Wednesday 4 May 2011






Task 12 – Personal review of the first year

Personal review of the first year
At the start of the year I had high hopes and other expectations of my self as I know my abilities I can achieve what is required. Now looking back at my first year at DeMontfort University studying this course has taught me many new skills; I have been able to identify my abilities, strengths and my weaknesses about my self as I have progressed through the course.
At the beginning of the year we went around doing life drawings on the streets, which at the time it was very cold conditions and made things harder too draw. I enjoyed the life drawing on the street because I feel I have been inside a classroom all my life, so drawing outside was a different experience. During the year I have also got a chance to visit very interesting places which I have taken many pictures of also done timed life drawings and found hard to get the hang of. I never new these places existed in Leicester. The timed life drawing made me realise that I will need to practise in this area.
The computer work at the start I found it hard as it was all new to me, however during lectures and some of my free time I kept practising. When I saw that I found the computer work was hard I downlowed 3DS Max on my laptop. The most interesting projects on the computer were the Van and the Gladiator. However on the other hand my mesh flow is at a poor level which is one of my weaknesses and that helps on the bad performance texturing.
If I didn’t struggle a the beginning with the work and family problems as well as the issue drivelling back and forth from Bedworth to Leicester due to accommodation problem and my mothers help I know I would have performed much better.
The Wednesday movie sessions and guest lecturers I enjoyed very much, the reason is because the guest lectures interesting, helpful for the course, eye opening, entertaining which got my attention.
The course was very well planed which included many different activities. The main thing that this course has taught me is to be prepared for next year. To do this I will be focusing more time and attention on my time management and planning as this will defiantly have a positive impact on my performance because I can then be able to meet all my deadlines on time.

Task 6 – Games, previews, reviews, commentary and lies

Games, previews, reviews, commentary and lies
There are many problems which reviewers can come across and face when looking at magazines newspapers, journals and etc... For example when a game company announces that they will be launching a new product or making changes to their existing products and etc... It is straight away made public and the reviews may and will be disappointed or existing on the other hand with what is happening and the new occurrences. Game journalists can only try and do so much to tell all of those game players how the game may be and this can be telling them that the game is, fantastic, the can do such and such things, they can change such things around in the game, they can play online, they can. However on the other hand they can not tell or be able to have much influence on how if the individual player with enjoy any game as different people have their own preferable tastes. For example I may enjoy action fighting game like Black Cops that my friends or brothers may not. When new games are released to the market existing customers wait for hour seven sometimes in the cold and outside camping to be the firsts once to get hold of this new gate or game, even through customers do not know what to expect from the new game.

A famous study which had occurred through observation when journalist Kireon Gillen from the New Games Journalism (NGJ) is that it is essential for journalist when they are investigating about a game to not talk about the game its self but to talk about how they felt when they was using the game them self’s. This is all about the journalists personal experiences which will help players understand why he felt such a way and therefore gives a better image of the game. Talking about what features and thing you can do in a game, players can get hold of this through the booklet that is attached to the game which will go against the fact of having game journalists.

I believe for journalists to engage with the reads an idea would be writing articles as in first person, using testimonials which is very affective and etc... when we look at how journalists are doing some agree that the NGJ is working on the other hand there are writers which will go against and criticise that NGJ is actually maybe but performing as well leading to poor journalism and loss of objectivity so not meeting a journalists needs which may need changes to be mad. On the other hand from a personal view I would have to go against this statement and say that yes NGJ seems to be very effective from what I have read and gathered.

Finally looking at my self and how I feel my writing form is, I believe that I will need to work on my writing which will benefit me in the future, doing so this will then mean that I can value objectivity and or subjectivity.

Task 5 My personal Gaming History

My personal Gaming History
Having two older brothers there was always competition between the three of us when we use to play games as well as who will use the consoles. However this was the excitement of it all as it meant we could play against each other. My gaming history all started back in Portugal when I was around the age of five or six when my father bought our first consoles; Sega Master System II, Sega MegaDrive II and Sega Saturn.

