4th Week Final Film Room Project

The final week for me was spent making sure everything was in engine properly and that our final scene matched the film shot as much as possible.

There’s a big shaft of light that cuts through the scene that shines through the multi coloured windows, I did consider the possibility of making that a decal on the floor seen as the brief for this project is not to make a playable level, it just needs to be an exact copy of the shot from the film and nothing else. But instead I did some research into the lighting in Unreal 4 and found that there was a way to shine light through a semi-transparent object and retain the objects colour information and project that onto other objects in the scene.

In Unreal 4 you can make a post processing volume to adjust the colours of an area. Our textures were slightly off from the colours of the actual film, so I created one of these volumes just to get it to match up with the film a bit better. Here’s a GIF that shows you the before and after adding the post processing volume:

I’m not 100% happy with how the project ended up, there are issues with the lack of grunge and wear and tear of the textures I produced, my textures were far too clean. Due to the way you get Unreal to cast coloured light meant that I could only apply an albedo to the texture of the glass to get the lighting results that I wanted. Looking back I could’ve added another plane slightly in front of the glass which doesn’t cast shadows and has a clear albedo but has a roughness and texture map on, so hopefully that would produce the light beams that I wanted and make the glass look more realistic by utilising other texture maps such as normal and roughness maps. There were quite a lot of reflections in the glass surfaces in the film still that we chose that we didn’t get to put into our scene. The casted red light on the floor isn’t quite vibrant enough, the red part of that casted light should be more over to the left, there isn’t that much yellow on that main beam of light in the reference image.  Also the resolution of the shadows on the floor and walls were at quite a low resolution and I couldn’t seem to fix that, so I’d like to find out why that was in future and prevent it from happening again. As a stretch goal it would’ve been nice to make it a sort of playable level that you could walk through, instead we just fulfilled the brief in just making that one shot look like our reference where if you move the camera you see that it isn’t a real room.

 

So to conclude I’d go back into the textures and grunge them up a bit to make the scene look more naturalistic, I’d find a way to apply different maps to textures that allow coloured light to shine through them (e.g. the windows), I’d like to have replicated the reflections on the glass that the film shot had and it would’ve been great to have made the level playable.

Here’s a Gif showing how the two match up:

And here's our final scene on it's own:

3rd Week Film Project Continued

At the beginning of the second week of the Film Room Project everyone had modelled their assets and were ready to be placed into the same scene to replicate the room from Her. Monday morning I got everyone to send me their assets as one mesh with the pivot in the centre of the scene so that I could easily import them into the scene and they would be in the correct position.

Flicking between our scene we had made and the film screenshot we had I saw that there were quite a few differences, in some instances the models were perfectly fine, but in the shot of the film the objects looked different, I assume it was because of lens distortion and possibly some forced perspective created by the creators of the film. So I made a note of what needed to be changed to the meshes and sent them back out to the group.

We decided that we were determined to achieve near perfect in the placement of the meshes, so we spent until Wednesday touching up and giving critique to each other, in some cases it was easier for me to fix it up myself rather than sending it back to the person who was making it.

From Wednesday on we saw that we had done what we could to perfect the positioning of our meshes, it was now time to move onto texturing and unwrapping. On Thursday I began putting everything into engine, to make sure every mesh was separate in engine and also was in the same position as the max file I exported the whole scene as one mesh as well as individually. First I imported the whole scene as one mesh into Unreal as a guide and then put all of the individual assets in the correct place. 

 By Friday all of the meshes were in Unreal, texturing was the next step to do over the weekend. Here's the banner Kieran Burke made for our presentation:

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2nd week start of Film Room Project

So in this project we have been tasked to recreate a film shot perfectly as a group, the project was set on Monday and we chose the image above from the movie 'Her'. Although we chose the image on the Monday we had to wait until the Thursday for the image to be green lit by the tutors. We were all pretty confident about this image and had started preparations, but unfortunately the response from the tutors was pretty negative. We spent most of the rest of Thursday pretty down about the tutors response, we looked at some other images from the movie her which included these:

We liked that bottom one a lot, but I wasn't feeling like doing Her anymore. I went away and looked at screenshots of other films like Sunshine and Moon. But then we went and got some feedback from our peers and some 3rd years and they said that we should go ahead with one of our other Her ideas.

