Camera

One of the props I did for the machinima was the camera.

I did roughly two sheets of design but lost them to file corruption. The idea behind the camera is that it can move along a sort of rail along the ceiling, whereas it's spherical shape allows it to look in any direction unhindered.

The sphere and camera are the same object; there are two more objects to the camera, a beveled square block and a pentagon surrounding the sphere that looks like it holds it in.

It didn't take long to prepare or animate or make, though I believe it did it's job well if only to be on screen for a very small amount of time. This use of prop efficiency I think is rare, as there are few such things that can convey so much narrative in so short amount of time. I could and would have made additional props had I more time that could or would contribute to the same effect.

Another prop necessary for perhaps one scene alone was the bomb planted by the ninja, made by another groupmember.

Maya vs Unity

Baring in mind I didn't work with Unity as much as I did with Maya for this module, I decided to take a moment to reflect on the differences, generally the benefits and drawbacks I was able to pick out.

When it comes to animating, Maya I felt is superior and that seems to be the consensus amongst most people. I recall how adjusting the camera seemed to be a more complex job in Unity than it is for Maya, and that complicated scripts are apparently required to make objects move on their own.

However, it was useful that sound files in .aiff format could be dropped straight into Unity. Also, we didn't need to spend many hours rendering it and editing it in Final Cut.

I made my animations with many different cycles which I felt was more more efficient than manually animating each scene; although it did mean some planning and confusion followed placing my characters and their cycles in the scene until they could be sorted out accordingly. For example the character would often be dragged to one location but end up elsewhere when the scene is played because the character moves, whereas at other times it displays where the character moves to, rather than where he starts off. It took a fair bit of fiddling to get it right, but the benefit is, it made it very easy to make the necessary changes and re-export it.

When it comes to environments though, Unity is a powerful tool in terms of it's lightning and particle effects, which would be a much more complicated job in Maya; and the scripts, whilst they can be a drawback by making things complicated, are actually a great asset. The lighting in the second scene in particular I think is very impressive (that would be Andy's handiwork I think as he handled the environments).

Until this point there seemed to be little difference or point to exporting it to unity, as it still looked like a Maya animation to me, though that might have just been because I felt more comfortable working with it because I had done it before. Expanding my horizons in this module by introducing Unity and Maya for animation has made me realise that whilst they both have their areas of specialization, they are equally potential when it comes to producing animation.

Ninja Texture

It's hard to see where the boundaries for each area of the ninja are; but the legs are located to either side at the bottom whereas the chest is located in the middle, whereas the arms are located at the top either side of the head.

It took many tries to get the textures right and plenty of planar mapping. I wasn't able to fully unwrap the chest after hours of trying, so rather than waste more time trying to I decided to go ahead and correct whatever needed correcting with UV mapping.

Overall I felt that the environment was so dark that a dark textured character would be hard to observe in detail. At any rate, the feedback and general consensus I got on my model earlier is that it was well textured and appropriately coloured for the role.

I'd devote more time to texturing it better next time, but I felt like getting to the animation was more important and I think with the amount of animations I was able to get done, it payed off.

Ninja Dance

This was going to be in the credits as little more than a humorous occurrence to happen in the background. As we never ended up producing credits, however, the animation went unused as it is hardly appropriate for the ninja's role in the film.

That said, everything in this animation is intended, including the lengthening of his neck and waving of his arms. It is by no means even an attempt at making a professional, well-made dance. But it made me laugh and thought it would be a fun thing to have at the end of the animation.

Animatic

Here is the animatic I quickly whipped up using Final Cut Pro and images made from an updated storyboard. The main point was to get a good grasp on how long the scenes out to be and particularly what sounds we ought to use. The group liked my choice in sounds from what we had availible and so we referred to the actual Final Cut Pro file to get the exact sounds we wanted to use.

I didn't include ambient sounds as I felt it was unnecessary to ti
me them as keenly; these are essentially just to prevent any scene from being completely quiet.

Animation Feedback

In a group crit session I recieved a lot of positive feedback on the ninja animations I had prepared at the tine; a run cycle, a sneak walk cycle, a charge cycle, a sneak idle cycle, a stood still cycle, a roof-drop and the 'no' animations.

The variety of the animations was well recieved, as well as the colour and textures of the model. The animation was also said to fit well with the model, which I attribute to my character referencing and research behind types of movement I explored in my concept art.

A few suggestions were made which I took to heart and eventually changed; adjusting the angle of the ninja's head during the sneak animation, raising the feet off the ground more, and that some of the animations were a little wobbly. I agreed especially in the case of the original charging animation and so made changes to the waist and spine controllers to not move as much.

Overall a good response I'd say, but I certainly learned you can always do a little more than what you've already done.

Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeros, game or machinima?

Here's an interesting video about the latest installment to Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid franchise.

'Ground Zeros is a prelude to Metal Gear Sold 5 and features a brand new open world style gameplay never seen before in a MGS game. Built on the brand new Fox Engine gamers can look forward to experiencing the Metal Gear Solid Universe like never before.'

I'm not one for praising graphics as I understand that graphics are mostly a thing of the past, in the sense that they were once something to boast about. Now you would be met with an unwavering barrier of 'games are more than graphics!'. Whilst that is true and I am in agreement, I still understand that graphics are to be acknowledged, especially because we are advancing into new technologies, and now, new engines.

The way this video blends from in-game machinima to the playable game is so seamlessly done that I had to watch it twice. I believe this very well might be where the future of games is headed, without loading screens or waiting times that ruin or break immersion, but a seamless storyline from start to end like a film. As for the machinima, the greater half of this video, I believe it to be just as awe inspiring and that soon we may again see games developers locked in a battle to have the most triumphant graphics, last seen in the original console / platform debates.

