Book Review: Warm Bodies – Isaac Marion

It's quite unusual for me to read a book, I only read Mortal Engines because of the course and before that I hadn't read a book in about 10 years (not even exaggerating!) My sister recommended this book to me a few weeks ago and when I went to visit her this weekend, I managed to read the whole thing on the 3½ hour journeys between her house in Aberystwyth and my parents house in Stourbridge. So on the front cover it has a teenage couple, the guy is a zombie and the girl isn’t, it looks like really cheesy teen romance trash, especially as it has the caption “who says romance is dead?” by the side of this image. I wasn't very hopeful that this would be a good read, but I was pleasantly surprised – I guess “don't judge a book by it's cover” is very relevant here! (lol)

This offered an alternate view of zombies, normally I dislike zombie things, the films scare me and I cannot stand the games – it's all too real, but this book was comforting and ended up with the zombies actually curing their curses very slowly.

There is an element of romance in the story, but it's not overpoweringly soppy which is good, because I generally hate romantic things. Me and my boyfriend of 5 years don't celebrate Valentines day for example except maybe to take the piss, it's pointless, this is the card I gave him this year:

but I digress. I don't want to put too many spoilers in this review, but I found it very interesting reading through the zombies' point of view. It offered an explanation on why zombies only feed off living humans, and not each other or animals, once they turn into zombies they lose all recollection on who they are. They don't even know their own names, they are just lost and only have primal instincts, they also get visions of the person they are eating's life, so they feel more alive when they are eating as they feel human again for a few seconds. Something I always wondered about zombies is if they were humans that went back to primal instincts, like animals, why weren’t they trying to mate with everything as well? The book also explains this, they are primarily dead so they don't have a proper blood flow, but they do still have urges, resulting in them just standing there naked and staring at each other, as they don't know what to do and even if they did, nothing would happen!

This book has been made into a film apparently, which may explain the characters on the front cover of the book, as no where in the book does it say that the main zombie guy is wearing a hoodie and jeans, he's meant to be in a fitted shirt and tie which is why he cannot guess what he was before he turned into a zombie. I don't think that the film would be as good as the book, I can imagine that the directors would have played more on the teen aspect aiming at the kind of people that enjoy Twilight (I can gladly say I have never read or watched anything to do with Twilight, hearing about the sparkling put me off!)

So all in all, I would recommend this book, it's an easy read and good for people that enjoy post-apocalyptic things, zombies, and interesting stuff, it does have very descriptive violent scenes in places so it's not for the squeamish though!

From generalist to specialist

Generalists are adaptable and can take on more than one job, so are suitable for smaller companies as they don't have to employ as many people. Specialists are very good at one singular thing so are better for bigger companies who have more money to spend on quality. I think that as Game Art students, we should be focussing on being BOTH.

For example after doing 2 years of this course, I have decided I would like to go into 3D environments and props because that is what I enjoy the most. However I will still try and hone my skills in the other aspects of the course, such as concept art, characters and vehicles. I would like to be employable to both big and small game companies and not be too specific and picky when I have job interviews. So as well as having a reasonably good knowledge and creating above average work in concept art, characters and vehicles, I will focus mainly on the 3D environments and props that I want to get a job doing. I have a few projects that I have set myself to do over the summer, that I am quite excited about doing, so this should help with my environmental artist goal!

I went on a website called: www.animationarena.com/video-game-salary.html They had carried out a survey on this website to show the different salaries of each position in the games industry. I thought it was quite interesting so I made a table summarising the results. It's all in dollars, so the wages are probably very different here in England, but I think it paints a good picture of the importance of the different roles.

