There’s still some life around these parts, don’t worry, I’ve not abandoned you yet..
This past year has flown by. I honestly cannot believe I’m half way through the second year of my degree already – it still feels like early days. How’s it been? Well, on the one hand I’ve met some really cool people on my course and had a great time (mostly) staying in uni accommodation for the first year. I’ll stick with aliases as usual: Elite, Habboi, Twin Pistols, CrowbarSka, Remi, and you who has no nickname yet afaik?! It’s been great. I said in my uni application that I was looking forward to discussing games with other gaming enthusiasts, and for the most part that’s been the most interesting (and enlightening) aspect of the whole experience.
Academically speaking, it’s been a mixed bag. While I really enjoyed the Creative Writing module in the first semester of the first year, the second semester’s The Writer’s Voice left me feeling pretty frustrated and disappointed with my writing, although I think I did write some of my best pieces so far. This years module Story and Myth was better, but I didn’t find the approach very helpful: writing a part of a story every week meant I had more ideas than I knew what to do with. I think I got a decent story out of it in the end though, but it’s very different from my original synopsis. I’m still not sure where I’m going with my writing. I still like writing, but I’m not a writer. I don’t live and breathe writing. But I do have ideas and, to be honest, at the moment it feels like writing in some form as a career is a lot more attainable than any hands on creation of games (coding/graphics/design etc).
This brings me to the other focus of this year’s modules: 3d graphics. I’d been really looking forward to this module. I LOVE 3D graphics and animation. I was really looking forward to sitting down and learning 3D modelling in a structured environment, rather than the dabbling I’d been doing over the last few years. It wasn’t quite what I expected really.
The lectures were pretty good with (mostly) straightforward explanations of 3D Studio Max. But I found that it wasn’t such a hands on module like the Java or Pascal modules I’ve studied in the past. The support didn’t really seem to be there in the workshops – I mean, the lecturers were there, but it was kind of a case of following the tutorial online and then they’d come around and rip your attempts to shreds. I also got the feeling that some of our tutors hadn’t used Max before (one of them said she hadn’t). In one of the last lectures, they actually said there weren’t any good tutorials for UV Mapping in Max online (there are, if you look around!), so they’d written a tutorial. Problem was, the tutorial was very basic and, in the limited time I had during class to follow it, I just came away more confused and frustrated.
I don’t know. The module was good in some ways. I mean, I think I’m actually at the same level, if not further, in 3DS Max than I was with Lightwave a few years ago. In a lot of ways I don’t like Max compared to Lightwave – the interface leaves a lot to be desired and some of the workflow is so much more simpler in LW. But I think the rigidity of university classes has been beneficial overall. I actually have some original work to show for my efforts now, compared to the odd tutorial render from my workings in LW.
Still, completing assignments in this past semester has kinda felt like a chore and sucked my enthusiasm – at least at the moment – for 3D work. My undoing is my tendency to over complicate things and focus on the details. Ironically, this was rated as a good thing when I was in school(!) The deadline for our second piece of coursework was two days ago. I made it but only just, and in our panic to get my sleep-deprived carcass across London to hand it in, I left all my beautifully detailed planning sketches under the printer. Needless to say I’ve given the Gods an earful and I’m awaiting an email from my tutor to see if he’ll accept the scanned pdf I sent him, but I’m not too hopeful.
Overall, I’m still enjoying the course. On the one hand, it’s not as games focussed as I expected, but also not as games writing focused either. I’m probably one of the few on the course who appreciates the need for a solid grounding in traditional writing classes though, so the lessons I’ve learned so far have been invaluable. However, I still really don’t feel confident about going into the games industry. I just don’t feel employable. I think that’s partly just me, I’ve always been kinda pessimistic about my skills, but also I know I need to do a lot more self-study. To be honest, I’m really not sure what direction I’m heading in and I feel obligated to avoid changing my mind again. Sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who could be happy in a ‘traditional’ job, you know office work or some manual labour. It seems a bit selfish to have have aspirations beyond that. There are people out there who can’t get work, while I can, I just don’t want the work I can get! Anyway, I have a few ‘career ideas’, but I’ll talk about them in another post.
Moving on, the last year also saw me move in with Falling and her family. It’s working out well. I’ve fallen in love with the cats completely now, despite feeling kinda homesick these days. Our relationship with her ‘rents is working out well, they’re pretty understanding considering I don’t think we’ve been pulling our weight as much as we promised, but we’re helping out more now. I like the area round here, despite the long slog down to uni and the office. This year I have to find another job closer to home as the availability of work (and subsequently money) has been so unreliable, and the travel fares are crippling me.
2008 also saw the marriage of my big brother to his beautiful Catalan bride. I’m really made up that things are working out so well for them, what with their house together and everything. The wedding was a memory I’ll cherish for a long time.
There’s not much more I can think of about the last year. My mind’s kinda still dead from all the stress of the last week. Looking to 2009 I plan to get to better grips with my coursework, actually starting the assignments as they’re handed out. I’m having my favourite tutor for one of my modules this year I think so I’m really looking forward to that. Also, one of the modules is meant to focus on developing another game, this time as a team. I’m REALLY looking forward to that, although I will have to get a handle on my time management if I’m going to make an effective contribution to the rest of the team. We’ll be using Director and from some of the stuff they showed us (simple mind), and my own work using Reactor’s physics in the last week, it’s looking really cool. I’m interested in doing an RPG type thing, if only because I’d like to write some dialogue. They suggested running a games story development module (next semester?) including dialogue that sounds really cool – albeit a bit late considering the gorram course is called ‘story development’?!
Anyway, despite the rather pessimistic tone of this post, I am feeling quite cheerful. I’ve got big plans for 2009, quite a few ideas I want to mess around with. I really want to be more creative this year, ploughing my energy into not just coursework but also personal projects, game related or otherwise. I also want to crack on with the design of my website – I got the web space in 2008 but the facelift is long overdue – and incorporating the content I want to see up here.
That’s my lot for now. I’ve got a few projects to mull over for the next few weeks before we go back (Geez I need
a real holiday!) so I’ll let you in on those later. Next weekend we’re in York for Falling’s graduation ceremony and then it’s a long overdue trip home to Scotland=)
January 18th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Sounds like you’re doing fine. I admit I was hoping you had shared your 3D scene with us
Anyway you have to decide now what role you want to fill in the games industry and like me, just work and work and get better.
I was playing Mass Effect the other day and got to this train section. Looked really stylish and had a nice tint of blue.
So I decided to try and model it and see if I can create a sort of side by side train battle for some online game.
Anyway talk to you soon.