PPP conclusion

Copyright

When creating work to be shown on the Internet, it is important to know about copyright. When everything that you create belongs to you, uploading should be generally fine. However, if you use someone else’s music or footage from someone else, it can go against copyright and be taken down. If you can acquire permission form the original owner to use it, you can use it, however it is rarely that smooth.

You usually have to pay to have permission to use music or footage; sometimes this can be very expensive. There are resources that are free to use called royally free recourses, these can be used without any repercussions. You can also produce content under the creative commons license, which means you can freely use the content, so long as you don’t alter it and give credit for the source.

There is some content which has had it’s licence expired, which means it is free to use. When 70 years have passed, you are free to use music form that artist, this used to be 50 years, until Cliff Richard changed it as he was losing money on music he created 50 years a go!

Creative Industries in Leeds

In Leeds there is a variety of creative industries that can help me in my education and my future job prospects, especially with the Yorkshire Content fund which is pumping 15 million pounds into creative industries in the area.

 One of these things is Light Night, which is something I actually attended. For one night a variety of performances were happening all around Leeds, including interpretive dance, collaborative art activities and NES era video games being projecting onto the walls of buildings. I was a really interesting event to attend and I would definitely like to go again next year.

Other creative industries include Munroe house, which is being set up to contain a variety of creative companies. It will also be available for use to brand new start-up companies and to use as performance space.

There are over 723,000 people working in Games, Software development & Electronic publishing in the UK but only 60,000 working in Video, Photography and Film. This is great for people wanting to work in the games industry, but not fantastic for me, who wants to work in animation.

Elephant in the Room

The theme for the next round has been revealed as 'The Elephant in The Room'. This is an interesting theme as I can take it in multiple directions. I could take it literally, using an elephant, or I could take it metaphorically, going with the idiom and having someone ignoring a blatant truth.

I personally think that the literal method is a little too lazy and obvious, but directly going with the idiom is also a little too obvious.

This theme seems to lean well with comedy and dialogue, so I would like to go against this. This will help me stand out amongst the judges.

I will have to think about this theme carefully, especially with such a difficult opponent that I have for this round.

I Got Through!

I got through to the novice round in NATA!

This is very exciting! I genuinely didn't think I would get through to the next round so I am really surprised!

32 animators have all been placed into brackets to start the tournament proper. Unfortunately I have been placed with a very tough opponent for the first round. 'Vie Rickend' Came second in the judges choices for open rounds and also produced the highest ranking animation in the tournament. The odds are not in my favor it would seem.


However this doesn't mean I am giving up. I am going to try my best to get through to the next round, having such a tough opponent has inspired me produce a really good animation for the next round.

Paradox Pandemonium

I have finished my  animation for NATA. Paradox Pandemonium!

I finished it with two days to spare from the deadline. Though things didn't go quite as planned during the making of it. I skipped out on a couple of days as I was burned out, so I had to make up time at the last minute by waking up early and spending my entire day working on the animation.

I also had to cut some scenes out of the animation, as I feared I wouldn't be able to finish it on time with them. Despite this, I feel I have done well for an animation created in under 25 days.

If I get through the Open round (which I think is unlikely) I will most definitely do some things differently. I would make my next animation less verbose and have more of a focus on movement, as it is an animation tournament after all. I would also make it a bit shorter, as it took almost all my time to create a 3 and a half minute animation. Making something shorter would mean I have more time to relax and more time to focus on the quality of the animation.

We will soon found out the results and see if I have gotten through to the Novice round!

NATA Animatic

This is the rough animatic for my NATA animation, which I have named 'Paradox Pandemonium'. Unfortunately it glitches out at the end and the sound quality isn't very good but it identifies what I want to show well enough.

Although it is rough it allows me to identify timings and the positions for the animation. I have worked out I need to roughly do 14 seconds of animation a day, taking away days I am working on college work. It is going to be difficult but I am sure I'll be able to do it.

NATA

I have decided to enter the Newgrounds Annual Tournament of Animation (NATA).

I saw the original post for it on Newgrounds and decided to enter on a whim. While I don't think I have very good chances in even entering the Open round, I think it will be good practice for my animation skills and good dicipline for working to a deadline.

The deadline for the Open round is May the 10th and the theme for this round is 'Discovering Time Travel'. I have already thought of an idea and will begin working on it straight away.

Approaches in Games Industry

The start of the design process in games is a very important stage and can affect the entire game when finished. There are various ways to begin the design process, such as using an existing IP. There is also a 'me too' element to design process, which sees game companies making similar products to successful companies. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with this, very good games have come out this way. Most new ideas come from mixing and matching existing ideas, there is nothing new under the sun after all.

Research and development is also important in game making. When an idea is formed it is important to research into this idea by searching for things similar to it and things related to it. You also need to think of the genre and feel of the game you are creating, are you making a horror game? Is it for adults or children? These are all things that need to be addressed early in the game making process.

When the idea and research has been all put together it is time to create concepts for the game. Most people think of art to give inspiration for certain scenes, but concepts can come in other forms as well. Basic cubed out levels, scripts for the story, sound prototypes, all of these help build the concept of the game and inspires the game makers.

Moral Kombat

During a session, we watched Moral Kombat, a feature length documentary about the history of violence in video games. The film goes at great length charting the history of violence in Games, giving a balanced view for each argument, though I personally believed that the film leaned against violence in videogames.

Violence in videogames has been discussed many times over its history, many people complaining that this violence causes real life violence in children. However, I disagree with this standpoint. In this day and age millions of children have been shown violence in video games, and barely any have repeated the actions in these games. I think that most children can differentiate violence in a video game
and real life violence and the idea that they can't comprehend the difference is a little insulting to their intelligence.

I believe the rare moments of history where video games have influence people to cause violence are in people who have other, deeper factors affecting them as well, it is foolish to assume that a video game alone could affect someones mind so radically. Much like movies and books, violence has always been around in our media, just because Video games are a new media doesn't make it suddenly much more dangerous.