My last year of high school is finally coming to an end which also means that I am also getting ready for what I am going to do after high school. I have talked quite a bit about college in the past and what I am interested in, but I never actually told you all where I decided I was going to college. Turns out I will be attending NC State University this Fall with the intent of pursuing a Computer Science degree in the College of Engineering. I was pleasantly surprised to find the acceptance email for NC State in my inbox. I never expected to get into NC State let alone the College of Engineering due to how competitive it is to get into both. I decided a while back that I enjoyed coding (pretty sure I have a blog post about that somewhere) which has changed my college application process to focus mainly on computer science. You can see in my project that after a while I mainly focused on coding. Once I started to do that, I was having more fun with my project since I was able to explore my interest more and I was always happy when I accomplished a rather difficult task. That's about all I have to say about what I am going to be doing next year. Wish me luck!
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Last week, on Wednesday and Thursday, my game design class and I went to the East Coast Gaming Conference, or ECGC for short, in order to take a look at professionals in the game industry field. One of the things that I enjoyed about attending this conference included the indie game section where I could take a look at what indie developers are creating and to gauge what is possible within the realm of indie game development. For the most part, these games were alright for being created by one individual or a group of individuals and I was impressed with what was possible with only yourself and maybe some friends. Another thing that I liked about the conference was seeing some of the latest games and improvement to VR in the VR section. Although I didn't get to try any of the VR stuff while I was there, seeing people play the games was enjoyable none the less. I also enjoyed the wide variety of talks that were offered at the conference that allowed for everyone interested in different fields of the game industry to find talks that they would enjoy. The talk that interested me the most out of the ones I went to was the Gameplay Programming Patterns talk by Bartlomiej Waszak, a gameplay programmer for Ubisoft Quebec. In this talk, Waszak covered a multitude of solutions for data structures and data design, resource management, using a physics engine. logic patterns, and interconnections between systems. He went over each one in detail in order to explain methods of improving your programming that would enable less stress on your system when you are trying to run your game. Since I want to become a programmer, either within the game industry or not, I thought that this talk would help me out if I do decide to go into the game industry since it would help me program my game to better perform overall. Although the talk was a bit difficult to understand since I am still new to programming and he was using C++ for his examples, I was able to take away the gist of what he was trying to say and I would say that it can help me down the road. After that though, nothing else really caught my attention at the conference. After going to this conference and talking and listening to professional in the field, I would say that my feelings toward becoming a part of the game industry still hasn't changed much from a neutral "potentially". I could see myself liking the job, and if I was to get a job as a programmer, I would be glad to do it. Other than that, I don't really mind becoming a game designer.
So, my family and I have just returned from our small vacation to Wilmington in order to just get away from the house for a while and enjoy the coast. While I was there, I was able to schedule a college tour and I was able to take a look at a more traditional college setting than VCU which kind of blended in with the city. The campus itself was pretty nice and it wasn't too large or small for my liking and all of the campus buildings were within walking distance of each other. I would need to get a car if I was to live here though since the campus isn't incorporated into a city where I could walk to the grocery store if I needed to. The class sizes were generally the same size as the ones I currently have at DSA, about 20-30 students, however there were some cases where there were large auditorium style classes for the basic classes and some cases where there were only 10 students in the upper level classes. I was mainly interested in the computer science major that they offered there as I stated back in a previous post about shifting my attention towards computer science. Luckily, I was able to get a hold of one of the computer science professors after the tour to go over what they offered and how the class is structured among other things. The talk I had with him was great for reaffirming my choice of pursuing computer science since they also had a digital art major coming up when I start looking to enroll and he explained what that major entailed. I told him that I am a lot more interested in the programming side of video games rather than the art since I don't find my art skills to be all too great and he told me that I should definitely look into computer science more for a major if that is what I am interested in. Despite being tired afterwards, I found the college tour helpful in broadening my choices for colleges that I will apply for when the time comes later this year.
After going through a lot of stuff within Unity and with programming, I have realized that I don't think going to VCU would be a great idea. Although I do enjoy creating artwork in 3D and 2D, I don't think I would have nearly as much fun when it comes to programming. Even thinking ahead to my future career choices, I think I would enjoy working as a programmer more than an animator. Programming has clicked a lot more quickly and easily than working in digital art softwares. Not to mention that my mom also agrees that she hasn't found me to be an artistic person who enjoys drawing as a hobby and believes in my thinking that I would enjoy learning how to code at a professional level. So from now on, I think I will be looking more into a computer science degree when I am searching for potential colleges that I will be applying to in the near future.
