This year I'm most excited about the fact that we will finally be making our own 3D games, prior to now I've only made a few 2D games (in software that did coding for me) and attempted creating one 3D game before I was even familiar with coding. Of course my first 3D game was never finished because I got frustrated by all of the errors in my code and could no longer bear watching tutorial after tutorial just to create my own game. However, now that I've become more familiar with coding as well as 3D modeling I have the resources to create my own 3D game. I'm rather certain that the creative aspect of our games will be driven by our own ideas so I'm excited to finally be able to apply all of my game development ideas that I've thought of either while playing games or in my free time. I know for sure that not all of my ideas will work out and some will definitely give me more trouble than others but I'm excited to at least try to incorporate all of the ideas I've come up with. Even if I can't use all of my ideas I'm still excited about the process of fully producing a 3D game anyways. Maybe for once this year I'll realize what it's actually like to be a game developer and why not all games are perfect due to limits placed on the developers. Above all though I hope that whether or not I consider the game I create to be a success that the process I go through to make it will help me to create more games in the future that I will run into less mistakes making and will certainly be better than this first game I will be making.
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From what I've heard in the news recently it seems that some or all of this year is going to be online, so in preparation for working from home I've decided to make sure I am able to model, code, and render if needed for anything we will do this year. Since I'm at home I'm using Blender instead of 3DS Max so it is slightly different but still gets the job done, though I've never rendered an animation with it. In order to become more familiar with rendering animations and get a feel of where all of the required options were to do so I made an animation of rolling dice with the help of a tutorial as I have still not mastered Blender. I ensured to watch and then do in order to retain as much knowledge as possible so that I would be able to do this if needed in the future and it helps to work with a sense of independence rather than hand holding the entire way through. Once I got the hang of the keyboard shortcuts and processes required to create the animation it was much simpler, so though it took some time initially I feel that if need be I could repeat the process with ease. I'm not entirely sure what this year will entail though I'm rather sure we will be doing a lot of coding to develop 3D games but who knows rendering may come in handy at some point as well. Even if I end up not needing to create any 3D animations this year I feel it still helps to keep myself up to date on all the different skills I've learned so that I don't put perfectly good skills that took time and effort to learn to waste. Main Points
Resources used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNhN3X3MvD4 Since digital art was my original inspiration to take this class I decided to return to editing images in order to re-familiarize myself with what I used to do in my free time. Ever since we started 3D modeling and creating code that was all I did at home as well, but when I stylized one of my pencil drawings in Paint.net I wanted to do more 2D work again. I returned to Paint.net in order to further explore what I could do with the program by stylizing another one of my pencil drawings. The process proved to be harder than I remembered, most likely because the drawing I chose had more shading and graphite smudges than the original one I had done but even so I attempted to add more details. Going into the project I had visualized specific colors for the dragon I had drawn as well as crystals in the background but I quickly realized that while the colors were simple enough, getting crystals to simulate a real crystal texture was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I instead put them in the background and focused my attention more on the dragon, adding details that weren't originally in the pencil drawing. While experimenting with different techniques I found that adding a vignette helped to bring out the features of the dragon and overall made the image look more professional, while a lot of the other options I tried either didn't work as intended or conflicted with one or more layers I used to make the image. Overall while creating this image wasn't as easy as the other stylized pencil photo I made during the school year it was helpful to get back into working with digital art creation as I hadn't practiced for months and being familiar with art production will aid in game production if I would like to digitally plan out designs. Main Points
Software used: (Paint.net download) Aside from pixel art I've also seen 2D games with cartoon graphics though I've never actually tried making any 2D cartoon graphics on my own so I decided I would. I decided I would return to YouTube to find tutorials on how to create 2D game art consisting of more than just a few pixels. Immediately a problem arose, many of the tutorials used specifically Photoshop to make use of special brushes with thin edges but bold centers for their lines. Unfortunately you cannot change the brush style in Paint.net so I had to manually taper off my lines but it still worked so I continued to use Photoshop tutorials. I noticed that shading is much more detailed with cartoon art than it is with pixel art due to the larger work space to blend light and colors, there are also more details in general such as glowing auras and reflections. After I watched the tutorials I decided I'd create a 2D character I could use for making a lighthearted game because the whole cartoon aesthetic seemed lighthearted and free-flowing. I figured a burning marshmallow with a smile on its face was quite ironic and would allow me to experiment with overlapping layers as well as how to make the glow a fire gives off. While I was making my character I realized that in order to blend colors I could use many layers each with a different color and opacity, or I could just set the brush size to be very large and the hardness to be very low and click once to accomplish the same effect of a gradient. I found it interesting afterwards that I had never really tried pixel art or 2D cartoon art before this summer assignment, but now I'm glad to have tried both because not only were they rather fun but they will also be easier to create in the future.
