Over my four years of being in the game design pathway, I have learned a lot about the game industry. From how much work it takes to do make models, texture them and then put them into a game engine. To learning about coding and all of the small parts that go into making a game but make a huge impact on the game overall like sound and light design. I learned that in terms of skills needed to work in the the game industry I would recommended at least being able to understand the importance of every part and how each part affects the end product of the game, but specialize in one or two specific areas so you are able to stand out if you are trying to get into the game industry. though this pathway I have learned a lot of skills for basic design principals, how to use Photoshop and Illustrator, to understanding a 3D Modeling programs like 3ds Max or Sculptris, and learning how to navigate game engines and code on a very basic level. I also have learned many valuable lessons like being able to buckle down and get lots of work done even if others are not. And how to work around my weaknesses and strengths to create good quality work, as well as how to read a rubric instead of asking what I need to do to get a good grade. Not much information hasn't been helpful but in the case of the "science" part of Sci Vis wasn't helpful for me and I want to go into the chemical field where some of those instruments and equipment is actually used. I wish my sophomore year instead of coding in game maker we took the leap into Unity so we could get a head start at learning coding to help the process of coding for 3D games in AGAD because personally for me coding was very hard because I didn't have a good foundation for coding, so I wish I had spent more time earlier on creating a good foundation of knowledge of coding for myself.
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One of the cool functions of 3Ds Max I have learned is it’s functionality with HDR maps. An HDR map is essentially an environment map allowing for a person to apply 1 image and because of the way the image is made have a full and in compassing 360 degree environment image. This is helpful if when rendering you want something to have lights bounce off a shiny object and see what it would look like outside or in the rendering process you want to give your object an environment to be in but not have to model and create the entire scene. In 3Ds Max it is literally as simple as downloading and HDR map pressing the 8 key, which opens up the environment tab, and dragging the HDR file into the environment tab. This is another one of the many ways I have learned this year to make a render look more professional without having to put a whole lot of work in similarly to having a render scene with lighting and slightly better textures from the ART renderer. I will leave a link to a website that is committed to having free HDR maps for download because sometimes HDR maps can be expensive and having a free resource helps hobbyists like myself continue to make high quality work with things like HDR maps.
This week we had our end of year presentations where all of the CTE (independent Studies) kids came together and after school presented what we have done this year. It was fun because me and my friend Graham were able to present together since we both focused on building a 3D portfolio and be prepared for the certification test for 3D studio Max. This event was fun because I was able to see the games other CTE students had been working on for the entire school year. The night seemed to have a reoccurring message from all of the students. The message of scope and not setting to big of goals for ourselves since we were only one person and had very limited amounts of time dedicated to our work inside school.
Forth quarter is next week and due to the person I am and my tendency to start to do less work in forth quarter I want to set myself some soft goals. In the hopes of helping keep myself more on task during my last 9 weeks of high school. GOALS:
-Finish learning advanced texturing -Review sub-object modeling -Finish the Acetyl-CoA model (Print maybe?) -Study any smaller render pieces for exam -Make and present end of the year presentation In 3ds Max as of 3ds Max 2017 they have added a new render option in the form of the ART render which I have talked about in the past and its ability to render better higher quality textures. This is through the physical material texture which is exclusively in the ART render. Through following the tutorial by the Autodesk 3ds Max Learning Channel on YouTube their video on Understanding the Physical Material has allowed me to gain a better understanding of using this material and its modifiers that can be changed to make virtually any texture with any look you want as long as you understand the physical material and how to edit it to make it look how you want it to. Texturing has always been the main pillar in my modeling and rendering process. Sometimes focusing on the textures and editing the textures to make them seem more realistic and believable in the hopes to make a better render or model which has been one of my personal goals throughout this year in my independent study of game design. Human Fall Flat is a one to four player Co-op, 3rd person, puzzle game that focus on physics based and climbing puzzles. The game was fun and introduces you to each level by dropping your character into the world and falling flat on your face. Each level has its own theme and puts the player into a new world each level and the player must work through the level solving puzzles and jumping obstacles to complete the level. I played through the game in one setting with a group for friends and from start to finish including a small break for food took 5 hours. Considering this was each of our first time playing the game and none of use were too good at puzzle games we had hoped to have a little bit more of game time, but we enjoyed every minute of game play. One thing to say about our play through because of us having multiple people we were able to cheese our way though some puzzles by having more than one set of arms. Also due to how the checkpoint system in Human Fall Flat only requires one person to reach the checkpoint for all players in the game to get the check point there wasn't any real punishment for trying to cheese some puzzles. Also the fact of each of us had bought the game during the steam winter sell, so we were able to buy the game for 60% off which helped a bunch. Overall we had wished that there was more maps and maybe Steam Workshop integration allowing users to create maps for us to try, but sadly that feature has yet to be added but overall the game was a lot of fun to play with friends.
