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!!