My Journey on the NextGen Games, Animation & VFX Course

  VFX Introduction     For our first VFX lesson, our teacher give us the cameras that we'll be using for the first term already. So, we can get used to how it works and how we can adjust certain settings. The cameras we used are the Nikon D3200 Aperture Aperture is the hole in the iris of the camera, it is measured in F-Stops. Small F-Stop is a large opening, which allows more light to enter into the lens.  Large F-Stops is smaller opening, which allows less light to enter into the camera.  The Recommended setting for Aperture is F 3.5. How to set it? To adjust Aperture you hold he +/- button which is located here (see image below)   Then scroll using the command dial to suit your needs. Make sure you aren't in Liveview mode when doing this. ISO ISO is how sensitive the sensor inside the camera is to light. It's a good idea to keep the ISO as low as possible. 100-200 is a good ISO setting. How to set it? To adjust the ISO, hold the FN button and use the com...

  Having a fiddle with Unreal Engine For this programming lesson, we were meant to be doing a practical lesson, where we fiddled around with Unreal Engine. We were getting used to the controls & the overall UI. For materials we had to save them (I dont remember the controls & hotkeys very well) Our teacher told us, she told us to find a game level or map that we can, using the functions & hotkeys we were taught, greybox a game level of a choosing. UE4 wasn't working for me so, someone next to me shared their computer with me.  We decided to the first "Cube & Button" test chamber from Portal. Here's the original version: And, here is our greybox version of the first test chamber (see image below) Overall, we nailed the accuracy and we're both are happy with the final result.

  Pi Pi is defined as the ratio circumference, it's important for navigation. Pi is really important for rendering shapes, accurately involving circles Pi is approximated to 3.13159.  Task For a task we needed to do, we looked at a circle which had a Circumference (C) of 314,159 miles. We needed to figure out the; Diameter (D), Radius (R), Area (A), Surface Area (S) & Volume (V).  The formulas consisted of; C = Pi x D D = C/Pi R = C/2 x Pi  S = 4 x Pi x R ² V = (4/3) x Pi x R ³ Diameter To work out the diameter it was 314159 (circumference)/ Pi = 99,999.91553 Radius To work on the Radius of the circle, I did 314159 (circumference) /2 x Pi = 49,999.95777 Area To work out the radius I've done Pi x 49,999.95777(radius) ² = 785398367 Surface Area To work out the Surface Area I've done 4 x Pi x 49,999.95777 (radius) ²   = 3.141587347x10^10 Volume To work out volume is was (4/3) x Pi x 49.999.95777³ = 50235974489x10^14

12 Principles of Animation First introduced by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston, the 12 Principles of Animation are used to make it seem that animated characters were adhering to the laws of physics. The 12 Principles of Animation are used often & are still used today. Squash and Stretch Squash and Stretch is one of the most important principles of animation. Squash and stretch gives the character some elasticity & the illusion of mass, flexibility, gravity & weight. In this example (see image above) we see a ball is about to hit the ground, keep in mind that the ball is in its normal shape. When it lands, the ball kind of squashes down and bounces back up. As it bounces we see the ball reforming into shape as it bounces off the ground. That is an example of squash and stretch. Anticipation Anticipation is another principal often used in animation. It prepares the audience for what's about to happen next.  The GIF above is a perfect example of anticipation, the charact...

  Animator Research Work By Mohammed Sharif   Ray Harryhausen was an American Filmmaker whose practical, visual effects & stop-motion animation, inspired other filmmakers to use his principles in their animations and/or CG work, today. Ray Harryhausen was well-known for his stop motion animations & use of real-life footage, combining the two elements together to make it seem like the creatures he used to animate were real & in the scene, making the audience feeling puzzled & questioning "how this was possible?" .   Many of Harryhausen’s work consisted of a variety of monsters featured in, King Kong, 20 Million Miles to Earth & It Came from Beneath the Sea. Using the real-life footage of a scene, Harry’s method of bringing these creatures to life would be to project the real-life footage of the scene using a single frame projector & would pause one frame at a time so, he could animate each frame. Then, during editing, each frame would be com...

My Video Game Idea for the Door Project For my own video game, I'd like my game to be set in a test-chamber like setting, a bit like Portal but, reducing the, pristine test chamber-like setting they have in the games. In the beta version, it had more of a dark & grimy appearance, setting so, I'll most likely will be going with that:  Portal in it's beta (see image above) What will the controls consist of? I've a few ideas, but mainly W A S & D to move around, W & S for moving forwards and back, A & D to move side to side. Left Click would be for pressing buttons.  ( To be amended )  How will the game do it's course, what's the story like? At this moment in time, I'm not sure what kind of story I'll be making for the game; the game may not have a story at all, just a quick summary of what's going on, a couple of game objectives & some puzzles along the way. The brief plot I've in mind is, you've woken up in a grimy test cha...

  An analysis of Racing games I’ll be analysing two different games from two different genres & I’ll be discussing the games objectives, mechanics, verbs & the technical differences of each one.   Racing Games: F-Zero F-Zero is a racing game, heavily utilising futuristic designs & elements to make it seem it’s set in the future & out-of-this-world. F-Zero is created by Nintendo & released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). F-Zeros main objective is to reach the highest rank of the track. Game Mechanics   The game mechanics which F-Zero utilises is, firstly the main menu. The main menu of the game introduces the player with a couple of options, Grand Prix, Practice & Records.   Following on from the options mechanic, when the player selects “Grand Prix”, they’re introduced with some more options. Car Select Mode.                 ...