A History of Video Games: Part 1 - 1950's - 1970's

Video games are funny aren't they? We've gone through generations without technology, just passing the time doing chores or playing outside, but now we have so many things we can do and so many different gaming consoles and games to play, hard to imagine passing the time without a phone game or something to play in today's society. It's strange, we play them not really gaining anything earning achievements that don't really do anything apart from show how much time you've spent trying to 100% it, and it all started in the 1950's with OXO, not pong which many people are lead to believe.
OXO was a game invented in 1952 by Alexander Douglas at the University of Cambridge to study the interactions between humans and computers. It was an electronic version of the popular game tic-tac-toe. This was a huge deal in the world of technology considering the first computer was the size of a room. Even though this game was invented as more of a study, it lead to other games being made for entertainment reasons. Tennis for two was created in 1958 by William Higinbotham, two people could play this electronic tennis game with separate controllers that connected to an analog computer. So I suppose you could say that this was the first proper video game as it was played for entertainment purposes. However! In 1962 Spacewar! was created, now this was really impressive because with Tennis for Two, it's based on something that you could go outside and play, pretty basic right? But with Spacewar! it's obviously based in space and considering it was one of the first video game, it's pretty impressive. So within 10 years, things are starting to get pretty interesting.

(Spacewar! 1962)

The Endless Obsession

 So these past few weeks have been our architectural project which was pretty exciting, although I must admit I did cock up... After making the bin and working out how UV maps, unwrapping and all that good stuff works, I was quite excited to start on this house. I thought my bin came out pretty well so I was hoping I could make my house look even better, which didn't really go to plan, the modeling was fine, no problems there, well, sort of, but anyway texturing is not my friend.

At the start of this projects I knew that my visual design work had to be in so I prioritized it to make sure it was getting done, then obviously I go and get ill, anyway I didn't start my house project asap because I was like, 'nah it'll be fine ill do other stuff first'. Nope. I underestimated how long unwrapping and texturing would take, I still managed to do it and get it finished on time but this has really made me realise that I need to sort out my time management, I'm really bad at putting all my effort into one thing and taking it turns rather than trying to do a bit of everything. 

It's not all bad! In a way i'm glad I had to rush this because I realise sooner rather than later what I need to change and improve and leave way more time for texturing! I didn't think my house came out too badly, some of the textures are pretty dodgy but this was still a really fun project to do and it was good being able to play about with material ID's and making the brick textures and what not. But now that this is finished I cannot wait for the next project, trees! I love trees, and it always bugs me in games how the trees look crap half the time, I know they can't be super detailed or anything buuuuut, I do love a good tree. Since I realised that game art is what I wanted to do, I've thought 'man it would be so cool to be like a tree specialist for games' and I could make super awesome trees that will make people stop and think, 'damn that's good tree' anyway I can dream! Hopefully my next 3D post will be more positive, and I'll get round to posting my computer history post soon.

A 3ds Max journey: Daleks and Wheelie bins

Here it is, the moment I've been waiting for; learning 3ds Max, yay? When I joined this course I joined it thinking that 3D modelling would be my thing and that's what I want to do as a job and it would be amazing. And amazingly i still believe that, hah! This program is very confusing and to begin with I looked at it and wanted to cry, but within a few weeks I've gone from making a simple church out of a few boxes to building and texturing my very first bin. How exciting! Well, maybe not exactly what I thought we would be doing but hey i'm not complaining, it's so fun.
After having a few attempts at modeling a church I started to get a hang of things, until they threw this one in the mixer: "hey now you've made a church, go away and make a Dalek!" ...Urm what? scary at first, and especially seeings as I am not a Dr Who fan myself, but I got there eventually...

Yeah yeah it's not great, when I first did it I couldn't believe it and thought it was the best thing ever, but now i know better and it's just baaaad. But hey it was a first attempt and it helped me learn a lot about the program and how it works and all that technical stuff I now have a much better understanding about. It was a fun little project anyway. Then we got to move on to making a Wheelie bin, and i have to say I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

Yeaaaah look at that sexy bin. The model itself took me a few attempts to make before I was happy with it, but after my 10th attempt, I couldn't help but think, "yeah that's the one" ...but then it came to texturing and oh god I have never been so confused in my life. Luckily we had just started our Guru's and Grasshoppers sessions and one of the third years some how managed to explain what kinda thing I was supposed to be doing, so I just went for it and amazingly it didn't turn out too bad! I have to say I was quite proud of this, now on to modelling a house, oh god. 

Now that I have a taste for 3D modelling and knowing how much of a pain it can be, it's pretty safe to say it's still the rout I would love to go down for my dream job. Lame, I know.

The joys of drawing naked people

I have to say, I never ever used to think about life drawing or anything of the kind before I started the foundation year, but at the end of the year I found myself loving it. I now understand the importance of proportion and learning new drawing techniques. Even after doing this for over a year, the idea of drawing naked people for a few hours a week is still hilarious to my mum. So anyway, a few weeks into life drawing again for Game Art and i'm still loving it and I love the fact that I still have the same two life drawing models as last year too. One of my favorite parts about life drawing is the warming up drawings that we do, and my absolute favorite part is in fact the blind drawings!

Aren't they great! Reminds me a bit of Picasso. One of the reasons why i love doing these so much is because it's a great way of getting the feeling of the pose and proportion without having to worry about if it looks good or not. It's the same with drawing with the opposite hand, who cares if it looks good it's fun and helps to warm up to a proper drawing. 

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the most amazing person at drawing and it takes me a really long time to finish anything, just for me to realise it's all wrong, but hey, what would be the point in doing this course if I was perfect at everything? I'm looking forward to another 3 years of life drawing so I can gradually improve on my drawing skill!

(p.s sorry for the bad quality photos, the scanners in the library are a load of crap)