Analysis of Industry Skills,
3D Modelling: 7 / 10
UV Mapping: 4 / 10
Texturing: 7 / 10
Animation: 6 / 10
VFX: 2 / 10
Programming: 4 / 10
Illustration & Drawing: 7 / 10
By selecting a variety of skills as roles for my numerous projects, I was able to identify my strengths and weaknesses. While I learnt my strengths, I would also like to work on developing my weaknesses, as some of the weaker elements I found difficult was due to inexperience. I believe that by practicing in these elements, I will be able to gain more confidence in my skills and develop a more generalist skill set.
Analysis of Personal Skills,
Confidence: 9 / 10
Motivation: 10 / 10
Communication: 9 / 10
Team-Work: 9 / 10
Stress Resistance: 7 / 10
Engagement: 9 / 10
By taking part in group projects, I was able to improve my personal skills over time. This allowed me to gain confidence and communication skills, increasing my ability to work in groups more efficiently. One reason I was able to perform well through the group projects was my constant motivation, having a strong motivation allowed me to strengthen my performance in the other areas.
JOB ROLES: 10/09/24
UI Design Job Roles:
Arrangement Skills:
Being able to assess the space you're given to work with and apply suitable fonts and genre-related text.
Puzzle-Solving:
Having good logical analysis and being able to take relevant steps to achieve a desired goal.
Teamwork Skills:
Being able to work with other company members that you might work closely with like other graphics artists and concept artists- potentially working with programmers if the UI has to be more flexible.
Acceptance:
Taking criticism as a constructive reflection of your work and how you can improve it.
JOB ROLES: 17/09/24
Qualifications:
Qualifications serve as an effective way to prove your ability in a specific skill.
Motivational Skills:
Being able to prompt employees by believing that the goal isn't impossible to achieve.
Positive Attitude:
When you have a positive attitude with other employees, you become more easily approachable.
Reliability:
When you evidence your efforts, you become more respected within the workplace and people you will naturally gain people's trust by displaying hard work and effort.
The following list covers my performance in each given subject. While I believe I am confident in several skills, there is room for improvement. I think that my biggest strengths are my teamwork and conflict management skills, having experience working with plenty of different groups on projects, I have gained understanding and ability to work collaboratively.
POTENTIAL FUTURE JOBS: 24/09/24
Depending on the job role, someone wanting an application in University or a job may layout their portfolio differently depending on the job they want. An artist may display their work in an art book, showing off art processes like outline, silhouette and colour. A level designer would build their portfolio more like a web page and talk about stages like main level building, collectables and how it aligns with level design theory.
Looking into two examples, level designers from both companies large and small. Each job asked for a multitude of skills alongside a level of design that matched what would typically be useful during work hours such as teamwork and planning-related practices.
These are the SMART Targets that I have set for myself. I believe these goals are manageable and will help improve my transferrable skills, which are applicable in both a technical and personal space.
CV AND COVER LETTER BUILDING: 01/10/24
Today I identified the key components necessary for a CV to add to my own. On the left is a standard CV template, covering the essentials. They highlight their computer skills by going into specifics. A CV should be kept brief and should serve as a summary of you as a person, highlighting your strengths. A cover letter would focus on a more detailed outlook of academic and technical experience. The right CV puts each section into a neatly formatted page that uses iconography to make the piece more visually readable.
PERSONAL STATEMENT: 01/10/24
I have always enjoyed the concept of games, and have wanted to learn how to make games for myself. I enrolled on the course to learn more about the creative pipeline and processes for all aspects of games development, and how I can work effectively to produce games to the same standard as ones that inspired me. The main reason for applying to this course was to further my understanding within the field of games design and what parts of it interested me the most- allowing me to narrow down my options to determine what my most suitable career path is.
From the Game Design course I learnt how to efficiently research for projects and reference others accordingly- vital for crediting others during the game development process. I developed my time management by achieving all assignment submissions by their respective deadline while still meeting expected learning outcomes to a high standard. I have also developed an understanding in a wide pool of software like Unreal Engine for level design and blueprint programming, Maya for 3D modelling and animation, and Photoshop for concept art- my 2D art receiving the highest grade possible in my first year of college. The work required outside college has a creative freedom that has allowed me to prepare myself for a variety of skills. I used this first year's work to my advantage by trying as many different tasks as possible, seeing which one suited my interests best. Over the course, I found that I had the most enjoyment out of both art and design, specifically designing levels during home-projects, experimenting with 2D platforming and top-down level traditions. I would like to continue this by looking into 3D level design, intending to expand my knowledge on the 3D side of things to cover all aspects of the field.
