#2D photos of the pixel man are not enough

[anotherdarkiboi]

Are you Astarion-obsessed and want to lovingly squooze him in the physical form (with his consent)??

Plush Wonderland is running a poll to see how much support there would be for them to make an Astarion plush! If you know their work, their plushies are very cute, so please consider placing a $5 deposit so the poll can succeed! There are also polls for the other companions as well :)

Also, by making a deposit, you can get $10 off of the plush during presale if there's enough support and a refund if the poll doesn't succeed, so there isn't much loss and a LOT of gain (hopefully the cutest Astarion plushie to ever exist). I am not sponsored or anything, I just haven't seen anyone talking about this!

I just need to do this to him so bad (affectionately)!

[defeatedbyamerechild]

How well can each villian draw? I'm especially curious about Maxie and Cyrus's skills. I've probably said this a lot but I love your art! I don't have an account on Tublr so I search up your blog every day! The first thing that comes up on my recently searched is always DBAMC! XD

Oooh OK! I have in fact some drawings of how each villain draws... Some drawings are from the “meet the villains” post and some are from a future project that I’m not going to talk about for now... XD  I didn’t have drawings of all characters, but... I made some for the occasion too!

Anyways, here they are:

Giovanni:

Although Gio has a good visual-spacial intelligence, it’s more about a good sense of direction and capacity to understand visual information than about his artistic abilities. He is good at understanding visual input, but not good at translating the visual info on his head to an actual paper. Besides, he doesn’t make an effort. He just “decided” that he is bad at it and so he doesn’t try to do anything other than simple stick figures.

Archie: 

Archie likes drawing with crayons and thick pencils, usually. He is a fan of “children media” like child games and cartoons, so his style is influenced by that. He doesn’t have a great knowledge of anatomy, but that is not important for him, since his style is simplified and cute. In terms of colors, Archie is not super consistent with his color choices. He uses the colors available at the moment and that’s good enough for him.

Maxie: 

Being a perfectionist, Maxie really cares about the proportions in his drawings. He draws a structural skeleton before drawing people, so that he can have an idea of the proportions and positions involved. He has a very delicate hand so his drawings tend to be light and have thin lines. He likes coloring with watercolor and tries to keep it as close to reality as possible. He has a strong aesthetic sense and to him it’s important that the drawing looks pretty in the end. He doesn’t add lost of shading, to him, color is more important than the shadows, making his drawings a bit 2d-looking.

Cyrus:

Cyrus is also very delicate in terms of physical touch, so his drawings also tend to have light lines. However, differently from Maxie, he is not very much concerned about the final product’s aesthetic appeal. He wants it to be recognizeable and similar to reality in terms of basic shapes and shadows. Usually prefers pencils. Colors don’t matter much to him, as he considers the interactions between light and dark more important than them. However, if Cyrus is drawing just to illustrate an action, not to create a portrait, he will definitely simplify his drawings a lot, like the first example here. In that case, he will use the first pen or pencil he finds.

Ghetsis:

Ghetsis is not only very talented for arts in general, but also knowledgeable in the history of art and techniques involved. He is not a fan of cartoony styles, and prefers to use paint other than pencils or pens. Ghetsis works with masses of colors and lighting other than contours, lines and bidimensional shapes. He is also very fond of realism, and will keep working on one same piece for days, even months... That, of course, when he has the patience and will to actually make art. When he is out of patience, well... You have the first example.

N:

Similarly to Giovanni, N is not very talented for drawing. The difference is that N is acutally trying his best. He tries to put all the shapes he can perceive in his body into paper, but doesn’t have any idea of how these shapes interact when put in a certain angle and from a certain perspective. You can notice how the hand is inverted, for example. Here, he used ballpoint pens of different colors.

Colress:

Colress also likes the cartoon-like proportions, just like Archie, but his style is not that much inspired by children’s media. He doesn’t care much about consistent propotions, as long as you can see that it’s the same person on both drawings, for example. He tends to draw all faces the same, because facial features are not that easy for him, so everyone has those same black eyes, nostrils and mouth. He will change the expressions depending on what he wants to show, though. He likes pixelated edges on his art, and usually works on the computer. 

Lysandre:

Lysandre loves to experiment with different styles, usually on the computer, but sometimes by hand too. He is very fond of warm tones adn curved lines. He usually likes to make definite contours, strong and visible outlines that make the drawing pop out from the backgrount. He will sometimes break that rule too, since he loves to try different things all the time! Most of Lysandre’s drawing depict himself with all sorts of emotions. In his opinion, art doesn’t have to be true to reality, what matters most is the aesthetic result of an artwork.

Lusamine:

Lusamine will work with wathever materials she finds. On her old drawing of “herself” (Nihilego), she used thick whiteboard pens, but on her newest drawing, she used thin pens on paper. Her style is slightly inspired by Dr. Seuss in terms of propotions, but with many differences in terms of execution: instead of several lines composing the outline of her drawing, Lusamine draws with one long stroke for each shape. Her aesthetics usually include lots of curves and curls.

Guzma:

Most of the time, Guzma uses thick markers for his drawings. He is careless when drawing outlines, but his style is somewhat consistent. On “meet the villains”, Guzma traced a generic anime-style man to make his own portrait. For that, he used a thin felt-tip pen, to try to make it look more “professional”. Guzma cares more about the big picture and much less about the details.

Piers:

Piers has his own style, just like nearly everything about him. He developped a technique to make his lines look like barbed wire, and loves to use pointy shapes and spikes all over his art. The keywords for his style are “sharp edges”. Although Piers loves colorful stuff, he thinks he is “bad at colouring”, and so he prefers to keep his own art black and white. He says it’s better to have something black and white than badly painted.

Rose:

Rose’s style was inspired by comics and cartoons, specially short strip comics that work on a “gag-a-day” format. Resemblance to reality is not vital for him, so people won’t have different shapes of head or eyes in his art. He works with a kind of “formula” where every human follows the same basic structure and differences are added later on. He thinks the facial expressions are very important on his drawings, so his characters have big eyes and mouths most of the time. 

Anyways... 

I usually don't like to talk about drawing "well" or not when it comes to art, because it's actually pretty relative... Although, yes, sometimes there are people who can't really draw much. Giovanni is one of them, for example, and N is also not great. That aside, we have some with more skills like Ghetsis and Maxie, and some with average skills... Each one has their own style! Here are the examples of their art! ^^

Also! I'm really glad to hear that you like my art that much! I wanted to take this content other places than Tumblr, but Instagram and Twitter didn't really have the same charm, specially because of how photo albums work there. I'm still thinking about what to do, then maybe you'll be able to see the comics on another media! ^^

[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/gemini-man-review-two-will-smiths-at-the-cost-of-everything-else/

Gemini Man Review: Two Will Smiths at the Cost of Everything Else

Gemini Man is a film that has been more than twenty years in the making. The big reason for that has to do with the approach to the premise — which involves a younger clone of an aging assassin sent to kill him — as the makers wanted to create a computer-generated clone of the protagonist, rather than cast another actor to do the work. For the longest while, the technology didn’t exist to execute that convincingly. But it does now. Owing to the two decade-long delay though, the concept, premise, and underlying themes of Gemini Man have been explored several times. In 2002, Star Trek: Nemesis riffed on the concept (poorly), opting to use Tom Hardy to play the villainous clone of Patrick Stewart. In 2009, Duncan Jones explored the philosophical aspects of cloning with his debut film, Moon. And in 2012, Rian Johnson used time travel and different actors — Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis — for a similar premise.

That doesn’t mean Gemini Man shouldn’t exist. But it does mean it needs to offer something audiences haven’t seen before. Unfortunately, its credited team of creators — the acclaimed director Ang Lee, working off a script by Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff, The Hunger Games co-writer Billy Ray, and Goosebumps writer Darren Lemke — don’t seem to have the faintest idea how to do that. In fact, Gemini Man even fails at being just an action or thriller film, as advertised. The film is largely inert and any momentum that it does build for itself is then squandered in the next lacklustre scene. Its characters have zero depth to them, and hence there’s no emotional engagement to any of it. And entire scenes seem to be missing in between, so it’s likely that much of the character development was abandoned to shrink Gemini Man into a runtime of less than 2 hours. Essentially, the film rings hollow.

For what it’s worth, Gemini Man does actually have something to offer (most) audiences haven’t seen before. Continuing his love for bleeding-edge tech from his previous feature, Lee has shot Gemini Man in extra-high frame rate — 120fps to be precise, which is five times the standard 24fps — at 4K resolution in 3D. (Peter Jackson made The Hobbit trilogy in 48fps, while James Cameron intends to film Avatar sequels in 48 or 60fps. FPS stands for frames per second.) In theory, that means much, much smoother images with an imperceptible flicker. But Lee has spent time and money on technology that forget being appreciated, can’t even be seen as intended by most audiences. Not a single screen in India, or the US for that matter, will screen Gemini Man in 120fps at 4K in 3D. In India in fact, Gemini Man is only available in the plain ol’ 24fps at 2K in 2D. (It’s in IMAX too, if that’s any consolation.)

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Will Smith, and Benedict Wong in Gemini Man Photo Credit: Ben Rothstein/Paramount Pictures

Gemini Man opens in Liège, Belgium, where government assassin Henry Brogan (Will Smith) gets to show off his skill level by sniping a bio-terrorist target travelling in a bullet train at 240km/h. With his 70-plus kills weighing on him, Henry decides to retire from service. But since the film revolves around him, he’s naturally pulled back in. The plot is so generic and convoluted that it needs no explaining except to say that Henry’s life is in danger, which forces him to ditch his Georgia home in the US with Defense Intelligence Agency operative Danny Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who was sent to surveil Henry but becomes a loose end after being burned. They are being pursued by their own government, including Clay Varris (Clive Owen), the nefarious head of a secret black ops project known as GEMINI. (The film never offers a full form.)

Seeking help, Henry and Danny meet up with Henry’s former colleague and friend Baron (Benedict Wong), which kick starts Gemini Man’s globe-trotting plot from Cartagena, Colombia to Budapest, Hungary. (Most of it is comprised of action sequences that have a longer than usual average shot length, but isn’t anything memorable and borders on parody at times. In one scene, Winstead is essentially turned into a light source.) Following them close behind — it’s in the premise, the trailers have spoiled it already, and the film doesn’t drag it out for too long either — is a younger clone of Henry called Junior (Smith, via a combination of CGI and motion capture), sent by Clay. Henry is spooked and hesitates to take a shot at him but Junior, who doesn’t know any better, seems to have no qualms about killing him.

