Where do you want to go, and how do you get there?

I originally had the vision of working in the game industry as games Artist; however recent struggles have pushed my vision off place and left me a little dazzled and confused on where i want to be.

However looking into the game industry more I’ve fount different interests, which lie in sound, and music, which of course can link with the making of games, but more the audio side, which makes me re think and question, where I want to be.

I don’t really know, what or where I want to be, but I do know I want to be doing something i enjoy that will put my talent to use and to be appreciated by others also working with people i like to be around. I want challenge every day so it doesn’t become boring or stressful, where im allowed my imagination to run wild.

I do want to be successful, i know i need to keep my head down and work for it, to hopefully one day i find myself there. I’ve found out recently I’m not very good at picking up technical skills quickly, which is really a pain and not allowing me to show my creativity, which i know i have.

So the motto, live, work and god will put me on the right tracks hopefully :S

Life changing or Career Building? week nineteen

‘Some game companies want highly trained graduate artists and programmers. Some claim they really prefer creative individuals with a good Liberal Arts background. They can’t both be right can they?’

I would say yes they can both be right as companies look for different talent in certain individuals to what they need on their current projects or upcoming ones. So the company has a mix of talents, which therefore would lead to a great game as all aspects are covered by the whole team.

Having a team full of highly trained graduate artists and programmers, sounds like music to the ears of companies as there all set and ready to do the job, so in Theory University is saving the companies money and time, training undergraduates to full potential.

Those with a good liberal Arts background are often rare and hard to find, someone who is major talented artistically, therefore the companies cannot rely on such individuals too come along as the industry needs to grow, so the better option would be for those, who know the up to date software and also have a arts background at the same time, would be better to employ.

So overall, I would say companies ask for a mix of talent, whether highly trained or major talented visually as those who are trained to use the software could teach an artistic person their skills and once that person acquires those skills he could be a great games Artist.

Jake Fowell

Sound for Games-week 18

Sound is an important factor, that we live with in our daily routine, maybe its the baby crying, which would cause different emotions, in this case stress. Sometimes sound makes you happy, with music of your own taste, its most common to find boredom, when it is quiet, but allows the brain to concentrate more. For example, when no sound surrounds myself i tend to concentrate more but when sounds from a different variety of levels, this is rather distracting,

So now, i have realised sound plays a major effect on a persons mood throughout the day, so this has made me realise that sound in a game does actually play a major factor than, I originally assumed.

Sound, when i play a game doesn't really come across to me, that I say, "wow that sounded cool!" its something that is automatic you expect the gun to make sound, when pulled on the trigger for example. For me personally to be impressed by sound, mostly happens when music is involved, whether is would be a chart hit, my favourite song, or a classical choir to run along with cut scenes in a game, gives it that extra edge.

Just recently call of duty modern warfare two was released, i noticed the song for the advert was by one of my childhood heroes eminem and this had a massive effect on the target audience; gave them excitement to buy the game.

As game audio has developed, so have the audio developers. Such as surround sound was not apart of gaming until certain composers introduced these factors. Which to me made a great impact on the game itself ,as I like to have the sound set to full, before playing a game as it introduces the game as a whole.

http://www.dolby.com/consumer/experience/interviews/game/richard-jacques.html

This is a link, with an interview with a composer, stating his background experience and also the effect of certain sound equipment and projects.

A game without music, its like a lost sheep without its herd! Every single game should have music involved, some way or another. I loved playing need for speed underground, while being able to tune my radio, in the car to play a favourite chart hit of mine, this key idea has been carried on through the years, i have noticed, as GTA IV has a similar more advanced system, where you can skip to different radio channels, to find the song you like, whether r n b or rock, whatever you fancy its there.

Xbox 360 and the ps3 both enable control over your sound settings, also to what music you would like to play of your personal collection! I've bin sat there playing a scene out of red faction while listening to prodigy and out of luck it matched the scene in the game and proper got me full swing into it. So there's another example or the dramatic effect sound can have. I personally play music, while im playing on a game with my surround system on, i can hear both the effects from the game and also my music playing at the same time!Sweeet!

Jake Fowell

Game Engine week 17

The game engine consists of certain modifiers to produce development in design and compacts a variety of tools to which the game Artist will find useful, when expressing his or hers ideas to detail.

Whatever make the engine is doesn't matter as long as its reliable and flexible to the artists around it, although it does however have to be a good engine to run in the competitive industry.

A game engine runs and supports different rendering designs created on software such as 3ds max. There are a variety of engines out there, as I have found out we use the unreal Engine on this course, which sounds fun to use. A game engine is like a language, which game developers use to write programs over, but it’s not limited to certain aspects like audio, rendering or graphics. So basically the game engine is a standard platform that developers write a game on top of, but the overall core is the same. Game engines use up a LOT of money, and the rights are distributed by the companies, which allow a certain budget to be spent.

An additive environment consists of empty space, which is usually named the void, it’s endless. So for example when a designer would want to create a room in the void, they would have to seal it off. Most design concepts within the environment are created using hollow boxes, for the sky, terrain etc. The void and the world should always be separate, sealed everywhere so the void doesn't leak in, known as a whole in the world.

A subtractive environment is the total opposite to additive. In a subtractive environment there is no void, so designers need to subtract bits from the infinite solid, to create worlds. Using the subtractive mode eliminates the issue of leaks, however most designers like to use the addictive environment as its easier to manipulate.

The next-gen game engines have issues because the software used has not been updated therefor it doesn't work so well together causing many errors which cause game engine breakdowns. Recently several next-gen game engines have been released, they have many advancements for the latest techniques, in computer graphics. These engines hold a lot of promise for the future of simulation and also the training industry. However many simulations are currently built in the previous gen, this causes most common faults.