I have developed transferable skills such as presentation and communication from Game Jams, presenting concepts with confidence and passion. One example could be to revise information I want to communicate beforehand to develop verbal memory and relay it back during the presentation, connoting confidence. My time management has developed from the series of assignments and dealing with multiple at once, allowing me to assess priorities. My presentation has also improved as I have learnt about formatting work appropriately. All these skills will help benefit me to communicate ideas and thoughts more formally and present ideas while being mindful of due dates and progress. I use organisation software like Trello to keep on top of work with the ability to monitor my progress throughout each week of the assignment I’ve been given.
In my spare time I like to play video games and admire the visuals, audio and mechanics and how each factor contributes to each individual game. As I play I look out for things worthy of praise like incredible soundtracks or strategic level structuring, which I can adapt from and use as a learning curve to increase my knowledge on Games Design. This benefits me as I could look at development for myself through a wider lens, allowing me to not only discover what makes good games, but also habits to avoid and how to structure levels in a specific style to appease a multitude of audiences. Playing games for over the last decade, I have recognized the changes in video game normality and cemented an understanding of a multitude of genres over playing a vast range of franchises. I believe this time gives me a distinct aspect of understanding and logistical thinking skills.
I look forward to university as it will provide me with the necessary skills and techniques I need for the passions I have acquired from the college standpoint. I have acquired an understanding of skills required for a standard game designer with modern expectations and would like to further lean into those skills in hopes of becoming a respected member in the industry. I believe my practice and experience at your university will help me to take the next steps into the world of industry.
Level Design Showreels:
The level design showreel on the left displays a lot of different mechanics they've built into their levels including a grappling hook and a switch-activated gate. Showing off different level structures for different genres is useful to show off a wider understanding of level design theory and broadens the showreel by showcasing a greater skill set. A lot of the levels are shown through gameplay to further highlight the mechanical side of level design. While this is an effective choice, not many of the levels themselves are shown. To improve this, it would be important to display a top-down view of the level, maybe going through some iterative grey boxing stages.
The showreel on the right showcases some examples of levels made in Unreal based on the structure of existing games like Uncharted, Spiderman, and Splatoon. By using inspired levels, the designer was able to show off how they have mastered multiple styles including the extent of realism, change in mechanics and level structure. Acknowledging this, the designer has structured their custom levels with the game mechanics in mind. For example, their Splatoon custom level "La Perla's Bowl", includes gridded objects that the player can go through in squid form in the base game. Adapting the level to include these mechanics allows each level to feel more immersive and closer to the design style of the respective games.
Pixel Art Showreels:
My other preferred interest is pixel art, and I found two pixel art showreels of different styles for how each artist has presented the various mediums. The left resembles a simpler style with a modern colour palette. They've used darker and lighter colours to evoke depth. They apply their pixel art skills in both 3D and 2D spaces, as they have shown their understanding of light and perspective. Like with the level design showreels, they show capability through diversity, applying different skills within their scenes to show further understanding. I can use this to my advantage by showcasing differing sizes of pixel art and its applications like backgrounds, tile sets, and animated sprites.
The other pixel art showreel also shows how they can apply their skills to different genres while sticking to a mostly oriental theme. By also showing different perspectives, they show an understanding of depth. Using different games to inspire pixel art is useful for broadening diversity within a showreel, as well as spreading out different pieces of work across the showreel. Given that I would like my showreel to be longer than this, I believe touring the levels I've made by showing some gameplay along with a wider shot covering most of the level. If I need more time, I can show more of a development process to show my understanding of key stages throughout each piece.
Lots of variety to showcase, I would probably pick only a few of the paper level drawings as that amount could be
tedious to sit through in a video - Jess
Your research is really detailed and you give an effective analysis to each example you have provided, your drawings are really good and I like that they are animated, giving your reel some life. -Flynn
Huge amount of work put into it, cutesy lookin sprites with a lot of detail. Background sprites are beautifully detailed and quite pleasing to look at (make the stars twinkle)
Really detailed level design plans all follow similar theme.
Timer is helpful to keep track of player progress, health bar/ball is a cool concept.
Really great level, amazing sprite animation as well as the colours mix really well together.
The storyboard allowed me to develop my ideas as I could form an order to show my work, astarting with the worlk I am most impressed with. Since I have a mixed showreel, I started with pixel art and showed pixel art related level design to adapt the showreel to convey a process.
For the Jurassic themed level, I wanted to make a tileset in Aseprite. I started by crafting textures then using different methods to add more detail. I added more variation to stop the level looking to repetitive by having unique iterations of bones, vines and grass.
For the sealife theme, I tried downloading some assets to create a sea life themed level. By learning how to use a cinematic camera, I could include sections of this onto my showreel.
This is the showreel I made to show off my most recent work in the past few months. By displaying my two greatest passions, I could show off the work I am most interested in pursuing in the future. I believe that I used the techniques I learned well by using audio timings to my advantage for neater transitions, keeping on a theme by showing all of one project in the same place and experimenting with different styles to evidence my flexibility.