Gemini Man never bothers to really dig into why Clay would send Junior after Henry, or why Henry would try to avoid killing Junior. It offers a cursory, ambiguous explanation for the first one — Clay refers to Henry as Junior’s “darkness”, even though they are unrelated outside of their matching DNA — and it explicitly points out that Junior couldn’t be Henry’s son he didn’t know about, since he’s never had a long-term relationship with anyone. Gemini Man does wish to explore the regret Henry has in not being a husband or father, having used his job as an excuse. It also wants to ruminate on the philosophical idea of nature vs nurture. At the same time, it betrays a deep lack of interest in how it gives itself no time to tackle these concepts in any meaningful way. The film jumps one from thing to another without any meaningful connective tissue to hold all of it together.

As a result of this, it’s Junior who suffers the most in Gemini Man, as his actions feel like they’ve no real weight to them. Audiences need to feel the internal conflict he’s wrestling with, between the seeming lies he’s been fed throughout his upbringing by what seems like a doting albeit conniving father versus the shocking truths that are being poured over him by his older clone whom he’s been tasked with killing. Could Henry be simply lying to save his skin? What’s the ulterior motive of his adoptive father Clay? All of this is necessary to Gemini Man, but it just isn’t played out for long enough on-screen. Instead, Junior seems to switch from one emotion to the other on a whim, and those heel turns are just indicative of the aforementioned hollow writing.

Speaking of poor writing, Gemini Man is also filled with boring and stilted dialogue that further pulls down the film. Its attempts at banter crash land and the exposition is dreary. Henry’s obsession with his age and others’ mockery of it — he says he’s 50, everyone corrects him that he’s 51 — is never properly set up. Clay is stuck with cookie-cutter dialogues and a third-act monologue about how cloning is more humane in times of war, while Baron really wants you to know that he served in tiny countries around the world which he’s only too happy to name-check. Elsewhere, characters are killed off and their friends have little to zero emotional response. And lastly, there are scenes written in to fool the audience that completely fall apart if you think back to them.

The only thing that does work in Gemini Man is its technological achievement of a digitally-created younger Smith — except for the very end. Most scenes involving Junior take place at night, which means the imperfections aren’t that easy to spot. But the whole thing descends into the uncanny valley as soon as daylight falls on Junior’s face. Still, two Will Smiths can’t help a film that’s lacking in most departments. All of Winstead, Owen, and Wong are underused, a criminal act in addition to its missteps with character development and dialogue writing, hand in hand with haphazard editing and pacing troubles. Gemini Man spent over two decades in development hell waiting on the tech to catch up, but Lee & Co. seem to have forgotten that films are built on the foundation of words, not pixels.

Gemini Man is out Friday, October 11 in cinemas in India in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu.

[simonmilfred]

Welcome to SimonMilfed.dk

Hi!

My name is Simon Milfred, welcome to my site. I am young man from Denmark (hence the .dk domain) who enjoy doing an abundance of things: Game development (design, programming and art), graphics design, pixel art, 2D animation, video editing, tutoring others in these things, and a lot more!

As you may notice, all of these things (save tutoring) is very much visual things. At least it is especially the visual aspects of the things that speak to me. The visual focus is something, I grew up with. My father has always been good with a pencil, and has always been a great source of inspiration (he has written comics, painted signs, drawn portraits, and much more), likewise I have always felt my mother had a greatly creative mind (which I based almost solely on her doodles from when speaking on the telephone - in recent years she has begun embracing being creative in a multitude of ways), and I multiple creative aunts (especially one of them has been a huge part of my childhood - I spend many a Tuesday oil painting with her, watching her Bob Ross VHS tapes).

I used to draw a lot. Like, pencil drawings. It is not something, I do a lot any more. I still sketch and things like that, but it has been quite a while since I have spend hours on a drawing. You can, however, see some of my works by scrolling down my art portfolio. Today I am mostly working digitally, though I am still using the things, I learned from the more analogue arts.

Digital art allows me to do a lot of things, I cannot do with paper (at least not with the same speed). More importantly I can better use the digital graphics when working on video games. I began making my own games for the computer when I were ~11 years old. I searched Google for "make games" (or something like that), found Game Maker, and have used it ever since (newest iteration of the software at the time of writing is called GameMaker:Studio 2). Because I did not know others, who wanted to make their on games, I had to draw everything myself, program everything myself, and make the audio myself - so I slowly learned how to do all these things (however, I rarely ended up putting music in my small games, so I never learned to make music. I rely on others for that).

When I were about 14 years old (from memory, not too sure of the exact age) I began playing around with Photoshop as well. I ended up being quite good, and earned some money making graphics (logos, posters, etc.). I still to this day use Photoshop regularly. I make graphics (both for myself and others), but I also make photo-manipulations. To keep in "shape", I make a new profile picture or cover art for Facebook, whenever I have been at the cinema.

In December 2012 I began work on the YouTube channel Bless Hay Gaming. Back then it was meant to be a project shared by my brother and me - a simple gaming-channel (I know, how unique..). However, after running it for a while, I began also uploading GameMaker-tutorials, and slowly it became the main thing I uploaded! I began using "Bless Hay Gaming" as my general game developer name, and while I still make tutorials both for the channel and in blog form, Bless Hay Gaming is no longer limited to YouTube, gaming and tutorials. It is still a hobby project, but it is slowly growing.

The whole helping-others-to-learn is, however, not confined to the internet. In recent years I have taught courses in Photoshop, and for the last couple of years I have been an active member of Coding Pirates, an organization focused on teaching children about technology through working/playing with it. Here I helped making the GameDev department a thing, and as a part of my work in Coding Pirates I have even held workshops in London with my fellow pirates, and collaborated with D.A.R.E.. The GameDev department is where I currently volunteer, and here we, funny enough, make video games with the children.

This leads me to my current, main, big project: Tale of Omni. Tale of Omni started as a small, game-jam entry in the GM48 jam (it was just called Omni). The game won the innovation category, and I thought, it was a concept with potential. I quickly dragged a friend into the project, Joe (he is in the Coding Pirates picture, the left-most person), and later a dragged in another friend, Ric. The three of us has worked on the game for some years now, even came out with a short demo a year ago.

The game is a huge project, and I do believe it will take some more years before it is done, but we work on it with passion. Some weeks ago we invited a fourth member to the project, Magnus (he also is in the picture above, the guy to the right of me, looking in my direction). While the game is still very much a child of my imagination, it has been a huge help to have a team, which can contribute with, and refute, ideas, and help with some of the work load. Joe has been a huge help with his graphical works, Ric has contributed lots when it comes to story, and he will also be in charge of the music of the game, and Magnus will soon contribute greatly, I am sure, in his role of QA-manager.

SO now you know a little about me, now it is time to explain, what this blog is all about. This blog is meant to be a place for me, to write about anything I want - this could be what is going on in my life, small tips and tricks (maybe some pixel art tutorials?), or just my humble opinion on something. In short: This blog is not limited to any one subject. Some things I will not cover, are things I cover on other blogs - no reason for me to repeat myself. I will still make portfolio-posts on my portfolio, art in my art-portfolio, and so on.

I guess this is everything I have for you today. I hope you enjoyed the read. Until next time, Simon Milfred

[talk-time-live]

TALKTIMELIVE.COM EXCLUSIVE with YEO: by Daxavier Josiah

37 years game developer Vadim Gilyazetdinov from Moscow, Russia, goes by the name “YEO”, which is a nickname he came up with in his school days while achieving a high score in a racing game. The name also pays homage to his appreciation and fandom for the Japanese culture. 

YEO has a passion and ambition to bring his narrative to life in the form of his favorite fandom which is video games. This led YEO (and his team) to create one of the most compelling retro 2D open world games out now for STEAM and recently Nintendo Switch called “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA.” which has received much praise by fans and media. I had the opportunity of talking with YEO about the creation of this title and more more. 

DAX: Where did your journey begin as a game developer?

YEO: I wanted to be connected with game development since University (I have a master’s degree in chemistry) but I didn’t know how to code and I couldn’t draw (I believed that I was good at writing dialogues though) so I applied to some Russian game development companies for any minor junior role they had but they just ignored me. It was no wonder since I hadn’t any work experience.

I started to work at some government company and in 2006 I was introduced to Game Maker 6.1 by my colleague and close friend with whom we run first Russian Nekketsu fan-site. And I made some beat-em-up action with Kunio-Kun sprites in a week ) And it was like whole new world opened for me )

But I never thought that I could do commercial games. I was just having fun with Nekketsu of Mighty Final Fight sprites. I made some small games with them for my local web friends and for myself and most importantly for the process of doing it. Since I don’t believe in result too much, you could achieve it or not, but the process is what you got anyway, so if it was fun and interesting that’s more than enough.

DAX: How many people did it take to develop this game as well as how long did it take to develop it?

YEO: The Steam made possible for small developers to be introduced to the large audience. And when my fellow developer passed Greenlight and then successfully released a game in 2015 I started to think of doing the same. I had quite good and stable job as a team leader at the Moscow IT Government Department so I could afford to hire an artist at last. I never thought of it before though, that you can just hire somebody.

So, I started to look for an artist. Prototype of the game was ready. All these years I tried different battle mechanics with Nekketsu sprites, and literally honed my skills little by little. You can see how Ringo looked back then: 

I posted some job description on game dev forums and it started (“your game is shit”, “you’re a moron” “you’re paying too low” “you should better be doing some Russian aesthetics”, “it’s a dumb clone”, “nobody could do 60 backgrounds alone”, “you should hire a team”) It really was hard to get by. I read all these insults and recommendations for 2-3 months and then suddenly one man sent me a really beautiful background and I thought “no kidding? It could be a BG for my game?” That’s how we started to work with Artem “Wedmak2” Belov, a man who made my game even possible. 

Then I had to recruit a characters artist. And it was another 2 months of hell. And I almost lost hope already. I asked every real live person I knew who could draw a straight line besides web searching and all my friends refused. I even asked my 58 years old father and he opened some image redactor, looked at pixels, closed and said no.