Job Type	Job Title	Average Starting Salary	Average Salary after 3 Years	Average Salary after 6 Years
Game Programmers	Programmers	$50,000	$66,000	$88,000
	Lead Programmers	$56,000	$83,000	$90,000
Game Artist	Artist	$41,500	$53,300	$66,700
	Lead Artist	$64,000	$67,000	$80,000
Game Animator	Animator	$46,700	$67,000	$75,000
	Lead Animator	$64,000	$67,000	$80,000
Game Designers	Designer	$46,000	$55,600	$70,000
	Lead Designer	$45,000	$54,000	$81,000
Game Producers	Project Lead/Producer	N/A	$62,000	$80,000
	Executive Producer	$50,000	//	$82,000
Quality Assurance	Game Tester	$32,000	//	$50,000
	Lead QA	$40,000	$50,000	$60,000
Game Audio	Sound Designer/Engineer	$50,000	$66,000	$74,000
	Musician/Composer	$55,000	$62,000	$90,000

From what I understand, I am already at a disadvantage in the games industry, and that is because I'm English, I live in England and want a job in England. Apparently us English are the most expensive to employ, so with the world as it is at the moment, the chances of me getting a job over someone in a different country is quite slim unfortunately.

I recently read up on a thing called “outsourcing” which is where a company pays people in poorer countries to do the work, because their wage would be a lot lower so it would save the company money. This idea makes me feel a bit sick actually, not only is it taking advantage of countries in poverty but also England is a dying country anyway, the government has screwed everyone over, and we're not even safe trying to get into an industry where you need a degree and a good range of skills to even be considered. It's absolutely pathetic! :(

A good example of outsourcing is the well known flop of a game Aliens: Colonial Marines which was predominantly outsourced, and contained many glitches, errors, unfinished parts and a terrible storyline. With the only gleam of hope being the online levels which weren’t outsourced.

So at the sole benefit of saving money, some companies are willing to risk unhappy customers and terrible reviews:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2013/02/12/aliens-colonial-marines-360ps3-review

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-02-12-aliens-colonial-marines-review

http://www.xbox360achievements.org/game/aliens-colonial-marines/review/

I think if the companies aren't willing to stop screwing everyone over and taking advantage of cheap labour then it would be worth either working for a smaller company or making your own company with the risk of not even having one of your games published. I'm not sure how my ultimate life dream of becoming a successful member of a games company really fits into this reality.. but I really hope it will! I'm feeling very pessimistic now :/ all I can do is focus on becoming employable by having a good range of skills and have absolute blind luck to get a job!

Interactive Technology

At first, game controllers were very simple, and only consisted of 3 or 4 buttons on a simple pad, or just a joystick, but now there's loads of buttons and analogue sticks etc. The games industry has to keep up to date with it's audiences ever changing needs and wants. Gamers constantly want the latest and most realistic gaming experience to enhance their escapism from reality. This is a little ironic, trying to make it more realistic to be able to escape reality, but that's how it is. One of the current attempts to make games more realistic is having the character move with the player through the medium of controllers (Wii / Playstation Move) and cameras (Xbox Kinect) that sense the players movement. However they haven't brought out any interesting games for this new technology in my opinion, for some reason they have focused it more on children and families, releasing more board game style arcade games which shuns out the proper gamers. I must admit, sometimes I do enjoy playing these brightly coloured mini games, but they get boring very easily.

"Future Controllers"

The consoles themselves have been changed to suite most peoples lives as well, they have been made smaller, sleeker and less noisy, some with the option of changing their colour. 

The Xbox was late starting in the games market, and the first console they released was a big heavy black bulky box with a huge X on the front. It looked very masculine and boring.

Years later the Xbox 360 was released, offering a much nicer thinner design and the ability to play with the console any way up you wanted it, for some reason they only brought out white consoles at this point, possibly to stand out from the other consoles on the market. This console had a removable hard drive in it and memory card slots so that you could store as much game information as you wanted, it also gave the option to take your game saves with you and play on someone else's console. It has 2 USB ports and an Ethernet cable port for connecting to the Internet. There was a lot of problems with the original Xbox 360 though, as a lot of people experienced their console overheating and the “red ring of death”, which meant that there was something wrong with your console and it had given up with life.

A few years later the Xbox 360 Elite was released, which apparently had most of the problems fixed, it included a HDMI cable for better quality visuals, and a much larger hard drive, it was also black like the original Xbox, maybe they realised that most people prefer black as a colour as opposed to white (much easier to keep clean!).

