BA5 - turntable yey

Final render f my desk! yay! it messes up towards the end for some reason. i dont know if thats just me but what ever. rest of it looks good!

BA5 - UDK is a massive pain.

I have gone on to use UDK for the first time and i have found it so hard and frustrating to work with.  I have worked on it for 7 hours, Maya crashing on me 4 times, redoing all my work on UDK 3 times, changing my UV mapping twice and i am still unable to do a animation video clip in UDK. Also with the lack of time and being constantly frustrated and fed up i have been unable to work on the textures as they look horribly saturated in UDK with the resolution so low and nasty looking and i haven't put all the components together in UDK of my desk and its accessories.

Jess made some really helpful notes on how to import 3D models from Maya to UDK and apply textures and collision meshes. Link to her blog can be found here. I also received a lot of help from my classmates; im extremely grateful for their help!!! Im so hopeless and unlucky with technology.

Even though the model looks nasty pasty in UDK.  I have applied a collision mesh to it and it is technically function-able.  I also plan on making it look awesome in Maya when i render it out; hopefully my technically ability in Maya shows off better than in UDK....seems like i like making things look pretty rather than be practical. Should have been a fashion student in that respect.

I am generally unhappy about the work in UDK.  I did a a lot and learned a lot in Maya not realizing that it would be as difficult and as painful as it was to put everything into UDK.  It sounds pretty straight forward; import the model, assign the textures, apply a collision mesh and some lighting.  But of course, it is never easy as that. And with my luck, everything takes twice as long. Last years task in Maya was a terrible one; took for ever and had a poor result.

I know that the model works in UDK, but some reason i am unable to make a .mov in the software. The last thing i want to do is start all over again. Especially if it then goes on to not working.

BA5 - Addition

I have now added a sign of one of the characters names so that it now more professional looking!  I think i may go and put this into UDK very soon.

BA5 - contextual studies

Just some quick points on how im laying my essay out and what im going to write etc. just for my benefit really!

I want to write about advertising and marketing in the games industry. Look at it over the past 20 years and see how and why adverts have changed due to technological advances and public opinion of games. Want to discuss the marketing ploys used by the games industries and see how they have affected other industries.

-time line of 20 years of adverts

-explain changes in technology and public opinion

-talk about marketing ploys in general

-talk about game marketing ploys and give example?

-talk about how games have affected modern day marketing and advertising

Lecture 8/02/13

Rob Yescombe - Games Director

Rob Yescombe has been working as a leading creative in videogames for the past seven years. Beginning his career at renowned games developer Free Radical Design, Rob rose to become the studio's Head Writer and Head of PR, during which time his role diversified into covering screen and audio direction; key design concepts; casting; motion capture direction - including the first ever Jedi hand-to-hand fight for 'STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT III'. Rob later became game developer Crytek’s Creative Director of the UK studio, where he worked on CRYSIS 2 and the upcoming TIMESPLITTERS reboot. Rob now works as a Freelance Writer and Creative Director for Sony, Activision, Sega, Virtuos and EA. He is also a judge in the Story and Character category for BAFTA. He is currently developing his first feature film TEN TORS.

The Lecture was really really good! He talked about his role and what he does and did almost a mini workshop with us in creating ideas/stories and a good structure of designing them. It was a lecture you had to be there for and understand, but i made some notes which will help serve as a reminder for myself and any one else who was at the lecture.


After an introduction to himself, he then chose 3 people to come down and tell a very brief short story. He then asked everyone else to choose a favorite story. He said that we cant choose which story is better and what is a valuable and what isnt a valuable idea as we all are looking at it from different subjective views.

He goes on to talk about moral and the the procedure of coming up with ideas. When writers and producers are coming up with ideas and writing out the story, all the other artists have to sit about and wait and do nothing; they are being payed to do nothing. This is expensive and lowers moral so you cant mess about when writing a story.  You should also be able to explain the story to someone quickly, simply and easily; should be concise and stream line = word of mouth is VERY important!

As part of his job, he does 'story bootcamp' = tries to get what you want to express and breathe life into the story.

He got a volunteer to come up and act as a scribe.  Started off by (with the help of everyone saying ideas) made a list onto a white board about issues of the world. We then chose one to run with for the story. Then what would have to be done to counter act that problem, and then create our characters.

Overpopulation (+100 years) > Mass Killings (virus) > Samuel L. Jackson (main character)

For all the characters and their development, we need to ask them the Moral question here, "how far would you go?" and created a scale from extreme "i would do anything" to anti "all life is precious". - within people, character is derived from the moral questions.

For the main character, in the order in which it was written.

Self revelation

to become a nurse?

"the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few"

"-but not at the extent of the needs of freewill"

The haunting

child dies - over population reasons - vaccine??

results in a rough divorce - wife blames him for child's death

Internal flaw

(momentarily got some one to become the character)

self hatred

suicidal

lack of purpose 

External flaw

drunk at funeral for dead daughter

volunteers for experiment? 

Desire

to solve his own murder

Need

feel self worth and love for others

Root the desire, its the focus of the goal! If there is no desire then there is no focus to the story. Desire's stay the same but the reasons can sometimes shift.

we like/dislike/learn about the character (internal flaw) by what they do/act/react (external flaw)

-Ally > joins the main character on their journey > questions the main character

- False Ally > mystery > can also be villain 

- Villain > against the main character 

^ to decide these characters do the same with the main character, look at the moral questions and choose their standing.

BA5 - The work done today

This morning i went into a group one to one with Sharon to discuss our contextual studies work.  What i plan to do seemed to go down well with her so all's good there! She game me some good points to consider about the style of writing the essay.

I am starting to add some accessories to the desk. so far i have made a mug using the help of this tutorial on Youtube. You can see it here.