Choreography + Warcraft Movies

Being a huge fan of films that incorporate choreography, especially in fighting, into their animations, I did a little research into how this is done through animation, if it came to the circumstances that I would animate my ninja character to do a fighting scene with the guard.

I realise now that it would have been a heavy time investment, but I'm still keen to animate something like this and it's probably something I'll do in my own time at some point.

I found a stop-motion of a fight between two dolls to be both entertaining and inspiring in it's choreography. It was made by Oliver Trudeau

So I looked up machinima that have fight scenes but from what I found, there arn't any with the same caliber; which is quite confusing given the number of attack animations typically found in most games. However, these animations are little more than swings through empty air, where your are to place your character in a location to make such an attack seem like it hits.

The animation above is fully choreographed and thought out, and overall just seems better in how it is developed and made, and I attribute this to the fact that everything was done by hand and so had to be planned out.

As far as Warcraft machinima goes though, it is still a brilliant piece.

Now for another resource of machinima that I have found great over the years.

http://warcraftmovies.com/ is a brilliant website in which many machinimators and movie-makers upload their works to for the world to see. All content is exclusive to World of Warcraft machinima so if you're looking for a variety of games, it isn't the best place to go; but I reckon there is more WoW machinima produced than anything else, not only because of how many players there are, but because it is so easy to produce with tools such as WoWModelViewer.

The tool allows to to load any model, equip them with any in-game gear, and have them perform a particular animation at a slowed down, normal or sped up pace. The background can be changed to green to chroma-key the character with a green screen effect, making it brilliantly easy to record the characters doing the animations and drop them into a background.

This is exactly how Divided Soul by Martin Falch - the machinima above, as well as his other work, Tales of the Past III, was made. Nearly all WoW machinimas are made this way, though that's not to say it's the only way they are made.

I have downloaded WoWModelViewer myself but because of a lack of certain software to greenscreen, etc, I haven't been able to make machinima of my own this way. I have used it to make some art, but I recognize it is a powerful tool and making machinima with it is certainly on my to-do list.

What is Machinima?

I thought I'd do a blog on the various machinima I've seen.

Needless to say that over the years I've watched a lot of it, but these are among my favourite. These pieces were made from in-game graphics, but using custom animations. They were probably made as part of the game's advertising campaign targetting MMO players who were tired of the same fantasy setting.

This machinima piece, a full 90 minute movie made from in-game animations, locations, and lore of the World of Warcraft was produced and directed by Martin Falch. I'm quite certain I've blogged about it at least once already. I still find it relevant because in comparison to the machinima above, it is produced in a different way.

Finally there are the cutscenes-turned-bloopers from Metal Gear Solid 3, which I only found recently. As well as being hilarious, they count as machinima. Like the Global Agenda machinimas, they are produced from in-game graphics but with custom animations. The Metal Gear games are heavily story orientated and so have a lot of cutscenes. I imagine the character animators produced more animations for the cutscenes then they did for the actual gameplay. This serves to establish a 'playable cinematic experience'.

Ninja Skeleton

This is the skeleton for my ninja in his stood-idle pose. I wasn't too happy with my rigging and it's something I've resolved to practice in the future in order to perfect it. I was able to animate the character perfectly fine, but at times I found my rig confusing. Here I'll outline some of my problems and my workarounds or solutions for them.

I do partially blame it on circumstances beyond my understanding. What should have been a simple fix of parenting one joint to another often resulted in a joint vanishing entirely for no apparent reason, and thus made it hard to fully rig the model without losing vital skeleton parts.

I encountered the same problem in my alien rig, meaning there is likely something I am missing out or doing incorrectly when it comes to the earlier stages of rigging. It was a much better idea than have parts of the skeleton missing entirely.

On the other hand it didn't make it impossible to rig; it just meant that I had to animate it differently than I otherwise could, and even in such circumstances I would probably animate it the way I did regardless, as I didn't take much note of the problem because it didn't interfere much at all with my animating.

For example, tilting the head backwards with the neck joint resulted the character (for whatever strange reason) turning it's head around 180 degrees. To avoid this, I simply adjusted the head with the head controller.

Another problem I had, but before animating, was particular vertices in the chest moving when the shoulders were adjusted. It goes without saying that this gave me a fair bit of confusion but it was the result of some of the vertices not having any influence on them. After painting influence on them to joints more relevant to the vertices locations, e.g the spine controllers, it was an easy fix.

So all in all I learned that my rigging is still hardly perfect, but when it comes to animating it can do the job; I also learned a little about the rig's problems each time I produced a new animation and so updated it slightly for each animation, e.g some of the controllers not paired to each other.

Concept to Model Comparison

Here is the newer version of the concept art image I did for the ninja character, with updated line-art and generally more distinguished colour. Aside from colour being the main difference, in many different ways; the model is black and red whereas this concept art depicts it as silver, grey and purple, there is very little difference between them except the shoulder guards, the decision behind removing them I have already explained.

In short, when referring to my character research and reference images, I wanted to give the  character a very humanoid, un-armoured look, as I feel it detracts from his aesthetic as an agent of espionage.

I still feel I have managed to keep the space-age feel of the character whilst he is explicitly not a simple gun-man or soldier with a talent for hiding. I think the colour scheme is important because it gives him both identity and anonymity. I felt that he contrasted well to the dark environment the machinima was set in and it sealed his place as a character that has stayed true to the original concept art.

Ninja Art

In order to help establish what kind of animations, poses, and overall role the character I was developing would play in the animation, I have a few more pieces of concept art.

This picture actually came to be used in the development of the game environment, referred to as the generator room. This room plays an important part in the narrative of the machinima. The ninja is shown hiding behind a wall.

Similar to something I remember from Splinter Cell and the Tenchu franchises, here the character is shown dropping down from the ceiling to take care of this guard.

