Friday, 27 November 2015

Grads In Games visit to UCLAN for the Get in the Game Careers Talk Tour

Grads In Games visit to UCLAN for the Get in the Game Careers Talk Tour 2015 proved to be a really informative event! #gitg15
Students from both Games Design and Games Development courses flocked into the studio to hear talks by the Grads In Games team guests:

Ben Milnes, Recruitment guru at Aardvark Swift
Lee Stott, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft for talk slides see: Landing your Dream Job
Uclan Alumni, Gavin who also won #SearchForAStar and Stockx from Boss Alien

Their talks helped students to learn what it really takes to make it into such a competitive industry. Covering topics such as:

• Career advice

• Information of how to maximise your chances of securing your first industry role.

• CV, Portfolio and Demo Advice

• Interview Techniques

• Technical and practical knowledge required by studios

• How to increase employability

• Q and A session

This was a great opportunity to gain expert information which could prove vital in our student careers and was worth every minute.

Advice included:

Use 'SketchFab' to showcase 3D work.
Aim to have a playable game published BEFORE you leave Uni.
Keep CV's uncluttered and link them in your online portfolio
Make sure the most important info is visible and accessible in your online portfolio
Include work to show how you have progressed in your online portfolio
For level designs, the modding approach is recommended
Construct 2 from Scirra is great for creating and publishing your games
Games Artists and Designers should make connections with Games Programmers at Uni.to form teams and get collaborate creatively
Get your own business card for networking
Use 'Itchio' to promote your games - Open indie game marketplace and DIY game jam host

Ben Milnes- Aardvark Swift

Boss Alien

Lee Stott- Tech Evangelist at Microsoft

A big turnout from Games students

T Shirts prizes for correctly answered questions :)

Search For A Star Code and Art Competitions

Open to final year & postgraduate students. Grand prize of an interview offer from one of our partner studios.

Open to first- and second-year students. Grand prize of an internship with one of our partner studios.

A national initiative to improve the links between the UK games industry and academia.

Friday, 13 November 2015

Uclan Games Design students at the Harris.

Uclan Games design students, Ron Burgess, Shannon Patterson and Adam Mattis were invited to the Harris Museum and Art Gallery in Preston by Access and Inclusion Officer Kyra Milnes, along with Fine Artist, Rebecca Chesney and Uclan Fine Art MA students for a special event which offered talks and a portfolio surgery for Preston College students who are preparing for interview for University.

The Harris Gallery proved a very welcoming and inspiring venue for us all and the blend of talks from Fine artists and Games Designers was a good mix, giving insight across the disciplines. It was also good to meet Preston College tutors, Mary and Chris to initiate conversation and we hope to work with them again in similar scenarios.

Uclan Games design students spoke about the work they produced during their own first year of study which helped Preston College students to see the quality of work that is produced on the course and hear a little about the process. This was followed by a portfolio advice session and general chat in a relaxed atmosphere.

Many thanks must go to Kyra for organising the event, which was fun but also informative.
Below are a few images of our Uclan Games students presenting their work and sharing their ideas.

Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Crosby Game WIP

http://gamejolt.com/games/kite-shooter/208265

Friday, 6 November 2015

Dan Bavin starts new job at Ninja Theory

Some lovely NEWS.

One of our recent Uclan Games Design graduates, Dan Bavin has just completed his first
few months at @NinjaTheory games studios and we've just heard that he's been offered a
job with them in Cambridge.

Really well done and well deserved too. All the best and Congratulations.

Dan was also the winner of the Uclan Creative Focus award 2015
Dan's on-line portfolio can be accessed here

Dan Bavin's Contact details can be found on LinkedIn

Dan's own website is:
http://www.monkeyrocket.co.uk/

Sunday, 1 November 2015

A selection of first year project examples from Uclan Games Design.

Sprite design for a top down shooter game

Sprites for the 'Design and build a Top Down Shooter Game in Construct 2' brief

See examples of the Top Down Shooter Games Here:
Link
and Bev Bush's game here

Design and Build a Robot shooter game in Construct 2
Link

Design and build a Platform game in Construct 2
Link

Design and build a 3D Corner in Maya and import into the UE4 engine.

Design and build a 3D alpha prop in Autodesk Maya

Design a Racer for a given mesh. Racer Model designed by Mario KKounnous.

For the end of Semester Game Jam, work within a team to design a game in 4 weeks.
Teams share their game concepts
Link

One Winning example,

UClan Game Jam - Nox

: Link

Uclan Games Design Hand Painted texturing brief.

Hand Painted texturing is an essential skill for any 3D artist. It requires a good understanding of value, lighting and colour theory and above all - good aesthetic sensibilities and an understanding of the model you're working with. A texture has the power of converting polygons and vertices into a complete 3D object that has a feeling of weight, surface material and presence.

Project Details:
For this assignment, second year students were required to create a hand painted texture for a 3D mesh provided from a selection of SDK 3D character models found on-line in the PolyCount forum.

One mesh texturing challenge was the SDK Goblin by MOP which is downloadable on the PolyCount forum here.
For example: this ZIP file contains:
OBJ files of the model in T-pose, and two action poses.
TGA image of the UV wireframe.
PSD document with an AO bake layer and the UV layer, set up and ready for painting!