PPP3 Showreel Finished

Here is my 'as close as its gonna get for submission' showreel, I fully intend to redo some of the little tweaks this video needs, I will be spending some time in AE in the coming weeks to get a really polished showreel with appropriate effects and sound that sells the artwork the best it can. Other than that though I will be focusing on putting a portfolio together in both a physical and digital format.

PPP3 Moving Concept Art

Also known as animatics, I have looked in the past at adding some motion on another level to my work to change things up a little. Studying this technique of work is a whole other learning process in itself, things like centring shots and the rule of thirds come in to play as the still images essentially become short films. Big games like Guild Wars and League of Legends both utilise the use of moving concept art very well, probably the best in the industries, and I would like to explore this option more in the future in terms of making more interesting showreels and portfolios than just panning and fadeins-outs.

PPP3 Using Adobe Behance

Behance is an Adobe website focusing on presenting work online in a comprehensive manner, my first impression of this site is that it is a very clear cut nicely presented easy to use site, much like the many programs Adobe have created over the years whig I have come to be efficient in, this would inform my opinion of the site as well. Without ever using the site it is a serious consideration of mine to make a profile on this site and spend time policing my work to present in this place. If it lives up at all to the many programs that go by the name Adobe then I am sure that it will not fail to impress when I get around to making an account on there.

www.behance.net

PPP3 Visualart.me Review

Looking at other 2D art websites as possible options for more places I can begin to market myself I found this site www.visualart.me, as a first impression I found the site to be a little poorly laid out, I didn't find the gallery button for a good 20 seconds as it was right at the bottom of the screen in small writing, websites should be clear and easy to use simply to keep things moving at a reasonable pace. The reviewing and rating system was a little empty too, I found myself looking at more than 50% of artists with no reviews and thus not being able to judge at a first glance wether they were worth a look or not, this could waste time and distract from the real purpose of the site. The site reminds me of the Adobe Behance website but a little less known and quieter. It was still worth a look even if I end up deciding not to go with a profile on there.

PPP3 Positioning Statement

I had to google positioning statements to find out what one was as I have not had any experience writing or making one before, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be as I was simply honest and got to the point which is what advice I found on writing one had told me to do. I am happy with the way it sells me and I feel for once 100% confident that everything I have written here is true and I can do what it is that I have written. With that in mind I am comfortable putting it up here.

Dan S Positioning Statement

My name is Daniel Schofield, I am a digital Artist focusing on conceptual artwork for the game and entertainment industry, I have worked with digital artwork programs for several years and have had several professional clients. Constantly learning and improving my skills to better portray the landscapes and characters I primarily work on, I have learned some of the industries top tips and tricks for timekeeping, working quickly, efficiently and getting the story of a piece of art across clearly. Primarily working in Photoshop, I have pulled in other programs as part of my workflow, using 3D modelling programs such as Unity and Maya to push the ideas and styles I try to portray in my work, these programs used individually I have found can also be strong tools when creating professional quality work in a different format. I also work with post-Photoshop programs such as After Effects and Video Editing software Final-Cut which opens up other possibilities presenting finalised renderings. Understanding how digital artwork can be used in a number of ways, as well as the techniques used by other top professionals, the before and after programs which can be incorporated, and finally the constant learning and improvement I maintain, I think gives me a competitive foothold in the digital artwork entertainment industry.

PPP3 CGSociety.org Review

With CGHubs unexpected closure I decided to take a look at a few of the alternative sites Conceptartworld.com had to offer, CGSociety is one of the sites I found to be quite useful, it mirrors CGHubs main page quite well and works well as a showcase for popular and good work from various artists. I did find it to be a little slower loading than I would have liked, I also didn't like the fact that I was included into a chatroom as soon as I entered the site. The website as a whole was quite sluggish and didn't quite meet the standard of that that I would expect of CGHub, but it does serve as a temporary replacement for the void that CGHub has created.