These pictures helped shape the way in which the character moves, or rather, prowls around the environment, appearing only to dispatch his enemies and disappear back into the shadows.

To which point, most people might ask why he wears the red lights. Whilst it is mainly a design feature, and that so he can be more easily seen in the machinima, the lights are intended to change colour to blend in with their environment, so if he wanted to he could blend in against a wall of control panels and lights if he wanted, or remain totally hidden. They can also flash and distract an enemy, making it hard to pinpoint what part of the body they want to shoot at.

Sounds

When coming up with ideas for animation, it didn't escape us that we needed the appropriate sounds. Sourcing them from around the internet is a good idea if you're looking for a wide range of things, but we knew what we wanted and we needed it in high quality; and there is arguably no better place to get it than in the sound booth.

With the use of the computers, microphones and software available to us, we found appropriate sounds in .aiff format, which we were able to drop straight into Unity. We gathered and even created some music just in case we felt the need to use it, and many sounds; both ambient and for particular scenes.

We also recorded voices. I voiced the ninja character's single line whereas groupmembers Daniel and Andrew voiced the guards; Andrew voicing the one who ends up being killed by the ninja and Daniel voicing the one who catches the ninja in middle of a particularly dangerous act. We distorted the voices heavily in order to preserve the futuristic feel of the voices being changed by the suits the characters wore, and overall I think it worked. I think we're all quite satisfied with the sounds we gathered and the sounds we used, and I'm glad we gathered as many sounds as we did even if we didn't use them all.

It has made me aware of what a great facility the room is and I definitely want to use it more in the future.

Animating the Alien and Unity

When the time came to animate our alien models, I had encountered problems with my rigging made earlier and decided rather than try to correct them now and catch up later, I would make use of the demonstration model and animate that.

It was amusing, for one thing, to see the character I had animated duplicated several times over and made to dance, but it did provide insight into how to go about it and it was fairly simple.

Import that asset as an FBX (after exporting it in Maya with all the right settings - bake animations, select frames to be animated and embed media). In Unity's Inspector, I was able to chop up the animations by entering which animation took place during which frames, e.g the walk cycle was 1 - 100, the jump animation was 101- 200, and the creepy dance animation screenshotted above was 201 - 250. With a script, we were able to have the animations play randomly one after another.

This is the method in which we would produce the Unity turntables for our characters.

Developing the Ninja

Before the final design of the ninja was sealed, I made a few experiments with his face. As you wouldn't be able to see the character's face directly, I felt it was important to create a cool design to substitute for it. I experimented with ideas such as a headset and goggles with a cloth rag over the mouth, but I felt this design in particular felt out of date to the rest of the character's attire and would require a complete overhaul.

I experimented with character ideas and inspirations such as Venom, including more visually haunting eyes and an alien mouth. Whilst I felt it was a cool idea, it was simply a case of 'I don't really want him to look like that'. I experimented with a single visor, taking inspiration from the large alien robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still, but thought it looked more like Robo-Cop when equipped on a human.

I thought the original idea captured what I wanted best and applied a few tweaks as to how it could be changed.

I went with the bottom - middle design.

 I then decided to figure out how the mask would open up, not knowing if this would even be necessary in the machinima, but it would provide some sort of character development. The two plates that cover the mouth would split open and be drawn back to the cheeks, whereas the face-plate would slide up over the forehead.

The Character

Having compiled my ideas I came up with this character. I experimented with colour themes in order to see if  the visual impact it had helped shape the identity of the character and the role they would play in the film, which I found to be exactly the case.

The first version I produced was a simple standing character that I would use for reference when developing it in Maya. It is an older version of the concept art but visually no different from the below character image I worked on afterwards, aside from a few tweaks and the removal of the shoulder guards.

The shoulder guards I felt would only herald clipping issues in the various poses I intended to animate the character in, and substituted them instead for the small spikes on each shoulder. The red and black theme also makes the character appear more sinister and lethal, which is hardly going to ruin any ninja's career prospects.

Simply referred to as The Ninja, he would play as the antagonist of the guards on the ship, seeking to interrupt whatever business they have going on there. On that note, it's unclear as to who is the 'good guy' and the 'bad guy' in the current machinima storyline, but I think that only makes it better, as we're left to our own devices about what is going on and why.

Developing the Character

I thought long and hard about the character I wanted to portray as seemed to be going down the route of developing our characters before the storyline. Then again, we didn't know what storyline to go with without first having characters, so there was no harm developing it this way.

One character was quickly established; a guard or a mercenary of sorts, equipped with space-age firearms. I decided to make something that contrasted well with this kind of character.

Sam Fisher was the first character reference I used and set me on the path of the kind of character I wanted to develop; not only because of his role in the games he is cast in, but also his overall appearance; especially the night vision goggles. I wanted to recreate something similar to this but more similar and with a less uniform appearance, to give the character a greater appeal of individuality and a lone-wolf identity.

Samus was the next character I looked at as it had the kind of appeal I was looking for, but looks too alien for my liking. I wanted the character I developed to be identifiable as a human, whilst still maintaining a space-age / futuristic identity. I took it back a notch and another character appeared in my inspiration list.

My own experience with the Crysis game series is limited to playing round my friend's house and kicking a few chickens around in the super-powered suit, but it was enough for me to remember it here. It had everything I was looking for; Sam Fisher's goggles, a distinguishable human shape and appearance, and contrary to the high tech weaponry that the character's enemy in the machinima - the guard would have, this character uses something a little unorthodox.

I found a similar character within the Starcraft universe, but thought he was a little over-dressed and armoured.

With the necessary reference material for developing the character, I know it will be much easier and a more liner process than trying to think of it out of my head alone.

