The Pull of Azeroth

I’ve been awful this week, playing Warcraft solidly, rather than doing anything that could be related to work. Behind on the following things;

3D coursework & worksheets…

Entertainment Design sound effects…

Character Animation storyboards and animatics…

Concepts of Composition research into my chosen ident and musical theory…

So yeah. This weekend will be compromised of making this list two items shorter. The animations stuff will be done on Saturday, as it won’t take long at all if I do it in flash. Secondly, the research into the ident will be written up and ready for handing in by Sunday. The 3D stuff I’m wanting to get together with some guys from class and smash through in one go and the Entertainment Design sound effects need to be discussed with the guys in my group before I launch myself into them. Namely, the kind of movements our little character and his disgusting friends will be making in-game so that I can make a definitive list of sound effects. That way, I can get it all done in one go.

By next weekend, the to-do list will look like this;

3D coursework designs.

Entertainment Design sound fx.

Character Animation finished animations.

Concepts of Composition ident design & essay on sound design.

The finished work will look like this;

3D worksheets.

ED sfx list and music.

Animation scripts, storyboards & animatics.

Concepts research into TV idents and notes on “Once Upon A Time In The West”, Sergio Leone.

Funtimes, for next week.

I just have to limit my Warcraft time. It’s like an addiction – I may one day need professional help.

The Beeb

That went so very, very well. The BBC pitches, I mean. You know – yesterday?

Yeah.

Even though Dad’s worked for god-knows how many years, it still surprises me how informal they can be. Maybe that’s why it surprises me; seeing how Dad’s professional life always seems so serious. Or at least, it did, when he was in England. Probably because England sucks.

Chris opened the pitch 2 minutes after we finalised the art work for presentation, which I found a bit hilarious. We should really have had a PowerPoint presentation, but it seems to have worked to our advantage that we didn’t, as we were able to just show the pictures and talk about them naturally, and I think our obvious enthusiasm and understanding of the project carried us better than any procession of automated slides could have done. So we were introduced to the guys (or more precisely, a guy and a girl) from the Beeb, with Euan and Dayna sitting in on it too.

Chris talked about the concept design and logistics of the project, Jonathon handled lead art and animation details with Ryan tackling the environment art and concept art. Which led to me discussing the audio. Now, I don’t mean to get all egotistical on you here, but I really think the work I’d done sealed the deal, so to speak. They loved the concept from the word go, completely fell for the art design and the game’s happy-go-lucky attitude, but the fact that we have an on-board dedicated audio ‘team’ kinda filled a gap. I let them hear one of the tracks I’ve created, which is actually almost finished, and I swear their eyes lit up. Even Johnny, who’s heard it so many times, couldn’t help but laugh with the hilarity of the track. It’s so retro it’s unreal. And it fits the game style so well. I’m pretty proud of it.

^_^

Anyway. Other news. I forgot my tablet pen for the Wacom today, so I’m just writing this and going home, as I can’t get any other work done. *facedesk* Should give Dean a phone tonight to see how he was on Monday morning, after our little adventure on Sunday night. Or Sunday afternoon. Bloody 6 nations – drinking solidly from 2:30pm onwards is not healthy. I’m surprised I got up in the morning for the pitch.

Pitch it to the Man

Sound design can be a tricky thing to wrap your head around. T’s week five, the BBC pitches are in about an hour and I should really have a list of components created by now. But I haven’t. What I do have are a couple of tracks to let them hear at the presentation. So I’m not that worse off. But I do have to figure out what to say about the audio when it comes time to do so. Pretty much, the audio for the game is designed to complement the game play, and will be implemented to time with environment animations, and keep the player interested in what is going on.

I want the music in the game to reflect the environment too, so from the heart and lungs, the track will be mostly drum and bass, with a rhythmically timed beat to emulate a heartbeat. It will be very bass-oriented to push the idea of that system’s function and the power that your heart has. Where the environment pulses, so will the music. The same works for the brain, with the nerve endings and electric pulses marked in the music track. Sound effects follow the same route, and will be integral to player enjoyment. If you can listen to something that follows the actions onscreen, then it seems more real, doesn’t it?

I’m creating the music and sound effects from scratch, rather than use a sound library on the internet, because doing so will allow me a greater control over the content I produce. It will also allow for completely free creation, without the worry about copyright infringement and the like. As a writer, I hate plagiarism, so this is quite important for me even on an audio front and, in fact, probably more vitally on an audio front.