A few more years later, Microsoft released the Xbox Slim, this was a much smaller console, it came with a glossy or matt finish option, it had a built in hard drive, and also built in wireless. It came with 5 USB ports, built in Wifi, and a port for Kinect, the overall console was a lot quieter than the previous models as well. Some people say that this was the console Microsoft wanted to initially release, if they hadn't been rushed to compete with the other console releases.

Soon enough the next generation consoles will be released, most people are excited about this, personally I am not, I am quite happy with my current Xbox and I don't want to have to spend loads of money on a new console so I think it will be quite a few years until I get a new one. Just like with Kinect, I will wait until they've brought out some good games for it first!

The Internet's response to next generation Xbox consoles.
 

Some people are calling it the Xbox 720, I sincerely hope it isn't actually called that, because that name makes no sense and is stupid. :)

Game Engine Comparisons

Stop having fun and get back to work!! D:

Using the right game engine is an important choice when creating a game, different engines offer a selection of options better suited to certain genres and types of games. I will be comparing Unreal Engine, CryEngine, and the GameByro engine.

Firstly the Unreal Engine:

http://www.unrealengine.com/

In my experience this engine is better suited to first-person action / horror games which are overall very dark. The games I have personally played that use Unreal are:

Alice Madness Returns, Army of Two, Batman Arkham City, Borderlands, Destroy All Humans!, Gears of War. A few of these are in my top 20 favourite games, and I have even done reviews on some in the past. So from my experience most of these games are set in dark environments, and offer a creepy edge to the games as (with the exception of Army of Two) there are mutated creatures and nightmarish enemies to fight against. So I would come to the conclusion that the Unreal Engine is better suited for a horror style game. A few more well-known games from that use this engine are:

Bioshock, Tom Clancy games (Splinter Cell, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six), Mass Effect, A lot of Kinect games, and of course Unreal games (Unreal, Tournament, Championship, etc)

Here is an example of some game trailers that use the Unreal Engine:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G9EYw4Wjck
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=up21p1_vTbI
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8lngIFXRi4

Secondly CryEngine:

http://www.crytek.com/

I have never actually played any games that use the CryEngine, because they tend to be mainly army themed first-person-shooter games, which don't really interest me. But an example of some of the games that use this engine are: the Far Cry games, the Crysis games, Sniper: ghost warrior, Warface, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, MechWarrior Online, Tour Golf Online, God Slayer.

Here are some trailers of the games that use CryEngine:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6gnOVJsCsM
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJDmP2crAlk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L9U1OGv-Ag

Judging from these trailers, games that use CryEngine are mainly first-person-shooter games based outdoors in daytime. So maybe this engine focuses more on natural lighting and movement such as trees blowing in the breeze etc.

Thirdly Gamebyro:

http://www.gamebryo.com/

A few of my favourite games use the Gamebyro engine: Bully: Scholarship Edition, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. These are third person games (with the option of first person for Fallout and Oblivion). There are a few other well-known games that use the GameByro engine such as: Epic Mickey, Ragnarok Online II: Legend of the Second, Catherine.

An example of game trailers that use the GameByro engine:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A86QGOJaQU
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi6A-JxQ7LY
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-__FCLMIao

Technical Shizzlewizzle:

Engine Name	Date Created	Primarily based	Coding/Platforms	Consoles/PC
Unreal Engine	1998	North Carolina, America	C++, Microsoft DirectX 9/10/11, OpenGL, Android, iOS, Adobe Flash Player 11	Windows Vista/7, Linux, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U
CryEngine	1999	Frankfurt, Germany	DirectX 9/10/11, MMO	Windows 7, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii U
GameByro	1997	North Carolina, America	C++, DirectX 9/10/11, OpenGL	Windows, Linux/Mac OS X, GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2/3, Xbox/360

Back to the Grindstone

Although I enjoyed the Christmas break quite a lot, I was excited to get back to uni and see what new projects we have been set. 

When I got back to Leicester, I was greeted by a damp smelling house, mouldy household items and my War of the Worlds WIP model that had completely turned to mushy watery slop with wire poking out. 

:/ Great! 

 ...

 We started the first day back with some life drawing which I thought was great because I really wanted to get the opportunity to do some more life drawing with an actual life model. 

The one minute long sketches that we started off with clearly show that I was out of practice, oh dear! 

