Tristan's Review: Heavy Rain

Oh God, why is this game of such great graphics so BORING! OH WHYYY! AARGGGGHHHHH!
Its made mundane life more boring.
Id rather cut my own wrists than play this game again, however I now have a fear of a joy stick box apearing and telling me how to do it.
The graphics are lovely, the water effects, SUPER, however this doesnt compensate for really boring gameplay.
If I wanted an interactive movie, I'd shout at the fucking screen. And I do!
I want to slam my head against my wall, but thatd wake up my neighbour light sleeper friend, fuck everything.

OH.... Dont play it through in one run, like I attempted to do. Sorry should have cleared that up.

Blitz Lecture

I typed this out yesterday but my pc crashed. So Ill have to remember what I wrote, nice.
I thought the lecture was pretty helpful, I was reasured that I was on the right course for what I wanted to to. Also some of my thoughts on how the industry works was resuported. But it was really helpful seeing what they wanted and what they didnt. One of the best parts of the lecture was seeing one of my favorite artists, Hyung Tae-Kim. Although he has a very anime, styleized theme about his work, his colouring and character art is fucking awesome. It doesnt matter that he deforms the his characters to boost sex appeal because he does it so well. But I was really happy to see it up there. And seeing it against a load of shit art work made me smile a bit.
The lecture also made me think about what I should focus upon. I do like character design and concept art work, along with general modeling and landscapes. But I still dont know. Hell! Lead Artist would still be sweet! Other than that, Im a little disapointed that I wasnt able to show them my sketchbook I use when drawing people are coffee shops. I'd have loved some feedback from people ion the industry. But like a convention, people swarmed them and asked 10 questions each that required a 5 minute or more awnser. *sigh*

The Singularity Bullshit

Following on form my " In the future", which was stemed from watching something about the " Singularity ", I just think its bullshit right off the bat. This person has gone into some detail about it.
http://io9.com/5661534/why-the-singularity-isnt-going-to-happen
Its a nice read.

In the future

Ive been reading and watching a bit of recent about the future of technology. All these ass holes telling me and everyone else, " In the future! ", its became quite obviouse to me that it is a load of bull shit. People have been saying " In the future! " for years now, however looking at all of the images of what they imagined this future to be, it always seems to be half baked of the reality. Not only beacuse everything they imagined in the future looked stupid, but beacuse the futuristic ideas also look primative or something from The Jetsons.
I was watching Visions of the Future, Inteligant Revolution. Things like " Your sun glasses will download the profiles of people you see! ", such bullshit wouldnt be aloud to be made, " Your clothes (shirt) will monitor your health, phoning for help if you have a heart attack. " bullshit, maybe some kind of wrist band designed for military use, but I doubt some fat bastard's fat shirt will save him. I'll admit some things that seem out there are possable, but saying they will happen is a load of toss. These " In the future! " folk seem to forget about the human aspect of the world.

If I was a "In the future! " man, I'd say something people would achualy belive, like " In the future there will be alot more advertisment! Everywhere you go, on your clothes, before you log into the internet. Posably every 15-30 minutes an advertisment break on the internet would apear like on television, every object and thought you have will be the product of advertising! ". Alot more belivable than " Hurrr you can download yourself onto the internet, and uninstall yourself in a completely different country! "

Task 2

A history of video games 1950-1970

Games have been quite a popular interest for generations, beyond video games, there were other games, such as Chess, card games and other board games. These were physical  games, often played by children and adults. However in recent years the old physical games have been pushed aside to older generations in favour of the video game. Both were just as fun, however their origins started with a war-driven purpose; to win or to train. So ofcorse, video games have their short history rooted into war, which is strangely interesting.

There seems to be some contriversy over who made “ the first video game “, some say it was William Higinbotham making “Tennis for two”, others say A.S Douglas making Tic-Tac-Toe others say its Space War (1962).

Ralph Baer seems to be the founder of the video game, coming up with the concept in 1951 of a playable game on a television screen, although it was trashed as he was supposed to be making a television. A year later Tic-tac-toe was made, however this seemed to be directed towards human-computer interface than the enjoyment of games. It took seven years later in 1958 for the two player game Tennis for Two amerged, which seemed to be the first competitive game that used hand controllers, however it was only shown for two years after it was dismantled. I’d say that Space War, created in 1961 was the first video game which seemd to be enjoyable,  not only did it have half decent graphics, there was also some variation in the game play, they added “ gravity stars “ to make the game more difficult. Although this is technically not a “ video game “, it seems to be the most enjoyable and more video game like game to be produced so far. Considering you can still download it off the internet,  it must still have some appeal. Also it is quite interesting how at the time, the Space Race against the U.S and Russia was going on, with the first man in space being a Russian in 1961. Ignoring all the animals sent previously. So as a game it is also a good document of the events of the decade.

I don’t belive that the 50s and 60s were the golden age of computer gaming, it simply set down the building blocks for the 70s and onward, where games really began to kick into hard gear. However the minds behind it probably had no idea what would come of their humble washing machine computer games. The start of the gaming industry, like all things started off very small, although the systems that ran the games were huge and got smaller per year.

I ofcorse was not from this time period, I couldn’t say what this new ground breaking material was like. However as a child I remember my dad giving me his Comador 64, created in 1982, it seemed almost alien to me, even though it was only 15 years previously created or so from when I played it.  The oldest game I have played however, was at London Expo 2010, I had managed to play Asteroids on an old 70s television with the original Atari controller, which was confusing to use. I remember how smoothly the ship moved across the screen. I was surprised how no one else was playing it.

