilton then had us do a little activity in the lecture. She handed out sheets with a wheel on them with 8 branches sprouting from the centre of the wheel. These 8 branches each represented something: Friends/ Family, Physical Environment, Health, Career, Relationship Status, Fun, Personal Growth and Money. These branches had ten notches in them and we had to grade each of the branches out of ten for how well we thought we were doing in that particular field of life. My highest ranking fields were fun, money and family and my lowest was health.

We were then asked why we graded ourselves low in some fields of and how we think we could make the grade better. Then we were asked why were we not making them better? This really made me think and was a very simple concept but very realistic - if i wasn't happy with something and i knew how to make it better than why would i not make it better? She finished by saying that every journey starts with one step - don't be afraid to take it. This was a really inspiring talk and has really helped me to prioritise what i want from life and where i need to improve.

Master Reboot - Sarah Crossman

Sarah Crossman, a game designer, talked to us about her first game that is scheduled to come out later this year. Crossman explained that she has always been into puzzle games and psychological horror games and was heavily influenced by Monkey Island, Silent Hill, Fatal Frame and Day of the Tentacle.

Her game, entitled 'Master Reboot' takes place in the future where people's consciousness is stored in computers. The character you play as wakes up in this computer memory bank with no memories of who she was or why she is there. The aim of the game is to find out these two questions by exploring several levels that represent important events in the character's life and recovering the memories associated with them.

This game had a very unique style and was pretty to look at but was also quite dark and twisted which is exactly the sort of game i like. However, the flashbacks shown when the character finds a memory were done quite badly in Photoshop which really let the game down. Hopefully this part of the game will be revisited before release as it was the only negative i could see. It was nice to see someone chasing their dream of creating their own game and it looked like the dream was very nearly a reality, the only downside of the talk was that Crossman only had a limited time to talk and couldn't explain everything in detail.

Soulfinity - Dojo Arcade

Soulfinity is an upcoming game being developed by Dojo Arcade. The game is based on the idea of sacrifice and the player will have to kill themselves repeatedly to progress through the various puzzles. This idea was very interesting and seems like a unique concept that i've never seen before.

We were treated to a demonstration of the game and although it seemed to get a little tedious after a few puzzles, we were assured the game would have more features upon release which is still a long way off. Dojo Arcade explained that they wanted a lot more puzzles that varied in skill and design to jazz the game up a bit.
This talk was again far too short and i would have liked to have heard a lot more about the game, but from what i did hear and see it looks like it will be very popular upon release.

The British Guide to Showing Off - Jes Benstock

I was one of only a handful of people who went to this talk as most people expected it to be a boring talk about documentaries. Although the talk was about documentaries, it was far from boring and was my favourite talk of the both festivals because it was so funny and interesting.

Jes Benstock has been a documentary filmmaker for over twenty years, but only started making his own films around ten years ago. Benstock was full of character and told a lot of jokes throughout his talk. He told the audience that his films are all personal to him, his first film 'Orders of Love' looked at mental health but also featured a lot of comedy. Another of his films explored his Jewish ancestry - he joked that any self respecting Jewish documentary filmmaker couldn't skip making a film about the holocaust. But Benstock was there to talk about his most recent film 'The British Guide to Showing Off' - a comedy on the outrageous Alternative Miss World competition which sees men, women, robots and animals compete for the title of Alternative Miss World.

Originally Benstock helped work on the show before trying to find funding to film a documentary, he eventually got it because of his previous successful titles. He then showed us some clips from the documentary which were hilarious! I really wanted him to just show us the rest of the film because it was just so bizarre and interesting. Benstock explained that he always wants to film 'real life' so nothing is ever staged in his films and he advises the cameramen not to get to know the stars of the documentary in case they start acting differently towards them. He wasn't interested in any on-screen personas which took the stars of his latest documentary a while to get used to because they expected that it was how he wanted them to act. Benstock finished by saying that democracy doesn't work for filmmaker's outside of the planning stages. After that it is a dictatorship and the director is the only one who can decided what to do - he reinforced this point by saying he had often missed out on crucial conversations in scenes because the cameramen would talk to the characters or start filming something else.

