The digital arts pathway was much of a fun amazing pathway. The skills gained from the classes can and will be used in my life. Although I've only taken two awesome years of it, I've loved it. The students are amazingly funny, and so is our teacher. I've learned quite a lot of skills here, maybe even more than some of my core classes. Other than my improved knowledge, I've learned actual skills with interacting with other people.
I've honestly loved Game Design a whole lot, which is why it's even harder to say: I'm changing my pathway. Game Design has been a fun digital adventure but there are other pathways that I've wanted to explore. I had made quite an important, simple decision that changed my perspective on my life. I had always dreamed of many cool jobs as a kid, from being a soccer player to being a Tony Stark-like inventor. These dreams were amazing but as I started to turn older I also started to blend myself with a fearful reality. I gradually became less interested in my work and I hit a spot where I didn't really know why I was doing it if I didn't like it. What I first started to do was that I followed what others around me were doing. The truth was that I didn't choose this class because I wanted to. It may have been others' dream to become a game designer but it was never mine. I felt stuck in a situation where I had to continue down this path, but I finally decided that I'm not going to. I have push myself to become what I want to be. It feels super risky and a crazy scary to go for my dreams; but reality is that, you have to fight against reality to get to your dreams. My dream may not be completely clear right now, but I know that whatever career I pursue, I simply want to love what I do and never have any regrets. Beautiful memories have emerged from this pathway's experience, I'll never forget this amazing class.
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This past year in GAD I've experienced so much in my education. This course has been amazing on the topics and materials, especially compared to last year in Sci Vis. Here are the main things that I have definitely internalized and will never forget.
First things first, never use old earrings on your game. I remembered the board game that we had made as groups. From that experience itself, I've learned quite more than it had seemed. Instead of taking a direct part on being the main leader as I usually do, I had kept my pride down low to being led by another student on the same level as me. I learned more of what I liked, hated, and needed from a leader. I had also realized more about how to work better with my peers, working together as a group. The journey through learning how to draw was fantastic. The CTRL+ Paint videos actually interested me and pushed me to create more of a personal type of art. They had taught me a lot of artistic vocabulary, and ways to create beautiful art. The most helpful part of the tutorials was the draw 100 things. Whenever you are bad at drawing a certain object, draw it a hundred times and you will find an enormous amount of improvement. One of the main struggles this year was the unity c# tutorials. Those had begun to teach me a skill that will be extremely valuable in my future. Learning to program was quite a hard step to get through, but I was eventually able to. Throughout the tutorials, I had learned more about how I myself take notes the best. It was a productive system. The ability to code has left me satisfied with this whole class. The first time that I created a script all by myself, with no help, I felt so powerful and I felt strongly able to do a lot more. Over the past two weeks, I have been working on a Unity game called Roguelike 2D. Many struggles have occurred and it had quite slowed me down from my non-script mistakes. As soon as that game is done, I will be able to start creating my choice of game in Unity.
The way that you start the creation of a game, is that you choose the type of genre. This could be a platformer, shooter, RPG, and even more. After choosing that type of game and deciding on a platform, this is when you look at the long time ahead. Visualize about how long it may take to create the game and what you may need to do by then. After deciding on the big picture, start figuring out the little things that you will work on every day. Try to set completion dates every week. Once you have prepared for your game it's time to begin. It's important to understand that the completion dates are useful because they help you to keep organized, knowing what you will do each day, but also show and push you to progress in your game. Keep in mind of your skill level, definitely push yourself to learn more as you create your game but don't make it too hard for yourself too fast. Don't overwhelm yourself with too much work. Remember that you need to take breaks during the process, let yourself relax and create the game negative-stress free.
References Over the past two weeks, our class has continued on working C#. I've had lots of struggle and pain still trying to understand the purpose of the code. The best place I went to was the Unity Forums, they explain every single line of code. Although watching the tutorial has improved my skill in Unity, the Forums was the thing that assisted me in understanding coding, which I feel is more important.
The past week I've worked on a 2D Flappy Bird game from a tutorial. Before submitting the final product, we had to create new aspects to the game: one of which included art. First, I had to create my art. There were little details that I learned as I went through the process, constantly going back and forth in my art. For example, you had to make sure that the background was transparent or when slicing the art, it won't work for multiple drawings. The animation part wasn't too tricky but the little mistakes always get me. The first time through, I had completely forgotten to click the record button on every time I switched on to different states of the bird. None of the parts were animated. After I got through the animation, I was simply able to attach it to the bird script. In creating the art, one of the most important things was to keep the art simple. I had wanted to complicate it so much, creating more states/animations for the bird, but I realized I had a deadline for the game. Although I had countless mistakes throughout the process, I was able to figure out the problem on my own. Pushing myself to solve most mistakes on my own helped me to not only review what had already done but also to give me much more understanding of the complex concept. What I learned:
References Unity Forums Unity Explains Bird Script How To Work Well In Game Art Creation Advice/Tips About Coding From Pros In the last week of school before spring break, our class had worked on creating a simple 2D game in Unity. Finally, over with C# coding classes, we have begun to experience the coding in action with all parts of the game.