PPP3 My new Blogspot

I wanted a fresh start for after university when it comes to blog posting, I feel I have learned enough and have seen how enough other people use blog posts effectively to be able to manage my own blog and keep it interesting and up to date. This will be the place I keep most of my professional portfolio and I will be using it until I can manage to afford my own domain name, this is what I have found most successful industry practitioners to have done so it can't be a bad place to start.

scoffsart.blogspot.co.uk

PPP3 The Duriannnnnn on DA

Another artist I have found interesting is named 'The Duriannnn' on the website DeviantArt, he is of particular interest to me as he is also in his third year of university and will be much in the same situation in the coming weeks as I am, I have kept track of what he also will be doing while looking for work and I think we much have the same game plan, this is encouraging as I wonder a lot if I am doing the right thing or not. Another reason for my interest in this particular artist is that I find his work very inspired by one Kekai Kotai, an artist I have mentioned may times and studied many times in the past. He mimics Kekai's style well but adds his own touch to it, I feel that I need to incorporate many peoples styles and create my own, not necessarily copying one artist as such but finding aspects I like about each art style and taking something from it. It does show though that studying one artist can lead to improvement in your own style and as long as you move on and advance in other ways after then it is not an issue spending a lot of time working on improving your style in one way by looking at the same artist.

http://thedurrrrian.deviantart.com

PPP3 Business Card Designs!

These are a few designs I picked from the web as reference for my own ones, I like artistic feel of the first one and the professional look of the second one, the third one I thought worked well because of the detail and clear presentation of skill on the business card. This being my opinion, I feel that 'creative' business cards are a waste of time, ones with jokes on or unnecessary cut out bits or weird sizes are a no go for me too, instead I think I will go with a normal sized and shaped business card and let the artwork on the card speak for itself. These are the cards I remember and have impacted me the most, so I will focus on these designs as much as possible.

Below are a few of the designs I have sent to print, I looked around and found that the website Moo has the most comprehensive business card layouts and ease of access for creating your own. It didn't take long at all to knock together a design I was happy with, if Id have known how easy it was I probably wouldn't have left it so long, the artwork I have chosen for the sides and back I think look good and work well on a small scale which again works well for me. The pictures here are screenshots, the actual files online are a lot higher quality and looked really good when I finalised the designs. I think that they represent me as an artist well and will be looking forward to using them whenever I have the chance in the future.

PPP3 Kekai Kotaki Interview - CrimsonDaggers.com

Finding interviews with some of the masters of concept art can be very tricky, I have followed this artist for a number of years and only just come across the second video he is interviewed in ever, or at least that I can find. Listening to every bit of advice they can give always helps and with this interview being a 2hr long one, of which I am half way through, I think I will find it very useful and learn a lot from. The interview is not only about Kekai Kotaki's artwork but also how he got to where he is, it seems that he had a rather humble start and didn't get to the place he is at straight away. From the sounds of things he had dedication, a little luck, and a lot of skill to get to where he is now. All things I have realised I need to have to get to where I want to be.

PPP3 Ninjatic

Ninjatic, who has been mentioned before in my PPP posts is an artist who has found his fame on the website DeviantArt, he has earned popularity with the community there and as such found plenty of freelance work, his work is of a good standard also which again add to his success, but I find that there are some much better artists out there that have not yet been noticed. This leads me to think about ways of achieving success in the industry, firstly you have to be talented, but secondly there is an amount of luck involved, or socialisation, but that has been proved to not always be a defining factor in this line of work. Comparing myself to ninjatic from a professional standpoint, he is one year older than me and has been working and taking commissions for I think a few years more than that, so I should realistically be working on commissions and projects now if I want to earn a sustainable living from it. Although a few years ago I had no idea how photoshop worked I feel that I have come a long way but there is still a little way to go yet before I can call myself a professional.

What I have taken away from comparing myself critically and professionally to this (very talented) artist, is that I need to improve my work, I need to be social and talk to people to gain work, I need a little bit of luck, but I make that myself :P. Here are 2 of his pictures which I find inspiring.

PPP3 Showreel Research

Since we are required to make a showreel for submission for this PPP module I did a little research on youtube as to how I might make a concept art showreel since they are not macing images and not as easy as a VFX breakdown showreel. I found this below showreel which does quite a good job of marketing the artist as well as the work included. I feel that I need some fantasy genre music as it would fit my work best, and maybe a look into the 3D images that are shown in this showreel, I will be finishing my showreel soon and will discuss the aspects I have incorporated and why and the ones I have not and why.



This video was one of the few I actually managed to find, this indicates also that it is not a common practise to do. Although I imagine I may not use a showreel as my primary way of marketing myself, I will be exploring the possibility of one and will have one at hand in case a situation requires it.

PPP3 Jaime Jones Art

I have recently learned about a highly acclaimed concept artist Jamie Jones, his work is outstanding and his concepts are amazing, I feel that his technique can be achieved but his imagination and ideas for compositions will be a much harder thing to learn, I find myself lost in the stories his art tells, this is something I feel I am missing in my own works.