I was walking with my mother one day and she asked about the game, how the things going, and I said “mom, I can’t find an artist, please, talk to dad, he doesn’t work, he has nothing to do, maybe he can try again, it’s not that hard” and she said, “I’ll see what I can do”. I must say that my father is no artist. But he’s very talented in different areas so I believed that he could handle it if he wanted to. And couple of days later I installed him the graphics gale and taught him how to choose colors and place dots. And little by little, step by step, he drew around 1000 frames for Ringo in next 2 years. 

 I tried to work with musicians also but we couldn’t get along. First musicians wrote 3 tracks that I love though, and they wrote final theme among then (the best track in the game), the band named “indian&fox”, very talented guys, it’s sad that they couldn’t do whole soundtrack. So, in the end, Royalty Free Tracks saved me. It was really months of listening and choosing tracks and it was really time-consuming (I was doing it at night usually when I was too tired to code) but I’m proud of the result. I also don’t care about them been royalty free. Almost any Tarantino’s soundtrack is Royalty Free. 

And it was guys who did translations but it could be too long to tell about them. I want to mention Dmitry Ostrozhskiy above all who did English translation. And also Guillaume Veer, and Indienova team for Chinese localization and Misa Sekiguchi Webb, Ueda M. and Chie Koizumi for Japanese. If I started to name one I can’t forget others.

And, I had 2 web friends who discussed with me everything and gave their opinions and insights all these years. I consider them as a team. stray_stoat and Mr.Chelnoque. They were there for me anytime I needed them. And while they didn’t actually write dialogues or code or something like that’s a core of my team. It’s really hard to go such distance on your own. Only some hardcore guys like Eric Barone is capable of that.

So I was doing Ringo and when I was watching some movies like “La-La Land” or “Joy” or any other dream related stuff I couldn’t look in their eyes cause they asked me “all right you had a dream and you found out what you really love and you’re good at it but have you done everything you could? Did you give it all? Did you risk any?” And I couldn’t say “yes” to any of them. But it’s the life without regrets that give you real freedom. 

When I said to my wife that I had to quit the job she wasn’t really happy about it. But she said “Do what you gotta do. We’ll manage somehow.” I didn’t have to quit my job to release the game. I could easily release it while still working; I had a lot of free time there. But I was a casino gambler in my youth days so I knew that you need to bet something if you want to win any. And you better risk high if you want a jackpot). So my career was the only thing I could bet actually.

DAX: The friends of Ringo Ishikawa is a very ambitious and free-thinking experience with no rules and direction. Can you talk about what led to this form of gameplay?

I usually reflect on everything I do so when I reflected on my gaming experience I noticed that I don’t play to win a game. I play to live in a game. I played it like this since ZX Spectrum’s Saboteur for example

I never passed 3 first screens in the game since it was awfully controlled and dogs killed you by touching but you could be a ninja in it. In the first scene a ninja sails on the boat, then he enters some building and then dogs and enemies appear). But I was pretending that I was a wounded ninja who’s going to a suicide mission. And I was sailing in the boat like in a movie. So I was walking fearlessly and dying like a warrior. 

And I played almost any game like that. And on NES my favorites was Technos Japan’s Nekketsu series. All of them, but especially Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (River City Ransom) and Nekketsu Kakutou Densetsu. You could live there. It was like early GTA game. Free roam/open city, usual daily activities. You couldn’t die also. 

And you had all other Nekketsu games as a part of one big Universe. So you could live in DNM, then switch to Ike Ike and play some hockey, then go fighting in NKD. I wished there was one big Nekketsu game where you could live and participate in different activities without changing cartridges. And I was designing one on the paper when I was at University. Just for fun. Just for “what if I could do a game someday”. And I wrote to notebook “You can smoke by pressing a button”. It was 2002 or 2004.

DAX: This has the definite essence of the classic 8-Bit series RIVER CITY RANSOM. Where there any other games that you were inspired by in the making of this title?  

Beside Technos games I was heavily inspired by Shenmue of course. That was another game of my dream. Martial Arts, Japan, snow flying right in the face.

Another obvious inspiration is Persona games, especially 3rd one. I didn’t like Tartarus part (though JRPG is my favorite genre) but the school part was perfect. 

My personal best (is) Final Fantasy 7. I believe it’s a perfect game and it inspires me every time I even think of it. You won’t see exact influences from it, but it’s there. For example, you could buy a villa later in the game (FF7). And by the time you could buy it you actually don’t need it. But it was something special when you just entered (the) menu and it said “Cloud’s Villa” in location’s name. Or you could hit a heavy bag in the basement. It didn’t do anything. You just could hit it. And that’s all.

DAX: Where there any coming of age/gang related movies, anime, or manga that inspired the creation of this game as well or maybe some past experiences growing up?

YEO: I think that everything you have seen and read and played is inspiring you and forming your sense of style and aesthetics. I was a delinquent myself, and a gambler addict, I used to box and kickbox and I’m still training, actually almost all Ringo movements are redrawn (not rotoscoped) by my father from my photos. So I wanted to share some personal feelings with players and I knew what I was talking about hard way. So I wasn’t look up to any manga or a movie actually. But I read and watched a lot, and I gave homage to some of my favorite works, Ringo can read some of my favorite books in the game.

Between youth gang movies my personal best is Korean “Once upon a time in high school”. That’s a real masterpiece, real masculine movie. I was aiming at this level of quality but I didn’t reach it. This movie is on another level. I hope that Ringo can still be compared to it.

DAX: You are obviously a fan of retro games, what were some of your favorites growing up?

YEO: I’m still playing retro games actually. I don’t really like new games and I hadn’t completed a game in 5 or 6 years. Last game that blew my mind was Way of Samurai 3. It’s a really awesome game. I didn’t like 4th game in the series and didn’t play first ones. But this game is something else. I also played a lot of EA Fight Night series, all of them are good and it’s a pity they abandoned the franchise. That’s my favorite “next-gen” games.

I like many PS one games, mostly JRPG: FF7, FF8, Xenogears, Wild Arms etc. There was some interesting CAPCOM beat'em up on PS2 I can recommend: Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and Shinobido Imashime of course.

For real retro games, I still play first Streets of Rage from time to time, I beat it 3 or 4 times some weeks ago on Switch. My favorite straight beat'em up is Mighty Final Fight on NES though. I really love this game, it’s a gem. Also, I like Bucky O'Hare, Mitsumi ga Tooru, Double Dragon 2, Duck Tales. That’s my favorite on NES. Beside Nekketsu of course.

DAX: There are multiple ways to play “The friends of Ishikawa.” Is there one true way to play this game or did you have the idea of letting the player go to any direction they want and have different results?

I’m really tired of modern games that take you by the hand. If there’s a mini-map in a game you don’t look at the backgrounds, you play it on the minimap, so any game comes down to some white triangle moves to green circle which activates a cut scene, richly animated and directed, voiced over, cinema-like. Then you gain control over the character again and go to another green circle, sometimes you mash buttons between. I drop games like that in half an hour regardless the quality and graphics and wrinkles on the face when chars do smile.

I also tired of tutorial messages on any action. So I made only the basic ones in my game. So it’s easy to pick up like older games where any tutorials weren’t and there were 2-3 action buttons and you just tried everything. And I think its fun. It’s a kind of exploration. You try different things and see outcome and you investigate and when you discover something you really enjoy it and you feel smart and by doing it you (are) starting to feel connected to a character.

We argued about all this with mr.chelnoque and stray_stoat but I believed in my vision and positive reviews proved my point. I knew that there’d be many players disappointed that the game doesn’t give you any direction and you don’t know what to do etc. But I also knew that some players would love it for the same reason. And that goes for multiple endings as well. I considered different endings of course and at some point, it was even “A friend of Ringo Ishikawa” so you had to generate your character who was Ringo’s best friend from childhood and you could more role-play in the game, it was a date-sim part also. But then I decided to tell this exact story about this exact character with the exact ending. So some things just fell off. It’s not in Ringo’s character to have multiple girlfriends for example, so I gave up on the dating sim. And there were more sacrifices I had to do.

As for the right way to play it, on the contrary, I wanted players to play their own but to stay in a character. That’s why you can’t rob your classmates, for example, and you still have to fight in some scenes cause Ringo is a gang leader, after all, you can’t turn him into a complete nerd.

The whole game came from one final scene and I designed it backwards actually, I wanted players to really feel that very scene. I don’t want to spoil it though for those who didn’t complete the game. So I wanted payers to live in the game and to feel the ending if they care to complete it. 

DAX: What’s next for you? Is there any chance we will see a sequel following The Life of RINGO? 

YEO: I’d rather not do it and I have some reasons for it.

First of all, I’ve said what I wanted with this game. I also wanted to make a game with a generated character where you could really do what you want and have different endings (like Way of Samurai for example) but if I expand Ringo’s Universe his story could fade. And I don’t want to sacrifice it.

Secondly, it’s really common to make a sequel to a well-received game. And while it’s easy it could turn into creative chains, I want to be free. That’s why I quit my job also. To do what I want to and not what is best for business or others. 

That’s why my second game will be quite short also. I understand that some players have great expectations of my games but it also can drain creativity, fear of failure. So again I decided on what to do next just by listening to myself. "What kind of game you want to do now? What inspires you?” And when I captured setting and gameplay it turned out that I can’t do a long game with it. But gameplay is really good and I have one interesting idea also, and some thoughts I want to share. So I decided on what could be good for this idea to be properly told.

I want to try to stay creatively free for as long as I can.

I almost ready with this game, but Artem Belov (who’s in charge of BG again and he’s doing astounding work again, even better than in Ringo), he got married and got an office job so he (has a) lack of time now, and he draws slowly. And while I’m waiting for him I started to work on another project but it’s a secret for now. 

Thanks to YEO for taking the time to chat with me on such a great game. Be sure to check out “The friends of RINGO ISHIKAWA” available now on STEAM and Nintendo Switch (and Nintendo E-Shop).

[ciathyzareposts]

Shadow of the Comet – Final Rating

By limbeck

The first time I played Shadow of the Comet was probably some time in the late ’90s or early 2000s. I was relatively fresh in RPGs and the Cthulhu Mythos, and still at university. So, a Cthulhu Mythos inspired adventure game definitely looked like just what I needed to fill my appetite for relevant pop culture.

I don’t remember much from that playthrough, but I sure as hell remember being impressed by the fact that I could face some of the Great Old Ones (GOOs) and frantically looking for walkthroughs through my brave dial-up connection to get through the final stages.

