Still here! A new project? Possibly.

Good morning, afternoon, evening or whatever time you're reading this! Either way, Hello!

I have been radio silence for a few months from blogging, twittering and any form of social media and sadly it hasn't been good for me. Firstly I would like to say that everything is OK with my personal life although I've had hiccups recently but did manage to keep my chin up and proceeded through. The major issue I had was that I became too lazy, loss motivation and didn't want to sit at the computer at all to produce any work or projects. The project that I mentioned in my previous post didn't commence at all. I think what caused me to be less motivated is due to the fact that when I was studying at university I would be sat in front of the computer screen for hours working on various assignments and after a long while it really does get to you. I started to feel like that I was going to be sick, wanted to throw the computer tower out of the window and go do something more exciting like play Dark Souls 3 or play hockey. To put it short, I was burnt out with computers and decided to have some time off. Now after having some time to myself, enjoying myself and coming back from a lovely holiday in Varadero, Cuba. I feel like that I am now ready to be productive and get a nice portfolio going.

After spending countless amount of hours for just simply searching for a job in one field I have decided to expand my horizons and look for different opportunities. I consider myself to be somewhat decent at web development/design since I have a good knowledge with HTML, PHP and JavaScript so I thought I'd do some digging around with job searching in web dev/design and I am surprised on how much opportunities there out there for graduate/junior positions are turning up! Since I decided to chase up. Things has been going good but not good enough for my liking. I've had various interviews with big companies such as ASDA for a junior web designer but sadly I didn't succeed on securing the position even though I was 99.9% sure that I would have been hired! from the interview I actually had some really good feedback provided so I decided to keep them on file and implement them into my future projects! 

Regarding on the previous project that I have mentioned, For a time-being I deiced that I am going to postpone on perusing on game development until I feel more confident with my skills in scripting, programming and polish my 3D Studio Max skills back up once I get a more powerful computer. I do have a project in mind as of now. Once I get the full green-light and all the materials that I need then I will write a separate post on what it will be!

Anyway, I wrote this post just to get me back in the mood, be more motivated and allow me to look back on what I have achieved and what issues that I have ran into. I would like to say thank you to my family, friends, loved one for providing me with support on helping me get back on my feet. I definitively needed this and I am ready to go!

Thank you for reading this post, I hope you have an excellent day and now I'll leave a surprisingly motivated video message from our crazy friend Shia (it helped me anyway!)

Cheers,

Alex

Mini Project 1# Specs (And shout out to cousin)

Hello!

So as I previously mentioned in my entry, This blog is mainly focused on my learning experience with game development. Since we got the introducing stuff out of the way, it is time to reveal what my first project will be.

This project is not assigned by a university, company. This is project is purely to improve and polish up my game development skills that will be used as part of a portfolio piece to pursue a career in games.

The Project Specification:

Since this is going to be my first time on even attempting to create a game it's not going to contain anything impressive like creating a massive space shoot-out battle in unlimited game world. This project will only be small and simple. Ideally this is really just to help me find, gain and understand my workflow when creating a game. Basically getting it nailed down to a T.

For the project, I am only going to create a simple prototype based on a game that is easy to play and should be easy to execute. Most people out there that are getting into game development would usally either programme a "Hello World" message box or even an Arkanoid type game. I'm going to make an attempt on creating a air hockey style game that will use basic physics, keep a score count and include a basic AI function  that can move left & right, basically stop the puck from being scored! The game will be controlled with mouse movement and possibly a click function that will allow to nudge the paddle to give that puck extra speed and give the game an authentic feeling of playing a game of air hockey

The game will be using 3D graphics so a 3D games engine will be required for this project, The game engine of my choice that I will be learning will be the "Unity" engine. I hear loads of positive comments about the engine from newcomers to professional users of the software it self. It has often been praised by many others because of how easy it is to learn, use the interface and a strong community support for the engine itself. I've had previous experience with the Unity Engine so I am feeling confident enough to work with it. Speaking of 3D graphics, I will be required to make some assets for the game such as the paddle, puck and the air hockey table itself. The software to create those will be in 3D Studio Max (3DS Max) 2016. I've had 3 years of experience with creating 3D models so this shall be a walk in the park.