Here is his primary website - www.artpad.org

Since I am making a website for presenting my work after university, I can learn a lot about how his things are presented. Keeping a viewer interested and keeping the website easy for a visitor to use is an essential part of a successful website, as well as good work to show on it of corse. A few of his works which I found particularly inspiring are below. Again his site (above) is absolutely worth a visit, and the list of well known studios that have worked with him is inspiring.

PPP3 Backing the New CGHub

As I found out a few days ago the huge site CGHub has shut down, the reasons for this unexpected closure are troubling for most involved, I always wanted to have my work showcased on CGHub at some point in the future as it was a prestigious thing, but now it seems will never happen. There have been several upstarting companies trying to fill the void left by the CGHub website, I quite bluntly am appalled by the groups of people trying to seize an opportunity that CGHub has left when quite obviously they can not hope to manage a site as large as the one they are trying to replace, some of the websites I have seen trying to reap the benefits of CGHubs closure are a joke, but that aside I have found one creditable site which has been mentioned around the web and has got a kickstarter fund running for it, www.kickstarter.com/projects/kirillchepizhko/next-generation-website-for-cg-artists. There are a few other sites which have cropped up recently and are worth a look, and I will be trying to get my work on to these sites as early as possible to be able to get the most exposure.

PPP3 Tips for starting out

One of the great things about specialised sites these days are things get sent straight to you, I follow an artist who goes by the name Ninjatic over in DeviantArt, and he decided to share some useful links to discussions and topics based around the idea of concept art as a job title. I obviously found this very useful and gave all the articles a read, I find myself agreeing with some of the points made like concept art is becoming a bigger and bigger thing these days and that you have to be good enough to get anywhere with it. I find myself critiquing my work to see if it is good enough, the results are both worrying and encouraging, sometimes I feel that I am good enough and other times feel I am not, I feel that I have come to a balancing point in my skills as before now I have only ever felt not good enough. Maybe I am ready to go get work. Anyway these articles were a really interesting read and made me thing hard both critically and professionally about my future as a concept artist.

http://www.deviantart.com/journal/A-Must-Read-454233306

FMP Hand in day notes

With most of my work moving on to be exhibited in different ways over the next few weeks I decided that rushing the writing aspect of the art book to get it finished for submission was not the right thing to do, instead I have been using my time productively and keeping the writings as relevant and interesting as possible whilst maintaining a good level of output into to book. This has resulted in me only having the first few pages and chapter 1 writing elements finished but will fully allow me to complete the rest of the book by the time it is to be submitted to exhibition and games republic events.

FMP Thumbnail Game Planning

Here is a quick storyboard sketch of how I imagined the game to play through early on, it basically shows the different loading screens as well as telling the player how to play and what they are meant to do. It pretty much tells how the actual game itself plays out which is good because that means it is accurate and I have not strayed too far from my initial visualisation. I would have liked to have done a storyboard for the end of level idea I had which was an animatic with dialogue or with text which tells the story you are currently playing an experiencing but in a different format, this would have been like the 'cutscenes' part of the game and if developed fully may have been more than just animatic, and 3d models used instead, some games though do use animatics instead of 3d animation but it really depends on the style of the game and how the developer wants it to come across, so I think maybe an animatic would have worked better anyway.

FMP Health Bar And Cursor

Some of the last few things that I decided to add to the game were the health bar UI element, and the cursor. I decided to add these little touches to enhance the overall completed fantasy feel to the game, health bars are quite commonly an aspect in fantasy games and gameplay which is why I thought it would nicely in mine, at the moment it has no function in game other than to look nice, it is but a hint at what the rest of the game would be like if completed.

Here are the images used in the files of the game.

Other things that I need to finish off in-game are:

• The axis on which the character moves on
• the footstep sounds
• 'E' to search for the information instead of it just showing up
• a fitting music track (maybe)

FMP Poster Thoughts

With games republic just around the corner I have been told that I want to be thinking about how to market my game that has been submitted to the event, my initial thoughts were that I would just use the main menu as a picture if needs be at any point but figured that being prepared and having a pre made finished looking poster which clearly markets the game for what it is and gives information on it, would be better. I am in the process then of making a poster from the art books cover into a resized poster with information included, I will try have this done for hand in but may have to get it done for the games republic event which gives me a little more time to finish it off.

