Summer Break Update.

I'm almost half way through the summer break now and I've played a few games, done some drawing and messed around in UDK enough so that it doesn't scare me. I have also made some progress in the project that we we're given at the start of the summer, so I can finally show off some of that too! First up I'll go over what I've been playing and share my thoughts on the games.

Dark Souls II

I finally got around to playing Dark Souls II! The first game completely took me by surprise and I fell in love with it, so the sequel had a lot to live up to for me. I personally think the game just misses the mark of the first one but as a game by itself it is still overall fantastic, with the same great combat and exploration.

Wearing a dressing gown I stormed the castle... [1]

I think it's a number of minor details that made Dark Souls II  fall short. While the game can look breath taking (like the above screenshot) there are a few areas that look unsightly. The story this time around was even slower, taking around 30 hours for anything to really pick up, and with some of the areas and bosses feeling like a filler certain moments of the game became a real struggle to push through, not because of difficulty but because I was bored. Despite this, Dark Souls II is still more Dark Souls and that is never a bad thing!

Spec Ops: The Line

I decided to pick Spec Ops up in the Steam Summer Sale after hearing many people praise the story and they weren't wrong! A game that could often look like your average military shooter the story is great, with a superb ending to wrap it all up. Unfortunately the sections in between the story telling are your generic shooter.

To The Moon

Another game I grabbed during the sale due to the internet talk about the game's story. The most interaction you receive with game is exploring the environments in search for items that help you advance the story, so the entire game is basically leaning on the story aspect. Luckily the story was engaging and heart warming with some likable characters, but i can only recommend this game if you can look past the lack of actual gameplay.

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

Ever since Bayonetta I have been a huge fan of Platinum Games, therefore picking up Metal Gear Rising on the cheap was a smart move for me. I am only a few hours in but every boss fight has had me smiling and at times out-right laughing due to how ridiculous they are.  The combat is quick and brutal, but at times can feel button mashey, this doesn't bother me though, the game plays well and is an utter laugh.

The game looks great when caught mid-fight [1]

Drawing

I have spent a large chunk of my summer so far practicing my 2D skills. I've tried to keep a good balance between traditional and digital, studying and creative. Simply drawing for creative purposes is something still quite new to me, which probably sounds wierd.

An area I have been trying to improve upon is my draftsmanship and to help with that I bought a copy of Scott Robertson's How to Draw which spends a huge amount of time simply explaining how to draw in perspective correctly. The drawing below is probably the most interesting thing I've done from the book so far, but I already feel more confident in perspective.

Drawn with help from the book "How to Draw" [2]

Below are 2 drawings from imagination, using reference for the armor on the knights. Playing Dark Souls has had a clear influence on me, as I've been drawing plenty of knights and weird monsters.

The end results after a few hours of practicing drawing armor

An idea popped into my head, maybe a Dark Souls boss?

Along side all the traditional stuff I wanted to seriously increase my digital painting abilities, so I've made sure to spend a few hours a day painting in Photoshop and I think it has worked so far. Progress is slow but I can see small improvement with each painting I do. Below are a selection of paintings I've done.

Virtual plein air

Virtual plein air 

Virtual plein air

William Bougueraeu Master Study [3]

3D

The main summer project had us choose from a list of themes, and the themes were split into 2 categories. One category wanted us to create a character or vehicle set within a small scene, the other was to make an actual playable level with a character. Both of these had the usual resource restrictions.

The list of themes covered everything, from ancient ruins to desert canyons. I picked the abandoned subway theme because as soon as I read it I imagined a Metro 2033/The Last of Us style subway. Looking back I wish I chosen another theme as I already feel like I've done the survival thing to death, but I am really happy with everything I've done with it.

I will go into detail about the entire process once it's all finished but for now I'll just show a few WIP screenshots.

The above shots are very dark but that is because the lighting isn't final yet and there are many props to add to really bring the level to life but hopefully it gives the idea I am aiming for. Below I've added a screenshot with more light to help with viewing. Learning UDK has been really fun because it appears the engine has limitless options when it comes to adding things to make the level stand out, trying to think about how to build the level out of smaller modular pieces has also been interesting.