Developing the Alien

When we came to make the alien it meant making use of many tools we were already aware of, and so building the geometry wasn't so much of a challenging prospect, although it still took a reasonable few attempts in order to finish with something I wanted to bind to a skeleton.

I thought back of when I was building the tree when first learning how to make use of the extrusion tool, which was perhaps the primary tool used in the construction of the alien's geometry. I was warned not to use too many polygons in my models (that is apparently a frequent problem I tend to make). Unfortunately I probably took this a little too literally and removed many more polygons than necessary. Whilst I did look at face typology and had reference images to work with, I frequently studied my model in smooth preview. Admittedly I think I removed too many edged, resulting in some of the faces of the geometry covering a wider area than they ought to. This would certainly be the change I would make if I were to do it again.

Regardless the model turned out quite well and I would soon after move on to texturing and animating it.

Developing the Environment

When it came to develop where our machinima would be set, we produced concept art. I first started with the western idea, as the brief we were given included an option as to how the narrative in the machinima played our. I liked the idea of two characters having a trade-off in a scenario reminiscent to that of Sergio Leone's Western film trilogy, and features a potential character to help portray my idea of this.

Lastly, I produced a space environment as we were narrowing our decision to something more sure and definite. I was still keen on my western idea at the time - space age, futuristic stuff as strange as it sounds has never interested me much in terms of games. But I figured if I'm going to work on developing this machinima I could have my influence on it's direction.

This is the second piece of concept art I created and although it does look similar to the underwater city seen in Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace, my main inspiration / influence for this particular work was in Genndy Tartakovsky's Samurai Jack and the city of Aquiatus (if memory serves me correctly). I thought an underwater environment was quite original and leaves plenty of room for variation; it could be fantasy as depicted here with the whale with four fins and bio-luminescent lights, or could be reality accurate, and I expand my referance imagery with deep sea-level photos and images.

I also had art for a volcanic setting but by the time I had produced these three we had made a decision on a futuristic, space-age environment.

I think using the space environment was a good idea. There was little limitation in what we could or couldn't do and we could portray it however we liked. At the same time it also imposed some rules in what we could do and so set us on a path of design that wouldn't have our ideas deviate so drastically as to be irrelevant.

Eventually, we decided on a space level and I began to develop a character for it, whilst leaving the design of the spaceship's interior to other members of the group.

Animation Playblasts

These are the animations I have made so far for my machinima module project.

The character is a stealth/espionage expert referred to only so far as 'the Ninja'; the apparent protagonist of the animation (though it is really unclear in the storyline who is the good guy and the bad guy). The ninja's job is to infiltrate a well protected space-ship and plant a bomb to destroy it, and so I have produced animations that revolve around the theme of being stealthy and subtle. I took inspiration from figures such as Rikimaru from the Tenchu game series, Sam Fisher from Splinter Cell and a few others.

This animation cycle shows the ninja in his idle sneaking stage; remaining hidden but not moving.

This is the animation cycle of the ninja moving in his sneaking state; remaining hidden whilst moving.

This is the animation cycle for the ninja running.

This is the animation cycle for the ninja charging with his arm in front of him, to knock aside potential threats.

This is the animation cycle of the ninja preparing something, and could be used for many things aside from this; rewiring or hacking a user interface console, but I made it so the ninja can be seen preparing the bomb.

This animation is specifically for the part where the ninja tells his enemies aboard the ship that he is unwilling to do as they ask.

After some feedback from other people I took note that some of the animations were a bit jumpy or stuttery, and I assumed that it fell to one animation in particular; the charge animation. So, I went back in and changed it to be less wobbly.

After that, I also noticed a lot of people liked the drop-down animation, below.

So I went back and made it better, having correcting some problems such as the arms going through the floor.

A Brief (Audio) History of Video Games

A short instrumental video composed of recognizable, distinguishable sound files from various popular games made over the years - a homage from all games from Pong and the era of Atari to Assassin's Creed and Metal Gear. The video is little more than this but it still accurately depicts the changes gaming has gone through in the short period of 20 or so years, and makes me wonder what the future heralds. From genre, gameplay, and elements like the UI - and of course, the sound and music involved, everything about gaming and games over the last few decades is celebrated musically in this three minute long clip. 

The entire song is composed only of sounds made in video games, many of which the majority of gaming audiences will recognize. I think this is a warming testament to the power that sounds have in gameplay, considering that some of them we will hear over and over and over again, they need to sound good enough to be heard as often as they will be. For example, the sound of a basic attack must sound satisfying and gratifying enough to hear over and over again, whereas the sound of obtaining some sort of reward or earning an achievement must have higher gratification. Now the sounds themselves are conditioned to reward us with this gratification and I think this why listening to the song in this video communicates so well with many gamers.

There is also a similar track focusing solely on the PC game platform.

Game Scriptwriting Talk

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/industry-careers-video-game-scriptwriter/

Scriptwriting in games is becoming a more and more important aspect of the gaming industry as games developers are starting to realize that story elements are as important as multiplayer features - and it is often story elements that require games to spawn sequels or prequels - a notable example being the Call of Duty single-player campaigns of which I am quite fond of. The multiplayer mode I don't much care for. But if the story is good players will want to see where it goes and may very well purchase a prequel or sequel for this reason alone. Other examples I can name off the top of my head are the Warcraft RTS series and MMORPG, Splinter Cell, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, and more recently the new Lara Croft.

Most importantly, I think, is that fans will grow attached to the story and if it deviates from it's original appeal, the game title may find itself pulling in new interest at the cost of losing the interest of those it had previously earned. Many game sequels or prequels have had this happen.

I do not consider myself has someone who is trying to get into video game script-writing, though I am fond of writing and I may give it a go in my spare time, looking into how video game scripts are prepared so that I could give it a go.

