Final Blog Entry Overall Summary

This is my final entry on this blog and this will be an overall summary of what I have learnt from the module and where I hope to be in the next few months.

Going back to the beggining of the module I remember having a lesson when people shouted out ideas for what we would like to learn or do by the end of this module. I remember some being have the industry come in and criticise our work and other people asking for mock interiews.

I remember thinking If we get all of these things then the module would have being a success because we would have had the oppurtunity to see what the games industry is looking for.

Showreels

The first thing I remember being asked to do for this module was an mock showreel so we knew how to lay them out properly. I remember thinking to myself this shouldnt be too hard, put some models in maya and have them turning on a turn table. How wrong I was, after looking at other people showreels in the industry I knew I had to learn some stuff in udk to have my scene come out really crisp. We were taught how to use dumpmovie which allowed us to render out our scenes in UDK without losing any resoultion. Until a few week ago Turntables were worrying me a little until i started playing with mamroset. There turntables for props are simple and look very good when rendered out properly. Although I dont have a finihsed showreel at the moment I now feel confident about having a proffesional looking showreel for the industry in the next few weeks.

Presentation Sheets

I knew that the way i presented my work was also going to be a big facter in getting a job in the games industry. I knew that i would have to present my sheets in such a nice way for people to appreciate the work that they were looking for. Weirdly enough I was disscusing this with my tutor the other day and he said yor prop sheets are fine but you need them to stand out more. He told me to put some sort off of low oppacity colour or image behind the parts of work I wanted to stand out. This comment has helped me out a lot because over the last few days I have being playing with the props sheets and I am getting better results with the advice my tutor gave me.

Work Recognition

We wernt asked to do this but I have always asked my self what makes my work stand out from everybody elses and what will make the games industry want to hire me. I think that my work shows a variation of different scenes from the grundge environement to the western. Although the saloon also has the western theme its indoor so it gave me a chance to show of my lighting skills from an indoor perspective.

When told to look at other peoples portfoilios I took this oppurtunity to compare my portfoilio to theres. I was shocked in a few ways because the portfoilios that I thought were well presented and had some really nice work, these were the people looking for jobs, the one that shocked me was someone who worked on red dead redemption and the portfolio wasnt great. After this task I felt like I had the essentials to look for a job. I aim to get some unique props that I can put into my portfolio, maybe also a highpoly model so it shows I can do it.

Industry Visits

These were the lessons I was looking foward to the most, because it gave me a chance to show people from the industry my work and get there opinions on how to make it better and what to think about next time.

We had a visit from double negative which talked about the visual effects side of things which honestly I didnt think would intrest me but as an overall lesson it was pretty good. I learnt how certain people get in to the industry.

We also had a vist from the crytek industry. I have discussed all of this in previous blog entrys so I wont go into too much detail but basically we got to show our work, and then we were told what to change or how to make it better in the future.

If I have learnt anything from this year it is when we had our mock interviews with Dave and Andy. We were told that when you put these two together they rip your work to shreads and tell you how to make it better. personally it wasn't too bad. I got my postives and also my negatives but if Im honest thats what I wanted. I wanted to be told what was wromg with my work and how to make it better and by them doing this it makes me a better 3D artist. I was talking to my tutor the other day and showed him my western which i was told to make brighter. After doing this it looked a lot better and my tutor agreed. So it shows you all of the negatives about your work can be changed to positives.

Getting Ready For End Of Year Show

At the end of the day the whole of this module comes down to the end of year show and how well its presented. There is certain things we must have ready for the end of year show to get the grades we want and we have to have done them well.

I have already mentioned showreels and also presentation sheets which also includes beauty shots but there are other things. This blog is one of them and is worth the 30% of my mark. I have done my blog every week and reflected on the weeks work in this module. Doing this has made me a better artist because I have managed my time a lot better than I had being doing in previous years. It has also give me the oppurtunity to research certain aspects of the games industry and getting a good insight to how the games industry works

Another thing is my CV this is currently being done as I go along but I think im going to scrap the one I have and start again from scracth in a few week when most of my modules are finished.

Business cards are another thing needed for the end of year show and I am currently still looking for the right design for this. I already know where to get them printed and how much they will cost but I want to take my time in designing my business card because I want people to understand what I do and get a sense of who I am through my business cards.

The final one being my website. I update my website every week with new prop sheets updated beauty shots and everything else. The website to me looks fine but I wouldnt mine it been a little more filled up by the end of year show.  think the work I currently have on the site shows my skills off perfectly and when you look at the webiste you gain an idea of what kind of an artist I am.