So we decided to go ahead with this shot, it has a lot of interesting colours and has a solid composition. We showed a couple of tutors too and they we're happy with the choice.

So that evening I made a whitebox for everyone to work from and I sent it out to everyone Friday morning so that everyone could start modelling. I assigned each colour here to a different member of the group, I worked on the green meshes. We set a target for finishing all of the meshes by Monday.

Week 1: Starting Second Year

After a painfully long summer it feels good to be thrown back into work. It's nice to see the course adapting to changes in the industry, it reassures me that I'm on the right course. Right off the bat we're now learning PBR, it isn't much harder than what I'm used to, and it makes more sense, trying to make things look metal is now super easy because of metalness maps, makes it so much easier.

We're also put into groups for this first project which as far as I know is new, it's really great to see how other people work and picking up techniques to use in my own work. For the project we made a Viking style room where we each worked on a portion of each asset, passing it to the next person when you're done.

For our room I concepted the barrel, modelled the table, unwrapped the bench, textured the hog, reviewed the shield and corrected the textures on the barrel. And also we all made small assets to further populate the space, I made the cutlery.

Everyone is strong in different areas, for instance I enjoy modelling in 3Ds max, but I struggle with texturing. But other members were much better at texturing and helped me out, and also I felt like I was helping the others in areas I am more comfortable with.

So this is how the scene ended up, I'm pretty happy with it, there's nothing that stands out as being terrible. It's in Unreal 4 in this image, I was the one who chucked it all in engine and arranged it, so I've managed to grasp the basics of the engine. I'm glad that the way you import and texture assets hasn't changed much since UDK, the software is just generally nicer to use with the exception of the occasional bugs which require "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" method to fix.

Game Art Careers

For this blog post I'm going to be looking at current job openings in companies I'd like to work for and seeing what they want in an employee. From where I'm standing now I'd really like to work in 3D software rather than being a concept artist, at the start of the course I was very worried that I might not like the 3D side of the course and just want to draw and paint, but now after using 3D software since October I'm really enjoying using it and would love a job doing it.

As for where to work, ideally I'd like to stay in the UK so that I can keep in touch with family and friends, but if there's an excellent job offer in another country that I really want, then I wouldn't mind moving abroad.

So for jobs in the UK I've looked at two companies I am very fond of and they are Rockstar North Rocksteady. Both of these places are for and environment artist. Looking at what Rocksteady wants, the stakes are pretty high using "Expert use" and "Expert level". As far as programs go they want you to be able to use the Unreal Engine 3 or equivalent, 3DS Max, Photoshop and Z-Brush. They want you to have an understanding in the 3rd person action adventure genre as well as strong communication skills. As for Rockstar the stakes appear to be just as high, "Superior 3D art skills" the only programs they actually specify are 3DS Max and Photoshop but they do mention that you need to be able to use game engines. They want at least 2 years of post secondary school experience in 2D and 3D art production as well as over 3 years experience as a 3D artist in industry. Both these jobs demand a very high skill level with plenty of experience, they also mention that you need to have good communication and organisation skills as they ask you to be able to work closely with other artists and employees on the team.

An example of a company that I wouldn't mind leaving the UK for would be CD Projekt Red, a polish based company who makes the Witcher games. This job I'm looking at is to be a character artist, and from what I've read and heard from others is that character art is a very hard area to get into and only the best get jobs. So this is a bit of a day dream but I still want to aim for it, and even if I don't make it as a character artist I'd still be more than happy doing any other 3D work weather it be creating assets or environments. So in terms of programs they want 3DS Max, Maya, ZBrush and Mudbox. They want someone experienced in the industry as they want over 3 years of professional experience in game development and to have shipped at least one AAA title as a Character Artist. As for skills they want an excellent understanding and sculpting of the human form and excellent communication skills. As for a "Nice to Have" section they want an understanding of shaders, lighting and rendering abilities, animation and rigging and an avid gamer experience and knowledge of the industry.