My class and I are now a couple weeks into learning how to use Unity and so far I am loving it. I like how easy and straightforward the software is when it comes to navigating the interface and how to use it in general. The thing I find to be the most interesting part of using Unity is the programming part of it. I enjoy programming a lot and this is the first time I have really dived into the subject thoroughly. I think I find programming so much fun is the fact that I actual grasp why I am typing certain things into the script instead of blindly following a tutorial and getting a grade for an assignment. This experience with Unity and programming has made me lean a lot more towards getting a degree in computer science in order to understand coding more rather than a degree in the art aspect of game design. I am looking forward to working more in Unity for the remainder of the year and for my senior project.
It is finally time to get into Unity and 3D game making in my game design class. I still have to finish up some of my 3DS Max assignments before I can start working in Unity, which sucks but at least I am almost finished with the assignment. I haven't had any experience working within Unity prior to this blog post, so I am excited to figure out how to use it. I have however, played some games that have used the Unity engine, so I at least know what Unity is. I am really looking forward to this portion of the class not only because it is new, but because I will be needing this for my advanced studies project next year. I will need to learn all of the tools and techniques I can so that I will be ready for next year. I will also look into the program more over the Summer to make sure that I am confident in my knowledge of it.
So, I have just finished my college visit to VCU a few hours ago and I found the campus to be very nice. The school of the arts had some amazing art pieces to look at and the Kinetic Imaging department had some nice equipment available and art examples as well. I liked the urban setting of the campus since most of the things that I might need are within walking distance of each other. The food in the city is really good since there are a lot of local chains in the city that I wouldn't be able to find back in North Carolina. The most important thing that I got out of this college trip was that if I do want to pursue anything related to art in game design, I am going to need to get a whole lot better at making art. I have been slacking when it comes to creating art outside of class and getting better at it and my current portfolio wouldn't be enough to get into VCU. Over the rest of the year, I am going to need to start improving both my 2D and 3D art skills so that if I do look into the art portion of game design, I have a portfolio that I can use and I wont be starting from zero when I get into the class.
On Saturday, my mom and I will be driving up to Richmond, Virginia in order to take a look at Virginia Commonwealth University. This school primarily interested me with its course in Kinetic Imaging, which is basically working with sound, video, and animation. This would be an alternative path of study from the one I would want to do, which is programming as I mentioned in a previous blog post. The reason that I would be willing to do this over programming would be because it is another part of the game industry that I am interested in, albeit not as much. Also, programming can be self taught, so if I do go to VCU for Kinetic Imaging, I can teach myself programming in order to develop my own game if I wanted to. Anyway, this will be my first college visit to a school that I might go to in the near future, so I am excited to see what the school has for a campus.
Recently, I have created a Twitter account so that I can keep up with the ever changing video game industry. So far, I have learned that Twitter is a very useful tool in keeping track of what is going on in the world on a daily basis. I can see what is popular among game companies as well as their upcoming projects. This is helpful in staying informed about the game industry since it allows me to know what games are being made and what games are trending at the moment. Twitter is by far one of the best ways to keep in touch with my interests in the gaming industry since it displays what individuals/companies are talking about. Other ways of keeping up with the game industry include various magazines such as Game Informer are useful as well albeit not as useful as Twitter since magazines are delayed in giving out info whereas Twitter is almost instant. Some of the Twitter handles I found useful include @Xbox, @PlayStation, and @steam_games since these are the big game providers for console and PC and it is useful to know any future plans that these companies have in terms of game releases. Twitter, as well as other resources, keeps me informed on global industry changes by giving me info on game releases, trends, or developments, and this info can then guide me in the development process by giving me an idea on what kind of game is going to do better and whether or not my game idea is already in the process of creation or is already being sold.
This week in Game Design, our class was tasked with learning about the legal issues that are brought up within the video game industry and creating an infographic based on one of the legal issues. For my infographic, I decided to do trademarks. What surprised me the most when it came to these legal issues was how many different ways you could protect your intellectual property. If you want to protect your business reputation, you would use a trademark to make sure people know that they are buying a product of a trusted company, or if you want to protect a game mechanic, you could look for a patent to own that game mechanic. There are a lot more methods of protecting your intellectual property all of which protect a different thing. I found trade secrets to be the most interesting since it is a very loose way to protect your intellectual property, but it is an effective way to protect it since only the people who know the secret can use it. The only drawback of this method is that people can tell others about the secret and then it no longer is a secret. I think the most difficult issue for me to comply with as a game designer would be copyright because there are so many games that I may accidentally create some art that I didn't know existed in another game and that could cause issues with me and/or the company that I work for in the future. Below is my infographic on trademarks.
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AuthorMy name is Timothy Czerniejewski and this is my blog for my Game Art Design interests. Archives
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