Now that I've reached the end of my DDA II course, considering the topics covered and all the projects created during my time in this class, I have to say it was all very much worth it and I shall miss it. Akin to my previous post, I have provided a visual map that while it is only marginally better than my last, shall suffice for my explanation. The course in its entirety even when broken down into its core units is rather lengthy and in depth, covering a wide range of topics from Portfolio creation and management to how to visualize, model, and animate a scene to advanced levels of quality. The course has gone through the modeling process, how to properly texture, edit, and apply materials to an object, and even onto how to effectively light, shoot, and animate a scene. In a sense it has taught all levels of development when it comes to the 3D animation industry. Overall, it has taught me the basics and fostered my growing interest in the field itself. I'd say that above all else my newfound intrigue and delight of the artistic aspect of the field has been its own reward. The countless hours I've spent in front of humming machines while diligently working to produce the best works I could was simultaneously the most rewarding and humbling experience this class has to offer. The pride felt real whenever I could come out of a solid week of trial and error all to be left with a single file of my hard work saved on my desktop, assured that I was learning real skills and had offered up my best. It's hard to pin down and describe, but in all honesty even after frustration after frustration, at the end of the day I could still look back and realize that what I was doing was real, and I was honing skills that I would remember and probably use later on in my life and career pursuits. It's rewarding just knowing that you're not wasting your time. In fact, even though I'll probably stick to my pursuits in 2D illustration and animation, these skills I've built on will transfer over and continue to assist me. I can say with clear certainty that from all my time mastering lighting and camera angles that these are skills I will probably continue to use into the future. Even the base concepts of 3D animation aren't that different from its 2D cousin, and its safe to say that most likely everything presented to me in this course has either created a foundation, or built upon skills I already acquired. In any event, I cannot say that I am at all dissatisfied with my time spent here. It has been a lengthy journey to get this far, and I hope I can continue to trek further. It's been more rewarding than I could've ever anticipated.
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As I struggle to type these words out, I have come to the staggering realization that with less than 24 available hours left, with still no clear end in sight, I am struggling to complete a project that in the end won't even turn out. After struggling for hours on multiple critical failures, I have realized just how out of time I really am. I had begun writing this post on Wednesday night, and I am only now sitting down able to finish it now. I'm not even sure why I'm still writing this, especially with a timeframe so short. Maybe it's because I just want to desperately give up and I won't let myself, maybe it's because I already have. In any event, I have nearly cried forfeit. My critical failures refuse to be solved. This experience has rocked my to my core, and I am uncertain if I can get back up in time. Even now as I type with shaking fingers and red eyes I still consider throwing in the towel, and yet I know that despite it all I will continue to at least attempt to single out my problems and confront them head on. Is it determination and perseverance? Perhaps, but it's most likely apathy and defeat that fuel me the most at this point. I have given up on giving up, so I guess pushing foreword at this point is my only option. I cannot describe my current setback, as with every fix comes another problem that is left for me to solve, and I am running out of the strength to solve problems. I will be left with what I can conjure up in this limited time, and the thought of leaving this all behind is my only solace.
For the most part, I'd have to say that cameras have been my Achilles heel, if only for the fact that I am not as skilled with cameras in general when it comes to other parts of a scene's composition. Even after two years of digital media classes and working the camera just right is a skill I have yet to master, though that is not to say I am inept, as most certainly my experience with that class helps me to understand the cameras in 3Ds Max, as they have extremely similar functionality. For the most part, learining more about a camera's more common movements and executing fluid animation definitely helped to overcome this setback. I have an example video of this below. Despite all this, for the most part this unit has gone by without a hitch, even the most feared and loathed topics of them all: rigging. This may come as a surprise, especially considering the extreme technical difficulties I encountered when working with rigging previously, but I feel that is has been my favorite this unit. I would have to attribute this to my prior experience with creature conceptualization, and my general love for understanding various parts of animal anatomy. Once the basic bone structure is created, as long as care and precise observation is maintained throughout the creation of the rig, generalizing the basic muscle groups and attributing them to your 3D representation in your model's bones comes with ease to one skilled in the talent. In short: If you understand muscle groups, you more or less understand 3D bones and rigging. I have also gone into detail describing my prior experience with lighting and I can once again attribute this to my skills with 2D art and illustration.