Below is my website (If the weebly link dont work use the second link, I may have bought my own domain before you look at this.)

www.keenan3d.weebly.com
www.keenan3d.com.

What I have learnt & Summary

This module has taught me a lot more than I intially thought it would. What this module has done for me is it has given me an insight to what the games industry is looking for. By it doing this I will feel more confident looking for a job and lot more confident going to an interview, I wont feel as if I am being thrown into the deep and end.

The module has also taught me what skills I need to get into the games industry. From industry people coming in and talking about our work has made me understand what the games industry is really looking for. I know that when somebody is critising your work there doing it to benifet you not themselves. I have also learnt that with a lot of hard work and focus you can do what you want to do.

I think without this module I would have felt confident going and looking for a job but I would have learnt some difficult truths along the way. But now that I understand these truths and I know how to make them better I am ready to find a job in the 3D industry and put my skills to the test.

Mock Interviews

This week our lesson was cancelled because we had mock interviews on the tuesday. The idea was we get our 15 minute time slots and then we have an interview with Dave and Andy Gahan. Andy works for evolution studios and also is the founder of 3D for games were i post most of my work for good crit. We were told that we would be interviewed and we must be proffesional and anwser all questions asked and show our work to both people. I wont lie at first i thought this was daunting because Dave has told us how Andy is when it comes to interviews and we have been told he rips your work apart.

Anyhow my interview was at 4.15 which was good because it gave me more time to get things ready and also I could ask other students how they got on and they could tell me what not to do in the interview. When my time came I was pretty confident that my work was up to standard to show both my tutor and Andy. The interview started with Dave expalining what they do and that that they had seen some of my work but now they wanted to see more and see if i would be good enough for the job.

I started by showing my children of men scene and instead of just talking about the shots on screen I expalined how i ended up with them shots. I did a walkthrough of how myself and Danny did that specific scene and also the problems we had and overcame. I also had shots of what I had specifically done in that scene which Andy said he liked because it showed what was mine. They did both agree that some of the shots were nice but on some shots I show too much of Dans work and not enough of mine, so this will be the first thing I will be changing on the website.

The second piece I showed them was my western scene which also had some props sheets. I went on to explain that after doing the children of men scene I wanted to do something that would be a personal challenge. I explanied that I knew my weaknesses were ZBrush, High Poly Modelling, and realistic lighting. I said that in the western I feel I got the western looking pretty close to how it should look in real life. The other two I currently working at to get better at. Both Dave and Andy appreciated honesty in the interview but they said sometimes your too honest. They said only be honest if the question is asked, dont them if they dont ask.

There main crit was the props sheets, the both agreed they didnt look right and needed redoing with a different layout. This is what I wanted from the interview, I didnt want them just to say yea everything looks good. I wanted harshness so that I can amend the work to make it better than it is and then make it easier to find a job.

The 3 main crits were

Make the western a little brighter
More shots of my stuff in the Children Of Men Scene
Re do props sheets so they look a lot more proffesional

These are on my list to do and I will be defintaly doing this in the upcoming weeks. To have 2 people who have been there and done that crit your work is what I wanted. You cant ask any more than 2 industry proffesionals telling you how to make your work better. I have taken a lot from these interviews and if another was to make itself avaibale I would jump at the oppurtunity, because you always come out of the room knowing a lot more than you did about your own work

Crytek Visit

This week we had a visit from crytek. Aiden Wilson came into look at our work and give us advice on how to make our work better. I showed both of my environments that are currently finished these being the western scene that I am doing and the children of men scene.

The western scene Aiden seem to like, he gave me some good criticsm on the trees that I have modelled and also gave me some good advice about modular building. He asked questions like what did I find the most difficult part of the scene and also what i was most proud off. Personally I think the most difficult part of the scene was getting the atmospheric lighting into the scene to give the realistic look. This is also what I am most proud off because how loong it took to sort out and make. Overall for the western scene i was happy with the crit and also happy with Aiden liking the scene.

For the children of men scene again he seemed very happy. I explanied that the children of men scene was 2 of us. He really appreciated the amount of work and effort that had gone into the scene and thought that as a team we did well to make everything fit very well together.

I think after the visit and having a talk with Aiden I feel a lot more confident as an 3d artist, He gave me good criticsm and also said that everything looked really nice, and to hear that from someone in the industry always makes you feel good about your work.

Also this week I have a little look into getting business cards made for the end of year show. I havent looked in detail and I am still debating whether to make my own business card or use a pre made template. I am edgeing towards making my own business card. I had a look a site called good print (http://www.goodprint.co.uk/) this site allows you to either use pre made templates and also make your own design. The thing i liked about the site is the variety. The variety of different things you can do on this is pretty good. You can add your own designs, have different shaped business cards, and your allowed to do what you want with them.