Although i am not particularly interested in becoming a documentary filmmaker this talk was very entertaining and quickly became my favourite talk of the festivals. Benstock not only made documentaries about things that seemed interesting and unusual but he also injected his documentaries with humour. This lecture may not have inpired me to start making my own documentaries, but it has shown me that you should do what you love doing, because someone will be interested in it, even if it is something as obscure as the Alternate Miss World competition.

BAF 2012 - Day Two

Christine Phelan of Valve

Day two started off with another potentially brilliant talk - and unlike Bethesda the previous day, Christine Phelan didn't disappoint us and actually gave us a helpful and honest talk about her time in the games industry. Phelan has worked with Valve for the past two years and works as an animator. However it has been quite a struggle for her to achieve her current job, as originally she lived in Georgia, miles away from the games industry hot spot San Francisco. She also admitted that her starting work was awful and she was lucky to get given any work at all. However she did get work and started working at Lucas Arts where she learnt a few things about the games industry:

• Don't be an asshole to people - Phelan was surprised by how rude some of her fellow animators were which hindered them come promotion time
• Hierarchy - Lucas Arts, like many game developers, was a hierarchy with one person making the majority of the decisions and everyone else having to do as they said and if you want to keep your job you need to get used to it
• Everything you know is probably wrong and you will need to re-learn everything you thought you knew
• Gameplay is more important than beauty for many game developers and animation will often take a back seat to game play
• Long hours and lay offs - lots of people get fired or only temporarily hired and the days can be very long

Phelan told us a story with video of one of her first major animations for a Star Wars game for Lucas Arts which was an idea for how the game should play. She showed us the rough animation and it looked really fun and interesting with different camera angles and realistic movement. She then showed us how the game actually played and it was much worse looking with lifeless animation and predictable movements. She told us how devastated she was that the game had cut the more complex animations to save the company money and speed the production of the game up. This is when she realised that she didn't want to work for Lucas Arts anymore so instead she joined Double Fine, an indie games company responsible for creating Costume Quest, Amnesia Fortnight and Brutal Legend.

Although Phelan enjoyed her time at Double Fine she noticed that the company was being overly ambitious, especially with one of the games she helped to animate, Brutal Legend. Although the original game was released to mixed reviews, she admitted that the animation wasn't spot on and the game had suffered due to poor time and money management. Double Fine had given her a chance to be more creative with her work as the company wasn't a hierarchy and left her to her own devices, however this also turned out to be a negative as the company proved to be too unstable and stressful, sometimes lacking direction and authority. She felt she needed to move on  and through a friend managed to get a job at Valve.

Valve is another of my favourite companies, releasing another all time favourite game of mine, Left 4 Dead/ Left 4 Dead 2. Apparently Valve is run with an organic structure in mind, with no management producers and everyone helping out where they want to, effectively making you your own boss and letting you try your hand at everything. Phelan also praised how patient Valve was when teaching her how to use new equipment as apparently the company really cares about their employees. If they see talent in you they see you as a long term investment and make sure you have everything you need to get the best work from you.

This talk was actually very helpful for me as it made me think about where i would want to work. Valve sounds almost too good to be true and seems like an ideal place to work as they are patient with their employees and everyone gets to try their hand at everything which really appeals to me. The other two companies seemed a lot more stressful and if i were to work in a stressful environment i know i wouldn't be able to reach my potential.

Botanicular - Amanita Games

In this talk Amanita showed off their new game 'Botanicular' with a demo. Botanicular is a puzzle game with a simplistic art style and neutral colour palette set in a tree that's trying to survive an invasion from soot like creatures. The playable characters in the game are common objects found in or around the tree and are highly imaginative and diverse, including a seed, a twig, some fungus and a feather, each with unique abilities that help the team navigate around the tree and stop the invading soot creatures.

The game has taken approximately three years to make and includes over one-hundred and fifty different screens, which show different parts of the tree. One-hundred and fifty different music scores would have been too expensive and time consuming to produce, so instead Botanicular features natural noises like wind, rain and creaking branches. This was to provide an interactive and immersible experience for the player.