From a young age I wanted to have the latte’s game and consoles that came out which I was able to get and this is when I found my self spending most my time as they became more and more attracted playing. I remember I use to run after school with my brother just to play my games my consoles, most of the time found it hard to get it of my brothers with force. As the years passed by and we got older my older brothers started work so this made it easy for us to buy the games and new consoles that came out. When I was still in Portugal is when my older brother bought us the PlayStation One, which at that time I found it very exiting and spend allot of time playing the games. My favour game that I was playing at the time on the console was Fife as I love playing football I found it a game interesting and something that I could relate. I also use to use my brothers Gameboy 98 which was very big console.

My older brother before he left Portugal to come to England he bought me Sega Dreamcast which I was shearing with my other bother. For the console Sega Dreamcast I had a number of games that my brother would buy for us and the rest of the games I bought with my pocket money that I saved.

As my Christmas present from my older sister she bought me the PlayStation Two which was probably my most memorable moment of my personal gaming history. The reason is because i firstly got told that the PS2 had run out by my sister and i will not be getting this console. With the PS2 my first game that i played was American Football which i enjoyed, however traded the game with my cousin for
Tekken which became one of my favour games. In PS2 i also enjoyed my favour games, Tekken, True crime that was a action game, Mid Club was a car game and Path of Neyo another action game. Playing with my PS2 I have realised that I enjoyed mostly playing fighting games.

When i moved to England all i bought with me was the PS2 and my favour games. After having the PS2 for a few years I then bought Xbox 360. It was when I bought the Xbox 360 that I started online gaming. Online gaming you have a chance to interact with other people all over the world and this is an essential thing for all of those people that spend too much time on their own not socializing. The games I played online were Call of Duty, Fifa 2007 and Gears of War. Due to the fact that my Xbox 360 had the rig of death I trade it on Game station for a PS3 which at the time was a little expensive and had to add extra cost.

Later on when I started collage I bought my self a PSP which was very handy as I could carry it around and play on the bus going to collage. The PSP was portable, had PS2 graphics and I could play one of my favour games on it Mid Night Club.

History cycle of gaming from the 50s to 2000s

History cycle of gaming from 50s to 70s
Technology is a factor which has been changing since it first started and developing new features and upgrading our existing products. Taking the PSPs as an example where it was before and now with the new technology they have produced a touch screen PSPs with new features. Due to the fact that the game history can sometimes be misunderstood research shows that it started around the 1950s that it began. For example now that we are in the 20th centaury the game history has improved dramatically as game artists have developed 3D graphics. It was between the 1950s and 1960s when computer gaming was been ran on universities.
1952:
In 1952 this was when the first graphical computer game a version of Tic-Tac-Toc was programmed by A.S. Douglas and was the first electronic game which was displayed on a cathode ray tube which meant that players would be playing against the machine. However, today players can play online against others members all over the world which has risen competition. The game has been designed to be used playing Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), what this means is that this can also be used to be played today by all of those people that games play a big part in their life’s. Due to the high amount of hours that some children use playing on games it can lead to them having a very poor social life and not interact as much with the outside world.
1958:
Later in the gaming history cycle, 1958 was when the inventor William Higginbotham first created the video game which he called “Tennis for Two”. This game was designed for the use of two players; both players in the game have each a hand control on a Brookhaven Nation Laboratory oscilloscope.
1962:
Later on research shows that during 1962 this was the time when the first ever computer game was developed “Spacewar!” which allowed players to shoot each other, speed up and turn their ships around all with in the game. Spacewar! Was developed by Stephen Russell using a Program Data Processor 1 (PDP1) that was a computer developed around the 1960s, this was a massive computer when compared with our PCs today.
1971:
After S. Russell invented the Spacewar!, it was then when Nolan Bushnell became part of the gaming history. Nolan Bushnell created the next video game called Pong, during the time the gaming development was improving and the game Pong was part of this development as it was a TV based game. Pong was a much liked game and due to this the game was then put in many public places like markets and funfairs like Spacewar! That was another popular by many of the public members. Pong is based on levels this means that when players are doing well the level of the game increases and become more difficult and the players then have limited lives until they lose and are out of the game, the purpose is for competition between players.
1972:
By this stage the game artist and inventor Ralph Baer designed the first commercial video game which customers could actually take with them and play at home the Odyssey this stage shows the game developing where customer are able to play at home with the family.
1976: After that the first video game was produced allowing customers to take it home, it was then four years later that the first programmable game console was developed called Fairchild Video Entertainment System which then later on it was changed to Channel F, however during the 70s Zork was a well known and famous game that by many.


