He tugs at his uncomfortable green lycra suit and re-adjusts his helmet. Breathing deeply he listens out for the explosions on the far side of the arena. Carefully he cradles an explosive in his left arm and lights the fuse. His power enhanced gloves make the bomb feel as light as air as he throws it around a nearby corner, just as a white lycra-clad contestant runs around. His screams are heard as his wounded avatar is teleported to the sidelines.
“ And White-Bomber is dooowwnnn!” announces the spectator “and out of the Bomberman Championship 2924!”
A live action Bomberman you say? Well you never know.
As a new decade starts we tend to look back over the years and from a Game Artist’s view there have been some significant developments.
Just to think that only 10 years ago we were all playing on PS2’s, amazed by the captivating graphics of 2,000 tri characters and yet in what is a relatively short amount of time, we are now playing on consoles the size of our palms or on 47 inch screens with so much detail it challenges our own reality.
So in the next 10 or 100 years who’s to say that in-game graphics will have advanced so much that the only way forward is to bring games into real-life itself.
Hordes of clones could be created and then suited up like Master Chief whilst side-lined players re-enact Halo 3. Hologram technology could allow us to run around caves collecting treasures like Tomb Raider.
I suppose the main point to take away from all this is to consider the future of games, will it actually get to the point where only real-life stands in the way?
Friday, 1 January 2010
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
Hybridmania!
As a child I was very imaginative, in the playground my classmates would gather round as I invented something new and fun to play. I’d whisk us off to a magical world where we were powerful fairies or demons, or we’d play our own take on Cops ‘n’ Robbers… vampires and princesses ( I had unusually large canines as a child so naturally I was always a vampire.)
Because of my imagination I was gifted with artistic skill, I could spend ours doodling new shapes and colours but one thing always frustrated me.
I could never put across just exactly what I was picturing. My head would be filled with mythical beasts and creatures but I could never draw them how I was imaging them, so alas I had to rely on my descriptive capabilities which also made me and good at English. Huzzah!
I’ve always struggled with drawing thins from fantasy until quite recently, when I realised that using the world around me could help me get across my vision.
Take last year’s organic creature project for example. I knew vaguely that I wanted to create a creepy two-legged creature but by studying the shapes of eggs I had created myself a body and by looking at the branches of ivy I had created the legs.
I was amazed at how everyday objects could be used creatively to make something new. I have also learned to approach projects with a clear mind and to never-ever go with my first idea. Instead, I take that idea and hybrid it with something I find interesting. For example I was challenged with designing a vehicle, I wanted to make a helicopter but to define it as my own I studied the shapes and colouring of wasps to create an original vehicle concept. However taking into affecting my new understandings I abandoned the helicopter idea, worked and reworked my design until I had a wasp/submarine hybrid that I was proud to call my own.
From all of this I have learnt that using examples from life and studying the world around us is invaluable. Though we may all have our own designs and ideas, using realistic examples creatively will result in a much more professional and original outcome.
However the only drawback from all this is that I am now a hybrid designing monster :)
Because of my imagination I was gifted with artistic skill, I could spend ours doodling new shapes and colours but one thing always frustrated me.
I could never put across just exactly what I was picturing. My head would be filled with mythical beasts and creatures but I could never draw them how I was imaging them, so alas I had to rely on my descriptive capabilities which also made me and good at English. Huzzah!
I’ve always struggled with drawing thins from fantasy until quite recently, when I realised that using the world around me could help me get across my vision.
Take last year’s organic creature project for example. I knew vaguely that I wanted to create a creepy two-legged creature but by studying the shapes of eggs I had created myself a body and by looking at the branches of ivy I had created the legs.
I was amazed at how everyday objects could be used creatively to make something new. I have also learned to approach projects with a clear mind and to never-ever go with my first idea. Instead, I take that idea and hybrid it with something I find interesting. For example I was challenged with designing a vehicle, I wanted to make a helicopter but to define it as my own I studied the shapes and colouring of wasps to create an original vehicle concept. However taking into affecting my new understandings I abandoned the helicopter idea, worked and reworked my design until I had a wasp/submarine hybrid that I was proud to call my own.
