I ended up helping to make two games this session, so some of these paragraphs may be about Ultimate Baby Tycoon, which I made pixel art for. Others may be about a racing game, which I made one 3-D asset, as the tutorial took a very long time.
Role
Character Artist
Intention (SMART Goal)
By October 14th, for the first session of game design, by following lighting and shading basics, I will make shaded people for our Ultimate Baby Tycoon.
PRE-PRODUCTION – INQUIRY
Leader(s) in the Field / Exemplary Work(s)
Training Source(s)
- 0:21 Lighting usually comes from the top
- 1:00 Because of that, the top will typically be lighter than the bottom
- 3:30 5 shades is good, most of the pixels should be the base color, with less being light and dark, and barely any being super light and super dark.
- 6:51 Have lighting be more gradual to make rounded edges, called rim lighting
- 7:28 Specular lighting makes sharper edges, by having super light edges.
PRODUCTION – ACTION
The (FILM, SOUND, or GAME Creation)
Here is the link to one of the games I helped make.
Skills Commentary
For the 1st Session, I continued developing my pixel art skills by learning how to properly shade characters and objects. You can see this in the humans I made. For the second session, I was learning how to use Blender. I made a cool purple donut.
POST-PRODUCTION – REFLECTION
21st Century Skills
Ways of Thinking (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving)
I think my ways of thinking have expanded a lot these past two sessions. I had to figure out a whole new program, Blender. Blender is much less friendly to new artists, and I had to follow tutorials to figure it out. I’m learning to expand my mind to design three-dimensional objects, and that’s hard. But, I’m doing it, so I’m definitely improving my thinking skills.
Ways of Working (Communication & Collaboration)
Throughout the second session, I was collaborating a lot with Arlo, as he was following the same tutorial I was. Often we would ask the other to look at our projects when we couldn’t figure something out. His goal is to learn how to animate 3-D assets, so I’ll be working with him a lot more in the future.
Tools for Working (Info & Media Literacy)
Working with Blender is definitely a helpful tool for the future. No longer am I restricted to pixel art, now I’m working in the third dimension. I followed a long series of tutorials on how to make a donut in blender, and it was very helpful.
Ways of Living in the World (Life & Career)
Lastly, this all applies to real world skills. Often in work I will have to learn how to work with a new program or system for whatever job I’m doing. being able to effectively switch programs and try new ways of working will be an invaluable skill in my future.
Reactions to the Final Version
One criticism we received from the advisor Hunter was that our Baby Tycoon game didn’t have a win or lose state, which is true.
One criticism I received from Bennett was that my manager sprites should be more original and not just references.
Self-Evaluation of Final Version
I’ll be evaluating using the SUCCESs model
My pixel art was Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and told a Story. If you look at the guys I made for Ultimate Baby Tycoon, you can see they’re not too complicated, and easy on the eyes. I would say a lot of the managers for it were very unexpected. Such as the killer clown that manages kids. Concrete and Credible don’t apply too much to art, but it was hard to be Emotional. I suppose if my art conveyed one emotion, it would be humor. A baby popping out of a machine will never not be funny to me. Lastly, my sprites told a compelling story. The baby that you start out making eventually age to kids, then teens, even adults, middle aged guys, old men, and finally… they die. If that’s not a story, I don’t know what is.
Grammar and Spelling
Grammarly
Editor
Leo