History cycle of gaming from 80s to 90s
1980 – 1984:
During the start of the early 80s the game industry was achieving their aims and expanding in the industry with the most popular games that seemed to be getting many of the public’s attention with the following games; Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Atari 2600. However this all changed, from the 1984 the game industry started declining as the public was not paying much attention to them. This is when the questions pop out, What happen to the game industry, what changed the publics views or was it that their expectations and needs were not meet or satisfied for this decline to occur. The reason behind this decline was that companies had given consumers the chance so that they can own a computer in their home, due to this then they paid less attention to the games and more on the computers.

During the 80s is when the adventure games where been developed like Zork with text adventure and been played in home computers that the companies had helped the consumers get hold of a home computer, which had very poor graphical capabilities and the text adventure had a positive affect on this and proved to be successful.

In 1984 is when the fighting/action games came started and this hits are still very famous and mostly preferred now in 2011. The action/fighting games have had a positive influence in the game industry as it helped them expand the business. Later on in 1987 is when the invents and designers worked together in making further developments so that the games allowed players to make ‘special moves which could only be discovered by experimenting with game controllers.

Later in the fourth generation of consoles in 1989 is when Nintendo released the first ever handheld console the Game Boy. However later on in 1991 is when Nintendo came in with their latest generation of game system that was known as the Super NES. During the 80s and 90s computer games and consuls where not the only thing that the game industry was consorting in, they had also bought in mobile phone gaming when Nokia first installed the Snake game in their phones in 1998.

1977 to 1993: After Spacewar and Pong it was between these two dates when the single player games that the public was paying less attention to as, the multi player games had become highly popular. The cause to this pattern occurring was down to the ID Software which allowed players to connect their PCs playing together which made the games much more interesting as well as real and competitive due to the fact that people was playing against each other. Doom is a violent computer game which includes shooting and has been visited for been influential which is I think is not very healthy for young children as there also have been incidents which have occurred in the news related to violent games. However looking at the market trend violent and shoot games seem to be very popular and sell very well e.g. Black Cops is a shooting game based on war which is very well sold enabling players to also play online with other people from all over the world. It can now be argued that single player games are now dominating and the cause for this is online gaming. Then from 1993 to 2006 was the fifth generation of consoles which started with even better development and graphics.

History cycle of gaming from 2000s
In the late 90s beginning of 2000 this is when Sony became the leader in the video game market in the game industry and by 2006 this is when Sony ended the fifth generation of consoles with the PlayStation Microsoft was developing gaming console while Nintendo had declined and fell way behind. However in the sixth generation the public expectations have risen which has meant that the gaming companies have competition from their competitors as they need to meet their customers requirements and have to make sure that they satisfy their customers needs.

It was in the 2000 when 3D games had made an dramatic increase in the market. But in 2000 was also the time where both consoles and PCs had come with competition. After releasing the PlayStation, Sony then released their second generation with the PlayStation 2, this then made the console one of the best selling at the time.

Microsoft competing with Sony had just released on of the most successful console Xbox in November 2001, due to Microsoft dealing with PCs it meant that Xbox used much PC technology to leverage its internal development. At this point of Xbox release the company Microsoft decided to sell the product at a very low cost just so that they could keep their place as market leaders and made their profits through game development and publishing.

It was in 2004 when Sony release PlayStation Portable (PSP), then in 2007 they updated the PSP and again in 2009 they had a smaller PSP Go and now in 2011 Sony have designed a new PSP with better developments and added features like touch screen, touch response at the back, two analog sticks, 3G, Wi-Fi connection and titles e.g. Call of Duty, Kill Zone, Little Big Planet, Unsharted, Metal Gear Solid. Fans were expecting the NGP2 to be 3D; however Sony announced that this will not be happening because they didn’t want to make the same mistake as they made with PlayStation 3.

However on the other had in 2004 Nintendo introduced Nintendo DS and then like Sony was making updates to their consoles Nintendo made an update in 2006 with the Nintendo DS Lite, then later in 2008 with the Nintendo DSi and in 2009 with the Nintendo DSi XL.