There also very cheap to buy and you get a good bulk of cards for the price. I think in the upcoming weeks im guna do some mock designs and start to get some preview cards made and hand them to my tutors to get an opinion on how to make them better.

Website Creation

This week I have focused on getting my draft website up and running. I decided to use the website Weebly because I had freinds that said it was a good way to get my website up and running. Also they said that weebly didnt need any programming unless you wanted to add something unique to your website.

Before starting my website i wanted to have a look at how other 3D artists have layed out there portfolios and if there layout works. Like I said last week I had an intial idea on how I wanted my website to look but I wasnt sure how realistic this idea was. when looking at other websites I came along a few that were really good but obviously took a lot of time and they probabily had some programming knowledge.

The idea I wanted was simple but effective. I wanted a homepage that was my portfolio. I wanted the website to be effective and soon as you see it. My website idea was to have a small web banner sized picture of my work that was clickable, this would then link you to high res shots of my work. This would include props sheets, beauty shots and everything else. I would then have links at the top saying the recommended ideas. Resume been the first one followed by my show reel and a contact tab. The home page will be my portfoilio having one image from every piece work that is click able and links you to the more detailed page.

Above is the main page of my website so far. What I have done is I have put my main work on the homepage which is my portfolio, which then allows you see what I have done instead of searching for work. The pictures are click able and when clicked take you to a more detailed page about the work. This includes my beauty shots and all other shots from the work. I have also talked a little about the project and why I did it.

Also I have added my linked headings which I mentioned I was going to do. I have done a draft resume and I think there basics are there but looking back at it I will definitely be asking for opinions. The show reel isn't up yet and wont be for a couple of weeks, and the contact is what it says it is. I think this layout for my website is a lot easier to navigate than some that I have seen. Some websites visually are stunning but can take ages to find the work your looking for. I wanted mine to look simple and be effective. I think I have done that because the headings are clear and the images are clear.

The picture above is what you will see if you click on some work. There is a short paragraph that tells you about the scene and then they are followed by beauty shots. For the children Of men work I have also included shots that show what I did and what Danny did. At the minute that's all I have on these pages but I am going to be adding prop sheets and a Shell sheet of the buildings and textures. I will be doing this for all of my work unless the prop is a unique prop, then this will go in the props section.

My aim for the next few upcoming weeks is to keep adding to the website and maybe get the children of men link finished. I want to have all of my props sheets in there as well as other things I have mentioned. I will be rendering my props out in marmoset and showing both in game and wire frame shots.

Once I have the children of men link done this will be the template for all of my other links and then the domain can be bought and once the work is finished I can start sending the website out to potential employers.

Here is the link to the website http://keenan3d.weebly.com/

Website Research

This week I have being looking on whats the best way to design my online portfolio. I have being looking at prices and what extras the companys offer.

With myself already knowing what I want my website to look like I was searching for the website that offered me more for less. Before I started researching online I went around the class to get some ideas on the best way of making a website. There were loads of different ideas, some involving dreamweaver and making everything from scratch and some using a domain name and having the host website doing everything for you.

Looking at a couple of previous years online portfolios I gained a better idea nad understanding on how the website should look to keep people attracted to your website.

There is the really nice websites where you can tell quite a lot of effort has gone into it. For example Alex Legg is a 3D environment artist who's website think looks great but there is room for improvement

http://www.alex-legg.co.uk

There is also the simple route with just plain backgrounds and nothing attractive that makes you want to keep looking at the site for example Jared Skold website is very simple and when I look at it nothing attracts me to his website and keeps me on there.

http://www.jaredskold.com/

An overview on how I would like my website to look is simple, Firstly I would like the common heading etc, Environments, Props and all the others, but when these headings are clicked I would like all of my environments to show up with one picture each, each of these pictures beign the main link which takes you to the main page for that environment. Here there will be information about the project, Texture sheets and beauty shots. If I do this for all of my props and environments I think the website should then look preffesional and attractive.

So coming to the conclusion that if I want a good website I have to put quite a bit of effort, I have basically 2 main ideas that I can use. The first one beign I can use Dreamweaver and research website deveolpment and start to make my website from scratch. Doing this opens up more options but will obviously take more time.

The second option is using a host for my werbsite for example www.weebly.com., What you do with there website hosting is you pay them a yearly fee and then you have all of these templates you can use for your website. Doing this obviously does not give you as much options and you may even risk having a website looking a lot similar to somebody elses.