The tutorial we watched took you quite slowly through the game, making sure every action was understood with reason. An organized environment was also shown throughout the tutorial. Some skills were shown indirectly to the viewers, keeping good habits in the game creating process. This 2D UFO game helped us to learn these skills in Unity:
To sum it all up...
Sources Developing Your First Game with Unity and C# Step process of creating a game in Unity 3D Unity 2D Game Creation Tutorials Art is a way to express yourself, it's a way to have fun, it's literally whatever you want it to be. I love being able to sit and relax, creating digital art.
The best feeling after hours of working is looking at your masterpiece and realizing that you created that all by yourself. In the future when you look at it you'll notice your past self through the theme and style of your art. It's crazy how I feel like I can actually remember vividly my childhood where I created certain artworks. Your art can hold your memories. When I was in elementary I remember painting an exotic bird after taking one look at it from a magazine. It was quite beautiful, especially from a 2nd grader. Whenever I look at that painting I relive my life in that certain period of time. I honestly didn't realize all of this completely until I started typing this post. Artwork brings a lot out of me because it's a part of me. I lived to love it and love to live it. When learning to code I feel like it was hard because it was hard for me to understand. I didn't realize why I used certain things until looking at examples and creating my own.
It may include extra work but it'll be worth it if you completely understand a concept. You may hate doing work you don't have to do. Realize that the problems you solve help you to grow stronger. I know it sounds weird but try to force yourself to like work, make sure you know all of the benefits you personally gain. I can't say this for many coding lessons in C#, but I remember two of them where I went all out to learn them for no reason. I created the whole script without looking at the answers at all, and whenever I had a problem I worked hard to solve it, learning through the process. I only did it for those two lessons because I had extra time, I should've pushed myself harder to do it to them all. I can remember those two skills so well right now because I took the extra time and answered it on my own. At first, you may dislike the initial efforts extra work requires, but after you learn something new, it's all worth it. Over the past weeks, I've been continuing learning how to code in C#. Just in case you don't know, C# is a programming language commonly used in Unity to develop games.
The tutorials I've been watching are really nice in how they take you through the code and explain it; however, I feel as if they do more work for us than helping the viewers to remember key parts. I've been taking lots of notes for each tutorial but the code is still so confusing. For example, I find it difficult to use while and do while loops. Not only do you have variables in it like i, but you also have numbers and other signs such as ++. The order to put it together is quite hard to remember off the top of my head. Although C# may be difficult for me, I still understand some parts of it. I'm good at making "if statements" without any help at all because it's really simple and I know where it is going. I wish that I would be able to learn the code with more of my free interest; however, it feels really forced due to certain due date requirements. If I had more time I would've gone through each tutorial practicing what I've learned a few times, getting creative with it, and then once I truly understand that concept I would move on to the next tutorial. It's a good reminder and practice of how we WILL get hard due dates, especially in this work field. Although it's important to understand how to code, remember that there is competition and speed may be key to victory. We have to use these opportunities to push us to work faster and more efficiently.
References In the past weeks, our class had continued working in C#. We are still watching tutorials, slowly learning more and more.
When coding with C# you'll start having to memorize certain components. Like string is used when working with text, and int is used when working with numbers. Another example is when to capitalize, put spaces, and don't forget to add a simple semicolon at the end of each line. All these little things added together is scripting. It's the little things that make coding seem easy, but it is quite challenging in the beginning if you don't pay attention. Many times our whole script doesn't work because the little things are forgotten. This is important to realize early so when taking a test on it, quizzing your knowledge on the subject matter, you must know every little detail or everything may not work according to plan. One way to help avoid this problem is to take notes and actually review them, they've helped me progress in the tutorials with a better understanding. There is an article online about common mistakes when coding with C#. Most of them were more advanced for me since I am not that far in the knowledge of programming in C#. However, a few had happened to me before. The first mistake I made in C# was not logging an overflow error. Another mistake was not using string correctly and using inefficient methods of coding. Although these problems had slowed me down, I used the opportunities to learn where I was wrong and to grow. It's important to know...
Whenever I create unique types of personal art, and some for school, I take quite different times for each. In school, there's usually a deadline for certain pieces. We create those art pieces from specific tutorials and it's usually done to learn something new. The art looks pretty good, I would probably take (at the most) no more than an hour of focused work on that art.
However, outside of schoolwork is a completely different thing. I don't need to be creating art for myself, but I do. There are no restrictions when creating it. No time limit, no certain style that is forced to be used. I can draw freely. After creating personal art I feel a certain accomplishment, knowing that I spent the time to create it, especially since I start drawing from scratch. It has taken me fifteen minutes to five hours worth of time to create art for myself. In the future I may even take longer, drawing with many more beautiful details. In the process of drawing, you have to be patient with yourself. Relax, put some music, and just draw. I can't really force myself to draw either, but that's just me. A few times, (If none of my friends are online playing video games and I'm extremely bored) I'm just in a certain mood to draw. I'm not the craziest person for art. There are times when I can only draw a little bit without completing the art. Either I'm not patient for that long or I just don't have time to finish because I have work to do. In fact, that's what I've been doing for a while now. Eventually, I will complete the art. Whether or not I'm able to finish, art is something I do because it is relaxing. After it's done, it's the best feeling ever. |
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