“Frantic” is a word perfectly associated with some parts of the game

This time around, I had a mixed bag experience, though I think that my gameplay posts mostly focused on the negatives and contained quite a few rants. I am a man of small patience it seems. Nevertheless, the playthrough was by no means a negative experience. There were many things I enjoyed in the game, namely the setting, some of the character interactions and the story, cheesy as it was. However, as Ilmari and Vetinari commented in the introduction post, the clunky interface, along with some sanity breaking puzzles broke my immersion.

I am talking about you, dark chamber puzzle

But let’s see how fair I am to the game using the PISSED rating. This is my first time, so please bear with me.

Puzzles and Solvability

We start with what frustrated me most in the game. It is an adventure game and puzzles are essential for the player’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, many of the puzzles in the game were bad. They were bad in many ways. I may be overreacting, as I am a soft adventure gamer. I play the games mostly for the stories and, as mentioned above, I lose patience with an obscure puzzle easily. I hope you will agree with me though, when I say that these features do not make good puzzles:

Timed sequences when the time you have at your disposal is very little. I like it when the game gives you time to think and I prefer it if that time is not during a reload. There were way too many puzzles that I only had a few seconds to think of something before I died. At least I died with variety. Examples include the scene at the forest clearing at night, the temple of Dagon, all encounters with cultists and that damned JONAS chase.

Action sequences that do not involve clever thinking but just being able to press the right buttons at the right time. As above, I want to play the game at my leisure. I can understand that such fast paced encounters add to the atmosphere of the game. My fleeing from JONAS fits with the horror theme of the game, but it was not enjoyable at all.

Lack of clues and feedback. There were many puzzles when I felt I was stumbling blind. Sometimes, I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and sometimes I knew what I had to do, but the options were so broad that it practically forced you to bruteforce it. What made it worse was that sometimes items that were completely unresponsive in one scene held vital clues after an event took place.

Pixel hunting. There were many puzzles when I had to be standing in a specific point, such as the one with the key to the Necronomicon under the carpet in JUGG’s house. 

JUGG sure hid it well

Mini games. Sliding tile puzzle.

Dead ends. I only encountered one, when I forgot to refill my naphtha bucket, and Charles mentioned another one with BISHOP and the cemetery key. I think that in 1993, there was enough experience in design to avoid dead ends. Still not a big problem if you save regularly, as you were not walking dead for too long.

On the good side, though there were some clever puzzles, like the last one at the stone circle or the one with the wings at the top of the lighthouse, even if the latter made no sense at all. The UI did not allow you to directly combine items in your inventory, so the designers had to find other ways to challenge the player. Some of them were clever and they make sense, but most of the time, they make sense only retrospectively. I understand their intention of pushing the player to think logically and consider what he could see in the room, but they mostly relied on visual cues. I also liked the fact that you could reuse some of your items and you didn’t have to throw them away after use.

I will keep that magnifying glass until I die

Overall, I must say I am not satisfied with the quality of the puzzles in the game, but there were good moments and many missed chances.

Score: 3

Interface and Inventory

This is another category where the game could have done a lot better. The tools were there, but they seem to have been only partially implemented. You may remember that in my first session I misunderstood the “laser sight” to work with any object I could interact with. I was wrong. It turns out that it was about what I could pick up. This made the whole game a lot harder. It meant that I had to be standing at the correct place to interact with something and the lack of feedback meant that I couldn’t know if I was meant to be standing at a different pixel or that there was indeed nothing there. This is indeed a missed opportunity to improve user friendliness.

That lack of feedback annoyed me many times. My laptop��s L (Look) key would be worn out if it was made of a slightly less durable plastic. I think I can see the letter fading away. And yet, in most cases I would never get a description (see my rant about the naphtha pool). It wouldn’t hurt to have a description of the room and something more helpful or even just some flavour text.

That rifle on the wall holds a vital clue, but it took me some time to really look at it. Maybe that’s my fault after all.

Another problem was the clunkiness of movement. I played the floppy version and there was only keyboard support. That’s not a bad thing per se. The game was well designed around it, but it always felt that it was responding too slowly. That was a real problem when I had to act quickly, such as when being chased by JONAS. I did not have the courage to try the same in the CD-ROM version, but I remember moving with the mouse was much clunkier.

Other than that, inventory management and controls were very simple and intuitive. There was no way to combine objects at will, but that may have hurt the variety of the puzzles, not the interface.

Score: 4

Story and Setting

The story of the game is based on what is considered a typical Lovecraftian story (I think some of the best of his stories do not follow that pattern, but that’s not for this post). A small, quiet town which hides a disturbing secret, usually a cult to some horrific extradimensional beings with unpronouncable names. The protagonist is slowly introduced to the underground of the town and the story reaches a frantic conclusion, usually in a short time span, which is sufficient to kill or drive the protagonist mad.

In this game, kill more often than turn mad

Seen in that setting, the story is a bit cliché, but it works. The writers may have been a bit too excited and included too many GOOs too close together, but for someone not so much into the Cthulhu Mythos, it should not be a problem. What could be a problem, though was the way that I was railroaded into some situations, without really having any idea why I should be doing it. The whole storylet with the lighthouse and the gypsies is my pet peeve here.

The motives of the characters are explained in a satisfactory way. Each character has a small background story and their relationships are shown through your conversations with them. I empathised with some of them, particularly poor, tragic CURTIS and even BISHOP, while at the same time, could not help getting annoyed by Miss PICOTT and ZEKE. Regarding the villains, for most of the time they remained distant and I only had second-hand information.

A nice example of unnecessary, but entertaining, background fluff

In summary, it is a passable, but cliché, story, with memorable, but cliché, characters in a nicely fleshed out little town.

Score: 7

Sound and Graphics

I am torn with this one, particularly about the graphics. So, let’s start with the sound first.

In the floppy version, which I played, there were only two or three different background music scores, which they repeated a few times after loading or after some scenes, but there were long periods with no music at all. The themes were very nice and fitting to the atmosphere. If they had more storage, they could do better. I want to believe that the CD-ROM version had more variety.

Sound effects consisted entirely of digitised recordings and they were annoying for the most part. They would usually play once when you entered a new screen. For example, the same bird chirp would play every time a forest screen loaded and the same very annoying cat meowing would repeatedly play in all cemetery screens.

There was no speech in the floppy version, but the little I saw of the CD-ROM version did not leave me much impressed. MorpheusKitami’s comment in the first gameplay post seems to imply that there is much to be desired from the speech in the CD-ROM.

Now to the graphics. As I mentioned above, I am torn. The technique used to digitise photos for the exterior of the buildings gave some nice realism and added to the atmosphere of the town. Another thing that struck me as ugly were the cutscenes. It was a mix of faux-3D and 2D animations, with too sharp angles and very flat colours. That dived quite deeply into the uncanny valley.

The interiors were almost entirely hand-drawn though and this was a mixed bag. Drawing was clear. You could understand that a desk was a desk and that there was a lamp on the mantelpiece. However, sometimes the proportions were overblown, as someone commented early on.

My room is a good example. It would be impossible to warm it up in winter and the door is twice my height

I need to praise some of the locations that were very nicely drawn and coloured appropriately to enhance the atmosphere of the particular location. That goes for the cemetery at night, the crypt of the HAMBLETON family and even JONAS’s maze. I think the colours and drawings were just right there.

Anyway, all things considered, I am sorry, but I cannot go very high on this one.

Score: 5

Environment and Atmosphere

Reading previous reviews, it seems that this criterion is the one that presents the most difficulty to reviewers. I count myself to be on the lucky side. Looking at a Lovecraftian horror-themed game like Shadow of the Comet, I believe I knew what sort of atmosphere I should experience. I was expecting a slow burn at first and a flood of horrific revelations at the end. What started as a quiet stroll in the park would end as a frantic dash through a dark forest with clawed hands reaching for you.

The game managed to achieve this feeling quite well, provided that you would not get stuck in puzzles for too long, but maybe that was part of the horror experience. Illsmouth I think is the perfect little town, with its inhabitants following their daily patterns and only speaking to you if they feel like doing so. I come from a large city, but have spent far too many summers in my parents’ village on the island. I can see the similarities and hope that my village is not built over a forgotten temple of Dagon.

I believe I would have noticed

The horror part is also well presented, but less so. There are scenes and locations that take you in, but many times it feels forced. The appeal of Lovecraft’s stories is that you do not really know what you are dealing with until the very end. Here, you are fed with a lot of exposition and are immersed in lore. I understand that this is an adventure game and not a horror story, which is also why it is not easy to get the atmosphere just right.

Still, there were scenes which worked very well, and I will mention again the discovery of CURTIS’s corpse and the section in the cemetery and in the crypt. One could say that the chase by JONAS also works towards the horror atmosphere, but I died too many times to appreciate it.

Score: 7

Dialogue and Acting

The game has a lot of dialogue, but less than half of it offered multiple options. In most cases, dialogue played as a cutscene and my only contribution was to hit enter and read the next line. The designers introduced dialogue options when they considered them critical for a puzzle or to lead me to a different branch of the story, usually my death.

Exhibit A

I believe this approach worked quite well in the building up of the setting of the game. Illsmouth locals got their life through these chats, either with PARKER or among themselves. I also enjoyed the dialogue puzzle at the town hall which opened the path to the Mayor’s office. In most other cases, however, my options seemed inconsequential, even though some answers seemed clearly more appropriate than others. A potential dead end via dialogue was reported in the comments, with BISHOP potentially leaving without ever giving me the cemetery key, but I did not have a saved game before that to verify. I am willing to give the game the benefit of doubt, but other design choices make this benefit very small.

The quality of the dialogue is adequate and mostly appropriate for the type of game. Some horrible one-liners aside (“Say hello to SATAN”), the dialogues were written keeping the characters and overall story in mind and were not too cheesy (SATAN line aside).

I cannot say much about the voice acting of the CD-ROM version. The little that I saw seemed awkward and there were problems with the synchronisation with the speaker’s sprite. May be too much to ask from a game of that era, but I think the Case of the Serrated Scalpel did it better (if it did not, I apologise. I played most of the game with sound off because of a bug).

Score: 5

So, that gives us a PISSED of 31 / 0.6 = 51.666, rounded up to 52. There was a wide range of guesses, as high as 62, but ShaddamIVth guessed correctly. That makes it two games in a row, after the Journeyman Project.

  I hope you enjoyed the game and the review and that I’ll be able to write something more before Prisoner of Ice in 2025 or so.