From all of this I have learnt that using examples from life and studying the world around us is invaluable. Though we may all have our own designs and ideas, using realistic examples creatively will result in a much more professional and original outcome.
However the only drawback from all this is that I am now a hybrid designing monster :)
An Epic Battle is on it's way, choose your side
Realism versus fantasy, an epic battle of which gamers everywhere take up their AK’s and Magic Staffs and fight to the death in an epic battle that will last centuries.
Well not quite, but I do wish that someone somewhere in the world of gaming would turn around and be like “ hey let’s not try to make this soldier as real looking as we can, why not make an awesome looking yeti?”
Yet again, this is my one woman rant on realism.
I have tried on numerous occasions to approach realism with open arms only to be cast aside as I realise that realistic games are god-awful and dull to play. I just don’t understand who on earth turned around to their production team an said “don’t worry guys, we don’t have a storyline and we’ve only programmes the X button but it’s fine the graphics will make the game.”
Nothing makes me more angry than when an awesome looking game is just that. No gamelay, no originality, nothing. Which begs the question is there anything creative left in reality?
Obviously I approach this question from a Game Artist point of view as the world around us is undoubtedly creative to artists, architects etc. but how many nice-looking trees can be modelled before they just become objects gamers completely overlook?
Take children ,for example. Even though today’s youths are exposed to a world of war, violence and death, the majority of them can be found in their back gardens playing in a make-believe world of fairies, magic and pokemon.
Deep, deep down in all of us it is innate, we all secretly prefer a world of fantasy and magic, we all wish we could fly or cast fire.
Which is probably why films such as Avatar and Lord of the Rings have do so well because we all like to escape from realism so why don’t games do the same?
Well not quite, but I do wish that someone somewhere in the world of gaming would turn around and be like “ hey let’s not try to make this soldier as real looking as we can, why not make an awesome looking yeti?”
Yet again, this is my one woman rant on realism.
I have tried on numerous occasions to approach realism with open arms only to be cast aside as I realise that realistic games are god-awful and dull to play. I just don’t understand who on earth turned around to their production team an said “don’t worry guys, we don’t have a storyline and we’ve only programmes the X button but it’s fine the graphics will make the game.”
Nothing makes me more angry than when an awesome looking game is just that. No gamelay, no originality, nothing. Which begs the question is there anything creative left in reality?
Obviously I approach this question from a Game Artist point of view as the world around us is undoubtedly creative to artists, architects etc. but how many nice-looking trees can be modelled before they just become objects gamers completely overlook?
Take children ,for example. Even though today’s youths are exposed to a world of war, violence and death, the majority of them can be found in their back gardens playing in a make-believe world of fairies, magic and pokemon.
Deep, deep down in all of us it is innate, we all secretly prefer a world of fantasy and magic, we all wish we could fly or cast fire.
Which is probably why films such as Avatar and Lord of the Rings have do so well because we all like to escape from realism so why don’t games do the same?
Sunday, 27 December 2009
They call me the Christmas Critic
It’s Christmas time and without fail me and my brother will receive a nice little collection of games between us. I am not in the slightest way saying this is a bad thing as my Mum always seems to get games we really enjoy.
But alas, since my eyes have been opened to the bitter world of anatomy, colour theory and bump maps I can’t help but pass judgement on every game I play.
His face isn’t right, her arms are too long, why is that tree purple?
But then, I think back to older games such as Tomb Raider or Croc. Oh my word, there is endless amounts to pick at in those games yet we don’t. we pass it off as being old. Much like how an elderly relative can get away with saying the most filthiest things but everyone overlooks it because there old.
But this just pondered me further. In a very competitive industry can we get away with ‘old’, or should we z-brush the oblivion out of everything we do? Is it more creative to use more polys or more texture space? In which case, are the ps3’s games more creative than the DS’s.
Of course not, but I can’t help but think we’re being pushed that way. There’s seems to be an underlying tone amongst colleagues that it’s better to work for Naughty Dog than Sega, or Sony than Nintendo but I fail to see why.