But that’s in half an hour, now. And I’ve still a lot to get done. So it’s good bye for now and a more detailed post tomorrow. There will be lots to tell, I’m sure, after the pitch.

The Good, The Bad, and the downright Ugly.

I’ve never understood the allure of life drawing. You get to stand dead upright in front of an easel for 3 hours staring at some naked person, drawing them and shading them in a variety of different ways. Stop laughing about the naked people bit.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the college where I attend these classes didn’t have such a fetish for obese, old or ginger people. Not that I have anything against these groups of individuals on a general sense; many of them can be lovely company. I just have absolutely no interest in seeing them stripping down and lounging about with their unmentionables staring me down. It ain’t as much fun as it sounds; I’m here to tell you. Still, only another 8 weeks of it left and I can call it finished for the rest of my natural born life, with any luck. I can’t really see where life drawing of any kind comes into audio production methods…

Talking of which, I finally got that all important first extra tutorial in the recording studio yesterday, after I posted my chain mail rant (still fuming a little about that). Karl brought me and a few other guys from the Creative Sound Production course in to the studio to show us how the desk works, how to set it up for voice recording and how to tweak levels to suit the context. It was pretty awesome. Then we sat around and chatted, and I got some decent info from the guys about what the course will involve, and I have to say, I’m actually looking forward to learning the theory behind all the practical applications of sound.

There is nothing in the world better than a good cup of tea, I’ll tell you that right away. Especially after you’ve had to trudge through a small blizzard to draw some fat chick for 3 hours before trudging back in the somehow colder winds. Yes, the rant continues. Hot, scalding tea. *sigh*

Awesome.

I hope Lynette manages to actually book our train tickets to see Cat today. If not, it’ll be me doing it at midnight, and I hate doing it – I always get the dates or the times wrong or something like that, and it’s just better left to the more efficient woman. Though I know she’s reading this, and I also know what she’s thinking. “Bullshit, you lazy fucker.”

Well, yeah.

But I’m sticking with efficiency.

The Thorn in your Side

If I get one more piece of chain mail, I am going to scream. I’m serious – stop sending me it. I got one today, from two of my friends who are obviously just bored and have nothing better to do. I don’t pass any blame onto them. But I have no love lost for the people who start them, or who REALLY believe that they “will get a phone call from someone who will tell them they are loved” or that “something special will happen in your love life tonight if you send this to 15 people.” And don’t even get me started on the people who are really, honestly, are you actually serious, afraid that something bad will happen to them if they do not, in fact, send it on.

I got this chain mail today from friends, like I said, that compared the lives of normal men and women to the lives of soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It made mention of things like “you stay up for 16 hours – he stays up for days on end” and “you go to the mall to get your hair redone – he doesn’t have time to brush his teeth today.” It’s a war. It’s hard. But it’s real. So stop trying to make people guilty by sending images of dead soldiers and dead children through hotmail. If I ever get another email like this, I am going to send it back with all the most hateful and oppressive slander I can muster. Which is serious stuff. Leave me out.

I really do support the work that the men and women in our armed forces are doing. They are putting their lives on the line to help people under tyranny and oppression and it’s good work, it really is. However, I have a few points I want to make first…

First of all. They are not defending our right to freedom and democracy. They are forcing it on other nations. Not that this is a bad thing, but in all reality, whereas terrorists may pose a very real threat to the lives of people living in ‘free’ countries, they do not – yes, that’s right – they do NOT pose a threat to our ways of life. It is impossible for them to destroy how we live. For them to do that, they would have to take over the country. Can you see that happening? Really?

Secondly, it makes me actually laugh out loud when I realise that these people are only sending on chain mail to satisfy their own guilt that they don’t really care about it anyway. People try to force their own deep seated problems onto others in the hopes that they’ll feel better at the end of the day. Well, if that’s what helps you sleep at night, it’s no skin off my back, honey.

And now I'm fed up talking about it.

Nothing much to report in the uni world today. Did my pitch and got away with blagging through it, as most of my work is audio-based and I have nothing to show. It’s all on my laptop. Which I forgot to bring. Awh. I did, however, get a good run through of the Pro Tools set up in the recording studio, so I now know how to set up a recording track and how to get input from the live room into the desk. Which is somewhat epic.

Other than that, it’s business as usual. More to come tomorrow.

Moving on...