So from looking at these I've learned first and foremost that to get into big companies like these you need to have worked in the industry for a while already. Ask for skills they're asking us to use programs that we're learning to use on this course, so it's nice to see that we're using the right software. What surprised me was that they didn't just want you to be very skilled in art and working, but also they need you to be a member of a team, to communicate and to work with others well. Hopefully with the upcoming group projects I will be able to improve my team working skills.

http://rocksteadyltd.com/#jobs

http://www.rockstargames.com/jobs/position/22dc86db/rockstar-north

http://cdpred.com/character-artist-3/

Personal Enquiry Final

For my personal enquiry I want to tackle the Story vs. Gameplay debate. I’m going to try to keep this as diverse as I can with the limited word count, I’ll be discussing my opinion on which is more important in a game by giving examples of games I’ve played and how enjoyable I found them with regards to the story they tell or the gameplay they provide the player. I’ll also look at others’ opinion on the matter by looking at what games sell better and what games are appreciated more and have higher review scores.

Some gameplay focused games I’ve enjoyed include: the Guitar Hero series (2005-2010), Tetris (1989) and the Payday games (2011 and 2013). These games have entertained me with their gameplay and although Payday and Guitar hero both have a narrative in the games, these are by far not the focus of the games and are merely there to justify the levels of the game. Despite Activision running the Guitar hero series into the ground by saturating the market with its games I found the series a lot of fun, it often gets criticised for mocking real instruments, but the game isn’t trying to replicate a real instruments. In a way it’s similar to a combat system such as the one used in the Batman Arkham games (2009-2013), you’re reacting to something that happens on the screen with a button press and it’s all about timing. The Payday Games provide problem solving scenarios that can be solved cooperatively which results in edge of the seat moments and enjoyment with friends. Although I wouldn’t consider these games and games like them to be the best games I’ve played, but they’ve defiantly provided me with a lot of enjoyment while playing them.
 

Here are some examples of heavily story based games: Mass Effect 2 (2010), The Witcher 2 (2011) and Beyond: Two Souls (2010). I generally really enjoy story driven games, at the moment I'm making my way through the Witcher 2, the mix of interesting characters in a well fleshed out world makes it a pleasure to play through. It's a really mature take on the fantasy genre, often in fantasy game such as The Elder Scrolls series (1994-2014) and the Fable series (2004-2014) are fun to play, but they feel as if they're catering to a young audience and don't really differentiate their worlds from other fantasy settings that much, the Witcher seems to really make the fantasy setting it's own by taking elements such as species and magic and really makes it it's own.

 Mass Effect 2 is a pleasure to play through as it creates this large universe with history and advanced technology, in a way it's similar to the Witcher in that it has taken an already existing genre, in this case a futuristic space setting, and gets creative and builds a really interesting universe and an enjoyable narrative to follow. These two games unfortunately share a similar downfall, they're lacking in the gameplay department, Mass Effect is a fairly basic 3rd person cover based shooter with some magic abilities and the Witcher has a solid sword and magic combat system, but becomes repetitive and dry.




 
And Beyond: Two Souls is a film with a small amount of interaction, I appreciate that David Cage (Head Developer of Quantic Dream) wants to create a film like experience "The game industry is ready to create something much more meaningful, something that like films can change the world" (He mentioned this in this video). But I think that games have already taken enough from films, games posses interactivity and this interactivity needs to be used in it's own unique way, role play games such as Mass Effect and The Witcher are on it's way there with being able to alter the story based on your actions.