Although Botanicular looks very pretty and highly imaginative, i wouldn't personally buy it because I'm terrible at puzzle games but i would definitely recommend it to those interested in puzzle games who are looking for an unusual experience. This game really inspired me and made me look at every day objects differently, even the most mundane items could make potentially brilliant characters.

The Future of the Lego Series - David from Traveller's Tales

Unfortunately i didn't manage to write down our speaker's full name and only caught his first name David so apologies in advance. David talked to us about the future of the Lego series of games and how the series was taking a big step by introducing voices to the games.

Previously Lego games had been silent, relying on animation to convey story and emotions but the developers thought that including voices was a natural and progressive step. Apparently whilst making the Star Wars games it was hard to find suitable scenes and films had to be picked apart to find scenes shorter than forty-five seconds that could be simplified to let the player understand what was happening in a scene without using voice - a process which was grueling and often had rather confusing outcomes. From experience i remember not understanding some of the scenes in Lego Star Wars as a kid as they there were only limited facial expressions and too many jokes were put into the cut scenes. Although these jokes were funny, they could often be confusing and misleading and get in the way of the story.

David went on to say that adding voices to the games proved to be a massive help in conveying the story, and let them add jokes into the game through animation whilst the characters talk over it, providing a much less confusing experience. Lego Batman was the first game to include voice acting and provided a better understanding and room for character relationships.

The second Lego game to include voice acting was Lego Lord of the Rings - which instead of featuring the cast of the films doing lines for the game, featured the actual audio from the film, which meant there was much less room to be silly. Instead Traveller's Tales aimed to include some humour but focus on the audio, creating cut scenes you wouldn't want to skip. Scenes from the films were isolated and edited to create the best conversations and most important scenes that wouldn't stop the player playing for too long but also explained what was happening in the film.

This talk was quite insightful and interesting as I've been a fan of the Lego series of games for years, along with liking The Lord of the Rings. It was great to hear the reasoning behind the series' change in direction and hear how the games were naturally progressing. I think it would be great if Traveller's Tales were able to make a Hunger Games or Game of Thrones Lego game. But perhaps that will always just be wishful thinking.

Neil Thompson of Bioware

Bioware is another of my favourite companies, making the amazing Mass Effect trilogy. However, this was another talk that actually had nothing to do with the company following in the Bethesda talk's footsteps. This talk was given by gaming industry veteran Neil Thompson who started working with games in 1987. Apparently his family and friends thought the job was a waste of time back then and many of them still think it is now. However, Thompson believes that games are an art form and that computers are just an expensive brush - which is actually a pretty cool thing to say if you can get over how pretentious it sounds.

Thompson left school as an illustrator and was unable to find any work in the industry and instead worked in a carpet shop for a few years. Luckily though the carpet shop owner's son introduced him to a games company called Lothlorien. His skills were eventually noticed at the company after working on a game called 'Never Mind'.  After this he joined the company Zsygnosis and worked on a game called Microcosm which was a futuristic racer. Although this game wasn't very popular, the idea of Wipeout stemmed from it.

Wipeout is actually the first game name i recognise out of Thompson's titles and i actually really enjoyed the game as a kid. It features very streamline and futuristic looking hovering vehicles that race and battle one another to wina race. Wipeout proved hugely popular and brought a lot of attention to Thompson and his team and they went on to create a company called Curly Monsters. However they failed to achieve the same success they had with Wipeout and after a few failed games, including a very generic racing game for Microsoft that got butchered by Microsofts' own team, Thompson returned to Zsygnosis where he worked on another Wipeout game before falling out with the developer and joining Bizarre Creations, an off shoot of Activision.

Here he made the racing game with a twist 'Blur', a game released to mixed reviews. Although the concept was interesting and the mechanics highly imaginative, the game didn't manage to impress enough people or get very much attention and is now considered an underrated game by many gamers. When Activision closed Bizarre Creations, Thompson joined Bioware, which is when he stopped talking about his career and decided to give us some key points that are crucial for getting into the industry.