The art of animation is a real goddamn pain in the ass, I’ll tell you that for free. Not only do we have to have our finalised scripts finished for tomorrow (which I’ve now done), we’ve to have storyboards and animatics (which, to be fair, are just storyboards in flash). So yeah, I’m sitting in uni on my day off, pouring away at my sketchbook, trying to design a fat ninja, but I’m growling bored of the idea already. He doesn’t even need to be fat; just clumsy. And the little midget version I drew is much more hilarious to imagine waddling around the screen, failing miserably to fulfil any contract or job.

I’ve not even given my 3D production class a look in yet. I’ve 7 worksheets to finish for the end of semester, so that’s pretty much one a week, which is very doable. However, I’ve also got 3 models of my own to design, and a sketchbook to produce for that too. And I can’t draw or design characters for crap, so the very idea that I’ll get this all done is becoming less fact and more like some sort of crazy fantasy. Still, with the BBC pitches next week, I think I will be understood for allowing an element of panic into my words.

In happier news, those domestic issues have disappeared and my sister is settling into being home again. India sounded amazing – I can’t wait to read her journals and watch the videos she took on the camera. I had a bit of a snapshot this morning while Dad was moving them from the flash card to the laptop, and then to DVD storage, and it amazed me when I realised they looked exactly like those documentaries on the TV. The kids out there really haven’t seen anything like a camera before, and even though they have been given the most awful, dirt-ridden and poverty-stricken end of the stick ever offered to human souls, they can’t do anything but smile. In actuality, I envy them – they take so much pride in everything they do, regardless of how small the victory, they savour every moment of life, no matter how shit it gets. It’s inspirational, it really is. I think I might go next year, if I can.

Meeting at 3pm today, to see if I can’t get myself into Creative Sound Production next semester, and out of this damned art-oriented course. It’s great fun, don’t get me wrong, but I just can’t stand to spend another year drawing and modelling when I’ve no intention of ever doing it again when I leave university. And I spoke to my lecturer today, who advised me that the outcome of the meeting would probably see the guy I’m meeting asking Kenny if he thinks I’m good for the course. Hopefully, Kenny won’t say no. I may have to bribe him…

Best get on with this bloody storyboard then. Reached level 16 with my paladin last night, within 10 hours. Pretty proud of that.

M_x

Starting that Journey...

29 January 2008, and it’s pitch week. That means buckle under the pressure of getting your ideas and projects in check to show off to peers and tutors alike, and in doing so allowing them to chip at your self-esteem by bitching your plans out to the point where they seem less than futile and more than destined to fail.

So yeah; it’s been a good day.

Not to mention the domestic issues that come with being a bi-polar (when your girlfriend lives over 300 miles away) as well as having family move back home that have been in India for a month. It’s a strange time, and to be quite honest, it’s a bit too much.

Not all is lost, however, as certain projects are coming to fruition already. My Entertainment Design class has seen me team up with three other students from 2nd year, namely Jonathon and Ryan, the artists, and Chris, our Games Production Management cohort. With concept design much out of the way, we’re down to business now, with our roles clearly set out for the year. As the artist whose concept we have modified and selected, Jonathon is our art lead, working on character and environment art, with Ryan heading up extra work and helping to get the art and animations on track. Chris is the documentation master, and as Dayna so succinctly put it, could be left in a room with nothing for a semester and still come out with something. This all leaves me quite happily to work steadily on audio for the game and, at week three, I’ve got four demo tracks for the game music, which have been fairly well received, and a few sound effects for background ambience created. Next step is to take the music design to stage two and weed out criticism, fix errors and get the tempo right for the gameplay.

I want the music in the game to reflect the environment. Not easy, seeing as the environment is set within a human body, though I have my ideas, keeping the feel of the sound design to be, and excuse the terminology here, somewhat ‘meaty’ and ‘thick’. Lots of bass and slow, rhythmic heart-beat-esque drum beats. And for next week, we’ve got to get the concept out of the sand pit and into the studio and get some proper production sorted for the BBC pitches on Monday. That that is going to be fun. [/sarcasm]

So that’s audio well and documented, though I still have to get a full list of components written out. All hail Excel Spreadsheets!

Updates on other projects to come…

Beginning of the End

I need a blog. I need to have somewhere to have it out with the world in general. And I....

Oh.

I have one. Cool.


New posts and rantings and the diary of student life to come. Right now, I gotta run to a meeting.

Lovelove

M_x