My skillset, and things I'm interested in doing.

I was assigned to write up a short 200 word post about my skill set and what I'm interested in doing. 

I'm not very good at talking about myself and that's why I've struggled with this one a bit. 

To be honest in the future I'd love to be a game level designer, this probably comes from my love of 3D modelling, which is something i really enjoy doing. I pay attention to detail and make sure everything sort of makes sense and has it's place, I think this is because I like what I'm doing and if you do like what you're doing the end product is a lot better than it would usually be, cause you put your 110% into it. 

Since I started my 3D work I've been running around with a camera taking lots of reference photographs of things I like, and collecting all sorts of textures. I think my work looks a lot better when I use my own textures because I don't have to compromise anything and use things I don't like just because I didn't find anything better etc. Also my library grows bigger everyday so there's always something there that I'm happy to use. 

But all this doesn't mean I don't enjoy doing anything else, I really liked the animation brief. Probably because I have all these funny ideas and animation lets me share it with people :') Once again my personality is showing through my work but I can't help it sometimes, I don't see it as a bad thing though, I believe it makes it even slightly better cause it's less dull.
Even though my main aim is to create game levels I think I'll do animations on the side as a kind of hobby etc. Just like I do with photography at the moment.
I think what makes me a good team member is, I am open to suggestions and different ideas, I'm not selfish and I like trying out new techniques cause even if it doesn't work it always teaches you something along the process. Another thing is that, I just get on with people :')

So I think that will be enough about me... c:

Initial Ideas

Themes:

Good vs Evil

Triumph Over Diversity

Death As A Part Of Life

Man Vs Nature

As I said before as soon as I read those themes I started coming up with ideas for each of them, but the Good Vs Evil and Man Vs Nature stood out to me the most.

For Good Vs Evil I was thinking about making it quite funny and do some awesome ninja fight between two things. But I've decided that I need to stop trying to make everything funny and try something else. 

With Man Vs Nature, I immediately thought of doing a video about natural disasters eating the city away. With this I could go two ways, have the video show the event, tsunami, hurricane or an earthquake for example... or just the aftermath of it. 

The other idea I had was to do a sort of, timelapse of a once busy street, being claimed back by the nature. It'd end up looking similar to things like Angor Wat temple, or any other abandoned city, basically a ruin with tree branches breaking through etc. 

I'm not entirely sure which option I'll go for I'll have to think about it and consider how much I am able to do at this point, since it's my first time doing the special effects. I'll look for useful tutorials, planning on experimenting a lot, and pick up some tricks and techniques and hopefully the end product will look how I want it to look : D 

Importance of Sound

So today's session was mainly to make us see how important the sound is. I mean I knew... but I didn't think it's to this extent. 

We watched another Star Wars documentary, just about the sound. And it made me see how much goes into the simplest stuff. And how many different sounds goes into one big effect.

 I must say I love the process of making/recording the sounds. The stuff they use for some of the noises etc is pretty awesome, I would never have guessed. And I suppose that's the point, to make it seem more... real. As stupid as making fictional things sound real sounds :')

To be honest seeing this process does make me want to go out and record my own stuff, just like doing my Game Level before made me walk around and take photographs of textures all the time.
It triggered this thought process where I think of the things I need and how I can imitate the sound, for example if I wanted a sound of a building falling I'd take a few rocks from my parents garden fill a bucket or two with them, and record the sound of them falling on a hard surface etc. 
Can't wait to try it now : D

First brief! Visual Effects And Animation For Film Production

It's been a long summer, but it's time to do some work!

Our first brief seems like a fun one too! 

 We are to create a short, multi shot visual effects sequence. Obviously amongst other things like a breakdown of one of the effects that demonstrates the skills we've gained during this brief, I need to go through the same processes as usual, that is the scripting, sketching, storyboarding experimenting, production and evaluation.
The short film has to clearly portrait one of the themes we were given, those are:
Good vs Evil
Triumph Over Adversity
Death As A Part Of Life
Man vs Nature
Immediately I started coming up with ideas for the Man vs Nature. Simply because I think I can make it really interesting. And I like interesting. And that's obviously if I don't think too big and actually manage to make the things I am thinking of. What I'll have to do is look into other people's work, maybe a few tutorials and see how they tackled similar projects.
What I'll have to do is collect all the ideas in one place, and narrow it down to see what exactly I want to do. 

Summer

Hi all! It's been a long time, and it's probably time to talk about what I've done during this long summer. 

I am ashamed to say that I haven't done half as much as I wanted to!

It's purely because I got a job. It's a good, useful job I suppose, a bit relevant. I started doing interior design which gives me a bit of experience. I like it because it lets me play around with colours to create certain moods etc. Which would come in handy if I ended up doing environments I suppose. On top of that I do actually have to listen to my customers and do what they want, rather than what I like, but still make it awesome, which I think is a good practice for the future. So far I've learned that people like some awful stuff! It kills me to work with furniture, and colours they have chosen sometimes, but hey... life is brutal :') I can't sit there any complain about their awful taste but try and make it all work.

I did play around with maya my plan was to create an abandoned city environment. I did model a few things, I didn't texture them or anything. So it's the very beginning of it... I didn't manage to do it during summer but I will not give up on it, I am planning on doing it bit by bit and have it finished some time soon :')

I have invested in a tiny pocket sketchbook and I carry it everywhere so I can sketch. Hopefully improve my drawing skills c:

I also took my camera out every now and then, I haven't done it in a while so it was good to just start it up again. Photography is one of my hobbies I've had for a good few years but when I started up uni it started to die down a bit. I forgot how much I enjoyed doing it.

All this was very exciting, but the most exciting of all, I think it's safe to say one of the best things I've ever done in my life, the TOUGH MUDDER!

It was such an amazing experience I recommend it to anyone out there. If you haven't heard of it, the Tough Mudder is a 10-12 mile obstacle course designed by the British Special Forces! But the Tough Mudder is not a race, it's a challenge! 

I am very proud of completing this one, I must say I have done things I never thought I'd be able to do without even hesitating, the arctic enema for example. I didn't even feel the cold, till I was just about to hit it and then I think I was in too much of a shock to feel anything when I fell in :') But after being electrocuted, crawled through mud, climbed walls twice the size of me, jumped into a container filled with ice, ran more than ever before, carried a log for a quarter of a mile, carried a fellow mudder for another quarter... I could go on forever... after all this, it was an experience, an achievement and I will be doing this every year!