Lastly, A game is not just going to function the moment I import the models in, I will also need to wrtie plenty of code for the game to work, Honestly coding is not one of my strong skills as of now but I do a good idea on how to write various instructions and trouble shoot code if something ever went wrong with it. I am not 100% sure what language I will write the game in. I'll most likely use JavaScript since I personally find it more easier to understand what is going on than C# but if need be, I'll have to learn C# myself. I think the most tricky part of the project is attempting to implement simple phyics on to the puck for it to bounce of the side and affect the speed depending on how hard you the puck with the paddle.

Coming To An End:

So we are coming to an end of this entry, I'll be sure to get 3DS Max installed and post some screenshots of the models that I will be making and will get them into the Unity Engine once they are fully ready to do so!

If you have any tips that you would like to share regards on 3D modelling or programming, By all means feel free to post in the comment below!

Also just before you go, My cousin Jack Britain has also wrote his own game engine in C++ for his project and has created a video guide so go check that out! Very impressed with the time slow down and the portal effects. I know I'd be banging my head on the keyboard if it was me so good work Jack! :)

As always, Thank you for reading my entry, Comment below and have a good day everyone! :)

Alex

Hello Blogger! Allow me to introduce myself.

Hello!

Welcome to my page, This blog will mainly be focused on logging my progression with game development, 3D animation and producing a mini portfolio for any small games that I make just for fun and improving my skills with game development cycle such as coding, 3D modelling and character animation. Anyway that is the little information about the blog out of the way, Allow me to introduce myself and offer some background information on me!

About myself:

My name is Alex (obviously!) and I live in the city of Sheffield, United Kingdom. As of now for a living I work in a local super market as a kiosk operator and have been working there for a half a year. I recently graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with a 2nd division Bachelor Science degree in Interactive Media with Animation. The course consisted of various modules that focused on different outlets of media such as 2D/3D Animation, Software Engineering, Game Development and Web Development. I had my 3 fun years of studies at the university but sadly it is now time for me to face the real world and attempt to achieve my goal in becoming an 3D animator or artist within the gaming industry.

As you probably gathered, I am an avid gamer. I've been playing video games pretty much since I was a toddler and I remember my first ever game that I played was Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Mega Drive (Or Genesis for the US folks). I remember being absolutely blown away that I could actually control a character on my television screen just simply by pressing buttons. I found this a lot more exciting then watching TV shows or films, From there on my interest with video games began to grew. Through out my childhood I had various consoles such as the mighty Sony PlayStation (20 years old today, Yikes!) Nintendo GameBoy, The original Xbox. Pretty much any console you could think of that came out in the 90's and 00's. I know some of you will be asking, "OK Alex, What is your all time favourite game?" Well to answer that it will be Metal Gear Solid (A Hideo Kojima Game) I won't waffle on why it is my all-time favourite game but to put it simply, The story writing is amazing, The soundtrack is very memorable and some of the gameplay elements in the game was just cutting edge such as controller port 2 trick.

Moving away from games, Do I actually like anything else besides video games? Well yes, I also love going the cinemas, travelling with Hannah (My girly!) Of course going to the pub with the lads and lastly, Ice Hockey is a sport that I absolutely love, Sheffield Steelers are my local supporting team of choice (Lets go Steelers) and Boston Bruins are my NHL team of choice.

The End... Or are we getting started?

I think I am about to run out of things to write about myself so I think I'll end my introducing post here. I'll be posting another entry within the next day or two when I have thought of a simple game idea that I can actually create.

I also have various social media/links so I'll share them out and feel free to like, follow. You know the good stuff!

You can find my twitter here (@AlexBell1991)
You can find my YouTube channel here

So I now that I have left those, I shall be ending my first ever entry. Would like to say thank you for taking the time to read and if there is any comments/feedback then by all means share them!

Hope you all have a great day people! :)

Alex