Eurogamer Valve Talk

In this talk, Chet Faliszek talks about getting a job in the game industry. Coming from one who works at Valve, a company of whom I am an enthusiast. His 'short version' is to 'make something'. This has made me aware that the best way to demonstrate your potential make it into the video game industry, isn't to demonstrate how you could make a game, but how you will make games or how you have made games. This ties in well to what I have read on Blizzard's tips on employment.

His advice isn't to 'wait for the right moment to start', and that one ought to simply start regardless of what software or computing power they have access too, because you learn more by starting. All in all his advice is very encouraging that no matter your experience, if you find the dedication and get to creating games, or a game, or something within a game in any way shape or form, it will help you learn and progress and bring you closer to the industry.

• Only include finished work, don't include any 'I made this in ten minutes'. Have pride in your work and do it right.
• Skyrim creation kit, toolsets, use what you can. Some places will make you create a mod before they hire you.
• Create something that excites people, get them to come to you - better than sending a resume out to everyone.
• Passion to carry you through the hard work.
• Iteration - don't throw away everything and start fresh each time, replacing old problems with new. Set a goal, iterate towards that goal. Build on ideas.

As a practicioner I can see myself taking a lot of this advice to heart straight away; but I definitely feel between films, games and animation, out of the three, that I have always had a prominent passion for games, wanting to know about how they work, how they're made, and I think I have explored this in the past with player-created toolsets in Neverwinter Nights. I already have a few ideas in mind for games I would like to try and create, or at least at some point I would like to create a standalone game to accompany my showreel or portfolio.

Un Chien Andalou

After watching Un Chien Andalou for the first time one could feel at a loss as to how to interpret it. There were a lot of implicit subtle indications, themes and even more explicit ones. There’s certainly reason enough to label it a surrealist film. If it were not obviously relatable in some way to Freud’s work on psychoanalysis, and the manifestation of the combination of desire and the unconscious, it would certainly be a more puzzling film than it already is. The consistently shifting timeline between the events in the film is also one of the variables I consider to be quite confusing.

The film shows no hesitation in being gruesome; evident in the opening scene where we see a woman’s eye being opened with a razor blade. Naturally the audience is left somewhat in shock, and this ties in with Freud’s psychological model of the unconscious; repressed memories of traumatic events being hidden and buried deep away as to not effect the conscious mind. I believe this is reflected in how shortly and how quick the scene is. The soundtrack is also quite jovial and arguably unsuitable for the imagery portrayed.

The theme of eyes seems to run throughout the film on a few more examples; that of the man character when he is openly groping the female character, and the two dead donkeys or horses placed atop the two ground pianos which the male character is trying to pull along with him. From what I can tell, these animal’s eyes have also been removed.

There is also the consistent theme or obsession revolving around the severed (and the misfortune it brought to the woman who found it). The hand is coveted as a desirable object, which could again be related to the unconscious - or perhaps one of many other ways the film manifests the theme of fetish and obsession.

It's focus on psychoanalysis is prominent and unreasonable in that it must be understood in some form to be put into context; there is a lot of blatant imagery - both subtle and explicit, and symbolism of the same hidden or equally grotesque form. It has frequent and inconsistant chronological shifts, which in some sense is logical if the film is composed on repressed human emotions; the details of which would remain unclear and vague in real life, and this is reflected on screen. 

The film seems intent on making in little sense as possible, with nothing in particular representing anything at all, and perhaps it can only be best explained through psychoanalysis in a vague effort to give it some sort of meaning. If the meaning of the film was to shock, I think it fulfilled it's function admirably well. There is little to be understood from one viewing alone and, with the lack of any particular plot or necessity behind the chronological gaps and jumps, would likely have left many people bewildered back when it was made in 1929 as it still does today.

Difference in Machinima Style

World of Warcraft Machinima

Martin Falch - TotP3, Pre-set Animations, additional editing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUPh-K40HjA

Martin Falch spent one and a half years producing and directing perhaps the most noteworthy and highly acclaimed machinima pieces of all time; Tales of the Past III. A feature length machinima over 90 minutes long, Falch combines footage recorded in-game and animations imported via green-screen and WMV (WoW model viewer). With effects utilized from various Adobe and other special effects software, it remained at the top of warcraftmovies highest downloaded, highest rated and most viewed list for several months.

AFK PL@YERS (Taiwanese)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMlzJdeOeVc (Pre-rendered, in-game graphics)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7_ofs3p85k (Pre-rendered, in-game graphics)

These Warcraft machinimators have made many pieces over the years that I have enjoyed, emplying many of the same methods used by Falch (though he was in no shame a pioneer of these methods; such has been the norm for perhaps truly pioneering machinimators such as Myndflame Dementia).

Percula - Blind (full custom animations, additional lighting, pre-rendered/ improved graphics)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYQeJQ8KJyY

Most likely made via importing WoW models and environments into Maya or 3D Studio Max, very few of the animations here are in-game, though all the models are. The lighting is also slightly different.

Sanity Not Included - Comedy, no custom animations, player controlled, 'frapped'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVD9bCLSmKY

A series of short sketches and 'skits', consisting of recorded footage which is dubbed in a comedic fashion. This sort of machinima doesn't rely on plot or story, and is much easier to make providing you have the same degree of comedic talent.

South Park - Make Love, Not Warcraft - Crosses back and forth between pre-rendered / animated game play with in-game graphics and typical 2D South Park animation.

http://vimeo.com/15715765

Blizzard and the creators of South Park collaborated to produce this episode, which features animations found in-game and developed solely for the episode.

Summer Thoughts

Admittedly I didn't spend my time during summer as productively as I could have, though I still feel that over the weeks I learned a lot about the games and film industries by keeping an eye on worldwide events such as Gamescom, E3, and keeping up to date with subject relevant media podcasts by G4TV and similar websites.