I believe that a 5,000 tri character executed with perfect topology is far more impressive than a 80,000 tri Z-brush sculpt but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more creative.
Creativity is personal and individualised. No two people like the same painting for the same reasons and the same applies to games. What my brother will find amazing I will find fault in for I am the Christmas Critic.
But alas, since my eyes have been opened to the bitter world of anatomy, colour theory and bump maps I can’t help but pass judgement on every game I play.
His face isn’t right, her arms are too long, why is that tree purple?
But then, I think back to older games such as Tomb Raider or Croc. Oh my word, there is endless amounts to pick at in those games yet we don’t. we pass it off as being old. Much like how an elderly relative can get away with saying the most filthiest things but everyone overlooks it because there old.
But this just pondered me further. In a very competitive industry can we get away with ‘old’, or should we z-brush the oblivion out of everything we do? Is it more creative to use more polys or more texture space? In which case, are the ps3’s games more creative than the DS’s.
Of course not, but I can’t help but think we’re being pushed that way. There’s seems to be an underlying tone amongst colleagues that it’s better to work for Naughty Dog than Sega, or Sony than Nintendo but I fail to see why.
I believe that a 5,000 tri character executed with perfect topology is far more impressive than a 80,000 tri Z-brush sculpt but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more creative.
Creativity is personal and individualised. No two people like the same painting for the same reasons and the same applies to games. What my brother will find amazing I will find fault in for I am the Christmas Critic.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Because Dinosaurs live under the Great Wall of China
During my increasingly busy schedule of sleeping, drawing and eating I somehow found the time to raid my boyfriend’s PlayStation games and play Tomb Raider 2. I remember playing the pixelated game as a kid but I felt that a bit of reminiscing was in order.
After pratting around on the assault course and repeatedly locking my butler in the fridge, I passed the controller over to my loved one, so that he could fight the scary T-Rex’s and tigers and face the horrifying timed jumps in which Lara decides to start knitting instead of doing what-you-are-telling-her-to!!!
But as I watched him play, I no longer saw the same game I feared as a child, no, this time I watched it through the eyes of the horrid critical monster I had become. But as I giggled at the 500 tri cave and the various shades of grey squares that made up it’s walls, I had an epiphany.
I wish I was born ten years earlier.
If only I had grown up in an era where games were made up of simple meshes and no-one had even heard of a specular or bump map. How nice it must have been to open up photoshop and draw an orange rectangle as a brick or a grey square for a stone.
Gone would have been the days where I sit frustratingly tweaking the warp tool just so that my bricks don’t tile repetitively.
Vanquished would have been the weeks of me tweaking 9,000 verts and polys and how welcoming it would have been to watch the industry grow from the beginning, to be able to improve my skills along with it, instead of being chucked head-first into a violent sea of countless polys, terrifying tri-counts and ambient occlusion nightmares.
Oh-wait , hold it there, a T-Rex has just appeared in Tomb Raider. Yes Lara, because dinosaurs do indeed live under the Great Wall of China… or maybe they do and that is indeed why the great wall was really built. Someone should really tell the Mongolians to stop stealing stones from it for their farms or they are going to be in for one nasty surprise.
But I digress.
Just as I am sitting here wishing I could make a hugely successful pixelated mess, I bet the artists back then wish they had worked on pong.
After pratting around on the assault course and repeatedly locking my butler in the fridge, I passed the controller over to my loved one, so that he could fight the scary T-Rex’s and tigers and face the horrifying timed jumps in which Lara decides to start knitting instead of doing what-you-are-telling-her-to!!!
But as I watched him play, I no longer saw the same game I feared as a child, no, this time I watched it through the eyes of the horrid critical monster I had become. But as I giggled at the 500 tri cave and the various shades of grey squares that made up it’s walls, I had an epiphany.
I wish I was born ten years earlier.
If only I had grown up in an era where games were made up of simple meshes and no-one had even heard of a specular or bump map. How nice it must have been to open up photoshop and draw an orange rectangle as a brick or a grey square for a stone.