While I'd love to become a conceptual artist, working as a level builder inside the engine is something else that's interests me, it is like playing with virtual Legos and this is why I've been having fun with figuring out UDK. I without a doubt have a long way to go with both UDK and my 2D work but the longer I spend doing each the more confidence I'm gaining, when the level is complete I will do a more in-depth post about it.

Reference & Notes
[1] Both screenshots taken in-game

[2] How to Draw written by Scott Robertson & Thomas Bertling
[3] William Bouguereau - Moissoneuse Original

Easter Break: Digi-painting & CoD.

I thought I'd do a quick write up of what I've done during the Easter break as I've put some good, quality time into practising digital painting and I think I'm beginning to make progress. I also managed to jump back onto the Xbox One, where I played Call of Duty: Ghosts and... I actually... enjoyed it but more on than later, first the important stuff!

Drawing & Digital Painting

Whenever I have a spare hour I normally just like to grab a pencil and some paper and do some Bridgman studies, below are a couple of sheets that I've done during this holiday. I find something really enjoyable about doing these sort of studies and its a much better way to spend an hour instead of staring at the TV.

During this break I wanted to spend some time just playing with Photoshop as a painting program and that is exactly what I've done. I messed about with the brushes and tried to get a rhythm going while working, and most importantly done it all in colour. To help with all this I watched plenty of Feng Zhu videos.

I thought I'd keep the reference image next to them so you can see what I have been working with. I done all these without any line drawing and jumping straight in with colour, I really threw myself out of my comfort zone. The time limit on these are around 2 hours, but as I improved I wanted to spend more time on them.

I still think my choice of colours can be bolder and I'd also say my values could be pushed in certain areas, as I still feel my painting lack a certain punch.

When I completed the top 2 images of this set I could notice an improvement over the first few I done and because of this I was enthused to do more, so I did!

I still know that these image are far from perfect but if I can keep us this sort of pace and enthusiasm I'm sure I'll reach my ideal skill level. My next step is to begin looking into the old master's, hopefully these will be more beneficial to me than simple photographs.

Xbox One: Updated Impressions

Being back home I managed to play some Xbox One, where I was greeted with huge updated for everything I tried to play. Considering I completed Dead Rising 3 I didn't play that this time but I did play everything else, including Call of Duty *gasps*. The one thing I have missed is the controller, I had completely forgot how nice it feels, anyway, onto the games!

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

I got really into ACIV at Christmas so I was really looking forward to picking it back up again. The whole pirate thing had worn off a little this time around, and the story wasn't really doing much for me either but i was still having fun exploring and swashbuckling. 

Towards the final hours of the game you're given some actual assassinations to do, which felt fantastic, and Ubi try and wrap up the story in some meaningful way which I think was all a bit too late. Kenway (The protagonist) could have been propelled to the levels of Ezio in sense of story arc and the entire pirate-assassination theme could have been overall merged better, as it stands now you're 95% pirate. Despite some small hiccups ACIV is a well made and fun pirate game, I definitely recommend it!

Call of Duty: Ghosts

The Call of Duty franchise has now become so big it has started to collapse in on it self, where playing it will cause groans and the internet will grab pitchforks if you even mention it but I played Ghosts and enjoyed it. I wanted to blow crap up and not think for a few hours, while the ridiculous story plays out in front of me like a Michael Bay movie.

Infinity Ward tried to make the story reach the highs of Call of Duty 4, but sadly they never hit it, as the story's gripping sections came off more funny than emotional. It is also sad that the core gameplay hasn't changed much since I last played a CoD game but the different explosive set pieces made me want to ride the rollercoaster to the end. As I don't have Gold I couldn't try out the multi-player so it's very difficult to recommend Ghosts off the campaign alone but I imagine it's solid, like the campaign, if not feeling very similar to previous entries. 

Forza 5

None of the problems I had when I first played Forza 5 have been fixed unfortunately, the AI still bounces from hilarious to infuriating, the menu flow is ropey and the storefront still seems completely missing. There was however a free new track that Turn 10 have released, which has been slotted nicely into the original single player.

Taken in-game, using the Photomode

As I've played more it is becoming increasingly clear that eventually the game will lead to a grind to be able to compete in every race type due to the pitiful amount of money you are rewarded. Even with the external Forza Rewards system that gives you heaps of cash for basically nothing I probably won't be able to afford all the top tier cars I need. I will play the game for as long as I can, because I am still enjoying the racing, but if a grind becomes clear I'll probably stop, which is a shame.