• Learn your skill and learn it well
• Find a skill set that is useful and diverse
• Critique your work at industry level with their standards
• Cultivate an inspirational palette and try new things
• Find motivation - many people fail here and it is the most important step to securing a job

This talk was very useful to me as the last point about finding motivation is one of my biggest problems. Although i have a lot of ideas it is always hard trying to get them down on paper and actually starting a project can be very daunting for me, making me put it off and not want to try sometimes. Hopefully this will make me more motivated - although considering that this blog post has been done in April and BAF was in November things aren't looking too good :P

BAF 2012 - Day One

I have been lucky enough to attend the previous two Bradford Animation Festivals and as both were quite interesting i was looking forward to going again a third time, especially since this year there were talks by some of my favourite developers including Bioware and Bethesda. Here are my notes and thoughts of all the talks i attended.

Oddworld Inhabitants - Stewart Gilray, CEO of Just Add Water

The Oddworld series by Oddworld Inhabitants has proved to be hugely successful, with universally praised games such as Abe's Odyssey and Munch's Odyssey. These games gained a lot of fans, over six million according to CEO of Just Add Water Stewart Gilray and he explained that the series is far from dead with two new heroes yet to star in their own game along with a string of sequels dedicated to each, which will finish the Oddworl quintology.

Stewart Gilray added that although the series was well loved, he was worried that the future of the games industry could hinder the game's sales. Apparently UK retail sales of games have fallen and in 2011 retail sales accounted for less than 50% of total game sales. This loss of sales is mostly due to digital downloads, which let players purchase a digital copy of the game online and play it instantly. Because of the shift in sales, Gilray explained that his company have to consider whether to make sales exclusively digital, which could also hinder their sales by abandoning customers without an internet connection or those with limited internet access.

Gilray also voiced concerns about the death of the console, stating that he suspects the next generation of consoles scheduled for a fall and winter release could be the last generation, and that PC gaming will become the only way to play games. However, he failed to show any evidence for this so i take it as pure speculation, in my opinion i think consoles will be around for many more years. For the casual gamer they offer an affordable way to play quality games without having to worry about being able to run them on a PC. Also, with Microsoft's Xbox slowly transforming into an all around home entertainment system i think console gamers have nothing to worry about.

To finish off the talk Gilray invited us to watch a sneak peek of the newest game to the series 'Abe's Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty' which looked amazing. The environment moved gracefully in the background and foreground and animations seemed seamless. Gilray explained that the the designers had envisaged a 'living environment' that acted naturally and was engaging for the player. Abe's Odyssey: New 'n' Tasty is expected to hit shelves in fall of 2013.

Gilray's talk was interesting, even if some of it seemed a little baseless. He was obviously passionate about the series and didn't want to disappoint the fans - a passion which will hopefully help him and his team to produce a top quality game. It was also interesting to hear his concerns and plans for overcoming the drop in physical retail sales of games but i didn't agree with his thoughts on consoles dying out. From the talk i learnt that producing a good quality game isn't always enough, if you don't market it properly you could abandon loyal fans or make a huge loss in sales. This could be a valuable lesson for the future.

The Creative Industry - Tomek Zawada, Lead Animator of Projekt Red's Witcher/ Witcher 2

Projekt Red is a polish company famous for creating The Witcher and The Witcher 2, both AAA titles. I was quite excited to attend this talk as i had watched a play-through of The Witcher 2 on Youtube and had loved the style of the game, especially the creative monster design and animation, my favourite being the kraken.

Tomek Zawada had flown all the way from Poland to attend the festival and had to leave again straight afterwards to attend another festival back in Poland so he was clearly very in demand. After his talk you could see why - he was very insightful and straight forward, giving great advice with first hand experiences as examples. Zawada started his presentation rather abruptly but humorously by warning everyone to never work as an animator for advertisers, with one frame dedicated to it in his slide show with just two bullet points reading: 'Horrible hours. Work is Under-appreciated', after which he quickly moved on. He also didn't spend very much time talking about animating for films, explaining that although the money was generally good, there was no room for creativity because of the strict constraints, with many employees having to animate the same scene with the same style. He also said that you will very rarely get your own scene, instead you will be given ten seconds to animate from one scene then be moved on to another. His face then lit up as he announced that his real passion is in video games.