In order to hopefully further myself in my endeavors, I have begun the process of reaching out to other popular content creators on the web, most notably ones whom I've seen are open to collaboration. I'm starting off small since I'm currently bogged down with my end of year projects, but hopefully I can build some relations over the summer and begin extensive collaboration. I am also looking foreword to the possibility of taking commissions once I get a payment system in place, and I hope working in this way can prepare me for the possibility of working freelance part time. Working in this manner may also help me with time management and meeting deadlines since I'm currently struggling with these issues now, however this is mostly caused by the volume of the work I have on my hands, not the content, and with the ability to control my workflow I believe I would have a better handle on my progress than I do now. So far I have only gotten responses from a small few, most notably those who associate themselves more within the digital art community. However, I am confident that work like this may help to boost my standing within online creator communities, and I presume this would reflect well in my portfolio. I have also considered tapping into graphic design for items such as stickers, buttons and clothing, as it seems like a fun and worthwhile opportunity to consider, especially with sites like redbubble becoming more common. In any event, becoming more recognized in the digital marketplace is a must if one seeks to make their endeavors profitable, and I may have to get into the habit of advertising myself on more platforms, as recently with my spike of work I have fallen out of it.
To put things into perspective, I have been solidly working on developing and programming my end of year game project since the beginning of April, and I am only about 20% done with the coding and that's being generous. That is coding alone, not even accounting for individual art assets and 3D models, nor any sort of particle effects or camera animations. Even if I were to work an extra 2-3 hours every night and during my AGAD period, not accounting for issues in code and other projects in different subjects I have been assigned, nor studying for both upcoming tests and finals, it is still very likely that I will not finish this project in its entirety. Adding insult to injury, to complete the majority of my work assigned starting from the second half of third quarter, I have had to sacrifice most of my free time and related activities, or to put it bluntly, my work schedule has reduced my ability to digitally draw and paint freely to the point where I have not produced nor finished a new piece in its entirety since January. To ask that I now create in detail fully colored and customized UI and sprite assets for this project is simply asking the impossible given the time I need produce said assets and my current time frame. It is disappointing to see all the plans for this project I had started with, as it now seems impossible to bring even the most rudimentary foundation to fruition. If I could describe my current state, I would refer to myself as desperate, either for more time or a way to escape it all. I am going through the crunch before I should have to.
Anyone who knows me well is acquainted with the fact that I have a large background in 2D visuals. Working with light in a 3D sense is relatively the same principle as far as the general end result. You have your mid tones, your shadows and your highlights, and once color gets involved you start dealing with color theory and your colored highlights/shadows... It can all be pretty intimidating, especially for new artists and designers. Fortunately though since I have been working with concepts like these for just about 5+ years now, I can safely say I have some experience up my sleeve. Painting on highlights and setting up virtual lights in a 3D scene are two vastly different things, however they operate on nearly the exact same principals. I am well acquainted with the concept of lighting types like spot/omni/directional in my own artwork and I am also extremely familiar with how an object's material will effect the absorbed and reflected light. However, I would like to say that I am the most skilled at recognizing how a light's color, intensity, direction, and falloff effect a scene. While I would say that this unit helped my understanding of how to set up lights in 3Ds Max, it hasn't really done much to show me how light behaves in a scene, just by the fact that I am already so well versed in the topic. That isn't to say that my experience wasn't enjoyable however, quite the contrary, in fact, it reminded me of how I used to help my parents with the theater lighting back at the school my mother worked in. One of my favorite lessons was setting up RBG lights on a theater stage so that when combined they'd make white light.
Well I have just decided to venture into the world of animation, beyond that of which I have currently been doing, which has been short animatics and storyboards in Flipnote Studio 3D. Besides not being able to have the time to work on it in school, it's somewhat difficult to learn at home, or rather just tedious. I've always been a slow detailed oriented sketcher, and an even slower line artist, just in general my process does not tend to be the fastest. When working in programs like FireAlpaca, it seems almost impossible attempting to work at the 24fps industry standard. Just 5 sketched frames alone took me approximately two hours, and that was the sketch itself, no outline or anything more complicated than a simple sketch. (I'm not even going to detail the soreness of my wrist and hand.) While I'd love actually animating something of length, no amount of copying and pasting will help me reach my goal as quickly as I want to, especially considering the multitude of unfinished digital pieces I still currently have in development. I know lots about key framing, inbetweens, body movement, onion skinning, the whole nine yards, don't get me wrong! I just need to practice more on my delivery and output times, as I feel that's my true handicap, especially considering I only have about 4-6 hours of energy left after any given school day before I completely collapse in exhaustion. Unfortunately, it almost feels as If my progress is stagnating, and that before long I'll cease improvement all together. I just wish I had more time to develop my skills further than what I'm already doing. The good news is, I've already been following some extremely popular animators within the digital art community, and while it's no college course, watching animation development streams and given tutorials has already begun to help me immensely. I'm tempted to try my hand at keyframing animations, as it seems more and more online creators are shifting to automatic animation rather than frame by frame, but it's still pretty mixed as is and I should aim to learn both methods just so I can have some versatility at my disposal.