Airplane!

I've watched "Airplane!" (1980) a good three or four times now, so watching it again was a bit of a treat. Alot of the humor was clever in its stupidity, which is why I also liked the "naked gun" movies, Leslie Nielsen really pulls those films together.
The characters of the film were varied pretty well for such a small area, from all walks of life, but with a sterotypical and humorus deptiction of them. Even the plane was sterotpyed at some points.
What was pretty interesting for me was that they film managed to make great use of use a small area to work in. It made me think about how you could use small areas in games to their full potential, it requires not only alot of events to occour but also different reasons for them to occour.
Either way, I still loved the movie.

Game artist not a Game Gamer

One thing that prys on my mind about my course is that, belive it or not, I am not a good gamer. Im terrible at games, I still like games, I love them to the core. Although when I play games it's pretty obviouse Im not good at them, be it table pool to Call of Duty, even throwing cards into a bucket is a bit of a pain for me, Im just casual gamer. So being in a class full of avid gamers, makes me feel out of place a bit. I'd be an idiot doing this course if all I did was play games, or I didnt play games at all. I mean I came into this course with a art portfolio and not a high score portfolio. It always seems to feel like I wont understand games the way the " pro gamers " understand them and maybe that puts me at a disadvantage. If I dont have the mindset of the gamer Im trying to build the game for, can I really fufill what they want? I enjoy these games, but not the same way they do, it seems. I dont mind dying or loosing in games, just as I dont mind making a fool of myself or loosing to someone younger or less experianced to me in real life. The pro-gamers (I call them this because theyre often not, but they play with such passion and know how to play to a high level. Or if theyre beeing a novice.) care about loosing, dying and being taunted. It makes me wonder if they care about the graphics of the game or the simple game mechanics of "Move > Shoot > Kill > 1 Point". If I took call of duty and reduced it to a 8Bit pong like game, but with all the stratagy and skill needed of Call of Duty, would they like it as much? Probably not, there needs to be some balance, but I know imagination can fill in the blanks in games.
As I said before, Im not a gamer. I would sit down and read the manual before playing the games and look at all the pretty pictures and character biographys. While my brother rammed the disc in and button mashed untill he learned the controls. It'll be interesting for me to find out what amount do what i do in my aproach to games, compaired to that of my brother and the other pro-gamers, not only that but to make games for such people.
I mean how many avid gamers achualy like the 8bit music that comes with old games? Or even opened the manual? Maybe I should just be happy Im not one of those guys that would rather defowl a corner of their room than leave their MMORPG for a minute. I guess that going to extreems. Either way, I'd rather draw or make someones head being shot off their sholders and capturing the moment rather than BOOM HEAD SHOT!

Task 1. Set up a blog.

My name is Tristan Silva and I am a Game Art Student at Demontfort University.  I was born on Christmas day, 1990 and I was brought up in the suburbs of Reading, Berkshire. More specifically, Whitley, known well for its “Whitley-wiff”, which is a far lingering smell from the nearby farm and sewage factory,  hot summers were bad if the wind was going east.

I chose Game Art design, for a few reasons;  it taught 3D modelling, digital painting, drawing and looked like I could get more for my money, there are other reasons like to become a better artist and so on, but theres no point talking about the obvious at this point. However over all the greatest thing for me was that it seemed like a challenge, a relatively new profession, a unconventional way into the industry, a lot to take in and develop from. So when I said “a few “ I really meant lots of little reasons that make one big reason; that being I like it.  I hope to be able to soak up all this course has to offer like a sponge or a towel, not just because theres a lot to gain, but previous teaching was sketchy and seemed to believe University will teach us everything about getting better, which Im still bitter over. So mostly, to improve my skills in a broader range, 2D and 3D, so I can burst into the game industry like a kid with a baseball bat smacking a chalk wall.

My main interest aside from games, is art. I’ve had other interests but nothing else really stuck. Some things I physically couldn’t do because of my heart condition, such as physical sports, things like that, interested me, but there was no point in being interested in them. I’d rather take part than stand idly by like I did in PE lessons back at school. So other interests, like, fishing, movies, comics, computers, are kind of mild interests.  Everyone I was surrounded by seemed to be interested in sports, drugs or music, I sadly didn’t care much for any of them, found solace in art, which no one else seemed to be interested in unless it was spraying a tag on a garage door. I do like graffiti, but I havnt seen any in person that has made me want to start tagging shit like a cat marking its territory, aka pissing up walls.

Im not completely sure what my Dream job is of yet, I like to keep myself as open to change as I can. Ofcorse, I would love to be a Concept artist or a Lead artist (I’d get a confidence boost with that title that’s for sure) but Im not sure yet. I havnt tried everything out, I may end up thinking Landscape artist is the best for me. All the jobs Ive looked at have had nuggets of interest for me, as long as Im part of making a really good game with a good group of people that would be perfect. Oh and being paid well for it would be a good, that’s the dream part of it! Concept artist in JagEX seem to requite exceptional drawing skill and understanding of photoshop, a shit ton of motivation and original ideas with eye for detail. But a general all around arts, some 3D modelling experience and some form of art degree. Many places seem to require past experience, so I imagine I would have to aim for some kind of Junior place somewhere. But even than It seems you need “exceptional skill in (everything)”. So no matter where I go or what I do, Im going to need to become “exceptional”, its quite a bit to take in right now, to be honest. I intend to get to the “exceptional” level by working my ass off, which may be a bit hard because Im very thin and don’t have an ass.