Architecture Project

I have to admit that at first I was a bit nervous about the architecture project but once I had decided on the building I was going to recreate in 3DS Max I couldn't wait to get started. And I ended up really enjoying the project. This has to be my favourite project so far as I realised how good I was getting at being able to use 3DS Max for modeling effectively in 3D.

My Progress of Drawing Cars!

 I've been pretty nervous about posting some of my visual design work on this blog but it had to be done at some point, so I decided to show you two drawings which clearly show how I improved and progressed with my drawing of cars...

 The top drawing is my first attempt at trying to draw a car...ever!!! and is unfortunately a bit of a fail. But this was most probably the best drawing for me in terms of learning and understanding how to draw cars and allowed me to draw the bottom drawing which shows a big improvement. Its reasons like that which makes me love to show off my mistakes in my sketch book.

 I know the bottom drawing still isn't that amazing but it was the best drawing of a car I had drawn to date at the time. And when you compare it to my previous attempt you can see that my ability at using the crating technique had greatly improved allowing my car to look more in perspective.

Yet another Youtube video....

I know this is another post where I share a video but I think it is really interesting to watch and its still relevant even though it is two years old. This video was actually one of the influences which made me start thinking about becoming a game artist. I hope you enjoy watching this as much as I did when I first saw it….

This video, about the making of Halo Reach, covers the thought processes and creativity behind environment, architecture and character design.

Next-Gen Xbox!?

So as I've been going through the history of consoles I thought it would be interesting to share this video with you....

Only part of the video is relevant to the topic of video consoles sorry...

A history of computer games, part two: 1980s

The arcade game industry entered its golden age at the end of the 70’s going into the 80’s with the release of Space Invaders by Taito, which was a huge success that inspired dozens of manufacturers to enter the computer games industry. Space Invaders also defined most of the basic parameters of what classic action games to date consist of: A player controls an object/an actor against some enemies; a score is kept; the game is real-time and requires fast reflexes; the player has a fixed amount of lives; the game is based on successive levels of increasing difficulty. Which basically means that when you get right down to it, there’s actually not a lot of difference between Halo 4 and Space Invades with the only major difference being graphics and the fact that space invaders doesn't have an epic character like Master chief who is one of my all-time favourite game characters.

Now moving away from Halo 4 and back to the 1980’s before I start ranting about my love of Halo. Space Invaders inspired arcade machines in the 1980's and it was seen in other locations like shopping centres, storefronts, restaurants/Pubs and convenience stores. However Space Invades wasn’t the only game that was a huge hit during this period and also defined the future of games.

Pacman!! Yes the classic Pacman was another huge favourite and is still a hugely popular game even today and according to records it is the highest grossing video game of all time.  Players find themselves guiding the lovable pacman around a single maze level eating dots, while avoiding the four ghosts who even had names which were Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. This Game also had common themes that are present in today’s games with: Level Design, Characters, and it basically had a simple objective, avoid being killed while trying killing everything!!! Just give all the ghost AK-47's and you just get Call of Duty eat your heart out game.

With huge advances in technology around the computer game industry, the first computers, such as the aforementioned PDP-1, which were giant machines priced at millions of dollars were becoming something of the past. With the PC revolution developing personal computers/consoles and allowing people to experience the success of arcade games in a personal home environment. Companies like Apple, Commodore, and Tandy were creating early home computers that were small enough to be able to be placed on a signal desk, in an office or at home. Allowing for the idea of the personal computer to emerge. With personal computers rapidly evolving in the 1980's, they became nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles and they allowed owners to program simple games themselves.

This however had a bad effect on the game industry and soon clones of classics such as Space Invaders, Pacman which were being distributed by amateur programmers. They sold disks in plastic bags, put them on the shelves of local shops or sent them through the mail. Things took a turn for the worst when the clone games and manufacturers of older, obsolete consoles were sold at a loss to clear stock, creating a hole in the market. This allowed for another crash in the games industry which is known today as the 'The North American Video Game Crash' similar to crash back in 1977; however this crash saw bankruptcy of several huge companies in the industry.

It was at this time that Nintendo, after its successes with Donkey Kong which is considered to be the first platform game, began to grow into the video game industry. The Company that was originally known for its collectable cards and toys now became the major games console company at this time with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They took the title for the best selling console of the 80s'. The NES dominated the North American and the Japanese market from the mid 80’s going into the 90’s. However Nintendo’s successes were short lived with the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s and saw the beginning of the ‘console war’!!!

and to finish this blog I'd like to share a video that I really enjoyed watching and enlightened me alot about the Video Game Crash of 1983.

I found this video really helpful in understanding what actually happened in the  Video Game Crash of 1983  compared to reading long boring articles. Enjoy!!!....

Spacewar!!!

After Finding out that Spacewar is considered as being the first computer game, as it was created from a completely new idea and not a remake of an original game unlike tennis for two. I decided that I would give it go and after some searching through the web I found a Spacewar simulator which is similar to the original game.

http://spacewar.oversigma.com/

This simulator does require two people to play the game properly but if you want to get an idea of how the game played you can mess around on it without a buddy.

I Found the game hard and challenging but enjoyable when you get the hang of how the game plays.

An Easy Watch!

Being dyslexic I sometimes find it hard to take a lot of written information, so while I was doing research into early computer games I came across this video which gave me a nice overview of early computer games!

enjoy!!