I first came across this game during Nintendo's seasonal sales advert. Usually I'm not too keen on browsing digital catalogs, but this time around I figured I have some spare cash, why not take a look? I'm about 5 pages down, looking through page after page of discounted games that all seemed to have the same premise, color pallet, or the same 3 anime characters posing in the same 4 stances each and every time. Then, I spotted this one, instantly drawn in by the psychedelic color schemes and the dazzling visuals, and the short demo videos provided clips of interesting gameplay and a unique visual style. Now let's dive into this review and see if it lives up to it's dazzling name. Gameplay and ControlsThe game starts off simple enough, giving the user a basic tutorial and instructing them to chose their preferred play style, i.e. would they rather play as a carnivore (tighter controls, faster base speed), a herbivore (slower less responsive play style, but faster eating) or an omnivore, a mix of both. As you play around and explore the levels in a fashion similar to Spore's cellular stage, you advance and level up by consuming materials of a certain type, red for carnivore, green for herbivore, and blue for omnivore. Simple enough right? The goal of each level is to simply devour all materials of a type and end up consuming more so than the CPU. The controls play very well, and do in fact feel like you're navigating a creature underwater in the sense that you're not steering the whole body, rather just the head and the rest of the creature follows. There's also an interesting little mechanic where you can delve beneath the different layers of the void/the waters, to explore new previously invisible scenery. There also is a nice touch where flashes of red green or blue will alert you to unclaimed collectible materials so that you're not just aimlessly wandering around the landscape. Overall the game is fairly simple, not too challenging, and makes for a great leisurely way to kill time without getting super invested in any extensive story or complex side quest. There's also a decent amount of levels packed in too, not too many but nothing to scoff at either, all in all making for at the very least a solid 5-6 hours of game play. It also provides you with a multitude of save states as well, allowing you to replay the game pretty much as many times as you'd like. Visual Style and AtmosphereThe visual style is extremely unique, the bright flashy colors against sometimes colorful and cheery other times dark and foreboding backgrounds feels like something I'd see in a dream about mathematical equations. It's strangely biological, yet oddly mechanical, and all so very captivating. I especially love the creature designs, and it's fun to see and point out which deep sea creatures inspired which designs, as someone who's always been a fan of deep sea marine biology that is. The player characters are also eye catching, almost hypnotic in the way they move, each suiting the feel for their respective game play styles. From the carnivore build, a sleek, sea serpent with sheering mandibles, the almost grasshopper or locust like fish design of the herbivore, and the geometric eel build of the omnivore. The music too is also very fitting for the game, soft piano overlaid upon a baseline of harmonious synths, creating almost a randomized, dreamlike yet calming melody that compliments the game play very well, definitely enriching the general atmosphere of the overall game. It creates a near seamless immersive experience that draws you in deeper without a doubt. The levels are also nicely designed and usually have a unique spin to each one, especially during the later stages. CriticismsNow while in my mind this is a good game, it is by no means a perfect game and there are most definitely a few hang ups and bang ups that in my mind keep it from being a great game. For starters, at the beginning, it felt like that great decision of finding your play style was something great and important that you could never change later, and I was disappointed to find that you can actually change you play style quite easily by simply collecting enough of a separate material, killing some potential replayability. A part of me in this way wishes that you could choose your base species, and by collecting different materials you could make it so that you could end up with different types of your base build (e.g. a more tanky carnivore vs a lightweight minmax one) instead of only switching between carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore throughout your entire journey. Another issue is that the omnivore and herbivore play styles are only marginally different, you're still defeating the same prey the same way just with different colors, which is fine I suppose but it's still a bit of a letdown that there wasn't anything more to it. There's also a few enemies that appear far too commonly or not often enough at all which isn't anything major but it would be nice to see some more variety. There are a few boss fight stages here and there that while visually impressive, didn't add much to the overall experience, usually consisting of "wait your turn then widdle away" style game play that without anything to spice it up just drags on and