CAP Distribution

100 points to limbeck

Blogger award – 100 CAPs – For blogging through this game for our enjoyment

32 points to TBD

True Companion Award – 25 CAPs – For playing along with most of the game and providing useful commentary

Obscure music reference Award – 5 CAPs – For putting monster mash in my radar

Adam West Award – 2 points – For knowing how hard it is to get rid of a bomb

28 points to Charles

True Companion Award – 25 CAPs – For playing along with most of the game and providing useful commentary

Superhero mashup Award – 3 CAPs – For the mental image of Bruce Wayne changing into his Batman uniform in a Gotham City phone booth

25 points to MorpheusKitami

True Companion Award – 25 CAPs – For playing along with most of the game and providing useful commentary

15 points to Laukku

Free betting cash Award – 15 CAPs – For guessing that I would not be able to solve the photo development puzzle and almost getting it right.

13 points to ShaddamIVth

Psychic Prediction Award – 10 CAPs – For guessing the final rating for Shadow of the Comet

Pipe Master Award – 3 CAPs – For enlightening all of us on the functionality of a sprague (totally unrelated to Prague)

5 points to Vetinari

TLDR Award – 5 CAPs – For summarising my review in less than 50 words

5 points to Andy Panthro

Nicholas Cage Fan Club Award – 5 CAPs – For reminding me that there Colour out of Space is now a movie

5 points to Patryk

Miskatonic Theology Professor Award – 5 CAPs – For debating the position of world religions in the otherworldly mythology of the Ancient Ones, as described by H.P. Lovecraft and the curators of his works

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/shadow-of-the-comet-final-rating/

[stephramosanimation]

Modern technologies influencing and enhancing the visual storytelling in the gaming industry

Why I chose this industry

I chose this industry since I have always been interested in creating narratives and the conception of the final product over the product itself. My interests have always been in creating an interesting story that leaves a mark with the person who is going to see it, and I think that games leave the biggest impact on people, based on my experience of playing games my entire life. With the change and development in technology over the coming years I can see the potential that it has towards making the process of creating games a lot easier and different enough to change the scene entirely.

Outcomes/Objectives

With this research and essay I aim to achieve the knowledge in my chosen industry that will help me get a job in the future or at least identify the key skills I have or will need to work on in order to get a job in the future in this industry. I also aim to look at current companies and practices and ways for myself to innovate and bring something new to these companies and practices using the technology I will research.

General statistics 

21 million people play video games in the UK, making it the 5th largest video game market in 2017 based on consumer revenues. The UK consumer spend on video games was valued at £5.11bn 2017 (12.4% increased from 2016: £4.33bn)

There are 2,175 active video game companies in the UK (as of 2017) and 68% of the companies were founded since the beginning of 2010.

Higher education in the UK strongly supports the games industry; 60 universitires provide 215 undergrate video games (in 2014 alone)

23% of courses are in London, 18% in the West Midlands and 16% in Yorkshire.

Trends in Technology

Motion Capture technology (or MoCap) is a method that is used to digitally capture and record human movements. Recorded motion that has been captured is mapped onto a digital model in 3D software (Maya or Unity) so the character then moves like the actor you have recorded. Motion capture can be used for film, video games and VFX.

Examples of motion capture: Andy Serkis in Lord of the Rings, Troy Baker in Infamous: Second and The Last of Us.

Software MoCap can be done in: Xsens MVN, Maya, 3DS Max, Unity.

 At this time the market was “booming for mobile and handheld gaming, so a common trend became the secondary screens for consoles and cross-play.” (Poh, 2018)

The Wii U was announced at E3 in 2011 and wasn’t released until 2012, or really become a leading game until 2013. The Wii U’s main selling point was the additional “controller” which had a screen, giving the players the ability to to play both on the gamepad or the tv, or both at the same time using the gamepad to access inventories the play on the screen.

At the same time, rival company Sony, announced the PS Vita – allowing the main console to act as a second screen through cross play and remote play. This would allow players to play console games away from the console and on the smaller screen to play on the go.

VR became very popular in 2016 when the Oculus Rift was announced and introduced: it aimed to let players experience games they play as if they’re in the world in the game. With it’s design they aimed to make it as comfortable and immersive as possible. Once Oculus released the Rift other companies such as Google and Android also wanted to take advantage of the VR, which welcomed the release of Google Cardboard.

Tools used to create games in VR include:

•       3DS Max and Maya

•       Unity 3

•       Unreal Engine 4

•       Blender

Trends in technology (2016-2017)

VR, AR and “physically collaborative” (Erica Webber, 2016) games are becoming a big trend in 2017. Companies are now trying to find more ways to incorporate the body into gaming but not only as a way to get players more active but to also immerse them in the world they’re in, your body would act as a physical anchor to the game you’re playing.

Pokemon Go, released in 2016 paved the way for augmented reality games on mobile. Created by Niantic with 650 million downloads in 2017 alone, it influenced Google to create augmented reality games on mobile such as: Ghostbusters World, Jurrasic World and The Walking Dead Our World. Even though it didn’t create a surge of AR games on mobile, it did allow Google and Apple to begin development on AR platforms which would allow developers to easily create AR games.

Some tools to create AR games include:

•       Apple ARKit

•       Vuforia

•       Kudan

•       ARTool Kit

•       Augmenta

•       EasyAR

UK based companies that specialise in AR/VR Gaming:

•       Harmony Studios

•       Preloaded

•       Kuju

•       Climax Studios

Rise of indie studios

Rise of Indie studios

Developer platforms have been increasing in the past years considering software available to create games have been more accessible for anyone to create games. Because of this the numbers of indie studios and games have been increasing.

List of Indie games made by UK Companies:

•       Monument Valley

•       Purrfect Date, Surgeon Sim, I Am Bread

•       No Man’s Sky

•       Prison Architect

•       LittleBigPlanet, Tearaway, Dreams

UK Indies:

•       Ustwo

•       Bossa Studios

•       Kuju

•       Introversion

•       Hello Games

•       Media Molecule

•       Hard Light

•       Criterion Games

Free software available for game development:

•       RPG Maker

•       GameMaker Studio

•       Unity

•       Stencyl

•       Unreal Engine 4

New Technologies 

Grease Pencil in Blender

The grease pencil in Blender is beginning to create a change in the way we animate in 2D, by combining 3D features with 2D tools you can make an animation in Blender fully in 2D but on a 3D plane, create visual effects using 2D and rotoscope your 3D animations or combine 3D with 2D. Positioning cameras in conjunction with models and affects can allow the grease pencil to create dynamic animations. When using the tool it also allows for bone rig and model deformers allowing you to change the shape of the objects you create. “Hero” is a short film made in the Blender using the Grease Pencil that shows off it’s true potential and some limitations. Much like Spine, using Blender retains the traditional charm of 2D.

Spine – 2D animations for games

Spine is an up and coming 2D software animation tool which allows artists to create animations specifically for video games, whilst utilising a lot of aspects from 3D software. The basis of this software is that it allows you to create 2D animations for video games whilst using a lot of helpful features from 3D software, meaning you won’t need to spend a lot of time animating frame by frame and thus cutting down a lot of time and therefore money. Some main features include:

 •       Dopesheet: allows a detailed view of the layers and timelines, letting animators make fine adjustments in timings.

•       Meshes: as opposed to drawing rectangles the meshes let the artists specify polygons inside the image and increases the fill rate as the pixels outside of the polygon won’t be drawn or selected – which is essential for mobile games.

•       Graph editor: allows interpolation between keys to adjust the timings and create life like movements, like we’ve seen in Maya.

•       Free-form Deformation: allows you to move individual mesh vertices to squash and stretch the image which isn’t possible with regular rectangular images.

Paths + IK/FK: allows your images/2d animations to be rigged with Bezier splines to be controlled using bones, allowing intuitive use of your drawings.

Some companies that have used Spine as a 2D tool:

•       Rocket Punch

•       Game Freak

•       Daedic Entertainment

•       Bee Square

•       Bulbware

Real Time Rendering – Unreal Engine 4

Real time rendering involves “animation that are rendered so fast they appear to be generated in real time.” (What is Real Time Rendering and Why It Matters, 2018) It was created by Epic Games, they unveiled it by showing off three new games that utilised this technology: Fortnite, Kingdom Hearts 3 and Sea of Thieves. Real time rendering allowing designers to create characters and props that would be placed in the world or the stage and it will be rendered immediately, also meaning that any subsequent changes to the characters, props or lighting will also be rendered immediately, thus saving time. Not only does it save time, but it allows great potential for the designers and developers to experiment greatly with the designs, lighting, camera placement and colour effects as they can be rendered in real time and making the process much more intuitive. It “allows the directors to act much like a film director would on a set” (What is Real Time Rendering and Why It Matters, 2018), by cutting waiting time and making almost immediate changes. Other upgrades to this engine mean that games can be created with photo-realistic finishes with characters that are much more life-like. In the future, artists might be required to also know how to use real time rendering and it will most likely become common practice in industry considering how much time it saves.

Places for innovation 

Real Time Rendering saves a lot of time in the development pipeline such as saving time when changing assets or small design aspects, for example, in the development of Ori and Blind Forest, a lot of time was spent on having to re-render the character of “Ori” as they constantly had to change position of his arms to fit the 2D plane of the game. If the team had access to real time rendering, a lot of time could be saved as they could’ve just changed the assets and render them immediately.

Tiltbrush in VR; Tiltbrush is a tool made by Google which allows artists to freely draw in a 3D space in Virtual Reality. It also allows artists to create small animations in VR, Tiltbrush could easily be used to create 3D models, which means they can be done faster and easier, as well as allowing potential for more stylised models. Tiltbrush will let artists cut time and create 3D models and still retain the charm that comes with 2D.

Upon completing this research I have found that I need to develop my technical skills, specifically in terms of rendering assets. As well as this in my future studies I aim to work on my conceptual skills in order to develop my aesthetic and skills. This research has given me an idea of what the gaming industry looks like in the UK and what I should expect to be getting myself into. With this research I have also identified companies I aim on interning at or doing work experience at: Mind Candy, Bossa Studios, Kuju, Jellyfish and The Third Floor. These are pre-viz and video game development companies.