Buying into proprietary technology has its ups and downs. Its advantages consist of further experimentation to improve engines and software, to keep the competitive market flowing, however this has more disadvantages as it costs money, developers will have to learn new technology skills therefor this is a major risk.

Jake Fowell

Game culture, week 16

Game culture can come across in a variety of ways, either religious or political as most people may know of different cultures spread around the World. It's not made up or imaginary, its made upon peoples beliefs and feelings.

There are millions of gamers in the World; mixed cultures will play a variety of games for the 'thrill factor'. Personally I play a game for the action, graphics and game play others will seek different aspects of gaming, like strategy for instance.

Its been know for a person the play a game religiously every day without fail because the game supports there own strong beliefs, I think that's totally crazy to be honest, but that's there own culture.

When a game is made upon beliefs and culture take, assassins creed for instance , it could offend there culture, personal beliefs so they have to be very careful on what they put in the actual game.

I have no gaming cultures that i am apart of, like a year back I used to play gears of war, very seriously, entering tournaments, we were like the fourth clan in Europe, I enjoy real tense gaming not ones where you just run around and press the trigger crazily :/ like call of duty for example, its not tense one bit for me, its just a cool, fun shoot up game.

I have friends that I know through x box live, as met through clan matches. Our techniques, strategy in the game linked well, so we made a sweet ass team.Though i never had the chance to meet these people in real life until the day come, where we were entered into a Gears of War tournament in London and i finally got to meet these people i was playing and speaking to for at least 8 months, 5 hours per day minimum. They were nothing like me, one bit , if I was in the outside world I wouldn't consider to mingle with these people, which was crazy but we actually all got along pretty well, not matter what we dressed like, we made an awesome team too and came second in the rankings.

So it does come to show at events like the one I attended that you can meet awesome people through online gaming no matter your beliefs or culture, however I don't agree to meeting up with random people that you have only spent like two weeks speaking to as that person could be crazy.

Jake Fowell

Avatar- The Game review

Good evening bloggers!

Well here is my final chapter on the whole Avatar scene and i give you my low down of what i thought of the game, i hope you enjoy!

Well the Game is ermmm absolutely ... shite ! bollocks!!
I'm so angry, i really had a good feeling about this game!
My hopes were ruined by the first scene unfortunately, i haven't got time to waste playing all through this game nor the money either!!
Which is why I'm going to trade this game in!
Good move i think.
Well lets not get too harsh on my feelings towards this game, as believe it or not there are some good points(very small and little ones though)
So ill start with the good points and moan about the bad ones later on.
The game has good ideas but fails to produce them.
OK ,what am i on this game actually has no good points, Ive heard from some that the environments are pretty sweet.. i strongly disagree, as its one of the most packed full of trees and most awkward to move around in! Especially when the PS3 produces beautiful environments like the ones from uncharted.
The aiming is so dodgy it automactically moves you to aim the other way if you go to far with the analogue control. So basically its hard to look around you when there are so many enemies attacking and pouncing on you.
The graphics are of very poor quality even on my hd TV, it might as well of been a PS2 game. This annoys me about PlayStation 3 games they have quite a good engine and produce shitty games like avatar!
Also in the environment itself the enemies blend in with the trees, very bad choice of colour palette used, as the you can hardly see where the enemies are, which makes me think that's why they put a slow mo gizmo on it, so you can slow down the time; this will give you enough time to see where the enemies actually are. Driving through the environments are the worst you can drive over rocks and everything without any affect on the car!
As the film was so great i had really high expectations of the game but i was bitterly disappointed you don't even get to play through the actual storyline of the film, which is why i think this game went so wrong. It has little side missions you go on there are no main major missions at all.

So yeah sorry about me moaning on .. but i could do for so many other things, but ill cut it short here and i think you know no my thoughts about this game, i definitely wouldn't recommend buying it!

That's all from me until the next time, where ill be reviewing uncharted: drakes fortune. I'm also looking into creating my first video blog, so keep tracked bloggers!

Jake Fowell

Week 15-The Games Industry

Ive taken a look into the games industry, to see how the industry is doing, good or bad?
Definitely not bad at all, we must have millions of people with tones of imagination, which isn't surprising at all.

The industry is looking stronger than it was and is still growing stronger, quite quickly as well. You can tell as many top titles are creating the second story lines of the game and making it tones better than the first, although it will get to the stage where the game totally rocks and cannot be improved that much to bring out another.

There are vast amount of opportunities for employees to get into the industry as its welcoming to those who can produce the goods that the industry needs to stay alive.
As most people know the industry has been growing over time and it only seems to be getting better and better although employees are faced with many challenges, to produce new fresh ideas to keep up with technical advancements and many more.
This is why the industry strives towards employing new fresh creative people, so they can keep moving onwards and upwards, selling more games and gizmo's etc.

Although the industry is running smooth now, what about in the future, what if the world lacked potential employee's ? Or customers lost interest in games and kids started to take interest into something else, more modern than playing games indoors all day.

There are many ups and downs within the industry but however i beg to differ that interest would be lost, as like i said there are millions of people with creative talent.
Take films for example, there are new releases every month of a variety of genres, amazing film directors, actors and story writers who come up with ideas of all sorts.

So, my overall theory is the game industry will be challenged as time moves on but nothing to drastic that one human brain couldn't figure out. If there was something real drastic though, we have a lot of talented people in the World to put things back on track.

Jake Fowell