I have always wanted to learn how to make a water system within 3ds after learning about particle systems and making pseudo rain with particle systems raining little blue spheres. I recently ran across some tutorials by the Autodesk 3ds Max Learning Channel on YouTube. Learning the ways that I can modify the liquid is fun and cool to finally be able to make fluid systems in 3ds. The only problem is the fluids require lots of CPU power and simulation time and render time. Because before you can render the animation you have to render the particles then you have to render the mesh made up of the particles, and depending on how many voxels you assign to be rendered in the particle mesh. Subsequently the time to make animations take lots of time to complete but the finial product is very cool and easy to make, but only takes time.
Today I had the chance to go an talk to the 8th graders in 2 science classes about the Game Design Pathway. This is important because at DSA middle school students do not get any exposure to any digital arts during their middle school electives so we went to them and gave our pitch. It was great because I was able to talk to a group of kids about something that I am passionate about and would encourage others to try out the Pathway. Also one of the big things that we liked to stress is the fact of yes it is the "game design" pathway but you don't have to go into games for the skills and tools you learn in the classes. For example I really enjoy playing games but would never see myself making a game due to how complicated it can be and all of the pressure of deadlines and all of the other factors that can cause large amounts of stress. Rather I would like to take the elements of design that I have learned and take these concepts to other fields like science or chemistry and apply my knowledge there.
Over the past few weeks I have been playing a lot of the new legend of Zelda game for the Nintendo Switch. The game in my opinion is purely amazing from the perspective from someone who has never really played a legend of Zelda game before but have always watched friends play or seen a play through on YouTube this game lives up to the hype the franchise gets. The game is an single player open world story driven game that allows the player to have lots of freedom with how they play the game. The game at it's core is very simple you the hero have to save the princess and beat the bad guy and along the way you kill enemies and get stronger until you fight the finial boss which in Breath of the Wild (BoTW) is Calamity Ganon. But the game is very in depth in the ways that you can play though it and navigate the sprawling world that feels to get lost in. Whether it's look for more shrines, which are mini puzzles to get spirit orbs to get more health or stamina, or doing fun and rewarding side quests to learn more about the world of BoTW, or even hunting after the collectibles in the game that feel fun and rewarding to collect unlike other open world games with collectibles like the Assassin Creeds franchise. The game is also creative in the fact that how you can interact with the world. Say there is a steep mountain you have to climb but might not have enough stamina to climb it safely, you could try to find a new route, do more shrines to get more spirit orbs to increase your stamina wheel, make a special food that either gives you more stamina or a speed boost, or if you wanted you could make a fire and burn some tall grass to make an updraft which you can use to can elevation and start climbing from there. The ways in which the game allows players to solve problems they may have is fun and rewarding and is something I haven't seen in a game for a long time.
Over my Thanksgiving break I have started to look into the production of audio more watching videos by Genius a company and website that breaks down lyrics of song but also has done this video series on the deconstruction of the beats used in hip-hop and rap songs. Being able to see the process that these audio engineers went through; though at a every simple level, is very cool seeing their though process and the progression of each beat and how that beat makes a song remembered or not or what type of vibe or feeling the song want to portray and that ability of being able to make people feel a certain way without any voices only pure sounds is very cool and fascinating to me and I hope to explore this more often in the future even though I am not musical educated and only play the violin sub-parley I feel the software is access able to people because we all know what we want in a song and the only obstacle from that is use making it.
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AuthorIm a student at Durham School of the Arts Highschool in Durham North Carolina . I love playing video games and enjoy useing digital artwork as a platform to display information more efficiently, I also enjoy industrial photography and camping. Archives
May 2018
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