I have learned, or perhaps acknowledged now more than ever that games are developing and advancing at an alarming rate, and I am beginning to wonder where it will stop. I am familiar with where it began and throughout the course of my life-long interest in games and gaming (going all the way back to the Sega Megadrive and Sonic 2 + Streets of Rage, here), I find myself wondering what the epitome of a good game is. New features are added and developed all the time and new ways to play, and new things to do are almost expected. Many years ago on consoles such as the Playstation and Dreamcast, graphics were a thing to boast about, although in modern times this particular strength of a game might be met with immediate criticism, followed up with the iron belief that graphics are irrelevant; it is the gameplay that matters. This much I can agree to, the original games like Super Mario and Sonic don't have half the features modern games have.

Yet despite this we recognise them as some of the greatest titles; particularly Zelda: Majora's Mask, which although I have never played, still holds one of very few 100/100 ratings from recognised rating bodies such as gaming magazines. However, were we to play them now, we would no doubt find the blocky graphics, questionable sound quality, and other variables that make up the game on an inferior level to just about any modern title.

However, does more features necessarily mean better? An overwhelming amount of options and things to do can often confuse a new player to a game as they may feel they are missing out on an advantage or necessary part of progression in the game. I found myself in this situation when I played a free MMO called Forsaken World, where upon getting to the main city found an overabundance of things to do, but not knowing which or what would be best. I didn't know where I was going or what I should do first. It may not have been a problem had I decided to go out of my way to learn about it, but in my opinion the knowledge of the game should come to you naturally, rather than forcing you to seek it out in order to survive; although I do expect that players who do this are rewarded in some way.

Another MMO I have played is the Korean 'Rose Online'. I initially found out about it in a demo years ago when I played Runescape, but didn't continue because at the time I didn't want to play a game with a monthly payment (and I was probably too young). It is a very relaxed game with a stylized anime aesthetic, the musical score is something I still remember as being catchy and I think whilst it was only a demo, it did introduce me to another aspect of the MMO genre. It was different to Runescape as it was not browser based but the graphics were much better, softer and all the more it had a very fun and happy atmosphere to play, rather than a story / apocalypse-driven motivation or threat from an omnipresent antagonist. It might have just been my age but I still feel that games like this have a market; advances and new directions in indie gaming have proven that there is an interesting even for performing simple tasks such as virtual farming and collecting pets.

Assassin's Creed is one of few titles I have seen to have a real progression in it's development. Originally the game was very linear and straight-forward, and this made a lot of players feel limited. Since then, it has been made to become a much more open-world environment and optional missions are available, as well as other features likely requested for by players. Assassin's Creed one reminds me of one of my all time favourites; Tenchu 3; Wrath of Heaven, which scored 97% with most reviews at the time. It was -the- stealth game of the year, despite it being very linear; eight levels, guards wandering in simple, pre-set paths, straightforward attack / block combat system. Compared to the latest AC game, it's not half as good. But that's because features such as being open world, and more fun combat systems were not universally required in just about every game as they became more and more easier to implement. Because it wasn't available back then, it's almost like it wasn't required, or simply because the option wasn't there, there was no existing game to compare it to. Were you to compare them now, Tenchu's 8 single player levels, each with three different settings for different guard locations and paths is very little in comparison to a 50 hour play-time storyline and online multiplayer possibilities from Assassin's Creed's latest title - yet at the time it utilized the best of what was available.

This brings me to mention that the technology produced by one games development company may eventually become industry standard; the same also applies to ideas and concepts. Ways to spend time in-game besides taking part in story / actual game progression is something I first recall in Grand Theft Auto; Vice City, as I could spend hours just stealing cars if I wanted to. It wouldn't help me much, but the option was there, and I think having the option is something more and more players and developers are concerning themselves with. More and more games are being increasingly inclusive with mini-games or alternative content. When one game was linear or closed in a time where games started to become more open world and more environmentally explorable, it was considered a negative. The same applies to every feature of modern games, on top of the innovation race to find something new and get the edge over the competition. This brings me to the next games comparison between another two MMO games; one being the paragon and reigning king of MMOs, the other a new contender, with new technology, new ideas and just about new everything.


Reflecting on these old titles with nothing but praise may simply be the result of nostalgia; I certainly only remember the good things about the games of old, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were the best ever made.

I have been thinking about and keeping up to date with games as there are some very interesting titles that have been released, for example Guild Wars 2 and WoW: Mists of Pandaria, the 4th World of Warcraft expansion. I there have been many comparisons between these two games and I think it is a very interesting debate. One is a brand new game developed with the latest graphics engines and gameplay initiatives. WoW on the other hand has had nearly eight years to refine, tune, develop and adjust itself into the most popular MMO game ever made. I have several criticisms about Guild Wars 2 myself, having played it. Whilst a lot of the dynamic content is good, it seems mainly to just be a repeating series of events and they are hardly as dynamic as they are passed off to be. A better example of this is in Rift, where the titular threats to the players, the Rifts, open up and monsters and enemies pour forth. I would still be playing Rift now if I didn't also want to continue playing Warcraft, which I have already invested a few years into.

Also, Guild Wars 2 feels like it tries to change too much of the MMO genre, making it so that you can be competitive in PVP as gear becomes irrelevant and the item levels for gear are balanced out. My criticism of this is that acquiring gear and improving your character is a large part of the MMO genre gameplay, and by negating the full effect of this you are arguably taking away the reward of acquiring gear. If anyone can be competitive, why fight for gear, and if there's no point fighting for gear, there are plenty of other games where you needn't have gear to be competitive. I feel that although it is a potentially good decision, they have overlooked issues such as these amongst others.

