New Aged Software

Recently in my I100 class, we heard a lecture from the game design department of the school. I developed a particular interest in the fact that we have the Unreal Engine at the school. The Unreal Engine is the considered the best graphic engine today and is used in several games like Gears of War, Bioshock, and Unreal Tournament.
I decided to look for other engines that are used for games today. A friend showed me a new engine called the CryEngine3 by a company called Crytec. The graphics are the most amazing form of 3D rendering I have ever seen. I could not believe the amount of graphic output that this engine was capable of. The movements and animations our so smooth and crisp. Better still (at least I believe it is) is that the graphics are realistic in the real world way, and not like the curent concept of realism where everything is brown and grey.
Before seeing this, I thought that the Unreal Engine would be the way of game design for a while. But it looks as though game engines like CryEngine3 are going to be the way of the future.

example of new engine

Escheresque

I had to show a photography piece that I found recently.

Escheresque_by_alexiuss.jpg

The photo alone was enough to blow me away. It's the kind of work I'd expect from an artist like this. At first I thought this was photoshop work. Surely something this cool couldn't exist on real life. 

I was dead wrong. I did a little research and found that this is an actual staircase in Split Croatia. An artist modeled the staircase for a palace in tribute to M.C. Escher, the famous illusion sketch artist. 

It just amazes me that things like this actually exist in the world. People are willing to make the strangest designs in art and architecture to honor people like him.    

development of game design

Everyone knows that with all forms of design, the period of time determines the current trend. I wanted to study how the trend of game design has changed over the years. 

With the older systems, like the PS1 and the 64, colorful platformers (jumping games) were popular, like Donkey Kong, Mario, Spryo, and Crash Bandicoot. The Last Generation systems, like the PS2 and Xbox, focused on realistic shooting games, like Halo and GTA. 

The funny thing is for the modern systems like the 360 and the PS3, the concept of realism has changed completely. Instead of realistic, natural colors, developers almost always seem to use brown, grey, and black as the only major colors. It has more of a gritty feel than a realistic feel in my opinion. I've found that game designers today prefer this gritty, warlike feel for their games that drains out all positive emotions, with games like Gears of War, Halo 3, Call of Duty, and Grand Theft Auto 4. Nothing can be colored. It lacks creativity and has only monotony.  

Adobe TV

I'm pretty new to Adobe products. I only know how to use photoshop that well. I decided that if I was going to get a career in New Media, I had better learn how to use most of these programs. I first tried using youtube as recourse for tutorials.

I found most of the tutorials on youtube we're very well thought out. Most of them were vague and of an amateur quality. These weren't going to help me get any better at designing with these programs. I then tried deviantart for some visual tutorials. These were also very vague, and it didn't help that they were all picture based and had no video demonstration. 

I finally decided to ask around for some tutorial sites. My old art teacher suggested a site called adobe TV as a good recourse for video demonstration. I checked it out and I thought it was the best site i've tried for advice. There's some great tricks they teach, like how to give your photos and old grainy, gritty look, or create realist effects in After Effects.  I would suggest it to anyone wanting to get better at CS4. 

the site is: adobetv.com

If you're reading this, try it! 

3D modeling

In a recent post I mentioned an artist who used 3D modeling and photoshop painting. I searched for what program they used. It was called C4D. It's a rendering program that also allows for texture painting and animation. I also found out it was extremely expensive.

I searched for similar programs that might be a little cheaper. I found two others that were suggested by fellow students; Maya and Blender.

Maya looks like it works just as well as C4D, but unfortunately is just as expensive, being around 4,000 dollars. However, Blender is free. What's better is I found out that after I've made my designs in blender, I can incorporate them into movies, photoshop projects, and game designs. The downside to it is that it looks a lot more dated in it's graphic output than Maya or C4D. But that's what you get for a free program, and it's still a good deal.

The best thing about these programs is that the models can be fully animated. There's no need for extra software. The programmers have tailored it to be an all in one system. Below are examples of C4D and Blender 

blender example

 

C4D example

Cultural/ New Media design integration

I know it's a long time off from last year's Olympics, but after seeing the opening ceremonies in N100, I had to show this particular part here. 

link

To sum up what's happening in the video, this a part of the opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The people on the giant scroll of parchment (which is actually a giant LCD screen) are using their arms and legs like paintbrushes to create a work of art on the screen. Their hands and feet are the brush. 

