Unit 11
CV
Portfolio Boards
Experience
From my experience on the course I have developed a range of skills from varying software including 3DS Max for modelling assets and Mudbox for creating characters. I have also further developed my drawing both digitally and traditionally to create concept art for my projects. Other software I have developed further skills for include Photoshop, Premier Pro and After Effects for editing and creating work which can be seen through my portfolio.
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During my time on the course I have taken part in some work experience from an old brief which gave the class the task of developing something like a loot box or normal chest based on the images provided how they wanted in to look. This experience helped me learn quicker ways to accomplish things in 3Ds max to get the effects I wanted and helped me to learn the effect of modifiers new to me.
Researching HE Options
Outline of your chosen discipline
When leaving College, I hope to join a course in HE for game development like the current college course where it covers a range of different subjects such as modelling objects and characters, level design using UE4/Unity and concept art etc. I am still looking at a range of Universities and will be attending the open day for UWE which is local to me on November 16th.
Research into potential progression routes
I’m personally not considering any apprenticeships as I think it would be very hard to get one in the games industry as either there are very few or none exist especially in the UK. Considering if there was a great apprenticeship offer for games, I would much rather still go to University for other reasons the main one being I think a BA Degree would be worth more and if possible, even an MA Degree after that.
Universities I am considering are as follows: -
UWE Bristol – Visiting Open Day Nov 16th
https://courses.uwe.ac.uk/G61F/games-technology-with-foundation-year
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UWE has a few options for game courses but the one I’ll be visiting is the games technology course. The course covers using engines like Unity and Unreal Engine to develop games for various platforms. They have also partnered with PlayStation First which allows students to use official PlayStation development kits. Another reason why I’m considering this one is because it’s still local from home and even though I would want to move out to the University residence I could still easily get support from my parents if I would need any.
Gloucester University – Visiting December/January
https://www.glos.ac.uk/courses/undergraduate/cgs/pages/computer-games-design-bsc-hons.aspx
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The game design course at Gloucester include graphics, animation, 3D modelling, game play, programming, audio and video, interactive design, psychology, multiplayer and collaborative working and networks. Gloucester is also a PlayStation like UWE and allows access to their developer kits. Gloucester is a bit further away than UWE but is still close enough for my parents to support every now and then compared to some of the others I’m considering and plan to visit.
Staffordshire University – Plan to Visit
https://www.staffs.ac.uk/course/computer-games-design-bsc
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Staffordshire has many game courses to look at and choose from such as Computer Games Programming, Game Art and Computer Games Development etc. The one I’m most interested in currently would be Computer Games Design which covers a variety of subjects from both creative and technical aspects in game design. They offer a Hi-tech motion capture studio and have partnerships with Sony, Vive, Oculus and more. This University is too far to get any easy support from home but has many partners from developers in the industry and features a wide range of courses and high-tech modern software to develop skills with.
University Arts London – Plan to Visit
UAL is one of my picks as our current course is based on them and so it would be a similar experience to the current course but at a higher level. This means that it would cover a large range of game design form concept art, modelling, animation and a lot of theory work. The biggest issue with going to this University is that it’s in London so it would be expensive to live there. The other issue would be that I would be far from home and it could get expensive to travel to Bristol on the train too often to visit
Gloucester University - Benefits of HE
Gloucester University came to talk to us about life at University and different ways to go about your experience such as what type of residence you might want to live at, Sport activities and different courses. They went into more detail about Gloucester University itself and talked about the different campuses and the available residence, local towns and shops local to each campuses. Finally, they went into talking about what makes having a degree from University a lot better instead of just looking for a job straight after college.
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Gloucester is one of the few Universities I was going to go visit on an open day and was already part of my HE research before when they came to talk to us. After they talked to us I definitely felt more interested in visiting on an open day even though I was already planning on it.