Include poster image here*

FMP Main Menu

This was an early draft of the main menu for the game which I thought worked well aside from it being very static. A tutor suggested that I remove the demo sign as well as the other buttons which will have no use when the game comes to completion, I took this on board and decided to clean up the menu and then the idea of the 3D title menu came up. All I would have to do is make sure the camera does not see any unsightly textures of 'behind the scenes' of the game, and put it on an interesting angle to view the bridge from and that would suffice as an interesting interactive looking main title menu, also again from suggestions the idea of having the menu screen move slightly was one which was incorporated, the menu now moves slowly back and across the bridge to again add a little more interactivity to it which I think works way better than a static image, at least in this instance. Below is an example of the newer version of the title menu.

FMP Sound Issues

One problem I have not yet been able to overcome is the sound of the footsteps when the player moves, I have set time aside to be able to look into this problem before project hand in but have doubts that I will be able to get it working exactly the way I want it to. The link below has some useful information on the matter but I have only been able to get so far with it. If it comes to it I will have to use a simple solution of 'if player is moving on object 'X' then play footstep sounds' this will not be ideal but may have to do for handing.

http://answers.unity3d.com/questions/11486/footstep-sounds-when-walking.html

Below are a few screenshots of me playing with the 3D sound aspects of object noises, I managed to get it working so that when things collide they make sounds, and also depending on how far away they are from the colliding objects then the sounds will be either louder or quieter, which I found really cool just because it is things like this that you notice in the big games out there at the moment.

I also had a few issues with sounds kind of reverberating and lagging but managed to fix some of these by making them 2D textures while managing to fix others using a smaller compression size and finally fixed some other noises lagging by removing some of the interactive cloths which were lagging up the scene at certain points. 

FMP Sound From BBC Library

With enough time set aside for sound engineering in my game space, I started collecting sounds for every aspect of the level I could think of. The impact noises of the different types of materials e.g. wood, metal, stone, I then developed a script which plays these noises if the object is moving equal to or above a certain speed, in most cases this was 5 in my unity project. The tutorial which I followed to help me with this mechanic is below. What I would like to do is limit the sound so that it can only play once every, for example, 0.5 seconds which would stop the effect that it currently has which repeatedly plays the sound at its fastest rate as long as the object is travelling above 5 and colliding at the same time. Put simply I would like to make the sound effects more realistic by a few tweaks to the code but can only do this if I have enough time to go back and redo a few of the little things in my project.


After I had collected some of the individual hard to find noises like bangs and scrapes, a tutor suggested that I use the BBC sound library, I was reluctant at first as when this was suggested to me before I had always had too many other things to do in my projects than sit and go through libraries of sound effects until I find the one that fits best. This time though I had enough time and found it was very rewarding to use professional sounds and effects instead of quickly downloaded low quality ones from the internet.

FMP Finishing the Game World

Another example of tutorials I watched when problem solving how I would do certain things in my gamespace, this video was a possible solution to how I would create the terrain in Unity or Maya, I know about the unity terrain tool but didn't think it was necessary in this particular instance. I followed the tutorial and come up with undesired results which I ended up scrapping. In the end to solve the terrain problem I used simple geometry at a very large scale to create mountains and then using the fog tool to fade the background out and get a very atmospheric environment for my bridge to go on. This did though create more problems, like the fact that the background picture I drew was no longer visible at the level of fog I wanted and the snowy mountains looked too 'plain' I decided to leave the background image issue alone and simply added some of my pre made scenery to the mid ground so that it didn't look so plain. Other than that though the final touches I focused on adding were sound (which I will get to later) and particle effects like fire and snow.

Below are a few examples of me playing with background ideas and particles to see if any combination of them worked to my liking.

FMP Finalised Artbook Format

The above notes are what I finalised on when trying to decide what the formatting of my art book should be, I have completed everything that I needed to, to meet all of the goals I set for finishing the art book, this means that I just need to organise and neaten everything up before submitting it. This could take a few days because as it stands the book reaches 87 pages, I will try my best to complete these to their fullest but may have to leave it at a stage I am happy with before going back and finishing it fully for the end of year exhibition. 

Anyway below is one of the finished formats I will be using in the book, the writing at the moment is just a placeholder, I will be making my own notes as well as collecting other peoples opinions on my work to fill the space and keep the book interesting. As well as get real opinions and advice as to what could have been done better as well as what has been done well and anything else they wish to write.

PPP Retro Game Convention

These are some picture of the Leeds town hall retro game convention a few weeks ago, my friend told me about it and I thought yeah why not, and that it might be a good networking opportunity. Turns out it was not, everyone there was either just selling old game they had or general public who were buying the retro stuff. It was fun either way but hopefully the next thing like this I will find some better networking opportunities. The main thing I took away from this though is that it is always worth trying, something you can easily forget when you are preoccupied.