I want to make a third category here to mark the gray area between story based games and gameplay based games, here are me three examples of these sort of games: Portal 2 (2011), the Metal Gear series (1987-2014) and the Batman Arkham series (2009-2013). Firstly lets look at the Metal Gear Solid Series, the games posses a well built stealth  system that left me on the edge of my seat in countless occasions, innovative boss fights (Especially Metal Gear Solid 1, 1998) and generally good action gun play when it doesn't quite go to plan. The gameplay these games have are good enough to hold it's own in it's own game, but then these games have fairly long stories. The story of the series is very over the top, the majority of the characters are satires of currently existing characters in films and the plot is hilariously stupid, which has become it's charm, but it's full of memorable characters with big twists and turns that keep me interested in the series. Like it's gameplay, I would happily watch all of the cutscenes of the games in a series of films and would thoroughly enjoy them. But the Metal Gear games create a massive divide between story and gameplay when you play them, you'll play lengthy amounts of gameplay, and then be interrupted by long cutscenes, I'll never forget finishing Metal Gear Solid 4 (2008) and wanting to get on with something else but the game throws a 45 minute cutscene at you, it was really great and all, but I wish that it could have somehow been split up a bit, or at least give me another chunk of gameplay afterwards.
 
The Batman Arkham games are much like Metal Gear in that it bares strong gameplay, accompanied by strong story. The gameplay consists of a classic combo based combat mixed with classic (for the most part) boss battles and very fun stealth predator-pray sequences that really make you feel like the Batman. And the story presents you with already established characters from the Batman universe and puts them in scenarios which put pressure on characters and the result of the strain put on characters is portrayed really well. The problem with the game I'd say is that although the story itself is good enough to be a stand alone thing, the gameplay without Batman and the rest of the story wouldn't be nearly as entertaining.


Now let's look at Portal 2, at it's base it's a first person puzzle game, and a very good one at that so major gameplay points for that, but then as you're playing it it feeds you this really good story that's very amusing. So it takes a strong story and strong gameplay and melts it together seamlessly, instead of what they do in Metal gear where there's a huge barrier between the story parts and the gameplay parts, Portal 2 creates the two elements one experience and because of this I feel that is the most successful game I've listed here.

So looking at these games I've listed if I have to decide if I prefer gameplay or story I'd have to say story. Although I have a lot of fun playing Payday and Guitar Hero, it's story experiences that grab me, the Witcher 2 is by far the best game I've played in the past year, the Metal Gear Solid series stands as my favourite game series, and Portal 2 is one of the best examples of brilliantly merging gameplay and story.
 
So after deciding that I'd rather story over gameplay I'm going to look at what the general population prefer by looking at review scores and sales. For looking into sales figures I've looked at VGChartz, and the top 10 of this list consists of gameplay focused games, in fact the closest story focused game to the top of the list is at number 60 which is Final Fantasy VII. This undoubtedly tells us that gameplay based games sell better. Then for a look into which are generally the better games I looked at Metacritic, I saw that it was a similar story to best selling games in that the majority of the top rated games are gameplay focused games, but there was a greater presence of story based games on the highest rated list compared to the best selling list.

So to conclude, my personal choice between story and gameplay would be story as most of my favourite games are games with a strong story, but I do enjoy playing gameplay focused games. But what seems to sell is gameplay focused games, and the highest rated games are also mainly gameplay focused games. So due to the evidence of gameplay focused games selling much better and being rated very highly it looks like gameplay is what the people want and therefore more important than story.