Zawada explained that video games were the best industry to work in, in terms of animation at least. Within the games industry you can have free reign on creativity, especially when you become lead designer or animator. There is also an interactive workload, meaning that if you have an idea for an animation that is better than the one on the storyboard you can present it and if it is good enough will replace the old animation. He explained that not all games can be fun to work on, even if you are interested in the game. He gave racing games as an example, saying that although he loves playing them, the animations were very restricted and repetitive because they don't have a diverse animation pool.

RPGs are Zawada's favourite genre of game as there is such a rich animation pool, with creatures, people and environments to animate, many of which can be obscure and interesting. His favourite things to animate being serious scenes between characters that require the characters to convey a range of emotions, and creatures which can be diverse, fun and challenging. He also gave the audience some tips for working in the games industry:

• If you work in a negative environment you lose focus and become unproductive
• Aim to socialise well to create a positive atmosphere and become friends with your team after work hours
• Keep a good mentality and create content for the player, not for the profit
• Join original projects that genuinely interest you, even if they don't pay as well

Zawada's talk was very informative and his advice on only doing what you love so that it's your best work resonates with me. Hopefully this will have a positive effect on me and teach me to seek out inspiration to make my work better.

Tengami - Phil and Jennifer of Nyamyam

This presentation was given by Phil and Jennifer, creators of Nyamyam and previously both programmers for Rare games, famous for making Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country. Phil had been working at Rare for thirteen years and Jennifer had worked there for a year, when the two realised they both had the same taste in games and shared a lot of ideas they decided to set up their own company, Nyamyam, a name taken from the noise Jennifer made when she ate, with the motto:

'Create beautifully crafted games that express who we are, and bring a sense of wonder to the player'

Soon afterwards they started designing their first game 'Tengami', an adventure game for the Ipad with a pop-up book theme that focuses on puzzle solving and relaxation. The game features unique game play that relies on the player turning the pages of the book to solve puzzles and advance the story. Early on in the project they decided to focus on a Japanese theme as they both shared a passion for Japanese culture, fashion and architecture, with a focus on craftsmanship rather than ninjas and samurais that are usually found in games. My favourite visual in the game was a tree that changed colours depending on the season in the game, going from luscious greens to a cold white.

Their unique idea came with a few problems though - to start with they had no idea how to create such a game with software and didn't have enough knowledge of how pop-up books even worked. This forced them to start creating physical pop-ups and studying different techniques that they could use in the game, they had to teach themselves as any tutorial sites or books they found were far too simple and aimed at children.

They were able to find Paper Kit, a plug-in for Modo, that let them experiment with their ideas for the game and build some test levels. Unfortunately Paper Kit was still being developed so progress was slow and they were unsure what features would be left in and taken out of the finished program. After a while they realised their project was heading in the wrong direction; game play wasn't fun or engaging and there was no sense of wonder as combat was a sequence of repetitive pop-ups.

They decided to scrap their progress and instead start again, focusing on the strengths of the Ipad and a feeling of a pop-up book, rather than everything being reliant on pop-ups. This new style proved to be much more fun and engaging. Tengami is scheduled for a summer 2013 release.

This talk was insightful and gave plenty of good advice, mainly that you should aim to be unique and focus on quality throughout the project and also to not be scared of scrapping the project and starting again if you aren't happy with it. Although this is good advice that i will take into consideration, i can't help but ask what happens if you aren't able to start again, especially if you have a limited budget? But either way, i found this talk quite useful.

Book of Spells - Joel Smith of Sony Entertainment London

Book of spells is a recently released children's game for Xbox Kinect that brings the magic spells of the Harry Potter universe to families living rooms. The game was a collaboration between Sony Entertainment London and Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling. Joel Smith was appointed art director for the game and told us how he had attempted to bring a magical experience to the player of the game through authenticity, engagement and style.

Joel Smith explained that one of his first ideas for the style of the book was to make it seem as authentic as possible. Apparently the book the player encountered is supposed to be over two-hundred years old so Smith had to explore how books were written around that time. One of his biggest inspirations he discovered was the poems by William Blake, which had detailed paintings adorning the poem.