on. The CPU at times can be a little too easy to beat and despite being able to take damage, I'm not sure if you can game over from excessive damage so it seems a little pointless to include. There's also a few visual and audio issues, such as slightly jerky camera movement in a few levels, issues with being able to properly see color flashes depending on the background, and audio occasionally restarting but without a solid loop so the extension is very audible, however these are minimal concerns. Final thoughts: Is it worth it?Well, for a $2.50 pick I got off of the Nintendo E shop after some Christmas bliss, I'd say it's well worth it, however it will only really be a satisfying play if you're like me in the sense that you either love interesting creature design, have a thing for games with similar mechanics to spore, or have an eye for colorful almost psychedelic artwork. Otherwise, I'm not so sure you'd take to it, particularly if you're a fan of fast paced and more exiting game play, since this is a casual and leisurely game that basically works as a beautiful time killer. However, if fantastical art styles and slow building game play is something you particularly enjoy, then this might turn out to be one of your new favorites. Game play and mechanics: 3/5 Visuals and Atmosphere: 4.5/5 Replayability: 2.5/5 Overall Score: 3.5/5 Reflecting on my current hyperfixiation of the week, I've become obsessed with a film "Annihilation" and what makes it such a good example of turning an impossible narrative into a film. What I've come to find is that most video game to film adaptations fall short because they try to rely too heavily on the source material, creating a fixed story line of a game where no matter how linear the game play is, there is still player choice to be accounted for, and film takes that away which is arguably one of the most important aspects of video games as a whole; interactivity. Why mention Annihilation? Well simple, the director knew that it would be impossible to make a film revolving around characters whose names are never mentioned, and where 80% of any description takes place in the character's mind, or in a journal reflection. As such, instead of trying to keep the film loyal to the source, he instead tried to capture the feeling of the novel itself, by only reading it once, and writing the entire script based off of what he remembered and the emotions it brought forth. As such, the film feels very dreamlike, fitting for it's Lovecraftian and eldritch undertones. I feel like with the sudden surge of video game to film adaptations as of late, they can learn a thing or two from director Alex Garland, and instead of trying to capture the entirety of your source line by line, create a narrative that is unique yet stands for everything in your source material. That way, instead of providing a line by line retelling of a particular game, ergo locking our your audience by taking away the interactivity, instead try to play on the sense of nostalgia and the base feelings you recall your first time experiencing the subject. The only issue with this technique in my mind is the inevitable backlash you'll receive by diehard fans who are upset that you didn't follow the lore of the original to an exact T. (But being fair, any video game to movie adaptation will receive backlash, as is the unfortunate nature of them.)
While I do have a deep love for surface modeling, especially when it comes to making 3D models out of 2D splines, I am a little amused and bewildered by things such as working with particle effects and simulations, most notably things such as cloth modifiers and particle systems. While I also enjoyed working with mental ray lots, after the update to the 2019 version I am unfortunately unable to work with it anymore, knowing little to nothing about the Arnold renderer. Mass effects thus far has been a bit of a challenge, but nothing I can't handle, and I've been steadily coming along with it. Foliage has been nice already, and as you can probably already tell, knowing me, I jumped straight into the cherry blossom trees and the weeping willows. I am also a little exited as I have predicted that we might work with cameras more, or at the very least tap into some more environmental effects. This also might come as a shocker, but my more masochistic side is a bit disappointed that we haven't really gone into rigging yet. It seems rather odd, a student talking about wanting to go into rigging again after experiencing the horrors of it the last time they did so, but yes, I wish I could continue with it. Then again, while it is very improbable, it is still possible that we may tap into working with cameras more and rigging in the coming quarter, though that is mere speculation. I do not know for sure, however this would not be out of left field in the slightest, seeing that these have been worked on before in previous years. Either way I am very exited for what's to come. This is probably been my favorite modeling project thus far, aside from the chess set we did forever ago
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Creator InfoThis is a blog for a Game Art Design class. Future programmer and currently an artist and writer. Archives
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