Bibliography:

Guitar Hero series, Activision (2005-2010)
 
Tetris, Nintendo (1989)

Payday: The Heist, Sony Online Entertainment (2011)

Payday 2, 505 Games (2013)
 
Batman Arkham series, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (2009-2013)

Mass Effect 2, Electronic Arts (2010)

The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings, Bandai Namco Games (2011)

Beyond: Two Souls, Sony Computer Entertainment (2013)

The Elder Scrolls series, Bethesda Softworks (1994-2014)

The Fable series, Microsoft Studios (2004-2014)

David Cage Interview: http://tribecafilm.com/stories/beyond-two-souls-david-cage-interview-ellen-page-willem-dafoe-film

Portal 2, Valve Corporation (2011)

Metal Gear Solid series, Konami (1987-2014)

VGChartz: http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/

Metacritic: http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/all?sort=desc

Photo Reference: 

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/12/23/tetris-review

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-witcher-3-by-picking-up-the-witcher-2-for-4-today/1100-6418996/

http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/the_witcher_2/screenshots.html

http://www.gamesradar.com/mass-effect-2/screenshots/

http://www.videogamer.com/ps3/beyond_two_souls/screenshot-59.html

http://www.videogamer.com/xbox360/mgs_hd/screenshots.html

http://www.gamesradar.com/batman-arkham-city-review/

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2011/04/19/portal-2-review

http://www.pcgamer.com/uk/review/the-witcher-2-review/

Story vs. Gameplay Personal Enquiry Draft 2

In the interest of finding out which sells better gameplay or story I came across a website called VGChartz. Despite its fairly immature title it was a gold mine for sales statistics on video games. Looking at the top 10 bestselling games of all time I was surprised to see that they were all Nintendo products, which is strange to see seen as Nintendo are widely considered to be the weakest games company at this moment in time. At the top we have Wii Sports with 81.94million sales, then Super Mario Bros. at 40.24m, then Mario Kart Wii at 34.44m and Pokemon Red Green and Blue at 31.37m.

After looking at those figures I began to question the validity of the website, as I couldn’t find Minecraft in the first 200 games of the list I looked elsewhere for sales figures. IGN reported on the 3^rd of February 2014 that the Minecraft series’ sales had totalled over 35 million. I went back onto VGChartz and searched for Minecraft only to find that it only had the Xbox 360 sales figures, finding this out made me realise that the website divided up each platform sales for the games. This also explained why Grand Theft Auto V wasn’t in the top 10 with 32.5 million copies shipped as reported by IGN.

So this website isn’t perfect, but it’s defiantly one of the better sites of its type so I will be referencing it with its validity in mind. So anyways the top 10 of this list consists of gameplay focused games, in fact the closest story focused game to the top of the list is at number 60 which is Final Fantasy VII. This undoubtedly tells us that gameplay based games sell better, even with the website’s uncertainty, the fact that there isn’t a game anywhere near the top 10 games is enough for me to look past the websites imperfections.

So there are sales and there’s actual quality of games, just because a game sells well might not necessarily mean that it’s the best game ever made, that would be like looking at how many people eat food from McDonalds and assuming that they sell the best food in the world there. So to get this information I’m looking for the score from game reviews, and one of the best ways to look at review scores is to use a website like Metacritic which gathers review scores from a wide range of sources and works out the average and presents the information in lists.

Looking at Metacritic I saw that I was right for the most part to assume that bestselling games aren’t necessarily the highest rated games seen as Metacritic’s top scored game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was in 83^rd place on VGChartz’s list. But there were similarities between the lists, for example the Grand Theft Auto series is high up on the lists on both websites, the same goes for Mario games. Story focused games had a much greater presence on Metacritic’s list, but they were still heavily outnumbered by gameplay focused games like the Grand Theft Auto series and the Tony Hawk’s series.

To conclude this research it’s clear that gameplay focused games are by far the most purchased, and they also bare a strong presence on top rated games list but there are still story games that are up there as highest rated. For the final part of my personal enquiry I’ll be looking at the information I’ve gathered here and compare it with my own opinions on this subject.

Bibliography:

http://www.vgchartz.com/gamedb/

http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/all?sort=desc

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/02/03/minecraft-sells-14-million-on-pc-series-total-over-35-million

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2014/02/03/gta-5-has-shipped-325-million-copies