07/11/2016
CASE STUDY
Animator
What does a game animator do?
Game Animators jobs are mainly focused on giving life to their characters such as giving them movement, however sometimes they also have to apply animations to other elements such as Objects, Scenery and environmental effects like rain and snow just to give their game more effect.
Animator uses software's like Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Softimage, Autodesk 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and Blender for 3D animation. 3D animation also refereed to as CGI ( Computer generated imagery ) is a type of animation that uses computer generated images to create animated scenes. Animators also use software's like Adobe Flash, Adobe After Effect and Photoshop for 2D Animation software.
Animators usually work in a department team. They're all usually given different roles in their group like one person will do Objects, Models or character animations
Animation can be tedious and complex for the animators because they're combing several types of different movements, so animators usually use animations from past animations and reusable them to their new character design which save them a lot time.
What qualification will you need?
You will need an animation related degree, having an animation degree is mandatory to. It would be best to take Animation to uni because you will get the most out it and will have the skills needed to become an animator
You will need to show a great understanding of animation in your portfolio. The recruitment staff will be looking for people with a variety of genres ans styles such as Movements, developed sequences and the ability to show a character emotions and personality
Skills needed to become an animator
- Having a knowledge of traditional and computer 2D and 3D animation techniques because these are the basic and you can't get anywhere in the animation industry
- Be creative and imaginative. Being creative and imaginative is a must when it comes to working in the media industry because its what makes your project unique
- Being able to show emotions through characters movements and behaviour, This is important because it will make it easier to create a bond for the gamer and the character
- Understand the production process. having a plan is important while doing an animation project. Starting with an animation without planning can ruin the flow of your production process this confused can be prevented by having meeting with your other animators and especially the other people in your department that contribute towards the game like people that work in Sound engineers , Artists, Programmers and Level Designer.
- Being able to work in a team environment, working as a team is the most thing in any job because communication is key when it comes to creating a production
My experiences with animating
I am currently in the early stages of learning Adobe Animate however I know how to use tools like the motion and classic tween. Motion tweening is a type of animation that moves A to B, to motion tween you have to convert the item you want into a symbol, this is very time effective when you want to do a basic movement animation. Classic tweening is very similar to motion tween is was mainly used in Flash CS3 however it's mostly used for transitions purpose.
I have also learnt how to animate on Photoshop, I had to send all my layers to the timeline and edit them all differently and delay some of the frames for more effect on the animation.
I have no experiences with 3D animation however I'm very optimistic for my Level 3 Year 2 because I'll be given a chance to learn Maya
I already achive some of the skills needed like being creative and imagine
Game Programmer
What does a game programmer do?
Game Programmers are the heart of the whole development process. Animators, Sound engineers , Artists and Level Designer can't work without a game programmer in the team. They design and write the codes that runs and controls the game.
Game programmers work with software's such as Sploder, Game maker studio, Construct 2, Unity 3D and Unreal development Kit. Different platforms has different type of programming requirements such as Game consoles, PCs, handheld and mobiles.
The game development sense has involved drastically which is also making the programming games very difficult so usually game programmers work in large groups
There are many different type of programming roles in the gaming industry like Games programmer, Tools progammer, AI programmer and Middleware programmer
.
A games programmer is a computer scientist who makes codes for video games.
A Tools programmer is a role that is becoming more and more essential to the gaming industry, you're someone who find ways to optimise the process of the game development by creating new editors for example Levels, Graph and sounds, Fix bugs and add features for the editors, writing scripts and plug ins for digital content and modifying open source to fit into a pipeline.
AI programmer stands for Artificial Intelligence. AI programming give the game a heart and brain, it sets objects for the characters that are not controlled by the players to operate by them self and let them choose their own decision
Middleware programming is a role where people add a software into a game engine to test if it can handle some specialized features such as physics, graphic or networking
What qualification will you need?
You will need to have a degree in Game Programming. This could be in physics, maths or computer science.
You will need to have some knowledge of the programme C++ which is used a lot in the gaming industry. Potentially gaming recruitment staff may ask for a demo of a game you programmed in C++ and ask you to work through it as a test.
