Engines for Games

Over the course of the year I have used two different engines. I have used Cry Engine and the UDK engine.

Though there are many different game engines that serve many different purposes for different games encompassing everything from the mobile games supported by engines like Alien3D and And Engine through pc and high end or next generation games that are supported by engines like the Cry engine and the UDK engine I only intend to talk about the ones I have personally used in my second and first year of my uni course as these are the only ones I feel I have personal experience with beyond playing the games they support and therefore are the ones I’m most familiar with.

The first engine I learnt about on this course was UDK; in the later half of the first year we did a simple project to display our assets we’d produced. Though using the engine was simple enough (And I often use it to produce renders of assets) there were a number of problems I found;  Light maps were somewhat confusing to me and the process of importing the objects I wanted to place in my level was easy enough from 3DS max to the desktop but getting them to import into the UDK engine was often buggy and seemed to produce random problems. The way you view your textures in the engine was also something I found confusing. However I like the ease of creating materials and lights and effects in the UDK engine and the ease at which you can start up with udk and be working within ten minutes or so of having no previous knowledge of the engine and it’s the engine I often use to produce my white boxes for levels as well as block outs for paint overs in Photoshop. It’s also helpful for testing out how textures will work quickly.

The Cry Engine was the engine we used in second year – for the Of The Map competition for the Library it was mandatory to use. Over the course of the project we used it to create a level that was more extensive than anything we’d had to produce in the UDK Engine and we found it to be a better level builder in many ways. Though I like UDK because it’s the one I am more used to, Cry Engine seems to produce nicer renders and light effects. It does not require the production of light maps and contains many different features that allow lights and atmosphere to be controlled. It requires you to paint your own sky boxes but this is hardly a problem as it’s something we’d be doing anyway and forces you to produce something better. The Cry Engines usability is daunting at first as it uses unique file types but as you learn it quickly becomes easy and though the placing of objects is a little irritating with its awkward key commands, once learnt they are not much of a problem

Over the holidays I intend to become better acquainted with the Cry Engine as it is the engine that I intend to use for my final major project, I feel the images it produces are superior and as my level will be very visual I want to give it the best showing that I possibly can.

End Of Year Review

Its ten to eleven on the day of final hand in, everything is complete and signed off on and I’m already planning what cake I’m going to buy myself in celebration of getting everything finished in time. Though all I really want to do right now is sleep for a week it’s also a moment of reflection and I feel like I’ve come a long way this year, easily as far as the first year if not further; I have learnt entirely new skills in UDK and CryEngine and I’ve built on existing skills.

The first development piece I produced this year

The last development piece this year

This year I developed drawing and digital painting skills and I’ve improved my Life drawing by leaps and bounds. We’ve had new tutors and the learning experience has only improved with many more perspectives on our work. Working in groups taught me a lot about organisation and in the end was probably the most enjoyable, productive and most satisfying part of the year.

 

We’ve developed presentation skills and listened to employability lectures and combined with the live briefs and professional briefs we’ve done we’ve learnt a lot about professional practice and with that I feel like I’ve improved my time management and organisation alongside the artistic skills that I’ve improved.

Now that I am over halfway through my university education and on the cusp of starting my final year I find myself thinking about the process of University education itself and its uses and purposes.

Universities now seem to be mainly a means to an end, with the job market as it is it seems that you need a diploma to get any job and the University is a means to that end. However, Universities are more than that, they’re tools for learning and that’s learning in every sense – academic and social and university to me provides a unique experience that cannot be found anywhere else.

Universities were originally groups of scholars. They were quite elitist organisations in the pursuit of scholarly matters but as the times have changed they have become places where important research was conducted and were solely dedicated to curriculums like philosophy and sciences, they have evolved from that in the modern age to include every type of subject and open up to a broader range of students but the prejudice towards the academic subjects is still sometimes present.

From my university education I personally expect myself to learn new skills and develop old ones. With the help of the tutors I’m learning modelling and engine work and I’m developing my digital art, drawing and sculpting abilities. Besides these I also expect to learn skills like time management, responsibility and confidence to speak and present. Even from the university experience as a whole I am learning life skills and building up connections and relationships.

From my three years in uniniversity  I am going to get a diploma (Hopefully) but I’m also going to get a bank of skills, both specific and general  that I can apply to a broad range of careers and ventures.