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SWOT Analysis
Strengths
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I have built up a range of relevant skills over my recent college education all of which I believe have contributed to my passion and desire to take this to the next stage of my career. These would include possessing knowledge of a variety of programs from the Autodesk and Adobe packages being 3DS Max where I developed three isometric rooms based on an RPG theme. I also used a combination of Premier Pro, After Affects and Photoshop to develop a mission brief cutscene which could be used at the start of a quest in a space exploration game and more recently I’ve begun using Substance Painter to give my models realistic textures. Within Blender I have developed animations for a Dog, Cat and Humanoid for a group project I’m working on and learned how to make them run at 60fps.
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Weaknesses
From my final project last year I ran out of time before I was able to add any of the interactivity elements to it only managing to finish the development of the environment and website content. This is because even though it didn't feel like it at the time it was too broad of an idea for the time I had to divide between all the work.
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I've gotten better at focusing on work but I do still get distracted occasionally by things like social media, gaming with friends and watching Youtube. Having a laptop now has helped with this since a lot since I can easily work anywhere I want when I don't have anything else to do.
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Opportunities
From completing this course with the skillset I posses my main opportunity will be applying for University Courses which interest me. However this may not be the only opportunity as apprenticeships could allow me to gain a degree and get experience in the industry though not many exist for the games industry and I would rather go to University anyway.
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Threats
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One possible threat that could stop me from achieving my goals would be software and hardware issues for rendering, editing and uploading work to my Wix site for evidence which even once fixed the issues could cause delays enough to miss deadlines when on a time limit to submit work.
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Another threat could include not knowing how to do something and have to spend time researching or asking someone for assistance who may also not know or have their own work to do to submit before a deadline.
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Career Plan Updated
Once I finish my college course and apply to go to University I hope to gain more advanced techniques and skills in the programs I enjoy using I also want to continue to improve my drawing for game art when developing concepts and ideas. While at University I hope to find some work experience which is why I'm applying to game courses which have a sandwich year in the middle of them. Once I leave University, I would hope to gain a job working for any studio possibly the same place I did work experience at and gain more experience in the industry. After some time I would like to work for a triple A studio such as Nintendo, Rockstar, Blizzard, Ubisoft, Ea etc... Finally, I would like to eventually get the chance to create my own indie studio with a team of people I may have met during my career.
Show reel Analysis
The beginning of this showreel has a very simple but professional logo to introduce himself. Transitions between clips of the showreel are smooth and don't feel like random jump cuts. The work shown is polished and the video displays clear labels for what platform you can play the games on. The video moves at a nice pace to display his work on games he was involved in and models he has made himself. Finally, the chosen music feels appropriate and is what makes the pace and timing between transitions feel relaxed.
The intro to the video felt like it was going to be retro based games showreel but it transitions to unrelated genres and styles in what I felt was an unprofessional way. Despite this, I still enjoyed the look of a few of the games shown, however, it would occasionally take too long showing off one particular game without transitioning to another. Lastly, I feel like the music could have been better as it didn't feel appropriate for many of the games or events happening in the games being shown.
The video starts off with a very eye catching high detail animation of a Lizard in the dessert. with appropriate electronic music as it transitions into showing off high detail 3D models. I felt from this intro it was going to be a professional showreel. As it began showing various models breaking them down from finished and textured to the starting low poly mesh as well as showing the concept art, texture maps and texture unwraps to get the full scope of detail from each model. There was a good variety of different models from buildings, weapons, people, robots and animals. It was going a a good pace and I felt that I could take each model in fully.
Course Show reel
This is the course show reel I edited together using basic cutting and transitions techniques. The music was provided for us as a list and we picked which one we wanted to use. I feel like it could be edited better with the music and possibly different music. To accomplish this in my own personal show reel I will choose music I wish to use myself from my own search. I also wanted to use some other editing techniques but I took this as more of a basic test show reel so I never used them. I will however, use these skills for my own personal show reel.
Personal Show reel
Art Station Portfolio : -
https://zargorth.artstation.com/