Perdy Lights

Wow, week 4 already.

This term has been a strange blend of hectic and relaxed.  While I don't feel any immense pressure at the moment, I also don't feel like I have much- if any- free time.  There's always always always something that needs to be worked on.  Level design, general homework, lighting, modelling.  The only reason I'm writing this blog post is because I'm waiting for lightmass to build in my UDK map (there shall likely be screenshots later this week or the next once it's done.)

This term we've moved into our streams, for Art I have 3d Modelling and Lighting and for Level Design I have Level Design 2 and Environmental Level Design.  Level Design 2 focuses more on the gameplay aspect of level design while Environmental Level Design focuses more on aesthetics and theme.  Both classes mesh really well with the lighting class, where we pick one of our UDK levels and work on some aspect of the lighting, from making sure there's a clear foreground, middleground and background, to guiding the player through the level using lighting, to using colour to set the tone of an area.

Besides streams we all have general classes, from Detailed Design Docs where we create a design document for a game in painstaking detail to User Interface Design where we learn the basics of designing a GUI to Mobile and Handheld where we look at the booming market for things such as iPhone games.

I'm really enjoying lighting especially.  Good lighting can do so much for a level, it blows my mind!  I'm also pretty excited for the next level design assignment, which is to basically create a single player game in UDK.  I think I'm going to go for an Indiana Jones/Tomb Raider type theme.  Jungle, Temple, Artifact, the whole shebang.

Also: Game Design Expo!  Tickets have on on sale and I'll likely be purchasing mine on Thursday.  Will have to take that day off work, but the slight hit to my wallet shall be well worth it.

Well, I think that's enough brain vomit for now.  Though I could swear there's something I am forgetting.... hmm....

Oh yes.

SKYRIM!!
Gah! I want to play it.

Sleeeeeeeep

I am so absoultly tired, I can't believe it.  If my train of thought seems to go crashing off the tracks more than usual in this post, blame it on sleep deprivation.  Ah well, it's good practice for my next 2 terms.

This past weekend my freaky 13 group filmed, my apartment was taken over by lighting equipment and we splattered fake blood all over my kitchen floor, ordered pizza and pulled out a large amount of our own hair trying to figure out how to light in the tiny space that makes up my kitchen and bathroom.  It was great fun, but also very exhausting and frustrating at times.  Now we're into post production, I hope everything turns out nicely :)  But shooting late into the night, then getting up early for work, then heading straight home to continue shooting.... very tiring.  I have some homework I should work on, but right now I think I'm just going to update my homework list, work out my priorities for what I should work on when and hit the hay, give myself one day of rest before jumping back into work.

Today my final project group had a meeting with a member of the game design staff about our game, he was very helpful and nice, and brought in the level design teacher (whose level design sample class I attended at the game design expo) to speak with us a little bit.  He even talked to me a little bit about the scholarships I am applying for and wished me luck.  I also wound up getting a third letter of reference from the program manager of Foundations, I expressed some worry about giving the scholarship committees more than they ask for, as I know they have a lot of applications to go through and I don't want to take up their time, but he told me not to worry about that.  All this just makes me even more determined to find some way to pay my tuition, I will figure something out.

After the talk with the game design staff we headed back to school, popped into the coffee shop and met up with a member of our group who couldn't make it to the meeting, we filled him in on what we had talked about.  After that I wound up spending a good chunk of time sketching out some really rough concept art for a personal project of his, which was quite fun, looks like I don't have to worry anymore about my drawing skills stagnating.

Well, I think I'm going to end this post here, I should probably get some rest, tomorrow will be another busy day.

Game Design!

Well it looks like I'll get my wish for sketching more often, for my final project I'm teaming up with several classmates to make a game, and I'll be doing a large amount of the concept artwork :D

Farewell sleep, I will miss you during the next few months...

Anyhoo, school is crazy busy right now, besides planning out the final project, I am the production manager for my Freaky 13 group (paperwork, paperwork, paperwork) I have to make a short video with my group for Art and Creativity (which will hopefully be filmed this Friday) I have my life drawing project which keeps getting pushed down on my priority list, I have two 3 page scripts of dialogue due for writing that I need to do (also a group thing BTW) as well as my final script for writing, and I also need to work on my elevator pitch for our Final Project class (way down on my priority list as well....)

I also need to figure things out when it comes to the student loan I'm applying for, and the 2 scholarships I'm applying for.  Meep!  Yet more paperwork >.<

I'm really hoping to get the Women in Games scholarship, it would pay my entire tuition for game design, which would be a load off my mind.  But for the scholarships I need to get 2 letters of reference (I asked 2 of my instructors and they both agreed, which I'm really thankful for) do a synopsis for a game I am passionate about making, and write an open letter explaining why I deserve the scholarship.  I've picked which game idea I'm going with, I just need to flesh it out now, and I have a wordpad document full of brain vomit relating to the letter.  I'm really glad I'm in my Final Project and Career Orientations classes right now, because the things they've taught us about industry expectations and making yourself stand out are really helping, I'm trying to take it all to heart and make my open letter the best it can be.

This past weekend I attended the Game Design Expo with a few friends, it was amazing and I'm so glad I got to go.  I was originally only going to attend the free open house on Sunday, however I wound up getting to go to the Industry Speaker Day of Saturday thanks to a friend :D  I missed the first half because I had to work, but the few talks I got to attend were great, they were very informative and fun.  after the talks there was time to meet and talk with other people attending the event, I just wanted to hide though D:  But we wound up meeting a girl who's going to be in our Game Design class for June.  She fit right into our little group and she wound up hanging out with us for the rest of the weekend and giving input into the game we're making for our final.  Turns out she's my competition for the Women in Games scholarship, but that's okay, I hope one of us wins it :)

On Sunday they announced the Women in Games scholarship, we both picked up the forms and asked our questions.  Then we got to sit in on a few classes, we missed out on the flash gaming class, but the other classes we attended were great.  There were prizes, none of which I won, but my friends won things, including several copies of Halo Reach and some angry birds plushies.  I took a ton of notes and we threw ideas around for our game in between classes, we also met up at a Starbucks afterward and discussed it more.

All in all it was a great weekend.  There were also things scheduled on Friday, however I could not attend as I unfortunately had a class.... :(

Well, I think that's about all for this post, so until later :P