Guild Wars 2 is also building on dynamic MMO fundamentals that World of Warcraft will no doubt have shaped over the eight years of it's existance. Blizzard have told would-be developers to try something new, as if they just copy Warcraft, they mightaswell be playing Warcraft. This is perhaps the approach Arena-net took with Guild Wars 2, but it's arguable they may have done it a little too literally. Frankly, too much is different and whilst it is still technically an MMORPG, so many of the usual boundries have been changed that it feels like something else entirely. Many people will like that, though others might prefer sticking to what they are familiar with.

Similarly, when the Call of Duty series (as much as I dislike it most of the time) came up with the bloody screen idea instead of having a set healthbar, many other titles and games followed their example soon after.

There has also been an increase in modding and addons; most recently, with Arma II and the DayZ mod - the success of which has sparked a sudden increase in 'Z-day survival MMO's' - and a dedicated, non-mod version of the game is currently in progress. Day-Z recently hit 1 million players, meaning that more people bought the game to play the mod, rather than to play the actual idea. The reason behind the success of the mod I believe is down to the realism of it. It isn't a shoot and kill - there are many many variables consider. The search for water, food, health, keeping warm, bandaging wounds so you don't bleed - and if you do bleed you'll find your vision fading and your overall capabilities in-game hindered entirely. There is limited ammunition and supplies around, and you are left to your own devices; team up with other players, you might find yourself betrayed and your supplies stolen shortly after. Furthermore, if you die, you re-spawn and lose all your gear and equipment.

You don't even start with a weapon, meaning you are left to crawl across the dirt to avoid the undead - without a weapon, you have no means of killing them or defending yourself other than running. Guns also create a lot of noise, which will draw zombies in if they hear it being fired. The playable level is absolutely huge, a virtual 27km across, and you have no map to navigate with. It combines horror, survival and action within one game. The only objective is to survive, there is no long-term goal to keep in mind.

Games, aside, I have also seen a few films over the summer. The Dark Knight Rises, Men in Black 3, Prometheus, Ted, Brave, The Avengers, The Expendables and The Expendables 2 (which was significantly better and everything the first should have been), to name several.

I have been thinking about my choices in film, games and animation, and despite my love for all three and a lack of experience in film, I'm rolling towards film right now. It might be something I change but I reflected on my experiences making our short films last year; going to the locations, setting up the shots, I just found it all more enjoyable.

I could swear I had more to write but what exactly that was has escaped my thoughts already. Like I said, I didn't get up to much.

Just Say Yes

On the subject of volunteering, the words 'just say yes' are as suitable as any other if not more so. This lecture sought to raise awareness of the benefits of volunteering.



Volunteering was promoted as being beneficial in many different ways and although I've never done much of it myself, I know people who have.

Volunteering does have some good perks, and it was promoted as being a life experience in that you could make an impact on somebody elses' in life. It looks especially good on a job application as it means you are up to the task of a challenge, are willing to help out, and it means you are able to go travelling and see the world. Volunteering was described as being essential to creating an inclusive and mutually supportive society. I agree with this, even if the volunteering is on a small scale, it can have a significant or noticeable impact on the local society.

Other benefits include the experience of working with others, an increase in self esteem and self motivation, and tackling problems such as social exclusion and isolation. For those looking to increase their social circles, this is perhaps one of the best ways to do it, as you will find other people looking to do the exact same thing. Knowing more people with different ethnicities, from different backgrounds will make you a more well-rounded and acceptable person. You can gain management skills and gain work experience. You can work with professionals in the industry and get great advice, whilst at the same time boosting your portfolio. You may even meet contacts that will help recommend you for a job.

I believe volunteering could be used for anything. In the subject of films, games and animation, these forms of media could be voluntary brought to those who would not otherwise have access to them for them to enjoy as much as we do.

Local opportunities in Leeds include the Run for Life, St Gemma's Hospice, Leeds Children's Charity and St George's Crypt, Light Night, Festivals, schools and various other local charities. Globally, volunteering for recognised names like Unicef are nothing but commendable.

Sectors and Services

The UK's Economy is the 7th largest in the world and 3rd largest in Europe, a well globalised country. London is on par with New York in terms of being a financially central city, and the largest industries include aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and oil and gas from the North Sea.

An industry sector is divided into sub sectors; primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary deals with extraction and harvesting of natural resources. Secondary deals with processing, manufacturing and construction. Tertiary deals with knowledge and services.

There is also the public sector, that is publicly or state owned, such as the NHS, the private sector, which is privately operated usually for profit, and the third sector which is voluntary or charity / community owned businesses for none profit distribution.

Industries include creative, education, health and social work, financial and business, hotels and restaurant, public administration and defence, real estate and renting, tourism, transport, storage and communication, wholesale and retail trade.

The creative industries alone include advertising, architecture, arts and antique markets, crafts, design, designer fashion, film video and photography, software, games and electronic publishing, music and the visual and performing arts, publishing, television and radio.

Most independent games and creative producers are taken care of by government set up fundings with endorsements from the EU. Groups like Creative England help set up the sustainable growth of independent creative business, by developing recognised talent and increasing awareness through publicity via exhibitions and distribution.

Evaluating

Evaluations are something I am very familiar with writing already. My personal way to go about it is to avoid descriptions about what things are, but why they are; how they are, how and why they are not something else. Generally the idea is to explain the reasons behind your point, when making an evaluation. You are not telling someone that a Ferrari is red, but why it is red, because of the connotations associated with the colour red. It is explaining the cause and reasoning behind an approach to something.

Typical things when writing an evaluation are similar to a review. You once again look over what it is you have been asked to do and how your final product compares to the brief you are set.You are looking at the good, the bad, what could be better, what could be worse; the strengths and highlights, unique features and common mistakes, regrets and proudest achievements behind whatever you are evaluating. In the case of evaluating my own work, I tend to follow all these examples.