References/Bibliography 

Poh, Michael (2018) Future of Gaming: 5 Exciting Emerging Trends Available at: https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/future-of-gaming/(Accessed: 31 May 2018) 

Sardelis, Cleo (2018) Newzoo’s Trends to Watch in 2018 Available at: https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/newzoos-trends-watch-2018/ (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Erica Webber, Jordan (2017) The top 10 gaming trends of 2017 Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/21/top-trends-video-games-consoles-2017-gadgets (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Fahey, Rob (2017) Gaming’s big trends to keep an eye on in 2017 Available at: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-01-05-what-to-watch-for-in-2017 (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Millicevi, Milena (2017) Virtual reality started in film and gaming industry. What is next? Available At: https://arvrtech.eu/blog/vr-film-and-gaming-the-next-steps (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

What is Real Time Rendering and Why it Matters  (2018) Available at: https://www.easyrender.com/3d-rendering/what-is-real-time-rendering-and-why-it-matters (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Greene, Tristan (2017) Real-time Rendering is the future of computer animation Available At: https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2017/07/25/real-time-rendering-future-computer-animation/ (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Erica Webber, Jordan, Brewster, Kat(2016) 11 video game trends that will change the future of the industry Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/21/11-video-game-trends-that-will-change-the-future-of-the-industry (Acessed: 31 May 2018)

Chisholm, Lee (2017) The rise and rise of indie games Available at: https://www.yoyogames.com/blog/443/the-rise-and-rise-of-indie-games (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

What is Spine? (2017) Available at: http://esotericsoftware.com/spine-in-depth (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Ukie (2017), The Games industry in numbers Available at: https://ukie.org.uk/research#Market (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Ukie (2017), Gamesmap Available at: https://gamesmap.uk/#/map (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

today Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTn3ePDt50 (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

CGI Today (2017) Is blender the future of 2D animation? Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1Wl3YoRe8w (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Vice Game (2016) virtual reality 3D modelling software will let you design in mid-air Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX4UpMdJkAI (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Tiga (2018) UK video games industry set to grow in 2018 Available at: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/uk-video-games-industry-set-to-grow-in-2018-668257263.html (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

MediaMolecule (2018) Available at: https://www.mediamolecule.com/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

OpusArtz (2018) Available at: http://opusartz.com/about/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Atomhawk (2018) Available at: http://atomhawk.com/services (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Leading Light Design (2018) Available at: http://www.leadinglightdesign.com/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Kuju (2018) Available at: https://www.kuju.com/kuju-games (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Artstation, Edwards, Liz (2018) Available: https://www.artstation.com/lizedwardsvr (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

GDC (2017) The future of art production in games Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Rt0wOyCCAI (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

80 Level (2017) 4 Technologies to change art production Available at: https://80.lv/articles/4-technologies-to-change-art-production/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Gupta, Kitty (2017) Top games design trend 2017 Available at: https://www.freelancinggig.com/blog/2017/05/09/top-game-design-trends-2017/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)  

Harris, Miriam (2018) 7 incredible tools that let you paint and sculpt in VR Available at: https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/hacking-maker/7-incredible-tools-that-let-you-paint-sculpt-in-vr/ (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Kristjan Zadziuk (2016) GDC 2016 Motion Matching, The future of games animation... today Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSTn3ePDt50 (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

Esoteric Software (2015) Spine: 2D animation for games Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RTkImAOJKM (Accessed: 31 May 2018)

[oldguardaudio]

Gun Control Fodder 🔫 After his attempted Murder, US Representative Steve Scalise still OPPOSES more Gun Control

Oregon Gun Rights Oppose Obama Visit

Crooked Hillary Clinton wants your guns at HoaxAndChange.com

Why do conservatives own guns – Duh at HoaxAndChange.com

NBC News

After Being Shot, Rep. Steve Scalise Still Opposes More Gun Control

WASHINGTON — House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who is still recovering from his wounds after a gunman opened fire on Republican members of Congress in June, told Chuck Todd in an exclusive …

nbcnews.com2m

Time

The Fight Over Gun Control Isn’t Really About Guns

Will the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history change the debate over gun rights? Over the roar of the guitar, the gunfire erupted. At first the country-music fans at the Route 91 Harvest …

Time46m

Las Vegas

They ran for their lives; now, where do Las Vegas massacre survivors stand on gun control?

Like characters in a video game, Valerie Fowler and Kaitlyn Roll were among the targets of the …

mercurynews.com23m

“I didn’t know if there was one shooter or five shooters,” he said. “You’re huddling under this bleacher. You’re hearing people screaming and crying and with blood on their faces. You think, all I have is my cellphone and I’m in flip-flops. I’m totally defenseless.”

“If I had a gun on me, I would have felt more safe,” Fowler remembers telling Roll, one of her old high school friends from Santa Rosa, as they sat on the couch of their Las Vegas rental the next morning, watching the news replaying the traumatic footage.

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Chris Murphy: senator at heart of gun control push senses a change in debate

In the hours after the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, when a man alone in a hotel suite sprayed gunfire on 22,000 concertgoers 32 floors below, leaving 58 dead and injuring almost 500, …

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Gun Control

‘I seriously doubt the laws will change’: Guardian readers’ views on gun control

When a gunman opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers from his Las Vegas hotel room on Sunday night, he used guns and ammunition that appear to have been purchased legally. The attack left 58 people …

The Guardian1h

Gun Shows In The United States

At Reno gun show, firearm fans denounce gun control but support bump stock ban

RENO, Nevada — Less than a week after a gunman mowed down 58 people halfway across the state, …

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Saturday Night Live

‘Saturday Night Live’ slams ‘delicate snowflakes’ as it tackles gun control

“The investigation into the tragedy in Las Vegas this week has sparked a larger debate in America between people who want common sense gun control, and people who are wrong,” “SNL’s” Colin …

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NRA

NRA moves to head off gun control fight in Congress

The National Rifle Association on Thursday called on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to review whether “bump stocks” — similar to the devices used in Sunday’s Las Vegas …

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Vox Media

Republicans eye the narrowest possible gun control measure after Las Vegas shooting

A bump stock device, (left) that fits on a semi-automatic rifle to increase the firing speed Photo by …

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Why, yes, I do have thoughts on gun control

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Champ De Mars Massacre

Las Vegas massacre sparks gun control debate across the country

The ongoing gun control debate was reignited after Sunday’s deadly attack in Las Vegas. Robyn Thomas, the executive director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, joins CBSN with more on …

CBS News on MSN.com18h

Las Vegas

Las Vegas shooting ignites the debate over gun control

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Breakthrough

ANALYSIS: Breakthrough on gun control efforts real but may be fleeting

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Yahoo News10h

Bipartisan Support

Will recent bipartisan support for gun control continue longterm?

October 7, 2017, 7:41 AM | Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock used a bump stock attachment to turn his rifles into virtual machine guns. The National Rifle Association now says it’s open to the idea of …

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News

California aims to take lead in US gun control research

Gun homicides have become a common cause of death in the US. But the federal government still does not fund research into gun control. The state of California is looking to change that. Al Jazeera’s …

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Australian Conservatives

Australian conservatives took on gun control. It worked.

Andrew Leigh is a member of the Australian Parliament and a former professor of economics at the Australian National University. Australia experienced its deadliest mass shooting in 1996 after Martin …

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Gun control debate once again takes center stage

What happened in Las Vegas could easily happen in North Carolina. The country needs better gun laws that reduce the sale of weapons that automatically fire hundreds of rounds per minute. A proposed bill …

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The Note: Latest gun control effort looks less promising in the details

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Columbine

After Columbine, readers decried cultural decay in addition to lax gun control

Since Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, we have received more than 300 letters to the editor on the massacre. All but a small handful of those letters focus on gun control, the preponderance of which …

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Oklahoma

Gun control supporters often contradict themselves

FOLLOWING the mass shooting in Las Vegas, the response from many on the left was predictable — gun control, gun control, gun control. What’s dispiriting about these responses is not just the absence of logic in many instances, but that many gun control …

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Gun Violence

Who Will Lead the Left on Gun Control?

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders knows his extraordinarily ambitious proposal to supplant the private health insurance industry with a single government plan won’t become law anytime soon. Yet, as he told …

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Virginia

In Virginia, Gun Control Heats Up the Governor’s Race

RICHMOND, Va. — Al Stenger, who is undecided in the Virginia governor’s race next month, is the sort of voter the Democratic candidate badly wants to reach. Mr. Stenger, a dentist who leans Republican, …

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Las Vegas

Las Vegas fallout: Some Republicans are willing to weigh a modest gun control measure

If there is one issue on which Congress has been utterly gridlocked, despite one mass shooting after …

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Gun Control

Google Search for ‘Gun Control‘ Spikes After Vegas Shooting

A day after the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders deflected reporters’ questions about gun control by saying “there will certainly be …

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Gun Control

OnPolitics Today: The NRA, GOP now want gun control. Kind of. Sort of. Not really.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the Trump administration is open to a …

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Gun Control

A Phony Gun Control Measure

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AP FACT CHECK: Really? GOP thinks Dems soft on gun control?

It’s not every day — or every year or every decade — you see Republicans raising questions about whether Democrats were tough enough on gun control when they were in power. Such is the case …

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Eye Opener

Eye Opener: Gun control takes center stage after Las Vegas shooting

October 6, 2017, 7:06 AM | Investigators say the Las Vegas gunman may have considered other possible targets around the country for mass killings. Also, Tropical Storm Nate kills 22 people as it makes its …

Gun Control Fodder 🔫 After his attempted Murder, US Representative Steve Scalise still OPPOSES more Gun Control Gun Control Fodder 🔫 After his attempted Murder, US Representative Steve Scalise still OPPOSES more Gun Control…

[likefusion]