An Insight into Assassins Creed 3

After playing some of Assassins Creed 3 I wanted to gain a little of insight into how the game was made and what were the thoughts behind the game. And this is what i found, hope you enjoy!

I haven't Posted all four episodes as I'm sure you will be able to find the others.

A History of Games- Part one: 1950s - 1970s

The history of computer games…well I’m not going to pretend I have great knowledge of the history of video games. By my Knowledge I believed that the first computer game was the tennis like game called Pong. But as of two hours ago, after a bit of research I’ve found that not only do computer games go as far back as the 1940s and Pong was a developed variant of a previous game which was created 14 years before and was known as ‘Tennis for Two’.

According to the supreme knowledge base of wiki and other websites it can be said that the history of computer games started in December 14, 1948 with Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann idea/patent of "cathode ray tube amusement device". So it was only a patent for a computer game where a person can use knobs and buttons to manipulate a cathode ray tube beam to simulate firing laser beams at "air-borne" targets, but at least the base idea of computer games was there. I do find it kind of amusing that the first idea for a computer game was basically a shooter. Just shows that deep down all men are like Michael Bay with a obsession with guns and explosions.

classic Michael bay!!!!!!!

In 1958 William a. Higginbotham, comes up with the idea is to use a small analogue computer in the lab to graph and display the trajectory of a moving ball on an oscilloscope, with which users can interact. After three weeks they manage to make the idea reality and they name the game system Tennis for Two. In basic terms it was side-view tennis game, where the ball bounces off a long horizontal line at the bottom of the oscilloscope, and there is a small vertical line in the centre to represent the net. And apparently the game was simple, but fun to play.

Spacewar! Developed in 1962 at MIT by Stephen Russell, it is classed as the first influential computer game. The Idea of the game was to have two human players against each other, each controlling a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a star in the centre of the screen created a large hazard for the crafts. Spacewar originally ran on a PDP-1 computer which was apparently the size of a large car. I can imagine being a student at that time and finding it hard to persuade your parents to bring Spacewars and PDP-1 down in the car to have in your accommodation while at university. I bet people were glad when the game was eventually distributed with new DEC computers and traded using the primitive version of today’s Internet.

                 

Then later in 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney took the idea of Spacewars and created one of the first coin-operated arcades. However I’m guessing to copyright issues the game was called Computer Space.  After being released in November 1971 it came apparent that the game was too difficult due to its steep learning curve and was deemed unsuccessful, but this was said to be a landmark as the first mass-produced video game and the first offered for commercial sale.

After the not so successful ‘Computer Space’ and arcades machines becoming a hit, with the creation of ‘Pong’ in 1972 which is classically known by the sound the game makes when the ball hits a paddle or side of the screen, The arcade scene became a whole lot more crowded, between 1971 and 1973, with 30 videogames being produced for the arcade by 11 manufacturers. With the advances in computer technology the arcades later became developed into the more advanced games we were used to playing at the age 6, such as Time crisis and Metal Slug 2.

                         

A Bit of Gaming History

Hey Guys! If you love history and computer games like I do then this might be of some interest to you. You might learn some things about Nintendo you didn't know...

My First Post

Hello all and Welcome to my Blog!!

I’m Henri and I hate writing/typing long boring paragraphs so I’m going to try and make this as interesting as possible so I don’t avoid writing blogs in the future. And hopefully won’t bore you with my crazy randomness that you want stick a bullet in your head.

I’m 19 and I guess you could say I’m from Leamington Spa and Northampton as I lived with my mum and went to sixth form in Northampton and visited my Dad every other weekend and I also attended a UAL Art foundation course in Leamington Spa.

Coming from an Art Foundation I have done a lot of life drawing, all though I’m not the best at it I greatly enjoy it and with the skills I've gained from life drawing I hope to become a character artist.

In my spare time it’s easy to say that I have an obsession with reading books especially Terry Pratchett. My other all-time favourite authors are Mark Robson and Brent weeks, being the writer of my favourite series of books, the Night Angel Trilogy. Also I have a passion for competitive dingy sailing and love to spend my holidays in the French Alps Skiing or Snowboarding. And last but not least obviously I like to spend my spare time being a social gamer, which is most probably not surprising considering the course I've decided to take.

I also have a personal love of animation which comes from my interest in 2D traditional animation such as the detailed, comic art style of Jamie Hewlett and the wonderful art work of Georges Remi. Although very different in style, I find that they both create beautiful work, which not only simulates sentiments and attitudes but gives birth to different worlds that fascinate and excite me.

Soo reasons for wanting to do this course…Well during my A levels I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do with my life. I had chosen a course I enjoyed learning about (20^th Century History, Philosophy and Ethics and ICT) but because I’m pants at essays, which is mainly to do with my dyslexia, I knew I didn't have a chance in going into further education with any of these subjects no matter how much I enjoyed the subjects. It was just after this that I realised, why can’t I join my Love Art and combined it with my love of Games. So pretty much from that point on I wanted to become an artist in the computer game industry, and after extensive research I realised that in order to achieve my dream I had attend an Art foundation to give me the best chance to get into one of the top courses for Game Art in the country. So it’s easy to say that I am already half way to achieving my goal. But I've realise that I have done the easy bit and I have a lot of hard work ahead of me on this course but I have the passion, and hopefully one day I will develop the skills, which make it easier to get the most out of this course.

Anyway I hope this all made some sense, and now I'm going stop with this long, boring, dribble of a post and go and find a sandwich to eat.