Gone would have been the days where I sit frustratingly tweaking the warp tool just so that my bricks don’t tile repetitively.
Vanquished would have been the weeks of me tweaking 9,000 verts and polys and how welcoming it would have been to watch the industry grow from the beginning, to be able to improve my skills along with it, instead of being chucked head-first into a violent sea of countless polys, terrifying tri-counts and ambient occlusion nightmares.
Oh-wait , hold it there, a T-Rex has just appeared in Tomb Raider. Yes Lara, because dinosaurs do indeed live under the Great Wall of China… or maybe they do and that is indeed why the great wall was really built. Someone should really tell the Mongolians to stop stealing stones from it for their farms or they are going to be in for one nasty surprise.
But I digress.
Just as I am sitting here wishing I could make a hugely successful pixelated mess, I bet the artists back then wish they had worked on pong.
Sunday, 8 November 2009
Masters of the Arts
Right, now that I finally have five minutes to myself (major bickering over who gets internet access that night) I can at last have an hour or so to jot down my inner most thoughts for you all to read with your cup of tea, and today children is all about my inspiration.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked which master of art I like. Quite tricky, I thought, as I have researched and transcribed so many over the past few years ( H.R.Giger was quite interesting I might add) but I didn’t want to pick someone who had only inspired me recently, I wanted to go way way back, back to my childhood.
We are always arguing whether or not we are born creative or we acquire it, whether it’s innate or we develop it as a skill. Either way I figured that the art I have seen as a child would deep down have influenced me more than I know.
So sat in my rented, poorly decorated room I envisioned my family home.
For as long as I can remember I have stared at an African sunset that takes pride in our living room but that was a mass produced print so that wouldn’t do ( though it may explain my love for warm places :P)
Okay, think Rachel, think. My dad’s decoupage, no. A giant fading tiger print, no. Paint by numbers, no. but then, right there in front of me were two tiny paintings at the top of the stairs. Thick heavy brushstrokes depicting two poppy fields in a French landscape.
Emotional, beautiful, Renoir.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French impressionist who developed his early artistic skills in a porcelain factory and his abilities to capture a social working-class gathering or the waters of the seine have inspired me all my life.
His paintings dance and sparkle with colour and tone, whether it be finely detailed like ‘Girls at the Piano 1892’ or expressive as seen in ‘Coast Near Wargemont1880’. his use of colour is almost daring in some landscapes, using pinks and purples to communicate texture and depth.
Just by replicating a few of his paintings I have developed new skills in which I can finally add my own personal touch into my digital paints, and this is why Renoir is my Master.
A couple of weeks ago I was asked which master of art I like. Quite tricky, I thought, as I have researched and transcribed so many over the past few years ( H.R.Giger was quite interesting I might add) but I didn’t want to pick someone who had only inspired me recently, I wanted to go way way back, back to my childhood.
We are always arguing whether or not we are born creative or we acquire it, whether it’s innate or we develop it as a skill. Either way I figured that the art I have seen as a child would deep down have influenced me more than I know.
So sat in my rented, poorly decorated room I envisioned my family home.
For as long as I can remember I have stared at an African sunset that takes pride in our living room but that was a mass produced print so that wouldn’t do ( though it may explain my love for warm places :P)
Okay, think Rachel, think. My dad’s decoupage, no. A giant fading tiger print, no. Paint by numbers, no. but then, right there in front of me were two tiny paintings at the top of the stairs. Thick heavy brushstrokes depicting two poppy fields in a French landscape.
Emotional, beautiful, Renoir.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French impressionist who developed his early artistic skills in a porcelain factory and his abilities to capture a social working-class gathering or the waters of the seine have inspired me all my life.
His paintings dance and sparkle with colour and tone, whether it be finely detailed like ‘Girls at the Piano 1892’ or expressive as seen in ‘Coast Near Wargemont1880’. his use of colour is almost daring in some landscapes, using pinks and purples to communicate texture and depth.
Just by replicating a few of his paintings I have developed new skills in which I can finally add my own personal touch into my digital paints, and this is why Renoir is my Master.
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