With “Icons,” Legion M Is Creating Pop-Culture Time Capsules And Pushing VR's Limits: A tangle of cables slithers from a monitoring station in the garage of a house atop Hollywood's Sunset Strip, up a narrow staircase brimming with artifacts and tchotchkes from an adventured life, and into a room overtaken by stereoscopic cameras, ambisonic sound equipment, and GoPro arrays. The focus of all this technology: 94-year-old comic legend Stan Lee—co-creator of the Marvel Universe including Spider-Man, The X Men, and Iron Man, among numerous others—and his interviewer, director, and professional fanboy Kevin Smith, discussing Lee's life, career, and marriage in an intimate setting at Lee's home. Kevin Smith and Stan Lee[Photos: Adam Kent, courtesy of Legion M] It's the first step in a journey of firsts. The inaugural shoot of Icons: Face to Face, the first project from Legion M, the first that raises money through equity crowdfunding and gives contributors creative input and profit sharing. It's also the first use of a new configuration of virtual reality technology that captures its subjects at a fidelity never before used in VR. In fact, no VR headgear—or movie projector display for that matter—exists yet to play back the footage in its fullest level of detail. But it's likely to in the future, which is the point of this project. “We had an idea for an intimate interview with iconic people from today's pop culture and entertainment, maybe doing new Icons every month,” says Legion M cofounder and president Jeff Annison. “But we want it to be able to stand the test of time, not just culturally, but technologically, to survive as a historical record. Most VR footage today is disposable. We wanted something that could keep up with advancements in state of the art.” Their vision required hurdling two crucial technical challenges: placing the camera closer to its subjects than previously attempted in VR without optical distortion or destroying the three-dimensional perception, and recording at a resolution that abuts the edge of human perception. “This is a pioneering effort in VR,” says Annison. While high-profile individuals have been interviewed in this format in the past, “no one has shot them as close and in the resolution as we have.” Launched last March, Legion M opened its doors to non-accredited investors last summer, subsequently raising $1.2 million, part of which has gone toward stakes in such projects as the upcoming films Colossal (releasing April 7) and The Field Guide to Evil, and the digital TV series Pitch Elevator. It recently opened a second investing round that will allow it to raise up to $50 million (you can buy stock here). The Icons pilot is Legion's first solely produced endeavor, though the company hopes to find producing partners for a subsequent series. Kevin Smith[Photos: Adam Kent, courtesy of Legion M] Idea-Driven Technology The Icons experiment was a case of an interview driving the technology. The idea began germinating last summer when Legion M's Annison, cofounder/CEO Paul Scanlan, content acquisition head Terri Lubaroff, and content development head David Baxter began talking to VR companies about creating a more intimate viewing experience than had previously been done—enabling viewers to feel as though they were sitting with prominent individuals as they talked about their lives, dreams, regrets, what drives them, and visions for the future—and ensuring the footage's adaptability to future display methods. But it didn't begin to coalesce until they found a prominent individual who didn't mind being a guinea pig in a grand technological experiment. “We had this idea of trying to put you in the room with these legendary icons. And we got Stan on board—miraculously,” says Annison. “We pitched him this idea, and he really liked our model of a company owned by fans instead of a corporate conglomerate. In fact he said, ‘It's such a good idea, I wish I'd thought of it myself!'” Lee, in turn, chose Smith to interview him. “That was part of our idea for the series,” says Annison. “We wanted our interviewees to be completely at ease and open up. That's why we did it at his house instead of a studio. Kevin has interviewed Stan probably a dozen times. He knew Stan, which questions to ask, and which had never been asked.” Ones that could meaningfully meander from Lee's childhood in 1920s and '30s New York, to creating Marvel comics, to his 70-year marriage, with his wife, Joanie, fielding questions as well. Lee's age further pressed the need for a record that could adapt well to evolving display technology. “It was daunting. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get Stan at his house,” Annison adds. “We wanted to give people a hundred years from now the opportunity to sit down and spend an hour with him. That drove us to new technology, to do something that's never been done before.” The Legion M team spent the fall surveying state-of-the-art systems and opting for a 360-degree capture approach after educating themselves on types of VR. It found a technology partner in VR Playhouse, a Los Angeles boutique studio founded by Ian Forester specializing in VR, AR, and 360-degree production. It experimented for three months before arriving at a solution for a late January shoot. Kevin Smith and Stan Lee[Photos: Adam Kent, courtesy of Legion M] Pushing the VR Boundaries The two main challenges were getting the camera close enough to the subjects to “feel” like real life, and capture that experience at fidelity that could stand the test of time. That starts with resolution, but you also need to consider things like frame rate, color depth, and dynamic range. Camera proximity. Most professional-grade 360-degree VR videos use the Jaunt One or Google Odyssey, the latter a stereoscopic panoramic capture array of 16 GoPro cameras positioned 6 to 10 feet from the subject. Forester's team rigged a camera system that shot from 2.5 feet away. Moving the camera had more to do with the aesthetic than longevity. Shooting from 10 feet “is not an intimate conversation with Stan; that's Stan standing up and lecturing you,” says Annison. “VR Playhouse had to experiment to determine how close we could get before the optical distortion went crazy, the lenses couldn't handle it, the 3D broke down, or it didn't allow us to capture the full 360. There's a lot of science that goes into it. And it gets more complicated when you're filming it in stereo.” Resolution. In VR, visual resolution is measured by the number of pixels per degree of viewing angle. Most VR headsets display 8-12. But Legion M was gunning for the edge of human perception—the point beyond which the human eye can no longer distinguish further clarity—which is 75 pixels per degree. VR Playhouse got it up to 72. By capturing at that resolution, the footage should remain sharp as display technology improves. And if displays eventually exceed that resolution, it won't matter because the human eye can't perceive it (at least until robotic implants are invented.) “When you put on your VR headsets [today], it's like being immersed in 1994 television. It's not that sharp,” says Annison. “You can see compression artifacts (media distortion) and pixilation. It's like that because of bottlenecks in displays, computer processing, file sizes, streaming, etc. But VR is in its infancy. All of these technological bottlenecks are going to go away in 5 to 10 years. We wanted to make sure that what we captured was completely future-proofed.” The data captured for the Icons pilot is over 1,700 times bigger than an HDTV file. So, while it can be viewed in less detail in 2D and on different platforms, “there isn't a TV, headset, or movie projector that exists today that can display it in the full resolution that we got,” says Annison. The Solution. VR Playhouse recombined off-the-shelf components, experimenting with different camera and lens combinations before getting the desired effect with two 8K RED Digital cameras and ARRI Zeiss 8mm Ultra Prime rectilinear lenses for each eye. The depth of field was so shallow that the subjects' arm movements had to confine to a very narrow area. “It was a real challenge to find cameras,” says Annison. “8K cameras are around, but 8K that can handle 60 frames per second had only been out for a couple months. We had to call every camera rental place in town! When we got them–one of them only had three hours of use prior to us.” After the live shoot concluded, the crew rotated the RED cameras to capture the rest of the room, to subsequently composite for a 360-degree effect. (They used an Odyssey concurrently for reference footage and comparison.) The producers are finding their way creatively as well, exploring more of a sweeping narrative arc about their subjects' overall lives than honing in on most notable aspects, as traditional interviews might. “We want something to stand the test of time–it's just a different lens than people are used to today,” says Annison. “We asked our shareholders, ‘If you could step back in time to interview William Shakespeare, what would you want to ask him?' and used a lot of their questions. We don't just have Stan talking about his days at Marvel creating Spider-Man, we also have him talking about the day he met the love of his life, how he narrowly avoided going to the front lines in World War II, and telling us about the worst day of his life, and how he got through it.” Stan Lee[Photos: Adam Kent, courtesy of Legion M] Next Steps Legion M hopes to find producing partners to do more Icons interviews, given the expense. Even though VR Playhouse provided below-market rates, and some the 25 crew members volunteered, the 12-hour shoot still cost $40,000 with post-production expected to run upwards of $120,000. So far, Pacific Rim and Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro has agreed to do an episode, and the company has routes to Stephen Hawking and Barack Obama. “Once we've seen the results with Stan, what worked and what didn't, we'll be better able to talk,” says Annison. “But our goal is to find partners go to the next level, because we're a relatively small company.” Ultimately, Legion M and VR Playhouse envision a valuable library of interviews that can exist on current VR and traditional platforms, but keep pace as projection methods advance. “Part of what's compelling us to do this is that we have so many icons who are leaving,” says Scanlan. “2016 was a traumatic year. We lost a lot of celebrities and icons we didn't expect to lose, and we want to capture these moments as soon as possible to have these lasting memories.” http://bit.ly/2oalQW3

[benwilkinsonfutureworks-blog]

Graffiti

Concept Art in video games has become boring, repetitive and stale; argue for and against.

Not all concept artists get their initial ideas the same way. Some concept artists get their ideas from everyday life, some from experiences they have had themselves and sometimes something that can be seen as dull and uninteresting can be fascinating for another.

Nathan Aardvark concept artist, illustrator is also a graffiti artist. Growing up in the Liverpool suburb, he became obsessed with both drawing and computer games. He gets his inspiration from public places such as stations and airports and needs to work fast to capture the atmosphere. His motto “variety is the spice of life”  helps to keep his work fresh and diverse.  looking at his graffiti art and his concept art for comics you can see the emotions and powerfulness of what he is trying to convey.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/11350107/Nathan-Aardvark)

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/NathanAardvark/view

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/NathanAardvark/all/310

He uses his graffiti artwork to express a political statement with his hammer and sickle graffiti. As the young girl plays and tosses the sickle and hammer into the air is showing how fragile the political state is if she drops it.  The two moods that go along with each other such as the playfulness and happiness of the young girl but the seriousness of the situation in my opinion show a deeper meaning than originally first saw.  With this piece of graffiti art it is very subjective whereas with his concept art it cannot be quite as complicated.  The image that is portrayed in a piece of artwork particularly for a game or comic needs to be clear cut and be able to represent the image that it was required for.  I believe this could be one of the reasons why concept art has become stale and even boring to a point.  I don’t feel there is enough freedom of creation for the artist if he is working towards a brief.

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/NathanAardvark/all/154

Graffiti art originated in the late 1960’s in Philadelphia and then more so in New York in 1970 in the subways.  Although it is looked upon disfavour ably and as an act of vandalism many think graffiti is a way of freedom of speech, can be to relay a political message or as a form of celebrity status.  It can be a means to express opinions without the fear of being punished or retaliated upon.  Graffiti is illegal and the thrill of this together with the defacement of public spaces gives the act an even more appealing status. 