This concept proved hugely successful when play testing the game as the players had a vague understanding of what the spell did from the illustrations surrounding it. However, the highly detailed painting also hindered the overall authenticity of the book as they looked too perfect, which forced the art team to 'age' the book by adding tears to the appearance of each page and including folds and scuffs.

I should probably say now that all these aesthetic changes occurred virtually because the physical book is merely a hard plastic cover with a few symbols on each side for the kinect to read. I am guessing that pages were later added to the book but because this was a pre-release display we didn't get to see any. Although the idea of an interactive book is novel (ha), I honestly didn't like the look or feel of the physical object. It was cheap looking and seemed like a one off purchase that will only ever be needed for this one game which i wouldn't normally see a problem with, but as the game is more expensive because of the book i feel it is worth mentioning.

However, despite the feel of the physical book, its virtual counterpart was quite stunning. Each school of magic was colour coded for decoration and accessibility and the art on each page was beautifully done, with bursting flames on one page and spider webs on another. The gameplay also looked quite fun for children as the book would come to life on screen depending on what spell you used, for example a fire spell would fly from the book and temporarily scorch the screen while other spells would give life to the text.

Overall I quite liked this presentation, even if i do think the game is a bit of a gimmick. Children seemed to really enjoy the game and the art direction was perfect. Even though i doubt it was the intended message, this talk has taught me to put all your effort into your job, even if the rest of the project seems quite lazy or dull. The idea of the game is rather bland but it was nice to see how much passion Smith put into the spell illustrations and page designs.

Game Style - Lucas Hardi of Bethesds Game Studios

I was very excited to listen to Lucas Hardi as he had worked on Skyrim, one of my favourite games ever made. However, this talk was probably the most disappointing and confusing talks i attended as Hardi talked about the style in games rather than anything Bethesda related. I did manage to take some notes though so here is what i understood:

Hardi started the talk with the point that style is the most important aspect of a game. He reinforced his argument by comparing style to graphics with the example of Super Mario and Metal Gear Solid, both games that came out around the same time and originally looked very similar. However as graphics improved, the style of each game started to show and now both games couldn't be more different. This made sense to me, although i couldn't help but think that graphics surely had something to do with that.

Lucas Hardi went on to say that style is dictated by three key aspects of games: Realism, Abstraction and Meaning. He demonstrated this by drawing a triangle with each of the above aspects representing one corner, then style was written in the middle. Although the style could lean towards one aspect more than the others, the other aspects would still hold some importance over the style. For example if the style leaned solely on abstraction, then the lack of realism or meaning would reinforce the abstract style - or at least i think this is what Hardi was trying to explain... It was quite confusing.

The talk only got stranger and more disjointed as Hardi started talking about which methods of animating were the best and worst, then went back to talking about how 'demakes' (the simplification of a game to its core colours and story) were often the better version of the game and had better style. I couldn't help but heavily disagree with him - some games are made far more interesting because of their detailed styling. Eternal Sonata for example has a very whimsical and child-like style that would translate horribly into a simplified demake.

Hardi then talked about rocks. Seriously. Apparently all rocks in games looked the same or something, or didn't, i don't even know. By this point the talk was already impossible to understand and it seemed very disjointed and bizarre. Hardi then finished his talk with a saying: 'Great games are played, not made'. Thanks for that random pearl of wisdom there Hardi...

Unsurprisingly i didn't enjoy this talk and was very disappointed with what could have potentially been and amazing end to the first day at BAF. Although Hardi was trying to convince us that style was the most important aspect of game play, he didn't manage to convince me, especially since Skyrim relies far more on story and role play than style. I would like to say that his talk taught me something but it really didn't, instead it just let me down and confused me.

Black Death Britannia - Negotiated Studies One: Overview

Overall, I am fairly pleased with how this project turned out and with my contribution, although i do think it could have gone a lot smoother and could have been more impressive had we had better time management.

In terms of working in a group this project was very fun and was a great chance to experience working in a group of people with contrasting ideas. Not only did this help us to evaluate our ideas and allow us to get a second opinion on them, but it also helped us to refine them into something we all liked and were happy with.
I also liked that the work was split fairly evenly so that we could each play to our strengths and produce the best work possible.

