Getting in to university was a big step for me and my family as most of my immediate family have never been. its a new concept to my parents and thus they are fearful - rightly so i suppose - but i knew from the outset what i wanted to do required an education from tutors with history in the field. this started my craving for higher education in some respect but also wanted to make my family proud, in some ways.

apart from changing the way i think university will hopefully bring me up to scratch with what i need to take a role in the industry. some of the skills id like to develop are my self motivation and confidence as well as my technical skills but as it stands learning at the pace i am currently
giving me so much understanding in all areas.

For as long as i can remember i have been playing games and drawing, now i have the chance to put my ideas and development to critique. One thing i have always found to be fundamental to teaching things fast isn't just being told how and when to do something but also told why i am doing it. This gives me a basis to learn from and makes me remember key things much faster.

As far as disciplining my mind goes, in college my tutor was a pretty intuitive person. he was an out-the-box thinker, if u will. he gave me an understanding into things some people may over look and thankfully these things are being reinforced now, proves it wasn't all for nothing and that im going to be expected to think differently.

At the end of the course I'm going to take on the games industry, i feel i will have the knowledge and skills to do this effectively.

creatus "to have grown" -wiki

creativity or Latin term creatus means "to have grown" (wiki) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollo_May Creativity according to psychologist Rollo may is the final and foremost stage of a person. although these stages are described as being somewhat erratic they can be considered a list of what people can go through in various stages of their lives. such as a child can be quite rebellious but so can a teenager. Creativity - "Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death." Rollo may. I perceive this as a description that a person creativity is driven to keep something of themselves alive even after they cease to exist. creativity would possible be a persons foremost understanding that they are not going to live forever and need to show their inner most feelings before they pass, they stand up and have one last final breath before reaching the finishing line. Probably why Rollo may puts creativity last. as it require most of the previous - innocence, rebellion, decision, ordinary, - be activated by a person. creativity is developed over time and put to practice with passionate accuracy when the time comes. creativity is a mixture of the motivation knowledge and thinking outside the box. thinking up new solutions and ideas as well as being able to adeptly solve puzzles or understand the in understandable. creativity in children and in adults can be vastly difference according to benchmarks, after all children are children first. creativity as a word means to have grown but does that mean that creativity has to be waited on until later years or can a young enthusiast show signs of creativity? creative thinking: knowledge creative wanting: motivation creative doing:skills all three key points can be shown in just about everything people do in their daily lives, people are creative in their own ways and in their own situations (age does not apply) wether it be drawing a pretty picture for a parent or designing a ground breaking sky scraper, creativity is a trait we all posses in some form.

"The Games Game"

Does it really matter if a company wants an art based student or a game art student. each type has its own place, downfalls and benefits as the game industry employees many people from different backgrounds, some of which are from animation, movie, and business backgrounds that in later life found a love for games. all walks of life get into the industry with different backgrounds in which some are totally unrelated to games but those of us that are just starting out with a small portfolio and no experience in the industry can gain this from the careful nurture of experienced people already in the industry.

there are always people there than can teach and there is always someone to learn. this basis gives a slightly opened door to the chosen path that people may chose to take as some people are stuck in this position;

"How on earth do you get game experience if you don't already have game experience? Isn't that a chicken-and-egg kinda problem?"

without some basis we are (relatively speaking of course) screwed. thats where higher education with the aid of knowledgable people come into play to give people like me a kick start when its well and truly needed, where as some people with art degrees have the skill, would this benefit them in a company that doesn't teach time management, game art history, game culture. its like jumping head first into something you thought you knew but ultimately wasn't.

a keen knowledge and drive for the industry was well as an arts background helps, sadly not all people posses god like powers, that allow them to be good at everything (although some do, damn them!)

if games centered educators decided to get up one day and quit. who would be left to teach the knowledge of old, you would find art graduates asking "whats a game culture?" and our link to games history would be lost to a select few that keep it to themselves.

at the end of the day many people have different talents weather it be in art or in games, different companies take on a diverse range of talents and skills to suite them and before long everyone will realize that games and art are fundamentally the same concept but expressed in different ways.

a slice of game history

How is sound used in games?
ever since the first games rolled in on us, sound has been apparent throughout as a medium or identity in wich people describe or remember games. many people can say they remember the mario tune and probebly humb it to. sounds can often be found to be more famous than the composer or even the game itself.

some audio can be an expression of the games visual style and intended mood such as silent hills "promise reprise" not to mention its overly aerie ambient sound effects. games can often be used a psychological tools to get a person to buy or play a game. almost as if someone is saying "coming over here and play this game"
if i am to be honest audio in games has scared me, made me cry, even made me hate a particular character. any form of audio in games has the ability to make you fight on(halo theme tune) my brother learnt the halo theme tune on his guitar just because its an uplifting i wanna kill some bad guys tune.
music can also conjure up an "i don't wanna know whats behind that door". feeling. (silent hill)