Deciding to push the boundaries and create a new concept in the gaming world was Marc Ecko a streetwear designer was inspired by his love of street art so much he created a video game called Getting Up.  Because of his lack of experience in the gaming world it was expected to become a failure. Marc Ecko used his experience from the urban setting and enlisted 65 legendary graffiti artists to lend their artwork and tags to appear in the game, and also with the hip hop sounds and the PS2 controls to use to spray graffiti to make his game received favourably reviews. To name a few of the famous artists were Shepard Fairey (OBEY) and Cope 2. The artists act as mentors to the in game characters giving a “true and authentic interpretation of the writer’s lifestyle” (“In order to provide players with a true and authentic interpretation of Writer’s lifestyle, we have gathered some of the most acclaimed artists from all over the world to participate in this project," said Marc Ecko, Executive

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Eck%C5%8D's_Getting_Up:_Contents_Under_Pressure#/media/File:Getting_Up.jpg

As quoted on gamesradar.com “So it’s a shocker that Getting Up not only does its “street” atmosphere up right, but actually puts together a competent beat-‘em-up/graffiti experience”  IGN Rating Good 7.0

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atari-and-marc-ecko-secure-more-than-65-legendary-graffiti-writers-for-marc-eckos-getting-up-contents-under-pressure-54523962.html

Another game that relates to graffiti art is Jet Set Radio.  Developed by Sega and released in 2000 its about youths rollerblading and spraying graffiti.  Well known graffiti artists were involved again in the production such as K Chap, Edge and Eric Haze produced the logo and other concepts in the game.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=jet+set+radio+concept&client=firefox-b-ab&biw=1600&bih=841&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW5aLekM_RAhXBJ8AKHagcBbYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=tATw84iMXnGTCM%3A

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=jet+set+radio+game&view=detailv2&&id=A503966BA784DFE8DCEF2B8E80EE1C8D660E935B&selectedIndex=22&ccid=ZbxgK6Nt&simid=608017987174008441&thid=OIP.M65bc602ba36dcdf17cc231e55716af8ao0&ajaxhist=0

This is how some concept artists are looking for extra material to create a new trend in their artwork and therefore reaching the public in the video gaming world.  The link with graffiti art being slightly out of bounds has helped to create an almost no go area. In my opinion to make an interesting piece of concept art you needed to push those boundaries. However once the initial outcry those things are accepted it is seen as boring and all done before.  Then something new will come along to push the boundaries again.

It is important for concept artists to keep up to date when producing new images.  Concept artist Robert Sammelin for games such as the Battlefield franchise keep ahead of the game with up to date the army uniforms, wartime vehicles and wartime exploits.  At one time war games were new and exciting but generally over the years they have become more and more accepted particularly in the franchises like Battlefield and Call of Duty. Keeping to the original concept, in some respects are a good thing for the avid fans and this is the thing that attracts a player again and again to the game they follow.

http://escapethelevel.com/art/art-battlefield-3-74/

The  familiar way of portraying characters and the concept art that goes with them seem to be limited in their use of art style for example cell art, 2d and 3d to name a few. A lot of graffiti seem to stem from the cell art style. This can be seen with Fafi the street artist extraordinaire.  She likes to include in her creations a very powerful side of womanhood.  You can see in her artwork the block colours and the female posing are very alike in the way they have been structured. The similarities can be seen with concept artist Sergi Brosa from Barcelona work who also uses vibrantly coloured illustrations, often depicting fashion and shows very clean line art and a very cell shaded style in her compositions.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/10-concept-artists-who-should-be-working-on-their-own-m-1530717946

http://www.acityspeaks.com/fafi-the-urban-artist-of-paris/

  However, some concept artwork is reworking old concepts. New and exciting retakes of games and artwork are becoming more popular such as Sword and Sworcery.  With the new technology coming to the forefront we now find ourselves re awakening old style pixel art games and revamping them to create something slightly different. This said, graffiti artists such as Invader are also taking on the pixelated old time games such as Space Invaders. French urban artist, born in 1969 uses Invader composes much of his graffiti art on the 1978 arcade game Space Invaders.  Like many graffiti artist their identity remain anonymous but become famous through their tag. His very recognisable work is visible in over 65 cities.  

 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=swords+and+sworchery&view=detailv2&&id=9DA5EC3D96E9AB2BCFD8E98C18AD4F51FDCBC6E9&selectedIndex=1&ccid=cC7KVApP&simid=608005162399172910&thid=OIP.M702eca540a4fe197975abd911024f90fo0&ajaxhist=0

http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/photos/space_invaders_tile.jpghttp://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Pac-Man-Invader.jpg

Looking at the different links between graffiti and the gaming world it could be said that both want to live in a third person and to spread their name by bombing down town or using a tag when playing an online game.  In both respects they hide the identity of the person involved giving them a new life to explore with no fear of being exposed.  Examples such as Shepard Fairey and his sticker Obey representing Andre the Giant has a Posse became well so well known that the initial shock of the graffiti has been overlooked and the notoriety taken over. In the gaming world this has happened with Black Ops and Call of Duty franchise. Clans have been formed with a number of online players competing to be the best and to join the ultimate clan Phase, Optix. Also single players have made a name for themselves using their unique tags such as Nadeshot. Nadeshot is known as a professional Call of Duty Player and although now his real identity is known to some he has a net worth of $2,000,000 (http://www.thesquander.com/competitive-gaming-salaries-worth/).

On retrospect concept artist are doing all they can to keep their art work anything but boring.  Keeping up to date with fashions and fads it detriment and also keeping up to date with the technologies. Also with the development of virtual reality headsets there is a chance for new concept artists to come into their own once again to produce some new inspiring artwork.

Websites:

https://www.behance.net/gallery/11350107/Nathan-Aardvark) helps to keep his work fresh and diverse.

http://www.illustrationweb.com/artists/NathanAardvark/view

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Eck%C5%8D's_Getting_Up:_Contents_Under_Pressure#/media/File:Getting_Up.jpg

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atari-and-marc-ecko-secure-more-than-65-legendary-graffiti-writers-for-marc-eckos-getting-up-contents-under-pressure-54523962.html)

http://io9.gizmodo.com/10-concept-artists-who-should-be-working-on-their-own-m-1530717946

http://www.acityspeaks.com/fafi-the-urban-artist-of-paris/

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=swords+and+sworchery&view=detailv2&&id=9DA5EC3D96E9AB2BCFD8E98C18AD4F51FDCBC6E9&selectedIndex=1&ccid=cC7KVApP&simid=608005162399172910&thid=OIP.M702eca540a4fe197975abd911024f90fo0&ajaxhist=0

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=jet+set+radio+concept&client=firefox-b-ab&biw=1600&bih=841&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW5aLekM_RAhXBJ8AKHagcBbYQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=tATw84iMXnGTCM%3A

http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/photos/space_invaders_tile.jpghttp://d2jv9003bew7ag.cloudfront.net/uploads/Pac-Man-Invader.jpg

(http://www.thesquander.com/competitive-gaming-salaries-worth/).

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=jet+set+radio+game&view=detailv2&&id=A503966BA784DFE8DCEF2B8E80EE1C8D660E935B&selectedIndex=22&ccid=ZbxgK6Nt&simid=608017987174008441&thid=OIP.M65bc602ba36dcdf17cc231e55716af8ao0&ajaxhist=0

[profitive]

How Drone Software Process Data

When it comes to the newest gadget in the market there is no denial that drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, top the list. They first attracted the attention of people at large when the US army used it for targeted operations to tackle terrorism. Drones proved very useful in searching terrorist camps and destroying them. The main advantage of using drones in the battlefield is that they do not carry a pilot. they are totally unmanned and thus there is no loss of life during the battle if the drone gets shot down by the enemy. However, it is not only the military that uses drones for their benefit nowadays. Even the common man is benefitting from the use of drones as they are being used in many other fields, such as housing, agriculture and photography

Housing: The housing industry relies on the inspection of house before it can be bought or sold. This inspection can be carried out by the drone without having anyone to risk their life for the inspection.

Agriculture: Today, the big farmers need to keep a constant vigil over their land crops. If it has to be done by a human, it will take several to get the job done but with a drone this job has become very easy. A drone can send you picture from the site that can be processed later on. Some drones that can even send you live photos and videos of your farm.

Photography: At present, this is the field where the use of drones is being made the most. The drones come with high grade cameras and additional stabilization techniques to capture unmatched photos and videos. Many photographers have used this technique to master the art of photography and many people have used these photographers to make their precious moments last forever.

How Drone Software Processes Data.

Data Drone software is evolving with each and every passing day. The software has been designed with such sophistication that today the drone is able to do many things automatically. Drones are becoming more and more automated as they can carry our functions on their own such as:

Selecting the good shots.

Editing for a better picture.

Taking numerous shots.

Stabilizing in air.

Sending aerial photos and videos through online streaming.

This requires a great level of engineering and intrigues a person about how drone software processes the data. This question is of great importance as it enables you to better understand the functioning and thus bring out more from your drone. For the fully automated drone the processing of data takes place in three steps:

Plan

fly

Process

Plan: You will need to first plan out the area you'll be flying over. Once you select the area that is to be covered the drone calculates which path to acquire to complete the job faster. It helps the drone to design a flight path for the flight.

Fly: When the drone is in flight it does the work of capturing the right kind of photos for you. Not only this, the drone is also capable of geo-tagging the photos, so that you may know which phot belongs to which area. You may be surprised how the technology has advanced as the takeoff and landing both become automated in newer model drones. This has been possible due to inbuilt features like "return to land".

Process: Processing invloves stitching the photos together. The stitching must be done in a precise and crisp manner. The pixel size will depend on the height from which the photo was taken but most desirable size of the photographs is the high resolution map with one cm per pixel.

The Result

The result of having advanced software guiding you drone is better images and more accurate data. There are drones that can take 2D as well as 3D images and can do the mapping accordingly. In the 3D movie, you will get all the way points that have just made the drone technology a revolutionary one.

The full automated workflow from the beginning till the end will include the flight, the photography, the tagging and the processing after the photos have been taken. The flights can be repeated and compared to overlay data over time.

The images are the data that is to be worked upon. So, the better the images are, the better the data. Therefore, it is important that the camera that is used is of good quality and allows for high resolution imaging. There are many software programs advanced enough to help you get the most out of your drone. You may be a farmer or a photographer or a real estate dealer. If you have drones at your dispense then you will be able to move ahead of your competitors.

Visit www.profitive.com for more

[littlemistermedly]

........Welp, I may just sell my soul over to an Astarion Plushie, Y'all.....

Are you Astarion-obsessed and want to lovingly squooze him in the physical form (with his consent)??

Plush Wonderland is running a poll to see how much support there would be for them to make an Astarion plush! If you know their work, their plushies are very cute, so please consider placing a $5 deposit so the poll can succeed! There are also polls for the other companions as well :)

Also, by making a deposit, you can get $10 off of the plush during presale if there's enough support and a refund if the poll doesn't succeed, so there isn't much loss and a LOT of gain (hopefully the cutest Astarion plushie to ever exist). I am not sponsored or anything, I just haven't seen anyone talking about this!

I just need to do this to him so bad (affectionately)!