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References: Blackthornprod. “HOW TO PAINT 2D GAME ART IN PS - STEP BY STEP TUTORIAL.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kc2HGj8ef0. Tyroller, Jonas. “How to Make Game Art When You CAN'T!” YouTube, YouTube, 1 July 2018, www.youtube.com/watch? v=_ZLW18vM9Rs. Below is the character I created after watching the tutorials. Because we will be focusing on 2D game development this year I figured learning how to create pixel art may help me create 2D games. In order to get an understanding of how to create pixel art I went to YouTube and watched several tutorials on the basics of pixel art as well as some tutorials for creating specific pieces of pixel art. From those tutorials I learned about processes such as increasing the canvas size in increments to add more detail each time, and dithering to create the appearance of more colors. I also learned that pixel art isn't an exact style of art, but rather it is a medium of art with styles unique to the artist creating the art. I noticed the difference in style each artist used while I was watching the tutorials, some removed pixels to add simulations of curvature while others added shading to kind of smooth out curves they want to look more natural than rigid. Once I understood the basic concepts of pixel art I downloaded Paint.net in order to try making some pixel art on my own. I was at first at a loss for ideas but I soon realized if I'm making pixel art to prepare me for using it to develop games, then I may as well make a concept for a game that has pixel art graphics, so that is what I created. While I was making my own pixel art I noticed that I had developed my own art style for shading and borders, with softer objects having less noticeable borders while harder objects had bold borders. I've never actually done pixel art before because I prefer 3D modeling and editing images, but I'd say for my first time I did enjoy making it and I think it turned out well (even though it doesn't come through as clear on this website as it does in Paint.net).
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References: TipTut. “How To Draw Pixel Art | Tutorial.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Jan. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED8EGP0ceQk. UmaiPixel. “Make Pixel Art in Paint.NET - Pixel Art Power Tools.” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch? v=Sg1bgO7HrkY. Channel, JoCat Personal. “So You Wanna Make Pixel Art - General Guide for ART 464.” YouTube, YouTube, 6 Apr. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdz2IIuTBbs. Below is the pixel art I created after watching the tutorials. This upcoming year I'm most excited about working with Unity because I've used it before but I've never been able to fully comprehend it. I'm pretty sure the last time I used Unity was around six years ago when I wasn't as skilled as I am now, so most of my work consisted of tutorial demonstrations that I had replicated step by step and could not create on my own. Needless to say I had just about no clue what I was doing but I knew what it was capable of so I really wanted to figure out how to use it. I mainly remember getting several error messages every time I tried to do something new in Unity, so I hope we'll learn how to solve errors or maybe not even create them in the first place. I'm not sure how much we'll be working with 3ds Max or Photoshop this year but I hope we'll incorporate it into Unity in some way because by now I am very familiar with both programs and hope to do more work with them. I would assume that we'll be working with Photoshop or some sort of 2D art creator because we'll be doing 2D game development, though it would be nice to work with 3ds Max as well at some point in the year in preparation for Advanced Game Art & Design. Mainly though I hope that by the end of this school year I'll have a strong understanding of how to use Unity so that I can finally create the game I wanted to six years ago.
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AuthorMy name is Andrew Prichard and the this is my first digital arts class, I look forward to a good year with lots of hard work. Archives
May 2021
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Last updated 5/14/21
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