In the early 170s music was difficult to incorporate into games as they were cumbersome and quite delicate but a "more affordable method of having music in a video game was to use digital means, where a specific computer chip would change electrical impulses from computer code into analog sound waves on the fly for output on a speaker." similar in fact to the progression of soundtrack to final fantasy 1 through to 12. you ca just about notice the distinct difference in the tones. before long in games were able to take more channels of audio without aking up to much space thus allowing for vocals to be heard in video games and as to date composers are able to play with more than 250 channels of audio.
Akira Yamaoka: silent hill
Nobuo Uematsu: final fantasy
Yoko Shimomura: super Mario, parasite eve, legend of man, kingdom hearts.
jeremy and julian soule: prey
are just some of the major composers on games to date.
"good times" was the most influential songs of the time period and the song left the way for grand master flash's' "Adventures on the Wheels of Steel" and the Sugar hill Gang's single, "Rapper's Delight". it has been used by many hip hop and dance recordings since its release.

game engines

A game engine is a technology many are familiar with, it calculates graphics physics animation a.i. sound scripting etc. game engines are a fundamental piece of design, created to simplify a structure to a game for programmers, allowing the creation of a fantasy world. many game engines are used today and are some of the most recognizable aspects of a game, such as
Unreal Engine 3, Doom 3 engine, CryENGINE2, RenderWare, Gamebryo, Virtools Source engine
these engines are the more famous engines as they implement something different than the others, such as physics or graphical potential. game engines are also used as "game middle ware" as they can be reused on many platforms and in different games. a structure or scaffolding if you will.
This scaffolding can be either subtractive or additive, meaning, either the world is carved out of a giant mass inside of a game engine (subtractive) i.e. unreal engine, or a game is created in an empty space "void" out of an infinite space of nothingness(additive) i.e. half-life engine.
both styles of games have their advantages and disadvantages. most game creators carve a fake "void" out of the subtractive mass and enlarge it as they see fit.
buying into middle ware can often come with pricey consequences with your game. such as hidden liscences that take a few long late nights deciphering the legalese so not to be sued in later development. installing correct versions in the right place can be a disadvantage but finding that a new version has popped up and changed formats and or given more bugs can halt a game in its tracks for extended periods of time. to boot a middle ware game engine is usual designed for specific physics such as cry engine or half life engine. these specific engine characteristics may not even have been thought of in a game, also these features may have hidden the fact that the engine may not have something simpler such as a decent lighting effects.
where middle ware software has problems it also has advantages in its application for a cheap quick game release. its much faster to learn an existing engine than to create then learn one of your own (not to mention cheaper) many people would have used the existing game engine on multiple formats platforms and versions this would have allowed for many bugs to be found and eradicated (piece of mind) forums and other unofficial and official advice centers would have been established due to the engines reuses over the period of time since its release.
despite destructible worlds and amazing visual effects that are partly coming into place now with crysis and other leading games in development, games are also in the pipeline that will take on new ways of a.i. for example it has been released that quad core computers can now multi task to a point of total realism "if Gordon sat down to play chess with DR Kleiner, for example, a spare core would be dedicated to running a deep blue chess simulator to ensure they played a realistic game" pcgamer 2007 issue 107. these software advances through hardware development will be pushed to the limit with new physics applications too. to be first seen in the half life engine.

too much WoW!

since i can remember I've been an major fan of mmorpgs, well any game, through which i can actually interact with real people. this one aspect of an internet virtual environment (V.E.) part of the online gamers world is playing the game itself which is rather basic to online veterans but second to this is interaction with other avatars(players) from around the globe. part of gaming cultures is to compete with others in you niche', online games are a major example to this. whether they are fps rpg rts. they all take on some form of competition. most of these competitions take up serious amounts of people patience and time, I've clocked around 50 or so days in one such mmorpg.
as one gets to know his culture or niche he finds himself online more often that he should be, making invisible friends, maybe starting a complete fantasy life that takes up more than its fair share of a persons time. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/11/21/wow_lawsuit/

as far as gaming culture developed into many different niches, people still ignore and refuse to accept that gaming cultures are widely apparent and get to people in many different formats, such as forums, blogs, articles, games themselves, face to face chat, even if they don't wish to believe so. gaming cultures are what drive people to debate -key word- compete and argue over what they believe is to be true, whether it be games or any other medium. people take part in gaming cultures through the many formats to be more involved in their chosen culture. In truth gaming cultures have formed many derivatives and kind-of split games in different independent pieces, such as video game music (http://www.videogameslive.com/index.php?s=home) and commonly known retro games. everyone that is interested in the games industry knows of or is part of the games culture by default, but it is up to them to take it a step further to be more involved.

everyone that i call friend -that is interested in games- likes some form of game derivative and that is why the game industry will continue to interest all gamers and non gamers alike, who knows maybe in the future something new will come of game cultures. its a partly unexplored area of games and with every new game style or game development comes a new niche for people to take part in.