I'm still waiting for a couple more games to come out on the One to make it feel like a true, next gen console, as it's stuck in that awkward bridging-between-generations stage at the moment. Hopefully this E3 will reveal some killer first-party titles.

Art Direction: A Fighting Man of Mars.

This blog post will cover another critical studies task of looking at art direction. We need to select an image that we like, this could be a piece of art or a screenshot from a game and then we should discuss the image, what we like about it and what we think could be improved.

I've picked one of my favourite pieces by Frank Frazetta, a hugely influential artist for me and arguably the father of high-quality fantasy art. Frazetta has a countless number of great paintings so it is tough to pick a favourite but I went for this one below, a piece painted for the John Carter of Mars series. This image has probably already appeared on my blog more than once but that won't stop me!

Frank Frazetta - A Fighting Man of Mars

Compositionally this piece has been designed for a book cover, like many of Frazetta's paintings, which leads to the figure being centred with large areas around it being left quite plain. This leaves the overall image feeling very stark without any text over it but I think this adds a certain mood to the painting. The whole centralised figure composition for covers has seen a resurgence lately too, below are a few examples with the A Fighting Man of Mars book cover in the top left.

Comparing the images above, just look at the colour differences between the modern game covers and Frazetta's painting. The game art covers are all near enough the same colour, with only the Mass Effect cover having contrast because of the orange sun flare, yet they are still rather safe, probably because they were designed by a board meeting to maximise sales.

Frazetta's painting on the other hand uses a wide range colours subtlety, the greens of the atmosphere, the reds and blues of the mountains and rocks, all of these colours feature within the skin of the characters too, which really helps in placing the figures into the scene.

The form and lighting are in my opinion the two strongest things about this piece, and overall one of Frazetta's strongest areas. The figures are lit with plenty of contrast, especially the male around the head which shrouds him in mystery. The lighting I think resembles a comic book style, yet by keeping the heavy contrast around the figures the attention is kept entirely on them. The actual form of the figures are exaggerated too but it again doesn't distract from the overall image.

I think one of the best things about this painting is the careful balance Frazetta has used to exaggerate certain features, to direct the viewers attention, without making the image wildly unbelievable. Every area has had careful thought placed over it of when to push or when to tone down and this is something I would like to bring over to my art, especially with my use of colour and line quality.

Looking over this painting in more depth has actually been more beneficial than I thought it would be. I've looked at Frazetta's painting many times before but because I have studied this one for a longer period of time I began to notice things I've never seen before. Some things that should be quite obvious, like the warrior is actually wearing leopard skin pants (Who knew?!) or the more subtle, like Frazzeta's use of colour, notably around the skin. I will probably start looking into the old master paintings in more depth as I begin to paint more myself, because this task has shown me that many of subtleties will be missed if you just glance over it and these are the things that can really make your work next level. 

Dota 2.

Aside from posting our work on these blogs we can also use them to discuss what we're playing, reading or watching, what is influencing us really and I've decided to write about Dota 2, a game I've been playing for about 6 months now. If it hasn't been made obvious yet, it will also become clear that I am a bit of a Valve fan-boy, but who can blame me, have you seen the Steam sales?! If someone asked me what Dota was at the start of the year I'd have just shrugged, if asked now I'd reply "Probably one of the best competitive games out on the market."

[1]

The Game

Dota 2 is the sequel to a very popular Warcraft 3 mod called DotA (Defense of the Ancients) and in traditional Valve fashion they hired the creators of the mod to create their own game. The game is completely free to play and is at the moment played on just the one map, but I will look into both of these in more detail later.

The objective of the game is simple, 2 teams of 5 must battle it out to destroy the opposing team's Ancient, or for the uninitiated, the big glowie building sitting in each base. You however can not just assault this building right from the start, you first must take down the enemies tiered defences. At the start of each match you pick a Hero from the ever-growing pool of 105, each with their own set of unique spells and during each game you can buy items to add another layer of choice and strategy.

The Ancients

So that's over 100 Heroes, each of them can synergize with other Heroes, each of them counter different Heroes with the chance to change what items you buy and what skills you build. This makes each game unique, no matter who you chose to play.