In 2005 Microsoft bought in Xbox 360 and then to keep the competition Sony came with PlayStation 3 in 2006. Both PlayStation and Xbox enabled their players to play online from all over the world this then rose the competition in the game industry. Sony the had Blu-ray and Wi-Fi in PlayStation 3 which increased the costs of the game console in the market, but shortly after PlayStation 3 Nintendo bought in Wii which surprised everyone as it became the ‘fastest selling game console in most of the world’s gaming market’.

In 2010 Microsoft unloved their new Xbox 360 Slim, this was made in a smaller and quitter version of the previous Xbox which also had a 250 GB hard drive and build in 802.11n Wi-Fi, so as time and technology changes we have higher expectations from the game industry.

Monday 10 January 2011

Task 1 – introduction to myself

Introduction to myself
My name is Marco Duarte I am a 3D designer. I was born in Portugal on the 15 November 1990 and came with my mother to visit my older sister which lived in England. During my visit I decide to stay in the UK aiming to focus on studies and hopefully gain a degree aw my opportunities would be garter her then in Portugal.

Previously, before I stared studying Game Art and Design at DeMontford University in Leicester, I studied 3D design National Diploma a 3 year course at Warwickshire College Leamington. By the end of the course I achieved DDD (Distinction, Distinction, Distinction). The course was based on architecture products, vehicles and characters design. During my course I was also involved designing furniture e.g. chairs, design model making exploded and views rendering professional studies computer modelling on both light wave and Google sketch up Photoshop photo editing and developing a professional portfolio ceramics julery making. This was my favourite projects which I enjoyed the most on the course which were; automotive design, game design and furniture design. For my final meager project I choose to design a futuristic environmentally friendly super car. The best features about the car were that it doesn’t just have high top speeds; this car looks like it runs on compressed air something that is very futuristic a bit distant from the present, but that is the future for automotives. The reason for the choice of air instead fuel is obvious as companies fight to find the new recourse that is environmentally friendly.

I choose game art and design for its professionalism, employability and the variety of jobs that it can expand to after graduation. In the three years that I have I aiming for different goals, however my main only goal is to master all techniques possible, due to the fact that I don’t necessary have a dream job, this is because there various of areas which I would like to work in. The Game Art and Design course is the perfect path to professionalism and skill development ready to be used on work industry so far I have been very keen to learn. I can clearly feel the professionalism as we have loads of self develop time is up to you to pressurize your self meeting deadlines taking responsibility as the industry demands.

My aim for the future is to build my on design company with the best designers to attend the different companies design needs. Although I haven’t choose a specific company that will be the beginning of the road that will take me to my dream job one of the company I would like to work for would be Rockstar games on games like the new Gta or the new Midnight club, out side the game virtual world I would like to join a company like Honda or Volkswagen. I also am interested on the movie industry on landscape design futuristic vehicles work on projects, as matrix avatar the remake of time cop my design ambitions extends a lot further as high as possible.

Tuesday, 2 November 2010 Blitz

Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Blitz Krieg
The lecture from Blitz Game Studios by Jolyon Webb and Aaron Allport gave us the right information about the business which is a video game developer found in 1990 by Philip and Andrew Oliver. The information that the two men presented enabled us to gain information on what Blitz Game Studio and other similar business in this field look for in their staff.
The lecture involved talking about skill sets, what the industry and Blitz are looking when employing new staff for example; they want game artists with passion and grip which can bring them innovate. Webb and Allport also spoke about students having a fair chances of being employed compared to another candidate which may have more experience, however on the there hand they also spoke about how the environment artist are more likely to get employed due to the fact that this is a very specialized area and that there are only a few of these workers. During the lecture the two men also showed us what game art is really about?
The work shown was very inspiring and an eye opener to which levels we should be aiming to work towards and the awful work shown which seemed to be lacking imagination and skills. We got shown the drawing of a fox which was just disturbing and funny, it happened to be a professional portfolio work; which I myself and others found it hard to believe. As part of the lecture we also got shown other pictures and videos like; studio picture, 3D animation, manga, girls with a gun and some other images, which was very eye catchy and not disturbing as the fox.