Skills needed to become a game programmer
- Being able to programme in C++ and C and understand programming languages
- Be able to work on your own as part of a team
- Have good communication skills
- Have a understanding of different platforms such as Will, Playstion and Xbox
My experiences with game programming
I currently have no experiences with game programming but once I found this Indie game made by these guys called SamandDangames and there game was very basic and I always thought they used some complex software to create their game but they announced they do all their programming in Adobe Flash, This got me thinking that I could do this at college in my spare time and create a game nearly as good as them.
Secondary research on job roles
Ryan Jones. (2014). Animator (Games). Available: http://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/325_animator_games. Last accessed 11th Nov 2016.
Andrew Heywood. (2014). Game Programmer. Available: https://creativeskillset.org/creative_industries/games/job_roles/336_game_programmer. Last accessed 11th Nov 2016.
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09/11/2016
Understanding creative media companies
In today's lesson we were learning about the different roles involved in publishing a game and learning about what Vertical Integration and Horizontal Integration are.
The roles that are involved in publishing games are Designers/Developers, Publishers and Exhibitors/Distributors
usually you will start with Designers/Developers i.e Rockstar, Valve and Sledgehammer then it would get published by companies like EA, Rockstar and Ubisoft and finally it would get distributed by shops, digital shops and exclusive digital game distributes like Steam and G2A.
Some companies like Rockstar decided why should they pay smaller companies to develop their games when they could just buy out the littler companies to work under them and develop their games under their name too and make a better profit. However this isn't always the best approach for smaller companies because companies like EA buy a lot of independent studios then lets them go if they aren't as successful as they hope for.
In some cases publisher approach developers. In August 2016 Telltale games released the Batman: The Telltale series. Since Batman is owned by Warner Bros this means Warner Bros approach Telltale games and asked them to develop their game.
Vertical Integration is a strategy where a company tries to expand is company by buy buying out different roles in the supply chain such as Developers, Publishers and Distributors. This method was done in the movie industry before the gaming industry however it only ruined the market for movie industry and it became over saturated and smaller companies couldn't distribute their movies because companies like 20th Fox, RKO and Universal owned all Distributors, Publishers and developers. The government didn't like this so they made a law where you can own only 2 of the 3 supply chain which improved the market in the coming years because smaller companies were making profit. However the law didn't effect the gaming industry because people had a choice of which platform they want to play their game on for example Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo and Sega.
Horizontal Integration is a strategy where companies buy out other medias like how Sony brought out Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1987 then renamed it to Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1991. Sony is the one of the best example for Horizontal Integration they own companies such as Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment,Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Mobile ( Formerly known as Sony Ericsson and Sony Financial. Sony alone proves how much for profitable the Horizontal Integration is however it comes with a risk when they're buying smaller companies.
What do these business models mean for the creative media Industries? .
Using the Vertical Integration method could lead to a creative crash
The Horizontal Integration is guaranteed profit however it comes with a huge cost and risk
The Vertical integration divides the market and leaves the giant companies on top
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In some cases publisher approach developers. In August 2016 Telltale games released the Batman: The Telltale series. Since Batman is owned by Warner Bros this means Warner Bros approach Telltale games and asked them to develop their game.
Vertical Integration is a strategy where a company tries to expand is company by buy buying out different roles in the supply chain such as Developers, Publishers and Distributors. This method was done in the movie industry before the gaming industry however it only ruined the market for movie industry and it became over saturated and smaller companies couldn't distribute their movies because companies like 20th Fox, RKO and Universal owned all Distributors, Publishers and developers. The government didn't like this so they made a law where you can own only 2 of the 3 supply chain which improved the market in the coming years because smaller companies were making profit. However the law didn't effect the gaming industry because people had a choice of which platform they want to play their game on for example Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo and Sega.
Horizontal Integration is a strategy where companies buy out other medias like how Sony brought out Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1987 then renamed it to Sony Pictures Entertainment in 1991. Sony is the one of the best example for Horizontal Integration they own companies such as Sony Corporation, Sony Pictures Entertainment,Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Mobile ( Formerly known as Sony Ericsson and Sony Financial. Sony alone proves how much for profitable the Horizontal Integration is however it comes with a risk when they're buying smaller companies.
What do these business models mean for the creative media Industries? .
Using the Vertical Integration method could lead to a creative crash
The Horizontal Integration is guaranteed profit however it comes with a huge cost and risk
The Vertical integration divides the market and leaves the giant companies on top
- ClueBot NG. (2010). Sony. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony. Last accessed 09th Nov 2016.