So in the upcoming weeks I am going to be looking in more depth on which area to choose to do my website and choosing which is the best way to start it. I will also be looking into business cards and which template may suit me better

Double Negative Presentation & End Of Year Show Update

Double Negative

Last week we had the oppurtunity to meet some of the employers from the special affects company Double Negative. Double Negative is a company that specialilises in special effects in film, and have worked on such titles as Inception, Harry Potter and the Iron Man series.

We had the oppurtunity to see how the special effects work in films and how 3D modellers also play a big part in the special effects industry. We all gathered in the theater to watch a few videos put together by Double Negative. The videos contained a break down of how the special effects worked in the film Inception and they showed us what footage they actually obtain from the producer, you then get to see how much work they do in the films industry.

After the videos we got a question and answer time with people asking good questions. Some one ask If Double Negative had ever thought about launching a games studio under there name. They said that because everybody loved films too much that it wasn't for seeable in the future.

After this they came back and had a look at some of our work, Me and Danny showed them the Children of men scene we had finished and also what they had worked on. One of the representives of Double Negative had a look at the work and seemed pretty impresses by it.

Overall I am happy with the course leader getting Double Negative into the University because when it comes to the special effects indsutry Double Negative are well known and well respected and are probabily one of the best out of there. I gained information from them coming in and I hope in the future we have more of this lectures.

End Of Year Show Update

After a disscussion with my tutor about the percenatges at the end of my show, we both agreed that certain areas can be combined to allow a substancial percentage for one area. I now only have 4 areas that will be marked and the percenatges are more evenly spread.

The marking system is still 70% because the blog is 30% but myself and my tutor both agreed that the 4 headings will be marked out of a 100% which makes it easier for both of us. So now the marking scheme is as follows.

Showreel - 50%
Website - 20%
Presentation Sheets - 20%
Materials For Student Show - 10%

In the up coming weeeks I am going to be focusing on getting my website up and running so that I have time towards the end to work on aspects of this assignment.

End Of Year Show Marking Scheme

This week our task was to layout our end of year show marking scheme. We had to explain what we wanted to be marking on using a percentage scheme. I have given myself a percentage on each of the headings on the module handbook and I think the percenatges I have asked for a fair.

Blog

The blog is 30% anyhow, we didn't have a say in on how I wanted to be marked because this is part of our assignment. I think 30% is fair anyway and I think If I had the choice to choose my own It would have been around that area. The blog basically contains everything that I have done and learnt during PPG lessons and how I expect to get better. It also explains how I aim to get a job when I finish university.

Showreel

My showreel is 25% of my marking scheme and this is because the amount of time and effort I will be putting into this piece of work. During last semester we had to do a draft showreel which took a lot longet than i intially thought it would, and that wasn't even finished. I know that when it comes to putting together the finihsed showreel I will have to take a few days out and learn new techniques to give my showreel the justice it deserves. Also I will be updating the showreel more as I get closer to finishing the actual year, so hopefully with 2 weeks left of the year I should have a good finished showreel.

Website

My website is 15% of my marking scheme. This is because of many different reasons, time being the main issue. I will have to learn how to setup a website before I can even consider putting one together which Im assuming isn't a slow task. Once this is done I will have to concept finished layout ideas for my website so it looks proffesional. Then I have to have all my work finished so that I can present the website at the end of year.

CV

My CV is 10% of my marking scheme. During the three years of university we have had several modules that have taught us how to layout a proffesional CV and how people look at them. I have only madse this 10% because I know I can do a proffesional CV and it shouldn't take too long to do.

Business Cards

Business Cards are 5% of my marking scheme. This is because I know that I have to design the business card but getting them printed is done proffesionally by companys. So i know not too much time will be spent on these. I know what needs to be on the business card so all I have to do is make some designs and then the business card should look appealing as well as proffesional.

Presentation Sheets

Presentation sheets are 5% of my marking scheme. This is because I already know how my presentation sheets are going to look so there isn't much more I can do to make them any better. I may laminate some of ther sheets so that they don't get tattered as people come and look at them but other than that I think everything should be ok.

Physical Portfolio

My physical portfolio will be 5% of my marking scheme. Again this is because by the time the show comes I should already have everything layed on disc from hand in assignments, so all I have to do is print out all of my asset sheets, beauty shots and them have them laminated and then then everything should look proffesional and in order.

Materials For Student Show

I have given myself 5% for materials for the student show. I not quite sure what I am going to be bringing but I am sure Im bringing something. I will know closer to the time when certain assignments have been handed in.

Overall

Blog 30%
Showreel 25%
Website 15%
CV 10%
Business Cards 5%
Presentation Sheets 5%
Physical Portfolio 5%
Materials For Student Show 5%