What I love about this is that this country is willing to assimilate its culture into modern  technologies to create a beautiful design. This also shows how far we have come in New Media designs. People have not forgotten how utilize themselves completely in their work. The combination of dance and painting just creates an amazing design. I was not even aware that this kind of painting technology existed. I learned in one of my New Media classes, however, that this kind of technology has existed for years. Computers were created in the 70s that allowed someone to draw simple designs on the screen of a computer without a mouse. This performance shows how much that form of technology has advanced in the last 3 decades.     

another brilliant artist

My friend suggested I make this post in particular on an online artist named Wen-JR. I decided to take his suggestion, and I'm very glad I did. I had to show this artist's designs.

Wen-JR's account

At first I was stumped at how they were able to make the designs look so detailed and real. I discovered something that shocked me completely. They were three dimensional models painted with photoshop! I had no idea that that was even possible. After I looked in Photoshop's interface, I saw that there is a feature that allows models to imported and edited.

I just believe that the work by this artist is incredible and I have to try this for myself. 

Movies compared to shows

I remember during my N201 class, we discussed the ability for a design of some sort to hold attention for a certain amount of time, like a movie or TV show. We agreed that you don't often sit down and watch several movies at a time, because you don't want to sit through that much.

A friend and I discussed this issue with movies, and learned here that movies really are designed to be watched one at a time. Television shows however (particularly dramas, series, and animes) are designed to keep you coming back. You see a section of something, and it draws you enough to get you to come back. That's how a show is designed.

Personally, I think this better than a movie, which gives you a huge amount of information at once. With a TV program, you get your information in divided sections, which keeps you interested, and wanting to come back. Trying to watch several movies makes you bored. You just don't want to sit there that long. 

Modern gaming

When I was a kid and you got a new game on your computer, you were stuck with what you had. You didn't like it? Too bad. I've discovered that that is not the case today. Today the availability of redesigning a game is so wide. People who have access to PCs can redesign almost any game through mods (modification of software) to tailor a game to what they want. I've never had this ability, so seeing what people can through modding amazes me. I checked around for the most popular modding system today. Out of all my research, I found G-Mod or Gary's Mod to be the most popular.

link

 It takes the ever popular Source gaming engine and allows people to modify any game under this particular engine (Popular titles such as Half-Life, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, and Portal). In my opinion, this is one of the greatest things to happen to gamers since 3-D graphics.

 

Manovich on New Media

I've thought for several years now that the integration of new media into modern design is principle to the advancement of design. I often find great study to the use of New Media in my N100 class. One particular reading disappointed me though. That was the reading on Lev Manovich's studies of Modern Media. Manovich in his studies discovered that America out of the major technology centers of the modern world was one of the last to embrace new media. The Japanese and Europeans were some of the first, according to the reading. This doesn't surprise me, considering that we were always an industrial country before the New Media boom of the late twentieth century, but it disappoints me that we didn't catch in sooner to integrating it into designs and art. As a country that seeks advancement, it's a shame that we came so late in using it for visual interest. I've learned we aren't always the ones to do that.

link to reading:

Manovich reading  

Adobe effects

I always adore people with talent for making special effects. I find a huge amount of different After Effect videos while surfing Youtube. there's a lot of light saber tests and fights, but there's one in particular that i find amazing. 

link

These guys were one of the original fanboys to try the lightsaber fight with After Effects. While there are a million different videos of fights, this one went all out with good effects, camera angles, and great fight poses. I simply find it amazing!

I'm going to to try and make a video myself on After Effects as soon as i figure it out. But I find this program even harder than flash or photoshop. Anyone who can utilize it this well is a brilliant individual.  

EDIT:

I've tried a little bit to work after effects and I can't figure it out. However, a friend told me of some sites that teach after effects tutorials, so I'll see if those help.

The Futurist Manifesto

In my N100 class, we discussed the ideals of the Italian Futurists and the Futurist Manifesto. I decided to do some research on their concept of digital media. At first I was enthusiastic about them. They believed fully in the concept of moving forward and embracing new media technologies and depicted them in their artwork. I then discovered how radical they really are after reading their manifesto. They not only wanted to embrace new technology, but do away with and destroy older forms of media, like painting, museums, and handwritten literature. They said to all to burn museums down, and burn old paintings, forget the past. They even said to abandon all those who are over 40. While I do advocate the use and embrace of new media, I'm not that radical on it. I learned here how radical some people are on this subject.

here's the manifesto, to show how radial the Futurists are!

Futurist Manifesto