One Map to Rule Them All

Like I said earlier Dota 2 is played on mainly one map. There are other maps released on occasion, like currently there's a new game mode and a new map out for the Christmas holidays, but the core game is one map and one map only.

The Dota 2 map, without the team structures [2]

Whenever I tell people the game is played on one map, they always reply with "How do you not get bored?", I always answer by mentioning Counter-Strike and despite being around for almost a decade all people want to do is play de_dust. I feel games don't need 15 maps with another 20 coming in DLC, a hand full of maps that have been thoroughly designed with tactical depth will last much longer and this is exactly what the Dota 2 map has.

The map seems simple at first and the basics can be learned quickly, but hidden all over are paths hidden in the trees, because of player vision too there are even more, smaller, hiding spots that can be used to get out of a sticky situation. This is just a small example of the depth of this map, because once you begin to factor in the effects items and spells can have, the entire thing becomes like a complex chess board.

Free to Play, not Pay to Win
I've never been a big fan of Free to play games, the majority of them are either lacking in polish, feel way too grindy or are simply pay to win. However Dota 2 doesn't contain any of these negatives, as soon as you download the game you're on the same playing-field as everyone else. There's no must-have stat to grind away, no rubbish starting weapons to try and replace and there's certainly no limited-hero pool.

Dota 2 makes its' money from cosmetic items and that's it. If you like a hero enough you can buy items to make it stand out from the rest, or you can buy a fancy courier or maybe just a different HUD skin. None of this is required though, you could play for a year and never need to throw money at the game. The free to play model has been on the up lately in general, with games like Path of Exile also offering a high quality experience with no need to put money in it.

Left: The standard Warlock   Right: Warlock with a cosmetic set

The World has Weight... mostly
The visuals are, for me anyway, one of the biggest highlights in Dota 2. Everything in the game carries a weight, from the simple trees in the forest to each hero, everything feels like it has purpose and it is all textured in a vibrant, painterly style.

Each hero have had some serious design time dedicated to them, each with a unique look and silhouette and when considering how many heroes there are this is quite an achievement! A number of heroes have had multiple redesigns too, while some are currently waiting, but each of them have great personalities and are animated beautifully. When you throw all this into combat with all the spell effects, the game can be quite a sight to behold.

Things can get pretty chaotic during teamfights

The only thing that I can't get on with is the lore. I know in a game like this the lore isn't as important as in say Mass Effect or Skyrim, so I should be happy that Valve have taken the time to try and explain the world and the heroes, but the number of heroes that have just popped out the ground is a bit much. Some of them have stories intertwined with other heroes, which for me adds believability to the world, yet a good number of them have the "mysterious unknown power" thing attached to them and this reduces the credibility.

For Balance
Not wanting this post to become overly biased I thought I'd write down some of things that I think are wrong or just bad, after all, without this I'd be saying Dota 2 is near perfect, when it obviously isn't. The very nature of the game is "snowbally", meaning if one team make enough mistakes the enemy team can push the advantage hard, leaving the other team in a corner for 20 minutes just losing with no hope of coming back, which isn't fun. Add this on top of the inevitable losing streaks and your morale for the game can drop pretty hard.

Being an internet based game the community can have bad members, but I guess this just comes with the hobby. The servers can be a bit wonky at times and while the menus are functional they feel a bit sluggish in places, the option for more player statistics would be great too. Lastly, some of the cosmetic items don't match up to the quality of others, but this is because most of the sets are made by the community. A lot of the things mentioned in this paragraph could all be addressed through patches, which Valve push out at a decent rate.

A festive version of the standard Dota 2 map

I could quite easily double the size of this post discussing things in Dota 2, but I won't, I feel I have covered all the necessary points in what makes this game great and the influences it can pass on. In my future work I hope I can replicate some of the design choices made by Valve, especially in character design, as Dota 2 is a real showcase for fantastic character design work. As for playing the game itself, I'm slowly approaching my 400th game and I can't wait to see what the another 400 have in store for me!

References & Notes

[1]http://www.dvlzgame.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/DotA-21.jpg
[2]http://www.devilesk.com/dota2/images/dota_minimap.jpg
All other images were taken by me, in-game