"Working with Unity and Maya proved somewhat tedious but rewarding as more effort was invested. More time went into introducing subtle changes like particle effects and getting the lighting right than I would have thought, and I spent a good amount of time planning and considering what assets I wanted. I think the planning stage was very helpful, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to jump into Unity and simple spew out anything that came into my head; it likely would have been a very messy game environment."


Here, in the most recent evaluation I have produced, I address several issues. The difficulty of working with programmes, the problems I encountered and how I overcame them, the consequences of actions I have undertaken in response to unforeseen circumstances of producing my work as intended.


Analysing and reflecting on your own work is critical, but it means reflecting on everything; not just what you did, but why and how you did it, and what you didn't do and for what reasons. To evaluate is to effectively summarise the reasoning behind of the decision behind all other decisions made in critically reviewing work.

Copyright

Copyright is not as modern a concept as people may think. It is designed to prevent theft of original ideas and make more easily established the legal owner of an idea. It refers to the creations of your mind. Inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images and designs used for commercial purposes are covered under copyright, just as films, games, photos, designs for more abstract things such as fashion, and is even inclusive to food recipes.


Patents, trademarks, registered designs and copyright all categorise under intellectual property. The first patent taken out was for a Typewriter in England, including a QWERTY keyboard. This patent was taken as early as 1714. 


Logos such as the Apple logo, the Nike tick are instantly recognisable and protected under intellectual property rights to prevent other people from using their logo as a Nike product when it is in fact not.


Copyright that is breached is copyright infringement, and there are often legal battles between companies regarding material that each company may believe to be theirs. A recent example of this is Steam and Blizzard's claims to the name DOTA.

During the game's unveiling at Gamescom 2011, Gabe Newell explained Valve's perspective on acquring the trademark, which was that IceFrog desired to develop a direct sequel to DotA and that players would likely recognize it as such. Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing the Warcraft III World Editor and their ownership of DotA-Allstars, LLC as a proper claim on the franchise. On May 11, 2012, Blizzard and Valve announced that the dispute had been settled, with Valve retaining the rights to the term "Dota", while Blizzard would change the name of their map, Blizzard DOTA, to "Blizzard All-stars".

Breaches of copyright occur across the world. Another example in China is that of 'Obama Fried Chicken'.

  

Presentations

Making a presentation is about making an informative awareness to an audience of something, introducing an idea; showcasing something, explaining it. Sharing a problem and asking the audience's participation or their opinion of it, explaining your research and revealing your own opinion of it, and detailing and evaluation that summarises your thoughts on the subject.

A presentation that doesn't do these is bad; and the difference between a good presentation and a bad one can mean the successful pitching of an idea or the immediate failure to attract any attention to it.

Presentations should contain as little text as possible; small sections of information for people to be able to immediately identify the purpose of the slide and the information on it, without having to sift through irrelevant details. An explanation should be given over it explaining any other details, including ones already mentioned but more in depth, and ones not mentioned that are relevant but not entirely trivial.

Clip art looks cheap, rushed, and low resolution images make the presentation look ill prepared. Images should be crystal clear and of a high quality, so that people are immediately able to identify what the image is, and can appreciate that time has been taken to cast the image in a good light. A low quality image reflects low quality standards.

Bullet points can be boring and distracting although they work well when used in the right context.

Videos to reinforce points made as both valid and evidenced can greatly increase the impact of the points or ideas you are trying to make, even if in the form of research, and can better hold the audiences attention.


Simplicity, efficiency, connections and a minimal but concise amount of slides are paramount to a good presentation.

Social Media Success

The lecture was about thinking, talking, learning, seeing, hearing connectively, being creative and looking at networks.

In recent times networks have expanded beyond electronic links and can now more accurately describe a vast network of socially linked medias and communications. Facebook is used for more than just talking to friends and keeping up to date. Every modern business and every famous person has a page for them or multiple groups dedicated to them, sometimes with hundreds, a few with millions of followers. Biz Stone, CEO of Twitter, refers to it as an information network, rather than a social network - as news is instantly broadcasted to thousands of people every second.

MySpace is similar but has a particular niche in recent times for musicians and songwriters to host their music and videos, similarly to YouTube. Flickr and Photobucket fill a similar niche for photographers wanting to share their photos, just as DeviantArt is home ground for many traditional and digital artists of an ameteur or professional level.

Skype is a software application that can be used to make free voice or video calls over the internet, and even make group calls and be able to host online conferences.

Who Are You?

In this presentation we were challenged with defining our characteristics through our capabilities, ways of thinking and styles of working. These are the aspects of our personalities that enable people to understand our approach to our work, what it might be like to collaborate with us and how we might perform in a team situation. These are the professional aspects of our personalities and are known as Personality Type Indicators. 
 

We were asked questions such as:

How your personality traits work in your favour or create barriers for others to overcome?

Do do you make judgements about others based on their occupations or the way they dress?

How much do your skills say about your personality?

How do others perceive you?

After answering these questions we were given the necessary steps required to help understand ourselves better and how to more effectively communicate our ideas more clearly. We looked at examples and case studies, people who had also tried to define personalities, through archetypes; something I was familiar with from the first module. Carl Jung, from 1875 to 1961, describes The Self, The Shadow, The Anima or Animus, and The Persona.

Eventually we came to discuss our personality descriptors and were given the means of finding out which we were and what it means. I found my description to be quite accurate but found myself in agreement with other summaries as well, as I don't think you can accurately judge a human being from any single personality test. I came out as an ISPF, as did many other people.

This chart also helps define one's personality by scoring each topic out of 100 on level of importance. The idea is that the more space the red line encompasses, the more balanced your life is. I feel that this is personally more appropriate for judging someone's personality as you are then able to reflect and change on seeing the results, rather than simply dictating what sort of personality you have, and your strengths and weaknesses and vices according to the results.