Here i am beginning to work on a stack of papers! 

BA5 - cs presentation

''Research the relationship between technological change and industry change. Choose two examples of important innovations that have changed the way that games are developed and marketed and research them. Record your research on your blog, so that you can present and discuss it during the session.''

This is my task for a 5 minute presentation for Contextual Studies. So, an important technological change for how games are marketed and developed are technological advances in video and for industry change is that games and game platforms are more easily and readily available/distributed.

With the technological advances for video, it has become increasingly easier to view, distribute and share videos of trailers and adverts on the internet.  Not only that, but the quality of the the image quality has also improved greatly.
For industry change, the availability of games and game consoles are extensive as the majority of people own laptops, smart phone/pad. Also, with the fact that many people have internet connection, along with the smart phones/ pad and/or laptop people can have a solid gaming platform along with portable gaming library.

I am concentrating on the marketing aspect of the industry and i will relate video technology and game distribution to that.  The two points i am looking at are also linked together.

With technological advancement in video, we can stream, view and share videos so easily on the web.  With games, we can view videos on a video hosting services (the biggest being Youtube) or on the game/company website.  According to comScore, in December 2010, 178 million people watched 33.2 billion videos, with the average viewer watching 187 videos per month in the U.S. 

Some stats about Youtube:
exceeds 2 billion views a day
24 hours worth of videos are uploaded every minute
hundreds of millions of videos are watched on mobile devices every month
partner ad revenue tripled in 2009
number of advertisers using display ads has increased 10-fold in the past year


For changes in gaming distribution,  there are new ways for people to play, find and buy games.  Media mobiles or smartphones are now proper gaming platforms and bring games to wider audience. Top ten bestselling apps for iPhone in 2010 were all games. Smartphones became real gaming platform due to better interfaces and more computing power.  Digital delivery has changed how games are played. Digitally delivered games have surpassed traditional sales. More people find the convenience of accessing their game library anywhere with internet-connection, and with less or no copy protection trouble, to be more important than having a physical product.

The way that these two are link is that, videos and ads are put onto the internet. They are viewed on either a pc, laptop, smart phone or pad. They can be shared via emails or social networking sites and viewed on video hosting sites or gaming/company websites.  The increase in sales of laptops and smart phones/pads and the increase in broadband connections, the increase in views of videos and adverts and the way they are shared.

http://www.website-monitoring.com/blog/2010/05/17/youtube-facts-and-figures-history-statistics/
http://blog.neolane.com/conversational-marketing/10-marketing-innovations/

BA5 - Grace

Here i am currently keeping to the Grace HDR and i have made all the handles on the units reflective, the desk is nice ans shiny too! The carpet compared looks more matte which im very glad about. In the lower images i have increased the base's size.

Before i used inverted lighting, i had set up a directional light source onto my model. In the first image it is turned off, in the second one it is turned on. There is a very slight difference with the two images; the first one is very slightly darker. I like it that little bit darker and will keep it turned off.

BA5 - Some more testing

Here is an example of a basic carpet texture i used with all the handles done on one side of the desk.  I played around with the reflective-ness of the floor with help from tips from the tutorial i mentioned in my previous post.  I want it to be obviously different texture from the desk and handles but thats a little hard to do.  The again i am still undecided as to what indirect lighting i want which could totally change the overall render.  So far the two favorites are the St Peters and the Grace resources, so i will currently focus on those two. I will keep playing about and change things up to try and see what fits best.  If i find it too much trouble, ill leave it to later and instead work on some accessories like a lamp or file case etc.

This render i used the St Peters inverted lighting resource.

This, i used the Grace inverted lighting resource.

The St Peters lighting creates a more speckled lighting effect that looks like its created by either a tree or a special lighting rig.  the Grace lighting is more natural but has a reddish hue to it too. Thats why i am still undecided. I think ill keep looking for more HDR images but for now this is working well!

BA5 - Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

Here are 3 choices to choose from for the Indirect lighting, each one rather different. I have also added a base as contrast which i may well texture later on. But for now the focus is the desk and its ability to reflect. I will ask people what they think looks better which will help me out when i finish this!

BA5 - Shiny surfaces and cool lighting.

I found that even though the rendering was looking good, i wanted the handles to e nice and reflective. So, i decided to find an online tutorial on how to create shiny things.  I went ahead and used this video here ( second part here). Even though it is for a ball, i thought i could try to adapt it to my rectangular handles. And it has indeed elevated my work and made it more reflective; the desk its self looks varnished and the handles look reflective (well the one does as i decided to just test it out on the singular one, i will duplicate to match). I am thinking about doing the same to the bottom parts to make the desk look cohesive  I will also add a base that will either be a rug or carpet to contrast against the wooden desk.  For the indirect lighting i followed onto the website provided here and played about with both the Kitchen and Grace Cathedral, San Francisco images.  The Kitchen one created more of a white light look but warped at the sides, giving a back to the future look, which isnt really realistic or what im after.  The San Francisco one gave a reddish lighting look with multiple light points creating almost a speckled disco effect. Which is not what i want as this is meant to be an office desk, in an office!

WARP!

BA5 - Addition, Lighting and some rendering

I realized that something was off on the overall structure of the desk at the back, it was just a flat face had no dimention to it! So i quickly put in a back and no it looks so much better, everything connects now.

I have now also started playing with lighting and doing some rendering shots of my desk. I will produce a turn table soon. I think i will either return to working on my chair or, i will make some items to go on the desk. e.g. a lamp. Used a really helpful and simple tutorial online for this here.

BA5 - Handles and bottom

Here are the handles!

Here i have also rearranged the non-bordered side of the desk. I do like how it is just like that but ill get another opinion and see.

And here are the bottoms.

I have decided to not have the rim around the units. Personally i think it looks a lot cleaner looking.