- Smith A. (2014). Vertical Integration + SUBSCRIBE. Available: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/verticalintegration.asp. Last accessed 09th Nov 2016.
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29/03/2017
Production log
- We assigned roles in our group, I was given the roles Pre-Productions, Concept Art, Sound and Comic. I was personal happy doing the
pre-productions because I knew I would find easy to deal with, however it was the concept art, sound and comic I was really skeptical about doing. The comic because I'm not really an artist and my knowledge on creating sound wasn't the greatest,
- We discussed the setting/locations for our game, we came to the conclusion of a futuristic space setting. I was happy with our futuristic setting because I felt it was so open, for example in our future we would be using animals as our main source of transports because the fumes coming from cars reached a danger point and we had to resort to animal for transport. The viewer can't argue this isn't a futuristic setting since it our opinion of the future and as long as we can explain it, it should be acceptable.
- The challenges we faced within our group discussion was on deciding whether our game should be 'Side Scroller' or 'Top Down' and also what the theme should be. We resolved our disputes by having a group vote and took the approach of the 'majority rules'. Due to this our discussions were very successful and meant that the sessions were not dominated by anyone. I found it easy to express my ideas whether they were positive or negative freely and thought as a team this was an effective method of problem solving the challenges faced.
-We changed the background because we all agreed on that it made our game look out of place. The people on the houses looked really small when compared to bob. We decided to remove the tiles in the middle, and add a blue sky background and some clouds. Instead of having cars driving on the street, We decided to turn them into hovercar because it would fit our theme more.
Production log
- We assigned roles in our group, I was given the roles Pre-Productions, Concept Art, Sound and Comic. I was personal happy doing the
pre-productions because I knew I would find easy to deal with, however it was the concept art, sound and comic I was really skeptical about doing. The comic because I'm not really an artist and my knowledge on creating sound wasn't the greatest,
- We discussed the setting/locations for our game, we came to the conclusion of a futuristic space setting. I was happy with our futuristic setting because I felt it was so open, for example in our future we would be using animals as our main source of transports because the fumes coming from cars reached a danger point and we had to resort to animal for transport. The viewer can't argue this isn't a futuristic setting since it our opinion of the future and as long as we can explain it, it should be acceptable.- The challenges we faced within our group discussion was on deciding whether our game should be 'Side Scroller' or 'Top Down' and also what the theme should be. We resolved our disputes by having a group vote and took the approach of the 'majority rules'. Due to this our discussions were very successful and meant that the sessions were not dominated by anyone. I found it easy to express my ideas whether they were positive or negative freely and thought as a team this was an effective method of problem solving the challenges faced.
-We changed the background because we all agreed on that it made our game look out of place. The people on the houses looked really small when compared to bob. We decided to remove the tiles in the middle, and add a blue sky background and some clouds. Instead of having cars driving on the street, We decided to turn them into hovercar because it would fit our theme more.
- My group was not struggling at all our organization skills really helped us reach our production target. We finished a couple weeks before the deadline so we decided to touch up and polish some features in our game, however this clouded our judgement and we started adding in features that was not really required and not adding the essentials to keep our target audience playing, for example our game lacked upgrades/power ups.
- The comic went to waste, as our lead coder was incapable of adding the comic into the game. In my opinion not having a story just confuses our community, Our game is called "Wanted" and I fear we will get questions, such as "Who's he chasing?" or "What is the point of this character". So, I though adding a story would eliminate these question and it would give our player a real sense of achievement because our game does not have a daily quest, challenge or achievements.
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I completed the first point perspective one and two points perspective drawing and started. I'm not pleased with my pieces of work because they are so basic and this was because my work load kept on piling up, If I had more time, I would have gave these drawings a theme. This tells my I need to work on my organization skills because it is clearly effecting the quality of my work.
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30/03/2017
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| 2 Point |
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| 1 Point |
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| Ashmit steampunk |
This is my steampunk drawing of my classmate Ashmit. Steampunk is a science fiction or science fantasy that incorporates technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. I was happy with this piece too, because I couldn't complete the work before the deadline because of my poor time management. If I had more time I would have liked to add more character emotions and body behaviours into my piece.
I did not mange to finish both of the assignments before the deadline, which is important, as both job roles require. I will need to improve my management of time by giving creating myself a daily plan , otherwise, it will be biggest reasoning behind why I won't be able to fulfill both job roles.
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