FMP Character Modelling and Rigging

Here I was working on my PC desktop instead of my mac, so I had a chance to record how I modelled the character mesh. I found some really useful tutorials which are mentioned in an earlier blogpost and followed some of those tutorials to refresh myself on how to model in maya, the most noteworthy tool was the one I made to automatically mirror the geometry I was working on, it is visible in the recording of me using this tool and it really helped with quickly seeing what the outcome of mirroring one side of the geometry would be and if it worked or not. In this instance I very quickly UV mapped the mesh to the reference image I was using as I wanted to save time and work on other things that needed working on, I know this is not good practise but was a necessary timesaver to be able to reach my goal of finishing everything I had planned, I may go back and redo the texture as it will be presented at exhibitions soon.

Below is my char with the controllers attached, I again went through the same process as last year for creating these, the tedious renaming, the parenting and locking components and so on. Overall though it didn't take as long as I thought it might have, which was good because it gave me more time to polish up on my environment.

From my previous experience in modelling and texturing I know that this is what an actual professional mesh texture is supposed to look like for a character. These are from the game League of Legends and have the same sort of distance from the camera in game as what I am expecting from my game. So this is an accurate amount of detail I should be aiming for what redoing my own character texture. 

Again as above, I understand that this is a industry worthy 3D model and I should be aiming for this kind of level of work to be able to get a job in this area. As stated in the image the model was made using 3dsmax, Zbrush and mental ray, programs I expect to be using in the future.

FMP Unincorperated Aspects of the Game 2

Another section of the game which I have explored is the element of cards incorporated into the gameplay mechanics somehow, I thought about character cards as a way to choose which character you could play as, I thought about in game playable cards which would enhance or change some aspect of your character for better or worse, much like the Anime Yu-gi-oh which would include characters using cards to battle monsters or also like the Xbox game Titanfall in which the character can choose a 'burn card' before spawning and would subsequently get enhanced combat abilities based on what card they chose to play. I thought if games and tv shows can incorporate cards into completely unrelated things like first person shooters then it would be easy for me to incorporate fantasy or magic cards into a fantasy and magic game.

Below are a few examples of what I imagined my own cards would look like, I ended up not having time to work on digital painting as much as I would have liked in this module but have been fully kept busy with all of the other 3d aspects of my project. If Id have had enough time I would have produced a series of cards probably including character cards, magic cards, instant cards, and map cards. These would encompass most aspects of the game and I may have enough time to include a few of there for the end of year exhibition.

FMP Unincorperated Aspects of the Game 1

With time and software limitations I have had to leave out a few of the core things I would have liked to include in my game for the FMP project, I wanted to add things like runes and cards which would be special use items that would enhance or allow the player to get past certain obstacles in their way. In the end I am glad that I thought about them and they are a definite possibility in the future for making or remaking the game that I have done so far but as of now I think they will just have to be included in the art book for the game and documented here. The runes were a fun part of the lore of the game, the world in which the game is set, symbols or runes of a certain type are known to enhance what they symbolise, for example a sword with a rune of power engraved upon it would be stronger than one without, in real life these things are thought of as superstition like dreamcatchers or lucky cats but I thought that I could make these things a big part of the culture and the driving force behind the way this imaginary world works.

FMP Worldbuilding Extra Notes

These images are of imaginary history or stories that I had my friends and some family write, the purpose of this was to get a diverse range of storytelling from professional and not so professional writers alike, I knew that if I had written everything myself, not only would it not be as good as I think it is now, but also that it would have been too much an amount of work to complete to a good standard and would not have things that I myself would not expect to be in there. I have found that including more people to something makes for a more rich and diverse experience and lore writing is no different, especially when it comes to fantasy worlds where nearly anything imaginable is possible. Credit goes to David Ryan (image 1 and 2), Jess Watson (Image 3 and 4), Jaimie Schofield (image 5 and 6) and I wrote most of the place names in the last image which is not exactly storytelling but was an important aspect of creating an entire region of a world to contextualise the the game space and story accompanying it.

FMP Photography and Reference

So for one of the chapters in my FMP book outcome, I will be talking about reference and how it helps with inspiration as well as where I got some of my more developed ideas from. The stones in these pictures were gathered on a day out and I thought that the differences and uniqueness of each one mirrors in a way the idea of different types of runestones in fantasy lore. I used these as a base for designing my own runes which I wanted to be part of my game but which also play a big role in the lore of my world which the game space is set in.