Gradually I think I got better, and then for the longer sketches it all came back to me, so I was quite happy with what I ended up with. :)

I'm looking forward to the next project where we will finally be using the book “Mortal Engines” by Philip Reeve as inspiration, we were told to read this during the summer break, which I did, so I'm glad that we're actually doing a project about it now! Might need to flick through the book again just to remind myself of the different characters though.

Anyway, back to work!

 

Documentation

Project outline
I would like to be an environment artist, so I would focus a lot on the environment and props if I was making a game. I like the concept of Luminesca, and indie game on PC, it is about a small plankton trying to escape and survive, the overall style of the game is very cartoony but quite beautiful. The little “planktids” are very cute, and I like how you cannot see much as the player, but you have to swim around blind and use your own bodily glow to light the way. 
I would like quite a natural but fantasy environment for my game, so a lot of trees and mountains and maybe I might use the glowing idea from Luminesca.

An NPC
There will be a main NPC that will give you quests and will be a giant tree, like Harold from Fallout 3, The giant tree from Zelda, and Treant from Dark Cloud.

4500 triangle budget
1x diffuse, specular and normal

A vehicle
Quite beautiful vehicle, a mixute between natural and man-made, pretty like the mounts on Avatar or Majesty 2, but quite sleek and modern.

3500 triangle budget per vehicle
1x512 diffuse, specular and normal per vehicle

An environment
Very larger overgrown plants, glowing mushroom trees, like games such as: Blackreach in Skyrim, Shivering Isles in Oblivion, certain parts of Warcraft 3, The first level in Alice Madness Returns.

As I want to go into environments, this is where my focus will be for the game. The Environment will be very detailed and beautiful

15,000 triangle budget as a whole
1x256 diffuse, specular and normal for each asset


Prop or scenery objects
1500 triangle budget per prop

Level Design

When playing a game, it would get very annoying and confusing if your character kept bumping into invisible barriers and there wasn't an obvious path to take. The level designer places visible obstacles in the way; such as environmental objects like trees and mountains, or man made objects like locked doors, rubbish piles, and buildings.
Level designers create obstacles in the level to prevent the player from entering a door or just to slow them down. In a lot of Lego games (developed by TT games) the levels are very linear as in you cannot move outside of the set path. However the Lord of the Rings Lego game is more free roaming than the previous Lego games released. 

Like all Lego games the Lord of the Rings game is split up into the levels that follow the actual storyline, (although it cuts out more of the story than the films do) and the free roaming level where the player can walk around all of the different towns and locations in their own time to unlock extra collectables and playable characters.

 I chose to talk about the Lord of the Rings Lego game because it is the most recent and also on a much larger scale than the other Lego games. Lego Batman 2 was reasonably big, but Lego Lord of the Rings is bigger. I enjoy playing Lego console games because they tend to break up the serious fighting parts with puzzles and simple humour to calm the players. The levels are unpredictable and have to be played through again with different characters that can be unlocked in later levels.

A good example of bad level design is Beautiful Katamari, the aim of this game is to roll your Katamari (ball) around a room sticking objects to it, the bigger the ball gets, the bigger things you can stick to it. The downside to this is that a lot of the time the katamari gets stuck in between something or just stuck glitching through a wall and you spend most of the time trying to rotate around the katamari to get it unstuck. The game gets very repetitive and quite annoying especially as if your katamari isn’t big enough by the time limit the king will shout at you and say how pathetic you are. :(

(Or maybe I'm just not good at this game)

 

Either way, this GIF describes what a game would be like without good level design:

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Level design is a precise and technical job concerning the players movement through the level. The layout and placement of moveable and unmoveable objects and the over all duration of the level are some of the main things a level designer is concerned about. 

Other key factors in level designing are:
The genre of game.
The number of people the game is intended for. 
Are both teams equally matched?
The difficulty of the level compared to previous and future levels.
The time it takes to complete the level.
The skills that might be required to complete the level.

Once a level designer has been given a brief they can map out the level using basic shapes. Most game engines will easily let level designers great a blueprint of the level without having to start up 3D software. This is so that they can get a rough idea of what works within a level and what doesn't, this is called white-boxing in UDK.