However, working in a group also had it's fair share of hardships such as arguing over ideas and a lack of organisation. Although arguing for your ideas is a good thing as it shows you care what is being put into a game, it was a struggle when almost every idea, even minor details, were being shot down and scrutinised. Also having split the work load into different sections meant that we were left to our own devices most often, with few chances to give feedback and motivate each other but many chances to procrastinate. We did manage to get past the arguing though and eventually we were all on the same page with our ideas, and near the end of the project we did start showing each other our work and motivating each other to do work.

My two fields of work were costume design and story. Although initially I was much more interested in costume design, I did start to loose interest in the topic as it became clear that the majority of the men's costumes were simply suits, or waistcoat variations. I did have a lot of fun with the female costume design though, although I created these designs very quickly and was only left with the men's designs which left me fairly uninspired.

It wasn't until I started to write the story that i really started to enjoy the project. I found creating the character biographies much more interesting and rewarding when compared with the costume designs and the creative freedom when coming up with the main story felt great. I think you can tell from my written work that i was enjoying myself a lot, but by the time i had started to write the character bios, the project was already nearing the deadline and although i managed to finish all the biographies and story, the costume design fell short. I've never been so proud of something yet so embarrassed at the same time. I know my costume designs are far weaker than my story and I am annoyed that i let myself become unmotivated and lazy. I do like some of the designs, particularly Odette and Virginia's designs, but i think my story design is far stronger and really outshines my actual artwork.

If i were to do this project again i would definitely try to put more effort in and manage my time better. I would have aimed for turnarounds of each character with full colour costume designs as well as the detailed biographies. I think I would also now be able to pick my battles better when it comes to arguing for your ideas as looking back, a lot of what we fought about ended up being either left out or unnecessary. I would definitely work in a group again as the experience and ideas that came out of it were very helpful and creative but perhaps in future, tweaking how we worked and arranging weekly meeting where we showed each other our progress would be a good idea.

The Davenports and Van Herks

 As Jonathan and Josephine Davenport die relatively early on, I didn't give them personal costumes as they can easily be put in any of the costumes i drew whilst researching the eras. So instead here is their bio.

The Van Herks at least got some simple designs, but again as they were not major characters their designs were left and more attention was paid to their bio and the other characters.

Dr. Rivers, Winston and Sister Joy

There were three characters i didn't manage to focus on too much so sadly there is only their initial concept sketches. However, each character did receive a full biography.

Dr. Rivers was one of the first characters to be created but because our group simply saw him as the doctor and assumed his story was interesting enough, he was sidelined for the majority of the project. It was only when the end of our project was in sight that I realised how under-developed the character was. To counteract this I tried to give him a more interesting back story that showed that Rivers had a lot more history than a standard doctor.

Winston Cobblebottom

Regrettably, Winston Cobblebottom is the most under-developed character in the project. Due to disagreements on whether the character should even be in the game I was reluctant to work on him as i didn't find him very inspiring. Instead, Bas did some concept art for him and after that progress for Winston came to a halt. I did write him a biography and attempted to make the character somewhat interesting but i found it very hard to muster any interest in him. I would have preferred to have made Henry Van Herk a playable character for two reasons: because I felt Henry was a much more dynamic and interesting character and also because it would balance the age of the playable characters, since three of the four male characters are over the age of thirty. However, as time was running out Winston was allowed to stay, although if the project were to have continued, I would have liked to have scrapped the character entirely.

Sister Joy

Sister Joy was a very late entry to the character roster, being created after the simple idea of a nun with a gun which we all thought sounded cool, and since our whole project was conceived from a 'cool idea', she was added to the game and replaced the rather dull character of Adelaide Davenport, the grandmother of Odette and Edward. Adelaide is still a character, but a background character that is unseen and only referred to in the game as she is the Davenport grandmother that lives in a different city to the rest of her family. I would have loved to have thought up Sister Joy at an earlier stage as i think she had a lot of potential and could have been one of the most iconic characters. But sadly poor timing meant that Sister Joy was never to be as developed as the majority of the characters.